Artists respond to Trumpists' barbaric immigration policies

From the "13 Artists on: Immigration" article in today's New York Times Style Magazine: Art Spiegelman's "A Warm Welcome," 2015. CreditPortrait by Phil Penman. Artwork courtesy of the artist. 

Art Spiegelman ("Maus: A Survivor's Story") was one of the 13 artists asked by the NYT to respond to current U.S. immigration issues. An immigrant himself, he has a few things to say about his own experience, and the above illustration:

I first saw the Statue of Liberty in October 1950 while perched high on my father’s shoulders. My parents, survivors of Hitler’s death camps, had been granted immigration visas to the United States, and all the passengers were crowded on the foredeck of the Gripsholm as we approached the harbor. I was less than 3 years old when my father excitedly pointed at the giant lady standing in the water to welcome us to New York. I was suitably awed until we got closer and was disappointed to see that she was “just” a statue.

"Maus" was probably the first graphic novel I read, and it took me awhile to get to it. It was after I wandered into an exhibit of Spiegelman's work at the Rollins College Gallery in Winter Park, Fla. It was about a decade ago. I thought of graphic novels as bloated comic books. "Maus" taught me otherwise. Something about seeing the exhibition-size artwork arrayed around the gallery got to me. I know quite a bit about the Holocaust but something about Jews as mice -- and Nazis as cats -- got to me. I recommend it highly. The issues  echo down the years to 2018. It's tempting to equate any fascist behavior to the Nazis. But Trump's cruel, racist actions are happening right now in the U.S., not in 1943 Germany or Poland. 

Lifting of same-sex marriage ban in Wyoming a big surprise

I don't know about you, but I am still stunned by October's news that same-sex marriage is now the law of the land in Wyoming. I never thought I would see that day. I'm a supporter and have been for many years. The same goes for my wife Chris. We've been married for 32 years. In February 2011, we attended a rally at the Capitol supporting marriage equality. Rev. Rodger McDaniel and his wife Pat were scheduled to burn a copy of their 34-year-old marriage license as were the rest of us married folks who turned out to support the cause. The authorities frowned on burning things on public property so McDaniel used a paper shredder instead. Not as picturesque but we got the point across. If our LGBT friends can't get married, our marriage licenses aren't worth the paper they are printed on.

Now they are.

Credit goes to Wyoming Equality for its efforts. Kudos to Jeran Artery for being the face of the movement in his home state. Jeran and his partner Mike will be married soon. Wishing much happiness to this loving couple.

As is often the case in our strange state, it wasn't just Democrats who stand up for marriage equality. Republicans and Libertarians are also in the mix. Sen. Cale Case and Rep. Sue Wallis spoke out publicly for the legislature's civil unions bill.

Wyoming has come a long way in a short amount of time. So has the country. So have I. I grew up in the South of the sixties. Gays and lesbians were safely in the closet. Those who attempted to live openly gay lives were tormented and beat up. It was nominally OK for gay guys to be hairdressers and florists. It was not OK for them to be teachers, coaches, doctors, carpenters or politicians. Queers. Homos. Faggots. You've heard all of the terms. Name-calling hurts. Getting punched in the face hurts too.

Why am I tolerant when others are not? I lived in cities where I had LGBT neighbors and friends. I worked in the arts where many LGBT people work. The arts has always called those with different sensibilities. I once interviewed a successful dancer for a story. He grew up in Casper. He was an athlete who wanted to be a dancer and not a football player. He had some wonderful teachers, but also had to endure a lot of abuse from classmates. He ended up attending an arts high school in Massachusetts, college in New York City and now is a principal at a Canadian dance company. Why was this Wyomingite called to be a dancer and not a cowboy? There's some mystery in that, but thank goodness he found out what his calling was and had a chance to pursue his dreams.

BTW, there are gay cowboys in Wyoming, and not just in Annie Proulx's short stories.

I like who I have become. An aging tolerant white guy. This puts me at odds with some of my demographic cohort, but it has always been thus. Baby Boomers are a cantankerous lot. All of the battles we fight now, we also fought back in the sixties and seventies. I was a peacenik who was supposed to be a warrior. I was tolerant when I was supposed to be a bigot. I am a feminist who was supposed to be a know-it-all patriarch. I'm a liberal from a conservative family, A writer who was trained to be a priest or a corporate board president or one of those blowhards you see on FOX.

By taking a different path, I took a different path.

And that has made all of the difference.

Then out spake brave Horatius: Get thee some therapy, soldier!

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods?"

From Horatius, by Thomas Babington McCauley

Luis Carlos Montalvan first came across these lines while reading a biography of Winston Churchill. Montalvan was 13, a voracious reader, memorizing McCauley and Poe and Neruda and any other verse that struck his fancy.

"It really fueled my passion for life," Montalvan said. "It also led to a love affair with those teachers who taught me in school."

Luis Montalvan and Tuesday

His parents were well-educated. His father fled Castro's Cuba. His mother emigrated from Puerto Rico. They were well-read and liked to argue about politics.

