Exploring the Enzi-Baucus connection

Let's harken back to those halcyon days of last fall. Poor ol' Laramie Democrat Chris Rothfuss was running against Republican Mike Enzi for one of Wyoming's Senate seats. Nick Carter of Gillette had already declared that he was running against John Barrasso, M.D., for the state's other Senate seat. Barrasso had been appointed by Wyoming Gov. Dave Fruedenthal to fill the remainder of Craig Thomas's term. Thomas died in office from a particularly virulent form of leukemia.

Carter, in a talk to the Laramie County Democrats in Cheyenne last summer, said that his decision to run against Barrasso was an easy one. If he had run against former Gillette mayor and family friend Mike Enzi, Nick's family would have disowned him. Those are his words.

Politics is very personal in Wyoming. Nick's family and Mike's family grew up together. Nick is a Democrat -- an abberation in the coal-and-gas-mining county of Campbell, the city of Gillette. You'd think that he would have union support but this is right-to-work state. The unions have no clout in the Powder River Basin. Workers come from throughout the West to work in the open-pit mines or the sprawling gas fields. They make great wages to take home to Montana and the Dakotas and Texas. They don't want to hear about no stinkin' unions. They may not be Republicans, but they have strong Libertarian leanings. They sure as hell aren't aligning with Obama-lovin', gun-bannin', homosexual-leanin' Democrats.

All three Wyoming Democrats running for national offices in 2008 were pounded into the dirt by Republicans. Gary Trauner rounded up only a third of the popular vote against Republican Cynthia Lummis. In 2006, Trauner came within 1,000 votes of beating House incumbent Republican Barbara Cubin. In 2006, Trauner was ahead until votes from the rural Republican northern part of the state were counted. Republicans voted for Trauner in 2006 because he wasn't Cubin. Even diehard Repubs couldn't tolerate Cubin's foolishness and the fact that she'd missed most of her House votes in the previous year.

But Cubin retired and was no longer a factor in 2008. Repubs have a 2-to-1 lead over Dems in voter registration. The votes split along party lines and that spelled doom for Dems. Only when the Repubs cross over to the dark side do Dems win. Gov. Freudenthal showed that with two big wins in gubernatorial races.

Lots of Wyomingites like Mike Enzi. A pragmatic man who occasionally wanders into wingnuttia, as he did with the Terry Schiavo case in 2004, allying himself with Bill Frist who diagnosed Schiavo's case by watching a short film from the hospital. Enzi's staff returns phone calls. He attends book festivals and the state fair. He has a health care plan that is based on his bottom-line principles. Conservative, yes, but respected by many Dems, including this one.

He and Baucus aren't that different. Enzi a practical and sensible (most of the time) Republican. Baucus of Montana a Democrat with the libertarian leanings needed to capture conservative Montana voters.

The Rocky Mountain West is a different place. Most states are liberalizing, including Montana and Wyoming. That really only applies to the urban centers, such as Cheyenne, Laramie and Casper in Wyoming and the usual places in Montana: Missoula, Billings, and Bozeman.

But the rural West is a tough nut, with more in common with rural Mississippi and rural Pennsylvania than with Denver or even Cheyenne. As long as Govs and Congressional hopefuls need those voters, you'll find an eclectic crop of leaders. Baucus, for instance. And Enzi.

I understand the confusion voiced by bloggers in other states. Here's one take from Brian Beutler on Talking Points Memo DC:

If it was up to reformers, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) probably wouldn't be anywhere near the heart of health care negotiations. But unfortunately for them, he's right in the middle of the action.

If after the Democrats' historic election in November, I had suggested that one of the Senate's most conservative Republicans would stand a chance of hijacking President Obama's health care proposal, you might have waved off the threat, and rightly so. But thanks to Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus--who has insisted on passing a consensus bill at the expense of a number of liberal goals--that's basically what's happening.

Read the rest of "Has A Conservative Republican From Wyoming Taken Over The Health Care Debate In The Senate?" at http://tinyurl.com/lgqags. It sums up the frustration felt by liberal Democrats over the health care hold-up.

No progress of any kind on Senate health care reform legislation

Whoa, horse, whoa!

When newspaper reports circulated yesterday about a possible breakthrough on health care reform in the U.S. Senate, Wyoming's Mike Enzi issued this press release:

U.S. Senator Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) today said no bipartisan deal on health care reform is imminent and that members of the Finance Committee still have a number of remaining issues to resolve before they will be able to reach a bipartisan agreement.

Reports in this morning’s newspapers are off the mark, and are not helpful to the process, Enzi added. “Bad information damages the work we are doing to improve our health care system.”

“We still have several areas where we haven’t been able to come to a consensus. No deal is at hand and substantive issues, big and small, remain under discussion and need to be resolved. We need to keep working together.

“I will need to see complete language and a final estimate from the Congressional Budget Office before I can agree to any health care reform bill,” said Enzi, who has been deeply involved in bipartisan Finance Committee negotiations.

“I also need commitments from Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi, as well as the Administration, that the bipartisan agreements reached in the Finance Committee will survive in a final bill that goes to the President.”

Well that's a relief. For a brief moment on Wednesday, I thought that the bipartisan group of Senate Finance Committee members had actually agreed on their half-baked plan to not reform health care. Glad to see that's not true. They just need more time to finalize their non-plan. This delays the entire process which is what Sen. Baucus and Sen. Enzi had in mind all along.

Enzi wants to look at the numbers. He also wants commitments from Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi and Pres. Obama and the White House dog that the plan will go forward just as God and the health insurance companies intended.

Yesterday on Progressive Radio out of Boulder, David Sirota raised a good question: How is it possible that six senators from rural low-population states can hold up (and possibly sabotage) health care reform for the vast majority of Americans? I live in one of those states, the least-populated of them all. Montana is also huge in territory but low in people. You have Grassley from Iowa and Snowe from Maine and Conrad from North Dakota and Bingaman from New Mexico. Iowa's the big kahuna of the bunch, with a population of 3 million.

Where are the other members of this committee? It has 23 on the list, including heavy hitters such as John Kerry and Orrin Hatch. Why aren't they involved in this process? Maybe Baucus forgets to send out e-mail reminders.

Viewing this from the heart of Flyover Country, it looks very suspicious.

And I'll say that to Sen. Enzi during his August recess, if I can find out where he'll be appearing in August. I know he will be at the state fair on one day. But his web site has no schedule posted.

Montana progressives stage rally at Camp Baucus, Montana, this weekend

It's clear now that votes on health care reform will not come until September. We know who's holding up progress. The U.S. Senate Finance Committee, headed up by Montana's Max Baucus, joined by minority party chief Mike Enzi of Wyoming.

They will be coming home for the August recess. I'll have details on Sen. Enzi's schedule in later posts. We do know that Sen. Baucus will be holding a fund-raiser with his high-rolling pals in the insurance industry at Big Sky Resort in Montana, one of the Rockies' ritziest hideaways. You can almost see this place from northern Wyoming. Progressive Democrats of America are holding a rally for healthcare at Big Sky Resort to alert Sen. Baucus that he is not seeing the forest of U.S. citizens for the trees of insurance CEOs.

Here are the details:

Montana Senator Max Baucus, is holding a big fund-raiser known as Camp Baucus ($5,000 per PAC or $2,500 per individual) at Big Sky, Montana, from July 31 through August 2 for the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical companies, the hospital association, bankers, and other fat cats to raise money for his "leadership" PAC.

He takes their money even while he is writing legislation that will affect health care! So Montanans for Single-Payer Health Care will be there, too. We'll rally to show Max and his corporate friends we are very displeased with what they're up to in Washington, D.C.

We're asking single-payer supporters from across the states to join us at Big Sky this Friday, July 31st from 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (and Thursday as well, if enough people are interested).

