Poet Anya Silver bids farewell with righteous rage

Nicole Cooley wrote a Facebook post about her friend, poet Anya Silver, who died this week. She included a poem by Silver that expresses the anger we feel at the premature death of a loved one. This is the raw anger that we would like to turn loose but don't. We are angry and sad but sad rules out because that is what we feel and what we are expected to feel. If we indulged in the anger that Silver writes about, well, we would upset the others who are equally sad and angry as hell. It is a moment of solemnity, not rage. But rage belongs. Find more of Silver's poems at the Poetry Foundation web site. 

Metastatic

by Anya Silver, 1968-2018

I’d like a long braid to lasso my rage away,
to stand on a stage in a garter belt
and thigh-high boots and stamp my feet
through the floor, like to put my face
right up against someone else’s face and scream
until the scream knocks me to my knees, coughing.
I could become an arsonist, delicious click of the lighter.
Every time someone I love dies, I’d like a diamond
to line the hilt of a dagger, or tip an arrow.
I’d like to shoot the whole God damned universe
through its infinite starry center, and watch it suck
into itself, scattering the suns and galaxies
over each other like a jar of tipped glitter.
Don’t tell me not to be angry. Do you know
how close I am to flinging my whole animal body
at you, how little I care about being hit
back, or spat on, or bruised? Humiliation
means nothing to me. I have nothing to lose.
If you push me off a building, I’ll sing.
I’d jump in front of a bullet if I could.
I’d let someone wring my neck if only
I knew it would hurt God just one bit to watch me die.

The art of resistance sometimes includes the art of resigning

I am a bit late on this one. Four weeks ago, the remaining members of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities resigned. I recognize some of the names on the committee, notably Jhumpa Lahiri, winner of a 2000 Pulitzer Prize and the 29th annual PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story.

Honorary Chairman of the now-nonexistent committee is Melania Trump. What is her claim to creative fame? Well, the First Lady has her own brand of jewelry offered on QVC. Who designs it? Many creative people work in the fashion industry. You'd think someone who benefits this directly from creativity would take the side of creators. I started some online research with the keywords "Melania Trump fashion." Google came back with almost 4 million results. I quickly grew queasy reading about her "style" -- and looking at photos of her fabulous wardrobe. I looked up "President's Committee on the Arts & Humanities resignation" and found almost 500,000 Google results. That was encouraging -- Melania Trump only outdid the PCAH's action by 8-to-1. Now, this blog  will be added to both searches. In this way, electrons win.

One can get lost in the research. The idea was that this post would be an undercover expose on more Trump rottenness. But I lost heart after about 15 minutes. I need my writing time for my fiction and not the fictional reality of an oligarch and his well-appointed wife. What I can do is feature the PCAH's fine resignation letter and then move on to other things.

This is a repost from a 8/18/17 Jen Hayden post about it on Daily Kos:

In a blistering public letter, the remaining members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH) resigned. ... you can see the original letter below. It’s a work of resistance art: 

Dear Mr. President:

Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville. The false equivalences you push cannot stand. The Administrations refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred only further emboldens those who wish America ill. We cannot sit idly by, the way your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions. We are members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH). The Committee was created in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan to advise the White House on cultural issues. We were hopeful that continuing to serve in the PCAH would allow us to focus on the important work the committee does with your federal partners and the private sector to address, initiate, and support key policies and programs in the arts and humanities for all Americans. Effective immediately, please accept our resignation from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.  

Elevating any group that threatens and discriminates on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, disability, orientation, background, or identity is un-American. We have fought slavery, segregation, and internment. We must learn from our rich and painful history. The unified fabric of America is made by patriotic individuals from backgrounds as vast as the nation is strong. In our service to the American people, we have experienced this first-hand as we traveled and build the Turnaround Arts education program, now in many urban and rural schools across the country from Florida to Wisconsin.  

Speaking truth to power is never easy, Mr. President. But it is our role as commissioners on the PCAH to do so. Art is about inclusion. The Humanities include a vibrant free press. You have attacked both. You released a budget which eliminates arts and culture agencies. You have threatened nuclear war while gutting diplomacy funding. The administration pulled out of the Paris agreement, filed an amicus brief undermining the Civil Rights Action, and attacked our brave trans service members. You have subverted equal protections, and are committed to banning Muslims and refugee women & children from our great country. This does not unify the nation we love. We know the importance of open and free dialogue through our work in the cultural diplomacy realm, most recently with the first-ever US Government arts and cultural delegation to Cuba, a country without the same First Amendment protections we enjoy here. Your words and actions push us all further away from the freedoms we are guaranteed.   

Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions. We took a patriotic oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. 

Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values. Your values are not American values. We must be better than this. We are better than this. If this is not clear to you, then we call on you to resign your office, too.   

Thank you.

We need more than sound and fury to defeat the GOP's cruel policies

Chris and I wore tutus to a local bar last Friday night.

Nobody beat us up. 

Our tutus were homemade from strips of tulle and, well, left a little bit to be desired. They were blue and black. We wore them over our jeans. Not as noticeable or as flamboyant as the pink tutus worn by others at Accomplice Brewing Company at the old train station. 

People all over Wyoming wore tutus to work and school and bars on Friday. It was in response to Sen. Mike Enzi's April 20 comments.  

This from the #LiveAndLetTutu Facebook page:

During a recent event at Greybull High School in Greybull, a sophomore courageously stood up to ask Senator Mike Enzi a question -- what he was doing to support LGBT youth in Wyoming? To which Senator Enzi responded, "I know a guy who wears a tutu and goes to bars on Friday night and is always surprised that he gets in fights. Well, he kind of asks for it." This message delivered directly to the youth of Wyoming sends the message that if you're bullied in high school things are NOT going to get better. His comments say that to find happiness you must leave Wyoming.

Patrick and Brian Harrington came up with the #LiveAndLetTutu theme and hashtag. They are creative people in Laramie, You may have seen Brian's excellent photos all over the place. On April 22, he took great shots of Laramie's March for Science. The two brothers are from Greybull. They know some of the stigma attached to people who are a bit different in any small town. That's why Enzi's remarks rankled me. It was if he was proclaiming that there was a correct way to be a Wyomingite and an incorrect one. Many incorrect ones. If you follow any of these paths, you will get your ass beat. Or worse. Remember Matthew Shepard.

This is an era when our differences define us more than our similarities. Too bad, since we have so many things in common. For 25 years, I traveled Wyoming promoting the arts. I met all kinds of people. We talked art and not politics. The two are intertwined, but most people in Wyoming what's best for their families. The arts and arts education mean a lot. I once saw a performance of "Annie Get Your Gun" at Greybull High School, the same one when Sen. Enzi made his comments. The whole town, it seemed, turned out that night. It was a high school performance so not all of the voices were stellar and a few lines were dropped. "Annie Get Your Gun" is a bit dated, what with its portrayal of Native Americans and women and the West. Still, any attempt at high school theatre must be applauded. Most schools in Wyoming still have art teachers but theatre teachers are in short supply. Plays are usually supervised by a local with theatre background or a faculty member who (as I did) played The Second Dead Man in a minimalist version of "Our Town."

An event such as #LiveAndLetTutu" features elements of protest and theatre. Protest is always partly theatre. Clever signs and outrageous costumes play a part. So do music and poetry, as in the recent March for Science in D.C., and our own homegrown one in Laramie.

Is protest as theatre effective? It helps us get our ya-yas out. It does nurture community. But it didn't stop the House GOP from passing the so-called American Health Care Act. The better name is Trumpcare. Or Ryancare. Or Tryancare. More creative challenges for us wordsmiths. The GOP has effectively taken over enough state houses to gerrymander the hell out of many states. Their voter suppression efforts have paid off -- for them, anyway. Margins can be thin when half the electorate stays home because you've made it too hard for them to vote. Or their brains have been turned to mush from too much Fox.

Trump & Company only understand one thing -- raw power. We shut them down by voting them out and changing the laws that feed the oligarchy. This won't be easy as we've grown complacent. The theatre of protest will have some effect. But without serious involvement, I am but

a poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/And then is heard no more: it is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.

Sound and Fury. We need more than that. Much more.

Furloughed NWS staffers keep the candles burning during Black Hills blizzard

Paul Huttner, chief meteorologist for Minnesota Public Radio, had a compelling story about the federal government shutdown in his "Updraft" blog today. Furloughed National Weather Service staffers, trapped in their Rapid City office by the blizzard, tracked the storm and provided crucial weather info as some places in the Black Hills were walloped with 55-58 inches of snow. Huttner sums it up this way:

The job performed by the staff at the Rapid City NWS was well above and beyond the call of duty last weekend. Especially considering they did it without the promise of a paycheck.

