When young people say "I don't feel safe here," you know you have a problem

"I don't feel safe here."

This isn't a Baltimorian, besieged in his (Trump's words) "disgusting rat and rodent infested mess" of an apartment building, one possibly owned by his slumlord son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

They aren't the words of a Salvadoran mother, fleeing with her children to an unknown and possibly worse future in The Land of the Free.

Not a Syrian fleeing his country's mess, one caused, in part, by the USA's ham-handed policies in the region.

The quote above comes from a well-educated, young Caucasian gay man who lives in Cheyenne, Wyo. I spoke to him at a recent party. I don't use his name because I do not have his permission and I'm not sure he'd give it to me if I asked. He's soon to be married and then, he and his Air Force husband, will relocate to Larimer County, Colo. That's the Colorado county that neighbors Laramie County, where he lives now and where I live too. The man and his fiance don't venture outside much, not even during our glorious summers, because they feel threatened by their neighbors. I didn't ask him if his neighbors had threatened or done violence to him. I know what he means. The couple's very presence is an affront to their conservative neighbors. And conservatives these days feel free to let their hatreds run wild. Trump and his henchmen loosed the dogs of hate. Now they unleash their venom at Trump rallies ("Send her back!") and daily in cities and towns across America.

In the Obama days, it seemed as if the U.S. was making strides in tolerating "the other." They were those who looked differently than the average white person, those who practiced a religion other than White Evangelical Protestantism (or no religion at all), and LGBTQ Americans. We should have known that just the act of electing an African-American president couldn't dampen hatreds brewing for hundreds of years. The signs were all around us. Trump's Birtherism. Rise in hate crimes. Tea Party rallies. The tilt to the Right by many state legislatures, especially our own. Even the Republican-dominated Congress's efforts to stymie Obama at every turn had racism at its roots.

With Trump, America's worst instincts have been turned loose.

Wyoming's population ages. Politicians wonder why young people, raised in the "western Way of life," nurtured in Wyoming churches and schools, and beneficiaries of full-ride UW Hathaway scholarships, kick it all over for life in crowded cities. Cities on the Rocky Mountain West have benefited from this great migration from Wheatland, Wyo., and Sterling, Colo. Denver, Salt Lake City, Boise, Albuquerque. That's where the jobs are. That's where young people congregate. They may be afraid of losing their job or their house, but they aren't scared of their neighbors who are a rainbow of ethnicities and lifestyles. They live in peace. Learn tolerance at work. They pack up their family and return to Cheyenne during CFD. Amongst the parades and night shows, they hear Rep. Liz Cheney rant about how Native Americans are ruining our "Western way of life." WTF? They read letters to the editor praising Trump's non-racism and cursing liberals. Republican legislators convene at summer meetings and speak about their latest efforts to curb open voting, immigration, LGBT rights, reproductive freedom, etc. Then they ask: "How can we keep our young people in the state."

Stop being assholes. That would be a start. Then, dear legislator, you can go about the task of funding education, alternative energy, community development, arts and culture and all those amenities that make life worth living.

Then, maybe, young people will stay in Wyoming, maybe even move back home from their $500,000 bungalow in Denver's Wash Park or their $2,000-a-month studio apartment near downtown. They won't be afraid. They will be invested in the present and future of their home towns. They will say, "I feel safe here."

Is there really such a thing as "compassionate conservatism" in the U.S.?

I am pleased with any response I get from my missives to the all-Republican Wyoming Congressional delegation. Not pleased so much as satisfied. Not really satisfied, gratified, or placated. I suppose that the best I can do is "pleased" when Enzi, Barrasso, and Cheney send me more material for my blog. Thanks!

A few weeks ago, I e-mailed my two senators and one rep complaining about Trump's "shithole" comments concerning Haiti and African countries. I asked them to disavow those comments, preferably in public. They did not. However, Enzi does note that he does "not support every remark any president has made, including President Trump.." That's something, I  guess.

The reality is that Republicans were very outspoken for eight years in criticizing Pres. Barack Obama. Now they are silent when Trump says outrageous things. Enzi helped draft the Republican tax scam policy. Barrasso is Mitch McConnelll's BFF. Liz Cheney wants to give away Wyoming's public lands and shoot all of the grizzlies. They are off their rockers.

