This train is bound for glory -- maybe

Chris and I helped our city celebrate its 150th birthday this week.

One hundred and fifty years ago this summer, Col. Gen. Grenville Dodge staked out the city of Cheyenne on the windswept southeast Wyoming prairie. It featured Crow Creek and its consistent water supply lined with a few hardy trees. More importantly, it was right along the path that Union Pacific had chosen for its transcontinental railroad. The plains tribes already used the gangplank of the Laramie Range to cross the mountains. They followed the herds and the weather.  The railroad was just trying to link up with the Central Pacific on its way east from the West Coast.

Just as it did for native peoples, the Rocky Mountains presented one of the biggest challenges to the railroad. Terrain and weather presented problems. Cheyenne was founded in July and winter comes early. Cheyenne became a base to build the highest elevation section of the railroad, and base camp to build bridges to cross canyons. It spent more time as a Hell on Wheels site that any other railroad town.

Cheyenne still is a railroad town. It is the state capital. The intersection of two interstate highways. One of these -- I-80 -- follows the rails except when it comes to Elk Mountain, the most-closed section of interstate in the U.S. every winter. All of us who have done time driving I-80 curse the Elk Mountain stretch. Beautiful and scenic in July. Cringeworthy in January.

Cheyenne has lots of celebrate. It shouldn't be here, as the weather isn't the most temperate. Its tomato growers are a persistent bunch, always coming up with creative ways to plant and ripen our fruit in an 90-day growing season, even 100 or 110 during good years. We have to watch out for late frosts, early frosts, freezing winds in June that kill the flowers, July hail that rips the plants to shreds. Still, Cheyenne is home to a huge Master Gardeners program and, soon, the most impressive botanic gardens conservatory for a city of its size in the U.S.

Thus summer marks a milestone for Cheyenne. What will it look like in 150 years? I won't be around, but someone will be growing tomatoes in my neighborhood. It may be an android tending an indoor hydroponic set-up. But maybe not. Humans like to grow things. That's how we survived all of these years.

I can envision a dystopian version of our future. Since we are high and dry, many coastal Americans will flock here, possibly sparking a refugee crisis that alarms the U.N. Trump may start a nuclear war. That will wipe Cheyenne off the map as we are host to the largest assemblage of nuclear missiles in creation. Cheyenne may end up being a slave labor pool for oligarchs. Diseases may wipe out all humans, clearing the way for a generation of giant bugs such as those seen in "Starship Troopers," filmed back in Wyoming's heyday at Hell's Half Acre. Wyoming has a long relationship with the devil and his minions. Devils Tower, of course, and the original white man's name for Yellowstone, Colter's Hell.

Dystopian versions for the world are big right now. Perhaps that will continue. I tend to think that the future is a mix of Utopia/Dystopia. Just like the present. You can have a great party for your hometown even while a lunatic sits in the driver's seat. We don't know where this train is headed, or if we'll arrive safely. But darn it, we can party hearty along the way.

Happy birthday, Cheyenne!

UPDATE 8/13: When reading the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle's "Cheyenne at 150," I discovered that I had demoted Gen. Grenville Dodge to colonel. I corrected that mistake. Along the way, I researched Dodge and found him a fascinating character. I also wondered why there is no Dodge Street in Cheyenne. Many other people important to the city's founding have namesake streets. Why no Dodge?

Wyoming Legislature stocks up for Doomsday. First purchase: aircraft carrier

Wyoming can't afford to fully fund its Health Department or rebuild its roads.

But House Republicans want to spend thousands of dollars to study the purchase of an army, strike aircraft and an aircraft carrier in case of "a complete economic and political collapse."

Here's the strange news in this Casper Star-Tribune article by Jeremy Pelzer (and thanks to Meg at Cognitive Dissonance for alerting me to this pressing issue):

State representatives on Friday advanced legislation to launch a study into what Wyoming should do in the event of a complete economic or political collapse in the United States. 

House Bill 85 passed on first reading by a voice vote. It would create a state-run government continuity task force, which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government. The task force would look at the feasibility of Wyoming issuing its own alternative currency, if needed. 

And House members approved an amendment Friday by state Rep. Kermit Brown, R-Laramie, to have the task force also examine conditions under which Wyoming would need to implement its own military draft, raise a standing army, and acquire strike aircraft and an aircraft carrier. 

The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. David Miller, R-Riverton, has said he doesn’t anticipate any major crises hitting America anytime soon. But with the national debt exceeding $15 trillion and protest movements growing around the country, Miller said Wyoming — which has a comparatively good economy and sound state finances — needs to make sure it’s protected should any unexpected emergency hit the U.S. 

Several House members spoke in favor of the legislation, saying there was no harm in preparing for the worst. 

“I don’t think there’s anyone in this room today what would come up here and say that this country is in good shape, that the world is stable and in good shape — because that is clearly not the case,” state Rep. Lorraine Quarberg, R-Thermopolis, said. “To put your head in the sand and think that nothing bad’s going to happen, and that we have no obligation to the citizens of the state of Wyoming to at least have the discussion, is not healthy.” 

