In which Covid catches up with me and I ask: What if?

I remember how careful we were during the first weeks of the Covid-19 plague. We got our groceries delivered, left on the porch or (if snowing) just inside the front door. The deliverer wore a mask and we work masks. We brought the groceries into the kitchen and wiped them down with disinfectant and, early on, wiped down each plastic and glass container. They told us that was SOP now, be careful, don't let this coronavirus sneak into your home, invade your nose or mouth, and send you to the hospital where you might not make it out alive. The grocery stores ran out of disinfectant wipes and spray and toilet paper. Our neighbor's son, just back from overseas wars, felt challenged by the circumstances and prowled the town looking for TP -- and usually found some, maybe a few rolls or a four-pack but nothing like the eight-pack we use in the average week. He was a master scrounger, much like James Garner's character in The Great Escape and the plucky William Holden in Stalag 17. In the latter film, Marshal Dillon's brother, Peter Graves, turns out to be a Kraut spy, which made sense with his Nordic good looks. Arness, meanwhile, went to war and was wounded at Anzio and returned to become a vegetable-like alien electrocuted by the good guys in 1950's The Thing (watch the skies!) and showed his range by becoming all-around good guy Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke. 

But I digress. We took precautions in those pre-inoculation days. We stayed home. When we did leave the house, we wore whatever masks we could find such as the Colorado Rockies masks I found online late one night. Family members got their first shot in February, followed by another in May. There was something about that shot that gave me some hope, took me be back to a childhood where it was our patriotic duty to fight polio with infused sugar cubes and later lining up for shots at my elementary school. The scientists were in their labs! There was nothing Americans couldn't do! We soon would be practicing our golf swing on the moon!

Crazy days, right? I skated through, avoided the plague like the plague. It was so nice when life opened up again, when we could convene at the movies or at concerts. We went through some political difficulties when Prez T thought the plague was all made up and did almost nothing EXCEPT get the vaccines rolling out to all Americans or at least all Americans that weren't anti-vaxxers. He gets credit for that but it helped little in the election even though he had experts such as Rudy Giuliani and The Pillow Guy as advisors. Then came the pre-inauguration Capitol Riots and finally a president that believed in science and wasn't a buffoon.

Which brings us to today. My son brought Covid home and we all caught it. This surprised me as I had received five Covid immunizations including the 2023 booster and, for good measure, was inoculated against the seasonal flu and RSV. I shouldn't be sick, but I am. At the tail end of this thing, I hope. In our household of four, I am the only one still testing positive. Beginning in the second week of 2024, I accumulated the symptoms until I finally understood that I had a case of Covid. I thought I had Covid. We had used up all of our antigen tests so we ordered free ones from the Feds which took seven days to arrive and then paid for tests that rapidly flew off the shelves. I needed a trip to the hospital ER to get a Covid test. And I was positive. Hey doc, I asked the bleary-eyed resident, what are my treatment options? We have nothing for you, he said. I thought he was kidding but he was not. I was not eligible for the Paxlovid-type infusions my daughter was getting. Heart patients don't tolerate it, said the doc. And I am a heart patient. So, my treatment regimen became Tylenol for headaches and body aches, Mucinex DM and Robitussin for my hacking coughs, and don't forget to take your cardiac meds. He also said I should drink plenty of liquids and try some chicken soup. 

They released me into the wild and I still test positive which keeps me at home. I sit by the window and watch the snowflakes fall. Today the flakes are melting, providing nourishing H20 to my flower bulbs. 

I am lucky. I welcomed those Moderna-made shots into my body and for the most part they did their job. I am sobered by the fact that I was very sick for 26 days. If I caught it in Covid's early days, I would have been very, very sick. I am in Covid's bullseye. I am an elderly man with a heart condition. Covid would have ripped through me as it did with so many. I lost my stepmother and two of my high school friends. Millions died. We don't actually know the real numbers due to some of the lunkheads in charge of our larger states, DeSantis and Abbott to name two. I thought about this at 3 a.m. when a cough woke me up and sent me out to meditate in my easy chair. 

What if? 

Resistance is futile. Read The Three-Body Problem trilogy before it enters the Netflix universe

Have you ever heard the term “Dark Forest” in reference to one of the universe’s big mysteries?

I had not until I read Richard Powers’ wonderful novel about an astrophysicist’s dilemma that crosses space and time in “Bewilderment.” Then I came across a novel on Kindle called “The Dark Forest” by Chinese sci-fi writer Cixin Liu, Liu Cixin in Chinese as the last name is listed first.

This concept posits that the universe is the Dark Forest. Intelligent lifeforms are making their way through the forest and are afraid. There are other lifeforms out there but what are they like? Are they powerful but helpful giant octopus-like creatures in “Arrival.” Or are they savage multi-limbed killers as in “Independence Day,” the creeps who just want humans to “die.”

As lifeforms make their way through the Dark Forest, they don’t know what they’re going to find. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to shoot first and ask questions later rather than being ambushed themselves? Forget “Star Trek” and its non-interference directive. Those strange-looking bastards on the other side of the trees are dangerous and can’t be trusted. Our very existence is threatened. Fire!

This helps explain why Earth, after sending our radio and TV signals and Voyager space probes for the last 100 years, has been met with silence. Maybe others have picked up the signals, have investigated us further, and decided that we are killers, which we are, invaders that have wiped out entire civilizations all over the globe.

In Liu’s novel, second part of “The Three-Body Problem” trilogy, scientists have made first contact with extraterrestrials. Residents of Trisolaris answer the call. Trisolarans are telepaths so everyone on their planet knows what others are thinking. When told that Earthlings speak from their mouths and tend to hide their inner feelings, the aliens assume that we are keepers of dark secrets and are dangerous. They plan to eliminate us as soon as they can get their space fleet to our solar system in some 400 years. Humans begin to plan for the encounter. Wallfacers are selected to come up with ways to staunch the upcoming alien invasion. Some Earthlings secretly ally with the aliens as they believe the aliens just might be more sensible than their earthly neighbors. They also suspect that resistance is futile, as the Borg like to say.

I read it with a dose of dark humor as it is true that humankind is dangerous and can’t be trusted. If I was a Trisolaran, I would get to earth ASAP, before we perfect interstellar travel and keen new weapons and pursue them in the Dark Forest.

Interesting to see that Netflix is turning Liu’s trilogy into a series due out in 2023. The Netflix web site says the series will debut next year. Director is “True Blood’s” Alexander Woo with “Games of Thrones” writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. In 2020, Netflix farmed out the English-language rights for the books which was only available in the original Chinese. So, if you choose, you can read the trilogy or get it on Kindle and start with the second book as I did. It can be a hard slog at times and wonderful in its moments.

I have read only two other trilogies in the sci-fi/fantasy category: “Lord of the Rings” and “Foundation.” Also, John Dos Passos’s “U.S.A.” trilogy. Dos Passos incorporates different points of view and newspaper snippets as he recounts his view of the U.S. in the post-World War I era. A neat blend of fiction and fact, a series ahead of its time. Eduardo Galeano and “Memory of Fire,” 500 years of Latin American history. Again, a wonderful mix of fact and fiction. Magical-realism is involved.

