It's been bumpy at times, but consider the Republican alternative

"The Road We've Traveled" premieres March 15. We've traveled a long and scary road the past four years. Just think of how bad it would have been with McCain/Palin at the helm or -- shudder to think -- just Palin. But we are motoring down the road into the future. The Republicans want to put us all into a stagecoach and transport us back to the past, all the way to those golden days of the '50s -- the 1850s!

Acting U.S. Solicitor General acknowledges office's lack of candor led to WWII Japanese-American internment

Neal Katyal, acting solicitor general of the United States, wrote an official post Friday acknowledging that evidence was deliberately hidden about alleged anti-American activities by Japanese-Americans at the outbreak of World War II. 

Most Americans acknowledge the fact that the internment of Japanese-Americans was a terrible and unnecessary act. Official apologies have been issued, but it's somewhat gratifying to see that the entire exercise was a paranoid miscarriage of justice.

If you are curious about this episode and its place in Wyoming history, you can attend the grand opening of the new Interpretive Center in August at the Heart Mountain Internment Center Historic Site neat Cody. I've visited the site often over the past 20 years. Until recently, all that remained was the brick power plant (seen in the distance in photo) and several tumbledown barracks. The Interpretive Center was modeled after the barracks that housed some 100,000 American citizens from 1942-1946. And I use the term "housing" loosely. 

Grand opening dates are Aug. 19-21. Go to www.heartmountain.org. Here's some info from the web site:

Registration is now being accepted for the three days of activities, including the Pilgrimage Dinner and All-Camp Get-Together, Dedication Ceremony, tours, mountain hike, and a Gala Banquet which are all part of the Grand Opening of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center Aug. 19, 20, and 21, announced event chair Kathleen Saito Yuille.  Registration deadline is June 20.The opening of the ILC’s doors on Aug. 20 will symbolize the beginning of a new era of understanding and help remind the nation about the importance of tolerance and the need to balance our concern for national security with a commitment to respect the basic civil rights of all our fellow citizens. 

Dear Rep. Lummis: You'll be known by the company you keep

Rep. Cynthia Lummis toes the Republican National Committee line on most issues. She's consistently voted against health care reform, health insurance coverage for children, climate legislation and equal rights for gays. She loves the Department of Defense yet despises the gubment's role in almost all other things. So odd how Repubs hate gubment but have never met a defense appropriations bill they didn't like. "For the troops," they will say. What they really mean is, "For the lobbyists."

Rep. Lummis is fearful that Khalid Sheik Mohammed is scheduled for a jury trial in New York City. Most Republicans won't give New Yorkers (except the rich mayor) the time of day. Now they're all worked up, afraid that a raggedy band of Islamic extremists are so powerful that their very presence will instill terror in cops and firefighters and cab drivers and the other 9 million or so battle-hardened city dwellers.

Here's Lummis's statement today:

“The decision by the Obama Administration to allow the murderers of more than 3,000 Americans access to the federal court system will have serious negative implications for national security and the justice system. The terrorist attack orchestrated by KSM and his gang of brutal killers was an act of war against the United States and should be prosecuted by a military commission, not a common criminal court.

“It is unconscionable to think that these terrorists will enjoy the same legal rights and benefits guaranteed to U.S. citizens under the Constitution. That is why I joined Rep. Louie Gohmert in introducing legislation to amend the Military Commissions Act of 2009 to make it mandatory to try terrorists, like KSM, through military commissions.”

