In which Covid catches up with me and I ask: What if?

I remember how careful we were during the first weeks of the Covid-19 plague. We got our groceries delivered, left on the porch or (if snowing) just inside the front door. The deliverer wore a mask and we work masks. We brought the groceries into the kitchen and wiped them down with disinfectant and, early on, wiped down each plastic and glass container. They told us that was SOP now, be careful, don't let this coronavirus sneak into your home, invade your nose or mouth, and send you to the hospital where you might not make it out alive. The grocery stores ran out of disinfectant wipes and spray and toilet paper. Our neighbor's son, just back from overseas wars, felt challenged by the circumstances and prowled the town looking for TP -- and usually found some, maybe a few rolls or a four-pack but nothing like the eight-pack we use in the average week. He was a master scrounger, much like James Garner's character in The Great Escape and the plucky William Holden in Stalag 17. In the latter film, Marshal Dillon's brother, Peter Graves, turns out to be a Kraut spy, which made sense with his Nordic good looks. Arness, meanwhile, went to war and was wounded at Anzio and returned to become a vegetable-like alien electrocuted by the good guys in 1950's The Thing (watch the skies!) and showed his range by becoming all-around good guy Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke. 

But I digress. We took precautions in those pre-inoculation days. We stayed home. When we did leave the house, we wore whatever masks we could find such as the Colorado Rockies masks I found online late one night. Family members got their first shot in February, followed by another in May. There was something about that shot that gave me some hope, took me be back to a childhood where it was our patriotic duty to fight polio with infused sugar cubes and later lining up for shots at my elementary school. The scientists were in their labs! There was nothing Americans couldn't do! We soon would be practicing our golf swing on the moon!

Crazy days, right? I skated through, avoided the plague like the plague. It was so nice when life opened up again, when we could convene at the movies or at concerts. We went through some political difficulties when Prez T thought the plague was all made up and did almost nothing EXCEPT get the vaccines rolling out to all Americans or at least all Americans that weren't anti-vaxxers. He gets credit for that but it helped little in the election even though he had experts such as Rudy Giuliani and The Pillow Guy as advisors. Then came the pre-inauguration Capitol Riots and finally a president that believed in science and wasn't a buffoon.

Which brings us to today. My son brought Covid home and we all caught it. This surprised me as I had received five Covid immunizations including the 2023 booster and, for good measure, was inoculated against the seasonal flu and RSV. I shouldn't be sick, but I am. At the tail end of this thing, I hope. In our household of four, I am the only one still testing positive. Beginning in the second week of 2024, I accumulated the symptoms until I finally understood that I had a case of Covid. I thought I had Covid. We had used up all of our antigen tests so we ordered free ones from the Feds which took seven days to arrive and then paid for tests that rapidly flew off the shelves. I needed a trip to the hospital ER to get a Covid test. And I was positive. Hey doc, I asked the bleary-eyed resident, what are my treatment options? We have nothing for you, he said. I thought he was kidding but he was not. I was not eligible for the Paxlovid-type infusions my daughter was getting. Heart patients don't tolerate it, said the doc. And I am a heart patient. So, my treatment regimen became Tylenol for headaches and body aches, Mucinex DM and Robitussin for my hacking coughs, and don't forget to take your cardiac meds. He also said I should drink plenty of liquids and try some chicken soup. 

They released me into the wild and I still test positive which keeps me at home. I sit by the window and watch the snowflakes fall. Today the flakes are melting, providing nourishing H20 to my flower bulbs. 

I am lucky. I welcomed those Moderna-made shots into my body and for the most part they did their job. I am sobered by the fact that I was very sick for 26 days. If I caught it in Covid's early days, I would have been very, very sick. I am in Covid's bullseye. I am an elderly man with a heart condition. Covid would have ripped through me as it did with so many. I lost my stepmother and two of my high school friends. Millions died. We don't actually know the real numbers due to some of the lunkheads in charge of our larger states, DeSantis and Abbott to name two. I thought about this at 3 a.m. when a cough woke me up and sent me out to meditate in my easy chair. 

What if? 

A salute to those books that taught me humor, satire, and the absurdity of being human

All this book-banning makes me think of all of those books I read that might meet disapproval now from the GOP Know Nothings. 

When I was in the fourth grade, my father told me I could read any book in his library. I tackled the war books, first, Guadalcanal Diary by Richard Tregaskis, Brave Men by Ernie Pyle and Up Front by Bill Mauldin, which included his Willie and Joe cartoons. He had some boys' adventure books from his childhood, Treasure Island and Ivanhoe. But I was more interested in the WWII books, as my father had been a radioman with an infantry unit in France, Belgium, and Germany. They seemed like boys' adventures to me. I read all of the Life magazines that my grandparents had saved for my dad while he was overseas. I watched war movies with my dad, as did my younger brother. We played war with our friends. 

None of my teachers ever assigned books on 20th century wars. They reached into the heroic past. The Revolutionary War had spawned books such as Johnny Tremayne and tales of Paul Revere and George Washington. The Civil War was acceptable reading as we all grew up knowing that the Yankees were the good guys and the Rebs the bad guys. This was way before we moved to the South and heard the term War of Northern Aggression. So many of the books I read as an English major and later were by writers of the American South. Their Southern Gothic tales owed their existence to the region's tortured history which included the Civil War, whatever you want to call it.

Now in my 70s, I look back on my reading as nostalgic. I also know more about the workings of the world. War can be heroic. It's also nasty, brutish, and final. Soldiers carry their experiences into old age, if they make it that far. There are brilliant antiwar books told from the warrior's POV. And books by observers, such as Red Badge of Courage and Dispatches, Michael Herr's wild book about life among the grunts in Vietnam (Herr got writing credits for Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket). 

Just about every book I ever read could be fodder for the book banners. My non-authorized reading at my Catholic high school included three oft-banned novels that influenced me more than anything I read in class: Catch-22, Slaughterhouse-Five, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. They are now considered classics and are read in some high school classrooms when Know Nothings are not disappearing books like Dunbar. They were telling me a truth that I barely knew at 18, that the world is a strange and terrifying place. 

Humor, satire, and sci-fi are great vehicles for getting at the truth. I passed Catch-22 along to my Class of '69 pals and we laughed at the absurdities. The dead man in Yossarian's tent. Major Major Major's name. Orr's pastime of ditching his bomber into the ocean to practice for his escape from war. Hilarious. We only felt a small tremor of the earthquake beneath. We could have watched the absurdity of televised military reports from Vietnam. Body count, Vietnamization, destroy the village in order to save it. It was all right there in front of us but we didn't know. 