"My father was a Republican and my mother, a Democrat," he said. "We had lots of discussions. I tended to wear my opinions on my sleeve. At school, kids looked at me, said, 'here's a spirited guy' and beat me up. But I became a warrior and they didn't beat me up any more."

Montalvan's dream was to be a soldier. He grew up in the Reagan era when "the Evil Empire was a true-blue threat." He joined the Army at 17, receiving his parent's consent because he was under-age. He started boot camp in June 1990 just as Operation Desert Shield got started in Kuwait. Desert Storm followed. By the time Montalvan was a trained soldier the following April, the war was over and he wasn't deployed.

But over the course of the next 17 years, he worked his way from the enlisted to the officer ranks and was deployed many times, eventually earning the rank of captain. An explosion knocked him out of action in Iraq. He walks with a cane now, and is aided by a helper dog, a Golden Retriever named Tuesday. But Tuesday helps his master as much with his Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as he does with the physical wounds.

Montalvan joined Iraq War veteran Brian Turner and Desert Shield/Desert Storm veteran Patrick Amelotte at a panel discussion entitled "Active Duty, Active Voices" at the Equality State Book Festival Sept. 14-15 in Casper. Montalvan's book (co-written with Bret Witter) is Until Tuesday: The Story of a Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him. In it, he relates the long journey toward healing his physical and emotional wounds.

As he spoke about his experiences, Montalvan began to recite the McCauley quote above. He stumbled after a few lines. This is caused by an aphasia that stems from his TBI. As Turner and Amelotte took turns speaking, Montalvan brought out a sheet of paper and wrote out the lines of Horatius that he had memorized as a 13-year-old. When it was his turn to speak, he read McCauley's lines.

"I sometimes forget words," said Montalvan. "It's disturbing."

Montalvan has received years of physical and psychological counseling for his wounds.

"I believe in the importance of facing trauma head-on," Montalvan said. "Trauma causes the five stages of grief. It causes physical and psychological suffering. It's impossible to get past trauma by internalizing it."

He encourages every veteran he meets to get counseling. He encouraged everyone in the book festival audience to get counseling.

"When I talk about the value of therapy, that's not learned until one does it," he said. "Here you are in a safe place. What you say is confidential. If your therapist is good, he is there to facilitate you talking about your issues.

"It causes stress to express your journey through pain. It is a release of negative energy. It doesn't really solve anything, but it gets it off of your chest. You sometimes stutter and stammer through these things. But there is a value in what you're forced to do."

Montalvan acknowledged that there is a difference between individual therapy and group therapy. "In group therapy, there's a different dynamic," he said. "Camaraderie builds. There were times when I was in the throes of PTSD and I imagined a whole platoon of friends were behind me. That would give me strength."

The retired Army Captain, who also holds a master's degree in journalism,  notes that writing and speaking have aided in his recovery. He also extols the benefits of journaling, of getting thoughts down on paper. "There's a healing to that."

During a long weekend, veteran suicides wipe out an entire platoon

This is not right.

From an AP wire service story:

So far this year the number of suicides in the military has surged beyond expectations, given that the pace of combat deployments has begun to slow. The Defense Department closely tracks suicides throughout the military but releases its figures only once a year. The Associated Press in June obtained an internal Defense Department document that revealed that there had been 154 suicides in the first 155 days of the year, though June 3. That marked the fastest pace of active-duty military suicides in the nation's decade of war.

This is not right.

This past weekend at the Equality State Book Festival in Casper, Wyo., we heard from a panel of veterans who also are writers. Brian Turner served seven years in the U.S. Army, with deployments in Bosnia-Herzegovinia (1999-2000) and Iraq (2003-2004). Luis Carlos Montalvan served 17 years in the U.S. Army, with a deployment in Iraq that earned him a Purple Heart and a lifelong limp and a case of TBI -- Traumatic Brain Injury. Patrick Amelotte was a U.S. Marine Corps Reservist who was deployed during Desert Shield/Desert Storm in 1991. They all spoke during a panel entitled "Active Duty, Active Voices."

One of the most haunting quotes came from Brian Turner. He noted that 18 veterans or active duty troops commit suicide daily. That includes veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as all of the other conflicts the U.S. has been engaged in during my lifetime: Korea, Vietnam, Cold War, Vietnam (including Cambodia and Laos), Grenada, Central America, Desert Shield/Desert Storm (Iraq and Kuwait), Bosnia, Somalia, and other hotspots too numerous to mention. It seems odd to include The Good War in these stats but, yes, there are aging WWII vets who sometimes choose the gun or rope over the long march into the darkness caused by cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc.

Eighteen per day. At least one of those suicides is by a member if our active duty forces. You know, some 19-year-old kid who used to live next door to you and joined the Army to pay for college or a trade school or to gain citizenship.

Here's how Brian put it:

"There are 18 suicides today, 18 tomorrow and 18 on Sunday when I fly back out. By the time I get back to Orlando, my platoon is gone."

Every three days, we lose a platoon to suicide.

This is not right.

So what are you going to do about it?