Obviously Rep. Lummis is not picky about the company she keeps in D.C. Rep. Louie Gohmert is a right-wing Texas fundamentalist. Lee Fang at Think Progress wrote about Rep. Gohmert's bizarre speech during the October House debate over the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill. He said that the bill

would lead to a legalization of necrophilia, pedophilia, and bestiality. Later in the speech, after reading lengthy passages from the Bible against homosexuality, Gohmert said that taking away “moral teaching in America” would create a situation similar to that of Germany in the “1920’s and 1930’s” when a “little guy with a mustache” took over:

GOHMERT: If you’re oriented toward animals, bestiality, then, you know, that’s not something that can be used, held against you or any bias be held against you for that. Which means you’d have to strike any laws against bestiality, if you’re oriented toward corpses, toward children, you know, there are all kinds of perversions, [...] pedophiles or necrophiliacs or what most would say is perverse sexual orientations but the trouble is, we made amendments to eliminate pedophiles from being included in the definition. [...] But people have always been willing to give up their liberties, their freedoms in order to gain economic stability. It happened in 1920 and 1930’s. Germany gave up their liberties to gain economic stability and they got a little guy with a mustache, who was the ultimate hate monger. And this is scary stuff we’re doing here when we take away what has traditionally been an important aspect of moral teaching in America.

Several times in the speech, Gohmert credited the conservative Christian “C Street” leader Chuck Colson for inspiration. Oddly, Gohmert also meandered into a self-defensive monologue about how he is not racist because he once voted for Alan Keyes, the birther leader who has said that President Obama is “a radical Communist” who “is going to destroy this country, and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist.”

That's odd. Don't those "C Street" Republicans revere old-line dictators such as the little guy with a mustache? Isn't it cute how a former judge, U.S. Army veteran and East Texas tough guy such as Gohmert can't even utter the name "Hitler?" Maybe it hits too close to home.

Rep. Lummis better watch out who she teams up with. Wyomingites, as a rule, don't care for extremists, whether they be from the right or the left. Hatred and fear don't seem to be family values in Cheyenne, at least not in my middle-class neighborhood. Maybe it's a different story for Lummis, who grew up in Cheyenne. Maybe she knows something I don't.

But I doubt it.

One hour without lights -- but with poetry

At 8:28, we lit the candles, switched off the TV and turned out the lights. By 8:30, we were in the dark, but for the soothing glow of four candles.

We were members of the southeast Wyoming contingent of Earth Hour. All over the globe, people (even entire cities) were turning off lights at the behest of the World Wildlife Fund. It was an effort to bring attention to global warming and the threat it poses to wildlife.

Cheyenne wasn't one of the participating cities. But we decided to do our part, thinking it might be fun and illuminating. Annie's friend Brandon came for dinner and the switching off of the lights. Chris, Annie and I We were celebrating Brandon's first-place finish in the 10th-grade poetry category for Young Authors. He and Annie are fellow writers, which puts them in a minority at their high school. But it's a feisty minority, one that speaks its mind and is only dimly aware that there are many service industry jobs in their future as they work toward that big literary prize.

Brandon brought his poems, which he read by candlelight. They were very good, filled with teen angst and some sharp words and phrases. When he finished, we talked about the work and his delivery style. He said he read too fast and I agreed, but told him that some poems might need to be read faster than others. Often young writers read their work in a burst of syllables, and they're hard to understand. Also, a monotone can be a problem. But Brandon, it seems, had practiced.

We spoke of other things. Brandon's car wreck the week before, which he'd survived without a scratch. Annie's prose writing. A little bit about global warming. I became curious about our neighborhood's darkness level. I looked outside. It seemed darker than usual, but that could just be my imagination. I felt like one of those air raid wardens from World War II. That house is totally dark, but there's some light leaking from the one next door. Don't those idiots know that there's a war on?

Actually, there is a war on. Literal wars, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. But a war on the planet, too. We may have to assume a war footing to battle this one.

Poetry could be one of our secret weapons.

Convention wrap-up -- final day

Once the bus returned me to the Denver burbs tonight, I drove to my uncle's house, picked up my gear and drove back to Cheyenne, getting in about 12:45 a.m. We made a pretty fast getaway from Mile High Stadium and the buses seemed to get priority entering I-25, which was eerily empty, with only our bus and a white Homeland Security van jockeying for space. The city closed the highway from 5:30 p.m. until midnight for security reasons. Just what prompted that decision is hard to say, since the stadium is far enough from the highway to protect against any kind of explosions. If there's one thing this convention had -- security. Denver cops, Lakewood cops, Aurora cops, ATF agents, TSA screeners, Secret Service and, I'm assuming, FBI. We had police in the hotels and on the buses. When is enough security enough? When we say it is!