Reading good books gave us a bit of a head start on adulthood. Still, you have to live it to really know. You can be an absurdist and still be an engaged human. You can love satire but also fall in love. Humor makes the ride fun even when it's challenging. 

I'd have none of that without the reading.

Book banning in Gillette: A Wyoming story

The American Library Association wrapped up Banned Books Week and now there are no banned books in the land.

Wishful thinking. Know Nothings keep intruding into our book-reading lives. The most recent and newsworthy attempt comes from Gillette in Campbell County. The first salvo came when a few crackpots decided that the library should disinvite an LGBTQ author slated to give a children's workshop. The library received threats. The author received threats. For safety's sake, the author cancelled her appearance and the library moved on to other things. That included fielding challenges for various books, most with LGBTQ subject matter. As staff sorted through the complaints from a cabal of Christian Nationalist zealots, they celebrated Banned Books Week. The county commission held a hearing in which the following exchange occurred (as noted in an Oct. 4 Casper Star-Trib article):

On Sept. 27, during a meeting between the library board and commissioners, Commissioner Del Shelstad suggested cutting the library’s funding.

He said the library shouldn’t come asking the county for more money because in his opinion, “we shouldn’t fund you at all.”

Commissioner D.G. Reardon, who had called into the meeting, asked if he’d heard Shelstad correctly, and if Shelstad meant he wanted to close down the library.

Shelstad said he wanted to cut funding to the library, and ”if that means closing it, then we close it.”

Shelstad received a salvo of complaints and a few days later he back-tracked, sort of:

“I didn’t mean 100% of their funding,” he said. “I said cut their funding. That comes in a lot of shapes and sizes.”

A threat is a threat. He obviously supports and/or is threatened by the naysayers in the county. We know who those people are. Trumpsters. People who go to extremes to “own the libs.” The see any diversity initiative as a threat to their ignorance, which it is. There is a voting bloc of these people and their influence is felt every day at the library, in the media, county commission meetings, and at the polls.

Gillette parent Matt Heath, who spoke up for the library at the commission meeting, summed it up: "hypocrites and bullies need to be stood up against."

Amen, brother. These dogged bullies have always been with us. Trump unleashed them. It is too much to hope they go back into their hidey-holes. We must out-vote and out-talk them. Support your local library. Read a banned book today. And vote, as our complacency as people who value democratic principles have allowed this to happen. Far-right politicians and legislative bodies continue to suppress voting rights and gerrymander the hell out of our states. Misinformation spreads freely.

So get out there, go do that voodoo that you do so well. 

Dear President Trump: Please don't put mental health care on your radar screen

The most distressing news to come out of the Parkland, Fla., high school massacre is that President Trump is now going to pay attention to mental health.

We have seen what happens to issues when Trump starts paying attention to them. His "concern" about our immigration laws have led to families being ripped apart by ICE and the Dreamers dreams to be abandoned.

And then there is the ridiculous border wall.

He and his Congressional cronies addressed the economy by passing the TaxScam bill that turns the economy over to the billionaire class.

Healthcare? He wants drastic cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, the country's two largest health care programs.

SNAP or food stamps? Replace the SNAP system with a plan to send food boxes to those on the program. I would say those "poor people" on the program, but I know better. Our family used food stamps on an interim basis when I was underemployed and we had four mouths to feed on a salary for two. My disabled daughter is now in the SNAP program. SNAP feeds people. I hesitate to guess what kind of Republican-approved edibles would show up in a Trump Food Box.

Education? I have one name for you: Betsy DeVos. She is our so-called secretary of education who wants to privatize our prized public school system and to turn college students into paupers. Trump's base hates the educated class because we insist on using facts in our political arguments.

Now mental health. I have written about the mental health system numerous times. I am not a mental health professional. But my daughter has been in the system for 11 years and I can speak with some authority of her experience -- and ours.

My daughter Annie has been diagnosed as bipolar and has borderline personality disorder. Over the years, our family has sought treatment for Annie in many programs in five states. Why so many? First, she was unable to get the care she needed in Wyoming which, to federal granting programs, is considered a pioneer state, as if we were still rolling across the prairie wagons or handcarts. We are fortunate to live in the state's capital city and have used the services of good therapists and psychiatrists, some in private practice and some who work with Peak Wellness. As a minor, we had some say in the places she was sent for treatment, some of those in Colorado and California. When she turned 18, she made some of those choices, not all of them good. Some were excellent, as was New Roads Treatment Center out of Salt Lake City. Her caregivers in 2018 are at Summit Stone in Fort Collins, Colo. Colorado has a leader and mental health advocate in Gov,. John Hickenlooper.

One of the strengths and weaknesses of the United States is that every state sets its own agenda. Colorado has a Democratic governor and mostly progressive legislature. Wyoming has a Republican governor and a Know Nothing Republican legislature. Guess which state takes better care of its mentally ill?

Just take a look at some of the crackpot bills that are on the agenda for this year's Wyoming Legislature.

Please, I beg you President Trump, don't pay attention to mental health care. It has enough problems without you.

Donald Trump's Know-Nothing attitude would have doomed my Famine Irish ancestors

A Thomas Nast cartoon in Harper's Weekly depicts ape-like Irishmen beating up police on St. Patrick's Day 1867.  

Great read from a 1/10/18 article on Irish Central by Cahir O'Doherty: "President Donald Trump would have turned away the Famine Irish just like the Salvadorans."  Go to https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/cahirodoherty/donald-trump-famine-irish-el-salvador

I don't know much about my great-great grandfather Thomas Shay.

He was Irish, as you might deduce from his last name, born in County Clare.

He left Ireland in the late 1840s (probably 1848) bound for the U.S.

He married Anna Agnes Burns and had three children when they were recorded in the 1850 census as residents of Monroe County, N.Y. By the 1870 census, the Shay family had moved to Iowa and eight children were listed on the rolls.

Thomas died in 1879 and is buried in Johnson County, Iowa.

His first name is my late father's first name and my middle name

My late Aunt Patricia researched these details before the wide use of the Internet and the advent of ancestry.com. She printed out a family tree on a dot-matrix printer. She put the evidence into a memory book for my daughter, born in 1993.

That's what I know. I also have read about anti-Irish sentiment in the mid-19th century. White people feared non-white people, although they were willing to use them as slaves and indentured servants. Strange to think that Irish immigrants were depicted in American papers as unwashed, uncouth bumpkins, or as monkeys and apes. They were Catholic, too, as were their swarthy cousins from Spain, Italy, and Mexico. You know, "Shithole" countries as Trumpists say.

The Know Nothings live. They were out in force last fall in Charlottesville, them and  their vile attitudes and precious tiki torches. They are descendants of the anti-Irish Know Nothings, although I would guess that some of them have Irish or Scots-Irish bloodlines. Scary to think how many Trumpists have Irish surnames. They do not know their history, and they don't care to learn.