Read the entire column here.

Meanwhile, South Dakota's Republican governor has requested federal disaster assistance that probably won't arrive anytime soon due to the Republican shutdown of the U.S. government. Read more about that at Larry Kurtz's excellent and acerbic Interested Party blog.

Rodger McDaniel outs Richard Wall's McCarthyism

In today's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, and on his blog, Rev. Rodger McDaniel explores a case of home-grown McCarthyism.

Richard Wall, a well-known local Republican extremist, "outed" Democratic Party candidates in his Tuesday WTE column. This was his lame attempt to purge Wyoming, once and for all, of that annoying two-party system that is a hallmark of our democracy. True, we could use more than two serious political parties. But in Mr. Wall's universe, a one-size-fits-all, one-thought-process-for-all, is in tune with his reactionary political philosophy.

In keeping with transparency, Rodger also names those Democrats who are running in all local races, whether those are bipartisan or non-partisan race. He is as proud of them as I am. It's not easy being a Democrat in Wyoming. Only the bravest and most thoughtful follow that course.

Read Rodger's blog post at http://blowinginthewyomingwind.blogspot.com/2012/11/are-you-now-or-have-you-ever-beena.html

I also encourage you to buy and read today's WTE. Interesting and well-researched cover story on "Agenda 21," the United Nations' plan that allegedly will allegedly force us to live in "prescribed habitation zones" where we all will dwell in identical, government-built hobbit homes. We will be forced to abandon our cars and ride bicycles to work, unless Cheyenne builds a U.N-mandated monorail -- we'll commute on that instead. Sing it folks: Monorail!

I was surprised to find that WTE had posted the story on its low-tech web site. But it did. Reading the comments is half the fun (I've heard of "whackadoodles" but "whackaloons?"). Go to http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2012/11/04/news/01top_11-04-12.txt

Pat Conroy's response to the "censors, book-banners and teacher-haters" of Charleston, W.V.

Author Pat Conroy has witnessed his books being challenged and banned 

all over the country. Read a letter he wrote to the editor of the 

Charleston Gazette in response to one such incident in 2007, shared in

honor of Banned Books Week (from the Open Road Media blog):

October 24, 2007
 
I received an urgent e-mail from a high school student named Makenzie
Hatfield of Charleston, West Virginia. She informed me of a group of
parents who were attempting to suppress the teaching of two of my
novels, The Prince of Tides and Beach Music. I heard rumors of this
controversy as I was completing my latest filthy, vomit-inducing work.
These controversies are so commonplace in my life that I no longer get
involved. But my knowledge of mountain lore is strong enough to know
the dangers of refusing to help a Hatfield of West Virginia. I also do
not mess with McCoys.
 
I've enjoyed a lifetime love affair with English teachers, just like
the ones who are being abused in Charleston, West Virginia, today. My
English teachers pushed me to be smart and inquisitive, and they
taught me the great books of the world with passion and cunning and
love. Like your English teachers, they didn't have any money either,
but they lived in the bright fires of their imaginations, and they
taught because they were born to teach the prettiest language in the
world. I have yet to meet an English teacher who assigned a book to
damage a kid. They take an unutterable joy in opening up the known
world to their students, but they are dishonored and unpraised because
of the scandalous paychecks they receive. In my travels around this
country, I have discovered that America hates its teachers, and I
could not tell you why. Charleston, West Virginia, is showing clear
signs of really hurting theirs, and I would be cautious about the word
getting out.
 
In 1961, I entered the classroom of the great Eugene Norris, who set
about in a thousand ways to change my life. It was the year I read The
This letter first appeared on the Open Road Media blog during Banned
Books Week 2011.Catcher in the Rye, under Gene's careful tutelage, and

I adore that book to this very day. Later, a parent complained to the

school board, and Gene Norris was called before the board to defend his

teaching of this book. He asked me to write an essay describing the book's
galvanic effect on me, which I did. But Gene's defense of The Catcher
in the Rye was so brilliant and convincing in its sheer power that it
carried the day. I stayed close to Gene Norris till the day he died. I
delivered a eulogy at his memorial service and was one of the
executors of his will. Few in the world have ever loved English
teachers as I have, and I loathe it when they are bullied by
know-nothing parents or cowardly school boards.
 