One classy move the cops made -- providing an escort for the non-permitted march on Wednesday by Rage Against the Machine and members of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Something like 3,000 participated in that march, which made it the largest one at the convention.

More convention wrapping up in the morning.

Victory Garden bearing fruit

My Victory Garden is coming along nicely. Thanks for asking. Three tomato plants in clay pots lined up against my south fence. I documented the dicey early stages of their existence on June 16 and 24. Almost lost them to a late freeze. But now they’re thriving, gulping water in this semi-arid climate like there’s no tomorrow (can you hear the sprinkler in the background?).

I began with three six-inch plants and now the German Striped and Gold Currant plants are climbing out of their cages. The Zapotec plant was getting tall and stringy so I lopped off the top half in the hopes that it will fill out below and create some blossoms. None yet. No blossoms as of this morning on the German Striped, either. I’m beginning to worry. Lots of blossoms on the Gold Currant, with tiny cherry tomatoes busting out all over (see photo).

Several tomato-growing friends were over the Fourth of July and they told me not to worry about the plants, that the blossoms will be along by-and-by. One friend told the story of her uncle in Kearney, Nebraska, who keeps his tomato patch growing even though his kids have grown up and moved away. He has a caged enclosure "the size of a VW bus" that grows big juicy tomatoes that he gives away to neighbors and the doctors and nurses and staff at the local hospital, a place where he and his wife are spending more time lately. There’s something about the gift of a big red tomato that satisfies some ancient urge in us. A zucchini doesn’t mean as much, probably because they can grow themselves. Same with summer squash or green beans. Tomatoes are difficult, especially at this altitude and in this climate. Someone in Cheyenne gives you a ripe homegrown tomato, and you know that person is a friend. Or more. My wife likes flowers, but this former tomato-spurning person now swoons at the sight of a homegrown tomato.

Meanwhile, the morning paper carries news that salmonella-tainted tomatoes have sickened 943 people in the U.S. Not bad, really, when you think of the millions of Americans who eat tomatoes. Unless it happens to you, and then one case of salmonella is too many. This looks like a case for "CSI-Produce Posse" as authorities have begun to suspect other ingredients used in salsa, such as jalapeno and Serrano peppers and cilantro. It might have rushed to judgement on the tomatoes. "Tomatoes are the leading suspect," the story says, "although other produce is being investigated."

Isn’t that always the way it is. The authorities always pick on the big round shiny red fruit before they investigate their green accomplices from the veggie kingdom.

Nebraska E85, Iraqi oil are disappearing

Last Monday, I paid $2.60 per gallon for E85 at our town's lone ethanol station. I pumped just a few gallons, as I always do between paychecks. But 2.5 gallons won't go very far in my 2000 flex-fuel Dodge Caravan. On Thursday, I returned for more and the station was all-out of E85, and almost everything else. So I motored on fumes over to my handy neighborhood station and pumped a few gallons of regular unleaded. It was at $2.99 a gallon then, but I saw yesterday that the price is up to $3.04.

Our prices are low compared to those in other states. And I'm sure that ethanol -- when it's available -- will also be going up, as diesel-burning trucks bring it in from Nebraska. I've been reading about various reasons for the price increases. Limited refinery output. Increase in summer driving. War and pestilence. Where is all that Iraqi oil we were supposed to get as thanks for our enduring sacrifices in Mesopotamia? According to this morning's New York Times, millions of gallons a week are disappearing, probably stolen by Tralfamadorian starships in the dead of night.

I guess I could throw a tantrum: I want my E85! I want my E85!