Trump's policies may have doomed my Irish ancestors. But who knows -- maybe the Irish Shays would have survived in Ireland and my DNA would have never taken the pathways that eventually led to me. The Shay line would not be in its seventh generation of causing trouble in the U.S.

Immigration can sure be a random thing. You never know where curtailing it or encouraging it will lead. Sometimes you get a Barack Obama.

And sometimes you get a Donald Trump.

A cartoon from the 1850s by the "Know-Nothings" accusing the Irish and German immigrants of negatively affecting an election. From Victoriana Magazine.

The Good Doctor from Wyoming: Trumpcare bears no resemblance to healthcare

Driftglass blogged about the Trump and Roy Moore connection yesterday (and cross-posted by Meteor Blades on Daily Kos). An excerpt:

Donald Trump is a petty, vindictive, racist ignoramus and pathological liar who resonates powerfully with the base of the Republican party for the simple reason that they are, in the main, petty, vindictive ignorami who have been trained by decades of conditioning via Fox News and Hate Radio to mindlessly accept as gospel any comforting bullshit that comes from the mouths of pathological Republican liars. 

I don't know how many different ways we can say it........

Trump is the Party and the Party is Trump.......... 

How about this? Moore is the Party and the Party is Moore. 

Our Wyoming delegation is a telling sample of Republican lawmakers: Sen. Barrasso, Sen. Enzi, Rep. Cheney. These otherwise intelligent people have lost their minds under the sway of Donald Trump. Sen./Dr. Barrasso's resume includes stints at RPI, Georgetown and Yale Medical School. He once replaced people's busted knees for a living in Casper. He was the spokesperson for TV's Wyoming Health Minute. He led the Wyoming Medical Society. A Catholic high school grad, he must have been absent on the days social justice doctrine was discussed. He now somehow believes in Trumpcare, which is no health care at all. In an MSNBC interview with Katy Tur this week, this was the following exchange:

Tur: “There are not protections for essential healthcare benefits in this bill.” 

Barrasso: “And there shouldn’t be!” 

Barrasso, a well-educated ignoramus. Or an opportunist. Or a narcissist like Trump. Or all three. Wyomingites, normally people who will stop to offer aid if they see you stranded on a snowy highway, keep voting for Barrasso. They may help you change a tire. But they also are OK if you just get sick and die. Hard to fathom. In the same post, Driftglass included a screen shot of a tweet by Randi Lawson:

Never could've guessed in our country's divorce, that the left would get custody of football.

How did that happen? That head-smashin', rip-roarin' American religion has been subverted by ethnic activists. So, people who wear nothing but shorts and paint themselves orange and blue for a January Broncos playoff game, now say they will burn their season tickets if black athletes don't stop their uppity behavior. We lefties cheer on the athletes and fellow travelers (including fat-cat owners such as Jerry Jones) as they link arms in solidarity during the anthem. Theirs is a protest against racial injustice.

Strange bedfellows indeed.

So where are we? The United States of America 2017 seems like a banana republic on steroids.

And the doctor offers no cure.

One Cheney cancels, another still is coming to Cheyenne

Novelist Margaret Coel will be replacing Lynne Cheney as the featured speaker at the Booklovers' Bash on Oct. 20 in Cheyenne. The event is a fund-raiser for the Laramie County Public Library. Tix are $80. Get more info at http://lclsonline.org/blb/2017/

I love Margaret's books set on the Wind River Reservation and its environs. What I like even more is that Lynne Cheney is not coming. She sent her regrets as she faces hip surgery, which is not a pleasant experience.

Thing is, the library already sent out color flyers advertising Ms. Cheney. This is every event planner's nightmare. The postcards/flyers/newsletters are in the mail and the speaker cancels. I've been there. I can just imagine the mad scramble that ensued when  the library and its foundation heard the news.

It's also a bummer, personally because I had crafted a snarky post about Cheney coming to town. It follows, because I spent minutes on this piece and hate to waste it. Please note that Cheney's effervescent daughter, Rep. Liz, is coming to town on Oct. 6 to tell us about her plans for affordable healthcare, edible coal, and the glory of posing with Donald Trump as he signs ridiculous and dangerous legislation. You are invited to express your love and admiration for Rep. Liz by going to the Raddison Hotel on Oct. 6, 11:30-1 p.m., where Cheney will be addressing the Chamber luncheon. Bring a sign. More info here. BTW, I can't find a thing about this on Cheney's web site.

Here's my Cheney post:

Lynne Cheney advocates a whitewashed version of history.

No surprise, as she is a diehard Republican. She has a brand to promote and protect. But she is being billed as an "author and historian" for a speech at the Laramie County Library System's Booklovers' Bash on Oct. 20 in Cheyenne. Tickets are $80.

A library-sponsored event is a good time to talk about free speech.

The library board is comprised of good people. I am sure they have the best intentions for the library.

But Lynne Cheney? What has she contributed to the world of letters? What has she contributed to the world?

I realize that we live in a post-truth society. Trump reveals this with every tweet and every public pronouncement. To resist, we have to be certain of our facts. Bloggers have to do some research to see that their snark is based on truth. I use humor in my posts to make a point. A wealth of material is available. Even if you're lazy, it doesn't take that many clicks to find out if a Trump Tweet has any basis in the factual world. I didn't say Real World because that was a TV show based on a staged situation. This makes it Reality TV. People wouldn't watch it if it was Unreality TV. They want to see real people in real situations that are fake. Thus we have Reality TV and Trump in the White House.

Confusing, isn't it?

So I am going to do what I tell others to do: check it out. Read Ms. Cheney's books and her pronouncements on the arts and humanities. And then advise you, in a snarky manner, if you should attend the event or not.

Funny story. Once, the head of the Casper College Library suggested that we bring in Lynne Cheney as a featured speaker at the first Equality State Book Festival in Casper. Ms. Cheney, wrote books, was once head of the NEH in D.C., was a Casper native, etc. Also married to Dick, former Veep. He has a federal building and football field named for him.

Committee members, me and my colleague whom I will call L, voiced our objections. Later, the miffed librarian was heard referring to us as liberal twits. We have treasured than name ever since. I use it as a handle on Twitter. L has taken a less public role, although I still suspect she is a liberal twit in good standing. I only use her first initial because word comes that Jeff Sessions, the gnome who runs the Department of Justice, is considering opening detention camps for liberal twits and their fellow travelers, snowflakes, progressives and libtards. If history serves, Wyoming would make an ideal place for such a camp. Cold, isolated and crazily conservative. Just like Trump.