I leave you with a Brian Turner poem on the subject (from Here, Bullet). Brian read this poem at the book festival:

Eulogy

It happens on a Monday, at 11:20 A.M.,
as tower guards eat sandwiches
and seagulls drift by on the Tigris River.
Prisoners tilt their heads to the west
though burlap sacks and duct tape blind them.
The sound reverberates down concertina coils
the way piano wire thrums when given slack.
And it happens like this, on a blue day of sun,
when Private Miller pulls the trigger
to take brass and fire into his mouth:
the sound lifts the birds up off the water,
a mongoose pauses under the orange trees,
and nothing can stop it now, no matter what
blur of motion surrounds him, no matter what voices
crackle over the radio in static confusion,
because if only for this moment the earth is stilled,
and Private Miller has found what low hush there is
down in the eucalyptus shade, there by the river.

PFC B. Miller
(1980-March 22, 2004)

Radio interview from the DNC: Ken McCauley, Air Force veteran, isn't disappointed in Pres. Obama

From Cheyenne resident and USAF veteran Ken McCauley, a Wyoming delegate at the DNC:

Pete Laybourn [former member of the Cheyenne city council] is providing updates on 1480-AM KRAE in Cheyenne every morning at 7:45-8:00 a.m. I was his guest this a.m. and talked about how the GOP is pressing a message that Americans should be dissatisfied with our President. I gave a list of reasons I am NOT dissatisfied with President Obama, and focused my comments on military issues. Specifically:

 

As a veteran, I wasn’t disappointed when President Obama:

· Ended the war in Iraq, bringing our soldiers home after a decade of fighting.

· Began the process of drawing down troops in Afghanistan

· Ended the stop-loss policy that kept soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan beyond their enlistment date.

· Ended the media blackout of war casualties so the American people know the true cost of war.

· Provided troops with better body armor and approved funding for the Mine Resistant Ambush Vehicle.

· Improved conditions at Walter Reed and other military hospitals.

· Improved benefits for veterans, including mental health services and treatment for traumatic brain injury.

· Made the hard decision to deploy additional troops when needed in Afghanistan. He campaigned that he would refocus on Afghanistan to locate bin Laden, and he did!

· Killed Osama Bin Laden and eliminated several other top al Qaeda leaders, including tracking terrorists in Pakistan, Yeman, an Somalia.

• Ordered the Pentagon to cover expenses of families of fallen soldiers if they wish to be on site when the body arrives back in the US.

• Ordered a review of the existing “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military (2010)

• Improved the GI Bill for returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. 

• Eliminated co-payments for veterans who are catastrophically disabled.

• Signed The Families of Fallen Heroes Act, which covers the moving costs of immediate family members of those lost in service.

 

Soldier-writers bare "The Soul of America" -- and they're coming to Wyoming this fall

Lance Corporal Nicholas G. Ciccone by Michael D. Fay, a portrait drawn during their duty in Afghanistan. Ciccone committed suicide in 2003. Courtesy of the Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, Triangle, Virginia.

I'm constantly amazed with the creative ways that humans confront their many challenges. Not surprising that many of those responses involve the arts. The arts allow us to express our deepest emotions, such as fear, anger and love. Where would we be without the poetry of love expressed in a Shakespearean sonnet? The anger expressed in a Bob Dylan or Green Day protest song? What about the pain expressed by the warrior in "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "Habibi Hlaloua," a modern dance production about choreographer and dancer Roman Baca's U.S. Marine platoon in Iraq? If they didn't exist, we would have to invent them and, amazingly enough, we are always finding new ways to do just that.

Yesterday I was reading the quarterly magazine of the National Endowment for the Arts. It's dedicated to the military and the arts. Researchers have discovered that writing or creating an artwork about a painful experience, such as trauma experienced in battle, stimulates the same part of the brain -- the right hemisphere -- that is activated with "traumatic recall." This also helps unlock the speech center in the left hemisphere that shuts down when presented with a painful memory. 

This is why veterans such as Ron Capps have found healing in creative writing, and why he went on to found the Veterans Writing Project. Capps has enlisted a slew of talented writers workshop leaders. Some are veterans (Tobias Wolff, Joe Haldeman, Brian Turner) but many are not (Bobbie Ann Mason, Mark Bowden, Marilyn Nelson). Some understanding of the battlefield is a plus, but it's more important to be an effective teacher and a writer who possesses more than the usual quota of empathy. Bobbie Ann Mason wrote a terrific novel about soldier returning home from Vietnam, "In Country." Jeff Shaara never served a day in the military but he puts his readers in the middle of the fighting at Antietam and Vicksburg and, more recently, Normandy and The Battle of the Bulge. You can see and hear some of these writers in the terrific documentary, "Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience." Brian Turner is featured in a segment "What Every Soldier Should Know."Vietnam veteran and novelist Tim O'Brien also is interviewed.

Coincidentally, Turner and O'Brien will be in Wyoming this fall. If you'd like to take a free writing workshop with O'Brien (and who wouldn't?), he will be conducting one on Friday, Oct. 5, as part of the Literary Connection at LCCC in Cheyenne. He is one of three workshop teachers that day from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. -- the others are outdoor writer John Calderazzo from Colorado State University (one of my mentors from my CSU days) and Cat M. Valente.