I present Sen. Enzi's e-mail:

Dear Michael:
Congress should ensure that our immigration laws are compassionate, but also fair to American citizens. I believe all people and nations should be treated with respect. I do not believe that anyone should be bullied, intimidated or attacked because of their beliefs. I do not support every remark any president has made, including President Trump. I will let President Trump or his team answer questions about the president’s comments. Words can be powerful and we should do our best to be civil to each other. I hope for a serious debate about border security and immigration as we continue to work on this issue in Congress.

Sincerely,
Michael B. Enzi
United States Senator

How do you like that line about "compassionate" immigration laws? "GOP" and "compassionate" are very seldom linked. Why? Just take a look at the legislation that conservatives promote. Another question. Has Enzi made any statements about the immigration prison set to be built in southwest Wyoming near Evanston? I will look it up and get back to you.

The Good Doctor from Wyoming: Trumpcare bears no resemblance to healthcare

Driftglass blogged about the Trump and Roy Moore connection yesterday (and cross-posted by Meteor Blades on Daily Kos). An excerpt:

Donald Trump is a petty, vindictive, racist ignoramus and pathological liar who resonates powerfully with the base of the Republican party for the simple reason that they are, in the main, petty, vindictive ignorami who have been trained by decades of conditioning via Fox News and Hate Radio to mindlessly accept as gospel any comforting bullshit that comes from the mouths of pathological Republican liars. 

I don't know how many different ways we can say it........

Trump is the Party and the Party is Trump.......... 

How about this? Moore is the Party and the Party is Moore. 

Our Wyoming delegation is a telling sample of Republican lawmakers: Sen. Barrasso, Sen. Enzi, Rep. Cheney. These otherwise intelligent people have lost their minds under the sway of Donald Trump. Sen./Dr. Barrasso's resume includes stints at RPI, Georgetown and Yale Medical School. He once replaced people's busted knees for a living in Casper. He was the spokesperson for TV's Wyoming Health Minute. He led the Wyoming Medical Society. A Catholic high school grad, he must have been absent on the days social justice doctrine was discussed. He now somehow believes in Trumpcare, which is no health care at all. In an MSNBC interview with Katy Tur this week, this was the following exchange:

Tur: “There are not protections for essential healthcare benefits in this bill.” 

Barrasso: “And there shouldn’t be!” 

Barrasso, a well-educated ignoramus. Or an opportunist. Or a narcissist like Trump. Or all three. Wyomingites, normally people who will stop to offer aid if they see you stranded on a snowy highway, keep voting for Barrasso. They may help you change a tire. But they also are OK if you just get sick and die. Hard to fathom. In the same post, Driftglass included a screen shot of a tweet by Randi Lawson:

Never could've guessed in our country's divorce, that the left would get custody of football.

How did that happen? That head-smashin', rip-roarin' American religion has been subverted by ethnic activists. So, people who wear nothing but shorts and paint themselves orange and blue for a January Broncos playoff game, now say they will burn their season tickets if black athletes don't stop their uppity behavior. We lefties cheer on the athletes and fellow travelers (including fat-cat owners such as Jerry Jones) as they link arms in solidarity during the anthem. Theirs is a protest against racial injustice.

Strange bedfellows indeed.

So where are we? The United States of America 2017 seems like a banana republic on steroids.

And the doctor offers no cure.

I agree -- No Nazis at the University of Florida! W/Update

Neo-Nazis support President Trump.

President Trump supports the neo-Nazis.

We know that now. Whatever you choose to call them -- neo-Nazis, alt-right, white supremacists -- they are intolerant bastards who attacked and killed and injured people in a university town, Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend. They do not deserve a soapbox at any of our universities. Yes, that also is intolerant. But they are taking a page from the Brown Shirts Playbook and want to raise havoc wherever they can. They look at campuses as fertile ground for their racist bilge. Campuses are liberal bastions, politically correct bastions where people bend over backyard to accommodate The Other. But what happens when speakers arrive on campus with messages of hate against The Other. And those speakers operate with the imprimatur of the president of the U.S.? We have never faced this before. That's why we must stop the alt-right and their leader who is a stand-in for Trump. Let's start with stopping Richard Spencer.