About the novels your county just censored: The Prince of Tides and
Beach Music are two of my darlings which I would place before the
altar of God and say, "Lord, this is how I found the world you made."
They contain scenes of violence, but I was the son of a Marine Corps
fighter pilot who killed hundreds of men in Korea, beat my mother and
his seven kids whenever he felt like it, and fought in three wars. My
youngest brother, Tom, committed suicide by jumping off a
fourteen-story building; my French teacher ended her life with a
pistol; my aunt was brutally raped in Atlanta; eight of my classmates
at The Citadel were killed in Vietnam; and my best friend was killed
in a car wreck in Mississippi last summer. Violence has always been a
part of my world. I write about it in my books and make no apology to
anyone. In Beach Music, I wrote about the Holocaust and lack the
literary powers to make that historical event anything other than
grotesque. People cuss in my books.
 
People cuss in my real life. I cuss, especially at Citadel basketball
games. I'm perfectly sure that Steve Shamblin and other teachers
prepared their students well for any encounters with violence or
profanity in my books just as Gene Norris prepared me for the profane
language in The Catcher in the Rye forty-eight years ago.
 
The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave
anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the
genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty ofprogre
language. Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna
Karenina at a ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in Lonesome
Dove and had nightmares about slavery in Beloved and walked the
streets of Dublin in Ulysses and made up a hundred stories in The
Arabian Nights and saw my mother killed by a baseball in A Prayer for
Owen Meany. I've been in ten thousand cities and have introduced
myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career,
all because I listened to my fabulous English teachers and soaked up
every single thing those magnificent men and women had to give. I
cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me when I was a boy
and presenting me with the precious gift of the English language.
 
The school board of Charleston, West Virginia, has sullied that gift
and shamed themselves and their community. You've now entered the
ranks of censors, book-banners, and teacher-haters, and the word will
spread. Good teachers will avoid you as though you had cholera. But
here is my favorite thing: Because you banned my books, every kid in
that county will read them, every single one of them. Because
bookbanners are invariably idiots, they don't know how the world
works— but writers and English teachers do.
 
I salute the English teachers of Charleston, West Virginia, and send
my affection to their students. West Virginians, you've just done what
history warned you against—you've riled a Hatfield.
 
Sincerely,
 
Pat Conroy
 
This letter first appeared on the Open Road Media blog during Banned
Books Week 2011.

Celebrate the end of Don't Ask Don't Tell and hard-fought battles for LGTB equality in The Equality State

From Jeran Artery, Director of Social Change, Wyoming Equality:

Dear Wyoming Equality Members and Allies,

In case you hadn’t heard September 20th marks the official end of the Military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. This is a huge milestone in our fight for LGTB equality across this country. We think that calls for a celebration!

What’s more, over the last year we’ve seen marriage equality arrive in New York State. President Obama’s Administration has decided to stop defending DOMA, and right here in Wyoming we defeated two very ugly anti-LGTB bills. We’ve accomplished many great things over this last year and we want to throw a party to say thank you for helping us fight the good fight.

So, drum roll please… On Tuesday, September 20, from 6-10 p.m. at the Historic Plains Hotel in Cheyenne we will be hosting this celebration. The cost of admission is free. Wyoming Equality will provide some tasty snacks, and a cash bar will be available for you to enjoy a cocktail or two.

We will be having a silent auction on a handful of nifty items to help offset the cost of the event, but mostly we just want you to come and celebrate with us! Save the date and I hope to see all of you Sept. 20.

"To End All Wars" -- not by a long shot

Almost a century after it started, World War I continues to fascinate. I read the favorable New York Times review by Christopher Hitchens and the author's introduction to "To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918,” by Adam Hochschild (illustrated. 448 pp. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $28).  Hitchens has many good things to say about, although he notes that "no single narrative can do justice to an inferno whose victims still remain uncounted." 

Indeed. When I was born in 1950, the end of The Great War was only 32 years in the past. In contrast, the end of World War II, which we now acknowledge as a continuation of the first, was a scant five years in the past. The U.S. was already engaged in another one in Korea, and my generation of boys was busy being hatched for Vietnam. My country has spent the 21st century at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, with scores of "little wars" raging all over the globe. 

