In "Untamed," the most ferocious animal in our national parks is not the bear

I finished watching "Untamed" last night. It's a limited series on Netflix starring Eric Bana, Sam Neil, Lily Santiago, and Rosemarie DeWitt, and a great supporting cast. It's set in Yosemite National Park. Shots of El Capitan and other familiar landmarks are blended into the narrative filmed in British Columbia. We again see a series set in the wild landscapes of the U.S. and filmed elsewhere, usually Canada, Trump's imaginary 51st state. The landscapes are gorgeous to look at and made me miss Wyoming and Colorado. The peaks. the trails winding through forests, the sparkling waters of the creeks. Even the ranger unis made me ache for the West. Rangers were our friends, men and women who welcomed us to the parks,  delivered campfire chats, and kept things orderly. 

I give high marks to "Untamed," its grim storyline and fine acting. It involved me for some five hours. Child abduction. drug-dealing, missing Native American women, murder, and treachery play roles. That is sometimes offset by sheer grandeur. But one  thought I came away with was: is this what we've become? We live harsh lives and are harsh with each other. Was it always this way or is it all grim now?

One more thing. Humans can be more savage than predatory animals. That was brought out in the first episode by fearsome roar of a grizzly at a cabin door. Lions and tigers and bears! But humans remain the deadliest animal. First scene. Climbers scaling El Capitan. It is a long way down, a dangerous business this rock climbing. Just as the top climber bangs a spike into the rocks, he looks up and sees a body falling toward him. The body snags the rope and pulls down the climbers but they don't fall. We see a close-up of the body. It is a young woman, clothes ripped, dead eyes stare up. We know the mystery. Did she jump or was she pushed? 

It's worth watching. Some scenes stay with me. One takes place in the morgue where the dead woman's (Lucy Cook) body is being stored while park investigators try to discover her identity. National Park Service Investigative Branch Ranger Kyle Turner (Bana) and his new assistant, former L.A. cop Naya Vasquez,  try to solve it. There follows lots of creepiness but the scene that lingers is in the morgue. Turner finds a cellphone hidden in the dead woman's backpack. It needs a photo I.D. to open. He takes it to the morgue and requests a picture of the corpse's face. No dice. The eyes have to be open. The morgue tech puts drops in the eyes to make them open unnaturally. Phone still won't open. The morgue tech says hydrogen peroxide has been known to bring life back to dead skin, warm it so it registers for the camera. He brushes it on the cheeks. Bama takes another photo and it works, the phone is unlocked and we're on the way to a resolution or so we think. I was left with the image of Lucy Cook, dead, again staring up, asking "why did you forsake me?"

The New York Times' Mike Hale reviewed the show. The reviewer's main takeaway was the show's bad timing. So who has time to pursue killers when DOGE cuts leave nobody to clean the bathrooms or break up Yellowstone bear jams? Good point. 

An accompanying NYT story tells of the few remaining park employees being tasked by the Trump regime with removing comments that "disparage America" from monuments, trail signs, and printed material. Our sins against black slaves and native peoples are being purged from the public records. If this sounds Orwellian to you, you've read Orwell and you're dead-on. The Know Nothings have won. The South has risen again. And we're all up Shit's Creek, somewhere out in the American wilderness.

Post #3,999

President Biden signs the "Jackie Robinson Ballpark National Commemorative Act"

President Biden signed the "Jackie Robinson Ballpark National Commemorative Act" on Saturday. It designates Daytona Beach's 110-year-old Jackie Robinson Ballpark as a commemorative site and "makes it a part of the African American Civil Rights Network," according to a story in Monday morning's Daytona Beach News-Journal.

The article caught my eye because it was headed by a big photo of the ballpark's statue of Jackie Robinson handing a baseball to two young fans. Robinson's jersey said "Royals." This isn't news to locals as Robinson first played here for the Triple-A Montreal Royals on March 17, 1946. That was more than a year before his April 15, 1947, MLB debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Robinson is celebrated every April 15 on his namesake day at every MLB park. He is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He broke every record worth breaking. He died way too young in 1972. He's idolized by millions.

But the 1940s were no picnic for a black big-league ballplayer. He was all alone in Daytona and Brooklyn and every ballpark he played in. He got death threats and hate mail. He was yelled at by hateful whites. Some players refused to play with him. 

It was hell playing in Brooklyn, Cleveland, and Chicago. Imagine how hard it was to play in Deep South Daytona. Some will say that a beach town in Florida was different, say, than Selma or Little Rock. There was prejudice but it was a more laid-back wastin'-away-in-Margaritaville kind of racism. But it was in the air and on the ground. And in some dark hearts.

When my family moved to Daytona in 1964, blacks were not permitted on the beachside after dark. They had their own beach named for the Bethune family of educators, a family so esteemed there is a college named in their honor and Mary McCloud Bethune's statue was installed in 2022 in the Florida display in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol Building, the first statue of an African-American in that hall. Many whites in Daytona called Bethune Beach "N-words Beach." The first black surfer I surfed with appeared at our beach in 1969. Coaches at my Catholic high school recruited black players for our football and basketball teams which made us the only integrated high school among the four in Daytona (the rest weren't integrated until the 1970s).

But worse things happened in this part of Florida:

From a "Freedom Never Dies" special on WUCF, a PBS station at University of Central Florida in Orlando: 

By 1930, four thousand blacks had been lynched nationwide by white mobs, vigilantes, or the Klan. Most of these occurred in the Deep South, many with law enforcement complicity. And while Alabama and Mississippi had more total lynchings, it was Florida, surprisingly, that had the highest per capita rate of lynching from 1900-1930.

"Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore" documentary debuted on PBS stations nationwide 24 years ago Jan. 12. Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee narrated. Sweet Honey In The Rock and Toshi Reagon performed original music. Here's some background information from the WUCF web site:

Combining Murder Mystery, Incisive Biography and an Eye-Opening Portrait of Jim Crow Florida, "Freedom Never Dies" Sheds New Light on one of America's Earliest and Most Fearless Fighters for Civil Rights.