As far as I know, nobody has organized a protest against Lynne Cheney. It's a bit tricky as this is a library fund-raiser. When Lynne's daughter Liz arrives in Cheyenne at a Chamber luncheon on Oct. 6, a protest is planned. Get more info here. Liz is WYO's lone congressional rep, one shown often in bill-signing photos with Trump. She skipped holding town halls during the summer recess due to the fact that some crazy liberal might show up and ask an embarrassing question, such as "How can you, as a woman, support a misogynistic, racist swine such as Trump?" This language is mild in comparison with some of the Facebook comments I've seen. But of course, we are gentlemen and gentlewomen here at hummingbirdminds.

I am going to try to check Lynne Cheney's books out of the library and read them. I will not buy them. Or maybe I will after reading them. This is what thoughtful people do. This is what thoughtful Americans do. Besides, lobbyists and Halliburton and government service already enriched the Cheneys. They don't need the money. They are giving it away to charities before the Nazgul carry them off to Mordor.

Name an issue and the Know Nothings are against it

A letter writer to the local paper this week used the tired old trope "love it or leave it" in regards to Cheyenne newcomers advocating for change.

Downtown redevelopment. Bike lanes. Legal protections for the LGBT community. The arts and education.

Name an issue and they'll be again' it, dammit. Cheyenne's fine just as it is. You darn California and Colorado liberals go back to where you came from.

The issues are many. Young people such as my daughter cannot find competent mental health care. Hundreds of K-12 students would go hungry over weekends so get shipped home on Fridays with sack lunches. UW graduates cannot find good-paying jobs in their hometown. When they do find one with, say, the state, the pay is 13 percent below private sector wages and Republican lawmakers call you bums. Our downtown has a big hole in its midst and dozens of unoccupied buildings. Gays and lesbians go to public meetings to voice their opinions and abuse is heaped upon them by ranks of grouchy Know Nothings.

Everything's just peachy in Chey-town.

My family and I have lived in Cheyenne since 1991. I'm still a newcomer in some eyes. Because I'm a liberal, me and my views are always in the minority. I have a good job and own a house and my kids attended public schools. I have great friends. As I've said before, if I counted on only having liberals for friends in Wyoming, I'd be lonely.

Americans are migrating to silos. I don't mean the missile variety -- we have plenty of those and people even live in decommissioned ones out on the prairie. People are finding other like-minded people to dwell with. If you're a liberal, you live in a city. If you're conservative, you live in the country or small town. Depending on your location, the suburbs are a mix of outlooks but tend to be conservative.

For much of its existence, Cheyenne has been pretty good about avoiding progress. But during its "Hell on Wheels" days, it was the fastest-growing city on the high prairie. We were supposed to be Denver, you see, but the sharpies down south lured the railroad and developers and boosters and before long its largest daily newspapers was promoting itself as "The Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire." Wow. Didn't take long for this dusty two-bit cowtown at the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek to become the capital of an empire.

And Cheyenne got left in the dust.

One in six Wyomingites live in our county tucked into the southeast corner of this big square state. Who are they? Older than the national average, and overwhelmingly white. Lots of retired government workers live here, including many military. Working cowboys are outnumbered by railroad retirees and those who managed to survive the oil patch. We do have a lot of cowboy fans -- that's University of Wyoming Cowpokes fans not the ones who cheer for Tony Romo on Sundays.

So I'm surrounded by old white guys like me. They tend to be the watchers of FOX News and members of the Tea Party. I can relate to their gripes. But I just don't see how blaming Latinos and gays and our black president helps the future. Their kids and grandkids in Omaha and SLC pick up their smartphones and see a bunch of angry old guys making a scene at a Cheyenne city council meeting. This is not their idea of a good time -- or of a dynamic place to live.

Advice to my Boomer peers -- tone down the hateful rhetoric or this place has the same life expectancy as a roomful of Medicare recipients.

RedState diarist decries "Know Nothing" Trump

The RedState Gathering in Atlanta is getting big news today. RedState guru Erick Erickson "disinvited" Donald Trump to this confab of conservative bloggers after Trump made some rude and crude comments about Fox News host Megyn Kelly, one of the moderators of Thursday's debate. Here's Trump talking to CNN's Don Lemon:

"You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever."

Must give credit to Erickson. Not easy to disinvite the GOP front-runner to the largest gathering of ConBloggers. But bloggers of all stripes do actually pay attention to the minutiae of presidential campaigns. As a Liberal Blogger, I shared a hotel with the conservatives when Netroots Nation and RedState gathered in Minneapolis in 2011. I had a few intriguing conversations at the hotel bar. No common ground, but big doses of passion along with some good info I could use in my own blog.

I went over to RedState to read Erickson's statement. I also stumbled across a diary by Steve Berman that's worth sharing. I've written about the 19th-century Know Nothing movement a few times, even stooping to calling my opponents "Know Nothings" for their belligerent attitudes and knuckleheaded policies. A few of my conservative readers took me to task, feeling that I was calling them stupid. I was not. I was trying to equate their views with those of the Know Nothing Party, which arose in response to Irish Catholic immigration. The Know Nothings' no-nothingness eventually was their undoing.

Berman compares the Know Nothings with the Whig Party, which also disappeared. He contends that Trump's continual Know Nothing behavior could mean the end of the Republican Party. Here's a quote:

The final Whig president of the United States was Millard Filmore in 1853.  He marked the death of the Whigs, and the rise of the Know-Nothings.  Today the GOP faces its own death, and the continued success of Donald Trump in the polls reflects the fact that the Republican Party is staring into its own grave.

And this:

Trump is a direct result of the GOP’s inability to define itself as a party with a purpose.  If the GOP is defined as “everything that isn’t Democrat” then it’s nothing more than the Whigs of 1854.  Dead.

 Strong stuff. Well written. Check it out here. 

The question remains: Why is Trump still the GOP front-runner? 

Superday was the end to a pretty super week

Promoting the brand at Cheyenne's Superday.

When asked to describe Cheyenne's Superday, I sometimes say, "It's like Denver Capitol Hill People's Fair -- without all the hippies."

I get puzzled looks from those who've never attended the People's Fair. That's OK. The People's Fair was -- and still is I guess -- a sprawling street fair started by the counterculture types at Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods (CHUN). This may be hard to believe, but 45 years ago, Capitol Hill was largely unexplored territory, populated by winos, ethnic minorities, longhairs in crash pads, culties, and Greatest Generationites who never got the memo to escape to the burbs.

Adventurous long-haired entrepreneurs bought old houses, staking out a claim in the territory. Enough of them arrived to form a united front, which turned out to be CHUN. That, of course, led to a People's Fair and, much later, legalized marijuana, coffee shops on every corner and craft breweries on every other corner. Hipsters, too. Who needs to read long boring histories about the Front Range when you can come here and get an encapsulated version?

