Photos of Obama family in Wyoming

TOP PHOTO: President Barack Obama, wife Michelle Obama, and daughters Malia Obama, 11, and Sasha Obama, 8, look at the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon). BOTTOM PHOTO: Park Ranger Katy Duffy guides Pres. Barack Obama and family around Old Faithful geyser during Saturday's visit. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).

See more photos at http://tinyurl.com/ofkhh6

The Fourth of July Honor America Smoke-In and Gas-In -- not exactly Woodstock

I missed Woodstock. I had to work. Some surfer friends invited me to drive the 900-some miles with them to a field in upstate New York. They didn't have tickets but didn't see it as a problem. "Hendrix's going to be there, man -- and Santana!" I'd need money for gas and food. Take off a week from work. Sounded tempting, but I said no.

Class of 1969, working to pay for college. I had a ROTC scholarship but I still needed spending money. I needed clothes, too, because the ones I had bought over the preceding months had terminal smoke damage from the fire that burnt half of our house and infused the rest with clouds of smoke. I wanted to spend more time with my girlfriend before we headed off to separate colleges. I wanted to get in some storm surfing, too, as August can bring some big waves to Daytona. I was a hard-working lad, looking ahead with bright eyes and a sense of purpose -- with a bit of fear lurking in the background.

Over the next decade, I went to plenty of small music festivals and lots of concerts. I saw "Woodstock" the movie numerous times. I felt a twinge of regret that I didn't cast fate to the wind and just go. As it turns out, I missed so many of key cultural events of the 1960s and 1970s. I wasn't at Altamont, either. Don't hear too many Baby Boomers waxing nostalgic about that one. I never got to see Janis or Jimmy in concert, but I did see Woodstock performers Canned Heat and John Sebastian. Sebastian was on a concert bill with the Edgar Winter Group, which seems an odd match-up. Maybe that bad juju caused the riot that night at the Orlando Sports Stadium. That, and a group of people climbing the stadium fences to get in for free. We got tear-gassed and two of my friends -- including the driver of our concert vehicle -- were thrown in the slammer. We hitched a ride to the county jail and got the keys from Rick and got home around dawn.

Not exactly Woodstock.

I was tear-gassed at another concert. This was the "Honor America" concert during Fourth of July weekend 1970 on the National Mall in D.C. Paul from Notre Dame and I were on leave from our summer ROTC cruise and hitched from Norfolk to D.C., where both of us had college friends. Our original destination was the Atlanta Pop Festival, but we decided it was too far to go and, in D.C., there was a girl waiting for Paul. So D.C. it was.

Paul went to Alexandria, and I stayed with my friend Pat and his big Catholic family in northwest D.C. Pat and his brother and sisters and parents and grandma all went to the National Mall for the concert. Meanwhile, over the the Washington Monument, hippies were staging a smoke-in. As we settled in to enjoy the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, pray with Billy Graham and hear quips from Bob Hope, Pat and I thought we could smell the smoke drifting over from the monument. That's probably because we both were stoned, having earlier staged a much smaller smoke-in behind Pat's garage.

The crowd for "Honor America" was heavy on families. Who wouldn't enjoy the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and fireworks on the National Mall? We were all having a grand time until the tear gas arrived. Pat and I had been right -- prevailing winds had caused the smoke from the smoke-in to drift over to our crowd. That pissed off the cops and they dispersed the smokers with clouds of tear gas which immediately inundated us. Not too many of the Honor American crowd had been tear-gassed. Pat and I had the benefit of multiple gassings that spring during post-Kent State riots at University of South Carolina. We told Pat's family members to put a cloth over their faces. "Don't run," Pat said. "It only makes it worse."

They ran. Pat and I grabbed his grandma and guided her slowly back to the car. She was having difficulty breathing. You could see panic and tears on the faces of the escaping concert-goers. Later, over a joint with Pat and his brother, we laughed about it. "Welcome to the Fourth of July Honor America Smoke-In and Gas-In." "Our parents warned us about going to those concerts."

Not exactly Woodstock.

Not every concert ended in tear gas. In 1976 in Gainesville, I saw the wonderful Rolling Thunder Review tour with Dylan and Joan Baez and Roger McGuinn and Kinky Friedman. I was at the Eagles Hotel California concert outside in a different stadium in Orlando. I saw Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger at Red Rocks outside Denver in 1972 during a hitchhiking trip around the U.S. That same summer, I saw Quicksilver Messenger Service in Berkeley. I was at three Allman Brothers concerts with the original members, including the amazing Duane Allman.

None of them were Woodstock. But so what? I had fun at most of them. As for the rest -- they make great stories to tell our kids and grand-kids when they ask: "Dad (Grandpa) -- were you at Woodstock?"

Not at Woodstock, I say, but do I have some stories for you.

Author Don Delillo coming to Jackson Sept. 29

My first Don Delillo novel was "Running Dog." I picked up a hardback copy for a dollar at the annual Denver Public Library summer sale. It was subversive and wacky. Characters are pursuing a copy of Adolf Hitler's final movie, filmed in his underground bunker just before his suicide. A reporter from Running Dog, a sixties-style underground newspaper, is in a race to find the film.

I won't give away the ending. It's suitably Delillo. I went on to read almost all of his 14 books, including the National Book Award winner, "White Noise." "Libra" outlined an alternate history for the JFK assassination. For research, Delillo's read the entire Warren Commission Report, delivered to his house in multiple cardboard boxes. Earlier this year I read "Falling Man" which centers around the 9/11 World Trade Center attack.

Dark homor. Great stories. Memorable characters. What else do you need in a novel?

Delillo will be making a rare public appearance in Wyoming. Here are details from the Teton County Public Library in Jackson:

The University of Wyoming, Teton County Library Foundation and Jackson Hole Writers Conference present a rare evening with Don DeLillo, the author of 14 critically-acclaimed novels, on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 7:30-8:30 p.m. DeLillo is the winner of the 1985 National Book Award for "White Noise," and his novel "Underworld" was runner-up on the New York Times survey of best American fiction of the past 25 years. This is a free event at the Center for the Arts, Center Theatre. Contact: Adult Humanities Coordinator, Oona Doherty, 733-2164 ext. 135 or odoherty@tclib.org.

I'd travel 430 miles to see Don Delillo. And I may.

They're all bozos on this bus

Mike Dennison of the Billings Gazette reports that a gaggle of bus-riding anti-healthcare-reform people will drop into Pres. Obama's town hall meeting in Bozeman this Friday. They will come loaded with intelligent questions about health care reform. Or maybe just loaded.

Patients First, a project of Americans for Prosperity, is organizing bus tours in 13 states to promote opposition to health-reform proposals before Congress. One of those tours had been planned in Montana this week, and organizers slightly adjusted the schedule to have a stop in Bozeman on the day of the president's visit.

Jake Eaton, a former executive director of the Montana Republican Party and coordinator of the event, said the bus tour will feature speakers opposing the reforms as a "government takeover of health care," and will stop at pre-planned rallies in several cities, from Friday through Monday.

Americans for Prosperity is a nonprofit political group that promotes conservative causes or lobbies against liberal causes. It has ties to the Koch family, which controls Koch Industries, an oil-and-gas company and one of the largest privately held firms in the country.

Who is Koch Industries and why does it fund Americans for Prosperity? Media Matters had this:

Americans For Prosperity Has Strong Connections To Koch Industries. In a post titled "Americans For Prosperity Of Koch Industries," The Wonk Room wrote: "The group isn't just funded by an industry CEO, it was planted by one. David Koch, Executive Vice-President of family-founded multi-national conglomerate Koch Industries, is a founder of AFP and a financial supporter through the family-controlled and company-financed Claude R. Lambe Foundation. Koch Industries, Inc. and its sister company, Koch Holdings, LLC, own a group of companies invested in refineries, chemicals, minerals and so on." [The Wonk Room, 7/27/08]

Google shows that Koch has holdings in Wyoming. More research is needed. Anyone know where Koch has businesses and employees in The Oil/Gas/Coal State?

Americans for Prosperity also is one of those global-warming-denying outfits. No surprise there.

Great Falls Tribune reporter John S. Adams has the president's full schedule on his blog at http://mtlowdown.blogspot.com/

Health care horror stories across the U.S.

Pauline Bartolone sent this:

I just came across your blog, hummingbirdminds, and I saw that you have been posting about health care reform. I am a video producer at Consumers Union,the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, and I thought you might beinterested in some videos I've produced about residents in Wyoming and their access to health care.

Last summer, I drove around in an RV for 4 months gathering stories about everyday consumers' experience with the health care system. Wyoming was my favorite state in the lower-48! Seriously - it was just so beautiful!