In 1951 after celebrating Christmas Day, civil rights activist Harry T. Moore and his wife Harriette retired to bed in their white frame house tucked inside a small orange grove in Mims, Florida [Mims is in north Brevard County, a 45-minute drive from Jackie Robinson Ballpark]. Ten minutes later, a bomb shattered their house, their lives and any notions that the south's post-war transition to racial equality would be a smooth one. Harry Moore died on the way to the hospital; his wife died nine days later.

"Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore" explores the life and times of this enigmatic leader, a distinguished school teacher whose passionate crusade for equal rights could not be discouraged by either the white power structure or the more cautious factions of his own movement. Although Moore's assassination was an international cause celebre in 1951, it was overshadowed by following events and eventually almost forgotten.

"Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore"  produced by The Documentary Institute, restores Moore to his rightful place in the Civil Rights saga.

A buried cold case comes to light in Icelandic crime thriller "Reykjavik"

The closest I’ve been to Iceland is the Maine coast. No recent volcano eruptions in Maine. Maine weather can be cold but Iceland has it beat. If you speak Icelandic as do 330,000 of the island’s inhabitants, you may be really good with languages but have few people to converse with in Portland or Kennebunkport. Both places offer great seafood and rugged terrain. They share another facet of life: fiction, mainly atmospheric thrillers. Maine claims Stephen King. Iceland claims Ragnar Jonasson.

If you watch Netflix, “The Valhalla Murders” may have popped up on your much-watch streaming series list. Valhalla is Norse heaven or their version of it. A majority of Icelanders share Viking DNA and Iceland was once part of Norway. But the Valhalla in the series written by Thordur Palsson -is, to paraphrase one former resident, “a living hell.” It’s a facility for troublesome youth. It’s also home to predatory adults. You won’t be surprised to find out that one of its youthful residents is now an adult and bent on revenge for beatings and torture and rape by staffers. It takes eight episodes for the police to get their culprit. Along the way, you get many views of snowbound landscapes and slate-gray skies; frigid small towns and one big gray city, Reykjavik.

You don’t need me to tell you that the countries of Scandinavia have a reputation for gloom and doom. Norway claimed Iceland until 1944. Vikings were bloodthirsty conquerors (great sailors though). Icelandic sagas feature much bloodshed. You’ve seen Ingmar Bergman movies. There are also the bizarre worlds of Lasse Hallstrom in “My Life as a Dog” with a 12-year-old’s ruminations on a dying Soviet dog in space and “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” with its Iowa teen protagonist as caretaker of his intellectually disabled brother and morbidly obese mother. Also, Sweden is known for the graphic violence of Stieg Larsson, author of three posthumously published novels that begins with “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” It gave rise to films in Sweden and the U.S. that were not designed for family popcorn night.

The latest energetic crime thriller from Iceland is “Reykjavik” by Ragnar Jonasson and Katrin Jakobsdottir. The title is important as the 1986 scene for most of the narrative. It also is the setting for the city’s 200^th anniversary bash and the famous summit meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikeal Gorbachev. Murder happens against this dramatic backdrop along with the investigation of a 30-year-old cold case. On the way, we meet a terrific roster of characters and a plot that kept me guessing.

“Reykjavik” was translated by Victoria Cribb. Hats off to her for keeping the author’s pace and vision. Also, all the Icelandic names of people and locations. We get lots of details of everyday life which includes lots of coffee drinking. This story of death hums with life and makes it an enjoyable read. I have a feeling a filmed version is in the works for the streaming services. The author creates scenes that cry out for the cinema. We shall see what transpires.

One more thing: the co-author of Reykjavik holds a master’s degree in Icelandic literature. She wrote her master’s thesis on another Icelandic crime fiction author, Arnaldur Indridason. She now is prime minister of Iceland and previously was the Minister of Education. So there’s that…

Kudos for the books authors and editors who include a pronunciation guide to the characters’ names and also placenames. I’d like to see more of that in translated works.

Mary Pat Fennessey looks for "Small Mercies" in Dennis Lehane's latest novel

Reading a Dennis Lehane novel is no walk in the park. It is if your park is filled with intrigue, betrayal, revenge, murder, drug overdoses, child abuse, and race riots. You get all of that in his latest novel, “Small Mercies.” It’s a harrowing ride through the Boston South End we read about in “Mystic River,” "Shutter Island," and the Kenzie-Gennaro mystery series (“Gone, Baby, Gone”).

The setting is the very hot end of summer in 1974 Boston. Americans are on edge due to the Saudi oil embargo. Lehane writes that everyone was driving around with at least a half-tank of gas so they didn’t have to spend their time in long gas lines. But there’s a bigger issue in the mostly-white areas of the city: court-ordered busing. Some of the Irish-American kids are going to be bused to a formerly all-black high school in a black neighborhood. Black children will be bused into all-white South End schools. The setting is about as territorial as it gets and a bomb is set to go off.

That bomb is Mary Pat Fennessey. She’s a native of the Southie projects, daughter of an abused household who passes on some of that abuse to her own family. One husband has been killed and the second one is estranged. Her son Noel returned from Vietnam with a habit and he dies from an overdose. Mary Pat only has her 17-year-old daughter Jules. Jules goes out with friends one night and doesn’t come home. A young black man has been murdered and Jules and her friends were somehow involved. Everyone tells Mary Pat to be patient, her daughter will turn up, you know how kids are. But Mary Pat has been pushed too far this time. Irish mobsters try to buy her silence and that tells her one thing: her daughter is dead because she’s witnessed a murder and someone is going to pay. Many someones pay dearly at Mary Pat’s hand.

