Partners in protest -- male writers support Wyoming Women's March organizers

My wife, Chris Shay, shows off her Women's March T-shirt.

I just finished reading thoughtful columns by two male residents of Wyoming -- one a blogger and one a columnist for the Wyofile online newspaper..

Both columns are excellent and I encourage you to read them. Go here:

Cowgirl up: It's time for a  broader perspective in politics, by Kerry Drake, Wyofile

Time to go to the streets, by Rodger McDaniel, Blowing in the Wyoming Wind blog

Both columnists invite their readers to attend the Wyoming Women's March in Cheyenne on Jan. 20. I did the same thing in blog posts here and here. We are the men behind the women who are organizing this event. Partners in protest.

A crew of women is organizing the Cheyenne march. I won't name them here because I might forget a crucial member. It takes a lot of work to stage a protest. Permits, security, speakers, equipment, food. The committee has been meeting weekly and this Sunday is our final tune-up before next weekend's march. If you're interested, the committee meets at 1 p.m. on Jan. 14, at 1 p.m., in the Laramie County Public Library's first-floor Willow Room.

Thus far, I can tell you these details. Marchers will assemble at 10 a.m. on the Depot Plaza downtown. Then we -- and our creative signs -- march to the deconstructed Capitol and march back again. Speakers will speak. We then convene for food inside the Depot. The event should wrap up by 1 p.m.

The theme for the march is Women's March Wyoming -- Hear Our Vote! It encourages women to register to vote, vote, and run for office. Why is this important? Trumpist Republican men from mostly rural areas of the state are making laws for all of us. Women are not in the legislature. Women are usually not heard in committee meetings. That leads to the absurdity of the Agriculture Committee holding hearings on two restrictive abortion laws. Drake writes about this in his Wyofile column. We all should be asking why. And then we should go out and vote for those who would better represent our needs for the 21st century.

See you at the Depot on Jan. 20.

Love is love is love is love -- but not at Florida's Father Lopez Catholic High School

Below is an e-mail I sent to Father Lopez Catholic High School President Pat LaMorte in Daytona Beach, Florida. It's in response to Mary Kate Curry's "resignation under duress" at the school when it became public that she was engaged to a woman. To read more about this, go to the New Ways Ministry web site at https://www.newwaysministry.org/2017/10/23/catholic-school-teacher-fired-gender-engagement/. Thanks to fellow Lopez alum John Bartelloni (Class of '70) for alerting me about this.

My letter:

Dear Pres. LaMorte:

My Father Lopez High School education taught me that the Catholic Church should be alleviating pain and suffering in the world, not adding to it.

I just read about Mary Kate Curry's "resignation under duress" as a theology teacher and the school's decision to forbid her from coaching (even volunteering to coach) the FLHS girls' basketball team. 

Curry's letter was heartbreaking. She obviously loved her jobs as teacher and coach. To take those away from her is the worst kind of cruelty. 

And the reason? She publicly outed herself as a member of the LGBT community, someone who loves someone of her own gender. She couldn't live a lie any more and you punished her for it. Shame on you, the school and the diocese. Shame.

I attended Father Lopez from 1965-69. I was president of the National Honor Society and lettered in basketball, part of the team that went to the state tournament in 1969. I am proud of being a Lopez alum. 

Make us all proud. Alleviate the pain you caused in this young woman's life by reinstating her as a teacher and coach. 

Some 50 years from now, a 2018 Lopez grad will look upon his or her time in the classroom or on the court with Ms. Curry and say, as I do today, that I learned how to be a honorable human being at Father Lopez. 

Do the right thing.

Sincerely,

Michael Shay

Cheyenne, Wyoming

Mark Twain really liked Anne of "Anne of Green Gables" -- and so did I

Most people consider "Anne of Green Gables" a children's book, specifically, a book for girls.

As a child, I didn't read it. I read a lot. Sci-fi classic. Classics for boys, such as "Treasure Island" and "The Three Musketeers." The Hardy Boys mysteries. Tom Swift adventures.

But "Anne of Green Gables" or "Little Women" or "Little House on the Prairie?"

Not this cowboy.

My loss, as it turns out. Artificial barriers delineating what you should or shouldn't read does nobody any good.

I was charmed by the staged reading of "Anne of Green Gables" put on by the Next Step Performance Company this weekend at the LCCC Playhouse in Cheyenne. Small theatre, big cast. Next Step puts on productions that raises money for scholarships for students majoring the fine arts. Cast and crew are all volunteers, which allows ticket sales and auction proceeds to go to scholarships.

"Anne of Green Gables" by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a serious story. An aging duo, brother and sister Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, are getting too old to do all of the chores required by Prince Edward Island farmers in 1908. Matthew is in his 60s and Marilla in her 50s. Had automation come to the farm in 1908? Matthew has heart problems. His solution for cardiac arrhythmia is to get back to work. Marilla does all of the cooking and cleaning. Darns socks. Makes clothes. Bakes pies. On PEI, you have to make hay while the sun shines, which is does about the same length of time as it does in rural Wyoming.