Do you have other trilogies to suggest?

If I may make a modest suggestion: start with book one when tackling a series. I’m pretty sure I missed out by starting in the middle. 

The universe of the heart is a strange and lonely place in "Bewilderment"

In Richard Powers' novel "Bewilderment," Theo Byrne’s nine-year-old son Robin may have ADHD or Asberger’s or is somewhere on the autism “spectrum.” He is suspended when he clocks a kid at school. He always says the wrong thing. Therapists try to convince Theo to put Robin on medication such as Ritalin or Concerta. Theo, an astrobiologist searching for the universe’s exoplanets, refuses to do so. He’s a single parent, his environmentalist wife Alyssa killed in a car wreck when she swerved to avoid a possum.

Father spends many hours hiking and camping with his son. Together, they travel to imaginary planets that Theo only knows through the signatures of critical elements picked up from thousands of light years away. Those are wonderful chapters, journeying to quirky planets that come right out of the scientific imagination. Their names include Stasis, Isola, and Tedia which, not surprisingly, reflect their namesakes of isolation, loneliness, and tedium. One planet doesn’t spin on its axis due to the pull of competing suns. The planet’s few living things can only exist in a narrow band of twilight because they would die from heat on one side or freeze to death on the other.

Theo the astrophysicist discusses various terms regarding the existence of life on other planets. The Fermi Paradox asks the question once asked by Enrico Fermi: Where are the aliens? Drake Equation measures the probability of exoplanets that support life long enough for intelligent beings to emerge. In the novel, Theo proposes other possibilities. No sentient lifeforms anywhere. Civilizations so far away that we would never meet them. Some posit the idea that there is intelligent life in the universe but those beings want nothing to do with us. So they are silent.

All of this returns to Theo’s struggle to understand his son and deal with the death of his wife. A colleague opens a research project that might have answer. It involves a kind of neurofeedback, the AI linking of a person with electronic energy created by others. Neurodivergent Robin becomes part of the study, linking up with some feedback loops his mother made when alive. He gradually gets a better grasp on his behavior and exceeds the researchers’ goals. But disappointment awaits -- and a surprise ending. Think “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes. “Charly,” the movie based on the book, really got to me when I saw it in 1968.

Powers is a powerful writer and “Bewilderment” resonated with me for several reasons. This tale got real early on. My wife and I put our son with ADHD on Ritalin when he was five in 1990. I resisted. I couldn’t imagine my little dynamo on drugs. But he needed help. His working parents needed help. Directors of preschools and kindergarten teachers pushed us to go the medication route. Three decades later, I can still feel the pain. I had to stop reading Powers’ novel at some points because the author does such a great job of describing the pain of the bewildered parent.

“Bewilderment” also asks this question: Are we as alone in the universe as we are on Earth? The book says yes but also provides the reader with transcendent moments.

Still, loneliness may be as endemic to the universe as hydrogen and helium. We may never see intelligent lifeforms. If they exist, they are far away and the distances too great. We are early in the exploration stage. I will be stardust by the time humans leave our solar system for another.

Powers creates a world where the reader feels the weight of the universe and the weight of people’s attempts to know ourselves and our loved ones. I finished the book, sat back in my recliner, said “we are all alone,” and then grabbed a beer. I have family and friends, a wife and two grown children. They will miss me when I am gone. But the earth will keep spinning, a sunrise will be followed by a sunset. One generation will be replaced by another and another and another.

Today I am going to pretend that I am not alone. I will reach out to those important to me. What else can I do?

Humans -- can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!

In the film "The Day the Earth Stood Still," versions one and two, an intergalactic diplomat comes to earth, tells humans they are a clear and present danger to the universe and must be destroyed. That gets put on hold once the space envoy experiences the kindness of its people. But it's only a temporary hold. As Michael Rennie (Klaatu) tells humankind at the end of the 1951 film: "Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer". Then he and his big-ass robot Gort fly off in their saucer. A similar warning is repeated by Keanu Reeves in the 2008 remake.

But in English author Matt Haig's 2013 novel, "The Humans," earthlings get still another chance. Hotshot Cambridge physicist Andrew Martin unlocks the secret of prime numbers, a discovery that will kick humanity's future into overdrive. The Vonnadorians find out about it and send an hitman from a galaxy far, far away to kill the scientist. Earthlings can't be trusted with big secrets, only small ones, such as nuclear fission and the formula for Kentucky Fried Chicken. If the prime number mystery gets solved and humankind experiences the Great Leap Forward, the universe is doomed. The Vonnadorians are an advanced peaceful race and kill only when necessary, much like Gort does when threatened by the U.S. Army. The alien replaces the scientist in his body. Also, he must eliminate anyone who knew anything about the discovery. That includes Martin's colleagues, beautiful wife, and troubled son.

At first, Martin thinks of the humans as hideous with grotesque features and habits. The more time he spends with them, the more he finds to appreciate: their dog Newton, Emily Dickinson's poetry, songs by David Bowie and the Beach Boys, love, and wine. Through his eyes, the reader gets a chance to see the world anew. It's funny at first -- must humans wear clothes? -- but grows more serious as Martin the Alien abandons his quest and goes over to the other side. There's a hefty Godfather-style price to pay and I won't spoil it by spooling it out in detail.

It's a wonderful novel. I was ready for something humorous and hopeful after reading a series of serious books. Make no mistake -- this is as serious as it gets. Who are we and why do we do what we do? 

Klaatu barada nikto! 

Klaatu issues these orders to Gort. As a kid, I thought it meant "If anything happens to me, kill the human scum." It really meant "if anything happens to me, come and retrieve me and I will decide what to do next." Gort does his duty and Klaatu is freed to issue his warming to Earth. Then they fly off.

Martin the Alien receives telepathic orders from Vonnadoria. He does eliminate the scientist's collaborator. It's just a simple matter of putting his hand on him to make his heart stop. In his left hand are "the gifts," those powers that allow him to travel and communicate vast distances, speak with animals, and accomplish his mission. He briefly contemplates killing the annoying teen son, Gulliver, but saves his life instead. He befriends the dog and takes a liking to Mrs. Martin. Then all hell breaks loose.

Haig caused this reader to look anew at my humanity. Strange creatures we are. Loveable and awful. But it's all we got. For now.

It's the Wolverines vs. the 2020 Pandemic in Michael Lewis's new book, "The Premonition"

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center web site has become the key Covid-19 site in the U.S. and probably worldwide.

Stats as of 5/13/21:

160 million-plus cases worldwide and 3.3 million deaths.

32.8 million U.S. cases and 584,371 deaths.

And the numbers keep going up, dramatically in some countries such as India.

In the U.S., Connecticut leads the nation in percent of population vaccinated at 42.5% and Mississippi, as it often is, is at the bottom with 23.8%. Wyoming ain't much better at 27.8%. National average is 36.2%.