"The war to end all wars" was Pres. Wilson's phrase. Many in Wilson's Democratic Party felt betrayed when Wilson, who campaigned in 1916 on the motto "He kept us out of war," plunged the U.S. into the inferno. He instituted a military draft and came down hard on anti-war groups. Still, he was part of the Progressive Movement and instituted many progressive programs during his first term. He was also an internationalist, an egghead with a Ph.D. One of the best and the brightest. When have we heard that term before? I remember. It referred to Kennedy's architects of Vietnam, as described in David Halberstam's book.

Pres. Obama, a Democrat, didn't get us started down the path to endless war. A Republican, George W. Bush, ordered the attack on Afghanistan, considered by many (me included) to me justified. He also launched the pointless war in Iraq, which I staunchly opposed. It seems that the U.S. has inherited endless war along with its claim as Lone World Super Power.

Super Powers can be brought low, too. In the first chapter, Hochschild describes the incredible pomp and circumstance of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee celebration in 1897. What a party it was. England ruled the waves and almost one-quarter of the earth's land. Troopers in full dress uniform from India, Burma, Canada, Australia, Trinidad, South Africa, and others marched in the parade. Scores of congratulatory notes were sent, many from the U.S. They all praised Britain's supremacy in the world. Here's an amazing and silly one:

...across the Atlantic, the New York Times virtually claimed membership in the empire: "We are a part, and a great part, of the Greater Britain which seems so plainly destined to dominate this planet." 

World War I spelled the beginning of the end of England's supremacy.

Now that I've been teased by the opening chapters, I'm off to get a copy of the book. Read the review and excerpt here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/books/review/book-review-to-end-all-wars-by-adam-hochschild.html?nl=books&emc=booksupdateema2

Impulsive 1840s pioneers longed "to see what the next elevation hides from view"

I’m reading Will Bagley’s first volume of a projected three-part series about the West’s overland trails. It's entitled “So Rugged and Mountainous: Blazing the Trails to Oregon and California, 1812-1848.” It's published by the excellent University of Oklahoma Press.

It sat on the new non-fiction shelf at the library. When I saw it, I said, “We need another book on the Western migration?” I opened the book as was glad to see that Bagley acknowledged his predecessors, noting that “some of America’s best writers have told this tale.” We know the names: John Unruh, Francis Parkman, Mark Twain, Washington Irving, A.B. Guthrie, Fawn Brodie, Vardis Fisher, Wallace Stegner, Alvin M. Josephy. And so on.

I’ve read a number of the fictional accounts of the trails, notably A.B. Guthrie’s “The Way West.” As is true for most Americans, I learned my “Way West” history from movies, such as the huge 1962 Cinerama epic, “How the West Was Won.” Many, many movies have been based on the subject, including my favorite, “Blazing Saddles.” And yes, I know this is a lampoon of classic western films and bears no resemblance to the West’s true story. Except for the farting-around-the-campfire scene. So very real.

I’ve read only snippets of non-fiction accounts. That’s now changing.

I was hooked from the first sentence of Will Bagley’s preface: “All peoples have a myth, and as Americans we love our legends but often loathe our history.” A good line to keep in mind during times of revisionist history-making. South Carolinians recently celebrated the sesquicentennial of the Civil War secession in Charleston with a formal ball. Slavery wasn’t mentioned. But all the white folks at the ball looked marvelous.

Conservatives love their mythic West. We saw this most recently in the Wyoming Legislature’s enshrining a new “Code of the West” based on mythic cowboy lore. We Liberals also have our myths. Beginning in the 1960s, we fell all over ourselves romanticizing “the noble savage” and turning it into an icon of popular culture. Native Americans are admirable in many ways. But they are humans, too, and share the same failings as their Anglo brothers and sisters.

Bagley’s dogged research led him to the conclusion that the true story is more exciting than any myth we might conjure. I agree. What makes regular people pull up stakes, pile their goods in a wagon and trek 1,500 1,800 miles from Independence, Mo., to Oregon's Willamette Valley? I’d often wondered. I’m not the first to speculate that it was wanderlust or even ADHD (see my short-short fiction piece, “How the West was Won”). But the definitive answer doesn’t seem to exist. Bagley scrolls through the reasons and makes a great case that it was many things. Some were looking for land and other new opportunities. Others were fleeing the wretched, malarial climate of the Mississippi River Valley. Others were just moving on.