Anyway here are a couple of the videos I did in Wyoming: Lori Donner in Cheyenne, who is uninsured with a thyroid condition. Go to http://bit.ly/12INcv. And Ken, an electrician in Thermopolis, who is uninsured and retirement age. Go to http://bit.ly/bsbur.

You can see the rest of the videos at: http://www.prescriptionforchange.org/video.html

Thanks, Pauline. Some hair-raising stories in Pauline's videos. Check them out. And keep working for a fair and just and affordable health care system.

Remainder of Cynthia Lummis's August recess schedule

I'm a little late getting Wyoming Rep. Cynthia Lummis's August recess schedule up on the blog. So much going on during the dog days of summer.

Here's the remainder of the schedule:

Douglas
Wednesday, August 12, 3 p.m. – Cattlemen’s Conference; 4 p.m. – Interview with KKTY Radio; 5:30 p.m. – Ag BBQ and Ag Hall of Fame Award Banquet Dinner at State Fairgrounds.
Gillette
Thurday, August 13, 5 p.m. – Gillette Chamber of Commerce Mixer
Torrington
Friday, August 14, 11:30 a.m. – Interview with KGOS Radio; Noon – Town Meeting at EWCC Fine Arts Building, 3200 W. C Street; 1:30 p.m. – Visit Cavello Motor Company; 2:30 p.m. – Goshen County Care Center.
Wheatland
Friday, August 14, 5 p.m. – Town Meeting at Platte County Library, 904 9th Street
Douglas
Saturday, August 15, 10 a.m. – State Fair Parade
Cheyenne
Monday, August 17, 9:30 a.m. - Interview with KGAB Radio; Noon – Interview with KGWN TV; 12:30 p.m. - Interview with KFBC Radio
Casper
Tuesday, August 18, 2 p.m. – Tour Wyoming Medical Center

FMI: http://lummis.house.gov/index.html

I don't care if your mother says it's true. Check it out!

AM 760 hosts "real town hall meetings" in Colorado Aug. 20 & 27

My evening drive time in Cheyenne isn't very long, maybe 15 minutes at most. But during that time, I listen to Mario Solis Marich on AM 760 Progressive Radio out of Denver-Boulder. My favorite segment is "Video Clips (pronounced "cleeps") of the Day." Usually it's made up of the latest "audio clips (cleeps!) of the day" from various wingnuts: Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, etc.

This afternoon, Mario was promoting his "real town hall meetings" of Colorado Democratic Congressional reps Ed Perlmutter and Jared Polis. He invited listeners to register for the Aug. 20 meet-up with Perlmutter and the Aug. 27 meet-up with Polis. However, you must sign up in advance and you must be a registered voter in the district your delegate represents. Mario plans to sign up an equal number of Repubs, Dems and Indies. Only those registered will be allowed in the door. You'll be called upon by a moderator to ask your question, which you don't have to submit in advance.

Mario hopes to filter out all those carpetbaggers paid by insurance congomerates, those loudmouths who are shouting down the speakers. It's possible that yelling and screaming still may erupt, but less likely under this format.

Good luck, Mario. I'll be listening.

FMI: http://www.am760.net/pages/mario_solis-marich.html

Keith Olbermann slams Palin's "death panels" and other wacky wingnuttia

Laramie Co. Democratic Grassroots Coalition holds milk can dinner Aug. 15

The Laramie County Democratic Grassroots Coalition is holding a milk can dinner on Saturday, Aug. 15, 1-4 p.m., at North Clear Creek Picnic Area on Southwest Drive in Cheyenne.

Admission is $10. Reservations are required. Call Katherine at 307-630-5058 or e-mail Linda at lpstowers@yahoo.com.

Prize drawings and a 50-50 raffle will be held during the event.

Mary Lou Marcum reminds attendees to bring along their recipes for the LCDGC Cookbook.

Fearmongering Religious Right again targets National Endowment for the Arts

Bill Berkowitz reports in Talk To Action that the Religious Right is once again going after the National Endowment for the Arts:

It used to be that the mere mention of the National Endowment for the Arts would immediately draw fire from the right. In the 1990s, "Defund the NEA" became a rallying cry that was regularly heard in the halls of Congress. Direct mail packages, designed by conservative public relations pros and delivered directly to your mailbox by the U.S. Postal Service, claimed that the agency supported anti-Christian and pornographic art projects. Demonizing the NEA was a fundraising tool that kept giving and giving and giving.

Over the past decade, however, in part because the agency appeared to consciously distance itself from funding controversial art projects, and in part because the Christian Right moved on to other issues (abortion, same-sex marriage, immigration), fighting funding for the NEA was no longer at the top of their agenda.

Concern over how President Barack Obama's stimulus money is being used is again focusing attention on the NEA. A July 30 Fox News report www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/29/stimulus-funds-art-houses-showing-pervert-revues-underground-pornography/) pointed out that some stimulus money (the Recovery and Reinvestment Act) earmarked for the NEA, wound up stimulating an NEA-funded "pornographic" film project, a long-running pansexual performance series, and a dance production featuring naked dancers.

Arts groups and arts funders used to run scared when the Religious Right engaged in its Know-Nothing diatribes. But we're beyond that nonsense. Ralph Reed and the rest of these fearmongering self-righteous nincompoops showed their true colors during the George W. Bush era, when they thought they owned the world and every American's soul. These buffoons have nothing to do with Christianity and everything to do with fear and hatred. We are afraid no more. Go crawl back into your holes!

Read entire Talk to Action article at http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/8/9/125211/1420

"Sunday Night Films Not Seen in a Theater Near You" Aug. 16 in Laramie

Nancy Sindelar sends this from Laramie:

Sunday, August 16, Laramie: Double Feature -- Rick Steves' Iran Yesterday and Today and Fallout: Coming Home from the War in Iraq.

The Laramie Film Society and the Wyoming Peace, Justice, and Earth Center (publishers of Nancy's nifty newsletter) are cosponsoring the "Sunday Night Films Not Seen in a Theater Near You" series for the third summer. Proceeds are used to upgrade the projection and sound set up at the library.

Films begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Albany County Public Library, 310 S. 8th St. Get information at www.film.laramie.wy.us or http://www.ghosttownmovie.com/#/home. Free, soda and popcorn provided, donations accepted.

Brave New Voices 2009 in Denver

This is very cool...

Ask the Wyoming Garden Answer Man

Dear Wyoming Garden Answer Man:

I have ants in my zucchini blossoms.

--Distressed in Cheyenne

Dear Distressed:

And I have flies in my eyes, but you don't hear me complaining. Seriously, ants are usually going after the nectar. Late on weekend nights, you can hear them singing off-key after imbibing too much of the sweet stuff. It's not a problem unless they start eating through the flowers, or your maturing zukes takes on strange shapes. A Wheatland gardener reported zukes in the shape of Rush Limbaugh's head. If that happens, leave a bowl of cheap beer over by the petunias and that should lure the ants away.

Dear Mr. Wyoming Garden Answer Man:

Is it true that "watched tomatoes never ripen?" Or is that an old wive's tale?

--Green Tomatoes in Lander

Dear Green Tomatoes:

First of all, you are woefully out of step with the times. The expression "old wive's tale" is both sexist and ageist. I prefer "gracefully aging spousal unit's tale." or possibly "active female older adult who happens to be in a monogamous relationship with a person of the male gender's tale." But that's a mouthful. Let's move on to the expression "watched tomatoes never ripen." Who has time to watch tomatoes ripen, you old fart!

Dear WGAM:

My pole beans are growing like crazy. They have climbed up the 12-foot trellis on on to the roof. They've pried shingles off the roof and throw them at the birds. Some of the vines have invaded my TV cables and now all I can get is The Gardening Network and Lifetime. Help!

--Inundated in Jeffrey City

Dear Inundated:

You don't often see that sort of behavior in a legume. Perhaps it's the uranium in your soil, or maybe you have nurtured these beans overmuch, causing in them delusions of grandeur. Don't forget -- you're the boss. I suggest you dig up the plant and immediately consume the beans as an act of revenge and/or hunger. There have been cases of rampaging pole beans that have actually snatched the shovel from the offending human and smashed in his/her skull. These are rare cases. But, as you know, vegetables flourish amongst the rotting remains of flora and fauna.

"Shakespeare in the Rain," Part II

Last night, I witnessed my second "Shakespeare in the Rain" performance of the summer.