Lehane does a wonderful job weaving Mary Pat’s vengeance with rowdy anti-busing rallies, the oil embargo, and the poverty and dysfunction of Irish-American Boston. The author takes us on a tour of neighborhoods and the entire city. Even Sen. Ted Kennedy makes an appearance. This is what is happening in Boston in August and September 1974.

The scene seems eerily familiar to a reader in 2023. Lehane makes class resentment very clear through the eyes of his characters. The inner-city white Boston neighborhoods have sent more kids to Vietnam than almost any other place in America. Most young men get drafted because they work menial jobs and do not have college deferments like all those kids across the river in Cambridge. When Mary Pat visits Harvard to seek help from her campus janitor ex-husband, you feel her disdain for the hippies in the city and the privileged white students protesting the war which won’t be declared over for another year.

If all of this sounds familiar, it is. These class resentments have been buildings for decades and politicians and media blowhards on the Right have tapped into it. It’s sad, and the book is sad. It’s a personal story. You feel Mary Pat’s rage in your gut and this reader is both shocked and saddened by her vendetta.

I lived in Boston 1972-73. I missed the fireworks of 1974. If I had been paying attention, I might have felt the city’s aching heart. Dennis Lehane’s gift to us is we get to feel what it was like to live in the Boston of almost 50 years ago. One hell of a story.

I looked at “Small Mercies” as a historical novel. It’s still a rough place in 2023. Real estate web site Upgraded Home talked listed Boston’s 10 most dangerous neighborhoods. South End – Southie -- was number three.

Our advice? If you find yourself in South End, keep an eye out for thieves, don’t get into arguments with people who just came from the local bars, and get a security system for your home.

And then there’s this from a recent issue of Boston Magazine:

In the last few decades, the South End has rapidly gentrified, once again becoming one of the city’s most stylish neighborhoods.

Mary Pat might not recognize the place. Then again, she might.

I discover Donald Westlake's novels and reminisce about John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee

I found Donald Westlake's Dortmunder books and they are fantastic. Always a caper going on. Always sharp dialogue and lots of humor. Westlake passed away in 2008 but I can see he's in the same school as Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, Janet Evanovich and Jerome Charyn. Maybe a dash of Don DeLillo too. So far I've read two of the volumes, "The Road to Ruin" and the first Dortmunder novel, "The Hot Rock." It was published in 1970. I didn't look that up until I finished but there were clues placed throughout. The cars they drive, the characters' language, ubiquitous phone booths, no personal computers. Its throwback quality didn't bother me. He had a skillful way of incorporating all of that into the narrative.  

What other crime-adjacent novels of that era would show such wit? I thought of John D. MacDonald, for instance, and his Travis McGee character. McGee probably had too much machismo for these times. He could be funny and ironic. He called himself a "salvage consultant" and lived on his "Busted Flush" houseboat docked at the Bahia Mar Marina. McGee's erstwhile sidekick is Meyer, an economist always ready for a McGee caper. He dwells on a neighboring boat named for his hero, John Maynard Keynes.

I worked at a Florida bookstore in the '70s and I brought MacDonald's novels to my mother Anna Shay (R.I.P Mom) and she devoured them. Me too. Travis and his Busted Flush houseboat. I could always see McGee's houseboat through MacDonald's imagination. Back in the '80s, my brother Dan and I visited Bahia Mar and stopped at Slip F-18. We thought about the McGee we knew from the books. Slip F-18 was declared a literary landmark in 1987, a year after the author's death. 

I did my usual Google search for Travis McGee and came up with an article by Kris Hundley on the Visit Florida site (couldn't find a pub date). The second paragraph about the Bahia Mar Marina set the tone for the story:

There's little room left for a boat bum like Travis McGee. 

She described present-day Bahia Mar in gritty detail.

Bahia Mar touts its ability to accommodate yachts up to 300 feet, even squeezing in a 312-footer recently for a month-long stay. The marina's 3,000-foot dock along the Intracoastal sports one mega-yacht after another. flawlessly polished hulls gleaming, white communications domes looming 50-feet overhead, docked so closely together that the uber-rich could step from one vessel to another without ever touching the ground. Not an inch of precious real estate is wasted.

Bahia Mar must have considered the literary landmark plaque dedicated to MacDonald as "wasted space." It now sits in the marina's office. Hundley wraps up the piece this way: 

A boat bum might seem forgotten among such glitz. But inside the marina office, the woman behind the desk said that not a week goes by that someone doesn't wander in, looking for the slip once occupied by Travis McGee. She is not sure what the fuss is about: she's never read the books. 

Made me want to bang my head against the desk. MacDonald and McGee would have had a few things to say about the wretched excess of 21st century Florida. As a self-described "salvage consultant," McGee usually was coming to the aid of a trusting soul who had been ripped by someone who would own a 312-foot mega-yacht. His price was always half of the recovered loot. When the client objected, his usual response was "half of something is better that nothing." MacDonald also wrote the best-selling "Condominium" which tore into the thoughtless development going on in coastal Florida which has not abated in the 46 years since the novel's original publication. 

During his lifetime, MacDonald got great reviews from the likes of Hiaasen and Kurt Vonnegut. Here's what Vonnegut said about MacDonald's work:

“To diggers a thousand years from now, the works of John D. MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of Tutankhamen."

I feel a need to reread Travis McGee, see how he holds up in these fast-moving and confusing times.

Mike Miller posted an updated article on Travis McGee on Jan. 28. It was on the Florida Back Roads Travel site. In it, he writes about how he first came upon MacDonald's character when his father visited him in Florida in 1964 and gave him a copy of "The Deep Blue Good-by." His father was reading the latest novel, "Nightmare in Pink." Miller read "Deep Blue" and was hooked. He's read the entire series, some of them twice, and is a devoted fan. Read Miller's essay to understand what makes McGee tick, and why his books are still in print. 

My mother died too young in 1986, a McGee fan to the end. Mike Miller's father died in a St. Cloud, Fla., nursing home in 1986, the same year MacDonald died. Miller Senior's dying message to his son was "Nightmare in Pink." 

