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

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

Working Words: Betsy Sholl and "Pink Slip"

Betsy Sholl's poem "Pink Slip" is in the new anthology, Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking out the Jams from Coffee House Press. Anthology editor M.L. Liebler will be traveling to Cheyenne this Saturday to conduct a number of events for Wyoming Poetry Out Loud.

Betsy Sholl was named Maine Poet Laureate in 2006. She's published seven collections of poetry and was a founding member of the innovative small press, Alice James Books. She's published widely and won numerous awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Maine Arts Commission. 

In "Pink Slip," Betsy explores the life of a woman fired after 20 years of hard work. In this excerpt, she gets her pink slip:

All you did was check your watch, all
you did was back me to the door,
where outside they were hauling my car,
a pirate company, so not even the cops could say
where it is. Is this America?
I've seen countries on TV where the natives 

give funny looks to the fat men they serve drinks to
on patios. "Bastard" would be
my translation. Or whatever the deaf woman is
banging onto the locked windows of cars jammed at
the on-ramp trying to leave the city....

Read the entire poem in Working Words. And many other poems and short stories and essays about working people.

Wyoming Women's Foundation wants stories by women struggling to reach economic self-sufficiency

I was talking to a part-time coworker a few days before Christmas. Her full-time job is as a waitress at a restaurant that we shall call ApplebeesPerkinsChilisTexasRoadhouseOutback, etc. She makes $2.13 an hour and looks to make more -- much more -- in tips. On the last day she worked during the “Season of Giving,” she made a buck in tips during the entire shift. For her eight hours, she made $17. This will pay for a half tank of gas, if current prices hold steady..

Tipped workers have their work cut out for them. Sure, on good nights they make more than the $7.25/hour federal minimum wage. If they don’t, their employer is supposed to make up the difference. Most don’t, because there is no enforcement.

Wyoming's legislatively-mandated minimum wage is $5.15/hour. We are tied with Georgia as the state with the lowest minimum wage. Good to see that Wyoming is trying to keep up with the Georgians. Or vice versa. At least Wyorgia has a minimum wage requirement. Five Southern states have none. They include Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina and Louisiana. The Feds can’t mandate that states adhere to a minimum wage. They would be told “it’s none of your cotton-pickin’ business what we pay our slaves employees.”

Such good company we keep.

The Wyoming Women’s Foundation is looking for stories from women struggling to make ends meet. Here’s the announcement:

The Wyoming Women’s Foundation announces the launch of a new project designed to help raise awareness of the barriers women face in achieving economic self-sufficiency in Wyoming.

We are seeking to learn about the life of workers who earn minimum wage in Wyoming. Are you earning minimum wage? (The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour).What kind of job do you have? Are you able to make ends meet with that wage? How? We will be asking how your wage impacts you life and that of your family.

We will also specifically be looking for information from Wyomingites who rely on tipped wages. Are your tipped wages enough to get you by and are you aware of the tipped offset? We encourage you to check the WYWF facebook page to share your story. If you would prefer your information remains anonymous and not posted publically, please email us at sarah@wywf.org or call 307-250-0479. Your information will be kept confidential, unless you agree to let us share your story.

Please join the conversation! We want to hear from you so that we can maximize the number of women in Wyoming that have achieved economic self-sufficiency!

Mrs. P rides again in "unabashedly political" Working Words anthology from Coffee House Press

Word came yesterday that Coffee House Press has released the anthology "Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams," edited by Detroit's M.L. Liebler. It includes one of my stories set in Cheyenne. M.L. has been to Wyoming several times. I still remember fondly (and with some disbelief) the 2002 poetry and music performance by M.L. and Country Joe MacDonald at the old Zen's Coffee House on Lincolnway. M.L. may travel this way again soon -- stay tuned). Check out the book at http://www.coffeehousepress.org/working-words.asp.

The Detroit Metro Times had this to say about the book

“Unabashedly political. Tea-partiers beware. Working Words delivers more than 500 pages of unadulterated and unabridged working-class word art. . . . A heavy anthology . . . which suits the mission of Working Words just fine.”

The story, "The Problem with Mrs. P," was in my first collection, "The Weight of a Body," from Ghost Road Press.