Turner will be featured at the Equality State Book Festival in Casper Sept. 14-15. On Friday at 1 p.m., he will be reading from his work along with the three winners of the Wyoming Arts Council's poetry fellowship competition. On Saturday at 10 a.m., he will discuss the role of the soldier-writer with fellow Iraq War veteran Luis Carlos Montalvan. The panel moderator will be veteran, poet and Casper College professor Patrick Amelotte. Turner also will be signing copies of his books, "Here, Bullet" and "Phantom Noise" throughout the weekend.

How did these writers translate their experiences into written form? Come on out to these events and find out. They're both in the vicinity, as Casper is only a few Wyoming interstate highway miles away from your Cheyenne neighborhood. 

"Muslim Self Portraits" exhibit at Heart Mountain Interpretive Center comes under fire

From the Heart Mountain Foundation web site:

The Heart Mountain Interpretive Center at the site of a World War II Japanese-American internment camp outside of Cody, Wyo. will present a new exhibit featuring self-portraits that reveal Muslim Americans in everyday life. The exhibit is intended to counteract stereotypes and preconceived notions about Muslims in America at this time in history. Esse Quam Videri: Muslim Self-Portraits will be exhibited in the Ford Foundation Special Exhibition Area through Sept. 18, 2012.

"This exhibit is the first in a series of exhibits at the Interpretive Center that will encourage visitors to think about prejudice, stereotyping and religious, racial and ethnic profiling," said Stevan Leger executive director.

"Esse Quam Videri" means "to be rather than to seem." The exhibit includes photographs, collaged images and self-drawn portraits of and by Muslim Americans are presented with short essays to add context.

For more information, please contact Steve Leger at 307-754-8000 or by email at sleger@heartmountain.org.

Interesting to note that the exhibit has drawn a fair number of critics. This was in an excellent July 30 editorial in the Casper Star-Tribune:

Leslie Maslak of Cody recently questioned the new exhibit in a letter published in The Billings Gazette. “What in the world does a Muslim exhibit have to do with the Japanese-Americans’ internment?” she asked.

Maslak added, “Is this a ‘comparison’ to how we mistreat the ‘peace-loving’ Muslims? Whatever the reason, this exhibit does not belong at the Heart Mountain Relocation Camp.”

Many other area residents apparently agree. An online poll by The Powell Tribune showed that through July 27, 55.9 percent of 1,101 respondents agreed with the center’s decision to host the exhibit, while 44.1 percent disagreed.

--clip--

Shirley Ann Higuchi, chairwoman of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation’s board of directors and the daughter of Heart Mountain internees, explained why the exhibit is perfectly in keeping with the story told by the center.

Higuchi said even 70 years after the internment camps were opened, “We are still sometimes misled by the power of false stereotypes to express mistrust and intolerance toward fellow Americans simply because they resemble an enemy.”

“This exhibit takes a thoughtful look at the diversity and challenges of real Muslim-Americans today, and we hope it will prompt visitors to reflect on possible parallels between perceptions of Japanese-Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor then and Muslim-Americans now,” Higuchi said.

It's tempting to label the exhibit's critics as narrow-minded rubes. We are at war (and have been for more than ten years) with people who resemble those in the exhibit. Stereotypes are hard to counter, especially when they are reinforced so readily and so often.

But look at the mission of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center and tell me that this exhibit doesn't belong there or somehow defames the place. Thanks to the Casper Star-Trib for standing up for something that is so obviously righteous and, judging by the criticism, so necessary.

M.L. Liebler "rides the quatrains" in Afghanistan

Detroit's "Beat Angel" M.L. Liebler is one of the presenters this weekend at the Wyoming Writers, Inc., conference in Casper. He just wrote a great story in the Detroit Metro Times about a recent trip teaching poetry workshops in Afghanistan. Go to this link on the Wyomingarts blog: http://wyomingarts.blogspot.com/2012/05/from-ml-liebler-poet-and-teacher.html

Daniel Junge will be on hand to intro his Oscar-winning doc May 19 at CIFF

The Cheyenne International Film Festival program for 2012 is completed. The CIFF May 17-20 is highlighted by Cheyenne native Daniel Junge and his Oscar-winning documentary “Saving Face."

He’ll be on hand and in person at a reception taking place on the Mezzanine of the Plains Hotel on Saturday, May 19. The screening takes place across the street at 1615 Lincoln.

Saturday is full and starts with a return screening of John Ford’s classic western “Cheyenne Autumn” which made its World Premiere at the Lincoln Theater in 1963. Actress Carroll Baker will participate in a live interview via Skype following the movie.

See the entire program here.