In July, we watched the Wyoming Shakespeare Company perform in the rain at Cheyenne Botanic Gardens. The Lander-based troupe continued "Richard II" through a summer shower. More worrying were the lightning strikes flashing all around Lions Park. But the show went on as audience members huddled under umbrellas -- if they remembered them -- or trees -- as we did. Not bright, considering the lightning, but who were we to desert these stalwart thespians?

Yesterday evening, Chris, Annie and I drove over to Pando's Pond (officially City Park) to watch Shake in ChyWy perform "A Midsummer Night's Dream." This is a new troupe, directed by Carey Junior High teacher Angel Katen and performed by local actors, some home from college for the summer. The makeshift "theatre" resides among the terraces at the park's south end. The troupe hung homemade banners along the terrace walkway. No microphones, so the players had to speak loudly over passing trucks and Harleys.

The clouds gathered and thunder rumbled as we picnicked. I bought a root beer float from a booth staffed by the Carey dance team. The performance began and the players complted the first 10 minutes before the sky unleashed rain and a nasty salvo of lightning.

Angel announced: "We're moving to Carey Junior High. Please follow us."

We gathered our picnic and chairs and made a beeline to the car. Drove a mile through the deluge to Carey, meeting up with a daughter of a family friend.

Consider the hubbub part of the performance. A volunteer theatre trouple needs flexibility and persistence. We were in a our seats but a few minutes before the play resumed.

I've seen the play performed a couple of times before. I saw the recent movie and the old black-and-white version. I've read the play, the first time as an eighth-grader at Our Lady Of Lourdes grade school. I couldn't make heads or tails of it back then. Sister Theresa couldn't help as she probably hadn't read it or -- if she had -- didn't get it. She may have been outraged by the queen of the fairies falling in love with an ass who really wasn't.

Who knows? But this version was so much fun and so well-acted. As I sat watching the show, I marveled at the longevity of Shakespeare. New theatre troupes keep popping up. Shake in ChyWy is brand now this summer and the Wyoming Shakespeare Company is only ten years old. One can't go through a season in Wyoming without a half-dozen Shakespeares on the playbill. Hollywood loves The Bard.

I can't really call myself a fan. I love many of the plays, but I don't want to read them again. In fact, I didn't read them all during my time as an English major. But my daughter Annie does. After the show, she borrowed the script from one of the actors. Our friend MacKenzie (Mac), working as a horse wrangler this summer to pay for her next year at University of Tennessee, spends some of her off time reading Shakespeare. What's the matter with kids these days? Reading "Richard II" and "Midsummer" while they could be wasting their time in front of the PC as I am doing right now?

Love that Tom Rush '60s song: "Kids these days/they don't value a dolla'/don't like to chew/but they sure can swalla'."

Forgive the terrible rhyme. It takes dedicated chewing to read Shakespeare on a summer day.

"Small-state" senators with big-time clout

Great article about the U.S. Senate by Nate Silver on fivethirtyeight:

As you all surely know, the Senate is not a terribly democratic institution. A voter in Wyoming -- population 533,000 -- has about 70 times more ability to influence the Senate's direction than one in California -- population 36.8 million. And the lack of representativeness can be particularly acute when the Senate is conducting business at the committee level. Max Baucus's "Table for Six," for instance, which may very well determine the fate of efforts to reform health care, is made up of members who collectively represent about 6.5 million people, or around one-fiftieth of the country's
population.

Read entire article at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/08/real-problem-with-senates-small-state.html

Wyoming Jefferson-Jackson dinner Sept. 26

The Wyoming Democratic Party's 2009 Jefferson-Jackson Dinner & Banquet will be held in Riverton at the Holiday Inn on September 26. The evening will kick off with a VIP Cocktail Hour with featured guests (to be announced) beginning at 5:45 p.m. and dinner is scheduled for 7 p.m. Individual tickets or tables of eight are available.

You may register and buy tickets at www.wyomingdemocrats.com or state party HQ at 1-800-SAY-DEMS.

Brianna Jones, Communications Director, Wyoming Democratic Party, (307) 752-5288.

Sen. Mike Enzi's August recess schedule

Here is Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi's schedule during the August recess (from a press release on his web site):

Highlights of Enzi’s schedule are provided below:

**Individuals interested in attending speaking engagements must contact the event organizers. **

Hulett, Jackson - Monday, August 10
Enzi plans to participate in the 8th Annual Challenger Learning Center Golf Scramble at Devils Tower Golf Course in Hulett from 7:15 - 11 a.m. Following the golf tournament Enzi is scheduled to travel to Jackson to tour Alces Technology (650 W. Elk Ave.) from 2:15 - 3:00 p.m. From 3:15 - 4:00 p.m. Enzi plans to tour Square One Technologies (3500 So. Park Dr.) and from 4:15 - 5:00 p.m. Enzi is slated to tour the Alzheimer Care Clinic (555 East Broadway, Suite 218).

Jackson - Tuesday August 11
Enzi plans to take to the links to raise money for the Congressional Award program, which encourages youth to serve their communities and grow as individuals. The annual Congressional Awards Golf Tournament will be held at Teton Pines Country Club in Jackson.

Douglas - Wednesday, August 12
Enzi is set to attend the Wyoming Agricultural Hall of Fame Awards presentation and picnic at Riverside Park (420 West Grant).

Douglas, Cheyenne - Saturday, August 15.
Enzi plans to celebrate the Wyoming State Fair by participating in the annual parade beginning at the intersection of Fifth and Hamilton streets in Douglas at 10 a.m. After the parade, Enzi plans to present at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation
Office’s 2008 Centennial Ranch Awards at the Wyoming State Fairgrounds in the Pavilion next to the museum from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Enzi plans to stop by the day long Cheyenne Sons of Italy Chapter annual Bocce ball tournament from 5-6 p.m. at Frontier Park (Indian Village at 8th and Carey).

Casper,Riverton - Monday, August 17
From 12-1 p.m., Enzi is scheduled to be the luncheon speaker at the Casper 5 Trails Rotary Club’s weekly lunch at the Parkway Plaza (123 West E St.). Enzi plans to speak about reforming health care and the cap-and-tax proposal. Organizer: 5 Trails Rotary Club (contact: Bill Sullivan 307-232-1211).
Enzi plans to attend the Central Wyoming College Intertribal Education and Community Center Groundbreaking (2660 Peck Ave.) from 4 - 5:30 p.m.

Riverton, Lander - Tuesday, August 18
Enzi is scheduled to tour the Riverton Community Health Center (511 N. 12th St. E #B)
from 10:30 - 11:15 a.m. After the tour from 3:15-4 p.m., Senator Enzi plans to tour the Wyoming Catholic College (163 Leedy Dr.).

Casper - Wednesday, August 19
Enzi plans to speak at the Petroleum Association of Wyoming’s Annual Meeting at the Parkway Plaza Hotel (123 W. E St.) in Casper from 10-11:45 a.m. Organizer: Wyoming Petroleum Association (contact Bruce Hinchey 307-234-5333). Following the speech Enzi is slated to speak to the Casper Lions Club from noon-1:15 p.m., in the Wyoming Room of the Parkway Plaza. Organizer: Casper Lions Club (contact: Frank Stewart 307-234-1461) Enzi plans to speak about reforming health care and the cap-and-tax proposal at both events.

Evanston - Thursday, August 20
Enzi is scheduled to tour the roundhouse railroad complex (1440 Main St.) from 10:45-11:25 a.m. followed by a visit to the Evanston Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Wyoming Hall at the Best Western Dunmar Inn (1601 Harrison Dr.) from 12-1:15 p.m. Enzi plans to speak about reforming health care and the cap-and-tax proposal. Organizer: Evanston Chamber of Commerce (contact 307-783-0370). Following the luncheon Enzi plans to tour the Evanston Hospital (190 Arrowhead Dr.) from 1:30-2:15 p.m. Then Enzi is scheduled to tour Carbon Fiber Technology (1375 Union Road) from 2:30 - 3:15 p.m.

Rock Springs - Friday, August 21
Enzi plans to tour the Sweetwater County Hospital (1200 College Dr.) from 10-10:45 a.m., followed by a tour of the Western Oil Technology at Western Wyoming Community College (2500 College Dr.)from 10:55-11:40 a.m. From 12-1:15 p.m. Enzi is scheduled to speak at the Rock Springs Chamber of Commerce luncheon, location to be determined. Check www.enzi.senate.gov under the Wyoming events tab for updated location. Enzi plans to speak about reforming health care and the cap-and-tax proposal. Organizer: Rock Springs Chamber of Commerce (contact 307-362-3771).