He sums it up this way:

Men often went West to escape debt, the law or family responsibilities. Yet what sets apart the pioneers of the 1840s was that they were generally very ordinary people who undertook an extraordinary task. Many of them were impatient and curious. “Emigrants are generally too impatient, and over-drive their teams, and cattle,” William Ide noted. “They often neglect the concerns of the present, in consequence of great anticipations of the future – they long to see what the next elevation hides from their view.”

Impulsivity and hyperactivity and curiosity. Traits held by so many Westerners.

I can’t wait to get back to Bagley’s book. It’s a long journey, but I have just the right sort of doggedness to see it through.

"Lived experience" is the buzz phrase for future mental health care

I am not a clinician.

But I am a parent of two children with mental health issues. As an adult who’s struggled with depression and takes wonder drugs for it, I am also considered a consumer of mental health services.

This “lived experience” may prove to be crucial in the future.

Change, you see, is on the horizon. I would say that the dark clouds of doom are looming, threatening to destroy us all, but that would depress me and I’d have to go lie down and read Kafka for the rest of the day.

The annual conference in Atlanta for the National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health began the day after Black Tuesday, Nov. 2. Many presentations were colored by that fact.

Andrea Barnes, policy wonk for the federation, said this on the opening day’s overview session: “What we know about the Republicans’ agenda is they want to roll back everything, especially prevention funds. The Affordable Health Care Act has some very important pieces regarding mental health. There is no guarantee that all the provisions will be enacted now that the Congress has changed.”

Much talk about change – the bad kind. Some gloom and doom.

But by the end of the conference, I felt hopeful that stressful times and creative thinking may bring about a new and more family- and community-centered way of taking care of our youth.

“We have to find alternative ways to do business,” said Gary M. Blau, Child, Adolescent and Family Branch, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). He urged us to embrace the reality of huge deficits and the changing face of Congress. He said that it was our “lived experience” that will make the difference.

This changing dynamic will not only need involvement from parents and youth and family members and the community. It will be crucial. “We need to implement things that work – things our young people have told us,” Blau said.

As I said earlier – I’m not a clinician. Nor am I part of a social services non-profit and treatment center. I am a lay person on a board for a UPLIFT, the federation affiliate in Wyoming. I do not know all the lingo and acronyms tossed around like confetti at these conferences. However, my wife and I have 20 years of experience helping our children with their mental health challenges.

Here’s a brief intro from Gary Blau as to how this world is changing.

He outlined five areas in substance abuse and mental health that SAMHSA and the federation would like to be included in benefit packages, such as those that are part of Medicaid and Medicare.

1. Respite care, so parents can get a break and even go back to work.
2. Therapeutic mentoring to extend services
3. Behavioral health consultation services. Monitor children in daycare and preschool and get help for those who need it. Can reduce the number of kids kicked out of daycare for aggressive behavior.
4. Use technology to deliver services. “Our kids come out treatment and don’t go to AA meetings. They do communicate via social network sites.” This can be used for e-therapy and peer counseling.
5. Parent and caregiver support services. He said that this is the number one issue for SAMHSA. “We need a cadre of parent support providers, and we’re working on a certification process.”

All of these acknowledge the fact that parents and youth are on the frontlines and know what’s needed. That’s a big change from 20 or even 10 years ago when parents often were blamed for their children’s failing – and therapy was something done to a teen and not with the teen.

These changes will be needed as budgets shrink and more Americans (32 million) enter the health care insurance system via the (mostly) Democratic Party’s reform package.

None of it can happen without advocacy. “If folks in this room don’t advocate, our very existence is threatened,” said Blau.

I consider this blog an advocacy tool. More to do, of course, both locally, statewide and in Congress.

For more info, go to the federation web site at http://www.ffcmh.org/ or SAMHSA at http://www.samhsa.gov/. For help in Wyoming, go to http://www.upliftwy.org/ or call 307-778-8686.

After the election, Democrats will make great pets

You learn lots of things while walking Cheyenne neighborhoods for your favorite Democratic Party candidates.

I did that on Saturday as I dropped off door hangers for Senate District 5 candidate Lori Millin and flyers for District Court Clerk candidate Wendy Soto.

