Our new overlords in the West will offer scads of jobs but little hope

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth lately about the state's brain drain.

No, we're not talking about the sinking IQ levels of WY GOP legislators. We're talking about the exodus of smart young people. The recent high school graduates. The grads of our community colleges and lone four-year state university. Some will establish lives in Wyoming. Most will depart for jobs and adventures in other states. other countries. Parents urge our young ones to fly from the nest. It's done with more than a little sadness accompanied by a dash of hope. People seek out jobs in metro areas, and Wyoming is sadly lacking in those. I read an article in The Denver Post that said local unemployment numbers were closing in on zero. Zero? Colorado's unemployment rate of 2.3 percent in April was the lowest in the nation for the second straight month.

In case your geography isn't up to snuff, Colorado borders Wyoming. The Colorado border is 13.9 highway miles from my front door. I can be in Old Town Fort Collins in 45 minutes, about the length of an average rush-hour commute in Denver. When my daughter Annie was living in Aurora, a Denver suburb, I could get to her house in less than two hours. My trips were made during retiree hours, between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays. I sometimes was trapped in evening traffic, which was no fun. Friday evening is the worst. Beware if it snows or hails. Denver traffic jams is how I discovered The Colorado Sound on 105.5 FM. Wonderful indie music with an emphasis on Colorado bands and no commercials.

There's a trade-off, see? Can't have low unemployment without high population. And you can't have low unemployment if your economy is heavily dependent on fossil fuel extraction. Good jobs abound when those industries prosper. Wyoming loses jobs and population when that sector goes south.

What about those jobs that used to be called "white collar?" We have them, mainly in government. Of course, our enlightened GOP legislators have responded to the downturn in the usual way -- cutting state government. Trump and his minions are doing the same on the federal level. Fewer jobs are the result. Americans looks elsewhere for work. We have no real tech sector, although there are some bright spots. Tourism continues to be hot, especially during this Total Eclipse year. But those sites and resources that cater to travelers are being hit by cutbacks. Entrepreneurs do their best to start small businesses and local bistros. But again, they are faced with declining population in the state that's already the sparsest populated in the U.S.

But there is one bright spot, according to Jim Dobson's June 10 article in Forbes, "The Shocking Doomsday Maps of the World and the Billionaire Escape Plans." Billionaires are buying up chunks of land in the Intermountain West. They are using the land as an escape from the coming apocalypse. Lest you think this land is mostly in resort areas such as Jackson and Aspen, think again. The buyers want farm land and acres for cattle grazing and accessible coal mines so they can be self-sufficient when the shit hits the fan (as shown in the article's accompanying maps). Who will do the work on these enclaves? You and me, the less affluent residents of the West. We will be like the serfs of old, farming the fields from dawn to dusk for the feudal lord. The menfolk and kidfolk will scrape coal from Powder River Basin mines and transport it by mule cart to the coal-burning private power plants which no longer have to worry about pollution controls. Our womenfolk will make and serve meals to the lord in his fortified castle. All of it will be guarded by a private security force trained in Iraq and Afghanistan and any other wars we can conjure up with in the next several hundred years.

So, there is hope for our sons and daughters and grandchildren. Jobs galore created by our new feudal overlords.

No hope but lots of jobs.

Cheyenne Comic Con leads to jam-up at Little America parking lot

You'd think that the sprawling parking lot at the Little America Conference Center would be spacious enough for all of the comic book geeks and gamers and cosplayers in Cheyenne.

Think again.

About noon on a gray May Saturday, Little America's lots were overflowing. As Chris and I left for lunch, a Cheyenne traffic cop blocked the entrance, sending Comic Con fans to the overflow lot at the events center on Lincolnway. As we drove away, we saw people parking at the old pancake house on the east side of I-25. Ghostbusters and star troopers and anime girls trudged through the rain for their date with destiny or at least their date with stars in the sci-fi/fantasy universe.

I'm a newbie (noob) to comic cons of all stripes. So, when I use a term such as "cosplay" or "anime," I may not know what I'm talking about. My kids do, but they're away in their own universes. But one thing was clear to me -- the first Cheyenne Comic Con was off to a good start. And I had to wonder -- how come we've never had this kind of parking crush at a poetry reading?

Chris, a long-time Star Trek fan, bought tickets for Cheyenne Comic Con (hereafter known as C3) when news first broke about the event. In the ensuing months, I had retired, collected Social Security, used my Medicare card several times and went under the knife for knee replacement surgery. Not your usual geek pastimes. However, it gave me a leg up (so to speak) at a Comic Con as I was one of the few attendees who was part robot. Not only do I have bionic knees but also an implantable cardioverter device (ICD) that beams signals about my heart condition to a telemetry lab and can shock me back to life should I descend into a fatal arrhythmia. Fatal Arrhythmia -- sounds like a comic book character's name, a villain, I would think.

Fatal Arrhythmia: Die, Captain Cardiac!

Captain Cardiac: Fie on you, Fatal Arrhythmia. I live many lives thanks to modern medical marvels.

F.A.: But I am a super-villain.

C.C.: And I am on Medicare!

Look for more adventures coming soon from You Kids Get Off My Lawn Comics.

At the Comic Con vendor fair, I bought a number of comics. I was curious about this industry which is gobbling up shelf space at all of my local bookstores. We also have several comic book stores in downtown Cheyenne. One of them, The Loft, was the impetus behind C3.

It's no news that comics are big. But I usually read books, such as the kind you find at the library. They are printed (usually without illustrations), bound and finished off with a nice cover. Some of them are several hundred thousand words long, which seems big unless you've read War and Peace.

But writers still write the stories featured in comics and graphic novels. Bob Salley is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh M.F.A. program and studied with a novelist I admire, Lewis "Buddy" Nordan. He was a fan of comic books and entered that world in an attempt to make a living as a creative person, much as other MFAers such as yours truly got into  the world of arts administration, while others enter education, cab driving and the lucrative food service industry.

Salley writes a series called The Salvagers. His is a collaborative process, unlike the act of writing your average literary novel. Illustrator at his Think Alike Productions is George Acevedo, colourist is DeSike and HdE does the lettering. They even designed a special giveaway comic for C3 which features The Salvagers in "The Wreck Raiders." If you bought one of the press's graphic novels, you received a signed copy of the comic. So that's what I did after a lively conversation with Salley. He saw my composition book and pulled his notebook out of a backpack. It was filled with ideas for new stories. I showed him some pages from my journal. They included everything from rough drafts of stories to to-do lists to notes from meetings and events such as C3. This is the kind of geeky stuff that writers do.