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The bill must pass two more House votes before it would head to the Senate for consideration. The original bill appropriated $32,000 for the task force, though the Joint Appropriations Committee slashed that number in half earlier this week.

I'm all in favor of being prepared. I'd even be in favor of purchasing an aircraft carrier for emergencies if we had adequate port facilities in this landlocked state. But we don't. And won't, unless global warming due to excess burning of Wyoming coal accelerates and the Left Coast encroaches on Star Valley.

Wyoming Republicans seem to excel at crackpot bills. But this one is a doozy.

"Undead Lovers," post-apocalyptic film set in Wyoming, screens Aug. 27 in Laramie

K. Harrison Sweeney grew up in Worland and graduated from the University of Wyoming Theatre and Dance program in 2001. He now lives in southern California making movies. He sends word that he and his cohorts are holding a free screening of his short film "Undead Lovers" (using Jalan Crossland's honky tonk song of the same name) around the state. The first screening is 2 p.m. this Saturday, August 27, at the UW Fine Arts Main Stage in Laramie. Live music and hors d'oeuvres will be available at the reception.

Translating hate crimes into fiction

It's tough to know how to respond to the recent murders in Wichita and D.C. Both inspired (if that's the proper word) by hatred, motivated by crackpot philosophies (philosophy?) and perpetrated with firearms. If only crackpots had guns, only guns would be cracked pots. I'll keep working on that bumper sticker motto.

For thoughtful lefty (and sometimes vitriolic) responses, click on some of my sidebar blogs -- Daily Kos, Crooks & Liars, Huff Post, Lefty Blogs, etc. Pick a blog, any blog. Jim Wallis at Sojourners offers a response leavened with Christianity.

Over the years, I've written several short stories about white supremacists. "Mud Woman Gets Busy" is set in the mid-1990s in a Salt Lake City hotel and features neo-Nazis, immigrants (legal and Illegal) and a clueless young man from the former East Germany. If you've ever heard the term "mud woman" (as in "mud people") then you you know the story involves white supremacists. The story is included in my collection, "The Weight of a Body." "REV" imagines a future Afghanistan war in which our fundies have taken over the government and are waging holy war on their fundies. There are more, of course. "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood is a great example of a dystopian fundie future. Carl Hiaasen's comic novel "Lucky You" features some neo-Nazi baddies who get their just desserts. Any other books on similar subjects to recommend?

You can read the two stories at my web site. Go to http://ebiz.netopia.com/writingwyo/fiction/. Happy summer reading.

When the end comes, what will we do with the Texas Republic?

Andrew Osborn writes in the Wall Street Journal about the imminent break-up of the U.S. -- as envisioned by a Russian prognosticator.

For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

"There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds, poker-faced. "But if we're talking reasonably, it's not the best scenario -- for Russia." Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control....

Mr. Panarin's apocalyptic vision "reflects a very pronounced degree of anti-Americanism in Russia today," says Vladimir Pozner, a prominent TV journalist in Russia. "It's much stronger than it was in the Soviet Union."

The WSJ has provided an excellent graphic (shown above) with its Dec. 29 story. When I saw it, I realized that Igor (is that ee-gore or eye-gore?) Panarin has never spent time in the U.S. If he'd been to the South, he would know that you could never split the Dixie states of Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi from Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia and North and South Carolina. If one of them is to secede or break it off from the U.S., so will the rest of them. Besides, Southerners wouldn't countenance joining the EU, with includes those cheese-eating surrender monkeys, the French.

Virginia is a question mark. I would say that the northern part of the state, the section that has been infiltrated by D.C. Democrats, would go with the Atlantic America states, leaving the rest of the state to team up with Dixie. The South shall rise again! And why not? They have all the military bases. Lots of firepower in rural Georgia and Alabama.

But what about Texas? That's the question Americans have been asking for decades. It's laughable to think that Texas would want Oklahoma, especially after the recent BCS decision that put OU in the national championship game over The Horns. Texans would be more likely to blow the Okies to shit. If they didn't, the Okies would go with the Central North-American Republic and its Canadian pals. What's even more laughable is that the Texans would be under the influence of Mexico. Igor has never heard of the Alamo. He also doesn't realize that Mexico, obviously on the upswing after the 2010 dissolution of El Norte, will not want all of those Texans swarming across the Rio Grande to take Mexican jobs. I predict that Mexico will build a really big electrified fence to keep out the Gringos.

New Mexico? So many segments to the "Land of Enchantment." First, Santa Fe. Then the eastern plains. Albuquerque, where I was a zygote and later a fetus. The pueblos and their casinos. Roswell. All things considered, I think New Mexico will be better suited hooked up with the California Republic. More in common with Arizona and Nevada than Texas.

Colorado, too. More mountains that prairies, more city and frou-frou resort that Wichita. Add another one to California. This is getting to be a rather large Republic, maybe too large for the Chinese to handle.