Or I could take responsibility for my own actions. They are more reasonable that radical. The weather's nice and it's time to break out the bicycle for commuting. It takes me less than 30 minutes to get to work via bike. I can also walk, if I leave earlier. These Cheyenne mornings are gorgeous now, and what better way to enjoy them than a walk under the blooming crabapple trees?

Gary Hart in Cheyenne (cont.)

During his talk in Cheyenne Thursday evening, Gary Hart provided a quick survey of U.S. national security efforts since World War II.

"National security was the focus of almost all of our endeavors from 1947-1991," Hart said. Containment of communism was that era's operating phrase. To that end, we built NATO in Europe and formed other treaties. The U.S. built a formidable nuclear arsenal, a good portion of which still lurks in launch sites in the prairie around Cheyenne. This was part of a huge investment in the defense budget, prompting Pres. Dwight Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex.

There were many excesses during that era. But Hart's point was this: during 8-10 presidential administrations over 44 years, the U.S. focused on "containment" and "deterrance."

Then came the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of The Cold War. It was a long time coming, an effort that involved much treasure and the efforts of millions of Americans, including my father, builder of nuke missile silos, many civilians and soldiers and politicians, including Ronald Reagan, who was part of the effort but not its chief architect as his acolytes assert.

The U.S. was left looking for a new enemy in the early 1990s. Many Americans thought it would be better to find a new direction for the country rather than a new enemy.

Gary Hart said he urged Pres. Clinton to do what Pres. Truman had done at the beginning of The Cold War -- form a commission to study America's role in this new world. It was to be an effort to "find out what the U.S. could be 'for' instead of what it was 'against.' "

The commission was appointed in 1998 and Hart served on it along with Newt Gingrich and a gaggle of politicos and statespeople of all stripes. Pres. Clinton mandated that the commission report its findings at the end of two-and-one-half years.

It made its report in spring 2001 to a new presidential administration. It reported that the greatest threats came from jihadist acts against the U.S. A "consolidated federal response" was needed for this threat. The commission made 49 other recommendations to the Bush people.

"None of them were adopted," said Hart. "The president and vice president would not meet with us. We did meet with Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, and Condaleeza Rice. And then the commission went out of existence."

Hart and some of his colleagues continued to give speeches about the coming terrorist threat. On Sept. 6, 2001, Hart gave such a speech at a conference in Toronto.

Five days later, those "the-sky-is-falling" speeches were no longer necessary.

Containment of communism was instantly replaced by the war on terrorism.

And none of us have been safe since.

Cheyenne Democrats host Gary Hart

Gary Hart was my senator during most of the time (1978-1991) I lived in Colorado. He ran for president in 1984, when I was 33 and working in the corporate vineyards in Denver, and again in 1988. That campaign ended badly, with some "Monkey Business," if you catch my drift. But during Hart's first run, he won all the primaries in the West – and a few others. He was the hot candidate. I can only look back and wonder what might have been.

But maybe Hart was fated to be a statesman rather than president. You can be both, but examples are rare. JFK might qualify, but I was just coming of age when he was president and his assassination made him more legend than politician. Nixon was statesmanlike when he traveled to China, but his Vietnam policy was buffoonery. Reagan had moments as a statesman, as did Jimmy Carter as president. But face it – Carter’s greatest moments have come on the global stage as a private citizen-statesman.

Gary Hart the statesman spoke in Cheyenne Thursday night. He and his wife of 48 years, Lee, drove up from Denver for a fund-raiser and mixer for Laramie County Democrats, followed by a town hall meeting. He opened his remarks on a light-hearted note. He and former U.S. Senator from Wyoming Al Simpson were both fairly new to their positions when they took a 1977 trip to inspect the Three-Mile Island nuclear plant. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission had raised concerns about a recent incident at the plant. As Hart, Simpson, and several others flew in a helicopter over the plant, they didn’t know they were being exposed to escaping radiation. Only after they inspected the plant and returned to D.C. did they find out they could have been at ground zero for a core meltdown if plant technicians hadn’t shut it down. Hart said that whenever he and "Big Al" share a podium, the lanky (and bald) Wyoming senator brings up that 1977 trip and says, "Before this Hart fella took me to Three-Mile Island, I had hair."