Gillette - Monday, August 24
Enzi has accepted an invitation to speak at the Campbell County Chamber of Commerce forum from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Gillette College Health Science Building (300 W. Sinclair). Enzi is one of several speakers that will discuss health care reform. Organizer: Campbell County Chamber of Commerce (contact: Tracy Williams 307-682-3673).

**Individuals interested in attending speaking engagements must contact the event organizers. **

All plans subject to change due to weather and the Senate schedule. Check Enzi’s Web page www.enzi.senate.gov for schedule updates and additions.

Notice how the press release opens and closes with this phrase: "Individuals interested in attending speaking engagements must contact the event organizers."

Wonder why?

The only truly public forum I ses on the list is the one in Gillette on Aug. 24. Enzi's family moved from Sheridan to Gillette when he was a kid. He lived there a long time, and once was mayor. This will be a hometown crowd. Wonder if any teabaggers will show up to disrupt the proceedings?

Teabaggers rehearse their lines for Obama visit

Teabaggers have time on their hands and they plan to "be out in full force to protest President Barack Obama's health care initiatives during his visit to the Bozeman area next week." according to Channel 7 in Bozeman.

Obama is planning a visit to the Bozeman area on Friday, Aug. 14. So-called highly-placed D.C. sources confirmed Wednesday that Obama will attend a fundraiser for Sen. Max Baucus at the Yellowstone Club Big Sky next weekend.

Should be a quid pro quo for that gig. Obama will attend fund-raiser if Baucus stops being an obstructionist on health care reform. No deal, no speech.

The Bozeman Tea Party group leader Bob Adney said that his members will join a town hall forum if one is held during Obama's visit.

"It's said, it's going to be a town hall, so I hope they're not going to screen participants for only people that support Obama. I really hope it is an honest and true town hall with lots of different people, and that they'll answer tough questions. But that's something we'll see. Hopefully it's not just a staged, you know, beauty pageant up there," Adney said.

Funny thing, the idea of screening attendees at public events is a Bush/Cheney trick. Not sure if Obama's people do the same thing -- it would be a shame if they did. The Secret Service and FBI have to do their jobs to keep dangerous people from the event. A few screaming wingnuts are not dangerous. Annoying as hell but not dangerous.

During his visit, Pres. Obama also will visit Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Grand Junction, Colo.

By the way, jhwygirl at 4&20blackbirds broke the news about the Obama visit on Tuesday. Kudos to this always-alert ex-Wyomingite.

Protect an American tradition and attend Congressional town hall meetings

I'll be there as a card-carrying member of the WPEA/SEIU.

WyoDems' Petersen: "Ashamed and disappointed" in Wyoming senators

From today's WyoDems press release:

Wyoming Democratic Party Chair Leslie Petersen issued the following statement after the U.S. Senate voted to confirm President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor:

“Today’s confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a historic event for the U.S. Supreme Court and for the American people. Our nation’s highest court will gain a sharp mind and a highly experienced justice to its bench. Her dedication to the court and commitment to the Constitution have been proven throughout her expansive legal career as a judge, a litigator and a prosecutor. With more judicial experience than any justice on the court in the last 70 years, she couldn’t be more prepared to rise to the monumental task of serving our country as a Supreme Court Justice.

"On this day we would also like to pause and appreciate the life of Judge Sotomayor as a remarkable citizen. Her achievements and hard work are humbling proof that the American Dream is alive and achievable. Judge Sotomayor will be the first Latina and only the third female to serve on the Supreme Court, making her a strong role model and an inspiration to millions of Latino and female Americans. Today is a great day for the American people, and I congratulate Judge Sotomayor and wish her the best of luck as she embarks on this important journey."

We are ashamed and disappointed that neither of our Senators voted for this outstanding woman.

Contact: Brianna Jones, brianna@wyomingdemocrats.com, (307) 752-5288

In the Rockies, better blue than red

I live in the libertarian-minded Rocky Mountain West. I'm a resident of Wyoming, the second-most conservative state in the nation. Utah (not surprisingly) is numero uno, followed by our Cowboy/Equality/Coal State and then Idaho. We make up a red ultra-conservative misshapen Balkan province among a region that's trending blue. This according to the latest Gallup Poll.

Blame my liberalism on shallow Wyoming roots. I moved my family here in 1991 from Fort Collins, Colo. Before that we were a decade in Denver, now reliably blue. In fact, the entire state of Colorado now leans Democratic. Kind of amazing, when you consider that the eastern plains and the Western Slope are very conservative. But even Colorado Springs showed some gains in Democratic Party registration last year. You know all about the Springs: Focus on the Family, Ted Haggard, born-again indoctrination at the Air Force Academy. A heavy military presence, with booming Ft. Carson, NORAD and Peterson AFB.

I've lived in two solidly Democratic states: Massachusetts and Maryland. I spent most of my formative years in Florida, now in the "Leaning Democratic" fold after the 2008 elections. It's an odd place. Talk about your Balkanization. The reliably blue south (even younger Cubans are coming over to the Dems) and the Redneck panhandle, more 'Bama and Mississippi that beachtown Florida. Central Florida is a toss-up, but a very vocal group of born-agains bumping up against Yuppies emigrating from the Rust Belt.

I love Florida, for all those reasons and others too numerous to mention. Odd thing is, my eight brothers and sisters, all Floridians, are almost all diehard Republicans. The most liberal is my nurse sister in Tallahassee; the most conservative my retiree entrepreneur surfer brother in Daytona. Sometimes the others vote Dem, sometimes Repub. They either register Repub or Independent. None of them are like me -- a lifelong Dem. I did register as an Indie during college in the 1970s, but still voted for Jimmy Carter.

So why don't I just try to fit in here in Wyoming? No fun. It's also against my religion -- Catholic Socialist. That's not really a religion, just a fun label I hang on myself. In Wyoming, you can use those Repub buzzwords to get people fired up. You know, socialist, community organizer, liberal (the "L" word), even plain old "Democrat." It's fun.

But my beliefs are serious. I could never register Repub because it's the only game in town. Some of my friends admit this. Nobody to vote for in the Democratic primaries! The Wyoming Democratic Party is pathetic! You guys don't know how to party! O.K., I've never heard the last excuse, but it's probably true.

When you're in mixed company in Wyoming, the likely assumption is that you're all in the same conservative club. Doesn't take long for the Obama cracks to start. Best way to nip them in the bud is to raise your pointy little head and declare your support of Obama and your belief in "Hope" and health care and alternative energy and possibly socialism. Most Wyomingites are low key. Most of the time the conversation will go in a new direction. "How about them Pokes," referring to the Wyoming Cowboy football or basketball teams. There hasn't been much to admire in the past few seasons, but it can get things moving in a new direction.

I did get in a few dust-ups prior to the 2008 elections. And most people seem to know me well enough now that they steer clear of sensitive topics. Even my family has taken to cloaking their anti-Obama public comments on Facebook.

But this won't last. We're in the midst of a huge battle over major topics. This August recess is already off to a wild start, with Know Nothing corporate stooges interrupting town hall meetings by their Reps and Sens. This probably won't happen in the second most conservative state in the U.S. Our three-person Congressional delegation is reliably red. Obama today did mention Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi as one of the few Senate Repubs willing to talk turkey about health care reform.

But one never knows about the future. Former conservative stalwart Montana has moved into the "competitive" camp, according to Gallup. That's due to new immigrants from blue states. And Montana Democratic politicians are a lot like Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal. Some coaster liberals call them Dems in Name Only (DINO). I prefer pragmatic and cagy. Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Sen. Jon Tester are also in this category.

But Wyoming Democrats have made some gains, mostly in the state's few urban areas, such as Cheyenne and Casper, and resort areas such as Jackson.

Jake Nichols, writing in this week's Planet Jackson Hole, talked about some dangerous blue trends.

“People are starting to vote the right way [in Teton County],” said Bill Luckett, executive director of the Wyoming Democratic Party. To Luckett, the RIGHT way is a left-leaning voter core begat in liberal Teton County and trending through the state.

A Houston TV station took notice of this red state’s blues. “Wyoming has turned into an unexpected — and nagging — headache for the national GOP, which now finds itself forced to commit scarce resources to the lone House seat in one of the reddest states on the map,” KHOU-TV reported. The news piece attributed Democratic gains in part to Wyoming’s fierce independent streak – witness two-term gubernatorial incumbent Dave Freudenthal’s popularity – but conservatives are still worried.

Last week, the National Republican Congressional Committee announced it was adding Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) to its Patriot program — a watch list of the party’s most vulnerable incumbents.