Labor Day weekend is good time to order new "Working Words" anthology

A new anthology from Coffee House Press in the Twin Cities is Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams. It's edited by my old pal in Detroit, poet and performer M. L. Liebler. The foreword is written by Ben Hamper.

I would be negligent (and totally self-promoting) if I didn't mention that one of my stories is in the book. Entitled "The Problem with Mrs. P," it's in my first collection, The Weight of a Body from Ghost Road Press in Denver.

I was just reading another of the anthology's stories, "Turn the Radio to a Gospel Station" by Ohio writer, poet and nurse Jeanne Bryner. I met Jeanne at a YMCA Writer's Voice retreat at Fur Peace Ranch near Pomeroy, Ohio. The ranch is run by guitar great and bluesman Jorma Kaukonen and his wife. Some of you Boomers may remember Jorma from his days with a little group called Jefferson Airplane. M.L. was also at the retreat. That was back in the days when he ran the Detroit YMCA's Writer's Voice program. Bluiesman, writer and arts administrator Bob Fox was also in attendance. Bob passed away from lung cancer a few years later. I miss Bob.

All of us come from modest roots. Working people. Assembly-line workers. Oil well workers. Cowboys. Accountants. Nurses. Day laborers. Union people of all kinds. Maybe that's why we write about regular folks. Those are whom most writers are concerned with. Even Ayn Rand before she went loony.

But the late Ayn is not in this anthology. Here's some background on the book:

Jobs are at the forefront of the national consciousness, yet there is a dearth of literature written by and for workers. This anthology—of fiction, memoir, poetry, rock lyrics, and astute historical analysis—fills the gap for readers both young and old, as well as students of literature and labor history.

A collection about living while barely making one, about layoffs and picket lines, about farmers, butchers, miners, waitresses, assembly-line workers, and the “Groundskeeper Busted Reading in the Custodial Water Closet,” this is literature by the people and for the people—a transcendent volume that touches upon all aspects of working-class life.

Glad to be sharing the pages with M.L. and Jeanne. And all of these people: Bonnie Jo Campbell, Woody Guthrie, Edward Sanders, Willa Cather, Lolita Hernandez, John Sayles, Andrei Codrescu, Bret Lott, Quincy Troupe, Dorothy Day, Thomas Lynch, Jack White, Diane di Prima, Michael McClure, Walt Whitman, Bob Dylan, Michael Moore . . . and many more!

Happy Labor Day!

Two upcoming arts & justice events in Denver

These listings come from the "Open Letter," the weekly newsletter of Denver's Capitol Heights Presbyterian/10:30 Catholic Community and edited by Monte Clark. The 10:30 CC was my family's church when we lived in Denver. My son was baptized there. An incredible group of people (many of them community organizers) pray on both sides of the pew. The newsletter features two great arts-oriented events coming up in September:

“CATHOLIC LITERARY IMAGINATION: WHAT WOULD JESUS VIEW?” LECTURER AND AUTHOR – HOPKINS POETRY CONFERENCE on Thursday, September 17, 7 p.m. at St. John Francis Regis Chapel. Featuring Dr. Ron Hansen. Dr. Hansen was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and educated at Creighton University, the University of Iowa’s Writers Workshop, and at Stanford University, where he held a Wallace Stegner Creative Writing Fellowship. He has received fellowships from the Michigan Society of Fellows, the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Lyndhurst Foundation, and was presented with an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Professor Hansen has taught fiction and screenwriting at such institutions as Stanford, Michigan, Cornell, Iowa, Arizona, and is now the Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., Professor in the Arts and Humanities at Santa Clara University in California. His novels include "Mariette In Ecstasy" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by that Coward Robert Ford."

PLEASE COME OUT AND SUPPORT THE ROMERO THEATER TROUPE as we work to return Labor Day to the people. We will perform Voices From the Worker's Struggle, a series of scenes from American Labor History, past and present, including several traditional labor folk songs. Our show begins on Labor Day, September 7, at 6 p.m. at the Lincoln Park Amphitheater, 11th and Osage, next to the swimming pool. Seating is limited, so it's first-come, first-served. This will be the final public presentation in Denver of what has been a two-year journey of bringing the history of the Workers' Struggle to the community through Organic Theater. This is a free show. The People's Labor Day begins at Lincoln Park at 2 p.m. with free food open to the community. The afternoon's events include poetry, music, and children's games. All are welcome. The United Food and Commercial Workers and Jobs With Justice are co-sponsoring this exciting event. For more information, check out the website at http://www.romerotroupe.org/

Sen. McCaskill reads riot act to "idiots"

Watch Claire McCaskill (D-MO) take apart the idiot financiers who got us into this mess: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt90KUwCCoE

This one is for my college chum Bob in Missouri.