Salley and I talked about trading stories and staying in touch. I am fascinated by graphic novels. To belittle them is to negate the life experiences of a big chunk of America. Million read comics. Millions more watch sci-fi/fantasy.superhero movies. Others like to dress and act like Sailor Moon or Iron Man. Creative writing. Filmmaking. Theatre. All creative pursuits being practiced by the people attending any comic con.

I bring this up because the arts funding world has been slow to recognize what's happening all around us. All of these creatives are selling their wares and attempting to make a living. To that end, they travel the Comic Con circuit like bands of gypsies. Do any of them make a living? Some vendor booths are more crowded than others. Some, such as Cheyenne's Warehouse 21 and Winged Brew ("We make tea cool") sell products and services. Others, such as actors on popular cable shows and films, get paid to hobnob with the hoi polloi and charge for autographs and photos. Chris and I paid $60 for an autograph and photo with Ernie Hudson, best known as Winston Zeddimore in the first two "Ghostbusters" movies. He's a nice guy. We like him in the Netflix series "Grace and Frankie" where he plays Frankie's (Lily Tomlin's) love interest. They may have to kill him off as he's slated to be in a new futuristic cop drama called "APB." Hudson let slip later in a Q&A that he attended Yale Drama School with Sigourney Weaver and played boxer Jack Johnson on stage in "The Great White Hope." I was impressed. I am also impressed that Hudson was a Ghostbuster and has a cameo in the upcoming "Ghostbusters" sequel.

Mike and Chris at Cheyenne Comic Con with Ernie Hudson. 

What impressed me most at C3? The size of the crowds. "This is better than the Fort Collins Con," said one vendor. This is especially impressive because Cheytown has an inferiority complex when it comes to out neighbor FoCo across the border, where everything is bigger and better and hipper. Except for Comic Con, it seems -- lots of those cars parked higgledy-piggledy in the parking lot bore Colorado plates.

Also, people had fun. Think about that next time you're at an arts event or a poetry reading or even one of my prose readings. Are you enjoying yourself? If the answer is "no," you may want to plan for C3 Part Deux set for May 2017. Or you can check out a con near you. Find out what floats your boat (or steers your starship) and get after it.

My life and welcome to it -- hard work, persistence and pure dumb luck

According to our insurance agent, it would cost a lot to rebuild our house if it was destroyed by a tornado or other insurable natural disaster. Not a flood -- that's different kind of insurance, as homeowners in South Carolina are finding out this week. Our house was built of brick in 1960. As we all know, they don't build them like that anymore. Bricks are expensive, as are brick masons. You can build a wood frame house with a brick facade for something like $125 a square foot. A brick house would cost us $160-something a square foot. So we pray that no tornadoes touch down on us.

When I was in my twenties, I never thought twice about insurance. Or once. For most of that era, I had no health insurance. Nor did I have life insurance. Only when I was in my thirties and children were arriving, did I have insurance -- and worked a corporate job to get it.

Now I'm insured to the gills. And a good thing too, since gills are expensive. Hearts, too. And knees. Diabetes. Mental health crises. Car accidents. Hail storms. Basement floods. Root canals. All of these have entered my family's life during the past five years. I was insured at various levels for them all. What if I had no insurance, as is the case with thousands of my fellow Wyomingites? Well, Obamacare exists, so that's good. Medicaid expansion does not, which is bad. Before Obamacare, your average uninsured worker in Wyoming was SOL. Now at least they have a fighting chance.

So I am blessed, lucky and I guess you'd say satisfied with my state of being insured. It comes at a cost. If you are an artist or writer, you need a day job. Or a night job -- I hear that Wal-Mart is now open 24/7. When you're young, service jobs don't take the same toll that they do when you're middle-aged or old. You work with other young people and you are all making your way in the world, jumping from job to job, hanging out together after work, making fun of your aging bosses, those overweight jerks with three kids and a mortgage. But that gets old as you keep laboring in the vineyards without actually getting to drink any of the wine. And then you're the one having kids and getting fat and it ain't so funny anymore.

I have been a part of the service industry workforce. I've been broke and the family has been on food stamps (now called SNAP) and the infant nutrition program. My wife and I have declared bankruptcy twice. We lost a house to foreclosure. It's painful. When you get back on your feet, it's tempting to go the Republican route of blaming those people who apparently are too lazy to lift themselves up by the bootstraps and join in the prosperity that is America's middle name. But then you remember how difficult it is to get an education and find the right kind of job and make a meaningful living that also supports a family. If you throw in things such as mental health issues and other health problems and learning disabilities and substance abuse. Well, you know that it ain't so damn easy to be Donald Trump or Gordon Gecko. You can do everything right and still fail.

So color me grateful as I sneak up on 65 and I am a person of some means but not mean-spirited. I'm not taking an around-the-world trip anytime soon. But I am taking my wife to Italy in the next few years. God willing and the creek don't rise or a tornado knocks my manse off its foundation. Insurance will help with those things. As for the others, well, that's hard work and persistence and just dumb luck.

I should end my ruminations there. Writers should know when to quit. But another thing occurs to me. I'm a liberal but also a fiction writer. I know that "stuff happens" (tip of the cap to JEB!) in this world. You can be in a classroom at an Oregon community college, dreaming about Friday,  when a fellow student walks in with a gun and blows your dreams to shit. You can be a loving parent, just going to work and thinking good thoughts for your kids, when you get the call that it's your kid who's massacred nine people and killed himself. You can go for a run in the park before work one sunny morning and the next thing you know, you're being hauled off to the ER with a massive heart attack.

Aren't I a Debbie Downer this morning?