Here's some info on a proposed Sept. 12 Spencer appearance at my alma mater (class of '76), the University of Florida. It comes from The Chronicle off Higher Education, which has been featuring some great articles about how campuses are trying to deal with this issue. Texas A&M recently cancelled a speech by Spencer. Now it's UF's turn. This was in today's Chronicle:

In a statement on Saturday announcing that Mr. Spencer's group was seeking to rent space at the University of Florida, W. Kent Fuchs, the university’s president, suggested that his institution might have no choice but to grant the request, so long as the group covered the associated expenses and security costs. He called Mr. Spencer’s potential appearance there "deeply disturbing" and contrary to the university’s values, but said "we must follow the law, upholding the First Amendment not to discriminate based on content." 

Mr. Fuchs urged the campus community not to engage with Mr. Spencer’s organization and "give more media attention for their message of intolerance and hate." Soon after he issued his statement revealing that the group had sought to rent space there, however, a Facebook page titled "No Nazis at UF" sprang up to summon people to the campus for counter-protests. 

Check out the No Nazis at UF page. Comment. Write Pres. Fuchs. Tell him that "Make America Hate Again" is not part of the Gator Spirit. 

UPDATE 8/17/17: UF Pres. Fuchs has cancelled the event. See press release here.

Getting famous for all of the wrong reasons

Maybe that should be "infamous?"

The New York Times again weighed in on Wyoming's controversy surrounding science education in our public schools.

Let's recap. At the tail end of the most recent legislative session, Republicans stuck a little footnote onto an education bill that would prohibit using national science education standards in our classrooms. Wyoming is the first state to legislate against the standards.

What's the fuss all about? The standards teach that global warming is caused by humans burning fossil fuels.Wyoming gets most of its income from digging up coal and drilling for oil and natural gas. Some legislators thought it was counter-productive and possibly unpatriotic to teach kids that the coal lighting their classrooms and paying a big portion of their teachers' salaries was destined to kill off the human race.

The New York Times sent a reporter to Wyoming to see what the hubbub was about. It was a good article, one you can read more about here.

The NYT Editorial Board followed up with an op-ed piece Saturday that carried this headline: "Willful Ignorance in Wyoming." It's short and to the point. "Willful ignorance" sums it up pretty well. Take a few minutes to read it here.

Wyoming works to bring science education standards up to the level of East Jesus, Alabama

WyPols had a nice summation of this week's hearings regarding the teaching of science standards in our schools. It once again brings up the question: Don't these people know that we live in an age where Know-Nothing statements make their way around the globe at lightning speed, causing people to wonder what the heck is going on in Wyoming? Read examples here and here.

The WyPols article had some quotes from WY State Board of Education Chair Ron Micheli. You may remember Mr. Micheli from his unsuccessful 2010 run for governor in which Dems changed registration en masse at the primaries to vote for Anyone but Micheli (i.e. Matt Mead). I was working at the polls that day and was very lonely as I watched my Dem friends making a beeline to the "Change Your Registration Here" table. Later, I recall sitting at my union HQ in Cheyenne listening to and blogging about the returns from the primaries. Micheli was ahead for awhile. Think about it:

“I just want people to understand that this isn’t some backwards state that doesn’t believe in discussion, or rational communication with each other. … But it has to be based on the economy of this state,” the chairman said. “The very people in education who are so adamant in favor of global warming” – here his voice started to rise – “are the very people who are being paid. And their money is 80 percent coming from the mineral resources of this state. And that’s a hard fact.”

Wyoming’s entire educational system is based on fossil fuels, Micheli added, “and any attempt to derail that or change that is not in the best interests of the state. Now if that’s being backwoods, if that’s being redneck, if that’s putting our head in the sand, then so be it. But [fossil fuels are]what our state is based on.”

Micheli said he was sorry for standing on his soapbox, but he needed to clarify things.“I am not anti-planet. I’m not an ignorant moron,” he volunteered. “I’m trying to be rational in this debate.”