Supercomputer still set for Cheyenne

Jared Miller reports today in the Casper Star-Tribune that plans for a "major climate-modeling supercomputer in Cheyenne" are back on track.

After months of delay, and speculation that the project might be stuck in federal bureaucratic gridlock, the National Science Foundation acknowledged on Sept. 5 that it had approved the next stage of the work, which will focus on computer design.

"There have been milestones along the way, but this more recent one has everyone smiling a bit more, just because it is a critical step to the rest of the process," said Randy Bruns, chief executive officer for Cheyenne LEADS, the city’s economic development arm.

Wyoming officials have since early 2007 been singing the praises of the supercomputer, which is expected to be one of the largest in the world once complete.

Local and state officials predict it will raise the profile of the University of Wyoming, whose scientists will have access to a portion of the computing capacity. Some also expect the supercomputer to help establish Cheyenne as a hub for technology somewhat like the National Center for Atmospheric Research supercomputer did for Boulder, Colo., and could help diversify the economy in southeastern Wyoming.

The computer is expected to cost $60 million to build, and $530 million over its 20-year lifetime, according to the most recent estimates.The state Legislature contributed $20 million to the project in 2007.

The supercomputer is slated for construction on a 25-acre portion of land owned by Cheyenne LEADS just west of town.

Cheyenne Mayor Jack Spiker said the National Science Foundation announcement is a "huge confidence builder for the community and the entire state." Spiker said he envisions the supercomputer as an economic driver that will attract businesses to Cheyenne, and as a destination for tourists intrigued by one of the largest computers in the world. He noted that the visitor's center attached to a similar supercomputer in Boulder, Colo., reported 50,000 visitors last year.

This is good news for Cheyenne. It will diversify the economy and bring a shot of high-tech to a city known more for government offices, the Air Force base and its refinery and chemical plant that for supercomputing. Many of the jobs brought to the county since I moved here 17 years ago have been in the retail sector, where low-wage part-time work is the rule. The Wal-Mart Distribution Center, close to where the big computer will be built, has brought some decent-paying jobs with it. Unfortunately, many of its workers and managers have elected to live 45 miles south in Fort Collins, Colo., location of major high-tech facilities (H-P, Intel, etc.), a lively downtown, not to mention the best micro-brewery in the Rockies -- New Belgium. Techies love their craft beers.

The brainiacs who will run the new computer may or may not live in the area. It would be great if they did. While support staff can be hired from Cheyenne, our repository of supercomputer engineers is not large -- if it exists at all. Imports from bigger metro areas will expect a lively arts and culture scene. NCAR in Boulder, Colo., has attracted a cluster of high-tech businesses. But Boulder is also the home of the biggest university in the state (but not the best -- CSU gets that honor), another university (if you count hippy-dippy Naropa), and a very lively cultural scene. The Pearl Street Mall draws retro-hippies and Republican businessmen alike. It boasts a high percentage of college grads in a state known for the high education level of its citizenry.

To Cheyenne's credit, we have a very good symphony, an active local theatre company, the "2008 Public Library of the Year" library, Depot Square downtown, an expanding Botanic Gardens and all the activities surrounding July's Cheyenne Frontier Days. Our Greenway is one of the best I've seen anywhere. We have a new wind farm east of town slated to provide some of the city's power, and an up-and-coming reputation for water recycling and reclamation. Let's not forget the mountains, notably the Vedauwoo Rec Area with its great rock climbing and boulder jumping.

It's a great family town. From what I hear, it's not great if you're young and single. I haven't been in that demographic cohort for three decades. But that's what I hear.

I welcome the climate-modeling supercomputer. In the short-term, it won't change much. But we're all in it for the long haul.

Attention Wal-Mart employees

United for a Fair Economy brings us this instructional chart: