What is your favorite Wyoming arts town?

NPR has put out an open call for nominations, asking North Americans to describe their favorite arts town:

This summer, NPR’s Destination Art series is going off the beaten path to visit small to mid-sized North American cities that have cultivated lively arts scenes. And we want to hear from you! Where’s your favorite art hot spot? What makes it unique?

NPR’s form is simple and easy to fill out, and this is a great opportunity to get one of Wyoming’s great art towns on the national map!

For some background on the series, the first town to be featured was Marfa, Texas (population: 1,966), which rocketed onto the art world’s radar with the arrival of sculptor Donald Judd in the 1970s. Also featured: Columbus, Indiana and Stratford, Ontario. Go to http://www.npr.org/2012/08/01/156306412/whats-your-favorite-arts-town

What is my favorite Wyoming arts town? 

I love Jackson for all of the obvious reasons. The Center for the Arts for its downtown location and for housing an eclectic mix of Teton County arts orgs. The National Museum of Wildlife Art for its eco-friendly design and for its new sculpture walk. The Jackson Hole Writers Conference, one of the best of its kind in the U.S., all organized by a coterie of Jackson writers, led by Tim Sandlin. The conference would have disappeared long ago without the thousands of hours put in by Teton County and Wyoming-based writers.

I like Sheridan for its public art on almost every downtown corner, for its commitment to homegrown art forms such as the saddle makers showcased at Kings Ropes and Saddlery. There is a ton of great artists and writers in Sheridan County, as well as two of the country's foremost artists' residencies: Ucross and Jentel. And one of my favorite mystery writers, Craig Johnson, actually lives in the tiny town of Ucross.

I like Casper because the Casper College English Department and the CC Foundation had the moxie to step up and sponsor the state's first statewide book festival in 2006. We hold our fourth bookfest Sept. 14-15 with a great line-up of writers, both domestic and out-of-state. I love the Nicolaysen Art Museum, housed in a former power plant, for its dazzling array of contemporary art exhibits and for having the vision to make downtown a regional arts destination with its new public art exhibit and its NIC Fest and its outreach to all sorts of entities in Natrona County. BTW, Casper College now has its own on-campus arts district. How many community colleges anywhere can say that?

I like Laramie for Works of Wyoming and the Laramie Plains Civic Center Theatre and its cool downtown and the dedicated arts faculty at the University of Wyoming, the state's only four-year public university. So many fantastic writers teach at UW (Brad Watson, Alyson Hagy, Jeff Lockwood) and have been visiting writers -- a great new crew will be there during the fall semester. Two indie bookstores liven up downtown, which has plenty of good restaurants with great beer. And did I mention -- the trains run through it! 

I like Lander for the Lander Art Center. I like Rock Springs for its renovated downtown theatre. I like Gillette for its public art program and its engaged citizenry. I like my city of Cheyenne for our great library with its many programs, and for its community theatre, one of the few in the region to actually own two performance venues.  

What is your favorite Wyoming arts town? Don't be shy -- speak up!

Thanks to Michael White for icasualties.org and its coverage of the Iraq War

Soldiers wave to the last U.S. military convoy to leave Iraq as it crosses the Kuwaiti border. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

One of the web sites that was consistently informative and accurate during the Iraq War was icasualties.org. The site tracked war killed and wounded both in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also carried a dynamic news feed. Founder Michael White, a software engineer from Stone Mountain, Ga., was interviewed on NPR's "Weekend Edition" this morning. He noted most of the response over the years was positive but there were some who accused him of playing politics, especially with the Iraq invasion and its bloody aftermath. The site's focus was on military casualties, relying mostly on releases from the Pentagon and its equivalent in the U.K. and other "Coalition of the Willing" countries.

It was more difficult to track stats on U.S. military wounded once they left the battlefield due to HIPAA laws, which White said that he supports. He didn't want to make any statements regarding civilian casualties since there were no consistently reputable sources of info on those. Hospitals in Iraq reported one set of civilian casualties on one day and then another set the following day. Michael signed off of NPR this morning by saying that he was glad that there was one site that he wouldn't be updating as often. Thanks for icasualties.org, Michael, and all the work that went into it.

I wasn't blogging back in spring of 2003 when the U.S. launched the Iraq War. I was firmly against it. So it goes. As it winds down now, I've been looking at some of my early posts about the war. One of the first ones concerned Pres. Bush's November 2006 trip to Vietnam, a place he fought so hard not to visit during his National Guard career. The New York Times article on the trip featured this quote from Stanley Karnow, author of the much-respected history of the Vietnam War:

"There are differences and similarities, of course," he said. "We got lied into both wars." But, he added: "The easy summation is that Vietnam began as a guerrilla war and escalated into an orthodox war by the end we were fighting in big units. Iraq starts as a conventional war, and has degenerated into a guerrilla war. It has gone in an opposite direction. And it’s much more difficult to deal with."

Ain't it the truth. "We got lied into both wars." And there's another similarity. The American War in Iraq (Part II) is ending with a whimper and not a bang. Hundreds of thousands of veterans are out there now, wondering what comes next. Not too different from the mid-1970s, when millions of Vietnam veterans were out there, in places all across America, wondering what came next. 

New Wyoming Public Media site features podcasts of home-grown and visiting performers

WPR's Grady Kirkpatrick (left) with
Teresa Jordan and Hal Cannon.

Wyoming Public Media's slick new web site features a number of excellent podcasts of interviews with Wyoming based performers -- and those with ties to Wyoming. Some of these interviews were conducted by Grady Kirkpatrick on WPR's "Morning Music." One of my favorites is one from Sept. with Hal Cannon and Teresa Jordan. Hal is founder of the Western Folklife Center in Elko, home of the annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Teresa is his wife and Laramie County, Wyoming, native, author of the fantastic award-winning memoir, "Riding the White Horse Home." I had the opportunity to see Hal and Teresa perform at a house concert during their September swing through the state. They know their traditional cowboy music -- and they have some great songs of their own! Other podcasts feature Miss "V" the Gypsy Cowbelle (Cora), Spencer Bohren (raised in Casper and now lives in New Orleans), Green River's Brian Ragsdale and bluegrass duo Anne and Pete Sibley of Jackson. Internationally-renowned dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones was interviewed during his fall residency at the University of Wyoming. Ira Glass, producer of NPR's "This American Life," was interviewed before his November appearance at UW. To listen, go to http://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/term/arts

Rep. Cynthia Lummis votes to eliminate Wyoming's only statewide radio network

Wyoming Rep. Cynthia Lummis joined her Tea Party Caucus fellow travelers in the U.S. House in voting to end federal funding for National Public Radio.

The Wyoming Republican says nonessential government programs must be scrutinized and difficult decisions must be made to address the nation's fiscal problems. Lummis says in a statement that NPR must stand on its own. However, she noted that she prefers what she calls a "glide path to self-sufficiency" for Wyoming Public Radio.

The U.S. House on Thursday voted 228-192 to bar federal funding of NPR and prohibit local public stations from using federal money to pay NPR dues and buy its programs.

"Glide path to self-sufficiency?" Can anyone explain that to me?