Call for submissions: Veteran Voices, Open Window Review, Issue III

Open Window Review invites you to submit your poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and creative nonfiction for Issue III: "Veteran Voices." This special topics issue of Open Window Review is devoted entirely to writing from, for, and about the experiences of veterans, service members, their friends, families, and their communities. We at Open Window are glad for the opportunity to provide a venue for all kinds of discourse on the military, military life, and conversations on what it means to live in a country at war. Also see the Open Window Review Facebook page for more details and a link to Issue I and Issue 2 (due out later this month)

Categories:

Poetry: Please submit up to three standard-length poems (no more than 12 pages, total)

Fiction: Please submit work in flash-fiction (250-1,000 words); short fiction (1,000-5,000 words); novel excerpts (up to 20 pages, standard.)

Creative nonfiction: Please submit up to 15 pages of creative nonfiction

Non-fiction: Please submit up to 15 pages of straight non-fiction/personal essay/journalism.

Deadline and contact info: Please submit your work, along with a brief, third-person bio (no more than 150 words) and a photo (optional), to Senior Contributing Editor Oscar Lilley at veteranvoices.owr@gmail.com by 10 p.m. on May 31, 2012.

Prizes/Awards: One $100 prize will be awarded to winners in each of the four categories: Poetry, Non-fiction, Creative Nonfiction, and Fiction.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Wyoming poets may also want to submit their work to the Wyoming Arts Council's 2013 creative writing fellowships. Fellowship judge is soldier-poet Brian Turner, U.S. Army Iraq War veteran and award-winning author of "Here, Bullet" and "Phantom Noise." More info at http://wyomingarts.blogspot.com/2012/03/soldier-poet-brian-turner-is-judge-for.html

Wanted: Obscure films and photos of Dick Cheney

Cheney in his most famous role as grumpy old right-winger

Noted filmmaker R.J. Cutler is doing a movie about former Republican Veep and war criminal Dick Cheney. He seeks footage from Dick's years as a callow Wyoming youth.


Let’s see if we can come up with photos of Dick Cheney in a tutu. Or a young Dick torturing a kitten. Or lost footage of Cheney volunteering for the draft and slogging through a Southeast Asia rice paddy (he was so eager to send our children to Southwest Asia to slog through the desert). 

This comes from the Casper Star-Trib (via the Billings Gazette):

Starting in December, Cutler's Hollywood-based production company, Actual Reality Pictures, placed ads in the Casper Star-Tribune asking for film footage or photographs of Cheney, who lived in Wyoming during his teen years, attended the University of Wyoming, and represented the state in Congress from 1979 to 1989. 

Ryan Gallagher, an associate producer at Actual Reality, said the company is looking for footage that they wouldn't be able to find in government archives or purchase from stock film companies.  

"You look for as much exclusive and unknown footage that you can," Gallagher said. "Maybe somebody has a home video somewhere that we haven't heard about and that we'd just like to see."  

So far, Gallagher said his company hasn't gotten much response.  

The Cheney documentary is scheduled to air on Showtime sometime next fall, Gallagher said. Gallagher said it's "premature" to give details about what the documentary will be about, as they're just now starting to work on the film.  

Cutler is best-known for documentaries such as the Oscar-nominated "The War Room," which chronicled Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, and "American High," an Emmy-winning film about the lives of high school students in suburban Chicago. 

Anyone interested in submitting pictures or film of Cheney can contact Actual Reality Pictures at 213-534-3970 or cheneydoc@gmail.com.

Laramie's Nancy Sindelar: Eat an apple for peace, ya'll

Nancy Sindelar, Veterans for Peace, Laramie

It may be a slight exaggeration to say that there would be no peace movement in Laramie without Nancy Sindelar.

A slight exaggeration.

Nancy, a military veteran, helped initiate Laramie's weekly downtown antiwar protests (still going strong) and is the point person for its Veterans for Peace chapter.

She has lots more in the works. The Peace House, for one.

The Peace House is a block from my place near downtown being set up for potlucks, house parties (films) and meetings. Space for a share garden. Great apple tree getting close to harvest.

I'll settle for an apple even though (like Duane) I usually eat a peach for peace.

And this is coming up:

Wednesday, September 21, on the International Peace Day, come see the film "The Day After Peace" at the Albany County Public Library in Laramie. At 7 p.m., Veterans for Peace Wyoming chapter 65, and the Wyoming Peace, Justice, and Earth Center, will be presenting the story of how one man managed to get the cooperation of all the factions in Afghanistan to stop fighting long enough to vaccinate 1.4 million children against polio.

Nancy has a fine calendar of events hat she distributes by e-mail. I regularly steal postings from it and you should too. To get on the list, drop me a line and I'll send it to her. To keep up with Nancy via Facebook, go to http://www.facebook.com/nancy.sindelar

Peace. And thank you for your service, Nancy.

NN11: Make Clean Energy Not War (through art)

Artwork by Susan Slavick

Minneapolis Convention Center protest by the group 10 Years and Counting, as artists try to put a face to 10 years of war. Protesters hold up a 13-figure number that represents the bill for a decade of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and various other locales.

Sept 11 - Oct 7, 2011 will mark the ten year anniversary of our nation continuously at war. 10 Years + Counting invites artists and others to take this historic moment as inspiration and use the power of creativity to illustrate the costs of war and image a more peaceful world. 