One thing I know after 18 years in Wyoming: there's no "left-leaning voter core begat in Teton County and trending through the state." Liberals begat in Teton County don't move to other parts of the state. They move there from another place, and either stay put through pluck and good luck and trust funds, or move back to the coasts -- or to Taos or Aspen. The blue trend I see in Laramie County, on the opposite corner of the state from Jackson, is home grown. Dem voters here may be from other states. But they didn't pass through Jackson to get indoctrinated into the true Dem faith. Cheyenne Dems have a tendency to view their Teton County brothers and sisters with a jaundiced eye. It's often said by conservatives and liberals alike that Jackson is not a part of this state. An alternate reality, I suppose, where everyone can afford season ski passes and Volvos.

But the trend is clear. Urban areas are trending blue. Resort areas are trending blue. Cities and towns with a more educated citizenry are trending blue. The West is trending blue. And finally, the Rockies are trending blue. If you live in a state that includes some sliver of the magnificent Rocky Mountains, your future lies with the Dems.

For the entire Gallup Poll article, go to http://www.gallup.com/poll/122003/Political-Party-Affiliation-States-Blue-Red-Far.aspx?CSTS=addthis

DNC Western Caucus gathers in northern Idaho Aug. 7-9

So proud of my health insurance company

Cigna Corp. is my health insurance company with the State of Wyoming. The company gobbled up our old insurance company, Great West Life, in the interest in making even more ungodly profits.

I'm wondering how much of this record profit goes toward the corporate chieftains so they can deny coverage to people like me.

Tom Murphy reports this in Business Week mag:

Health insurer Cigna Corp. said Thursday its second-quarter profit jumped 60 percent on a more favorable interest rate and other items but, like other major health insurers, enrollment tumbled as employers cut jobs.

The Philadelphia company said it earned $435 million, or $1.58 per share, up from $272 million, or 96 cents per share. Revenue fell 8 percent to $4.49 billion from $4.86 billion. Adjusted profit from operations grew 3 percent to $313 million, or $1.14 per share.

Analysts expected a profit of 96 cents per share on $4.8 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Reuters. Cigna includes results from one of its discontinued businesses in its adjusted profit, but many analysts do not in their projections.

Cigna operates health care, group disability and life and international business segments.

Its results reflect solid contributions from each portion "and, in this challenging economic environment, demonstrate the benefit of our diversified portfolio of businesses," Chairman and CEO H. Edward Hanway said during a conference call with analysts.

Cigna shares rose 9 percent, or $2.50, to $9.43 in Wednesday morning trading.
Cigna said 40 cents per share of its profit came from its guaranteed minimum income benefits business, which took a large charge in the first half of 2008 and had been a drag on past earnings.

Cigna discontinued that business and its variable annuity death benefits in 2000. The insurer operates both in run-off mode, meaning it seeks no new business for them. Equity market declines led to charges from both businesses that hurt Cigna in recent quarters.

The insurer also said a decision to freeze its pension plan also helped in the second quarter, providing a benefit of 11 cents per share.

Total enrollment fell to 11.2 million, down from 12.1 million in the same quarter last year. Cigna said premiums and fees for its health care segment, the largest portion of its business, fell 7 percent to $2.85 billion due to the enrollment decline.

Company officials said during a conference call with analysts that the decline was higher than expected, but they attributed 80 percent of it to employees losing health insurance, not employers dropping Cigna as a benefits provider.

The company raised its full-year adjusted profit outlook, to $3.80 to $4 per share. That tops analysts' profit expectations of $3.71 per share. In June, Cigna had projected earnings of $3.70 to $3.90 per share. The new outlook assumes that capital markets will remain stable for the rest of the year.

However, Cigna now expects a larger membership decline. It forecast a 5 to 5.5 percent decrease in enrollment, compared with an earlier forecast of a decline of 3 to 4 percent. Enrollment at the start of 2009 was roughly 11.7 million people.

First Ladies lend muscle to arts support

America's First Ladies are charged with promoting the boring stuff: Arts, culture, education and gardening -- to name a few.

It was Hillary, not Bill, who attended D.C.'s arts events in the nineties. When I was in D.C. from 1993-95, Hillary presided over the NEA's annual National Heritage Fellowship awards and almost all other arts and humanities awards ceremonies. She attended concerts and plays and ballet performances. Sometimes Bill tagged along.

Laura Bush, a librarian and book-lover, worked with the Library of Congress to launch the annual National Book Festival on the National Mall. The next one is scheduled for Sept. 26 and features one of our own, mystery writer Craig Johnson.

Laura's husband, Pres. George W. Bush, is known to have read at least one book.

Michelle Obama takes her role seriously as Arts Educator in Chief. When designers across the U.S. came to D.C. for the annual National Design Awards, Ms. Obama dispatched them to five museums to conduct free public lectures. So these designers headed off to museums: Bill Moggridge, designer of the world's first laptop; Calvin Klein's Francisco Costa; Calvin Tsao and Zack McCown, both interior designers. They spoke about cothes designs, architecture, sustainable neighborhoods, engineering and jobs. Later they returned to the White House for lunch.

Here are some quotes from Ms. Obama's speech, as reported by AP:

"An educational foundation is only part of the equation. In order for creativity to flourish and imagination to take hold, we also need to expose our children to the arts from a very young age."

She said Albert Einstein had it right when he said imagination is more important than knowledge. "We need to ensure that our children have both — knowledge and imagination. I know I want that for my girls. They deserve to have access to a good education and access to ideas and images that will spark their creativity."

She also spoke of her efforts "to break down barriers that too often exist between major cultural establishments and the people in their immediate communities."

"So we've been sending a lot of role models out there in the far reaches of this city and then inviting kids to come back here to the White House. That's been a big part of the messages of every single event that we've done here at the White House. These kids who are living just inches away from power and prestige and fortune and fame, we want those kids to know that they belong here, too ... and in the museums, and in libraries, and laboratories all over this country."

"What I love about design is the artistic and scientific complexity that also becomes useful: A laptop, a bridge, an outfit, a garden. All drawn from a thousand wells of inspiration and yet grounded in the basic principles of math or science."

Knowledge combined with imagination will lead us out of the crises posed by global warming and endless war. Well, maybe not the latter. But engineers and designers will design fuel-efficient buildings and cars and aircraft. Our local library received 2008 National Library of the Year honors for its role as a great library with helpful, knowledgeable staff. Also, its LEEDS-certified and the landscaping consists of native, low-water plants. We have a new library in Pinedale made of rammed earth and a library addition in Lander that uses alternative energy including geothermal. Those huge windmills going up east of Cheyenne are a marvel of engineering and design. I'm still waiting for a small rotary windmill for my roof. Maybe I should say an affordable rotary wind generator.

Too bad those First Ladies take care of the boring stuff. That's also true on thje state level. Governor Dave Freudenthal is a lawyer and former prosecutor who also refurbishes old sheep wagons. His name is on the proclamations for the annual Governor's Arts Awards. But he always credits his attorney wife Nancy with having the artsitic taste in the family. She appears regularly at arts and humanities events. She also was the catalyst behind the state's first Arts Summit in 2007.

Roberta "Bobby" Hathaway pushed her husband, Gov. Stan Hathaway, to establish the Wyoming Arts Council in 1967. She was on the first board. Sherri Geringer, wife of Gov. Jim Geringer, wrote the intro for the WAC's 30th anniversary publication, "Portrait of the Arts in Wyoming."

These are smart and powerful women. Hillary Clinton came within a gnat's eyelash of being the Democratic Part's presidential nominee. Wyomingites talk about a possible gubernatorial run by Nancy Freudenthal. Her husband's two terms expire next year and Gov Dave is being coy about seeking a third term.

So, when Michelle and Laura and Hillary take on a project, it will get done. And stay done.

Exploring the Enzi-Baucus connection

Let's harken back to those halcyon days of last fall. Poor ol' Laramie Democrat Chris Rothfuss was running against Republican Mike Enzi for one of Wyoming's Senate seats. Nick Carter of Gillette had already declared that he was running against John Barrasso, M.D., for the state's other Senate seat. Barrasso had been appointed by Wyoming Gov. Dave Fruedenthal to fill the remainder of Craig Thomas's term. Thomas died in office from a particularly virulent form of leukemia.

Carter, in a talk to the Laramie County Democrats in Cheyenne last summer, said that his decision to run against Barrasso was an easy one. If he had run against former Gillette mayor and family friend Mike Enzi, Nick's family would have disowned him. Those are his words.