About those door hangers… A steady northwest wind blew on Saturday. Cooled things off, and also made it difficult to hang a door hanger so it wouldn’t blow away. Forget all of the west- and –north-facing homes – about half of my assigned territory. It’s so easy to smack the top of the hanger against the door knob and watch it magically attach. There’s a technique that I’ve learned over the years. Grab the lower end of the hanger and BAP it on the tiny part of the knob. It’s all in the wrist. This also works on screen door knobs and fancier knobs that have the latch you work with your thumb.

But the wind calls for different methods. First, you can’t get a good wind-up as the wind snatches the hanger in mid-motion. If you then use old-fashioned manual attachment techniques, the raging wind will snag the hanger from its perch and send it to Nebraska. This leaves lots of wind litter. It’s also a waste of precious campaign dollars, especially this year when Democrats are holding bake sales and maxing out credit cards to get cash. It’s also unseemly to see Dems running down the street after skittering door hangers and flyers. I can just see those Republicans now, sitting on their verandas, sipping mint juleps, lighting cigars with 20-dollar bills, watching us run. “Those Democrats are so entertaining,” they might say. “After the election, they will make great pets."

Speaking of Republicans, I didn’t see a single Repub candidate out on the hustings. I kept my eyes and ears open as I slipped campaign material through screen doors or rolled it up to slip between door knob and door jamb. I saw no Repub material, either. A curious overnight with only a few weeks left to go. The Repubs must feel confident. Wyoming is a one-party state, after all, and never more so than this year when its Repub Gov candidate leads the Dem candidate by a huge 30-point margin.

Still, we persevere. On one street, I ran into the Democrats' Laramie County Clerk candidate Tim Thorson and his wife Elizabeth. Tim was placing another yard sign. Tim has been very aggressive in the sign department. He also has four billboards placed around the county. A hard-working Dem politician.

And not the only one. I also spotted Dem House District 8 candidate Ken McCauley knocking on townhouse doors along Lawrence Ave. He leaves flyers in doors when he gets no answer. When he does get an answer, he asks for a few minutes to talk about the issues. According to Ken, people get a bit cantankerous when they discover his party affiliation. They often change their mind after discovering Ken is a U.S. Air Force combat veteran and has solid ideas for the district. One 90-something voter (also a military veteran) spouted the Fox News repertoire of Death Panels and cutting big gubment and those damn commies and socialists. Ken said, “I’m a combat veteran and have been fighting socialists all my life.” The man changed his tune and shook Ken’s hand.

Now, a socialist commie pinko peacenik such as me might take umbrage at this. Let me take a short-time out for some umbrage.

Ah, that’s better.

How do you fight this sort of Tea Party crap, where people get into your face and spew a barrage of nonsense?

Shoot back. Humor’s good, too, but it’s often wasted on the brainwashed. Ken is a combat veteran and a Democrat and a smart guy with great ideas. Should he not make use of all of his credentials? I’ve voted for Democrats with impressive military combat credentials? Remember John Kerry? JFK? George McGovern? They were the best candidates for the job. JFK was elected, while Republicans Swift-boated Kerry and did something similar to McGovern back in 1972. Although the Dems basically sunk themselves during both of those elections. And who can forget Al Gore’s 2000 popular-vote victory over George W. Bush? The guy who served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam in a non-combat role vs. the Texas Air National Guard pilot who skipped maneuvers stateside?

I’ve also voted for many candidates who never served in the military. In fact, if I had voted the straight Wyoming Republican Party slate for U.S. House and U.S. Senate in 2008, I would have voted for three candidates who never served in the military. All three, however, support both of our ongoing wars and the continuing bloated defense budget.

And so it goes.

I encountered one gentleman who asked me point-blank if Lori Millin voted for Obama. I said that I supposed so as she was a Democrat. He then asked if she supported charter schools. I said that she supported education although I didn’t know about her position on charter schools. He then said that that was the problem with us doorhanging people, we didn’t know what our candidates stood for. He was a Republican and active in politics. I asked if he wanted me to retrieve the door hanger if he didn’t want to read it. He said he would read it. I asked if he voted the straight party line and he said he didn’t. I said that I was a Democrat and I didn’t support the straight party line which is very difficult to do in Wyoming anyway.

He then added that he had called Mike Massie’s office multiple times and hadn’t received a response. Mike is the Democratic Party candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction. I said that that was very odd as Mike was big on returning calls and he’d spent lots of time talking about education all across the state. The man said, “I’d like to talk to him."