Paint it, dance it, sculpt it, write it, sing it! Imagine peace and create connections. Concerts, public art projects, garden parties, bake-offs, gallery exhibitions, street art, flash mobs, walks and runs: the possibilities are endless. 

Turn the weeks of this anniversary of devastation into an unstoppable, irrepressible explosion of imagining the possible, a new beginning.

Add your creation, gathering or event to the 10 YEARS + COUNTING calendar by going to www.10yearsandcounting.org

Mission accomplished... for reals!

From Daily Kos

Mission actually accomplished. Obama bags Osama

In reference to my previous blog about the non-accomplishment of an earlier mission...

Daily Kos: Mission actually accomplished. Obama bags Osama

Guest blogger: "Three cups of tea" and girls' education are keys to Greg Mortenson's mission

Guest blogger this week is Linda Coatney, Cheyenne poet/essayist and fine ukelele player and singer. She reports on Greg Mortenson's March 29 presentation in Cheyenne. 

Greg Mortenson has humanitarian marrow in his bones.

As an adolescent, Mortenson lived in Africa with his Lutheran missionary parents and his then three-year-old sister as his father set up the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center in Moshi, Tanzania, which was opened in 1971. His father announced that, in ten years, the facility would be staffed by the citizens of Tanzania. A month later he was fired for having the audacity to think that Tanzanians could run their own hospital.

So Mortenson, who spoke in Cheyenne Tuesday night, is familiar with failure. The title of the first chapter in his book Three Cups of Tea is "Failure." It is the beginning of his prophetic journey in building girls schools, first in Pakistan, and then in Afghanistan. At 23, Greg's sister Christa died from a massive epileptic seizure on the morning she was to go on her dream trip to Deyersville, Iowa, where the movie Field of Dreams had been filmed. She was inspired by the film and watched again and again.

Mortenson decided that he would climb Kilimanjaro in Christa's honor. He brought her necklace with him and he planned to leave it as an offering at the top of the mountain to "whatever deity inhabited the upper atmosphere" (From Three Cups of Tea, pg. 9). He had summited "The Savage Peak" at eleven years of age, and had much climbing experience at other locations. Nothing to it to doing it again, he thought.

He ended up spending 78 days on the mountain, but never made it to the top. When he finally got down, a sick and exhausted Mortenson ended up in the village of Korphe, where the first school was built.

At the Cheyenne presentation, we watched a short film about the first school built in Afghanistan. On Mortenson's first visit to Afghanistan, he discovered classrooms of boys in the metal storage containers used by the Russians during their invasion and occupation of the country. He also saw that the girls had no place to hold class except outside on a hillside. It was here that he met Gomajin, a young boy who herded his goats while watching the progress of the school. He was anxious for its completion so that he could attend. But he stepped on a land mine and died from his wounds. In Gomajin's memory, his father learned how to remove land mines. There is a monument to Gomajin near the school. From the first board for framing, the villagers wanted a strong school, one that could withstand bombs.

The term “three cups of tea” means that with the first cup, you are a stranger, second cup a friend, and by the time you are drinking a third cup, you are family. But this is not a linear progression, 1-2-3, boom, you're in. In every village, there is an unspoken progression of bringing one into the social circle. It may take many cups of tea, not formally ceremonial, but an important indicator of acceptance and trust. Greg has taken many cups of tea in his 18 years in the field, and has been able to bring schools to villages where one would not think they would survive, let alone thrive.

Why girls schools? Educating girls has many positive rewards for the community. Women bring life and nurture it after it is here. Statistics show that when girls are educated, the birth rate drops, the infant mortality rate drops, the quality of life improves, and women go back and serve the community from a more informed place. It is a powerful thing when a woman can read the news. Isolation breeds fear. It becomes a vicious circle of fear and ignorance breeding ignorance and fear. Education is the only way to civility.

Mortenson, who lives with his family in Montana when not traveling, mentioned more statistics. Since 2007, more than 3,000 girls schools have been destroyed or shut down by extremist groups. There is a proverb that says, "The ink of a scholar is holier than the blood of a martyr." In 2000, there were only 800,000 students, mostly boys age 5-15. In 2011, the count was up to 8.3 million children, with 2.8 million of those girls.

In talking with the elders of these villages, Greg has been told that they don’t need firepower, they need brain power; that they want to be part of the decision-making process; that they want education; that if they don’t like someone, they will take care of them. Afghanistan is also sitting on a mining boom, and the rest of the world is waiting to exploit 

The subtitle on Three Cups of Teas is “One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time.” This was not the first choice of the publisher, who wanted to say something about one man's mission to fight terrorism. But Mortenson is adamant that he is doing this to promote peace. The book didn't sell with the publisher's subtitle, but Greg was able to get the publisher to agree that the subtitle would be changed if the book didn't at first do well. After the subtitle was changed, the book became a best-seller.