Politics is very personal in Wyoming. Nick's family and Mike's family grew up together. Nick is a Democrat -- an abberation in the coal-and-gas-mining county of Campbell, the city of Gillette. You'd think that he would have union support but this is right-to-work state. The unions have no clout in the Powder River Basin. Workers come from throughout the West to work in the open-pit mines or the sprawling gas fields. They make great wages to take home to Montana and the Dakotas and Texas. They don't want to hear about no stinkin' unions. They may not be Republicans, but they have strong Libertarian leanings. They sure as hell aren't aligning with Obama-lovin', gun-bannin', homosexual-leanin' Democrats.

All three Wyoming Democrats running for national offices in 2008 were pounded into the dirt by Republicans. Gary Trauner rounded up only a third of the popular vote against Republican Cynthia Lummis. In 2006, Trauner came within 1,000 votes of beating House incumbent Republican Barbara Cubin. In 2006, Trauner was ahead until votes from the rural Republican northern part of the state were counted. Republicans voted for Trauner in 2006 because he wasn't Cubin. Even diehard Repubs couldn't tolerate Cubin's foolishness and the fact that she'd missed most of her House votes in the previous year.

But Cubin retired and was no longer a factor in 2008. Repubs have a 2-to-1 lead over Dems in voter registration. The votes split along party lines and that spelled doom for Dems. Only when the Repubs cross over to the dark side do Dems win. Gov. Freudenthal showed that with two big wins in gubernatorial races.

Lots of Wyomingites like Mike Enzi. A pragmatic man who occasionally wanders into wingnuttia, as he did with the Terry Schiavo case in 2004, allying himself with Bill Frist who diagnosed Schiavo's case by watching a short film from the hospital. Enzi's staff returns phone calls. He attends book festivals and the state fair. He has a health care plan that is based on his bottom-line principles. Conservative, yes, but respected by many Dems, including this one.

He and Baucus aren't that different. Enzi a practical and sensible (most of the time) Republican. Baucus of Montana a Democrat with the libertarian leanings needed to capture conservative Montana voters.

The Rocky Mountain West is a different place. Most states are liberalizing, including Montana and Wyoming. That really only applies to the urban centers, such as Cheyenne, Laramie and Casper in Wyoming and the usual places in Montana: Missoula, Billings, and Bozeman.

But the rural West is a tough nut, with more in common with rural Mississippi and rural Pennsylvania than with Denver or even Cheyenne. As long as Govs and Congressional hopefuls need those voters, you'll find an eclectic crop of leaders. Baucus, for instance. And Enzi.

I understand the confusion voiced by bloggers in other states. Here's one take from Brian Beutler on Talking Points Memo DC:

If it was up to reformers, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) probably wouldn't be anywhere near the heart of health care negotiations. But unfortunately for them, he's right in the middle of the action.

If after the Democrats' historic election in November, I had suggested that one of the Senate's most conservative Republicans would stand a chance of hijacking President Obama's health care proposal, you might have waved off the threat, and rightly so. But thanks to Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus--who has insisted on passing a consensus bill at the expense of a number of liberal goals--that's basically what's happening.

Read the rest of "Has A Conservative Republican From Wyoming Taken Over The Health Care Debate In The Senate?" at http://tinyurl.com/lgqags. It sums up the frustration felt by liberal Democrats over the health care hold-up.

No progress of any kind on Senate health care reform legislation

Whoa, horse, whoa!

When newspaper reports circulated yesterday about a possible breakthrough on health care reform in the U.S. Senate, Wyoming's Mike Enzi issued this press release:

U.S. Senator Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) today said no bipartisan deal on health care reform is imminent and that members of the Finance Committee still have a number of remaining issues to resolve before they will be able to reach a bipartisan agreement.

Reports in this morning’s newspapers are off the mark, and are not helpful to the process, Enzi added. “Bad information damages the work we are doing to improve our health care system.”

“We still have several areas where we haven’t been able to come to a consensus. No deal is at hand and substantive issues, big and small, remain under discussion and need to be resolved. We need to keep working together.

“I will need to see complete language and a final estimate from the Congressional Budget Office before I can agree to any health care reform bill,” said Enzi, who has been deeply involved in bipartisan Finance Committee negotiations.

“I also need commitments from Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi, as well as the Administration, that the bipartisan agreements reached in the Finance Committee will survive in a final bill that goes to the President.”

Well that's a relief. For a brief moment on Wednesday, I thought that the bipartisan group of Senate Finance Committee members had actually agreed on their half-baked plan to not reform health care. Glad to see that's not true. They just need more time to finalize their non-plan. This delays the entire process which is what Sen. Baucus and Sen. Enzi had in mind all along.

Enzi wants to look at the numbers. He also wants commitments from Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi and Pres. Obama and the White House dog that the plan will go forward just as God and the health insurance companies intended.

Yesterday on Progressive Radio out of Boulder, David Sirota raised a good question: How is it possible that six senators from rural low-population states can hold up (and possibly sabotage) health care reform for the vast majority of Americans? I live in one of those states, the least-populated of them all. Montana is also huge in territory but low in people. You have Grassley from Iowa and Snowe from Maine and Conrad from North Dakota and Bingaman from New Mexico. Iowa's the big kahuna of the bunch, with a population of 3 million.

Where are the other members of this committee? It has 23 on the list, including heavy hitters such as John Kerry and Orrin Hatch. Why aren't they involved in this process? Maybe Baucus forgets to send out e-mail reminders.

Viewing this from the heart of Flyover Country, it looks very suspicious.

And I'll say that to Sen. Enzi during his August recess, if I can find out where he'll be appearing in August. I know he will be at the state fair on one day. But his web site has no schedule posted.

Montana progressives stage rally at Camp Baucus, Montana, this weekend

It's clear now that votes on health care reform will not come until September. We know who's holding up progress. The U.S. Senate Finance Committee, headed up by Montana's Max Baucus, joined by minority party chief Mike Enzi of Wyoming.

They will be coming home for the August recess. I'll have details on Sen. Enzi's schedule in later posts. We do know that Sen. Baucus will be holding a fund-raiser with his high-rolling pals in the insurance industry at Big Sky Resort in Montana, one of the Rockies' ritziest hideaways. You can almost see this place from northern Wyoming. Progressive Democrats of America are holding a rally for healthcare at Big Sky Resort to alert Sen. Baucus that he is not seeing the forest of U.S. citizens for the trees of insurance CEOs.

Here are the details:

Montana Senator Max Baucus, is holding a big fund-raiser known as Camp Baucus ($5,000 per PAC or $2,500 per individual) at Big Sky, Montana, from July 31 through August 2 for the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical companies, the hospital association, bankers, and other fat cats to raise money for his "leadership" PAC.

He takes their money even while he is writing legislation that will affect health care! So Montanans for Single-Payer Health Care will be there, too. We'll rally to show Max and his corporate friends we are very displeased with what they're up to in Washington, D.C.

We're asking single-payer supporters from across the states to join us at Big Sky this Friday, July 31st from 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (and Thursday as well, if enough people are interested).

Where: Big Sky, Montana. Meet at the intersection of Hwy 191 and the Big Sky road.
Bring: Your own sign, if you like (but we'll have signs available); your favorite picnic
lunch; water, pop, coffee, etc.; a hat, jacket, and sunscreen; a smile and a sense of purpose.

If you can only spend part of the day with us, or need to take a break and come back, that's fine. Come on along!

If you can come on Thursday, too (the lobbyists will be arriving both days), let us know. E-mail info@montanansforsinglepayer.org. If enough people are interested, we'll start our stake-out of the road to Camp Baucus on Thursday, July 30.

Whatever day you can come, let us know so we can plan for the right number of supporters—and drive safely.

How to get there: Use I-90 and take exit 298 South for US 191 to Yellowstone Park. Go 38 miles south to state highway 64. Turn right. At that corner there is a convenience store where the rally coordinators will meet you. Just look for the single-payer signs and T-shirts!

In solidarity,
Margot Kidder, PDA Montana
Tim Carpenter, National Director
Conor Boylan, National Field Coordinator

I'm no expert on celebs living in Montana, but is this Margot Kidder the same one who was Superman's girlfriend way back when?

Heart Mtn. Museum receives NPS grant

The AP's Mead Gruver reports this:

The National Park Service has awarded nearly $1 million in grants to increase public awareness about and help preserve sites related to the detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The largest of the 19 grants, $282,000, is going to an organization that is building a museum at the former Heart Mountain Relocation Center outside Powell in northern Wyoming.

Grant recipients must raise $1 on their own for every $2 in federal funding they receive. Congress now is considering awarding another $2.5 million through the program next year....