Monty Python got me thinking this way. Chris and I saw the local production of "Spamalot" last night. "Always look on the bright side of life" is the show's theme song. King Arthur's time is filled with war and pestilence. People die by the cartload -- "bring out your dead!" -- but Not Dead Fred is having none of it ("I'm not dead yet."). We loved Monty Python for its irreverent, nonsensical humor. In the 1970s, we were living in irreverent, nonsensical times. The art we liked reflected that. The Python, Firesign Theater, "Catch-22," George Carlin, Frank Zappa, National Lampoon, the Furry Freak Brothers, etc. When reality is the exact opposite of what your leaders tell you, the time is ripe for satire. If you revel in satire ("let the revels begin!") then you have to believe that nothing is sacred (sing it -- "every sperm is sacred") or out of bounds. While it is hugely entertaining to lampoon the fundies and Tea Partiers, I can't forget that there are liberal true believers that deserve an equal dose of barbed humor.

"Always look on the bright side of life." It doesn't mean the exact opposite -- that's too easy. It means what "We'll meet again some sunny day" means at the end of "Dr. Strangelove." Or the same as Professor Pangloss's catch-phrase in "Candide," that this is "the best of all possible worlds." It's that sliver of hope that exists in the face of humankind's rampant stupidity.

There's no insurance for that. Insurance itself is absurd in the face of this life that is uninsurable.

For that, we have humor.

Name an issue and the Know Nothings are against it

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

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

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

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

Everything's just peachy in Chey-town.

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

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

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

And Cheyenne got left in the dust.

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

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

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

Cheyenne Artspace wants you to take its Artist Market Survey

I've always been pleased when people who live in the far-flung regions on Wyoming refer to Cheyenne as North Denver. They mean it as a slam. I take it as a compliment.

I'm a Denver native. My parents were Denver natives. My son was born in Denver. Both sets of grandparents met, fell in love, got married, and had kids in Denver. They were from elsewhere but found themselves in the Mile High City 100-some years ago and did what humans have been doing for centuries -- they got busy being human.

But this isn't about Denver. It's about NoCoSoWy or, if you prefer, SoWyNoCo. It's about Cheyenne, Laramie, Fort Collins and Greeley. It's about the counties of Laramie, Albany, Larimer and Weld. More than 720,000 souls live in this region, far less than the millions who inhabit Colorado but more than the 580,000 or so who inhabit the Great State of Wyoming.

Some 350,000 people live within a 50-mile radius of Cheyenne. There should be 600 people in there who are interested in taking the Cheyenne Artspace Artist Market Survey that was launched on Thursday. That's the number that Arts Cheyenne and Cheyenne DDA/Main Street hope to reach in the next eight weeks. I think they can do it. I attended the survey launch party Feb. 26 at Asher-Wyoming Arts Center across from the Cheyenne railyards. A pair of engines pulled a line of graffitied railcars toward San Francisco. A teamster was wrangling a loaded semi in the parking lot. Lace-like snowflakes danced on my windshield.

Attendance was pretty good for a cold, snowy Thursday. We hung out at tables arrayed around the bare-brick second floor center. Sixty of us ate, chatted and listened to music by Todd Dereemer and his band. The stage was designed as a multi-media stage/altar for the Vineyard Church. The church moved out and the arts center moved in.

Here's how's Arts Cheyenne described this initiative:

Artspace is a non-profit consultancy and property development organization specializing in affordable housing and work space for artists and arts organizations. Artspace has developed 37 similar projects in 13 states, with a dozen more in development or under construction. A nearby Artspace project in Loveland, Colo. is slated for completion this spring.

Artspace representatives visited Cheyenne last year to tour buildings and make presentations to community leaders and artists. The visit convinced Artspace there was a market for an artist live/work project and in Cheyenne Feasibility Report recommended the survey to help determine project specifics, like space, location, and number of potential users. 

Artspace and Arts Cheyenne will work together to promote the online survey to local artists and arts organizations. A survey report will be compiled and delivered in August 2015. 

At Thursday's gathering, Shannon Joern from Artspace HQ in Minneapolis gave us an overview of the project and provided a rough timeline.

The survey may show a need for the project. It may not. That happened in Casper a few years ago. While a live/work style project wasn't in the cards, Artspace is still working with Casper on a consulting basis. Casper's core business area is booming. The Casper Artists' Guild will move into its renovated downtown warehouse on May 1. A brewpub, gelatto shop and other small businesses will occupy the other half of the warehouse. In some ways, Casper is ahead of Cheyenne when it comes to creative placemaking. If only they could get a new library....

Felicia Harmon of Loveland Artspace noted that the arts survey conducted six years ago in the south end of Colorado's Larimer County helped to "quantify and qualify the arts in our community." Even before construction started on the live/work space, Loveland Aleworks opened a block away because it "wanted to be close to another arts community," Harmon said. Across the railroad tracks from the former feed and grain depot, now the arts center adjacent to the Artspace development, is a group of new studios for mid-career artists and in the works is a new maker space. The Arts Incubator of the Rockies (AIR) has moved into the neighborhood, adding a regional arts component to the local one. AIR was based in Fort Collins but heard the drumbeat of innovation and moved south.  

My advice? If you're interested in the arts and the future of Cheyenne, take the survey. A good investment for 15 minutes. I'll wager that you spend at least 15 minutes a year listening to people say, "There's nothing to do in Cheyenne."

Well?

Can't help myself -- writing nice things about Republicans again

I can't help myself. I keep writing nice things about Republican legislators. This time it's newly-elected Sen. Stephan Pappas of Cheyenne. He's co-sponsor, with Democrat Chris Rothfuss of Laramie, of a bill (SF115) that would protect gays and transgender people from workplace discrimination. The bill passed its first Senate vote on Friday. Here's Sen. Pappas's comments about the bill in this morning's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle:

[Pappas] said Wyoming is being economically affected by not having an anti-discrimination law. Wyoming needs to show the country and the world it lives by its nickname of the Equality State, he said. 

"There's folks we could bring into Wyoming who have a lot of talent who otherwise might stay away from us if we don't protect folks from discrimination," he said.

Pappas defeated Democrat Dameione Cameron in the 2014 Senate race. I walked neighborhoods for Cameron and contributed to his campaign. He had as many Republican and Libertarian supporters as Democrats, a good thing in this red state. Not enough, though. Too many Democrats didn't vote. The campaign on both sides was noteworthy for its decorum. We know that national groups put pressure on Wyoming Republicans to not stray from the fold. In Gaylan Wright's House District 10 campaign, fliers landed in Republicans' mailboxes that said if you vote for a Democrat, your neighbors are going to know. Intimidating in a largely rural state with the highest rate of gun ownership in the nation. The same fliers from mysterious national right-wing groups probably made it to mailboxes in Senate District 7.