We left it at that. The best conversation I’ve had with a Republican in a long time. I got in my car and found Lori in an adjacent neighborhood. I told her about my talk and she got in her car and went over to talk to the man. She spoke to the man and his wife. They were big supporters of charter schools. Lori supports them as long as the rules are followed. Republicans insist on charter-school support from local school districts but don’t want to be bound by rules of the district or the Wyoming Department of Education. She sees that as a problem. Her kids attend Laramie County schools.

I also see this as a problem.

What I like is that Lori went to the man’s house to talk to him about his concerns. That’s not easy. It takes courage. You don’t have to be in the military to appreciate courage.

We are not weinies. We are Dems.

Are Wyoming Democrats weinies?

No. We take our licks, persevering against overwhelming odds. Repubs outnumber us 2-to-1. At gatherings, we often admit that we are Democrats, risking public humiliation. In 2008, we made thousands of phone calls and knocked on many doors to utter the name "Barack Obama." Very few of us were cursed at or beat up for our troubles.

But there were signs at tonight's Laramie County Democrats' meeting that we're not the champs we think we are.

Bryon Lee is Wyoming's Organizing for Obama chair, the only full-time paid Obama person within 97,818 square miles. He's from Gillette and now lives in Sheridan. He's been traveling the state to find Democrats grumbling about Obama and Gov. Freudenthal and lack of Dem candidates and even the horrible spring weather which must be Obama's fault. Sometimes he arrives at meetings to find tumbleweeds rolling through an empty room. A sad state of affairs.

He and six like-minded Dems waded into a Sheridan rally of some 250 Tea Party people a few weeks ago. They were hoping to serve as an antidote to the usual fawning media attention give to teabaggers.

They got it. Name-calling -- commies! socialists! When Bryon applauded the mention of Obama's name, he was shoved by a Tea Party goon. "You assaulted me," Bryon said. The menacing crowd closed in. Fortunately there was a reporter there and the incident ended up on the front page of the Sheridan Press.

The moral of this story -- nothing happens if you don't show up. Also -- don't let the teabaggers have all the fun.

Speaking of showing up -- Organizing for America is holding a meeting Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Windflower Room of the Laramie County Public Library in Cheyenne. Bryon will be there to talk about organizing for the 2010 elections.

The weinie issue continued when Ken McCauley spoke. Ken is an Air Force combat veteran and now flies big passenger planes for a living. He put together a presentation on national security because he was upset about wording in the 2010 Wyoming Democrats platform approved at last weekend's state convention in Casper. Ken distributed a handout that looked to be from PowerPoint (I'll ask him if it's available online and provide a link to it).

WyoDems adopted the following phrase in its platform:

"Wyoming Democrats support a foreign policy that reflects and promotes the principles of freedom, human rights and compassion without the use of force."

I'm a peacenik and even I couldn't believe that a phrase like this ended up in the party platform. I spent most of the 2004 state convention trying to get "U.S. Out of Iraq" planks in the WyoDems' platform. I received a smattering of support but the votes were overwhelmingly against the efforts. Maybe it was my Dennis Kucinich T-shirt that turned off the John Kerry multitudes. Maybe it was too soon to openly oppose a war that hadn't yet turned into its "extremely ugly" phase.

At last week's Casper convention, Ken tried to replace the platform statement with a hastily-worded one of his own:

"Wyoming democrats support the suppression of domestic and international terrorism that threatens U.S. security. We support the promotion of stable world democracy, safeguarding nuclear material, and worldwide reduction of WMDs."

His suggestion was ignored by the conventioneers.

So he put together his presentation and tonight offered a revised version, borrowing wording from Pres. Obama's recent speech to West Point cadets:

"Laramie County Democrats support combating the root causes that lead to terrorism, and we support the Obama administration's efforts to disrupt and dismantle known terrorist organizations so that legitimate and peaceful leadership can prevail in areas that spawn terrorism."

There was a spirited discussion. A motion was made to adopt the statement as a resolution. It passed unanimously.

We are not weinies. We are Dems.

Thirty years later: Remembering El Salvador's Oscar Romero

"A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed – what gospel is that? Very nice, pious considerations that don’t bother anyone, that’s the way many would like preaching to be. Those preachers who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed, so as not to have conflicts and difficulties, do not light up the world they live in." -- Archbishop Oscar Romero, murdered by right-wing death squad, March 24, 1980, San Salvador

Romero button (at top) and quote from Pax Christi USA web site