That earned an appreciative laugh from Thursday’s audience. It also served as a segue into the focus of Hart’s talk – security in the 21st century. Our security depends on many things but foremost is a sound energy policy. Most of us think that the U.S. doesn’t have one, and the Bush administration has no interest in formulating one.

But Hart said that the Bushites do have an energy policy. He notes that we’ve fought two Gulf Wars thus far and will fight more in the future. That’s because the energy policy can be described this way: to import oil from insecure and dangerous places for our non-fuel-efficient vehicles and then, when this is threatened, send our sons and daughters overseas to fight for it.

That’s a paraphrase, but those of us who have paid close attention to the politics of the Iraq War know it’s true. We know that Wyoming’s Dick Cheney formulated this strategy when he met secretly with oil company execs earlier in the first Bush term. We know that Bush’s and Cheney’s veins run black with oil and that will never change.

Read more tomorrow about the Hart appearance

Gary Hart speaks in Cheyenne March 22

Gary Hart, former U.S. Senator from Colorado, will speak about "The New Security in the 21st Century" on Thursday, March 22, 7 p.m. in Coach Room D at the Hitching Post Inn in Cheyenne. The presentation, sponsored by the Wyoming Democratic Party, is free and open to the public. The Senator’s books will be on sale.

An author, lecturer, teacher, scholar, and attorney, this "elder" statesman shows no signs of slowing down. Most recently, Hart co-chaired both the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, which issued three public reports forecasting the age of terrorism and outlined a new, post-Cold War national security policy, as well as the Council on Foreign Relations task force on homeland security, which recently released its report "America: Still Unprepared, Still in Danger".

Hart is the author of more than a dozen books, including three novels (one co-authored with former Secretary of Defense William Cohen). In 2001, he earned a doctor of philosophy degree from Oxford University. His thesis, "Thomas Jefferson's Ideal of the Republic in 21st Century America", culminated a decade-long exploration of the idea of restoring the republican (small r) ideals of civic virtue and citizen duty. When published in book form in 2002, Restoration of the Republic completed a trilogy of works that began with The Patriot in 1996 and continued with The Minuteman in 1998. Throughout the trilogy, "Hart stresses the theme of republican restoration concurrent with a new definition of security that includes not only traditional national and homeland security, but also security of livelihood, security of community, and security of the natural environment."

Read more at the Wyoming Democratic Party web site.

Welcome to WYO National Park

I don't want to unnecessarily pick on a Democratic U.S. senator during this sensitive time. We all have to pull together, Democrats large and democrats small.

But Sen. Dianne Feinstein on California said something yesterday that needs a response. It was during a debate about homeland security funding to the states. Under current law, each state gets 0.75 percent of homeland security funds. A new bill aims to reduce that to 0.45 percent, and senators from The Big Three -- California, Texas, and New York -- want to reduce that further, meanwhile lobbying to get more money for their ports, border crossings, bridges, skyscrapers, etc.

Then Feinstein said this: "Wyoming -- I don't want to pick on Wyoming. Love it. But as a state, it is like a national park."

I haven't yet looked up the original quote, but I will. The way the AP reported it, the esteemed senator sounds a bit like a Valley Girl. Like, Wyoming, you know, it's just one big park with bunnies and deer and wolves and stuff running around.

We do have two nice national parks and several fine national monuments. But interspersed among them are places where people live. Try to live, anyway, as we fend off attacks by rampaging wolves (four-legged variety) and assaults from Mother Nature. Just last week near Cheyenne, a mother of five was hanging out laundry during another blizzard-of-the-century (the third one this winter) and a pack of wolves snatched her and dragged her 400 miles through the snow back to Yellowstone, where she currently is running a daycare center for wolf pups and getting paid in elk haunches.