But Pappas and the rest of us know that Dameione Cameron is an Air Force veteran from South Carolina who stayed in Cheyenne, worked his way through law school and now has a thriving practice. We also know that he is a successful businessman, proprietor of downtown's Morris House Bistro, the best restaurant in town, known throughout the region for its Carolina low-country cuisine. If my knees were in better shape, I would walk 100 miles to sit on MHB's patio on a summer evening, eat shrimp and grits, wash it down with a cold beer. Almost like Myrtle Beach -- without the mosquitoes. Fortunately, I work only a block away from MHB and can saunter on over for lunch any time.

Did I mention that Mr. Cameron is gay? Must have forgotten. It hardly seems worth mentioning, Cameron being such an outstanding member of the community and all. To get down to basics, he's one hell of an economic generator, if you count both of his businesses and the people he employs. A homeowner, too, with his partner Troy Rumpf. A taxpayer, too. Stephan Pappas knows this. Sen. Pappas, an architect and USAF veteran, lives in Cheyenne and probably knows a few other people in the LGBT community. Whatever his reasons, Pappas is doing the right thing while many of his Republican colleagues dwell in the dim past.

We'll see how far this anti-discrimination bill gets. SF115 faces two more votes in the Senate and then moves over to the House. Let's see what our Equality State legislators do. Expect fireworks and crazy talk. But also some pleasant surprises.  

What happens when Wyoming tourists no longer want to drive?

Gas prices are lower and expected to go even lower. We may be in for $2.50 gas prices in early 2015.

Yellowstone had a record 4 million visitors in 2014.

All good news for Wyoming.

Or is it?

America's love affair with cars may be over. Hard to believe for us Baby Boomers. I've been driving for almost 50 years. I couldn't wait to get my license and a car and tear around Volusia County, Florida -- and possibly use my new motorized self to get a date.

I did get a date or two. And I've driven in hundreds of counties all over this country and had a pretty good time doing it.

But those days may be over, at least in urban centers where most of the population lives. Kids these days -- they don't dream so much about piloting their own car as they do about saving the planet. Public transportation and car-sharing and walking and biking are hip.

Teton County, the gateway to Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks and the cornerstone of Wyoming tourism, just opened a new terminal for its Southern Teton Area Rapid Transit (START) bus line. We have buses in Cheyenne and Casper and maybe a few other communities. But none of us has a transportation terminal that includes a "bus barn" for storing vehicles indoors away from the cruelties of Wyoming weather. The first phase of this transportation terminal was dedicated Friday. When it's completed, it will even include employee housing, a real concern for any middle class person hoping to make a living in one of the richest counties in the country.

The state has no plans to widen tourist-clogged Teton County roads. And many environmentally-conscious residents don't want those roads widened anyway. So the county plans for more rapid transit to get residents and visitors out of their cars. As it is now, visitors can fly into Jackson and spend a week without a car. In fact, they may prefer that.

The town of Jackson's web site had a link to this article written by Tim Henderson for the PEW Charitable Trusts. It talks about the drop in rates for commuting by car, not only in cities but here in the Great Wide Open:

Western areas known for wilderness and a car-loving culture are seeing big decreases. In Oregon, Washington and Colorado, the percentage of workers commuting by car dropped by either 3 or 4 percentage points. 

The car commuting rate in Teton County, Wyoming, with its breathtaking mountain views and world-renowned skiing at Jackson Hole, dropped from 79 percent to 70 percent. No other county saw a larger decline. 

“We took a number of actions between 2000 and 2010 with the intention of changing the mode of travel away from the auto, particularly for the work trip in our area,” said Michael Wackerly of Southern Teton Area Rapid Transit. Some of the steps included providing commuter buses to get workers from neighboring Idaho, bus passes for Teton Village employees and higher parking fees to encourage bus use. For Teton County, the motivation was largely environmental. 

“A transportation system oriented toward automobiles is inconsistent with our common values of ecosystem stewardship, growth management and quality of life,” said the county’s 2012 master plan.

The Western Greater Yellowstone Consortium, a four-county partnership in Wyoming and Idaho, cites the expectations of Eastern tourists, many of whom come from cities where driving is falling out of favor. “A growing percentage of those visiting our National Parks from the nation’s urban centers and other countries expect to have alternatives to driving a private vehicle,” the group said in laying out its transportation goals.

You can read the rest of the article at http://townofjackson.com/current/more-cities-and-states-car-commuting-skids/

Many tourists "expect to have alternatives for driving a vehicle." They may be prompted by an environmental ethic. They may not want to be bothered with the hassles getting around unfamiliar territory on their own. Or they may not want to endure a National Lampoon-style family summer vacation family trip from Des Moines to Yellowstone. Where's Aunt Edna?

Sure, Jackson may be filled with tree huggers (along with the occasional Dick Cheney). But what about tourists visiting other Wyoming destinations? It's hard to imagine Cheyenne Frontier Days without city streets clogged with coal rollers and RVs. But even at CFD, the city uses school buses to transport tourists from a big parking area off of I-25 to concerts and the rodeo. And the city offers a free downtown circulator bus each summer. Downtown is very walkable and there are more and more reasons to walk around in it. We have a superb bikepath system, although commuting by bike on roadways still can be a harrowing experience.

There is a huge difference between Jackson and Cheyenne, One of the first comments I heard after moving to Wyoming in 1991: "Too bad you live in the ugly part of the state." It's true -- Jackson Hole is gorgeous while you have to hunt for the beauty in the High Plains. It's there, but it's not staring you in the face as it is every day in The Hole. More and more, Teton County residents realize what a gift they have. It's reflected in transportation policies and planning and a strong "locals" movement and arts and cultural activities such as the summer's Wild Festival which has the goal of "deepening our connection to nature through the arts."

In Wyoming, tourism is as important as digging carbon out of the ground to incinerate in giant power plants that obscure our national park vistas and contribute to global warming. But changes in national attitudes and demographics may be the real key to the state's future.

This progressive wants to go to Mars

You can't spell "progressive" without "progress."

That's a fact. But you can be a political progressive without believing in all forms of progress.