Statistics are sobering. 

It didn't have to be this way. That's what I kept muttering as I read Michael Lewis's "The Premonition." It traces what could have been if the U.S. had a health care system designed for emergencies like the pandemic and not one geared to profits. The book is not a polemic about a fractured system. Instead, Lewis tracks the efforts of an odd group of citizens forced to face the fact that one day, a plague would be loosed upon the land. They called themselves the Wolverines after the young rebels in 1984's "Red Dawn" who take to the Colorado mountains to fight a Soviet invasion. It's a bit jingoistic but a fun Cold War romp. 

Lewis gave us the insiders' look at the stock market in "The Big Short" and a group of geek baseball statisticians in "Moneyball." Lewis's forte is exploring the people behind big issues, people we may never have heard of but who played a big part in complicated events. Both were made into good movies and "The Premonition" will be one of a rash of pandemic-themed movies and streaming series in the next few years. Lewis is a master at character development and storytelling. "The Premonition" reads like a good thriller and its subtitle "A Pandemic Story" shows the focus. 

I did not have any premonitions as I read. The unpleasant event has already happened. But I did see the writing on the wall. As the Wolverines gathered and tried to come up with a pandemic plan, they knew something bad was on the way. They also knew that the U.S., despite its hubris, was not ready. These Cassandras had a plan but how to get the clueless to listen? The Centers for Disease Control had become a shadow of its former self. Most experts concentrated on vaccine development rather than what steps to take while awaiting a vaccine, steps that had proven effective in the past.

One of the most interesting aspects of the story is the origins of the core group. In 2005, an advisor to George W. Bush recommended a recently-published book to the president. The book was "The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History" by John M. Barry. I was surprised that Bush read it and convened a task force to plan for the next pandemic. It's not like he wasn't busy elsewhere in the world. But he gets credit for acting on a real threat. Plans were drafted and were refined during the Obama administration. We had a plan but then along came Trump.

Another eye-opener: leaders do not need all of the information when an emergency arises. They need to act, even in the face of massive criticism. The example that keeps cropping up is "Churchill vs. Chamberlain." As a leader, will you see the danger ahead, speak out, and eventually find yourself in a position to lead (Winston Churchill). Or do you see yourself as a Neville Chamberlain, more interested in maintaining the status quo, "peace in our time" in this case? As England's prime minister, he made mistakes but he led, pugnacious to the end of the war and the end of his political career.

In the face of the gathering storm, U.S. leaders in 2020 failed to act. For that, they should be judged harshly. Lewis could have spent 300 pages telling us about Trump's many missteps. Instead, he shows us that there was an alternative universe of statisticians, physicians, and civil servants convinced that a plague was coming and we could plan and we could act.

Lewis ends the book deep into the pandemic with the story of Carter Mecher's parents. Mecher is known as the "redneck epidemiologist" in the book and is a members of the Wolverines. After all his work on the disease, he is torn asunder when his aging father gets Covid-19, passes it on to his mother and she dies. In the epilogue, "Sins of Omission," the writer follows one of the main characters, physician and former county health officer Charity Dean, as she seeks the grave of a former patient in a vast California cemetery. We get into Dean's head as she ponders her ability to sense things. But now, late into the pandemic, she now knows that, with communicable diseases, we are always looking into the rearview mirror. 

Covid had given the country a glimpse of what Charity has always thought might be coming -- a pathogen that might move through the population with the help of asymptomatic spreaders, and it had a talent for floating on air.... Now that we knew how badly we responded to such a threat, we could begin to prepare for it.

The French have a term, apres nous, le deluge, supposedly uttered by the despot Charles XV. The basic translation is after we're gone, the flood will come but we don't care.

That could easily be a Trump phrase although it's a bit too poetic for him. It is reminiscent of the slogan written on the back of First Lady Melania Trump's coat: "I really don't care do U?

I prefer to leave with some lines from Jackson Browne's "Before the Deluge." He speaks of another crisis, the looming climate disaster, but it also applies to the current deluge: 

And when the sand was gone and the time arrived 

In the naked dawn only a few survived 

And in attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge 

Believed that they were meant to live after the deluge 

After the deluge, the Wolverines abide.

Hunkered down, somewhere in Wyoming, part 6

Is anyone else checking those daily COVID-19 tallies from Johns Hopkins University?

It's become a habit. It's always bad news. Thousands of new cases and thousands of deaths. The USA leads the pack as of right this very minute with 432,132 confirmed cases and almost 15,000 deaths. New York is still the epicenter, with NYC reporting the highest death count.

We are lucky and/or blessed in Wyoming as we have 230 cases and 0 deaths. I don't really trust those numbers as only 4,000-some tests have been done in a state of 580,000. We've seen in other states that deaths are being uncounted due to various reasons, notably the shortage of tests. The  Worldometers site has started including U.S. military cases provided by the Department of Defense. Its page reports 3,160 more cases than JHU.

The numbers are sobering. They scare me. I'm not as scared as I was when the pandemic swept into the USA and some hysterical reports made me believe that all of us over 60 were doomed. And then the toilet paper and hand sanitizer ran out. What will become of us? That was three weeks ago and friends and neighbors have kept us supplied and my family is still intact. We don't leave the house except to take walks in the park on nice days and maybe get ice cream cones at the DQ drive-up. This "social distancing" policy is working to "flatten the curve" of infections. The University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has feeds COVID-19 stats onto its super-computers every day. The numbers are beginning to be reduced, showing fewer infections and deaths if we continue social distancing through August. If restrictions are relaxed too soon, we risk another outbreak.

We shall all go mad if we need to hunker down until August. Of course, some states do not have mandatory social distancing in place (looking at you Wyoming) which may affect the numbers. And there's a guy named Trump who wants everybody to return to work by May so the country's employment numbers will get better and everybody will be happy and vote for Trump and then he can finish fucking up our democracy.

People are dying. Time to listen to the scientists and statisticians and tune out the white noise from the White House.

1969 moon landing memories linger on the beach and in The House of the One-Eyed Seahorse

I like to think that I was a witness to history during Moon Landing Week in July 1969.

I witnessed the launch from the beach the morning of July 16. The Hartford Avenue beach approach in Daytona is located 62 miles northwest of Cape Canaveral. The Saturn 5, NASA's largest-ever launch vehicle, lit up an already bright morning and its sound waves seemed to ruffle the smooth Atlantic. The rocket arced into the sky and out to sea. It was visible only a few minutes. When it was gone, we went back in the water. Or maybe I was in the water already. I forget, as I saw so many launches during my 14 years in Florida. They merge into one big launch that shows the U.S. commitment to space exploration in the 1960s and into the 1970s. JFK showed the way with his 1961 speech. Congress shoveled money at the program as it took seriously Kennedy's vow of a man on the moon in 1969. An American man on the moon. Take that, Russkis!