Where: Big Sky, Montana. Meet at the intersection of Hwy 191 and the Big Sky road.
Bring: Your own sign, if you like (but we'll have signs available); your favorite picnic
lunch; water, pop, coffee, etc.; a hat, jacket, and sunscreen; a smile and a sense of purpose.

If you can only spend part of the day with us, or need to take a break and come back, that's fine. Come on along!

If you can come on Thursday, too (the lobbyists will be arriving both days), let us know. E-mail info@montanansforsinglepayer.org. If enough people are interested, we'll start our stake-out of the road to Camp Baucus on Thursday, July 30.

Whatever day you can come, let us know so we can plan for the right number of supporters—and drive safely.

How to get there: Use I-90 and take exit 298 South for US 191 to Yellowstone Park. Go 38 miles south to state highway 64. Turn right. At that corner there is a convenience store where the rally coordinators will meet you. Just look for the single-payer signs and T-shirts!

In solidarity,
Margot Kidder, PDA Montana
Tim Carpenter, National Director
Conor Boylan, National Field Coordinator

I'm no expert on celebs living in Montana, but is this Margot Kidder the same one who was Superman's girlfriend way back when?

Heart Mtn. Museum receives NPS grant

The AP's Mead Gruver reports this:

The National Park Service has awarded nearly $1 million in grants to increase public awareness about and help preserve sites related to the detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The largest of the 19 grants, $282,000, is going to an organization that is building a museum at the former Heart Mountain Relocation Center outside Powell in northern Wyoming.

Grant recipients must raise $1 on their own for every $2 in federal funding they receive. Congress now is considering awarding another $2.5 million through the program next year....

Heart Mountain, which held 11,000 Japanese-Americans at its peak in 1943. Had the camp been a city, it would have been fourth-largest in Wyoming at the time. The Heart Mountain, Wyoming, Foundation has been raising money to build a museum at the site, where all that remains of the relocation center are a brick smokestack and a couple of buildings. The $5.5 million museum has been designed to resemble the long, narrow barracks at the relocation center."Why would you build something that's got marble and looks fancy when it really wasn't that way? It was tarpaper barracks without insulation," said David Reetz, a member of the foundation board. The museum is about half finished and expected to open late next year or early in 2011. Exhibits will include many items that belonged to people who lived at the site, Reetz said.

I visited the Heart Mountain site in late June. The museum/education center is impressive. Up on the hill is a path featuring signs that overlook various aspects of the camp and explain the history. An eye-opening way to spend a quiet June afternoon, storm rolling in over Heart Mountain.

Earlier posts here and here.

Firedoglake's Mike Stark confronts Birthers

This is too funny. Notice that Republican Mike Coffman from Colorado and Jeff Fortenberry from Nebraska are among the yahoos who won't give straight answers to Mike's simple question. Didn't see Rep. Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming amongst the pursued. Maybe next time. In her favor, she did vote for today's House Resolution that recognized the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's entry as a state in these United States, making the current president, who was born after statehood, a U.S. citizen. But reality-based people already knew that.

No clunker for "cash for clunkers"

I was holding out for "cash for clunkers," which launched yesterday.

But the van didn't make it.

A few weeks ago, my son Kevin totalled my 2000 Dodge Caravan. The wreck wasn't serious -- a rear-ender at a stop light. But Kevin mashed into a Ford Expedition with its big rear bumper and trailer hitch. Punctured Caravan's grill and radiator, engine knocked off its moorings. Kevin was hauled off to the E.R. as a precaution. He's been limping with a sore hip -- not bad, considering. I was sad watching the wrecker tow away the van. Lots of family trips in that Yuppie minivan. Lots of miles. The transmission needed work. And now, no clunker to trade in for a low-mileage vehicle.

I'd done all the figuring. The van had a combined EPA gas mileage rating of 18. That qualified it for CFC. However, the EPA revised the way it determines gas mileage, so i wasn't sure if I would qualify. I was going to trade the van for a Prius, if I could find and afford one, or maybe one of the Ford hybrids.

But the best-laid plans, right? Insurance company paid me off and I bought used this time -- a 2007 Ford Fusion. Decent mileage at a combined 25 mpg under the old system and 23 mpg under the new system. Still good enough to get a CFC check (the smaller one) if the van had survived.

I looked at a Nissan Altima and a Honda Civic. I read the stats. These cars have higher resale values than the Ford. They hold up better and need less maintenance. Or so they say. Never one to let logic get in the way of righteousness, I bought the Ford. Made in the U.S.A. in May 2007 by union labor. Wonder if the men and women who made the car have since been laid off along with thousands of other Americans who actually make things?

Maybe the Fusion is not made in the U.S.A. I started googling the question "Where is the Ford Fusion made?" and came up with all kinds of answers. One reference said that all VINs that start with a "3" are made in the U.S.A. Another said that the Fusion is made in plants in India, Mexico and Brazil. Whom to believe?

I'll have to do more research, maybe even call Ford HQ. More later....

One of our own holds up health care bill

When I say "one of our own," I refer to a Democrat from the Rocky Mountain West. You know, a man of the people. Not a puppet for lobbyists and insurance companies. Not a guy who kowtows to Republican Know-Nothings.

Here's the wording of a CREDO-sponsored petition that you can sign and forward to recalcitrant Congresspeople:

"Senator Reid, we write to you today about health care reform, which is one of the most important issues in America. We strongly favor a public insurance option like the one included in the HELP Committee bill, and it is crucial that the Senate pass such reform as quickly as possible. Sen. Baucus is attempting to delay the process and destroy the public option - please don't let him. Tens of millions of Americans are counting on you, and they can't wait until the fall for a vote on a bad reform bill. Tell Sen. Baucus to do the right thing, and do it now. Don't let the Senate go on vacation until it passes reform that includes a public option."

Sen. Baucus (D-MT), who's side are you on?

Please sign the petition now at http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=141076234808&h=NDsBc&u=CcIIz&ref=nf

Wyoming delegation has no vision on Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009

Families USA, a national nonprofit organization for health-care consumers, issued a report this week about estimates of state-by-state health-care gains under America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009. The report was issued Tuesday, which was before Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Thursday that Congress won't be able to consider the legislation before the August recess.

The all-Republican Wyoming delegation seemed especially pleased with the delay. We don't want to rush into anything this big, they said. They all seemed ready to rush into stuff when their pal George W. Bush was president. To be fair, Cynthia Lummis was not our lone rep in the U.S. House. She just started after the 2008 elections. "Caution" and "status quo" are her bywords. Meanwhile, scores of Wyomingites are uninsured. All three members of our delegation oppose a public option, which means they oppose access to the same public option that they participate in as members of the House and Senate. This includes the junior senator from Wyoming, John Barasso, M.D. No Marcus Welby, our doctor from Casper. He cares more about insurance conglomerates than he does about his former patients in Wyoming. He should know better.

Here are the proposed gains when Congress gets around to doing its job:

37,000 Wyomingites are projected to gain coverage by 2013
59,000 Wyomingites are projected to gain coverage by 2019
51 million Americans are projected to gain coverage by 2013
54 million Americans are projected to gain coverage by 2019

Source: Families USA report "Coverage for America:
We All Stand to Gain"

For a story on this legislation's possible impacts on Wyoming, go to Michelle Dynes' July 22 article in Cheyenne's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle.

Keep an eye out for those great tomatoes

A watched tomato never ripens.

No matter how much I stand and stare, my tomatoes will not ripen into salad fodder. I do not have super powers!

But that's the best part, right? Wandering outside for the morning look-see and finding a red one -- or at least trending toward red. Want to pick that baby right off the stem and pop it in the mouth. Savor that homegrown taste. A burst of sunshine.

But not yet. Still harvesting broccoli and lettuce. Ate some fingerling zucchini and flowers in a salad. My lone surviving crookneck is growing ever so slowly and has not blossoms yet. It's next-door neighbor, a green squash, is ready to flower.