Take space exploration, for instance. Baby Boomers recall the space race of the 1960s, the fuss we made over the original batch if astronauts and our passion for the the moon landing. Progressive hero JFK said we would land a man on the moon by the end of that decade and, by gum, we did.

Forty-five years later, I was impressed by the successful Orion launch. Many of my fellow progressives were not. Some considered it a stunt by aerospace companies to suck more money out of taxpayers. Others looked at it as NASA's showy way to continue it's storied but error-plagued ways. Many conservatives aren't fans of NASA, one of those wasteful gubment agencies. Libertarians, of course, want space to be left to free enterprise. Progressives see it as a waste of money and resources in a time when our country's infrastructure is crumbling and the middle class is disappearing. Wouldn't our money be better spent in fixing problems here on earth than it would be to go gallivanting off to Mars?

We can do both, of course. We can tend to business here on earth and still reach for the stars. It takes vision and we have to prioritize. We'd rather snipe at one another than shoot for Mars. Human failings. If we choose, space exploration can help us transcend our earthbound ways.

While all of Friday's fireworks happened at Cape Canaveral, Fla., much of Orion's hardware and software was built by Colorado companies. This from The Denver Post:

Orion will go farther into space than any NASA spacecraft built for humans in more than 40 years, powered by Colorado aerospace: It was designed and built by Littleton-based Lockheed Martin Space Systems, has antennae and cameras from Broomfield-based Ball Aerospace, and will hurtle into space on a Delta IV Heavy rocket, made by Centennial-based ULA. 

But these big players could not do what they do without the help of some very specialized skills supplied by businesses such as Deep Space Systems, which worked on backup flight control electronics and camera systems. 

There are Colorado companies with as few as six employees working on Orion, all specialized in one specific aspect of engineering or technology.

There were hundreds of employees from these companies observing the Orion launch this week on the Space Coast. I didn't realize Colorado's crucial role in this latest space venture. I wondered if there were any Wyoming aerospace companies in the mix. Cheyenne and Laramie have been friendly to auxiliary companies to larger ventures in energy and electronics. What about space? I did several Google searches on the topic and came up empty. Do my loyal readers know of any Wyoming-based companies involved in the Orion project? It would seem to be that Cheyenne, the northern terminus of The Front Range, would be a great location for companies involved in propulsion systems and materials and engineering, among a few I can think of.

But back to politics.

I want equality and accessibility and justice and all those other things that progressives believe in. I also want to go to Mars. Not personally, as astronauts may not get there until 2035 or 2040, which would make me much too cranky for the venture. But just to think that it could happen in my lifetime. That's exciting. That's progress.

Coming soon to Wyoming: Ca phe da at 8,000 feet

Billboard for Wyoming's newest roadside attraction

An entrepreneur from a city named for a Southeast Asian revolutionary whose heroes were George Washington and Thomas Jefferson buys a tiny town and its convenience store at 8,000 feet in Wyoming's windswept Laramie Range with the plan of cornering the U.S. coffee market with healthy servings of ca phe da.

If this isn't an illustration of the American/Vietnamese Dream, I don't know what is.

Pham Dinh Nguyen of Ho Chi Minh City bought Buford (pop. 1) last year for $900,000. On Sept. 3, he will debut Buford PhinDeli Town. It will dispense coffee and gasoline, not necessarily in that order.

I am curious and plan on stopping by. How about you?

Memo to Rep. Hunt: With more population comes more Liberals and inevitable change

The U.S. Census Bureau shows that Casper is the eighth fastest growing metro area in the U.S. while Cheyenne is number twenty. Some Natrona County businesses aren't so sure that the boom is here to stay. Stewart Moving & Storage reports that its ratio of move-ins to move-outs is about 50/50. This is probably due to the recent downturn in the energy biz since the Census numbers were tallied in mid-2012. Cheyenne, however, is a different story. This was in today's Casper Star-Trib:

People are moving to Cheyenne to cash in on the city’s transformation as a technology hub, economists and demographers say.

“I think the main reason is we had that super computer open last year,” said Wenlin Liu, a senior economist with the Wyoming Division of Economic Analysis, referring to the National Center for Atmospheric Research-Wyoming Supercomputing Center. “There’s also the plan to open the Microsoft data storage center. These created an image about Laramie County, I think that helped. People probably moved in.”

Before the supercomputer and Microsoft Corp. eyed Cheyenne, there were other high-tech companies doing business in the city. Those companies paved the way, said Randy Bruns, CEO of Cheyenne LEADS, the Cheyenne-Laramie County Corporation for Economic Development.

From Cheyenne, EchoStar Corp. flies satellites, has an uplink data center and a data storage center. Green House Data has a storage center. Aside from four outlet stores, Sierra Trading Post sells outdoor clothing and gear online. “The technology behind all of their Web work is right here,” Bruns said.

When high-tech companies observe other high-tech companies' success in a region, they consider it as a place to relocate, Bruns said.

John Shepard, a senior planner for Laramie County, knows firsthand about growth. He moved his wife and three children from Slayton, Minn., to Cheyenne for his new job in November. He believes the relatively low cost of doing business in Cheyenne is attracting people.

“People who would be priced out of the Denver market can have a small business or machine shop,” he said.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to Dean Dexter. He's the founder of Gizmojo, a company that builds "seriously cool exhibits and graphics," designer of the education exhibits at the new NCAR/UW Supercomputing Center east of Cheyenne. Gizmojo just merged with Warehouse 21. Warehouse 21/Gizmojo staffers work among the bare bricks and exposed pipes of a renovated warehouse on Snyder Avenue. Gizmojo is renovating the old garage space in the building as a place to design and assemble its displays.

Dean moved his company from Huntsville, Ala., a few years ago. He tells the same story that I heard from Microsoft's Gregg McKnight at the Wyoming Broadband Summit last fall. The city's business leaders welcomed him with open arms. "Western hospitality," you might say, although I'm not always clear on what that means. Cheyenne LEADS as put out the read carpet for the Wal-Mart and Lowe's distribution centers, as well as various data center and the NCAR/UW project. This sort of public/private partnership has helped spawn a boom in Laramie County, boosting our population 2 percent since 2011, making Laramie County the home to 16 percent of the state's population. Our population is nearing 95,000. Wonder if we'll throw a party when that reaches 100,000?