It was all about the Cold War. The USSR ambushed us with Sputnik, Laika the Space Dog, and Yuri Gargarin. We fought back with Mercury and Alan Shepard and Gemini and finally Apollo. We won the Space Race with the moon landing. It was important to win something in the mid-60s, since we were losing in Vietnam and young people were lost to their elders and some of our biggest heroes were gunned down by assassins in 1968.

My father was a rocket man. He didn't fly them or test them. But he was a contract specialist with General Electric and later NASA. He worked out deals with suppliers of nuts and bolts and many of the gadgets that went to the moon. He could look at a launch with pride and announce that the big hunk of metal ferrying Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin to the moon was partly his doing. He and thousands of other Americans had worked together to get the U.S. first on the moon.

But all was not well in Rocketland. Workforce cutbacks had started two years earlier. One day, GE honchos told Dad that his services were no longer needed in Florida. He accepted a transfer to Cincinnati where GE was building all kinds of new and wonderful things. He said he would go on alone and the family would join him when school got out in June. Dad didn't like Cincinnati and we couldn't sell our house in Daytona as hundreds were leaving and  it was a buyer's market. This well-educated workforce that had come from New York and Ohio and New England in the fifties and sixties were no longer needed. It hurt Daytona. It was not exactly the Silicon Valley of the 60s. Most jobs were in the service industries that fed the tourist industry. I worked some of those jobs. Busboy, bagboy, laundry pick-up guy for beach motels, worker on a beach float stand. My brother was a gremmie selling suntan lotion by a hotel pool. One of my sisters was a nursing assistant taking care of old people who flocked to Florida's Promised Land. The engineers who made the rockets (and their families) would be missed by local businesses and schools.

But Dad grew tired of city life and found a job with NASA back on Daytona. I was happy because I had just made my high school's basketball squad after a year's worth of practice and visualized a bright future as a power forward.

On the afternoon of July 20 when Apollo 11's Eagle landed near the Sea of Tranquility, I was parked by the Atlantic Ocean with my girlfriend K. The radio news followed the ship's descent which we only partially listened to. When "The Eagle has landed" was announced, we paused our kissing and fondling for several minutes to let history wash over us. It rained heavily and the beach seemed deserted, odd for a July afternoon. Minuscule waves broke on the sandbar 50 yards in front of us. No surfing today. Once the announcers returned to just talking about the landing of the Eagle, we returned to our previous engagement.

I know the exact spot where this happened. When I'm in town, I walk by it and remember that historic afternoon. I see my rusty red Renault Dauphine with the light blue door that replaced the original, sheared off in a hasty back-up from my garage. Two people are inside, at least I think it's two people, as the windows are fogged. The spirit of that day drifts over that spot as does the memories of an eighteen-year-old me. This presence remains at the beach even when I'm back home in Wyoming. It may still be here when 68-year-old me and then (God willing) the 78-or 88-year-old me toddles down the beach, cane poking holes in the soft sand. When I'm gone, will the ethereal presence remain of the radio broadcast and the automobile and the young man and young woman, their thumping hearts and hopes and dreams? I like to think that beachgoers in 2069, parked in the same spot in their futuremobile, will pause their canoodling to listen to the voices of astronauts landing on Mars or orbiting Saturn. Maybe in the background they will hear a faded voice: "The Eagle has landed." 

That night, in The House of the One-Eyed Seahorse, I joined my family to watch Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon. The video feed was grainy but I could make out Armstrong and then Buzz Aldrin cavorting on the lunar surface. We watched on a TV that struggled to pull in signals via antennae supplemented by a coat hanger and a broken channel changer replaced by vice grips. Nine kids are tough on TVs, even ancient ones that received but three channels. We no longer live there, haven't in a long time. My brothers and sisters and I carry around those memories. Fifty years ago, we were plotting our escape. Now, in quiet times, those memories swirl in our aging heads. They also exist somewhere in the house that almost burnt down in August of '69. We could have lost everyone but for the quick actions of my sister Molly. I was on a date and running late so I salvaged one of the cars, the other one burned to a cinder in the garage where the fire started. My memories would be vastly different as a lone survivor.

This all will be on my mind as I watch film of the July 16 launch and the July 20 walk on the moon and the July 24 splashdown.

Flashback: How the LSD revolution almost came to Wyoming

Always on the lookout for mentions of Wyoming on the Internet. This one is a chapter in Wyoming counterculture history.

An Oct. 31 Westword story by Chris Walker was headed "Acid Trip: Denver's secret LSD labs fueled the psychedelic revolution."

It  tells the story of Tim Scully, LSD-maker in the 1960s. Scully spent time in a federal penitentiary for making and distributing LSD. He and his pals had two labs in Denver. They were discovered, but in a fluke, Scully didn't  serve time for his Mile High City transgressions. He later got busted in California and served hard time.

In November of 1967, Scully and his childhood friend and drug partner Don Douglas scouted the West for places safer than Berkeley, a counterculture hotbed in the sixties.

From the Westword article:

He convinced Douglas to join him on an interstate scouting trip. They managed to evade the feds and travel to Seattle, where they bought a used station wagon that they used to drive east through Washington into Idaho and Wyoming. The pair had envisioned setting up a lab in an extremely rural, isolated location, but they realized that wouldn’t work for two reasons. 

“In Wyoming, we learned that cowboys don’t like hippies. We stuck out like sore thumbs,” says Scully.  

The other reason? To run certain processes in the lab, they’d need plentiful supplies of dry ice — which were only available in big cities. So Douglas and Scully turned south, setting their sights on Denver.

The article doesn't mention just where in Wyoming cowboys hated hippies and there was a shortage of dry ice. Any guesses? Could be almost anywhere, I suppose. It must haven't occurred to the duo that two longhairs settling in any small town was sure to cause reactions from the populace, since nothing that happens in a small community goes unnoticed and gossiped about.

Small town resident #1: What do you suppose those two longhairs are doing in that house over on Elm Street?
Small town resident #2: Making some bitchin' batches of pure Orange Sunshine, most likely.
Small town resident #1: That's a relief. Thought they might be plotting the overthrow of the U.S. government.
Small town resident #2: That's the job of the John Birch Society. They meet over at the Grange Hall.

Hitchhikers cruising through Wyoming in the late 60s and early 70s heard stories of cowboys picking up a hitchhiker and taking him into Cheyenne for a mandatory haircut. I heard the story in 1972 when hitching rides in Wyoming. I also have heard the tale since moving to Cheyenne in 1991. It could be one of those Hitchhikers' Myths, kind of like Urban Myths but passed along by hitchers of yore. I heard many similar stories during my years on the road. Grisly murders in New Mexico. "Easy Rider"- style shootings in Georgia. Rapes and near-rapes everywhere.

I only experienced a few scary episodes, most in Nevada for some odd reason. Rural Nevada can be a lot like Wyoming, only hotter. .Rednecks are rednecks, I guess, but I got rides from some in my longhair days.

What a long, strange trip it's been....