On the side yard, my pole beans have climbed the trellis almost to six feet or so. Had to cajole them up the trellis, as one of the plants had a fixation on the nearby wildflowers. It was tough to break up the relationship, but it was going nowhere -- I could see that and had to intervene. A few of the marigolds are flowering. I grew them from seed and they're taking awhile.

I'm making plans for next season's garden. I'm going to let the strawberries spread out and prepare for next spring. The garden next to the porch will become the berry patch and I'll move on to new ground for all the rest. I have a patch of grass than gets almost-all-day sun. The grass doesn't grow very well as I've never given it much attention. That's the next patch of lawn due for replacement. Already looking forward to next season...

Tomorrow is my father's birthday. He'd be 86 today but passed away in 2002. He wasn't much of a gardener when I was a kid. But when his nine kids began growing up and leaving, he turned to gardening. Ornamental, as you can grow plants all year in central Florida. He did grow kumquats, more for their looks than their taste. You can eat the grape-sized citrus fruit, and make some terrific jams and jellies from them. But so much easier to snag an orange for a snack.

My mom died young and my father later married again. This time to a dedicated gardener. Their house in Ormond Beach featured all kinds of tropical and subtropical ornamentals. What really pleased him, I think, was the well-manicured lawn, mowed weekly by a lawn service. No longer did he have to wait for one of his sons to return from the beach to mow the grass. For us, surfing came before lawns and gardens. Not true any more -- for the most part. My Florida brothers all have their own gardens, and spend more time on them than surfing. As for me, well, the waves just aren't that great on the beaches of Cheyenne.

Dad and Connie were members of the volunteer gardening corps at St. Brendan's Catholic Church where Chris and I were married 27 years ago. The gardens looked fine when the family gathered at the church for his funeral mass in spring of 2002.

Dad -- here's a gardening birthday wish from your eldest son.

Cowboy boots making smaller carbon footprint

I was glad to see recycling bins on the grounds of Cheyenne Frontier Days events this week. Cheyenne's 10-day summer event must generate tens of thousands of plastic bottles and cans. So many thirsty parade-goers and rodeo fans and music-lovers. Not all the containers find their way into the recycling bins, but installing one next to every trash can helps a lot.

The greening of the CFD may have been caused, in part, by similar efforts at the Greeley Stampede that takes place early in July in Greeley, about 45 minutes south of here. Cheyenne Frontier Days is the older and bigger event, but Stampede P.R. people inundated regional media this year with their "going green" promos. Here's how it was described in the June 18 Greeley Tribune:

The annual event, scheduled for June 25-July 5, has partnered with Waste Management, Coors Brewing Co. and the city of Greeley to initiate a multi-phase, environmentally friendly program. The endeavor aims to reduce waste, save energy and leave a lighter carbon footprint during this year's celebration.

Guests will be able to ride their bikes to the Stampede and park them for free. Bike racks will be available by the 14th Avenue entrance, near the Splash Park and by the Poudre River Trail entrance. Guests are not able to ride bicycles through the park during the event, but will now have a place to secure their bikes.

Visitors also can enjoy Coors products served in Greenware disposable cups. Greenware is a line of premium cups made of natural materials that are fully compostable — made entirely from an renewable resource, corn. Once used and disposed of, the cups will be completely composted in about 50 days.

Specially marked blue containers will be available where visitors can place empty plastic bottles and cans. The city of Greeley will collect plastic bottles and aluminum cans for Waste Management to collect and transport to recycling centers.

That's a pretty good start. No word yet on how they plan to cut down on ozone-depleting steer farts.

On a similar note, the CFD recycling plan includes carting thousands of tons of manure to Laramie County's composting facility. That's a dirty job but I'm glad they're doing it. Local gardners make use of that composting facility which in turn leads to tasty veggies and pretty flowers and healthy trees. Conservative cowpokes and hippie-dippy veggie wranglers are more intertwined than either camp will admit.

Here's more green news from the CFD web site:

Cheyenne Frontier Days, Trihydro Corporation (a Laramie-based engineering and environmental consulting firm), Swire Coca Cola and the City of Cheyenne have agreed to partner again in a major recycling program at Frontier Park. According to Concessions Chairman Matt Jones, the recycling program that was started last year was a great success. "We recycled 5 tons of plastic last year, and we hope to beat that amount this year," said Jones. "We encourage all of our guests to use the recycling cans, located with trash cans, on the park."

Trihydro provides engineering and environmental services to industrial, commercial, and government clients. The firm, founded in 1984, has grown strategically to employ approximately 260 professionals and support staff, of which 160 are based in the firm’s Wyoming offices (Cheyenne, Casper, Lander, and Laramie).

CFD has recycled all the manure collected during the ten day event at a local composting facility for many years. "We have also separated and collected our cardboard for recycling for a few years now," said Jones. "This year we will also be recycling aluminum cans along with the plastic bottles." Jones and CFD officials met with Swire Coca Cola, Dennis Pino (City Sanitation), Trihydro, and others earlier this year to discuss the continuation of collecting plastic during CFD for recycling. Working with the City of Cheyenne, CFD will collect as much plastic and aluminum on the park during the celebration as possible, separate these items from the general waste, and send the plastic and aluminum for recycling, thereby keeping it out of the landfill.

In addition to separating plastic bottles and aluminum cans from the trash during show time, CFD will also recycle these items from committee buildings around the park and the headquarters building. Last year, CFD officials made an effort to replace old bathroom fixtures with newer more water efficient models where appropriate. Parking lot lights were replaced with updated fixtures which provide more light while decreasing power usage. In addition, every year, the CFD grounds crew winterizes the park to shut down buildings with only seasonal usage, thereby decreasing energy and water usage. They also pull weeds by hand rather than using chemical pesticides while maintaining the park.

There is a bandwagon effect here that people who put on parades know very well. It's patriotic to fly the green flag, and cowboys are all about being patriotic.

Here at home, my family and our visitors from afar are going through hundreds of plastic water bottles, aluminum soda cans and craft brew bottles. My son Kevin has hauled many containers of recyclables to the Big Blue Bins at the K-Mart parking lot. We're also cutting down on water usage by taking only one shower per week. Just kidding -- that's just me. Hey, I'm on vacation!

The City of Cheyenne has made great strides the past few years toward cutting down on water use. It's expanding its curbside recycling program. The greenway is terrific and it prods residents to get out and walk and run and ride bikes to work. On the negative side, our public transportation system is laughable and sprawl continues to the north and east. Laramie County has no wise-growth plan. Cheyenne needs to support downtown residential efforts, such as those promoted in Sheridan this summer at "Living Upstairs in Wyoming."

We're getting there -- but still playing catch-up to some of Colorado's communities, such as our neighbor Fort Collins and our bigger neighbor, Denver. Read about some of their efforts at http://smartercities.nrdc.org/

Elliott to replace Vasey in Wyoming Senate

The AP reports this:

Carbon and Albany county commissioners have chosen James Elliott Jr. to replace Democrat Bill Vasey in the state Senate. The county commissioners voted for Elliott Monday. Other candidates for the District 11 seat were David Throgmorton and Linda Ann Smith. All three Carbon County commissioners voted for Elliott and two Albany County commissioners voted for David Throgmorton. Eliott will serve through the legislative budget session early next year. He says he hasn't decided if he'll run for the Senate in next year's general election. Vasey resigned in June after23 years in the Wyoming Legislature. He and his wife moved to Yuma, Ariz.

Cheney to get another six months of gubment-funded Secret service protection

The New York Daily News Washington Bureau reports this:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney's Secret Service protection has been extended for at least another six months, beginning Tuesday.

Normally, ex-veeps only get six months of protection at taxpayer expense. But Cheney asked for an extension, and President Obama - whom Cheney has excoriated in several interviews since leaving office - recently signed off.

If the Obama administration hadn't gone along with Cheney's request, he would have been forced to hire his own security agents - or go without.