Some of us will. The Tea Party, anti-Agenda 21 crowd may hold a wake. To them, growth means change and the threat of more Liberals rolling in with the data centers and small businesses and an unreasonable expectation to fund the arts with public money. They will want change. You know, more coffee shops and brew pubs and public transportation and the filling in of the downtown hole. Heavens to Betsy! Just like Rep. Hans Hunt's response to a Cheyenne Liberal during the most recent legislative session. "If you don't like Wyoming the way it is, move back to the Liberal Shangri-la you came from." I'm paraphrasing here. I doubt if Rep. Hunt knows James Hilton's book wherein Shangri-la dwells. There you go again. Just like a know-it-all Liberal to think that a guy that represents rural constituencies in Weston/Niobrara/Crook counties doesn't (or can't) read.

OK, I'm guilty. Rep. Hunt's letter ticked me off. Talk about your conservative know-it-all.

But I digress. I bid welcome to all of you newcomers. I know that for every 10 Republicans that move into the county, there will be five others that are Democrats or have Democratic sympathies. That's the ratio of Ds to Rs in Laramie County. They may not arrive in the same truck or minivan (alas, some will drive a Prius), but come they will, followed by an inevitable push for change.

If you like 21st-century Cheyenne, thank the gubment

Joyce Kilmer at the High Plains Arboretum: I think that I shall never see/A poem as lovely as a tree.

Cheyenne owes its existence to government or, as it's pronounced in certain quarters, gubment (sometimes, gubmint).

That darn federal gubment was nice enough to station troops at Fort D.A. Russell to drive the pesky indigenous residents from the High Plain, thus making way for settlements, ranches and rodeos. This also made the region safe for the railroad, which owes its transcontinental success to the sweet deal it got from that darn federal gubment. The fort eventually grew into F.E. Warren AFB, home to the Peacekeeper Missile and thousands of income-generating Air Force personnel. Further economic development was fueled by federal office for the BLM and IRS. And state gubment grew, too, with hundreds of state employees driving Cheyenne's economic engine, buying weed-whackers at Lowe's and dining on prime rib sandwiches at The Albany Bar & Restaurant downtown. Many of us were forced to go to Fort Collins for more exotic fare, thus allowing the regional economy to grow. It's still a challenge to get good sushi in The Magic City of the Plains. But one must make sacrifices to live in this low-tax, sparsely-populated paradise with its always-entertaining legislature.

According to the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens web site, Cheyenne had 5,000 people and 12 trees in 1876. I now have almost as many trees on my north Cheyenne lot. I have two huge spruces in my front yard, trees that sometimes give me pause during our occasional 50-mph gusts that blow in from the mountains. I sometimes wonder if they will come crashing down on the house, causing yet another call to Neil, my insurance man, who's supervised multiple damages caused by hailstorms and sewer back-ups during the past two years.

It's not easy growing trees in "one of the harshest growing environments in the country," according to the Botanic Gardens.

Again we can thank the gubment for our lush landscape. The USDA's Cheyenne Horticultural Field Station (now High Plains Grasslands Research Station) researched and grew varieties of plants that could stand up to our harsh climate. The Cheyenne Botanic Gardens now is working on a 62-acre High Plains Arboretum on the site. Trees have always been a necessity. Next week at the library, we get to hear from a tree expert. Says the Botanic Gardens:

Early settlers struggled with the arid climate, alkaline soil and constant wind. Hailstorms often hastened the end of an already short growing season. Now Cheyenne can grow trees but it isn’t easy and you need to know what to plant. 

Don’t miss the lecture on Tenacious Trees with expert arboricultureist, Scott Skogerboe.

When: Saturday, March 16, 1 p.m.
Where: Laramie County Library Cottonwood Room
Price: $15.00 ea.
Purchase tickets online at www​.brownpapertickets​.com, type in “Gardening with Altitude,” or purchase at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens (cash or check only)
NOTE: Lecture Room has limited seating. Advanced tickets are recommended as tickets at the door may sell out. Sponsored by the Laramie County Master Gardeners and the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens

I almost forgot to thank city gubment and its support (since 1986) of the Botanic Gardens. Thank you.

Rep. Sue Wallis's Food Freedom Act makes sense

Hummingbirdminds supports Rep. Sue Wallis's Food Freedom Act (from Wyoming Business Report):

This week, the Wyoming House of Representatives passed the Food Freedom Act.

The sponsor of that House Bill 108, Rep. Sue Wallis, a Republican from Recluse, said the legislation will open up local commerce and help small business. 

HB 108 would deregulate the sale of homemade foods at such things as farmers markets and in individual transactions between producers and consumers.

Wallis said if all 200,000 or so households in Wyoming spent just $20 a week on locally grown food, more than $200 million would be pumped into the Cowboy State economy. That money will turn over at least three or four times in the economies of cities, towns and counties, she said economic studies show.

"Creating science from sewage" is one benefit of new Cheyenne zero-carbon Data Plant

Science! It's a gas -- biogas, that is. The City of Cheyenne and UW and Microsoft and Fuel Cell Energy Inc. are building a pilot project east of Cheyenne to see if methane produced from sewage treatment can provide efficient zero-carbon power. A $7.5 million Microsoft Data Plant is the test case. The plant will use 200 kilowatts of energy from the fuel cell to power 200 computers. Any excess energy will go back to the Dry Creek Water Reclamation Facility to defray its electric bills. After an 18-month test period that will begin in the spring, Microsoft will give the facility back to the city and the university to use as a teaching lab. This is part of the deal, as Microsoft has to provide a "public benefit" in trade for taxpayer funding that's going to the project. Sounds like a win-win to me, a great public-private partnership. Read more about it here. 

The Western Research Institute is housed in the Bureau of Mines Building on the University of Wyoming campus in Laramie. WRI CEO Don Collins was instrumental in landing the project for the state. Said Collins:

“Microsoft is developing it as the first zero-carbon Data Plant in the world, and it will be in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Even Bill Gates had a tweet about how excited he was about this project.”

When Bill Gates tweets, people pay attention. 

Collins also said that:

...CO2 that comes out of the fuel cell can be captured and used for enhanced oil recovery in the state.  Wyoming currently does not have enough CO2 for such operations, he says. A company using a fuel cell in this manner could sell its CO2 at $25-$30 per ton to oil companies and make approximately $2.25 million, Collins says. That business scenario could make it more attractive for more fuel cell use in Wyoming.