Mortenson also talked about the poverty in this country and how we must be willing to touch, hear, and be poverty to realize any formative changes to the situation. His Pennies for Peace program does this, and suggests the grass roots effort in towns across America of collecting pennies and getting the money to our most impoverished schools. This was his first fund-raising program, but it only began when he was asked to speak at a school about how to get the school built in Korphe. Up to then, he had typed hundreds of letters asking for donations, and only received one check back, from TV commentator Tom Brokaw. A young boy brought his pennies to Greg, and that is how Pennies for Peace began.

Our military mission in Afghanistan now includes soldiers who work at laying some groundwork for the beginning of a school in villages. Greg believes the most successful mission begins with empowering the members of the village. They must dedicate the land for the school, provide the labor to build, and get the materials to where they need to be. With this kind of investment, the village is not so willing to let the school be closed. When the elders of a village in Afghanistan played on the playground of a school, they told Greg they wanted a school in their village, a place where extremists had a strong hold, but only if it had a playground also. They told him that as children, they never had a chance to play, all they were taught was to fight.

Around the world, children are bought and sold into slavery, and at the youngest of ages, are taught to kill. Soccer balls are made by children in Pakistan. China and India have huge child labor forces. Children are mistreated, poorly fed, work fourteen-hour days, and fear abduction and/or molestation at night. Many just disappear. They are certainly not allowed to go to school, but many want to.

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a speech in which he tried to emphasize what it will take to make headway against the extremist faction in this part of the world. The only hope to supplant the extremist movement is through education, and understanding a culture in which we are too quick to judge as not in the least understandable. He says that hearts and minds cannot be captured by force. Maybe he remembers when Rep. Charlie Wilson was jeered out of Congress when he asked the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for $1.5 million to be put into education in war-torn Afghanistan, after the Russians had been ousted by Wilson’s bringing stinger missiles to the Afghan people.

Mortenson can just guess what the world might look like today if education had been the goal back then.

 As one village elder told Greg, the more bombs you drop, the harder the earth becomes. 

So Mortenson continues his work against the ill winds of prejudice and ignorance.

After his Cheyenne speech, he received a standing ovation from the 5,000-some attendees.

--Linda Coatney, Cheyenne

Many local events lead up to March 29 talk in Cheyenne by activist and author Greg Mortenson

I try to spend some of that time I once devoted to Sunday morning mass to the contemplation of nature, spirituality and even organized religion.

While reading this morning’s Cheyenne paper, I saw an ad promoting the appearance of activist, educator and author Greg Mortenson. He wrote the acclaimed bestseller, “Three Cups of Tea,” about his experiences promoting primary education in Afghanistan. He will speak on Tuesday, March 29, 7-8:30 p.m., at the Taco John’s Event Center in Cheyenne. Tickets are $5 for students and $15 for the general public.

Presented by these Cheyenne Community Partners: Laramie County Community College, LCCC Foundation’s Gerald and Jessie Chambers Speakers Series, Rotary International, Laramie County Library System and Foundation, Laramie County School District #1.

Great cooperation on this project by all levels of the public education system. That includes the library. Kudos to Rotary International. I admire their good work. So many selfless and community-minded organizations out there. The Lions work on behalf of better vision, the Shriners sponsor childhood learning disability clinics, the Kiwanis Club seems to do all the good things a community needs, such as the amazing free pancake breakfasts during Cheyenne Frontier Days. I find it compelling that a bunch of people can gather together to perform good works. Such a contentious age we live in, yet altruism continues. We must crave it.

A few words about Mortenson from the LCCC Foundation web site:

Greg Mortenson, co-author of the New York Times bestseller, "Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time," will share insightful commentary and stunning photography to educate and promote awareness of the importance of primary education, literacy and cross-cultural understanding about the remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson has dedicated his life to bringing education where few education opportunities existed before. In 1996, he co-founded the Central Asia Institute with his wife, Tara Bishop, and since then has managed to construct 145 schools in the Middle East and bring educational opportunities to more than 64,000 students, including 52,000 girls. Mortenson’s extraordinary journey has had many hardships, but recently it also has brought international appreciation. In 2009, he was awarded the "Star of Pakistan" and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in both 2008 and 2009. FMI: 307.433.0024.

A number of events this month lead up to the March 29 event. Our family has been collecting pennies for Pennies for Peace. The library has focused many of its events around the concepts of altruism. Here’s one:

TEENS MAKE A DIFFERENCE, March 16, 6 p.m.: Join us for an evening with Judge Ronn Jeffrey as we explore ways you can impact your community in a positive way. Teens will have a chance to win a ticket to hear Greg Mortenson speak at the Taco John’s Event Center on March 29, 7 p.m. Don’t forget to bring your Pennies for Peace! (Grades 7-12 & parents, Cottonwood Room, 1st floor).

The library also will host a tea party on St. Patrick’s Day, celebrating tea-drinking cultures such as Ireland, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Very innovative. ON St. Patrick’s Day, many of us forget that the Irish also drink tea.  

LCCC has also planned a number of related events. This coming week is spring break on campus. But on Wednesday, March 23, these are scheduled:


Ethnic food tasting: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., Center for Conferences & Institutes, Room 129/130. Food tasting limited to LCCC students and employees. Roundtable discussion: “Women and Islam in a Central Asian Context” with Dr. Marianne Kamp, Dr. Mohammed Salih and Arshi Nisley. 1-3 p.m., Center for Conferences & Institutes, Room 129/130.