A final note on LSD. Microdosing LSD is a hot topic. This from Business Insider:

LSD microdosing has emerged as Silicon Valley's favorite illegal drug habit, with engineers, programmers, writers, and artists sharing their stories of the practice in numerous blogs and outlets, including the New York Times. Many people say it improves their concentration or creativity; others say they use it to help treat symptoms of mental illnesses like depression and anxiety. 

And this:

Paul Austin, 27, bills himself as a professional microdosing coach. After personally experimenting with the regimen — which involves taking tiny, "sub-perceptual" doses of LSD or another psychedelic for up to 7 months — Austin said he was inspired to share what he learned with the world. He now offers 30-minute Skype microdosing "consulting" sessions for $127 through his website, The Third Wave

As a writer with depression, I may have to explore this further. Just as an academic exercise, of course.

Gary Snyder: "I pledge allegiance to the soil of Turtle Island"

Jane Hirshfield has teamed up with the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University to form #poetsforscience which will commemorate this weekend's March for Science and Earth Day. Hirshfield will read her poem "On the Fifth Day" on Saturday's march in Washington, D.C. This poster is part of a series celebrating poetry and science and the environment. Gary Snyder's "Turtle Island" was my favorite poetry book in the 1970s and I took it with me on backpacking trips in the Rockies: "Ah to be alive/on a mid-September morn/fording a stream/barefoot, pants rolled up/holding boots, pack on,/sunshine, ice in the shallows,/northern rockies."

What would Kurt Vonnegut say about the April 22 March for Science?

If he were still alive, Kurt Vonnegut might have attended the science march near him this weekend. New York City will probably have a big one. He would probably attend more to protest numbskull Trump than to applaud science.

Some of Vonnegut's big books, especially Cat's Cradle, carry warnings about runaway scientific research. In Galapagos, Vonnegut posits a future where humankind has evolved into sea-lion-like creatures with flippers and beaks and smaller brains in heads streamlined for swimming. One of that book's recurring themes is that contemporary human brains are too big and possess all sorts of ways to screw things up. In Slaughterhouse Five, Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. Vonnegut has fun with time travel and memory. He also has the fire-bombing of Dresden, brought to us by masterminds in science and war-making. They go hand in hand. So it goes.

Vonnegut studied biochemistry as an undergrad and has a master's degree in anthropology. He worked as a PR guy for General Electric while he wrote his novels and raised his family. He and his fictional alter-ago, Kilgore Trout, are noted sci-fi writers. But Vonnegut stands out for his scientific background and his social commentary. Baby Boomers discovered his novels just as we headed off to college or Vietnam or the assembly line or wherever. It spoke to the absurdity of war, as did Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Ken  Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest completes the big three books of the 1960s that changed my life and many others. Just think about their backgrounds for a minute. Heller was a World War II veteran and NYC ad man in the Mad Men era. Kesey was a rural Oregon boy who made his way to Stanford and sixties legend as part of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. He wrapped up his life on a farm in Oregon, back where he started. Vonnegut came from an educated Indianapolis family but the war changed everything, as it did for many of our fathers. My father was able to attend college on the G.I. Bill, begin a career as an accountant, marry a nurse and fathered nine children, of which I am the oldest.

Dedicated sci-fi readers know the thrill and the danger of science. We know that science leads to Hiroshima and to the Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator or ICD. I wear one of those in my chest. It was invented by Morton Mower, a Denver resident, now a millionaire art collector. Part of his world-renowned collection of Impressionists (Degas, Renoir, Monet, etc.) is now on display at the Fulginiti Pavilion for Bioethics and Humanities at the Anschutz Medical Center, 13080 E. 19th Ave. in Aurora. A med center with a gallery that exhibits artwork collected by a scientist/inventor? You can attend for free as you get an ICD check-up at the cardiac telemetry unit. A nifty blend of science and art, invention and patronage.

Saturday's Science March is not an effort to promote science above religion or instead of religion. It is a move to celebrate scientific innovation against those who would hide inconvenient facts and cut funding for research. Consider the Know Nothings of the 19th century U.S. They professed to "know nothing" other than that written in their bibles. They valued The Word over words and imagination and science. Today's conservative Republicans are descendants of the Know Nothings.  They are threatened by humankind;'s march into the future. And it is scary. Technology brings drastic changes. The arts expose our children to other voices and other cultures. People who don't look like us force us to consider our deeply held beliefs about race and gender.

It's really fear that drives conservatives. Fear of galloping change. Science and the arts and education represent the most threatening fields. That's why Congressional conservatives' budget cuts target them. If only we could stop the clock, everything would be all right with the world!

But you can't stop change. So we write and we march and we challenge the people who want to deny climate change and evolution and higher ed.

On Saturday, April 22, we meet at 10:30 a.m. in the service station parking lot at Little America in Cheyenne. We then caravan over to Laramie, where we will join others at noon for the Wyoming March for Science from the UW Classroom Building at 9th and Ivinson to downtown. An Earth Day Rally follows, with music by Laramie's Wynona. If you are interested in making an appropriately clever sign, one that honors wit and science, gather at the UU Church in Cheyenne from 6-10 p.m. on Friday, April 21. I missed the Wyoming Art Party's sign-making session last night in Laramie. You may remember WAP's performance art at the Women's March in Cheyenne in January. Their uterine-based signage ("Wild Wombs of the West") was a big hit for many, although some follow-up letters in the local paper called them crude and insulting to women. It's always a good thing when a protest incites letters to the editor.

See you on Science Day on Saturday. It's also Earth Day. Naturally.

Vonnegut won't be there. He's on Tralfamadore, most likely. But he will be there in spirit, both as an encouragement -- and as a warning.

April 2017 brings flowers, poetry and demonstrations -- snow, too

It's snowing. April comes in like a lion...

Those cruel bastards that make up the Republican Party will get more wake-up calls in April with demos by concerned Americans who've had it up to here with the likes of these people.

First up in April, though, is National Poetry Month. In the past, it has been an occasion for cordial celebratory readings of poetry, past and present. This year, poetry takes on new meaning and a new urgency. Words matter. Expression matters. Heart and soul matter.

To get things off on the right note, here is a spring poem I like. It's Noma Dumezweni reading Wordsworth's "Daffodils" on BBC Radio 4. Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio

William Wordsworth seemed to me a stuffy old Brit before I took an undergrad English course at the University of Florida on "The Early Romantic Poets." Wordsworth, Coleridge and Blake were early, calendar-wise. The late Romantics, which I took the following semester, covered Keats, Shelley and Byron. An amazing group of poets. From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to Ozymandias. Wordsworth noting the beauty of spring daffodils in the lake country to Byron dying for Green independence at a young age. Blake's mysticism and otherworldly drawings.

Think poetry as you attend any of these other activities celebrating free expression.

Wyoming is the site for three March for Science events on April 22. The largest one will be in Laramie. There also is Pinedale and Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. To RSVP to your local March for Science, go to https://www.marchforscience.com/rsvp.

Why March for Science? If you were paying attention the past three months, Trump and the Republicans have marched out one anti-science bill after another. It's a horror show. So we march.