“There might really be a strategic advantage for Wyoming for all energy-intensive companies that sell CO2 to cut costs,” Collins says. “Our goal is to turn CO2 into a valuable asset rather than something that must be disposed of at a high expense.”

At a recent meeting Collins attended in San Jose, Calif., Microsoft indicated its desire to keep the Data Plant in Cheyenne “as a long-term demonstration facility,” Collins says.

Use of a demonstration facility enhances opportunities for UW and WRI to secure competitive funding from the federal government and the Wyoming Energy Conversion Technology Fund, Collins adds.

Your taxpayer dollars at work. And I'm not being snarky. This sounds like an excellent use of state and federal funds.Microsoft may eventually use this technology for its cloud computing centers that are springing up all over the U.S. The City of Cheyenne and the State of Wyoming could do worse than having Microsoft for a partner.

Wyoming rakes in the federal dough for energy and mineral extraction

File this under That Darn Federal Gubment:

The Department of the Interior’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) announced today that more than $2.1 billion was disbursed to 36 states as part of the state share of Federal revenues collected in Fiscal Year 2012 from energy and mineral production that occurred on Federal lands within their borders, and offshore on the Outer Continental Shelf. 

One state that starts with a "W" received $995,169,098, or about 47 percent of the total. No, it wasn't Washington or Wisconsin or West Virginia.

It was Wyoming.

Several other big almost-square states also got big numbers. New Mexico and Utah. All that energy and all those minerals.

Get the numbers at http://statistics.onrr.gov

Tip of the hat to South Dakota's always-alert Interested Party blog.

Will "contact high" be the only thing Wyoming gets out of Colorado's Amendment 64?

Many are wondering if the passage of Amendment 64 in Colorado will have any effect on Wyoming. All of us in the southeast part of the state may get a "contact high" from second-hand smoke blowing in from Fort Collins. The wind has to be blowing just right, of course. And not too hard, lest Scottsbluff and Kimball over in Nebraska have all the fun. But what else?

Meg Lanker-Simons explored the topic on last night's "Cognitive Dissonance" radio show broadcast from Laramie (and now available online). And Westword in Denver opined this week on the tourism impacts of legal marijuana. The lead editorial wondered if it was a coincidence that Visit Denver just launched a massive "Denver Mile High Christmas" advertising campaign. Westword proposed a few other tongue-in-cheek cannabis-based tourism schemes, one of which involved Wyoming:

Denver boosters are missing a bet if they don't light up a few other pot-related tourist attractions. For example...

Put a duty-free exchange station just off I-25 at the border of Colorado and Wyoming, where Coloradans can trade pot for fireworks and vice-versa. It's a smoking deal!

Read more here. Westword asks its readers to send their ideas to 
editorial@westword.com.

Wyoming should find its own unique ways to draw what may become a steady stream of young, pot-friendly tourists. First step might be our own Amendment 64. Face it, enforcing antiquated marijuana laws is a waste of time and resources. Wyoming was one of the first states to criminalize marijuana back before 1917. It could be among the first to decriminalize it. After all, if Colorado Libertarians and Greens and right-winger Tom Tancredo all can agree on Amendment 64, couldn't our Libertarian-leaning Republican Legislature do the same? This morning's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle carried a front-page story about looming budget cuts and calls by our governor to diversify our economy that's over-dependent on fossil fuels. So let's diversify. Legalize pot and tax it. Let the money flow! And the tourists. We can become Amsterdam (without the prostitutes) on Crow Creek, with pot bars and brewpubs inhabiting all of those empty downtown spaces. Fleets of funky food trucks cruising Lincolnway!

There are downsides. Abuses will occur. People will drive stoned and get in wrecks. They will get high and fall asleep at the table. Convenience stores will report shortages of Cheetos and Goldfish. People will show up late for work. Reefer madness!

Consider what we now get with alcohol-fueled tourism during Cheyenne Frontier Days. People drive drunk and get into wrecks. They get plastered, puke and pass out in the gutter. Convenience stores report shortages of beef jerky and Skoal. People miss a whole week of work. And don't forget the fights. Lots and lots of alcohol-related fights. Stoners aren't known for fisticuffs.

Think about it, Wyoming.

Black Friday strike by Wal-Mart workers keeps its distance from Wyoming

This is about the closest that the Wal-Mart strike got to Wyoming. Photo from Wal-Mart protest in Lakewood, Colo. See more at http://changewalmart.tumblr.com/. Click photo for larger image. Kind of ironic when you consider that the richest Wal-Mart heir, Christy Walton, lives in Jackson, Wyoming.

Aggressive Democratic ground game -- and demographics --made Colorado a "tipping point" for Obama and legislative races

The Denver Post reports that Colorado may have been the tipping point for President Obama on election night. Read all about it here.

One thing is clear -- Colorado voters get lots of credit for getting out the vote for Obama and for its state legislators, as Democrats recaptured the House. The ground game in contested counties such as Larimer (Fort Collins), and some of the suburban Denver counties, was superb. They did get some help from little ol' us in Wyoming, as all of the efforts of Obama for Wyoming were directed southward into The Reefer State. While it's irritating to be relegated to GOTV efforts aimed at Greenies, there was no way in hell that Obama was going to lay claim to Wyoming's hotly-contested three electoral votes.

So what makes Colorado so purplish-blue and Wyoming so fire-engine red? It's population, both the quantity, age and ethnicities thereof. Colorado's population is ten times Wyoming's, and it has big city Denver as well as hipster Boulder, art-and-craft-beer-friendly Fort Collins, working-class Pueblo, chi-chi Aspen and, well, Colorado Springs. Cities draw more people and they tend to be younger and more ethnic. Colorado has always been youth-friendly, going back to the sixties, when people my age gravitated to its outdoor ethos and groovy vibes. My roots are in Denver, where I spent part of my youth and a big chunk of my adult life. Denver has seen its up and downs but it's always been able to climb out of the doldrums and prosper. It's always had its share of hucksters and rip-off artists (Soapy Smith, William Byers and Neil Bush come to mind), but also more than its fair share of visionaries, including its current governor, John Hickenlooper.