They decide to adopt a 13-year-old male orphan to help out around the place. Orphans must have been a dime a dozen in 1908. Unfortunately, Matthew arrives in his buckboard at the Avonlea train station to find a scrawny 11-year-old girl waiting for him. The taciturn Matthew is kind of taken with the talkative Anne "Anne with an E" Shirley. The practical Marilla, not so much. "What good is a girl on a farm?" she asks. Anne must go. A neighbor says she will take Annie. The neighbor it bitchy Mrs.Blewitt, who has a zillion little kids and goes through hired help like there's no tomorrow. Marilla knows that Mrs. Blewitt probably will work Anne to death, which wouldn't have been much of a crime in an era of widespread child labor. She lets the lively Anne stay at Green Gables. Matthew is pleased. Anne gets into some minor-league scrapes. She stands up for herself with the town gossip, Rachel Lynde (played with aplomb by my one-time arts colleague, Rita Basom). Matthew spoils her with little gifts. Marilla gets on her case but you can see her attitude softening as time goes on.

Women readers know this story. I don't. No less a literary personage than Mark Twain thought that Anne was "the dearest and most moving and delightful child since the immortal Alice." The book has sold 50 million copies in 20 languages during the past 107 years. That's 500,000 copies annually, give or take. The author's home and the green gables farmhouse on PEI is a literary tourist stop, visited by scores of loyal readers from all over the globe. The town of Cavendish, the model for Avonlea, plays up its legacy. Nearby is a national park dedicated to Montgomery's works.

I didn't know any of this until I saw the staged reading and conducted a Google investigation of "Anne of Green Gables." Amazing story, really. We writers secretly yearn for our legacy to outlive us. I don't have much of a legacy. I visit those old homesteads and birthplaces of those who do. The best example I can think of is Nebraska's Willa Cather and her town of Red Cloud. The entire town is dedicated to Cather and her books and stories.A wonderful places to spend a warm spring day.

Living writers are learning how to enhance their local brand. Buffalo's Longmire Days celebrates the mystery novels and the TV series spawned by Craig Johnson's fiction. Carbon County celebrates  the fictional creations of native son C.J. Box. This is a trend that will only get bigger as the "local" craze grows. If you're a locavore, you should be devouring the creations of local writers, artists and performers.

Wyoming Sen. Al Simpson calls fellow Republican Rick Santorum "rigid and homophobic"

From Face the Nation on CBS:

Former Senator Alan Simpson had some choice words for his one-time colleague, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. 

"I know Santorum, I served with him," he said. "He is rigid and a homophobic. He believes that gays and lesbians, he mentioned in an interview in 2003, about bestiality, and gays and lesbians. I think that's disgusting," said Simpson. 

The former three-term Republican senator from Wyoming, who has always been known for both his candor and his ability to work across party lines, said Republicans are hurting themselves by focusing on social issues. 

"Here's a party that believes in government out of your life, the precious right of privacy and the right to be left alone. How then can they be the hypocrisy of fiddling around in these social issues? We won't have a prayer," he told Bob Schieffer in an interview for CBS News' Face to Face, a weekly web interview from the staff of Face the Nation. 

Those social issues are a defining part of Santorum's candidacy and his newfound support as a the leading conservative candidate. "And they asked him, well he said I want a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and they said well what about the people who are already married? And he said well they would be nullified. I mean what is, what's human, what's kind about that? We're all human beings, we all know or love somebody who's gay or lesbian so what the hell is that about? To me it's startling and borders on disgust," said Simpson, who would be considered a centrist Republican by today's standards and served at a time when the two parties in Congress were not as far apart on the ideological spectrum as they are today.

Read a transcript of the full interview with Simpson.

Santorum, Friess, the Catholic Church and the aspirin solution

Wyoming right-winger Foster Friess prescribes aspirin-between-the-knees for women's contraception

Teton County, Wyoming, billionaire Foster Friess, a member in good standing of the 1% and one of right-wing wacko Rick Santorum's largest funders, wants women to keep their legs -- and mouths -- shut.

Yesterday he said,

This contraceptive thing, my gosh it's such inexpensive, back in my days we used Bayer aspirin for contraception, the gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly.

Says Bri Jones:

I am not willing to go back to the days when a woman did not have the choice of when and how to reproduce.  I'm not interested in shutting up. I'm embarrassed for Wyoming.  I don't want people to associate the Equality State with someone so regressive.  I don't want my home state painted as anti-woman. Help me tell a different story.

Will you pitch in $25 today to keep Foster Friess' voice from being the only one coming from Wyoming? 

We deserve a better spokesperson.  Don't let this one go unanswered.