It's dangerous out here in National Park Land.

Talk about homeland insecurity.

Encourage Prez’s New Interest in Biofuels

Imagine that Pres. Bush never invaded Iraq or condoned torture or advocated spying on U.S. citizens or turned over the economy to oil companies. I know it’s a lot to ask, but he’s been busy the past five years and there’s so much to forgive and/or forget.

I thought about this Friday as I read a New York Times article about the President visiting a Novozymes cellulosic ethanol laboratory in North Carolina. He seemed, well, engaged and intrigued by the lab’s proceedings. NYT reporter Edmund L. Andrews noticed this too.

"...the president appeared to show genuine enthusiasm for cellulosic ethanol, frequently interrupting Novozymes executives to boil down technical explanations into more simple sound bites. At one point, Mr. Bush jumped in to explain that corn-based ethanol could not provide enough alternative fuel because ethanol demand was already outstripping supply."

And then there was this:

" ‘Doesn’t it make sense to be able to say to our farmers, grow what you can grow so we become less dependent on oil?.... I like the idea of a president being able to say, wow, the crop report is in, we’re growing more corn than ever before, which means we’re importing less oil from overseas.’ "

Mr. Bush has called for reducing gasoline use by 20 percent over the next decade. He has proposed a mandatory, fivefold increase in the production of gasoline alternatives to 35 billion gallons a year by 2017. Corn-based ethanol is the primary substitute for gasoline, and output is around seven billion gallons a year. Industry experts estimate that corn-based ethanol can supply only half the proposed alternative fuel. Other sources include coal, biodiesel, and hydrogen fuel cells.

These trips make Bush look more presidential than he has in years. I suggest that he keep it up and pay more attention to alternative fuels and less to foreign entanglements. Maybe he will forget about invading Iran and lose interest in Iraq so we can leave quietly and let the Shiites and Sunnis sort it out.

It’s not my place, but I offer an open invitation for the President to visit us in WYO where we have two ethanol plants and a new experimental one that will make ethanol from wood chips. He can even drop in on Montana’s Gov who’s got this great idea to convert western coal to gas. Come on out, spend a month or two, take a load off – and give the world a break.

A timely reminder from Jesus' General that traitors are everywhere, EVERYWHERE! Achtung, baby.

Image copyright Austin Cline; original poster at the Library of Congress

Alt-energy in the News for 2007

Lots of news on the energy front this week. Corn prices are going up due to demand from ethanol distillers. Researchers in Campbell County are looking for the bacteria that make methane so they can plant them in coal seams to make endless supplies of natural gas. A solar energy expert featured in this morning’s Wyoming Tribune-Eagle talked about how he came to Cheyenne in the 1970s to teach solar energy courses at the community college, a place that once had 19 such courses and now has none. GM, the company that killed the electric car, will debut plans for a new electric car at this year’s Detroit Auto Show.

Meanwhile, our cars keep sucking gasoline made mostly from foreign oil, one of the reasons we’re still in Iraq.

I’ve been following news about corn ever since I switched my van from gasoline to Ethanol 85. Will rising corn prices up the price of ethanol? Will it prompt more farmers to get into the corn-growing biz? I don’t know beans about commodities, but I do know that rising prices have a ripple effect. But even if ethanol goes up from the $1.99 per gallon I pay now, I’ll still use it because I want to make my own ripples. I’m using 10-12 gallons of ethanol per week, which is 10-12 gallons of gasoline I’m not using. That’s a rough estimate, since the other 15 percent of Ethanol 85 is gasoline. So, I’m just one little consumer not using gas. If there are ten of us here in Laramie County, and ten in each of the other three WYO counties that have an Ethanol 85 station, that’s 40 motorists using 520 gallons a year which makes for 20,800 gallons of gasoline we’re not using. A drop in the bucket compared to the thousands of gallons of unleaded and diesel pumped every day in Cheyenne. But it’s at least the beginnings of a ripple.