Superday is Middle America's street fair. It was political parties and candidates, during even years anyway.   Non-profits of all kinds have booths. Alzheimer's Association, NARAL, Latina Conference for Youth, Head Start. YMCA. There's a big car show and lots of play areas for the kiddos. Military recruiters are on hand, as are a host of evangelical orgs. Many of the flyers I carried home from Superday featured offers to save my soul and that of America, which seemed to be in particular peril this week after some historic SCOTUS rulings. Save your soul -- all hell is breaking loose. And don't forget to make a generous donation!

I worked the booth for the Laramie County Democrats and its fund-raising arm, the Grassroots Coalition. We were sited adjacent to Head Start and an empty spot that was the site of an unspecified org which chose to take their cause elsewhere when they saw the neighborhood. They were OK with the U.S. Army booth next door. But Democrats? No way. They didn't even stick around to see our nifty "Love is Love" rainbow T-shirts and the life-sized cardboard cut-out of President Barack Obama, who had a pretty good week.

Democrats are woefully outnumbered in Wyoming and Laramie County. But we tend to show up at things like Superday. Republicans don't have to show up as FOX News does the work for them. We get plenty of dirty looks. And more than one person said they didn't want to have their photo taken with the Prez. They were polite about it. Wyomingites are polite, except when you turn them loose on online forums. That's when they vent their spleens, anonymously, of course. There are some pretty ugly spleens out there.

One middle-aged woman made a beeline to our booth and announced that she was an ex-lesbian. That was fine with us. We supposed that being an ex-lesbian was just as good as being an ex-husband or an ex-NFL linebacker or an ex-Republican. Unfortunately, she didn't let it go at that. She contended that homosexuality was a choice. And now we were all going to have to recognize gay marriage and that it was the Democrats' fault. I had seen this person at Tea Party rallies. She crowded our booth and asked each of us, in turn, if we were homosexual. At that moment, none of us were, so that's how we answered. She responded that we could all change that status and become a protected class, thanks to the Democrats and now, the U.S. Supreme Court and its judicial tyranny.

This went on for some time. We tried to reason with the poor woman but to no avail. She eventually moved on, leaving us a bit flustered. Instead of arguing with her, maybe we should have called out the gendarmes? But she probably would have screamed about "government overreach." We could have calmed her with soothing music or therapy-speak which, to Democrats, is almost like a second language. But we all got into the spirit of the debate/shouting match. When you're a liberal living in Wyoming, you tire of these shouting matches. No attempt at logic tends to reach the blunt skulls. Liberals, for our part, tend to be condescending, which doesn't help. Eventually you have to throw up your hands and walk away, heading to the nearest bar.

This shouting and cane shaking is thirsty business

Great to see that Amy Surdam has been named the new executive director of the Cheyenne Downtown Development Authority/Main Street. The organization has been looking for a new director since the departure of Christie DePoorter last year.

Surdam was one of the founders of the Children's Museum of Cheyenne, which will be built sometime soon in "The Hole" downtown. That organization came up with a plan to fill "The Hole," something that the city has been working on for a decade. She and her colleagues get kudos for action in the face of widespread inaction.

Surdam is a nurse practitioner who managed the CRMC Urgent Care Center when it opened near downtown in 2012. She also is a major in the Wyoming Army National Guard. Married to a CRMC ER doctor, she was quoted in this morning's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle as someone who "loves our downtown" and wants to "create a place where my own children will want to return to live and work."

That's the crux of the matter, isn't it? Where will our kids want to live when they're in their 20s and 30s? Good jobs are one thing. Quality of life is another. While young people may find work in Cheyenne, they often choose to live south of the border in Wellington, Fort Collins or Greeley, Colorado. Many would rather live in the college town of Laramie and face the treacherous daily winter commute over the pass than live in Cheyenne. This week, the Laramie City Council passed a measure that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. This is the first municipality in the state to pass such a measure, an effort that's regularly defeated by the Know Nothings in the State Legislature. Laramie, off course, was the site of Matthew Shepard's murder in 1998.

Laramie's downtown is a happening place. I say this as a 64-year-old soon-to-be-retiree. Let's go over to Laramie, ma, and get one of those Geritol-laced lattes at Coal Creek Coffee, sit outside on the patio and watch the trains rumble by. I'd rather be perusing the shelves at Night Heron Books or lunching at Sweet Melissa's. But you get the idea. Downtown Laramie is full of life while Cheyenne is still working on it. Lots of credit goes to Trey Sherwood, director of the Laramie DDA/Main Street org.

I think Cheyenne may have found a similar dynamo in Ms. Surdam.

The City of Cheyenne received some good news this week. The feds have pledged $3 million to the city's West Edge Project. The city now has $15 million to get that project going. It will transform the west end of downtown into a network of parks, business and living spaces. You can find out more about it here. One of the more intriguing ideas in this effort is an idea to take renovated historic railroad cars, park them on spurs and turn them into bistros and shops. The city is working on this with the High Plains Railroad Preservation Association. This is a terrific way to celebrate Cheyenne's heritage, a city founded in 1867 as a "Hell on Wheels" railroad camp.

The Cheyenne DDA/Main Street has some funding challenges, as we've been reading about lately. Local naysayers don't see the value of a vibrant downtown development organization. They often get the most ink and air time because they're the loudest and crankiest. You kids get out of my downtown! This gray-headed, cane-wielding (knee replacement surgery) old guy could be one of the cranky ones. But if you see me down at the Depot Plaza shaking my cane at a group of young people, I'll probably be saying something like: Welcome to our downtown, kids. Spend your time and money down here, and don't forget to volunteer for some of DDA/Main Street's fine projects. And while you're at it, fetch me an IPA from Freedom's Edge or the Cheyenne Brewing Company. This shouting and cane-shaking is thirsty business.

New generation of book censors play the same old tune

Fiction must be very dangerous.

Why else would parents and school officials be trying to censor Huckleberry Finn, The Scarlet Letter, and A Farewell to Arms?

Parents of students at Highland Park High School in Texas must sign permission slips for their little darlings to read the above classics. I read all of them in Catholic school. Nobody ever asked my parents if it was OK to read such horrible stuff. Nuns and priests assigned them so they must have been just fine, right?