Cheney's friends have said he has become more concerned about his privacy and personal safety in recent years. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/07/21/2009-07-21_cheney_keeps_protection_thanks_to_uncle_sam_bam.html#ixzz0LuILmETA

Enjoy, for a brief moment, the irony in gubment-basher Dick Cheney requesting more gubment expenditures on his behalf, and the fact that Cheney is a gajillionaire thanks to his decades of gubment service (and taxpayer-provided health care) and his ongoing ties to the war profiteers at Halliburton.

And don't forget to reply to the poll.

Livin' not always easy on 1960s Space Coast

My father's work with the U.S. space program ended about the same time as Neil Armstrong walked on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Thousands of Americans worked for the space program. Some, such as my father, got their start in ICBMs. Nukes used the same missile that took astronauts to the moon -- the Atlas. It didn't take much to jump from the jargon of throw weight and megatonnage to space capsules and lunar rovers.

Besides, my father was an accountant and not an engineer. He kept the books and one line item on a spread sheet is pretty much the same as the other.

They revelled in the mission. Put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Can-do, boss. Give us a challenge and lots of dough and good people -- and we can do anything.

I was proud of my father's work, whether he was tallying costs of blast-proof silos on the prairies of Colorado or Kansas -- or counting Atlas booster widgets in a sweltering war-surplus Quonset hut on Florida's east coast. He lost his ICBM job in 1964 once most of the Atlas rockets were parked underground throughout the West.

That's how we got to Florida. Five years later, he was laid off from his space job in July 1969. His work was done. From 1967-69, thousands of NASA amd G.E. employees and space workers of every stripe from Florida's "Space Coast" were transferred to other less-exotic locales such as Schenectady and Cincinnati and Houston. Our Daytona neighborhood had a dozen homes for sale. They weren't selling because people were moving out, not in.

Those who stayed were laid off (such a strange word) and had to find other employment. My father went to work with the state as an accountant. That move entailed a 180-mile round-trip daily commute to Jacksonville. He finally ended up renting a small apartment and staying up there during the week. Other laid-off spacers opened small businesses or pumped gas like one of my father's engineer friends. Some tried other jobs for awhile and then moved on anyway.

You have to remember that 1969 Central Florida was pre-Mickey Mouse and beachside condo-building craze. Orlando was the size of Tallahassee, Florida's sleepy capital city. Air conditioning was fairly new -- we never had A.C. nor did any of our friends. Retirees had been coming to Florida for years, but mostly lived in rural trailer parks or dilapidated downtown hotels in St. Pete or Miami. Most real jobs were still located in Detroit and Cleveland and Newark and St. Louis and Chicago and L.A. These postwar-boom auto and steel workers were still raising their families and not yet ready to join the huge waves of Florida-bound retirees in the 1980s. At the same time, Rust Belt industries began collapsing under the weight of their own stupidity and Reaganomics. Younger workers headed to new opportunities in warmer climes. Many more followed.

Florida still has a space industry. Smaller now, and much less exotic. It's tempting to romanticize that Apollo 11 mission of four decades ago. I've seen that happening this week on cable news, with paeans to the astronauts and our can-do spirit on getting to the moon. "Moon landing -- 40 years later." But there were also headlines like this: "Moon -- one giant leap or one very small step?"

It was both, I suppose. One giant leap for the imagination. I still support the space program and was briefly encouraged by George W. Bush when he announced future missions to Mars. Then we discovered that he meant Mars, Iraq, and the wind went out of our sails.

I hold out hope for future leaps of the imagination. Look up! Imagine other worlds! Build spacecraft and go forth!

Bowie's "Space Oddity" came out before U.S. walked on the moon

"Space Oddity" by David Bowie, was released to coincide with the Apollo 11 moon landing. The BBC featured the song during its TV coverage of the 1969 lunar landing.

Read today's story in UK Telegraph on top ten moon hits. Go to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/space/5871370/Apollo-11-moon-landing-Moon-music.html

Man in the Moon is so very lonely

Lots of newspaper articles and TV coverage marking the 40th anniversary of the U.S. moon landing. All of them seem to ask the same question: WTF?

It was a gallant quest, sparked by a challenge from JFK. A challenge that got many of us pulling in the same direction for a brief shining moment. JFK also kept us heading down the road to ruination in Vietnam. JFK's successor, LBJ, turned that road to ruin into a ten-lane expressway, and decided not to run for a second term in the wake of disastrous results, leaving the field open to Nixon. He did continue NASA's lunar flights but, in his second term, was distracted from the mission by break-ins and paranoia and Christmas bombings and cross-border incursions and trips to China.

Our lunaracy ended about the same time as Nixon's. And we haven't been back to the moon since.

Beating the Bolsheviks to the moon had more to do with beating the Bolsheviks than it did with the moon. We were demonstrating our superiority as the planet's only God-fearing democratic capitalist republic. We not only demonstrated this in space, but also in Hue and Managua and Cuba and Laos and Berlin and Tehran and Taiwan and Jakarta. We were so busy spreading democracy in these places that we forgot about the Sea of Tranquility -- ran out of money, too. Not to mention imagination. Reagan, too. Don't forget about him.

Think about all this next time you wonder: Man on the Moon -- WTF?

What's with these Western Dems and a reasonable health care plan?

JC at 4&20 blackbirds kicks ass with a post today about Mont. Gov. Brian Schweitzer's apparent about-face on the benefits of Medicaid payments to states and the efficacy of the Dems' health-care plan.

Here's a sampling:

Gotta better plan Brian? Or have you just turned into one of them naysayers. If ya got some cards, ya better lay em out on the table.

And this:

And if Montana (and other states) had a real health care plan, Congress wouldn’t have to act.

Ditto for Wyoming. No health care plan here. And Medicaid is a lifeline to thousands of state residents. Including my family, who benefitted from a Medicaid-funded program for teen mental health treatment. More about that later. But read JC's post here:

http://4and20blackbirds.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/schweitzer-dumps-on-the-poor-medicaid-and-obamas-health-care-reform-agenda/

Midsummer day's Victory Garden blogging

If mid-summer is mid-July, then we're already past it. If it's actually 45 days into cosmological summer, we're not quite there, as that's sometime in early August.

But if we're talking growing season, we've reached the halfway mark, at least in Wyoming. First frost can come any time after Labor Day, but may not arrive until late September. But once August merges into the school year, the best growing days are gone.

I've harvested spinach, leaf lettuce and some broccoli. Spinach is gone but lettuce still leafing and broccoli still heading. Just ate the first zucchini of many more to come. Three inches long and the size of my pointer. Tasty. No yellow squash yet and the lone brookneck is not looking so good. Wonder what I did wrong there. All tomato plants are fruiting and next weekend should bring lots of cherry tomatoes. I have six house guests from Tennessee and maybe it's time to call on them for fried green tomatoes. But not crazy about that, although the Fannie Flagg book was good as was the Hollywood film. Green tomato recipes are best for the tail-end of the season, when I'm snapping the greenies off the plants in advance of north winds.

Pole beans are raging on the south side of the house where they share space with wildflowers. marigolds, and a red crabapple tree that's made it through five winters and is as high as the top of the kitchen windows.

This week, the "victory" in Victory Garden is for the triumph of the Democrats' public-option health care plan over the ignorance of the Know Nothings (you know who you are Sen. Enzi and Sen. Barrasso and Montana's confused Sen. Baucus and Nebraska's compromised Sen. Ben Nelson) and the greedheads at the insurance companies.

Obama advocates for community colleges

Look, private colleges are O.K. I hear they have some good ones in places like Cambridge and Palo Alto and Oberlin. But, as a graduate of one community college and two land-grant universities, I'm a firm believer in public-funded higher learning.

Yesterday, Pres. Obama unveiled the American Graduation Initiative, a 10-year, $12 billion plan to invest in community colleges.

During his announcement at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan, Obama noted that the economic recession and a changing U.S. economy have reduced the number of automotive industry jobs, a mainstay in Michigan.

The "hard truth is that some of the jobs that have been lost in the auto industry and elsewhere won't be coming back. They are casualties of a changing economy," Obama said, adding that "even before this recession hit, we were faced with an economy that was simply not creating or sustaining enough new, well-paying jobs."

Obama called the investment in community colleges crucial because "jobs requiring at least an associate degree are projected to grow twice as fast as jobs requiring no college experience" in coming years.

I enjoyed my classes at Daytona Beach Junior College (then D.B. Community College and now Daytona State College) more than I did the first two years at Enormous State University in a C.S.A. state. At 22, I was older by a few years, time tested and weathered after a sojourns as a college ROTC dropout wandering the U.S. That may have helped. Time to knuckle down and take enough courses to graduate and head off to another Enormous State University. I rode my bike or hitched a ride to class, and spent off hours at the library or canoodling with my girlfriend who lived a few blocks away.

At 3, I clocked into my job at Halifax Hospital where I spent the next eight hours riding herd on alkies and druggies dredged off Daytona's streets and thrown into the place officially labeled 1100 but we called it the drunk tank. Usually there were two orderlies working behind the ward's locked doors. Sometimes it was just me. I was a big dude, and I held the keys to the kingdom, so they didn't mess with me. We all played cards and told stories, some of which were true. Every so often a patient would go into D.T.'s or devolve into a seizure. I was ready for either. Every so often a call came over the loudspeakers for "Dr. Blue." That meant that all the ordleries were needed at 1400 -- the psych ward. Some very large loonie the size of Chief Broom was going haywire, knocking down doctors and nurses like a scythe through Kansas wheat. I was lucky -- I never got my teeth knocked out during those calls. Usually it took three or four of us to subdue the subject. A few scrapes, a few stories for later regaling at Big Daddy's Bar.

Education comes in many forms. I graduated in May 1974 with a group of auto mechanics and nurses and dental hygienists and pre-law candidates and a few other misguided English majors. I quit my job that August, saying my farewells to the patients (I knew them all by then) and the ghosts and some of my compatriots who were still working on their educations. I headed 100 miles up the road to Gainesville and the next phase of my public education, paid for with loans and work-study jobs. I graduated from UF in 1976 and kept moving on, eventually landing in Denver in 1978 for the adult phase of my education.

The education never ended. Nor will it. I've taught at several community colleges. I like the range of students -- 18 to 78. Some who are just taking composition 101 for the credit and don't give a hoot about the minimalism of Carver and the maximalism of Henry James. Others are like the Vietnam vet whose daughter urged him to finish his associate's degree at the same time she earned hers. Or the grandmother who travelled 140 miles round trip from Kimball, Nebraska, to Cheyenne to take my creative writing class. She had stories to tell. Or the Air Police zoomie who loved to write -- and told me the stories of the ghosts swirling around Warren AFB. Or the recent divorcee who kept journals for the 20 years of her marriage but ripped them up in a burst of anger. And now she wanted to resurrect those shredded memories.

It's not too outlandish to say that there's a direct line from my time at community colleges to my work last year to elect Obama. Sure, Harvard is great. But real democracy is born in the crowded halls and classrooms of your local community college.

Take time to check out the American Graduation Initiative at http://tinyurl.com/m4u746.

Steve Earle drops into Sheridan Aug. 8

Musician and songwriter Steve Earle will perform in concert at the WYO Theater in Sheridan on Saturday, Aug. 8, 8 p.m. Tickets are $29 adult and $27 senior, military and students.

Here's the announcement from the WYO Theater web site:

The WYO is proud to present a special solo acoustic concert of Steve Earle, touring in support of his new album Townes, a 15-song set comprised of songs written by Earle's friend and mentor, the late singer-songwriter, Townes Van Zandt (Pancho and Lefty and White Freightliner Blues, to name just two). Townes debuted May 28 at number 19 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, the highest debut in Earle's career, and at number 6 on the Billboard Country Chart.

Earle is a master storyteller in his own right, with songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Travis Tritt, The Pretenders, Joan Baez and countless others. His 1986 debut record, Guitar Town, shot to number one on the country charts immediately establishing the term "new country" or sometimes "alt-country," followed by an exciting array of twelve releases including the biting hard rock of Copperhead Road (1988), the politically-charged Jerusalem (2002) and, more recently, the Grammy-winning albums The Revolution Starts...Now (2004) and Washington Square Serenade (2007).

FMI: http://www.steveearle.com/. Listen to Steve Earle's acoustic version of Pancho and Lefty at http://www.myspace.com/steveearlemusic

Homelessness increases in rural West

A July 13 post by the always-alert jhwygirl at 4&20 blackbirds alerted hummingbirdminds to an alarming trend, one that may have a huge impact on those who dwell (or try to) in these wide open spaces.

In the July 12 Washington Post, Alexi Mostrous writes about the increase in U.S. homelessness, especially in rural and suburban areas.

Louis Gill doesn't like to turn anyone away. The director of the Bakersfield Homeless Center in California has taken to laying out cots and mattresses between the shelter's 174 registered beds to cope with the rush of homeless families brought to his doors by the financial crisis.

"Last year, we saw a 34 percent increase in homeless families and a 24 percent increase in homeless children," he said. "Why do we go beyond capacity? Because in a just society, a child should not have to sleep outside or in a car."

Gill is a frontline witness to the change in the makeup of the country's homeless. The stereotype of a homeless person as a single man no longer applies. A resident of the Bakersfield center is far more likely to be a young mother with a "good, solid job and a mortgage that she just couldn't pay."

"They're like folks you know and that you've worked with," Gill said. "Maybe the work's not there right now. Maybe they got behind on their payments. But the idea of a typical homeless person has changed. We're seeing individuals come in that have never had to access the safety net before."

A study by Housing and Urban Development (HUD) measured changes in the number of homeless between 2007 and 2008, before the height of the economic crisis, and Director Shaun Donovan acknowledged that the data do not reflect "the great many more families who were living on the edge, doubling up with friends and family members, and struggling to stay out of the shelters and off the streets."

Some case studies collected by the department's Homelessness Pulse Project suggest that rural and suburban areas were particularly ill-equipped to cope with the new wave of homeless. And many of the states that experienced the largest increases in homelessness are predominately rural.

In Mississippi, the number of homeless increased 42 percent last year; in Wyoming, 40 percent; in Montana and Missouri, 23 percent; and in Iowa, 22 percent.

It's good to know that Wyoming is right up there (or right down there) with Mississippi when it comes to homelessness. But these statistics are now a year old. What's happened around the rural West in the past year, when the walls really came crashing down?

The Welcome Mat Day Center in Cheyenne is the only one of its kind in the Capital City. Comea House at 1504 Stinson Ave. provides overnight shelter. Welcome Mat provides a variety of on-site services at its 907 Logan Avenue facility. The Wyoming Coalition for the Homeless publishes a newsletter, Wyoming Winds. Its web site has a list of homeless resources in Wyoming. Go to http://www.wch.vcn.com/wchsvcs.htm

What's my homeless risk? I have a good job and a house we call home. My wife works and likes what she does. Our teen is working this summer and so is our home-from-college son. If those jobs disappeared tomorrow, how long would it take for us to be homeless? My job includes the health ionsurance that covers us all. No job and no health insurance spells doom, especially when Chris has a pre-existing condition known as diabetes.

We're a resourceful family, but one that spends most of its income on mortgage, cars, groceries and ongoing bills. We were frugal during those boom times when our fellow Americans were spending freely on vacations and boats and eating out at Olive Garden. Retirement is compiling daily, but savings are not.

How close are we to homelessness? What about you?