So take away Utah and Idaho. Connect them with Wyoming and Montana, and you have the Intermountain Republic, or maybe the Republican Republic. There is some precedence for this. Remember Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle," wherein the Axis powers were victorious in WWII and the Japanese occupied the West Coast and the Nazis had the East Coast? In the book, The Man in the High Castle imagined a different reality out in Wyoming. If the U.S. broke up, this mountainous republic would be as difficult to subdue as Afghanistan -- and better armed. Wyoming and Montana also have nukes, which gives us an advantage against the Chinese, Canadians, Mexicans and even the EU. We'd have a worthy adversary in North Dakota. Maybe we can talk the Dakotas into joining us -- forget about those Canucks! They'll force you to enjoy socialized medicine!

Mr. Igor Panarin needs to do his homework before he goes around talking about the end of the U.S.A. as we know it. Next thing you know, he'll be predicting a black president for the U.S. Silly man.

Future Wyoming still a place to hide out

In 100 years, humans will be on Mars and the U.S. is divided into West Coast "Rim" states (as in "Pacific Rim"), the Union in the northeast, where the U.N. seems to hold sway, and Jesusland, which is basically what coasters now refer to as "flyover country." You state may be a part of Jesusland. Wyoming is, and so are the Rocky Mountain states, the Midwest and -- of course -- Dixie.

This is the future world in Richard K. Morgan's "Thirteen," which in the book cover is rendered as TH1RTE3N. Pretty clever. A "thirteen" is a variant human, one who has been bred with enhanced fighting skills, an overload of testosterone and a shortage of conscience. Because the male population of what used to be the USA has been feminized, there's a need for thirteens to fight wars and kill the infidel. Problem is, when the infidels are gone, the thirteens come home to kill their countrymen/women. Kind of like a swarm of Timothy McVeighs, but with more muscle. So the authorities round up the thirteens and send them to Mars. Carl Marsalis is an exiled thirteen who comes back to Earth and finds work as a detective who tracks down other recalcitrant thirteens and kills various bad guys. Good work if you can get it.

But then he stumbles upon a super-secret plot to breed a new strain of thirteens. But the plotters realize that they need to find a remote place to corral these newbies. It's got to be some place in Jesusland, where the laws are lax and prisons are the growth industry. Guess which state is chosen for the internment camp? Yes, Wyoming. But then the plotters have to cover their tracks so they send in a unit to Wyoming to kill the new breed. Nobody notices because it's Wyoming, deep in Jesusland.

Marsalis stumbles upon this and then has to go after the plotters. His love interest (yes, thirteens can fall in love) is killed by a Haag gun in the process, a weapon with rounds that cause the immune system to fail once they enter the body. Then Marsalis is really pissed. Lots of people die, and most of them deserve it.

The book was a bit long for my tastes. Could have been a 100 pages shorter. But it was a fascinating read. It's interesting how Wyoming has become shorthand for "a wild and desolate place." Not only can two cowboys find a love nest on Brokeback Mountain, far from prying eyes, but a government cabal can stash a bunch of variant humans there and then kill them without anyone noticing. So, not much has changed from the time, 100 years in our past, when Butch Cassidy and his gang robbed trains and then disappeared into Hole-in-the-Wall. I thought Wyoming's energy boom was going to double our population and make it harder for variants to hide out? Burst my bubble.

Philip K. Dick's novel, "The Man in the High Castle," used Wyoming as the lair of the title character. In the novel, the Axis Powers have won World War II (or have they?) and the Japanese run the West Coast (Rim?) and the Germans rule the East Coast. Flyover Country in the Rocky Mountains is once again the site of malcontents and people with strange powers.

Any other books you know that feature Wyoming in this role? Idaho? Montana? I'd put Colorado into the mix, but the remoteness of some of its parts is rendered obsolete by the existence of the sprawling Denver metro area.

What say, readers?

Welcome to "Vietnam with sand"

For an on-the-ground look into the U.S. "surge" in Iraq, read Nir Rosen's "The Myth of the Surge" in the newest issue of Rolling Stone. Rosen speaks Arabic, so he gets to hear exactly what Iraqis are saying to each other. This is a great advantage as almost no American soldier speaks the language. Their homegrown translators often have their own axes to grind. This makes a baffling situation even more confusing. "Vietnam with sand," is how an Air Force veteran of Iraq Wars I & II described it to me last week, adding that a fifth airman at Warren AFB had had just been killed in Iraq.

Read it and weep at http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18722376/the_myth_of_the_surge

Thanks to my old college chum Bob Page of Independence, Mo., for tipping me off to the story.

REV, Part IV

Pale Horse is our emblem, the Third Army of the Apocalypse in the Armies of God's Republic. We wear the emblem on our sleeves, right under the flag patch with its white cross surrounded by a sea of 56 stars on a blue field, adjacent to its red and white stripes ("red for the blood the Redeemer shed for our sins," says REV). On my other sleeve are sergeant's chevrons. This is a war with many casualties and quick promotions.

And me, just another grunt in a long line of draftees dating back to the Civil War. My great-granddad told me tales of Vietnam. My granddad was hauled into the ill-fated Arabian Gulf Wars. Then came the HIV plagues and then The Great Purge of the New Millennium. My dad fought in the First New Crusade. Now here we are, waist-deep in the Third New Crusade, sponsored by Americorp, part of "The Trinity of U.S. Companies" ("On earth to serve the Lord -- and you," boasts the vid ads).

Read the rest of the story here.