Many of us in Cheyenne will carpool to Laramie. Marchers meet outside of the UW Classroom Building (the lawn on 9th and Ivinson) at noon and from there march downtown for an Earth Day rally with music, info booths and speakers. Probably food and beverages. If you are interested in being part of a Laramie citywide clean-up, meet at Coal Creek Coffee at 10 a.m.

But before the March for Science comes the Tax March on Saturday, April 15, 10 a.m., at the Cheyenne IRS HQ, 5353 Yellowstone Rd. We will be making clever signs on Friday evening. These sign-making sessions have been dubbed Wines and Signs or, you prefer, Whine and Signs. Keep posted on the Tax March Facebook page.at https://www.facebook.com/events/1256681387753289/.

And time to plan ahead for Monday, May 1. The May Day March to Keep Families Together is sponsored by Juntos Wyoming and convenes at Cheyenne Depot Plaza from 2-5 p.m. While at the march, check out the art exhibit in the Depot Building. FMI: https://www.facebook.com/events/223220958143613/

And for those who like meetings (and who doesn't?) the Laramie County Democrats monthly meeting takes place at the IBEW HQ in Cheyenne, 6:30 p/m/-whenever. Lots of newbies been showing up as they are upset with all things Trump and we don't blame them.

If you like to drink and complain about the Trump regime, please come to Laramie County Drinking Liberally on 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 20, at the Albany Bar downtown.

And don't forget the Laramie County Town Hall Meeting with Rep. Jim Byrd at 6 p.m., April 4, in the Laramie County Public Library's Cottonwood Room.

More events are planned. Check out the Prairie Progressives calendar at http://prairieprogressives.com/calendar/

March for Science Wyoming steps off in Laramie on Earth Day 2017

Official logo of the March for Science Wyoming, set for Laramie on April 22. T-shirts are for sale with this design. All of the proceeds go to March for Science Wyoming. Go to  https://www.bonfire.com/mfs-wyoming/

March for Science 2017, Wyoming version, will be held on Saturday, April 22, in Laramie. This is one of the 300-plus satellite sites to the main march in Washington, D.C. Cheyenne residents will be bused in, returning the favor by Laramie folks who carpooled and rode the bus to Cheyenne on Jan. 21 for the Women's March.

April 22 is Earth Day, a good day to cut air pollution by pooling our resources. Also a great day for a march in Laramie, which is home to the state's only four-year university and a vibrant batch of science-oriented academics and researchers. An artistic bunch, too. The head of the UW Creative Writing Program is Jeff Lockwood, a writer and noted entomologist. J Shogren is a Nobel Prize-winning environmental economist and professor who leads the "pulp Americana" band J Shogren Shanghai'd.

Students come from all over the world, studying water hydrology, geology, computer science and many other majors. UW international students have additional worries under Trump's most recent batch of anti-immigrant policies. One wonders what effects these travel bans will have on international athletes. In a January 2017 article, Fox Sports reported this:

According to a study done by Rukkus Blog on 2016-2017 rosters, 11 percent of college basketball players are born outside of the United States. The total number of foreign-born prospects on college rosters is up 40 percent in the last 10 years.

Wonder if those well-heeled athletic supporters will lobby their man Trump to keep the overseas pipelines open. They will, if Gonzaga and Kentucky and Duke start losing. Face it, Trump responds to muscle, especially when it comes from rich white guys. We gotta have our March Madness!

Meanwhile, we march for scientists and researchers and women and immigrants and writers and artists and all the other targets of Trump and his authoritarian policies.

When Ike had his heart attack in 1955, coronary care was still in the dark ages

Building 500 on a January afternoon.

Coronary Q & A

After a short visit to the eighth floor of Building 500 on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora

Q: If you had a heart attack in 1955, what was the likely outcome?

A: Death.

Q: You're kidding, right? I said 1955, not 1855, or 1755.

A: I kid you not. The most common nickname for a garden-variety heart attack in 1955 was "the widow maker."

Q: "Widowmaker" is what my Syrian refugee cardiologist called the heart attack caused by a total blockage of the Lateral Anterior Descending Artery or L.A.D. The kind of heart attack I had to welcome in the new year of 2013.

A: Times change. So does the language.

Q: In 1955, what was the most common prescription for the usual heart attack symptoms such as chest pain, numbness in the left arm, shortness of breath, chronic gastrointestinal problems?

A: R & R. Some time on the beach. A few rounds of golf. A relaxing day fishing by a bucolic Colorado trout stream. That was for men. Women? They didn't have heart heart attacks in 1955. It was probably hysteria. Or penis envy. Freud was in vogue.

Q: Forget Freud. Didn't doctors use electrocardiograms in 1955?

A: Not often. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower complained of chronic gastrointestinal pain. His doctor, U.S. Army Major General Howard McCrum Snyder, conducted a month-long physical of Ike without once doing an EKG. He told Ike to relax by going on a vacation and play some golf.

Q: What did Ike do?

A: He flew off to Colorado and played some golf.

Q: Why Colorado?

A: Ike's wife, Mamie Doud, was from Denver. She and Ike usually stayed at the Doud family home in what is now the Seventh Avenue Historic District. He had a heart attack on Sept. 23 after playing 27 holes of golf at Cherry Hills Country Club. According to the Encore newsletter I picked up at Building 500, once known as Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, Ike "complained of chest pains, but but continued to play, assuming it was heartburn."

Q: But it was a heart attack?

A: Right. One of the symptoms the American Heart Association warns you about.

Q: So he went to the hospital?

A: He went back to the Doud's home. "He awoke the next morning at 2 a.m. from chest pains that were not subdued by Milk of Magnesia."

Q: Even I, a layperson and not a doctor, can see the difficulty of subduing a full-blown widowmaker with Milk of Magnesia.

A: Exactly. It wasn't until that afternoon that the Fitzsimons docs administered an EKG to POTUS and "announced that Eisenhower had a coronary thrombosis condition that would be best treated at Fitzsimons."

Q: Don't docs now say that "minutes means muscle," that time is of the essence in the treatment of any heart attack?

A: They didn't know that in 1955.

Q: What did they know?

A: From Encore: "While the American Heart Association was founded in 1924, little was known about heart disease. Doctors knew that death could occur, but provided no causes, symptoms of treatment for coronary thrombosis.... Since the 1920s, heart disease has continued to be America's number-one killer."

Q: That's progress. So the President of the United States, the man who whipped the Nazis, received no treatment for his heart attack? No oblation? No stent? No blood thinners? No pacemaker? No bypass? No weeks of painstaking rehab on the treadmill and weight machines?

A: Those were all treatments of the future. The good news is that the president's seven weeks of rehab in Denver alerted the world to a dangerous killer. When you had your heart attack, the medical establishment had almost 60 years of research behind it.

Q: I could have died.

A: But you didn't. You walk around with a machine in your chest that regulates atrial fibrillation (A-fib) and will shock you back to the present should you ever experience catastrophic heart failure.