Wyoming Cold War residue could harm "our precious bodily fluids"

In "Dr. Strangelove," when Col. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) starts talking about commies poisoning "our precious bodily fluids," Group Captain Mandrake (Peter Sellers) realizes his commander is nuts. So nuts, in fact, that Ripper has launched World War III.

Col. Ripper says this: "Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face? On no account will a Commie ever drink water, and not without good reason."

Baby Boomers probably remember that the John Birch Society made hay with the conspiracy theory that commies somehow arranged to fluoridate our water to neuter God-fearing Americans in time of war, cold or hot.

But the Birchers should have been more concerned with the trichloroethylene (TCE) used to clean our own nukes, here in Wyoming and elsewhere. TCE has been poisoning our precious bodily fluids for 50 years, rendering us useless against attacks by commies, Saddam Hussein's WMDs, swine flu, feminists, wayward Yellowstone wolves, atheists and any other menace (real or imagined) wingnuts can devise.

A plume of TCE, maybe one of the largest in the country, is moving toward Cheyenne. One of these days, it may lurk right under our house near Yellowstone Blvd.

Actually, we already have contamination in our neighborhood from Cold War chemicals used on Wyoming Air National Guard's aircraft. TCE and carbon tetrachloride have been seeping from the sprawling Guard base south of us since the 1960s. To the Guard's credit, it has been on this issue since I moved to the neighborhood back in 2005. I receive frequent mailings on the clean-up status. There's a monitoring station in Mylar Park, just a 10-minute walk from our house. A trench 100 feet long and 35 feet deep is being dug in the park to try to contain the seeping solvents. Groundwater that flows into the trench will be treated and discharged into nearby Dry Creek. The goal, according to an Air Guard release from 2008, "is to prevent further underground contamination and keep the chemicals from getting into the creek."

But the TCE plume at F.E. Warren AFB is more problematical. Between 1960-64, USAF personnel used thousands of gallons of the chemical to clean Atlas rocket engines once the fuel had been removed. The used solvent went into unlined pits and eventually trickled down into the aquifer. For many years, the Air Force and the Army Corps of Engineers refused to acknowledge a problem. Then tests were conducted by the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. The Corps still did nothing. And in 2007 Sen. John Barrasso got involved. Amazing the difference a U.S. Senator can make when he sets his mind to it. Studies were conducted on this substance that may cause cancer. The obstinate Corps chief was replaced by one more accountable to the citizenry. A a major report detailing clean-up solutions will be issued in September. You can hear the details at a public meeting July 28, 6 p.m., in the Cottonwood Room at the Laramie County Public Library in Cheyenne.

The reason I bring this up? Jared Miller wrote an excellent series of articles for today's Casper Star-Tribune about this threat from the bad old days of the Cold War. Read the series at http://www.casperstartribune.com/articles/2009/07/12/news/wyoming/813bd62b38077e9b872575f00020f944.txt

Dennis Kucinich spanks wingnut doctor

We have our own Wingnut doctor from Wyoming: Dr. John Barrasso, U.S. Senator

"Richard II" on the soggy fields of Cheyenne

Attended the Wyoming Shakespeare Theatre Company's production of "Richard II" this evening at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens. The theatre company hauls its sets and equipment from one end of Wyoming to the other in one horse trailer. No easy feat.

Right about intermission time, the skies clouded up and rain fell. Half the crowd departed, but I was hooked on the story and wouldn't leave. Mac -- a family friend -- and I watched the rest of the show under a tree, not a great idea while lightning shot out of the clouds. But at least we weren't holding golf clubs.

"Richard II" all about kingship. What does it take to be a king -- and when is it justified to unseat a king? Richard II makes some wrong moves, pisses off some of the courtly lords who join the banished Bullingbrook in an uprising. Richard is never more charming than when he's deposed. Alas, he's murdered (must have a few bodies on stage in the tragedies) and then we are left with a feeling that all this didn't have to happen. Actually, it did. Without Bullingbrook usurping the throne, we wouldn't have the magnificent "Henry IV," parts one and two, and the much-quoted speech given by Henry V on the fields of Agincourt on St. Crispin's Day. And most significantly, there would be no scenes between Prince Hal and Falstaff.

Kings tend to get murdered in Shakespearean tragedies. Much mayhem ensues, which makes them so much fun. Summer and Shakespare go together like peas and carrots.

Weekend round-up: big issues -- and strange

Rising star of the Young Republicans, Audra Shay, may be a distant relative -- but I certainly hope not. Go to http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-10/the-gops-young-hatemonger/

NYT: "Obama Student Loan Plans Wins Support in House." Let's move this thing along. The U.S. student loan system (if you can call it that) is a travesty and needs a major overhaul.

This Sunlight Foundation post goes back to June 22 but was resurrected by Montana’s excellent Left in the West. "...five of Baucus’ former staffers currently work for a total of twenty-seven different organizations that are either in the health care or insurance sector or have a noted interest in the outcome." This may help explain Sen. Baucus’s opposition to "public option."

Papal news from a slip-sliding-away Catholic: National Catholic Reporter does a great job covering Pres. Obama's Rome visit with the Pope. On Sojourners God's Politics blog, Jim Wallis summarizes the Pope's new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth).

In other religious news: "Trickle-down Fundamentalism" or "Godly powerful rich white men should rule the world." See Rachel Maddow's interviews with Jeff Sharlet at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

Attention gardeners: eat those squash and zucchini blossoms! Go to http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/homegarden/2009448964_yardsmart11.html

Weekend garden blogging -- help me save the soul of my wayward Kentucky Wonder

First, the weather. Warm and dry. No rain for three days. That's amazing, because it had rained almost every day since May until Wednesday. It's a rarity around here to let Mother Nature take care of watering the garden. Had to return to the hose on Thursday and Friday. The weatherpeople forecast a stray storm or two for yesterday evening. Storms passed us by to put on a great lightning show, huge anvil cloud hovering somewhere over Hawk Springs on its way to Nebraska. Chris and I sat on the back porch and watched the lightning vein the clouds for an hour.

We may get storms today. I'll hold off on watering and see what develops. Watch the skies!

Some of the spinach plants started to bolt so I clipped them off at the base and we enjoyed a mighty good stir fry with garden spinach cooked in olive oil with chunks of garlic. One of my daughter's favorite treats. Rather have that than ice cream, which makes me wonder about her DNA. A dedicated vegetarian. I keep telling her that ice cream is core food group along with beer and Cheezits. But she's not buying it. What's wrong with this younger generation?

Harvested the outside leaves on my green and red leaf lettuce plants. Cut off the broccoli crowns in the hopes that more crowns will grow. Fruits have formed on my Gardener's delight cherry tomato bushes but the Early Girls ain't so early. I have another tomato plants with fern-like leaves and I can't remember the variety. But it's growing like crazy and blooming but no fruit yet. The bush beans are finally bushing out -- think I planted the seeds too deep. Two zucchini plants are attempting to take over the world. My lone surviving crookneck squash plant is finally starting to leaf out. I bought three seedlings in May. Two of them shriveled and died and only one remains. No such things ever happen to zucchini, even in Wyoming.

My Kentucky Wonder pole beans on the side yard are sending out runners. One has attached to the trellis in the way that God intended. The other keeps leaping off the trellis to commune with the Achillea filipendulina and the shasta daisies. Each evening I return his probe to the trellis, only to find it groping its neighbors the next morning. He's obviously confused about his place in the grand scheme of creation. Perhaps I can have Rev from the Free Will Church of Eternal Damnation come down and talk to this wayward plant. Set it straight, if you get my meaning.

Other than that, the garden grows. We continue to watch the skies for hail-laden clouds.

This week's Victory Garden dedication: To Martin Hett, my grandfather, whose birthday is on July 14 -- Bastille Day. He became a fine self-taught Colorado gardener who grew up hungry in County Roscommon in pre-Republic Ireland. Left home at 12 in search of food -- never went back.