Methinks he doth protest too much.

I'm, glad my kids are out of the local school system. I can imagine my very outspoken and liberal-minded kids reacting to climate-change deniers in the classroom. I don't blame the teachers, as they are at the mercy of powers greater than themselves, such as Mr. Micheli, crazies in the legislature, raging fundies, Obama haters and our governor. Parents must do their best to make sure their kids and grandkids get accurate info.

Their futures depend on it.

Bob Lynch of Americans for the Arts: Mitt Romney has a "misunderstanding" of how arts funding works

Mitt Romney wants to defund the National Endowment for the Arts. Once again, he's pandering to his supporters on the Far Right. And he doesn't understand how arts funding works. 

Robert Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts, said Romney has a 'misunderstanding' of how NEA funding works, in that the funding helps stimulate state and local arts councils as well as seed the growth of small businesses. Read Lynch's entire response at Americans for the Arts News

Republican-dominated Wyoming House passes the "punish the poor" bill

Wyoming House passes the punish the poor bill:

The Wyoming House of Representatives approved a bill that would require some state welfare recipients to undergo drug testing. 

By a vote of 37-23 on Monday, the House gave its final approval to the bill. It now goes to the Senate. 

Similar drug-testing bills are pending in Colorado, Utah and other states. Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have endorsed the idea.

Read more here.

The votes:

Ayes (Punish the Poor!):  Representative(s): Berger, Blikre, Bonner, Brechtel, Buchanan, Campbell, Cannady, Childers, Davison, Edmonds, Eklund, Gay, Greear, Greene, Harvey, Hunt, Illoway, Jaggi, Kasperik, Kroeker, Krone, Lockhart, Loucks, Lubnau, Madden, McKim, McOmie, Miller, Peasley, Pederson, Petersen, Quarberg, Reeder, Semlek, Stubson, Teeters, Wallis 
 
Nays (Dems and Repubs with empathy):  Representative(s): Barbuto, Blake, Botten, Brown, Burkhart, Byrd, Connolly, Craft, Esquibel, K., Freeman, Gingery, Goggles, Harshman, Moniz, Nicholas B, Patton, Petroff, Roscoe, Steward, Throne, Vranish, Zwonitzer, Dn., Zwonitzer, Dv. 

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.  

Ganesha, remover of obstacles, please remove Kootenai Constitution Party from my sight

"Ganesha" by sculptor Rick Davis. Kathy Plonka photo. The Spokesman-Review. 

Today’s Wyoming Tribune-Eagle’s religion section features an article about a protest in Coeur d’Alene about a new public art display. I am always interested in protests against art displays because I work in the arts and it’s always intriguing to see what kind of art upsets which kind of people.

On Friday afternoon in Coeur d’Alene, the Kootenai County Constitution Party staged a protest at a statue entitled “Ganesha.” The statue, by Spokane metal artist Rick Davis, is one of 15 dedicated Friday as part of the city’s new “ArtCurrents” public art program

Artists own the sculptures, which remain in place for a year and are offered for sale. The city receives 25 percent of the proceeds of any sales. The sculptures are by artists in Idaho, Wyoming, Washington, Montana and Nebraska. Proposals were solicited from artists, and a citizens committee selected about half of the submissions. The artists received $500 stipends.

The program is based on one that has been in place in Sheridan, Wyo., for eight years. The Sheridan program has been wildly successful, with a variety of sculptures on downtown street corners. They bring ambience to an already lively downtown. The project adds money to the city coffers. The art also draws people downtown and they stay longer to see the artwork.

Davis’s Coeur d’Alene statue is of Hinduism’s Lord Ganesha, an elephant-headed, human-bodied “god of wisdom and remover of obstacles and that is often invoked before the beginning of any major undertaking,” according to a June 11 ANI article.

Any project that involves both government and the arts should welcome a god who is a remover of obstacles. Rajan Zed, president of Universal Society of Hinduism, was quoted in the ANI article: “What could be more auspicious for Coeur d'Alene than having a Ganesha statue in its downtown?”