Q: One of my earliest memories is from Aurora, Colorado. I was four. We lived in the neighborhood across Colfax Avenue from Fitzsimons. My father pointed out the lights of Room 8002 and announced that the President of the United States was recuperating from a heart attack in that room. Memories are funny things. I'm not sure why I remember it. It's possible that my father told me about it later. He was a good storyteller.

A: When you were in Denver last week, did you get to tour Room 8002 at Fitzsimons, now known as The Eisenhower Suite? It's been lovingly restored by the University of Colorado Hospital, an entity that obviously cares about history and science. It now looks like it did in September of 1955, when the leader of the free world and his wife and a secret service detail lived there.

Q: It was a quick visit. I was in town to take my daughter Annie to some medical appointments. But I will be back. It may have led to my own recovery from coronary artery disease. In Eisenhower's Heart Attack, Clarence Lasby, M.D., states: "The eight floor became, in a way, the nation's first coronary care unit... where shifts of cardiologists, nurses, technicians, medical corpsmen, dietitians, cooks, and security staff were present on a 24-hour basis to serve the patient and his family."

A: I love historic sites and museums. I'm curious. Alive and curious. Thanks, Ike.

Four years after the Day of the Widowmaker

It began with a hallucination.

Flashback, I thought, after-effects of my misspent youth.

My vision lit up with sparkles and crinkles, as if I was being wrapped in silver Christmas wrapping paper. Me, a present for someone, or maybe for myself. It should have been the ER, but I didn't realize that yet.

I had been having these visions for weeks. They didn't appear as I climbed the steps to my office and the downtown parking garage. I did have some shortness of breath but I ascribed that to lack of exercise and the ritual packing on of holiday pounds. I'm going to get back to the Y at the first of the year, I told everyone. Really -- I mean it.

Four years ago today I sat at my desk. The crinkly vision subsided, replaced by a horrible stomach pain. Uh oh, I thought. The dreaded cruise ship virus that was a plague in Cheyenne that winter, even though very few cruise ships dock at Port Cheyenne. My boss had said she'd returned home a few days earlier to find her husband curled up on a ball on the floor. He had a stomach ache. Rita got him to the car and then the ER. The docs pronounced norovirus. Sure enough, at home two hours later, the symptoms exploded in living color. I didn't have to ask for details.

My stomach ache led me to the restroom several times but no explosions. I decided to go home. I had plenty of sick hours. I was off the next day for my birthday. I didn't want to be sick for my 62nd birthday.

I was. Went to the doc. He said I had the norovirus and gave me a shot for nausea. The EKG machine was right outside his office. He could have put that to use and found the problem. But I had no history of heart problems. And a stomach ache was not one of the symptoms usually described in American Heart Association literature. I stayed home, nursing my stomach ache. The day after Christmas, I revisited my doc and complained of congestion. He sent me to X-ray. The pictures showed congested lungs. Pneumonia, he pronounced, and sent me to the pharmacy to pick up a supply of antibiotics.

A week later, I was in an ambulance screeching its way to the ER. After an EKG and series of X-rays, the results were in. I had -- and was having -- a heart attack. The cardiologist said I had a blockage of my left anterior descending (LAD) artery. I am an educated person, curious to a fault, but I didn't know that I had such an artery. The artery, of course, knew about me. Later, after surgery, I discovered that an LAD heart attack is happily referred to as "widowmaker." The surgery came two days later, after the docs and drugs took care of my congestive heart failure that had looked like pneumonia, at least to one practitioner.

Widowmaker. I was lucky. Blessed, too, as Widomaker is very efficient at its task of killing you. Once my lungs were decongested, I received an angioplasty and a big stent at the junction of my LAD. Six months later, I was the proud recipient of an ICD -- an implantable cardioverter defibrillator -- due to damage sustained by my heart muscle during my two-week-long heart attack. A bedside monitor keeps track of my rhythms and arrhythmia. I lost weight. I exercise. I eat sensibly. Take my meds. All the things I should have been doing before my very expensive heart attack.

I retired in January. I have had many fine days to write and travel and garden and read. On warm summer days, I sit on my back porch, look out over the garden, inhale deeply and thank God and medical science that I am still here.

Science geek in White House signs 21st Century Cures Act

Did you know that we had a "science geek" in the White House? For now, anyway. He points us toward the future even while the incoming administration tries to drag us back into the dark ages.

When you have dealt with a family member's mental illness as long as we have -- 10 years -- you take your good news where you find it. On Tuesday, Pres. Obama signed the 21st Century Cures Act which has improving mental health care as one of its key components. In the White House video, Obama explains some of his reasoning behind signing the bill. Letters from constituents helped alert him to the pain that families were going through as they try to get help for family members as they struggle with opioid addiction, cancer and mental health issues. A Republican grandmother pleaded for help with finding the right kind of care for her mentally ill grand-daughter. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the mental health piece was a bipartisan effort. Let's see that spirit of cooperation continue when it comes to health care, Medicare, Social Security, and the environment, which has a major impact on our health.

More info: https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/12/12/3-letters-explain-why-president-obama-signing-cures-act

When AFib comes to town

The Cheyenne Regional Medical Center Telemetry Lab staffer called me Friday. She wanted to know how I was doing. I said "fine" but knew that this wasn't a courtesy call. The Telemetry Lab monitors my Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) remotely. I have a home transmitter at the side of my bed. It picks up my heart signals and transmits them to the lab, which then takes a look to see if I am in sinus rhythm, which is what we want, or in atrial fibrillation (AFib), which we don't want.

The lab said I was in AFib on Thursday morning. "Did you feel anything?"

"Yes," I said. "I was light-headed all morning."

"Anything else?"

I had to think about it. "I just felt weird all morning. Had a hard time at physical therapy, was tired and out of sorts all afternoon."

The Telemetry Lab person (sorry I don't remember her name -- blame it on the irregular heartbeats and lack of oxygen to the brain) told me that I needed to be aware of these symptoms as a long-duration AFib is dangerous. "Next time you're feeling that way, please send me a manual reading from your monitor."

"OK," I said, feeling a bit scared. I tend to ignore my heart difficulties most of the time. I exercise, take my meds, maintain a good attitude, am kind to animals, etc.

She made me an appointment with my cardiologist. She is able to access my MyChart files at CRMC which shows a calendar of my appointments. She puts me down for a March 15 appointment with Dr. Nienaber. As long as I'm dealing with a CRMC physician or group, my records are online and we can carry on these types of conversations. It's a bit spooky, all this electronic data-keeping and accessibility. My fiction-writer self thinks of all the ways that this system can be abused. Let's say a U.S. politician has an ICD with a bedside monitor and someone, say, an ISIS terrorist, wants to murder that politician. He hijacks the signal and causes the ICD to shut down. Even scarier, he causes that ICD to activate its defibrillator. Bam! -- a big shock to the heart to get it back into rhythm even when it doesn't need it. And another shock and another and pretty soon, the heart gives up. Remote-control assassination. Because I am postulating this as sci-fi means that the possibility already exists and the U.S. or the Russians or even ISIS may be preparing an attack.