Heart Mountain, which held 11,000 Japanese-Americans at its peak in 1943. Had the camp been a city, it would have been fourth-largest in Wyoming at the time. The Heart Mountain, Wyoming, Foundation has been raising money to build a museum at the site, where all that remains of the relocation center are a brick smokestack and a couple of buildings. The $5.5 million museum has been designed to resemble the long, narrow barracks at the relocation center."Why would you build something that's got marble and looks fancy when it really wasn't that way? It was tarpaper barracks without insulation," said David Reetz, a member of the foundation board. The museum is about half finished and expected to open late next year or early in 2011. Exhibits will include many items that belonged to people who lived at the site, Reetz said.

I visited the Heart Mountain site in late June. The museum/education center is impressive. Up on the hill is a path featuring signs that overlook various aspects of the camp and explain the history. An eye-opening way to spend a quiet June afternoon, storm rolling in over Heart Mountain.

Earlier posts here and here.

Firedoglake's Mike Stark confronts Birthers

This is too funny. Notice that Republican Mike Coffman from Colorado and Jeff Fortenberry from Nebraska are among the yahoos who won't give straight answers to Mike's simple question. Didn't see Rep. Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming amongst the pursued. Maybe next time. In her favor, she did vote for today's House Resolution that recognized the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's entry as a state in these United States, making the current president, who was born after statehood, a U.S. citizen. But reality-based people already knew that.

No clunker for "cash for clunkers"

I was holding out for "cash for clunkers," which launched yesterday.

But the van didn't make it.

A few weeks ago, my son Kevin totalled my 2000 Dodge Caravan. The wreck wasn't serious -- a rear-ender at a stop light. But Kevin mashed into a Ford Expedition with its big rear bumper and trailer hitch. Punctured Caravan's grill and radiator, engine knocked off its moorings. Kevin was hauled off to the E.R. as a precaution. He's been limping with a sore hip -- not bad, considering. I was sad watching the wrecker tow away the van. Lots of family trips in that Yuppie minivan. Lots of miles. The transmission needed work. And now, no clunker to trade in for a low-mileage vehicle.

I'd done all the figuring. The van had a combined EPA gas mileage rating of 18. That qualified it for CFC. However, the EPA revised the way it determines gas mileage, so i wasn't sure if I would qualify. I was going to trade the van for a Prius, if I could find and afford one, or maybe one of the Ford hybrids.

But the best-laid plans, right? Insurance company paid me off and I bought used this time -- a 2007 Ford Fusion. Decent mileage at a combined 25 mpg under the old system and 23 mpg under the new system. Still good enough to get a CFC check (the smaller one) if the van had survived.

I looked at a Nissan Altima and a Honda Civic. I read the stats. These cars have higher resale values than the Ford. They hold up better and need less maintenance. Or so they say. Never one to let logic get in the way of righteousness, I bought the Ford. Made in the U.S.A. in May 2007 by union labor. Wonder if the men and women who made the car have since been laid off along with thousands of other Americans who actually make things?

Maybe the Fusion is not made in the U.S.A. I started googling the question "Where is the Ford Fusion made?" and came up with all kinds of answers. One reference said that all VINs that start with a "3" are made in the U.S.A. Another said that the Fusion is made in plants in India, Mexico and Brazil. Whom to believe?

I'll have to do more research, maybe even call Ford HQ. More later....

One of our own holds up health care bill

When I say "one of our own," I refer to a Democrat from the Rocky Mountain West. You know, a man of the people. Not a puppet for lobbyists and insurance companies. Not a guy who kowtows to Republican Know-Nothings.

Here's the wording of a CREDO-sponsored petition that you can sign and forward to recalcitrant Congresspeople:

"Senator Reid, we write to you today about health care reform, which is one of the most important issues in America. We strongly favor a public insurance option like the one included in the HELP Committee bill, and it is crucial that the Senate pass such reform as quickly as possible. Sen. Baucus is attempting to delay the process and destroy the public option - please don't let him. Tens of millions of Americans are counting on you, and they can't wait until the fall for a vote on a bad reform bill. Tell Sen. Baucus to do the right thing, and do it now. Don't let the Senate go on vacation until it passes reform that includes a public option."

Sen. Baucus (D-MT), who's side are you on?

Please sign the petition now at http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=141076234808&h=NDsBc&u=CcIIz&ref=nf

Wyoming delegation has no vision on Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009

Families USA, a national nonprofit organization for health-care consumers, issued a report this week about estimates of state-by-state health-care gains under America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009. The report was issued Tuesday, which was before Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Thursday that Congress won't be able to consider the legislation before the August recess.

The all-Republican Wyoming delegation seemed especially pleased with the delay. We don't want to rush into anything this big, they said. They all seemed ready to rush into stuff when their pal George W. Bush was president. To be fair, Cynthia Lummis was not our lone rep in the U.S. House. She just started after the 2008 elections. "Caution" and "status quo" are her bywords. Meanwhile, scores of Wyomingites are uninsured. All three members of our delegation oppose a public option, which means they oppose access to the same public option that they participate in as members of the House and Senate. This includes the junior senator from Wyoming, John Barasso, M.D. No Marcus Welby, our doctor from Casper. He cares more about insurance conglomerates than he does about his former patients in Wyoming. He should know better.

Here are the proposed gains when Congress gets around to doing its job:

37,000 Wyomingites are projected to gain coverage by 2013
59,000 Wyomingites are projected to gain coverage by 2019
51 million Americans are projected to gain coverage by 2013
54 million Americans are projected to gain coverage by 2019

Source: Families USA report "Coverage for America:
We All Stand to Gain"

For a story on this legislation's possible impacts on Wyoming, go to Michelle Dynes' July 22 article in Cheyenne's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle.

Keep an eye out for those great tomatoes

A watched tomato never ripens.

No matter how much I stand and stare, my tomatoes will not ripen into salad fodder. I do not have super powers!

But that's the best part, right? Wandering outside for the morning look-see and finding a red one -- or at least trending toward red. Want to pick that baby right off the stem and pop it in the mouth. Savor that homegrown taste. A burst of sunshine.

But not yet. Still harvesting broccoli and lettuce. Ate some fingerling zucchini and flowers in a salad. My lone surviving crookneck is growing ever so slowly and has not blossoms yet. It's next-door neighbor, a green squash, is ready to flower.

On the side yard, my pole beans have climbed the trellis almost to six feet or so. Had to cajole them up the trellis, as one of the plants had a fixation on the nearby wildflowers. It was tough to break up the relationship, but it was going nowhere -- I could see that and had to intervene. A few of the marigolds are flowering. I grew them from seed and they're taking awhile.

I'm making plans for next season's garden. I'm going to let the strawberries spread out and prepare for next spring. The garden next to the porch will become the berry patch and I'll move on to new ground for all the rest. I have a patch of grass than gets almost-all-day sun. The grass doesn't grow very well as I've never given it much attention. That's the next patch of lawn due for replacement. Already looking forward to next season...

Tomorrow is my father's birthday. He'd be 86 today but passed away in 2002. He wasn't much of a gardener when I was a kid. But when his nine kids began growing up and leaving, he turned to gardening. Ornamental, as you can grow plants all year in central Florida. He did grow kumquats, more for their looks than their taste. You can eat the grape-sized citrus fruit, and make some terrific jams and jellies from them. But so much easier to snag an orange for a snack.

My mom died young and my father later married again. This time to a dedicated gardener. Their house in Ormond Beach featured all kinds of tropical and subtropical ornamentals. What really pleased him, I think, was the well-manicured lawn, mowed weekly by a lawn service. No longer did he have to wait for one of his sons to return from the beach to mow the grass. For us, surfing came before lawns and gardens. Not true any more -- for the most part. My Florida brothers all have their own gardens, and spend more time on them than surfing. As for me, well, the waves just aren't that great on the beaches of Cheyenne.

Dad and Connie were members of the volunteer gardening corps at St. Brendan's Catholic Church where Chris and I were married 27 years ago. The gardens looked fine when the family gathered at the church for his funeral mass in spring of 2002.

Dad -- here's a gardening birthday wish from your eldest son.

Cowboy boots making smaller carbon footprint

I was glad to see recycling bins on the grounds of Cheyenne Frontier Days events this week. Cheyenne's 10-day summer event must generate tens of thousands of plastic bottles and cans. So many thirsty parade-goers and rodeo fans and music-lovers. Not all the containers find their way into the recycling bins, but installing one next to every trash can helps a lot.

The greening of the CFD may have been caused, in part, by similar efforts at the Greeley Stampede that takes place early in July in Greeley, about 45 minutes south of here. Cheyenne Frontier Days is the older and bigger event, but Stampede P.R. people inundated regional media this year with their "going green" promos. Here's how it was described in the June 18 Greeley Tribune:

The annual event, scheduled for June 25-July 5, has partnered with Waste Management, Coors Brewing Co. and the city of Greeley to initiate a multi-phase, environmentally friendly program. The endeavor aims to reduce waste, save energy and leave a lighter carbon footprint during this year's celebration.