Instead, the county’s Constitution Party sees it as an “abomination.”

The best coverage of this has been in the Irregular Times blog where jclifford asks this question:

Now, guess which statue from the 2011-2012 ArtCurrents Coeur D’Alene Public Art installation the group claims is unconstitutional. 

It’s not the statue of Rachel, a character from the Old Testament. 

It’s not the statue of St. Francis of Assisi, a figure of Christian devotion. 

No, the only religious statue that the Kootenai County Constitution Party rejects is the statue of Ganesha, a hindu deity. Isn’t that curious?

I join jclifford in finding it ironic that Rick Davis sculpted Ganesha and the statue of St. Francis of Assisi, one of the Catholicism’s major saints. The Prayer of St. Francis was one of the first I learned. My father, a major Catholic parent, coached my brother and me for hours and hours, drilling the prayer into our dense little heads. I am now writing this from memory:

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace

Where there is doubt, let me sow faith

Where there is darkness, light

Where there is sadness, joy

Ours is not to be consoled as to console

Something, something.

Amen.

That’s all I recall. My memory is a sieve.

I could jog my brain cells if I was in downtown Coeur d’Alene, looking at the St. Francis statue. At the same time, if Constitution Party knuckleheads were on the scene, I might also pray to Ganesha to remove annoying human-like obstacles to my enjoyment of beautiful public art.

Here is the prayer in its current permutation (from http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/pray0027.htm):

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Tea Party descends on U.S. Capitol to kill gubment "monster"

Tea Partiers are swarming Congressional offices today, shouting "Let's kill the monster -- but keep those Social Security checks and Medicare payments coming!"

Meanwhile, majority of Americans tiring of all this pitchfork-rattling and torch-waving. Go to http://blogs.reuters.com/frontrow/2011/03/30/as-tea-party-cranks-up-heat-on-congress-poll-shows-public-support-waning/

Know Nothings take over the G.O.P.

I'm not surprised by the fact that the anti-science wing of the G.O.P. has taken over Congress. That's what they campaigned on. But there are some people in this group that, at least from the outside, appear normal and logical and even attended college.

Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois says we need not worry about the planet being destroyed because, citing chapter 8, verse 22 of the Book of Genesis, God promised Noah it wouldn’t happen again after the great flood.

According to his official web site, Rep. Shimkus received a Bachelor of Science in general engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1980. He serves on the House Commerce and Energy Committee.


How did this engineer and military officer turn into a proud member of the G.O.P. Know Nothing Caucus? He had to pass muster with the Tea Party Know Nothings to get into office and must remain a loyal member to get reelected in 2012.

“I personally believe that the solar flares are more responsible for climatic cycles than anything that human beings do. …” — Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin

Rep. Sensenbrenner (from his web site):

Jim was born in Chicago and later moved to Wisconsin with his family. He graduated from the Milwaukee Country Day School and did his undergraduate studies at Stanford University, where he majored in political science. He then earned his law degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1968.... Jim’s current committee assignments include serving as the Vice Chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology and he also serves on the Committee on the Judiciary.  Congressman Sensenbrenner is Chairman of the Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee.  He also serves on the Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet Subcommittee (Judiciary), as well as the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee (Science and Technology) and the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee (Science and Technology).

What does our own lone House Rep, Cynthia Lummis, think about science? She received her Bachelor of Science in animal science and biology from the University of Wyoming. She is a foe of the Obama Administration's efforts to regulate greenhouse gases, especially those emitted by the coal industry, Wyoming's number one industry. She believes that climate change has been exaggerated. These stances are not surprising. Coal and oil and natural gas pay the bills in Wyoming. We saw coal's clout yesterday when Ken Salazar flew into Cheyenne to hobnob with Republican Gov. Mead and to announce that millions of acres of Wyoming will now be open to King Coal. Good for Arch Coal, good for Wyoming, bad for the planet.


Wyoming Senators Enzi and Barrasso continuer to pander to the lowest common denominator, even though they won't be up for reelection until 2014. Sen. Enzi wants to save the Edison light bulb and Dr. Sen. Barrasso is anti-healthcare. The world has gone nuts. Or maybe it's just the U.S. Congress.  