Wyoming has one ethanol plant online in Torrington and one more coming on soon in Greybull. The Torrington plant uses some corn from local sources and some from Nebraska, land of the Cornhuskers. I was surprised to read that Wyoming has two counties that rank in the top 50 nationally in corn production. They are Goshen, where Torrington is located, and Big Horn, home to Greybull. Obviously the ethanol distilling plants are following the corn.

Some corn in also grown in my county of Laramie and Platte County to our north and its county seat of Wheatland. In 15 years, I have yet to see a corn plant in my county. I would wager that any corn grown in this county is in near Pine Bluffs, a bit lower in elevation and slightly more temperate than Cheyenne. Corn that we see at our farmers’ markets comes from Colorado, notably Olathe Sweet Corn from Colorado’s western slope. This corn is too good to distill for the likes of my minivan.

Americans aren’t waiting around for Bush/Cheney and their oil-fed Republican Party to take the lead in alternative energy. Anyone can make a difference, even if it’s just by driving less.

I’ve been reading about bio-fuels. But as I wade through books and magazine articles than can sometimes be too technical, I was thinking about fiction that features corn. I remember a story by Kent Myers of South Dakota that he once read at a writing workshop. I’m spacing the title but it was a coming-of-age story. Boys raced their cars down dirt roads flanked by fields of mature corn plants. Because one driver can’t see another because of the corn, they may collide where the roads intersect. Teen hijinks ensue.

Anyone know the story’s title? I’ll look it up and get back to you.

Anything Can Happen

Be prepared.

The Boy Scout motto. Or is it the creed? I know it’s not the oath, which I can still recite from memory: "On my honor I will do my best for God and my country, to obey the Scout law, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight."

"Be prepared" also stuck with me. I try to stay on top of things. I’m the one who plans camping trips because I can’t stand to get to the mountains and find out we’ve left matches or tent poles behind. Same with car trips. I have to have my maps and all the gear needed to get efficiently from Cheyenne to Tucson.

Following 9/11, I accepted the challenge from Tom Ridge. I stocked up on water jugs, canned food, and duct tape. I had a little fun with my eight-year-old daughter Annie and labeled each water jug: "For Terrorist Attack Only." She looked at that and quipped: "What you gonna do – throw it at them?" I laughed. Funny how kids can get right to the heart of absurdity.

But we are prepared for the terrorists here in Cheyenne. No less an authority than the U.S. Homeland Security Department gave Laramie County the highest grade in its survey of emergency responders’ ability to communicate during a disaster. We join other can-do place such as Washington, D.C.; Minneapolis-St. Paul, San Diego; Columbus, Ohio; and Sioux Falls, S.D. Those places getting the worst preparedness grades were Chicago, Cleveland, Baton Rouge, Mandan, N.D., and American Samoa.

Ability to communicate (and lack thereof) was brought home during the World Trade Center attacks and the Hurricane Katrina disaster. There are blizzards, earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, and terrorist attacks to contend with. I am pleased that we are prepared here. Homeland Security has discovered that emergency crews in two-thirds of 6,800 communities surveyed still can’t communicate effectively.

In a Jan. 3 Associated Press story, some low-rated communities said they needed more money. Others just can’t get agencies to cooperate. The newly empowered Democrats say they are going to fix the problem. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is appalled at this state of unpreparedness. He said this: "If it didn’t have such potentially devastating consequences, it would be laughable."

Let’s see what Wyoming’s newly disempowered Republican congressional delegation will do with the issue. Obviously they helped us get some dough from Homeland Security in the past. How will the state fare now that Enzi, Thomas, and Cubin are in the minority, shunted off to oblivion by a wave of Democrats? Will that wave pass by red states like WYO?

"Be prepared" may be the best mantra for our age.