I could see Sister Miriam Catherine laughing with glee if my mother would have said, “Huckleberry Finn is a dangerous book.” And the good sister didn’t laugh easily. My mother would never had said that. She was too busy raising a passel of kids and working as a nurse. My father? When I was in the fourth grade, he invited me to read any book in his expansive library, courtesy of the Book-of-the-Month Club. Keep in mind that he was a conservative Catholic parent, an accountant by trade who read voraciously. Not read Huckleberry Finn? Don’t be absurd. He would have never said “don’t be absurd.” It’s something a character in a novel might say, an English classic such as “Wuthering Heights” (read it in grade school) or maybe one of the fake royalty riding the raft down the Mississippi with Huck Finn and Jim.

My parents and my four grandparents all were readers. Until my father went to college on the G.I. Bill, none had advanced farther than high school. They all would have considered it strange and un-American to tell us what not to read.

Soon at Highland Park, more books will be added to the list:

They are The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Dracula by Bram Stoker, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, and The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler.

I regret that I have only read two of the books on this list. Now I have added them to my reading list.

Meanwhile, in Arizona, rapidly trying to outpace Texas on the batshit-crazy list, teacher Dave Peterson is under fire for teaching “pornographic” literature to their children. The pornography includes classics, such as “Hills like White Elephants” by Hemingway and “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor, as well as gems of contemporary fiction by Junot Diaz, Amy Hempel, Tobias Wolff, Ron Carlson and Alice Walker. I’ve read the entire reading list which has been thoughtfully posted on Facebook. It tickles me that Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” is on the list, a tale about political correctness gone bonkers (did any of the critics actually read these pieces?). It’s a fine reading list, one that I printed out for my own edification. Peterson also included an introduction to his list which serves as both encouragement and a warning. This is obviously a responsible mentor to our children, which is more than I can say about his right-wing critics.

There is a petition on Facebook supporting Peterson. Go sign it, read his list and then go out and read all of the selections. My fellow fiction writers are counting on you.

Remember what Kurt Vonnegut wrote in a letter to the chairman of the Drake (N.C.) school board who had burned some of the author's books:

“If you were to bother to read my books, to behave as educated persons would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in any favor of wildness of any kind. They beg that people be kinder and more responsible that they often are. It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely in real life. Especially soldiers and hard-working men speak coarsely, and even our most sheltered children know that. And we all know, too, that those words really don’t damage children much. They didn’t damage us when we were young. If was evil deeds and lying that hurt us.” 

Maybe Gov's new science panel may negate some of the damage done by the legislature

Democratic Party Gubernatorial candidate Pete Gosar was bemused by Gov. Mead's announcement of the selection of a panel to improve science education at our only four-year public university. This from Gosar's Facebook post:

The current administration appoints a panel to upgrade science at the University of Wyoming, but just a few months ago censored science for Wyoming students in K-12. Let's hope this panel puts in a full complement of remedial science courses at UW to ensure that our students can learn after graduation what they were denied before graduation.

It's difficult to live down the embarrassment of the legislation from last legislative session that banned schools from adopting national science standards. Gov. Mead signed off on the legislation offered by Rep. Matt Teeters (R-Lingle) who, thankfully, lost his primary challenge and will no longer darken the halls of the legislature with his Dark Ages approach to book larnin'. 

How many science panels and commissions does it take to negate one piece of boneheaded legislation?

Difficult to know. Word travels fast in this cyber-age. I read the bios of those appointed to the panel and was impressed. They are supposed to make some recommendations to the Gov by Nov. 1, just four days before the election. One of those recommendations should be: "Repeal the legislature's anti-science footnote and keep Republican legislators as far away from education legislation as humanly possible."

Then maybe we can get back to the business of being a player in the 21st century instead of a bystander.

Who out-crazied who -- or whom -- in last night's Wyoming gubernatorial debate?

I was pleased to see 40-some people last night at Music & Poetry at Metro Coffee Company in downtown Casper. They had so many other choices: Sharknado II reruns, bicycling, drinking, canoodlling, riding the rapids on the North Platte, napping, The Internet, etc. Perhaps the biggest conflict took place last night in Riverton, where the three Republican gubernatorial candidates were duking it out. The debate was aired on Wyoming Public Radio.

I listened to none of the debate.  I was preparing my work to be read aloud in public. And we had a fine time right there at Metro, with Chad Lore performing his own humorous songs and then cutting loose with with some Dylan and a rollicking version of "St. James Infirmary Blues."

According to WyPols, two of the three Repub Gub candidates did their best to out-crazy one another. Who won?  

So who out-crazied who in this debate? It’s tough to call a winner, because both Haynes and Hill both worked so hard for the title. But our money is on the superintendent, if only for this nonsensical answer she gave about whether she would ever support same-sex marriage: 

“Marriage is between a man and a woman, period. We have sisters and brothers, moms and dads, and aunts and uncles, and sons and daughters, and we all have to work together and live together, and it’s critical. Marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Huh?

Wyoming Democrats respond

The Wyoming Democratic Party is fighting back in a timely manner, which I appreciate.

We are outnumbered by Republicans. That is true and will remain true in the foreseeable future. But that doesn't mean we should be relegated to a position of Repub Lite.

Dem Party Chief Robin Van Ausdall was on the front of Friday's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle urging Dems not to cross over in the Aug. 19 primary and vote for one-time moderate Gov. Matt Mead in his race vs. Tea Party loony Taylor Haynes and partially dismissed Superintendent of Public Instruction Cindy Hill.

How did crossing over work for us in 2010?

NOT!

WyoDems' communications director Javier Gamboa (right) with fellow Dems at Cheyenne Day house party (from left): Rep. Mary Throne, Senate District 9 candidate Dameione Cameron and activist Chris Shay. A good time was had by all, Dems, Repubs, Indies and even those who don't give a damn and just want to stomp and holler.

Taylor Haynes was all over social media on Friday slamming the Dream Act and Obama's immigration policy. Haynes doesn't like those nogoodnik immigrants. So Wyoming Democratic Party Communications Director Javier Gamboa wrote a response which I would share with you here except that my cut-and-paste tool is not working. This always saves me a lot of work actually writing my own stuff. But go to this link and read Javier's response: http://www.wyodems.org/media

It's not easy being a Democrat in this very red state. But it begins to lose all meaning when, lacking our own candidates, we throw our weight (what there is of it) behind the most moderate Republican. Problem is, a so-called moderate Republican governor has to deal with a legislature increasingly composed of extremist conservatives. Lots of reasons for this, including decades of gerrymandering by Republicans. But the moderates, such as Cale Case from Fremont County, are leaving. Those who remain are being pulled further to the right. At least two rural social-issue moderates have died in the past year: Rep. Sue Wallis of Campbell County and Sen John Schiffer of Johnson County. Wallis was replaced by a right-winger who once wrote that people with AIDS should be rounded up and put in concentration camps.