Now that's a fan.

Following the congressional hearings, what will become of Trump?

I've never read a book's first chapter and skipped to the last one. You miss all of the delectable middle parts, the intrigue and humor and character development. The slog, too. That middle can go on forever. That's part of it, though. We get to know the people and the setting. Just how many teatimes can we sit through in a Jane Austen novel? I laughed when when the normally easygoing Ted Lasso tries tea for the first time as a soccer coach in England. "Ugh -- brown water" he said as he moves away the tea cup as if it were radioactive. "Coffee?"

There a lot of brown water in any story's middle parts. 

I watched the live-action opening chapter of the Jan. 6 Committee hearings on June 9 and last night watched the closing chapter. The committee, co-chaired by Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, still is deliberating and continues to take testimony. But the public viewing part of the show is over. We know the story now. We await the denouement. Who will be punished and in what way? Will anyone in power pay the price for treason? The rioters, themselves, yes -- some have already been convicted of seditious conspiracy, civil disorder, destruction of public property, etc. They are guilty of the crimes and will pay fines and serve a bit of time in jail.

But what about the main POI, Donald Trump? Will he escape blame for the chaos he spawned? I keep thinking of the creepy paterfamilias Noah Cross  in "Chinatown." We don't know this until the end, but he raped his daughter Evelyn when she was 15 and her daughter is his too. In the final scene set in Chinatown, the police accidentally shoot and kill Evelyn as she tries to escape to Mexico with her daughter. She is the only witness to Cross's crime and now is dead. The cops restrain Detective Jakes Gittes and Cross takes off with his daughter. There's a chilling foreshadowing early when Gittes and Cross meet. Here's the scene:

Noah Cross: You may think you know what you're dealing with, but, believe me, you don't.

Gittes grins

Noah Cross: Why is that funny?

Jakes Gittes: That's what the District Attorney used to tell me in Chinatown.

In the congressional hearing room, the panel seems to know what they are dealing with. They have seen Trump in action since 2016 and know the dangers. What we all suspect is that Trump will be the one who slithers away from any punishment. Co-chair Cheney wrapped up the night with a magnificent speech, which you should watch if you haven't already. She is staking out a claim for the presidency, possibly in 2024. Cheney was flanked by Virginia Rep. Elaine Luria, a Naval Academy grad who retired after 20 years as a commander, and Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a USAF veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. They take their oaths seriously and acted upon them every second during the hearings. One of the few GOP congresspeople who have publicly loathed Donald Trump -- and received death threats for doing it -- Kinzinger had this to say on CNN:

"I truly believe within my heart in five years, maybe not five but definitely 10, you're not going to be able to find a single person that admits to supporting or voting for Donald Trump in this country," the GOP congressman said. "Because they're going to be embarrassed, because their kids are going to say, 'You actually supported Donald Trump? Are you kidding me?'"

Refreshing to hear. History will judge. Our children and grandchildren will judge. Will a 2022 judge convict him of any crimes? Not bloody likely. It would be nice to think that Trump is now on his way to the dustbin of history. But we still have to deal with him in 2022. And worse, we have to deal with the millions of Trumpists who have drunk the Kool-Aid. And there are so many of them in red-state Wyoming, many running for elected office. On Aug. 16, I will switch my party affiliation from Dem to Rep to cast a vote for Cheney. Not much but it's something. 

Part VII: The Way Mike Worked -- And the Way He Didn't Work

I was convinced that I could persuade a Florida newspaper to take me on as a reporter. I had very little to base this on. I was an English major who took some journalism courses. I had a work-study job in University of Florida Information Services where I snapped photos of no-neck linemen, worked in the darkroom, and wrote press releases. I worked for two semesters as a general assignment reporter at the Independent Florida Alligator. I had clips from two free-lance articles I did for national publications.

That seemed sufficient. But I had lots of competition. 1976 was a heyday for newspapers. Two young investigative reporters for the Washington Post had brought down a president (imagine that now). Newspaper unions were strong. Most cities boasted at least two papers, some more. Newsrooms had yet to be invaded by computers. I figured that there was at least one paper that needed an eager and creative writer. My colleagues at the Alligator were getting on with the Miami Herald and Cocoa Today which grew up to be USA Today.

I decided to approach my job application as a fiction writer. In my 30 months at UF, I had completed three creative writing courses, one taught by the brilliant and enigmatic Harry Crews. I had submitted scores of stories and received lots of harsh critiques. I felt that I was ready for the rough-and-tumble world of the daily newspaper. I wrote an application letter in the third person. The normal approach was first person, as in "I am the greatest thing to happen to journalism since Gutenberg's press." Instead, I wrote "Michael Shay is the greatest thing to happen to journalism since Gutenberg's press." I typed the personalized letters on my Smith-Corona portable, using plenty of White-Out. I fired them off and awaited positive results.

I waited and waited. I got some form-letter responses, thanks but no thanks. I might have called some editors but my roommates and I didn't have a phone. Our landlady, Stormy, whose notable forebears had one of Florida's largest counties named after them, had the phone. Her house behind us was in worse shape than ours. Looking at it from the front, it seemed to lean. We kept expecting it to fall. When Bob or Bob or I got a call, Stormy would yell at us from her front door. We tried not to be summoned too often as we were afraid of her dog, Joe, who gave us the evil eye. And that's all he had, one eye, as he'd lost the other one in a fight.

I waited some more. A personal response came. It wasn't good news. The editor of the Pensacola paper had accepted my challenge and responded with a letter in third person. I can't remember the exact wording but it went something like this: "The editor of the Pensacola News Journal was  thrilled to received the job application of Michael Shay. The cover letter was very creative and gets an A for effort. As the editor read, he was not so impressed, as it included at least one factual error, a typo and several run-on sentences that were more Faulkner than Hemingway. The editor has marked-up these errors as we do in the newsroom and hopes that the applicant takes them to heart as he continues his job search. For now, this newspaper will continue looking for an experienced reporter." It was snarky and well done, with no typos or bad grammar. I was embarrassed. I always prided myself on sharp, clean writing. How many of my mistake-ridden job apps were floating around the Sunshine State?

A few weeks later, the editor at the Lake City paper called and offered me a job. I asked if I needed a car as I did not have one. He said that I would need a car and I would be covering the county. I said I would see what I could do. It seemed hopeless. I'd had a car earlier that year, a black Ford station wagon I bought for $150 from my friend Mike, a Vietnam vet who worked as a bouncer at a strip club. Mike and I took visiting writer Nelson Algren to the strip club one night and he seemed to have a pretty good time. I got about $150 worth out of the station wagon and sent it to the scrap heap. My girlfriend had a car but she was a full-time student and also had a job. One of my roommates owned a car but he needed it. I had no money - student loans were gone and I'd finished my work-study jobs. I pondered my situation. Lake City was a small cracker town where nothing significant ever happened. I turned down the job.

About this same time, a one-time law student who looked like an aging frat boy was working his way through the West, from his home state of Washington to Colorado. He raped and murdered women.  He was arrested twice and escaped twice, in both Aspen and Glenwood Springs, Colorado. In 1978, Ted Bundy came South and cruised north Florida roads in search of victims. In February 1978, he kidnapped, raped and killed a 12-year-old girl in Lake City. The girl's body was found in a pig farrowing shed near Suwanee River State Park, where I had spent many hours swimming, canoeing and hiking. I always thought that I might have covered the Bundy story had I been able to come up with a car and taken the reporting job in that one-horse town. It's gruesome to think about but it could have happened. Bundy had raped and murdered two sorority sisters and beat up two others that January at FSU in Tallahassee where two of my sisters and many of my nieces and nephews attended college. He was caught later in Pensacola, tried and then executed in Florida's Raiford Prison in 1989. Prison guards celebrated with a raucous party and fireworks. He was cremated in Gainesville and his ashes scattered in Washington's Cascade Range.

I might have written the book on Bundy. That would have entailed me looking hard into Bundy to see what caused one man to become a savage. It would have made me a different person, one I might not have liked. As a free-lancer in Denver in 1982, I wrote a story for an alternative weekly about Colorado cold cases. Some were women who had been kidnapped, raped and murdered in the mountains when Bundy was on the prowl. They fit the killer's M-O. I was surprised to learn later that investigators knew about 30 murders by Bundy but suspected him in dozens of others, maybe as many as 100.

It snowed in Gainesville in January 1977 and our pipes froze. In February, I borrowed a car and went on a job search in Orlando, Tampa and St. Petersburg. I stayed with friends along the way. I did not return with a job. The money was gone so I moved from Gainesville back home. I was blue. If Florida had basements, I would have been moping in the basement. As it was, I moped in the spare bedroom. I eventually rallied, got a job with a construction industry magazine, and moved out.

Looking back, I see a creative person trying to get a job. Stories surrounded me but I didn't know that yet.

Poe Ballantine puts Chadron on the map, and some are not too happy about it

I don't often attend a literary event that has its own security detail.

Face it -- it's not often that writers get death threats. There was that Iranian fatwa against Salman Rushdie, a threat that forced him into hiding for a decade. It had expired by the time I heard him talk in Laramie a few years ago.

A well-armed deputy sheriff was on hand at the Literary Connection on Saturday at LCCC in Cheyenne. I asked him if there had been a threat. He replied that the college was only interested in being prepared for all eventualities.

At the podium were author Poe Ballantine of Chadron, Nebraska, and filmmaker Dave Jannetta of Philadelphia. They spoke in turn about a the mysterious case of a Chadron State College professor, a neighbor to Ballantine. His body was found out on the prairie. It was bound and horribly burned. Local law enforcement ruled it a suicide. Ballantine originally agreed. After investigating the case, he eventually decided that it was a murder. He wrote a book about his six-year saga of discovery, and Janetta is working on a documentary about it.

The book is "Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere." I began reading my signed copy yesterday evening and can't stop. Not only is Ballantine a fine writer. But wind-whipped Chadron and its residents are interesting characters on par with Savannah and the people portrayed in John Berendt's best-seller "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." Who knew Chadron (pop. 5,844 -- a bit smaller than Torrington, WY, a two-hour drive across the border) could be so damn interesting?

Leave it to a writer.

And then there's the murder. In 2006, CSC math professor Steven Haataja disappeared. More than three months later, the man was found burned to death and tied to a tree in the hills behind the campus. Police were stumped. They finally ruled it a suicide. Ballantine, a novelist and essayist, was not particularly interested in writing a true crime book. But, during his short time in Chadron, he got to know most of the people involved -- so he jumped right in.

The first part of "Love and Terror" is devoted to Ballantine's itinerant life. The writer had spent his adulthood knocking about the country, working odd jobs and trying to establish a writing career. He'd been pretty good at the first two. The third? Not so much.

Until recently. With five books to his credit with the upstart Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts in Portland, Ballantine's career is on the move. Although he and his family are staying put in Chadron, despite the death threats.

Haataja's family wants the dead to stay buried (see Ballantine's posts on the Hawthorne Books blog and read the comments). The police want the case off of their to-do list. The town fathers and mothers don't think that murders are the proper promotional schemes for tourism (although they may be wrong about that). Its motto invites to come to town and "Learn The History. Explore The Bounty. Firsthand." And the college? It may have a harder time drawing math professors to campus.

I'm not sure why I'm blogging instead of reading Ballantine's fine book. So I'm going to remedy that right now.

One more thing: Jannetta played us two clips from the film on Saturday. He's raised $33,000 on Kickstarter to do post-production work. He hopes to get it into some film festivals. Let's hope there's a screening in Chadron. The town's kooky population deserves to see itself up on the big screen. Find out more at "Love and Terror the Movie."

Love & terror & poetry Oct. 4-5 in Cheyenne

Attend a free writing workshop on Friday, Oct. 4, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. at Laramie County Community College’s Center for Conferences and Institutes.

This Literary Connection event will be conducted by Poe Ballantine, Dave Jannetta and Lisa Zimmerman.

Ballantine and Jannetta will present “Love and Terror: The Infinite Fascinations and Complex Problems of Portraying True Crime in a Small Town.”

Zimmerman will talk about “Writing through the Block: Inventive Ways to Get Lines to the Page.”

Continental breakfast provided.

On Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., the three writers will talk in detail about their work at the Center for Conferences and Institutes. It will be followed by a book signing. Lunch is provided.  Fee is $45. Online registrations are now closed. Please call 307.778.1285 to register.

About the Authors

Poe Ballantine: Born in Denver, Poe Ballantine is known for his novels and essays, many of which appeared in The Sun. His second novel, Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire, won Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year. The odd jobs, eccentric characters, boarding houses, buses, and beer that populate Ballantine’s work often draw comparisons to the life and work of Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac. Ballantine is the author of the true-crime book Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere (2012) and is also the subject of the documentary Poe Ballantine, A Writer in America. He has written four books – two collections of essays and two novels. Many of the stories he tells are taken from his personal experiences that include traveling, living on the road, and working some 75 odd jobs. One of Ballantine’s short stories, The Blue Devils of Blue River Avenue, was included in Best American Short Stories 1998 and his essay 501 Minutes to Christ appeared in Best American Essays 2006. He lives in Chadron, Nebraska, with his wife, Christina, and their son.

Dave Jannetta: Dave Jannetta is the founder of 32-20 Productions, a Philadelphia-based production company covering the full spectrum of film and video production with a focus on telling quality stories of all shapes and sizes. Dave has worked closely with Poe Ballantine to turn his story Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere into a documentary movie.

Dave will discuss taking a literary piece and working with it to create a visual representation.

Lisa Zimmerman: Lisa Zimmerman received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Washington University in St. Louis. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in the Colorado Review, Redbook, Paper Street, Poet Lore, Eclipse, Atlanta Review and many other journals. Her poetry has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. She has published two poetry chapbooks as well as the full-length collections How the Garden Looks From Here, winner of the 2004 Violet Reed Haas Poetry Award, and The Light at the Edge of Everything (2008). Lisa is an assistant professor of English at the University of Northern Colorado and has been the poet-in-residence at Colorado schools in Aurora, Brighton, Longmont, Fort Collins and Idalia.

"Inside Job" movie party Feb. 12 at Laramie County Library in Cheyenne

In the Academy Award winning documentary, Inside Job, director Charles Ferguson breaks down in a clear and comprehensible way how the housing and economic collapse happened—and names the politicians and Wall Street bankers who are responsible.

The Cheyenne screening of Inside Job will be held at the Laramie County Public Librasry in Cheyenne at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 12. It’s free and open to the public. After the film, we'll discuss how to keep the 99% movement strong in communities across the country.

Sign up at http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/attendees/index.html?event_id=126886&id=-1460962-8KUfFcx

Save the date for the Children’s Justice and Mental Health conference in Cheyenne

This June 14-17 conference is timely, as mental health needs and juvenile justice continue to be big topics in Wyoming. Just yesterday, Gov. Mead was interviewed by Bob Beck on Wyoming Public Radio about the state’s flawed juvenile justice system.

The ACLU and other organizations have criticized the high numbers of juveniles who are jailed, many for minor offenses. Groups have called for a uniform approach towards addressing young offenders. Now, each county decides how to handle juveniles. Gov. Mead says he is trying to get a handle on how large the problem is, but says he does favor some type of uniform approach.

"The goal is not to put as many Juveniles in jail as possible, the goal is to address Juvenile problems and delinquency and address it. Jail is always going to be part of that, but we don't want to put more than we have to in jail."

Mead says he would like to see a Juvenile Justice system with strong accountability, but he does think they need to move away from incarcerating Juveniles. The legislature's Judiciary committee is tackling the issue next week.

Gov. Mead is in the hot seat on this one. His Republican Party supports tough crime laws  and local control. They have a Biblical bent toward “spare the rod and spoil the child.” None of that bodes well for juveniles seeking fairness from the justice system, especially in very rural counties.

The 2011 Children’s Justice and Mental Health Conference, “Well-Being, Family Voice, and Children’s Choice,” will be held June 14-17, 2011, at Little America, Cheyenne

Parent scholarships are available (see below for more info).

The conference agenda is built around several keynote sessions with a selection of breakout sessions. The conference will focus on building the capacity for a broad group of stakeholders including service providers, parents, and policy-makers in the following areas: trauma informed care, understanding the juvenile justice system, parenting children with serious emotional disorders, system of care for children’s mental health, and medication assisted treatment for youth and adolescents.

Internationally known counselor, speaker, and author, Dr. Bruce Perry, will be the keynote speaker. Dr. Perry is a recognized authority on children in crisis. He has been consulted on many high-profile incidents involving traumatized children, including the Columbine school shootings, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Branch Davidian siege. Additionally, Dr. Rick Delaney, a psychologist who specializes in foster and adoptive children and their parents, will be sharing practical strategies for parenting and working with children with serious emotional and behavioral problems.

Conference also includes a panel focusing on the juvenile justice system entitled, “Where Do Parents Fit In?” And Dr. Bob Klaehn will present on medication assisted treatment for youth and adolescents.

There is not a registration fee but participants must register at http://gal.state.wy.us and click on “annual conference” or http://www.courts.state.wy.us/CJP

UPLIFT has been awarded funding from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for a limited number of scholarships to assist with travel/lodging costs.  Parents participating in this event will have the opportunity to engage with other stakeholders and build their skills in understanding and parenting their child.  Parents of children or youth with emotional or mental health disorders need to register for the conference at website listed above and then submit the following information to UPLIFT at 4007 Greenway St., Ste. 201, Cheyenne, WY 82001 or kconner@upliftwy.org

P.S.: I serve on the UPLIFT board. You can leave a comment here if you seek more info.

Cheyenne Zonta Club announces "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence"

Mona Pearl at the Zonta Club of Cheyenne sent out this announcement today:

The Zonta Club of Cheyenne is again participating in 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. The campaign formally kicks off on Nov. 25. Proclamation signings by Governor Dave Freudenthal and Cheyenne Mayor Rick Kaysen will take place on Nov. 20 and Nov. 18, respectively. The Wyoming Division of Victim Services' “Silent Witness” display in the Laramie County Public Library will open on Nov. 30.

The Cheyenne Zonta Club has invited other organizations to join the campaign, including Safehouse, Cheyenne Community Clinic, United Way of Laramie County Women’s Leadership Council and Prevent Child Abuse-Wyoming.

Since 1991, the 16 Days Campaign has helped to raise awareness about gender violence and has highlighted its effects on women globally. Each year, thousands of activists from all over the world utilize the campaign to further their work to end violence against women. The campaign has celebrated victories gained by women’s rights movements, it has challenged policies and practices that allow women to be targeted for acts of violence, it has called for the protection of people who defend women’s human rights and it has demanded accountability from states, including a commitment to recognize and act upon all forms of violence against women as human rights abuses.

Contact Mona Pearl at 307-772-9001; 307-421-3788; pearl@wslc.com

Nobody would be surprised to hear that violence against women is a problem in Wyoming. In a Sept. 23 article in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle,

Cary Heck, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Wyoming, believes domestic violence is a problem in the state. “I think that is linked a little to socio-economic status, and we sort of have a frontier mentality,” he said. “Wyoming is a drinking state -- and I think those things are linked.”

The professor said domestic violence is hard to prevent from a public policy perspective and that past domestic violence can be linked with future domestic violence. “Generally it’s an explosion that occurs,” he said. “It’s hard to make public policy that will keep those explosions from happening because they’re really not rational events.”

Eileen Gavagan, victim/witness coordinator for the Laramie County District Attorney’s Office, said the state needs tougher domestic violence laws, more counseling for offenders and education for family members.

In the article, the Violence Policy Center in D.C. ranked Wyoming third in the number of domestic violence murders. Wyoming usually places in the top ten in this category.

Not a pretty picture.

But it's not only murder. Most cases of violence against women end up in broken broken bones and broken homes. A woman and her children fleeing to a battered women's shelter. Traumatized kids, and the possibility that they may repeat the behavior as adults -- as either batterer or victim.

Take some time to go see the "Silent Witness" display when it opens Nov. 30 at the library.

If you still need to be pursuaded that gender violence is a problem, go to the Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence web site at http://www.wyomingdvsa.org/domestic/facts.htm

And if you're curious about how this subject fits into the current health care debate, go to my Sept. 15 post at http://hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com/2009/09/sen-enzi-please-explain-why-getting.html

Dear CIGNA CEO: Why are you afraid to meet with Dawn?

CIGNA, my health insurance company, is waiting to hear from you.

Go to its Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/CIGNAeducation/.

Ask CIGNA CEO H. Edward Hanway why he has two gold umbrella stands in his $24 million mansion but he won't sit down and talk to Dawn Smith, the woman his company denied care to.

Go on. It's fun.

Tectonic Theater Project revisits Laramie w/update

The epilogue of "The Laramie Project" will be screened at a theatre or library or arts center near you on Oct. 12. It may not be anywhere near you if you happen to live in Wyoming. Off Stage Theatre Company in Jackson plans a screening. No word about any events in Laramie.

UPDATE: Oct. 12 presentation in Laramie

THE LARAMIE PROJECT: TEN YEARS LATER: AN EPILOGUE

By Moises Kaufman, Leigh Fondakowski, Greg Pierotti, Andy Paris, and Stephen Belber.

October 12, 7:30 p.m., FREE! Arts & Sciences Auditorium, University of Wyoming, Laramie

See the August 2009 press release from The Tectonic Theater Project here.


See the September 29, 2009 press release from the AP here.

This event is FREE and the public is cordially invited.

We remember Anne Frank and Emmett Till

The reading of a play about racial intolerance was postponed last wednesday at the U.S. Holocaust Museum due to a shooting by an intolerant racist.

The Play, "Anne and Emmett," is an imaginary conversation between Anne Frank, who died in a Nazi concentration camp, and Emmett Till, a black kid murdered by white racists in Mississippi.

Playwright is Janet Langhart Cohen, wife of former U.S. defense Scretary William Cohen. Here's what she had to say about the incident:

"Our whole play is about hate, to eradicate hate, and this is an example of hatred," said the playwright, who had been heading to the museum's theater for final rehearsals ahead of Wednesday night's premiere when the attack happened.

The shooter at the museum, long-time white supremacist and anti-gubment wingnut James von Brunn, killed African-American security guard Stephen Tyrone Jones.

Janet Langhorn Cohen said that she wanted to bring them [Anne and Emmett] together in an imaginary conversation to talk about eradicating things like this. I was hoping to give voice to this tonight," she told CNN. "It's really a sad day. I love this museum. This museum tells a story, a journey of all people."

The play was planned to coincide with Frank's 80th birthday which would have been on Friday.

"It's hard to believe that that beautiful 15-year-old girl that's frozen in our memory would be 80 years old herself had she lived," said Langhart Cohen.

"And I wanted to dedicate it to her. And to think that someone of her generation still harbors that hate."

Let's hope that "Anne and Emmett gets wide distribution when it finally debuts.

Meanwhile, read the best-seller "The Diary of Anne Frank" -- or maybe re-read it. Also read the fantastic novel "Wolf Whistle" by Lewis Nordan, which is based on the 1955 Till murder.