For a brief time, Greenpeace replaces Reagan on Mt. Rushmore with Pres. Obama

Greenpeace found a way to cover up the unpleasant visage of St. Reagan recently added to Mount Rushmore National Monument in South Dakota.

Here's what the monument looked like on Tuesday:

Greenpeace enagaged in some July 8 hijinks, covering up St. Reagan with Pres. Obama, along the way making a point about Obama's lukewarm attituide toward global warming:

Vast improvement, don't you think? And protest is patriotic, as American as apple pie -- and Mt. Rushmore.

Help wanted: Wyoming Democrats need two replacement state senators (w/7/9 update)

Two Democrats have resigned their seats in the Wyoming State Legislature.

Sen. Bill Vasey of Rawlins has retired and moved to Arizona. Much as Wyoming retirees like to think of Arizona as the state’s 24th county, that designation is not yet official, thus Sen. Vasey must bid farewell to his District 11 Senate seat.

Sen. Ken Decaria of Evanston has moved to Cheyenne for a job as government relations director for the Wyoming Education Association. His change of job and venue caused him to resign his District 15 Senate position.

What does a perennial minority political party do when it loses two of its seven Senate seats (out of a total of 30)? Finds new blood – quickly.

Here’s the process as outlined in a July 6 press release:

Carbon County Democratic Party Chair Vern Whitfield announced today that the Democratic precinct committeemen and committeewomen of Senate District 11 will meet Monday, July 13, at 6 p.m. at the Jeffrey Center in Rawlins to interview those interested in filling the Senate seat. Senate District 11 includes all of Carbon County as well as the Rock River precinct in Albany County.

The process for filling a legislative vacancy is governed by the Wyoming State Statutes and the bylaws of the Wyoming Democratic Party.

The rules require the precinct committee members of the Senate district to meet and select three finalists for the position within 15 days of the party being notified of Sen. Vasey’s resignation. The party plans to select the finalists at the meeting on Monday, July 13.

State party bylaws state that any registered Democrat who lives in Senate District 11 who wants to be considered for the position must either appear in person at the meeting or send a written statement of intent. At the meeting, each candidate will be given the opportunity to present their qualifications and may be questioned by those present. Written statements of intent can be sent to Carbon County Democratic Party Chair Vern Whitfield at 1212 Weaver St., Rawlins, WY, 82301, and must be received by Monday, July 13.

At the meeting, after all the candidates speak and answer questions, the precinct committee members will vote by signed ballot to choose the three finalists. Those finalists' names will be submitted to the county commissioners in both Carbon and Albany counties. Then, the commissioners will have five days to meet and vote to appoint one of the finalists to fill the legislative vacancy. The county commissioners' votes will be weighted by the population of the portion of the Senate District that is in each county, using numbers from the 2000 U.S. Census.

FMI: Vern Whitfield, Carbon County Democratic Party Chair, 307-320-7479 (cell), 307-324-4205 (home). Bill Luckett, Wyoming Democratic Party Executive Director, 307-631-7638 (cell).

Dems will go through the same process in Senate District 15, which includes most of Uinta County, including the town of Evanston.

Uinta County Democratic Party Chair Sharon McPhie has announced that the Democratic precinct committeemen and committeewomen of Senate District 15 will meet Thursday, July 16, at 6 p.m., at the Uinta County Library in Evanston to interview those interested in filling the Senate seat. The meeting will be in the Almy Room. Contact: Sharon McPhie, 307-789-3691.

Needless to say, the Rawlins interviews on July 13 and the ones in Evanston July 16 will not require crowd control. The Union Pacific/I-80 corridor, from Pine Bluffs to Evanston in southern Wyoming, used to be owned by the Democrats. Cheyenne, Laramie, Rawlins and Rock Springs were loaded with union members in the railroads and mining. When I interviewed Kathy Karpan last August prior to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, the Rock Springs native recalled how she grew up surrounded by union Democrats and didn’t even know there was such a thing as a "Republican." Alas, there are all too many Repubs in Rock Springs now. Most of the new energy industry jobs are non-union, and the railroad employs a fraction of what it used to. The blue traditions live on, but is fading.

That goes for Rawlins and Evanston. Evanston lies in the extreme southwestern corner that once was Utah territory but was lopped off and given to Wyoming territory to teach Brigham Young a lesson about succession and polygamy. But Brigham Young got his revenge. Uinta County remains solidly LDS and conservative Republican, a segment of the Mormon Corridor that encompasses all of Utah and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.

So, the Dems will really miss Sen. Decaria. The Democrats have never controlled the Wyoming legislature, although during Kennedy’s presidency they were very close with the highest percentage of Democrats at 47% (thanks to wikianswers.com).

HM will provide updates next week.

UPDATE on 7/9/09 from Bill Luckett: Please be advised that the date of the meeting to select finalists to replace Sen. Ken Decaria has been changed to TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2009. The meeting will still take place at 6 p.m., at the Uinta County Library in Evanston. For further information, please contact Sharon McPhie, Uinta County Democratic Party Chair, 307-789-3691 (home).

One of 10 Lee Stranahan videos on health care reform

HM supports Alaska's gutsy prog-bloggers

Ah, to be an Alaskan prog-blogger this Fourth of July weekend 2009.

Gov. Sarah Palin resigns in a huff and under a cloud. Palin's lawyer Thomas Van Flein turns his hairy eyeball on blogger and radio host Shannyn Moore. Linda, my fellow DNCC state blogger last summer, is digging up the dirt and raising funds and raising hell at Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis. The Mudflats! tells it like it is in the blogosphere and on the air waves.

These are gutsy bloggers in The Land of the Midnight Sun. Stand by to raise money for their defense fund.

What in the world is Sarah Palin hiding?

Bonanza of articles about Wyoming

A healthy harvest of intriguing recent articles about Wyoming:

KL Energy Corp. has a plant in Upton, Wyo., that makes cellulosic ethanol fuel from wood scrap from Black Hills forests. Go to http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/07/04/ap6618033.html

Fourth of July Cowboy Tea Party attendees gather in Cheyenne to steep their teabags of outrage in the brine of wingnuttery. Go to http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2009/07/05/local_news_updates/19local_07-05-09.txt

Unearthing Triceratops' horns at a dinosaur dig near Newcastle. Go to http://www.casperstartribune.com/articles/2009/07/05/news/wyoming/560f2e7562d9b58f872575e900210ac8.txt

Tammy Christel writes in the Jackson Hole Fine Arts Examiner about the struggles faced by Lyndsay McCandless Contemporary, a tremendous gallery in Jackson. It's confronting extinction by emphasizing its community base, going green and holding rent parties. Go to http://www.examiner.com/x-11670-Jackson-Hole-Fine-Arts-Examiner~y2009m7d1-Lyndsay-McCanless-Contemporarys-Fourth-of-July-weekend

Writing in New West, Michael Pearlman wonders why bus service has been so long in coming to Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. Go to http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/bus_service_in_grand_teton_and_yellowstone_is_long_overdue/C41/L41/

Amanda Fry concludes her three-part Platte County Record-Times' series, "Wind Energy in Platte County," with a look at the landowners' views of the issue. Go to http://www.pcrecordtimes.com/V2_news_articles.php?heading=0&story_id=1238&page=72. Thanks to Wheaterville for the tip on this one.

Ridin' and ropin' those docile dinos

This photo by John Scalzi is great in so many ways. It's from Kentucky's Creation Museum, and shows a boy riding a statue of a baby Triceratops, which is Wyoming's official state dinosaur. The kid is having fun, and probably doesn't care a wit that Triceratops were never used as rodeo stock. Since it's rodeo season in the West, you can ask just about any cowboy -- horses and bulls are preferable to dinos. It's a fine idea, though, and one which should be considered if we ever get our hands on that dino DNA that was used so disastrously in "Jurassic Park." I think it would be much more fun to ride bareback on a Velociraptor, with others playfully nipping at your boot heels. But that's just me.