In new conservative Constitution, only No. 2 remains

The conservative Constitution (Bob Englehart / The Hartford Courant )

Seems to be a plague of "narrow-minded rubes" in the West's state legislatures

As I read Bob Wire's column in today's New West blog, I kept wondering if he'd been hanging out at the Wyoming State Capitol and not the one in Helena, Mont. Seems as if The Gem State The Treasure State is having its own troubles with right-wing knuckleheads.

“You’d better get your head wired to your ass or you’ll be standing tall before the Man.” That line, barked by a field general to Private Joker in the film Full Metal Jacket, needs to be whispered into the ear of every Republican Representative currently darkening the halls of the State Capitol in Helena. For we, the voters of Montana, are the Man. And if you narrow-minded rubes don’t acquire a measure of humanity and start doing what’s right by the people of this state, not by the special interests and GOP bosses and Tea Party hypocrites who hold your leashes, you will be out on your arrogant, clueless asses in twenty months.

Read Bob Wire's scorching "House GOP: Out There Where the Buses Don’t Run" in the New West Blog

Tom Tomorrow imagines a Tea Party World

Damn you, left-wing bloggers! Damn you to hell!

Ethnic Studies 212: Superiority of the Irish

My friend Sean Seamus O'Casey Yeats Swift Cuchulain Beckett Guinness Doyle teaches high school in Tucson. His most popular course is Ethnic Studies 212: "The Irish are Superior to All of You F**kin' Gobshites." Tucson kids of all ethnicities clamor to get into the class so they can learn the meaning and proper use of "gobshite." Once in the class, they are flummoxed to learn from Mr. Doyle that there will be a fair amount of reading of fine Irish literature, performance of Irish drama and singing of Irish songs with just an occasional mention of gobshite, mostly in reference to the Arizona governor, legislature and assorted teabaggers.

Sean is upset with Arizona's new law banning ethnic studies classes. Gov. Jan Brewer just signed the law that bans classes that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals."

"It's not fair," bemoaned Sean during a recent phone call. "Only once have I called for the overthrow of the U.S. Government, and that when that gobshite Reagan was president. And his people are Irish, so I can call him what I want."

I asked Sean if he promoted resentment toward a race or a class of people.

"Guilty," he said. "Once my students read The Great Hunger, they resent the Brits. After we watch Gangs of New York, they resent the American Nativists who advocated sending the Papists back to Ireland or killing them, whichever was easiest. They also hate Leonardo DiCaprio for his pathetic Irish accent. After seeing a performance of Synge's Playboy of the Western World, they resent me because they thought there would be lots of nudes in it. After reading Year of the French, they resent the French for being so inept on the Irish battefields against the Brits. After reading How the Irish Saved Civilization, they resent the Roman Catholic Church and all the popes. After hearing about Cuchulain's magnificent warp-spasms in Cattle Raid of Cooley (Táin Bó Cúailnge), they resent all of the wimpy comic-book heroes from their mis-spent youth. After reading An Béal Bocht(The Poor Mouth) by Flann O'Brien, they don't think much of the Irish.

"So you are teaching resentment."

He laughed. "I'm not teaching resentment. I'm teaching literature and drama and media arts and history."

"What about solidarity? Gov. Brewer says that teachers must teach about individualism and personal freedom."

"So maybe I should teach only Ayn Rand?," said Sean. "Look, the Irish are all about personal freedom and individualism. They could teach Ayn Rand a thing or two. You ever try to organize the Irish to do anything? Why do you think the Brits had such a free hand in Ireland for 500 years?

I asked him if he designed ES 212 for pupils of a particular ethnic group, such as Irish-Catholic Americans?

"That may be the class's saving grace. Irish-Americans don't want to hear the real story. They like leprechauns and St. Patrick's Day and Notre Dame's "Fighting Irish." They want to talk about great-grandpa leaving the old sod and coming to America with no shoes and not a penny to his name. They want to talk about finding their colorful relatives in Roscommon or Cork.