For me, though, right now, the threat is more from AFib than it is from some shadowy hacker. AFib can cause strokes, blood clots, heart failure. My heart attack of three years ago created the cardiac scar tissue that sometimes misfires as AFib. My pacemaker activates to get me back into rhythm. If catastrophic heart failure threatens, the defibrillator will kick in with a debilitating jolt. This has never happened to me, and I hope it never does.  I could be driving down I-80 at the time. Or I could be napping. Anything is possible.

A big thank you to the CRMC Telemetry Lab. A big shout-out to the researchers and engineers and technicians who put these gizmos together. I freakin' love science.

To watch AFib in action, go to the American Heart Association web site. You can compare an AFib animation to one of a normal heartbeat. My heartbeat was normal for 62 years. Cholesterol and inflammation and stupidity led to my heart attack, which almost killed me. I was pulled back from oblivion by EMTs, cardiologists, surgeons, and nurses. I'm 65 now, retired, someone who knows how blessed he is every day. Or almost every day.

This progressive wants to go to Mars

You can't spell "progressive" without "progress."

That's a fact. But you can be a political progressive without believing in all forms of progress.

Take space exploration, for instance. Baby Boomers recall the space race of the 1960s, the fuss we made over the original batch if astronauts and our passion for the the moon landing. Progressive hero JFK said we would land a man on the moon by the end of that decade and, by gum, we did.

Forty-five years later, I was impressed by the successful Orion launch. Many of my fellow progressives were not. Some considered it a stunt by aerospace companies to suck more money out of taxpayers. Others looked at it as NASA's showy way to continue it's storied but error-plagued ways. Many conservatives aren't fans of NASA, one of those wasteful gubment agencies. Libertarians, of course, want space to be left to free enterprise. Progressives see it as a waste of money and resources in a time when our country's infrastructure is crumbling and the middle class is disappearing. Wouldn't our money be better spent in fixing problems here on earth than it would be to go gallivanting off to Mars?

We can do both, of course. We can tend to business here on earth and still reach for the stars. It takes vision and we have to prioritize. We'd rather snipe at one another than shoot for Mars. Human failings. If we choose, space exploration can help us transcend our earthbound ways.

While all of Friday's fireworks happened at Cape Canaveral, Fla., much of Orion's hardware and software was built by Colorado companies. This from The Denver Post:

Orion will go farther into space than any NASA spacecraft built for humans in more than 40 years, powered by Colorado aerospace: It was designed and built by Littleton-based Lockheed Martin Space Systems, has antennae and cameras from Broomfield-based Ball Aerospace, and will hurtle into space on a Delta IV Heavy rocket, made by Centennial-based ULA. 

But these big players could not do what they do without the help of some very specialized skills supplied by businesses such as Deep Space Systems, which worked on backup flight control electronics and camera systems. 

There are Colorado companies with as few as six employees working on Orion, all specialized in one specific aspect of engineering or technology.

There were hundreds of employees from these companies observing the Orion launch this week on the Space Coast. I didn't realize Colorado's crucial role in this latest space venture. I wondered if there were any Wyoming aerospace companies in the mix. Cheyenne and Laramie have been friendly to auxiliary companies to larger ventures in energy and electronics. What about space? I did several Google searches on the topic and came up empty. Do my loyal readers know of any Wyoming-based companies involved in the Orion project? It would seem to be that Cheyenne, the northern terminus of The Front Range, would be a great location for companies involved in propulsion systems and materials and engineering, among a few I can think of.

But back to politics.

I want equality and accessibility and justice and all those other things that progressives believe in. I also want to go to Mars. Not personally, as astronauts may not get there until 2035 or 2040, which would make me much too cranky for the venture. But just to think that it could happen in my lifetime. That's exciting. That's progress.

Meet and greet Democratic Party candidates for Gov and Dept. of Ed. at Oct. 12 fund-raiser

On Sunday, October 12, at 2 p.m., local Democrats are hosting a Meet and Greet/Fund-raiser for Pete Gosar and Mike Ceballos. In case you haven't been paying attention, Laramie Democrat Pete Gosar is running against incumbent Republican Matt Mead for governor. Cheyenne Democrat Mike Ceballos is running against Republican Jillian Balow for Superintendent of Public Instruction. The get-together is at Joe's House, 3626 Dover Rd. in Cheyenne. Enjoy a dessert reception, refreshments and hear their ideas and show them your support! Suggested Donation levels of $30/$60/$90.

Yes, this is a fund-raiser. Even in Wyoming, all politicians need money to wage their campaigns. This is especially true in Wyoming, where registered Dems are outnumbered two-to-one.

Democrats do several things well. We know how to put on fund-raisers. We know how to wisely spend money. We like to have a good time. 

So come on out. If you're curious about what makes Wyoming Democrats run, this would be a good time to find out. My wife Chris and I signed up to invite 10 Dems or Indies who have been too shy to get involved or who have just moved here from a blue state and wondered if they are actually any liberals in this whole dang state. There are! Drop us a line in the comment section if you are interested. Or just show up with your checkbook. Any donations are eagerly accepted. And you will be fed sweets and welcomed by an engaging group of engaged citizens.

Questions: E-mail robin@wyodems.org or go to Laramie County Democrats on Facebook.

Maybe Gov's new science panel may negate some of the damage done by the legislature

Democratic Party Gubernatorial candidate Pete Gosar was bemused by Gov. Mead's announcement of the selection of a panel to improve science education at our only four-year public university. This from Gosar's Facebook post:

The current administration appoints a panel to upgrade science at the University of Wyoming, but just a few months ago censored science for Wyoming students in K-12. Let's hope this panel puts in a full complement of remedial science courses at UW to ensure that our students can learn after graduation what they were denied before graduation.

It's difficult to live down the embarrassment of the legislation from last legislative session that banned schools from adopting national science standards. Gov. Mead signed off on the legislation offered by Rep. Matt Teeters (R-Lingle) who, thankfully, lost his primary challenge and will no longer darken the halls of the legislature with his Dark Ages approach to book larnin'. 

How many science panels and commissions does it take to negate one piece of boneheaded legislation?

Difficult to know. Word travels fast in this cyber-age. I read the bios of those appointed to the panel and was impressed. They are supposed to make some recommendations to the Gov by Nov. 1, just four days before the election. One of those recommendations should be: "Repeal the legislature's anti-science footnote and keep Republican legislators as far away from education legislation as humanly possible."

Then maybe we can get back to the business of being a player in the 21st century instead of a bystander.

Pete Gosar asks: Got science?

Refreshing to have a Wyoming gubernatorial candidate who actually believes in science and modern science education. In case you haven't been keeping up, the latest mantra of the Wyoming Know Nothings is that there is no such thing as human-caused global warming and that creationism should be taught alongside evolution. Next step, I'm sure, is to replace our children's school lunches with entrees of yummy coal. We have to get rid of it somehow! Read some of my earlier posts on the subject here and here. You can also read the Democratic Party platform here. It ain't rocket science, but it is science.