My parents were Denver natives. My mother grew up in the Irish-American enclave near Washington Park and my father grew up in City Park, about midway between the Denver Museum of Natural History and Stapleton Field (then an airport, eventually "international"). Their parents, my grandparents, all came to Colorado in their twenties. My mom's father was an Irish immigrant looking for a nicer climate than Chicago, where he'd landed after fleeing Ireland. My mom's mother trekked from Ohio to Colorado on vacation, liked it, returned home, packed her bags, and moved West. My dad' s father was gassed in France and came to Denver's Fitzsimmons Army Hospital to recuperate. Florence Green of Baltimore returned from The Great War to find her hometown boring, so re-upped in the Army Nursing Corps and was sent to Denver to care for all the ailing doughboys.
 
Seems that Denver's always been a draw for young people, for the scenery, the climate, jobs. World War II drew GIs to Colorado in record numbers to train for the Army Air Corps at Lowry Field or for the 10th Mountain Division ski corps at Cooper Hill near Leadville. After the war, they returned to Colorado, prospered and bred lots of Boomer children. Like me.

Back to the election. Colorado has been gathering innovators and yuppies and Deadheads and techies for generations. Denver, especially, has reached a critical mass, turning it from a cowtown into a world-class city. And turning the state into a blue-and-red checkerboard, with all those blue islands of progressivism.

Meanwhile, Wyoming limps toward the political margins. Its population is aging and is mainly rural. The economy is not diversified enough to capture those talented young people graduating from its high schools, community colleges and one public university. It finds it difficult to lure its graduates back from colleges in other states. In some ways, state politics is no more crazier than Colorado's, Montana's or Idaho's. Problem is, right-wing loonies have an easier time getting elected because the Democratic Party is not competitive. And even when we get great Dems to run for the legislature, they often are overwhelmed by the 2-to-1 registered voter margin of the Republicans.

Who went for Romney on Tuesday? Older white voters. What does Wyoming have plenty of? Aging white voters. Who went for Obama on Tuesday? Young voters. Also Hispanic, African-American and Asian-American voters. What does Wyoming have little of? Young, multicultural voters. So great local candidates get defeated and we keep electing more extremists to the Wyoming State Legislature.

There is obviously more to it than that. But it's the start of an explanation. More to come (fair warning!).

Question for Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso: Why did you vote to block jobs bill for military veterans?

Wyoming Sen./Dr. John Barrasso, running for re-election, voted today to block a jobs bill for military veterans. He was joined in the naysayers' column by Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi. The $1 billion veterans' job bill needed 60 votes to proceed. It was blocked 58-40. All no votes were by Republicans.

Senate Veterans' Affairs Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said the cost of the bill, $1 billion over five years, is offset. She noted that a vote to block the measure is tantamount to saying the nation has done enough for veterans.

"A vote to support this point of order says that despite the fact that we have paid for this bill, despite the fact that one in four young veterans are out of work, despite the fact that veterans suicides are outpacing combat deaths, and despite the fact that more and more veterans are coming home, we are not going to invest in these challenges," Murray said.

The nation owes veterans "more than just a pat on the back for their service," she continued. "We owe them more than bumper stickers and platitudes. We owe them more than procedural roadblocks that will impede our ability to provide help now and into the future. We owe them action."

Murray continued: "We owe them real investments that will help get them back to work. And that's what this bill does."

I'm voting for Democrat Tim Chesnut in the Wyoming U.S. Senate race. Maybe he will vote for benefits for our military veterans. On Sunday, Sept. 23, Tim will host a barbecue and fund-raiser from noon until 3 p.m. at the picnic shelter in Holliday Park in Cheyenne. Get more info by calling Barbara Guilford at 307-634-0309 or Michael Crump at 307-631-9569.

Biased statements (and proposed legislation) don't just scare away gay people -- they scare away everyone

Some Republican Legislators talk up economic development but also sponsor and support anti-gay legislation. They may want to rethink that strategy.

Interesting article by Melissa Maynard in stateline.org about the crucial role that businesses play when it comes to the gay marriage debate.

Washington state recently passed a gay marriage bill that had support of the governor, key Republican legislators and high-profile businesses such as Microsoft, Boeing and Nike. Bill sponsor Sen. Ed Murray, a Democrats, said this is "how we got moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats to vote for this."

LGBT activists have been successfully lining up business support for years. It's paid off in Washington, Maryland and New York. There's now a looming battle over the issue in North Carolina. On May 8, voters will decide whether to further codify the state's gay marriage ban by putting it in the state constitution.

These are all big states with a strong corporate presence. These businesses want to attract the young workforce and "fear being left behind in places seen as backward by gay workers and other young employees who feel strongly about the issue."

While Wyoming is not exactly a hipster destination (with the possible exception of Jackson), it runs a risk that its biased attitudes may hinder attempts to land new businesses. None of us lives in a vacuum. Outrageous statements travel like wildfire in our social media age.

Stephen Dull V.P. with North Carolina-based VF Corp. (a Fortune 500 company) put it this way: "If you're sending a signal to the world that you're biased, it just doesn't scare away gay people. It scares away everyone."

Read it yourself: "Public employee retirement plan"

In reference to my previous post about legislation changing the retirement plan for state employees....

I've posted below the summary of the bill. On its face, it's not so bad. And hey, why should I be so concerned about a bill that doesn't affect my retirement? The bill, if passed, changes retirement for those hired beginning in the next fiscal year. I started with the state many fiscal years ago and I'm closer to retirement than not.

But the state has a great plan already. It's reasonable. It's solvent. It's managed properly by the WRS board. Its assets were not invested foolishly in credit default swaps or some other Wall Street nonsense. In fact, the board issued a public statement in 2011 that supported the current retirement set-up.

Go read it for yourself. And then ask why a change is needed.

Here's the summary from Legisweb:

SF0097-12LSO-0109 Public employee retirement plan.

This bill would modify benefits and requirements for benefits for general members of the public employees retirement plan ("big plan") hired after September 1, 2012. The new benefits would be based on a multiplier of 2% for each year of service (rather than 2.175% for the first 15 years of service and 2.25% for each year thereafter under current law). The bill would also provide that benefits would be based upon the highest 5 years, rather than 3 years, of salary. Finally, the normal retirement age would be increased from 60 to 65 (the rule of 85 would remain the same).