"They mostly avoid my class like the plague. Kids that want myths can take history classes that use Texas-sanctioned texts. Or Lynne Cheney's books. My best students tend to be recent immigrants from Mexico, Vietnam, the Sudan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, El Salvador. They know that life is messy. They came to the U.S. so they wouldn't be murdered or starved to death in their native lands. When they read Seamus Heaney and Jonathan Swift, or some Irish-American writers like Flannery O'Connor and James T. Farrell, they can relate to it."

"I'll take a kid from Darfur with a name like Mabior Dau over a Yuppified Republican Phoenix suburbanite named Maureen O'Sullivan any day."

"So Gov. Brewer's law may not apply to you?" I asked.

"That gobshite can kiss my arse. I don't care what she thinks. I'm going to keep teaching kids that life is wonderful and cruel and complicated and ridiculous and funny as hell. Especially if you're an immigrant in Arizona."

For they are brown and without belief -- or WWJD?

We salute Jesus' General -- he is always on the job:

For they are brown and without belief

Wyoming's future: from Equality State to Land of the Dumb & Sick

Digby recounts a Chris Matthews interview with Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour talking about how Mississippi has all the answers to our health care woes. An excerpt:

Barbour: ...candidly, a lot of Republicans, including me, believe it would be much better to let the states do some things like we've done in Mississippi where we've had serious tort reform and our medical liability reform has brought down insurance premiums by 60 percent in four years, we have reformed Medicaid so that we are saving the taxpayers money. We think let the states go for a while, see what works see what doesn't and then come together with a rational bill at the federal level is a better approach.

Mississippi rates 51 (out of 50 states plus DC) in health care ranking.

In the same ranking by The Commonwealth Fund, Wyoming ranks right in the middle at number 25 [http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Charts-and-Maps/State-Scorecard-2009/DataByState/State.aspx?state=WY].

Not great but not terrible. Our adjoining Rocky Mountain and High Plains states do a little better, with Montana at 18th, Utah at 19th, Colorado at 24th, Nebraska at 13 and South Dakota at 12. Wyoming's only neighbor that ranks lower is Idaho at 29.

I wonder how many Nebraskans and Montanans would trade their health care for that enjoyed by the lucky people of Mississippi? If Republicans ruled the world of health care reform, we could say "We’re all Mississippians now!" If we were still alive to do so.

This could be especially bad in Republican-controlled states such as Wyoming and Idaho if health care were left up to the states.

The South always ranks at the bottom in those categories that count, such as health care and education. They tend to send Republicans to D.C. to illuminate the rest of us on education and health care reform, not to mention the inerrancy of the Bible. If Wyoming’s delegation keeps voting with their Deep South counterparts, we too could be the land of the dumb and the sick. And we’d be praying like hell for something different.

Noah: "This ark ain't gonna float if we have to put one more pair of dinos on it"

The new 20,000-square-foot Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum in Montana includes sculptures of T-Rex skeletons, murals of ancient mountains and a diorama of dinosaurs walking two-by-two into Noah’s Ark.

Yes, just when you thought it was safe to venture back to eastern Montana, a creationist museum opens up.

Glendive, known to some as the crossroads of east-central Montana, and to others as the only town on I-94 in Montana east of Billings to have three exits, opened its new museum this summer.

Donna Healy wrote about it in Sunday’s Billings Gazette. It sounds like an educational and amusing place:

Displays on the Glendive museum's second floor, which rings the central exhibit space like a gallery, are geared toward refuting evolutionary theory.

A large case contains a diorama of Noah's ark, built on a scale meant to represent an ark of 300 cubits, or 450 feet. Miniature animals and dinosaurs move two-by-two into the ark.

Glendive is dinosaur dig country. Many of the skeletons at the museum are modeled after those found in the vicinity. It's also the site of Makoshika State Park in the Hell Creek Formation that has yielded major dinosaur finds, and the nonprofit Makoshika Dinosaur Museum, which opened in 2004 in a renovated downtown building.

Both the state park and the Makoshika Dinosaur Museum are on the Montana Dinosaur Trail, a nonprofit created in 2005 to promote tourism at affiliated museums and dig sites.