See other events celebrating the work of Greg Mortenson

Schedule of events leading up to Greg Mortenson's March 29 talk in Cheyenne

In January, I reported that Greg Mortenson, author and activist, will be speaking in Cheyenne on March 29.

There will be an entire slate of events in Cheyenne leading up to Mortenson's talk. Here they are (cross-posted from wyomingarts blog):

Tuesday, March 22.       

·       MOVIE: 12:00-2:00 in the student lounge. Charlie Wilson’s War  (popcorn and snacks will be provided).

·   PUBLIC DISCUSSION: 6:30-8:00pm in CCI 129/130 (The Centennial Room). Prints of Central Asia: Peggy Kelsey’s Afghan Women’s Project.

o      An exhibit of Ms. Kelsey’s prints will go up in the Ludden Library in early February.

o     A reception in the library will follow Ms. Kelsey’s talk on March 22

Wednesday, March 23.

·       ETHNIC LUNCH: 12:00-1:00 pm in CCI 1219/130 (The Centennial Room).

·       ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION: 1:00-3:00 pm in CCI 1219/130 (The Centennial Room).  Dr. Marianne Kamp, Dr. Mohammed Salih and Arshi Nisley will discuss Women and Islam: Confronting Misconceptions.

Thursday, March 24.

·       MOVIE: 12:00-2:00 in the student lounge. The Kite Runner (popcorn and snacks will be provided)

Friday, March 25:

·       BOOK DISCUSSION: 12:30-1:30pm. Discussion of Greg Mortenson’s book  Three Cups of Tea and/or Stones into Schools.  Students interested in participating should contact Jennifer McVay for information and to make arrangements.

LCCC students will be visiting local schools to discuss Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea. Where appropriate they will also be discussing the children’s edition Listen to the Wind.

Instructors at LCCC have integrated readings from Mr. Mortenson’s books into course curriculum.

The LCCC Ludden Library will be creating displays that look at life in Central Asia.

Finally, we hope to have LCCC students prepare poster presentations that examine different aspects of life in Central Asia.

FMI: David Marcum, LCCC Instructor of Political Science and Director of Government Studies and International Studies, 307.778.1220.

Questions that relate to Greg Mortenson’s actual visit on March 29 should be directed to the LCCC Foundation at http://www.lccc.cc.wy.us/

"Three Cups of Tea" author Greg Mortenson to speak in Cheyenne March 29

From a post on Facebook (cross-posted from wyomingarts blog):

Two-time Nobel Prize nominee Greg Mortenson will share insightful commentary and stunning photography to educate and promote awareness of the importance of primary education, literacy and cross-cultural understanding about the remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

He will speak at the Taco John’s Events Center in Cheyenne on Tuesday, March 29, 7-10 p.m. Limited amount of tickets go on sale on Friday, Jan. 7. Tickets: $5 Students (K-College)/$15 General Public. Contact the Taco Johns Events Center at (307) 433-0025 or on-line at www.cheyennecity.org

Greg Mortenson promotes peace through education. He is the co-founder of nonprofit Central Asia Institute www.ikat.org, founder of Pennies For Peace www.penniesforpeace.org, and co-author of New York Times bestseller "Three Cups of Tea" which has sold over 4 million copies, been published in 47 countries, and a New York Times bestseller since its 2007 release, and Time Magazine Asia Book of The Year.Mortenson’s new book, "Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books Not Bombs, In Afghanistan and Pakistan," was released by Viking on December 1, 2009.

As of 2010, Mortenson has established over 145 schools in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide education to over 64,000 children, including 52,000 girls, where few education opportunities existed before.

Laramie County Partners are bringing Greg Mortenson to Cheyenne for a series of activities, including talking to school children and a public event in the evening on March 29. The partners include: Laramie County Community College Foundation, Laramie County Community College, Cheyenne Rotary, Laramie County Library, Laramie County Library Foundation and Laramie County School District No. 1.

http://www.facebook.com/LaramieCountyPartnersPresentGregMortenson

U.S. Army stats: Discharges for mental disorders increase by 64 percent

Disturbing news from a USA Today story as reported in The (Pakistan) Nation on the Web:

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are taking a toll on minds as well as bodies, statistics released by the U.S. Army indicate.

The Army said the number of U.S. soldiers forced to leave the military because of mental disorders increased by 64 percent from 2005 to 2009, USA Today reported.

Last year 1,224 soldiers received a medical discharge for mental illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

The number accounts for one in nine medical discharges.

Army Lt. Col. Rebecca Porter, a behavioural health official, said research shows "a clear relationship between multiple deployments and increased symptoms of anxiety, depression and PTSD."

The Pentagon reported in May that mental health disorders caused more hospitalizations among U.S. troops in 2009 than any other medical condition.

Joe Davis, a spokesman for Veterans of Foreign Wars, said the military is excellent at treating visible wounds but not wounds to the mind.