I've never crossed over. It can be a useful tool but what's the point? I already know a number of Democrats who register as Republicans just so they have someone to vote for in the primary. That skews the number of registered Democrats. And those people tend to not get involved in progressive politics, some because they're afraid of losing their jobs and others because they have their own businesses and fear that being a visible D in an R world would kill the bottom line. We have to live in the real world. Wyoming, for the most part, may be a tolerant place, but that tolerance only goes so far. I've never been shot at or beat up walking neighborhoods for Dem candidates. But if looks could kill? I'd be dead a thousand times over.

I'm glad that the Democratic Party continues to speak up long and loud. Being visible is a form of resistance against the status quo. It's sad to think that we live in a place where just registering and voting as a Democrat can be a radical act.

Sunday morning round-up

Half-awake on a January morning, I hear a lawnmower and think of summer. Then I'm fully awake and realize that my neighbor is clearing the ten inches of overnight snow with his snowblower.  The warmth of summer stays with me until I throw off the covers and begin the process of going to work on a winter morning. Certain sounds can recreate a July day. The whine of a lawnmower. The rumble as my neighbor Mike starts up his Harley. The hum of traffic from I-25 when a west wind blows. The shrieks of children playing. The drone of a small plane as it takes off from our neighbor, the airport. Dogs bark, doves coo. Late at night, I can hear that lonesome train whistle blow. The windows are wide open (no air conditioning) and the world comes in.

Javier Gamboa, Wyoming Democratic Party communications manager, wrote a thoughtful Fourth of July essay about his undocumented status and why immigration reform is crucial. It's one thing to stand on a Murrieta, California, road and yell epithets at Salvadoran children. It's yet another to actually know and work with someone who travelled the same hard road. Javier was 11 when he came to Wyoming from Mexico. He learned the language, graduated from high school and UW and now criss-crosses the state on behalf of Dem candidates. Read Javier's essay here. And then e-mail Rep. Cynthia Lummis and demand that she and her fellow Know Nothings get their butts in gear on immigration.   

So glad that I had a chance to see 1776 the movie on TCM Friday afternoon. I sat down with a turkey sandwich and switched on the tube, wondering if there wasn't some quirky, melodramatic 1940s film to pass the time between bites. Instead I got 1776, which I'd never seen, not on the stage nor on the screen. The film was released in 1972, when I was 21. Those hot and argumentative days of 1776 in Philly seemed a long way from those hot and argumentative days of summer 1972. Forty-some years later, the heat and the arguments only seem to be getting worse. But that's American history. Heat and light, substance and folly -- it's all there, if you only know where to look. Don't bother with school textbooks. All the life has been squeezed out of the stories you read about in fourth grade. Right-wing zeolots want to turn our founding fathers into cardboard saints. We lefties treat them as dysfunctional parents. In 1776, we see Franklin and Adams and Jefferson as humans. That was refreshing in its day and still is. Here's a Popwatch columnist writing about ten reasons to watch 1776 in 2014.

A final Fourth of July weekend note.... my garden, decimated by hail two weeks ago, is showing signs of recovery. My Homeslice tomato plant was sliced up by marbles of ice. One lone stem with one lone leaf  remained, but now another is growing out below. My Early Girl tomato is blooming and has at least one tiny green tomato showing. The season has been delayed but with a little TLC and a lot less hail, I will have veggies yet.

Pete Gosar asks: Got science?

Refreshing to have a Wyoming gubernatorial candidate who actually believes in science and modern science education. In case you haven't been keeping up, the latest mantra of the Wyoming Know Nothings is that there is no such thing as human-caused global warming and that creationism should be taught alongside evolution. Next step, I'm sure, is to replace our children's school lunches with entrees of yummy coal. We have to get rid of it somehow! Read some of my earlier posts on the subject here and here. You can also read the Democratic Party platform here. It ain't rocket science, but it is science.

Wyoming works to bring science education standards up to the level of East Jesus, Alabama

WyPols had a nice summation of this week's hearings regarding the teaching of science standards in our schools. It once again brings up the question: Don't these people know that we live in an age where Know-Nothing statements make their way around the globe at lightning speed, causing people to wonder what the heck is going on in Wyoming? Read examples here and here.

The WyPols article had some quotes from WY State Board of Education Chair Ron Micheli. You may remember Mr. Micheli from his unsuccessful 2010 run for governor in which Dems changed registration en masse at the primaries to vote for Anyone but Micheli (i.e. Matt Mead). I was working at the polls that day and was very lonely as I watched my Dem friends making a beeline to the "Change Your Registration Here" table. Later, I recall sitting at my union HQ in Cheyenne listening to and blogging about the returns from the primaries. Micheli was ahead for awhile. Think about it:

“I just want people to understand that this isn’t some backwards state that doesn’t believe in discussion, or rational communication with each other. … But it has to be based on the economy of this state,” the chairman said. “The very people in education who are so adamant in favor of global warming” – here his voice started to rise – “are the very people who are being paid. And their money is 80 percent coming from the mineral resources of this state. And that’s a hard fact.”

Wyoming’s entire educational system is based on fossil fuels, Micheli added, “and any attempt to derail that or change that is not in the best interests of the state. Now if that’s being backwoods, if that’s being redneck, if that’s putting our head in the sand, then so be it. But [fossil fuels are]what our state is based on.”

Micheli said he was sorry for standing on his soapbox, but he needed to clarify things.“I am not anti-planet. I’m not an ignorant moron,” he volunteered. “I’m trying to be rational in this debate.”

Methinks he doth protest too much.

I'm, glad my kids are out of the local school system. I can imagine my very outspoken and liberal-minded kids reacting to climate-change deniers in the classroom. I don't blame the teachers, as they are at the mercy of powers greater than themselves, such as Mr. Micheli, crazies in the legislature, raging fundies, Obama haters and our governor. Parents must do their best to make sure their kids and grandkids get accurate info.

Their futures depend on it.

Why are all of the dad-blamed Gov candidates from Cheyenne?

Article in yesterday's Casper Star-Trib lamented the fact that all three of the announced  Republican candidates for governor are from Laramie County: Incumbent Matt Mead, ticked-off sort-of Superintendent of Public Instruction Cindy Hill, and Tea Party fave Taylor Haynes.