Otis E. Kline Jr., founder and director of the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum, attended some early meetings of the Dinosaur Trail group, he said. But he left the organization when the group adopted the slogan "150 million years in the making."

Kline doesn’t say this, but he probably would have preferred something like "6,000 years of ignorance – and counting."

The Montana museum joins two other creation-based dino museums in the U.S. – one in Kentucky and one in San Diego. They now are drawing dangerously close to Wyoming. While most Wyomingites are known for their pragmatism and live-and-let-live attitudes, the state also home to scores of dinosaur digs and lots of space for kooky museums. There also has been an alarming rise in fundamentalist activity.

We’ll let a member of the reality-based scientific community have the last word. Jack Horner, the curator of paleontology at the reality-based Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, says that there is a fundamental difference between his museum and the one in Glendive.

"It's not a science museum at all," Horner said. "It's not a pseudo-science museum. It's just not science. …There's nothing scientific about it."

Sen. Enzi: Please explain why getting beat up by your spouse is a "pre-existing condition"

This Huffington Post article was also on AlterNet:

It turns out that in eight states, plus the District of Columbia, getting beaten up by your spouse is a pre-existing condition.

Under the cold logic of the insurance industry, it makes perfect sense: If you are in a marriage with someone who has beaten you in the past, you're more likely to get beaten again than the average person and are therefore more expensive to insure.

In human terms, it's a second punishment for a victim of domestic violence.

In 2006, Democrats tried to end the practice. An amendment introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), now a member of leadership, split the Health Education Labor & Pensions Committee 10-10. The tie meant that the measure failed.

All ten no votes were Republicans, including Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming), a member of the "Gang of Six" on the Finance Committee who are hashing out a bipartisan bill. A spokesman for Enzi didn't immediately return a call from Huffington Post.

At the time, Enzi defended his vote by saying that such regulations could increase the price of insurance and make it out of reach for more people. "If you have no insurance, it doesn't matter what services are mandated by the state," he said, according to a CQ Today item from March 15th, 2006.

That’s disturbing. Wyoming isn’t the worst state for cases of domestic violence. You have to go to Alabama and Oklahoma and South Carolina (Joe Wilson’s and Gov. Sanford's and Jim DeMint’s state) for that. In fact, those eight states in which insurance companies are able to hang a label of "pre-existing condition" on domestic violence victims includes Oklahoma and South Carolina, as well as Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota and my own state of Wyoming.

But all states with isolated rural populations have a high incidence of domestic violence. Wyoming is no exception.

The National Census of Domestic Violence Services conducts an annual state-by-state survey. The 24-hour survey on Sept. 27, 2007, of 18 of 24 domestic violence programs in Wyoming, yielded these stats: 349 victims were served in one day; 93 needed shelter or transitional housing; 256 requested counseling, advocacy or children’s support groups. 94 percent of providers could offer counseling, but only 22 percent could offer childcare or transitional housing. There were 61 unmet requests. Meanwhile, there were 107 domestic hotline calls answered.

What about medical care? No stats were given. But a National Violence Against Women Survey in July 2000 found this: "More than one third of all rapes and physical assaults committed against women by intimates results in injury in which women receive some medical care."

If each of those requests for help came from a different person, that would add up to 127,385. That would add up to almost 25 percent of the entire population. But let’s face it: many domestic violence victims are repeat victims – and the abusers repeat offenders. If you just took one-third of that figure, you get 42,462. They are mainly women and children. If one-third of them require some sort of medical care, that 14,000-some that probably won’t qualify for medical insurance under "pre-existing condition." Some of them will be dead, of course, such as the young woman gunned down by her Army sniper husband two summers ago in Cheyenne. He then drove to the mountains and killed himself. Their children were left behind.

How can we tolerate a "system" that allows insurance companies to deny coverage to women who made bad choices? Many of them leave their battering spouses, along with the kids, and find employment in lower-paying jobs that don’t provide health insurance. If they are lucky enough to find jobs with insurance, they may get nothing due to the pre-existing condition of accidentally walking into their husband’s huge fist.

Sen. Enzi has some explaining to do.

Read entire AlterNet article at http://tinyurl.com/or5d9y