Read 'em and weep.

Wyoming Rep. Cynthia Lummis votes against Matthew Shepard Act

Matthew Shepard, the Casper native who was murdered in 1998 in Laramie

Today, the U.S. House overwhelmingly passed the the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act.

Matthew Shepard's mother Judy Shepard, a Casper resident, responded to the decision saying, "No one should face violence simply because of who they are. This bill is a critical step to erasing the hate that has devastated far too many families."

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), vice chair of the LGBT Equality Caucus and co-sponsor of the measure, said: “Every hate crime is an attack on the liberty and equality valued by every American. This legislation will provide state and local law enforcement agencies with resources they need to investigate and prosecute hate crimes, while also protecting the exercise of free speech and religious expression provided under our Constitution.”

Matthew Shepard, oldest son of Dennis Shepard and Judy Shepard, was born in Casper on December 1, 1976. He attended Crest Hill Elementary, Dean Morgan Junior High, and the first two years of high school at Natrona Co. H.S., Dick and Lynne Cheney's alma mater. He was a member of St. Mark's Episcopal Church.

On the cold night of Oct. 6, 1998, he was followed when leaving a gay bar, beaten up, tied to a fence and left for dead. The girlfriends of the two young men arrested testified that they had targeted Shepherd because he was gay.

Wyoming's lone representative in the U.S. House, Cynthia Lummis, is from Cheyenne and graduated from the University of Wyoming, the same school attended by Matthew Shepard. Today, she joined her Know-Nothing colleagues (a.k.a. Republicans) in the House and voted against the Matthew Shepard Act.

Shame on you, Cynthia Lummis. Shame.

You're no better than Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) who spoke against the House legislation by saying that the story that Matthew was murdered because he was gay is a "hoax" played on the American people. This "hoax" idea is a popular theme on wingnut blogs.

Those must be the blogs that Rep. Lummis reads.

Everything you know about Columbine is wrong

Jesse Kornbluth wrote in HuffPost today about Dave Cullen's new book, "Columbine." To read the column, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-kornbluth/a-disturbing-new-book-abo_b_180613.html

Two weeks ago, during spring break, Chris and I wandered into the Tattered Cover LoDo and discovered that Cullen was in-house that evening talking about his book. We found a few chairs in the back of a very crowded room.

Didn't take long to get very depressed. Everything I thought I knew about Columbine was wrong. Eric Harris was a psychopath, according to the author, and Dylan Klebold was his disturbed follower. Cullen bases his conclusions of a huge cache of documentation, including journals from both killers and interviews with law enforcement and witnesses. He's been researching this topic since it happened on a pleasant spring day in the Denver burbs.

I have not yet read the book, so this isn't a review. But after sitting there in TC listening to Cullen's talk, I sank into my chair, life's fragility weighing me down. How well do we know our kids -- really know them? Sure, Harris's parents could have done a better job keeping an eye on their son. But the kid got good grades and went to the prom just a few days before the massacre. He'd been in some trouble, but weaseled his way out of any major punishment. He was a fine liar. And a leader. That's what's so chilling. The kid next door seemed pretty normal. Never shot up the neighborhood or blew up anything up. Bombs? Guns? Never saw any.

Until April 20, 1999. And then it was too late.

A poem to accompany "The Disappeared"

"The Colonel" (From The Country Between Us, by Carolyn Forche.)

What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray
of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out
for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on
the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over
the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English.
Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop
the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On the
windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had
dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for
calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of
bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief
commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some
talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said
hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed
himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say
nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries
home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried
peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them
in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass.
It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As for
the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck themselves.
He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of the
wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the
ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears
on the floor were pressed to the ground.

Quiet neighborhood, low crime rate

Our neighborhood is relatively quiet and crime-free. Occasionally, teens tear down our street on the way to the high school. A neighbor got busted for firing fireworks within city limits last Fourth of July. Late on summer nights, somewhere nearby, an annoying dog barks until its owner comes home.

Nothing major to report to the Crime Blotter. Cheyenne, in general, has a low crime rate. The Wyoming Tribune-Eagle tried to scare us about street gangs with a recent series of stories accompanied by colorful headlines. Gang-like graffiti is popping up all over town, which led city leaders to declare a gang alert. Not sure what that is, but it sounds serious. City maintenance crews are scrubbing graffiti from city property but private property owners are on their own. Some perpetrator even tagged the state parking garage downtown. A big colorful tag on the wall inside the second floor. It can't be seen from the street. I would venture that not many gang members are out the claim a parking garage as their turf. Maybe it's a new trend.

I was surprised yesterday when I came home for lunch and found police cruisers swarming the neighborhood. I spied one idling in the dead-end street that runs by my house. I wandered out to get some info. "Armed robbery at the Cenex station," said the policeman. "Seen anybody?" I told him I just got home. "Let us know if you do," he said, and then drove off. As I sat on my couch munching a sandwich, I saw several police cars pass. On the way back to work, I drove by the Cenex station and at least five police cars were on the scene, one with its lights flashing.

This morning's paper said that the robber was "a Caucasian man of average height and weight" dressed in a cowboy hat and a flowered shirt. Many residents fit this profile once Cheyenne Frontier Days begins later this month. But, as a rule, a white guy in a cowboy hat and flowered shirt waving a semi-automatic pistol and running down one of the town's busiest streets attracts attention. But nobody claims to have seen him. Same with me and my neighbors. Nobody saw him.

This is the second time in the past five years that the Cenex station has been robbed. The first time, the robber ran through the park across the street from our old house. My daughter and her friend were out in the playground after school. They saw the guy put something under the Dry Creek bridge, and then tear off to the West. The police arrived a few minutes later and brought down the robber. My daughter and her friend told me about the bridge and I told the police and that's where they found the loaded gun. I'm glad it wasn't the kids who did the finding....

As I said, a pretty quiet neighborhood.