The Creation Museum contends that humans and dinos lived side-by-side. It also contends that the T-Rex was a vegeterian. Not sure what those big pointy teeth were used for. Maybe plants were tougher 6,000 years ago.

In Wyoming, we know our dinosaurs and our evolutionary history. That what makes the closing of the University of Wyoming's Geological Museum so sad. In a time of Creation Museums, we desperately need as much real science as possible. So budget cuts are made and the thing that UW decides is expendable is a museum devoted to the reality-based world. The move has been controversial. I heard news yesterday that private funding has been raised to keep the museum in business. Let's hope so.

More dinosaur bones have been dug out of Wyoming that almost anywhere else in the world. Plant and animal life from millions of years ago make up our massive oil and coal reserves. We boast an official state dinosaur and an official state fossil, the Knightia. I think we're the only state that puts so much stock in the ancient world, one that goes back way farther than 6,000 years.

I have a story called "The History of Surfing in Wyoming" that posits a post-global warming Wyoming (Wyoming Islands) where the surf is bitchen on the beaches of the Big Horns and Wind Rivers (formerly mountain ranges) and aqua-rodeo cowboys get their kicks riding sea creatures resurrected from the floor of the ancient inland sea. Reality-based scenarios are fun when it comes to science. But they don't hold a candle to the worlds conjured by the imagination.

I leave you with the Wyoming Islands version of the Beach Boys' Surfin' U.S.A. (feel free to sing along):

If everybody had an ocean
Across the U.S.A.
Then everybody'd be surfin'
Like Wyoming-yay
You'd see 'em wearing cut-off Ryders
Stetsons and (boots) too
A buzz-cut surfers’ hairdo
Surfin' U.S.A.

You'd catch 'em surfin' at Happy Jack
Casper Island Beach
Flaming Gorge and Lander
and the Big Horn Islands
All over South Pass
And down Encampment way
Everybody's gone surfin'
Surfin' U.S.A.

We'll all be planning that route
We're gonna take real soon
We're waxing down our surfboards
We can't wait for June
We'll all be gone for the summer
We're on surfari to stay
Tell the teacher we're surfin'
Surfin' U.S.A.

Rock River and Sundance
and Laramie Peak
Meeteetse and Midwest,
Big Surf Reef near Ten Sleep
All over the Wind Rivers
and Uinta Bay
Everybody's gone surfin'
Surfin' U.S.A.

Weekend Garden Blogging: Fourth of July

Greetings from Cheyenne, the semi-arid capital of semi-arid Wyoming, which has more water than it knows what to do with.

Just kidding. We never have quite enough. In dry years, we're parched. In wet years, we're refreshing the landscape parched during dry years.

But this year, we get rain every day. Yesterday brought a gully-washer with raindrops big as eyeballs. I heard the rain pounding the porch's aluminum roof and I thought hail had arrived and panicked because I hadn't covered my still-tender plants.

I left my writing desk for the yard and marveled at the afternoon rain. Came down so fast and furious that it smacked down some of my spinach plants. So I picked the leaves for a dinner salad. Added some leaf lettuce. Later, wading through the drenched gardens between plant rows, had a feeling that my semi-arid garden was turning into a rice paddy. Get your Wyoming rice, freshly harvested from Mike's paddy! Weird.

The tomatoes are blooming and heads have formed on all the broccoli. Bush bean plants shooting up to 4-5 inches. Pole beans on the side yard haven't yet sent out shoots to climb the trellis. Picked one ripe strawberry yesterday and shared it with my wife, who gave me grief for teasing her with one tiny little fruit. More to come, my dear. Much more to come.

Bragging to my college son yesterday about my little feat of engineering that keeps the garden irrigated and the patio dry. A drainage field lurks under the garden and rainwater diverted to garden instead of clay soil yard. Used to flood the basement at least once per summer. But no more.

He said he was impressed. Then he went back to reading his book.

As the sun dipped to the horizon yesterday, a huge bank of clouds rose in the West. Rippled with lightning. Uh oh, I said, another deluge for the rice paddies. But the storm missed us and hit Casper and vicinity with a vengeance. You can see some flash flood photos on the Casper Star-Trib web site.

On this Fourth of July, I dedicate my Victory Garden to the visionaries who risked everything to found the U.S.A.

Pres. Obama: Happy Fourth of July -- and don't listen to the naysayers

And here are a few of the best lines:

These naysayers have short memories. They forget that we, as a people, did not get here by standing pat in a time of change. We did not get here by doing what was easy. That is not how a cluster of 13 colonies became the United States of America.

We are not a people who fear the future. We are a people who make it. And on this July 4th, we need to summon that spirit once more. We need to summon the same spirit that inhabited Independence Hall two hundred and thirty-three years ago today.

"WYOMING: It is for everybody!"

You can find some strange truths in bumper stickers.

I saw one the other day in Cheyenne. It was on a pick-up. It read: "WYOMING: It's not for everybody."

At first, I thought it was another in a series of "Unique Wyoming" bumper stickers: "Wyoming is what America was." "Wyoming: Like No Place on Earth."

The theme that unites them all could be summed up into the fact that Wyomingites like the state the way it is and its residents don't need any of your newfangled coastal ideas.

That's no revelation if you live here. We're a conservative state, more libertarian that right-wing fundamentalist -- although there's a streak of that here too. At best, the libertarian streak reveals a healthy distrust of big government. At worst, it's venomous, mindless gubment-hating more akin to Nativists and neo-Nazis than any sane political philosophy.

But as I mulled over the "WYOMING: It's not for everybody" bumper sticker, I began to wonder: What if Wyoming was for everybody? What if everybody in the U.S. moved to the Equality/Cowboy State? Latest state population figures show 532,668 in an area of 97,818 square miles. That makes for about 5.4 humans per square mile. So, if Wyomingites were placed equidistant from one another across the state, nobody could see his/her neighbor.

That's impossible, of course. You can't tell Wyomingites where and how to live. Besides, everyone wants to live in scenic locales such as Jackson, Sheridan and Cody, or the not-so-scenic-but-already-settled-places-with-jobs such as Cheyenne and Casper and Gillette.

But what is everybody in the U.S. moved to Wyoming? Sure, there would be a lot of gun play, but let's say that most of the immigrants survived the melee. Wyoming would have some 303 million new residents. Suddenly, there would be 3,108 people per square mile. That's a big boost, for sure. A lot less elbow room, especially if you landed in one of the square mile parcels with citizens from "fat states" such as Mississippi and Arkansas. But if you're sharing space with skinny-state Coloradans, you could stretch until the cows came home, although there would be no room for them if they did.

How crowded would it be? Well, if you increased Cheyenne's population of 56,915 by a factor of 575 times, the city would become a teeming metropolis of 32 million. Now that would put a strain on city services. But hey, we still have the Wal-Mart Regional Distribution Center west of town. Wal-Mart, with its super-efficient delivery system, could keep all 32 million of us supplied with Chinese-made snack foods and diapers for the foreseeable future.

But what if I'm giving short shrift to the bumper sticker's message? What if everybody meant "everybody," even the Chinese, North Koreans and Iranians? Now we're talking a population explosion. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the worlds population at 6.76 billion souls. If you provided a 4-square-foot space for everyone, Wyoming could easily accommodate everybody in the entire world, with a bit of room left over for rivers and lakes and mountaintops and bears and prairie dogs and Wal-Marts.

So the bumper sticker is incorrect: Wyoming is for everybody. Every person on the planet.

Steve Earle on World Cafe July 7

On Tuesday July 7, Steve Earle will be hosted by David Dye on National Public Radio’s World Café. Wyoming Public Radio features the World Cafe at odd times. Go here to find the schedule. Visit NPR’s World Cafe for more info.

Go to Steve's web site to listen to a "Pancho and Lefty" excerpt from his newest CD, "Townes."