I don't speak for my fellow Democrats when I say "We will keep Mead if you promise to take Hill and Haynes off of our hands." Most of them aren't too crazy about our current governor. He scuttled Medicaid Expansion and joined in on the failed multi-state lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act. But he is arts- and tech- and business-friendly, and seems to have a little more realistic view of the modern world than his fellow Repubs, especially those from the rural areas of the Cowboy State. At least two county Republican conventions (Platte and Hot Springs) recently censured the Gov over the Hill mess (SF 104) and the suspicion that he might be a RINO -- Republican in Name Only. Two other county Republican gatherings resorted to Tea Party mumbo-jumbo (Freedom! Constitution! Something!) but came up short of an outright censure. Interesting to note that our Dem county convention in March fielded a platform plank that would have called out Gov. Mead on the Hill fiasco. It was roundly defeated after a lively discussion. Most commenters thought that it was unwise to wade into this big Republican mess. Even though I seconded the motion, I ended up voting against it.

In today's CST article, Mead's office pointed out the Gov's rural roots in both Teton (richy-rich hangout) and Albany (liberal UW profs and enviros) counties. Haynes admitted that he was busy getting ready to a new ranch in Albany County. Hill couldn't be reached for comment, no doubt framing another spiteful missive to the Gov and his legal eagles who won't let her move back into her Superintendent offices in the Hathaway Building (the Constitution, ya'll!).

But interviewees in the article wondered why we can't have any gubernatorial candidates from some of our more rural counties. It's a good question. There's 98,000 square miles wherein candidates could dwell. Subtract Laramie County and you have left about 97,000. You could beat the sagebrush and find a few likely governors there. Or not. Still they wonder why their leaders come from The Big City and not from The Heartland.

I guess being a rural Wyoming Republican is a bit like being a Wyoming Democrat anywhere. Dems wonder why nobody ever listens to our progressive views. Here we are, sitting in our urban conclave, sipping lattes and plotting the downfall of Christendom, when a bunch of white guys stream into the Capitol Building from Meeteetse and Frannie and Ten Sleep and start ranting about herding gays into concentration camps and banning birth control and stopping the spread of Commie-inspired urban planning and banning the teaching of certain annoying scientific facts (global warming, evolution, earth orbiting the sun) and so on.

Why don't these people go back to their heavenly rural Nirvanas and leave us city people alone.

What does "Magic City of the Plains" really mean?

Can you be an urban guy in a rural state?

Sure. Urban centers exist even in the West's open spaces. Denver is the town that Colorado's eastern prairie loves to hate because, well, it's Denver where all of those liberals live -- and where the dreaded legislature convenes to pass laws to take away our guns, legalize gay marriage, force us to smoke pot, join the EPA's war on coal/gas/oil, and so on. The Western Slope hates Denver because it steals its water -- and they're right about that. Denver has been stealing water from the mountains even before Colorado became a state. That's true of the entire Front Range.

Cheyenne is the most urban of Wyoming's towns. In fact, it's only one of two metropolitan statistical areas (along with Casper) in the state. It's also where the legislature meets and engages in Cheyennigans (also the name of WyoFile's blog about the legislature). Cheyenne, the "Magic City of the Plains," was supposed to be Denver. Thing is, Denver became the home of hustlers and live wires and shysters and visionaries while Cheyenne became home to no-growthers. That wasn't always the case. Cheyenne was a flourishing rail and commercial center while Denver was still figuring out how to put on its boots.

From the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains:

Because of its rapid birth and ability to recover from periodic economic slumps, Cheyenne was called the "Magic City of the Plains." As the city matured during the territorial period (1869–90), it also developed a reputation as a social and cultural center. The city was notable for its opera house, the Atlas Theater, the Cheyenne Club, the Inter-Ocean Hotel, numerous retail businesses, and more than forty lavish mansions. The success and wealth of the city attracted western legends such as Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill Cody, Tom Horn, and Wyatt Earp, who rode shotgun on the Cheyenne–Black Hills stage.

Times marches on.

These days, according to Wikipedia: 

Cheyenne is the northern terminus of the extensive and fast-growing Front Range Urban Corridor that stretches from Cheyenne to Pueblo, Colorado, and has a population of 5,467,633 according to the 2010 United States Census.

Some of our rural Wyoming neighbors refer to Cheyenne disparagingly as "North Denver." They may be more accurate than they realize. All cities along the Front Range are actually Denver outliers. Denver International Airport could accurately be called Front Range International Airport except there's another airport with the "Front Range" moniker. All of the commuter flights from the Cheyenne airport feed into DIA. The same goes for Western Kansas and Nebraska, and all of Colorado. Most of us in Cheyenne prefer the two-hour interstate trip to DIA over the shorter "Vomit Comet" air trip to DIA. On good days, I can get to DIA in 90 minutes.

Many of us in Cheyenne get our arts and culture fixes in Denver. I'm one of a group of culture-hungry Dems who regularly get DCPA tickets to touring productions of "The Book of Mormon" and other Broadway shows. We usually have dinner downtown, go to the show, buy apres-show drinks and spend the night at one of Denver's many hotels. We know that rooms at the big hotels often go begging on weekends when convention and business travelers are at home.

Democrats aren't the only ones leaving the Cowboy State for a big-city night out. All of us -- Dems, Repubs, Indies and Libertarians -- taken together are a boon to Denver's economy. Denver pro sports teams have tons of followers in Cheyenne. I saw a number of FB status updates from Cheyennites yesterday from opening day at Coors Field. The Rockies even won, 12-2.

Cheyenne's membership in the Front Range bugs the Agenda 21 crowd. They don't want Cheyenne to look like other Front Range communities. You know, the prosperous ones such as Fort Collins and Loveland and Longmont and (God forbid) Boulder and Castle Rock. The list goes on and on. Cranky Tea Party types have flooded public commission meetings for PlanCheyenne to voice their displeasure that our county would consider such commie-inspired planning devices as bike paths, public art, parks, incentives for business and industry, efforts to grow the local entertainment scene, etc. Wyoming Tribune-Eagle Executive Editor Reed Eckhardt had an excellent staff editorial in this morning's paper decrying the bullying tactics of the "anti-planners" and the "anti-culture" crowd.

Problem is, Cheyenne was leading the Front Range before there was a Front Range. Just what do the [county] commissioners think the phrase "Magic City on the Plains" means? That people strutted around here in cowboy boots and hats and saluted each other with "howdy" for 10 days of the year?

In case you didn't know, that last reference is to Cheyenne Frontier Days, the big summer western bash in which all of us, even urban dudes such as myself, are asked to wear western gear and be friendly to tourists.

There's a reason that one out of every six Wyomingites live in Cheyenne. They have jobs. Jobs come from growth. New companies are formed and others move in for lots of reasons: tax structure, infrastructure, broadband access, climate, lifestyle. They don't move in because they heard that a lot of Know-Nothings crowded into planning meetings to shout about a United Nations plot to take away our gas-powered vehicles and make us all live in Hobbit homes. While that may be a quaint concept for 1914, it's not very attractive in 2014.

Growth comes, planned or unplanned. Which will it be, Wyoming?