Guests will be able to ride their bikes to the Stampede and park them for free. Bike racks will be available by the 14th Avenue entrance, near the Splash Park and by the Poudre River Trail entrance. Guests are not able to ride bicycles through the park during the event, but will now have a place to secure their bikes.

Visitors also can enjoy Coors products served in Greenware disposable cups. Greenware is a line of premium cups made of natural materials that are fully compostable — made entirely from an renewable resource, corn. Once used and disposed of, the cups will be completely composted in about 50 days.

Specially marked blue containers will be available where visitors can place empty plastic bottles and cans. The city of Greeley will collect plastic bottles and aluminum cans for Waste Management to collect and transport to recycling centers.

That's a pretty good start. No word yet on how they plan to cut down on ozone-depleting steer farts.

On a similar note, the CFD recycling plan includes carting thousands of tons of manure to Laramie County's composting facility. That's a dirty job but I'm glad they're doing it. Local gardners make use of that composting facility which in turn leads to tasty veggies and pretty flowers and healthy trees. Conservative cowpokes and hippie-dippy veggie wranglers are more intertwined than either camp will admit.

Here's more green news from the CFD web site:

Cheyenne Frontier Days, Trihydro Corporation (a Laramie-based engineering and environmental consulting firm), Swire Coca Cola and the City of Cheyenne have agreed to partner again in a major recycling program at Frontier Park. According to Concessions Chairman Matt Jones, the recycling program that was started last year was a great success. "We recycled 5 tons of plastic last year, and we hope to beat that amount this year," said Jones. "We encourage all of our guests to use the recycling cans, located with trash cans, on the park."

Trihydro provides engineering and environmental services to industrial, commercial, and government clients. The firm, founded in 1984, has grown strategically to employ approximately 260 professionals and support staff, of which 160 are based in the firm’s Wyoming offices (Cheyenne, Casper, Lander, and Laramie).

CFD has recycled all the manure collected during the ten day event at a local composting facility for many years. "We have also separated and collected our cardboard for recycling for a few years now," said Jones. "This year we will also be recycling aluminum cans along with the plastic bottles." Jones and CFD officials met with Swire Coca Cola, Dennis Pino (City Sanitation), Trihydro, and others earlier this year to discuss the continuation of collecting plastic during CFD for recycling. Working with the City of Cheyenne, CFD will collect as much plastic and aluminum on the park during the celebration as possible, separate these items from the general waste, and send the plastic and aluminum for recycling, thereby keeping it out of the landfill.

In addition to separating plastic bottles and aluminum cans from the trash during show time, CFD will also recycle these items from committee buildings around the park and the headquarters building. Last year, CFD officials made an effort to replace old bathroom fixtures with newer more water efficient models where appropriate. Parking lot lights were replaced with updated fixtures which provide more light while decreasing power usage. In addition, every year, the CFD grounds crew winterizes the park to shut down buildings with only seasonal usage, thereby decreasing energy and water usage. They also pull weeds by hand rather than using chemical pesticides while maintaining the park.

There is a bandwagon effect here that people who put on parades know very well. It's patriotic to fly the green flag, and cowboys are all about being patriotic.

Here at home, my family and our visitors from afar are going through hundreds of plastic water bottles, aluminum soda cans and craft brew bottles. My son Kevin has hauled many containers of recyclables to the Big Blue Bins at the K-Mart parking lot. We're also cutting down on water usage by taking only one shower per week. Just kidding -- that's just me. Hey, I'm on vacation!

The City of Cheyenne has made great strides the past few years toward cutting down on water use. It's expanding its curbside recycling program. The greenway is terrific and it prods residents to get out and walk and run and ride bikes to work. On the negative side, our public transportation system is laughable and sprawl continues to the north and east. Laramie County has no wise-growth plan. Cheyenne needs to support downtown residential efforts, such as those promoted in Sheridan this summer at "Living Upstairs in Wyoming."

We're getting there -- but still playing catch-up to some of Colorado's communities, such as our neighbor Fort Collins and our bigger neighbor, Denver. Read about some of their efforts at http://smartercities.nrdc.org/

Elliott to replace Vasey in Wyoming Senate

The AP reports this:

Carbon and Albany county commissioners have chosen James Elliott Jr. to replace Democrat Bill Vasey in the state Senate. The county commissioners voted for Elliott Monday. Other candidates for the District 11 seat were David Throgmorton and Linda Ann Smith. All three Carbon County commissioners voted for Elliott and two Albany County commissioners voted for David Throgmorton. Eliott will serve through the legislative budget session early next year. He says he hasn't decided if he'll run for the Senate in next year's general election. Vasey resigned in June after23 years in the Wyoming Legislature. He and his wife moved to Yuma, Ariz.

Cheney to get another six months of gubment-funded Secret service protection

The New York Daily News Washington Bureau reports this:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney's Secret Service protection has been extended for at least another six months, beginning Tuesday.

Normally, ex-veeps only get six months of protection at taxpayer expense. But Cheney asked for an extension, and President Obama - whom Cheney has excoriated in several interviews since leaving office - recently signed off.

If the Obama administration hadn't gone along with Cheney's request, he would have been forced to hire his own security agents - or go without.

Cheney's friends have said he has become more concerned about his privacy and personal safety in recent years. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/07/21/2009-07-21_cheney_keeps_protection_thanks_to_uncle_sam_bam.html#ixzz0LuILmETA

Enjoy, for a brief moment, the irony in gubment-basher Dick Cheney requesting more gubment expenditures on his behalf, and the fact that Cheney is a gajillionaire thanks to his decades of gubment service (and taxpayer-provided health care) and his ongoing ties to the war profiteers at Halliburton.

And don't forget to reply to the poll.

Livin' not always easy on 1960s Space Coast

My father's work with the U.S. space program ended about the same time as Neil Armstrong walked on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Thousands of Americans worked for the space program. Some, such as my father, got their start in ICBMs. Nukes used the same missile that took astronauts to the moon -- the Atlas. It didn't take much to jump from the jargon of throw weight and megatonnage to space capsules and lunar rovers.

Besides, my father was an accountant and not an engineer. He kept the books and one line item on a spread sheet is pretty much the same as the other.

They revelled in the mission. Put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Can-do, boss. Give us a challenge and lots of dough and good people -- and we can do anything.

I was proud of my father's work, whether he was tallying costs of blast-proof silos on the prairies of Colorado or Kansas -- or counting Atlas booster widgets in a sweltering war-surplus Quonset hut on Florida's east coast. He lost his ICBM job in 1964 once most of the Atlas rockets were parked underground throughout the West.

That's how we got to Florida. Five years later, he was laid off from his space job in July 1969. His work was done. From 1967-69, thousands of NASA amd G.E. employees and space workers of every stripe from Florida's "Space Coast" were transferred to other less-exotic locales such as Schenectady and Cincinnati and Houston. Our Daytona neighborhood had a dozen homes for sale. They weren't selling because people were moving out, not in.

Those who stayed were laid off (such a strange word) and had to find other employment. My father went to work with the state as an accountant. That move entailed a 180-mile round-trip daily commute to Jacksonville. He finally ended up renting a small apartment and staying up there during the week. Other laid-off spacers opened small businesses or pumped gas like one of my father's engineer friends. Some tried other jobs for awhile and then moved on anyway.

You have to remember that 1969 Central Florida was pre-Mickey Mouse and beachside condo-building craze. Orlando was the size of Tallahassee, Florida's sleepy capital city. Air conditioning was fairly new -- we never had A.C. nor did any of our friends. Retirees had been coming to Florida for years, but mostly lived in rural trailer parks or dilapidated downtown hotels in St. Pete or Miami. Most real jobs were still located in Detroit and Cleveland and Newark and St. Louis and Chicago and L.A. These postwar-boom auto and steel workers were still raising their families and not yet ready to join the huge waves of Florida-bound retirees in the 1980s. At the same time, Rust Belt industries began collapsing under the weight of their own stupidity and Reaganomics. Younger workers headed to new opportunities in warmer climes. Many more followed.

Florida still has a space industry. Smaller now, and much less exotic. It's tempting to romanticize that Apollo 11 mission of four decades ago. I've seen that happening this week on cable news, with paeans to the astronauts and our can-do spirit on getting to the moon. "Moon landing -- 40 years later." But there were also headlines like this: "Moon -- one giant leap or one very small step?"

It was both, I suppose. One giant leap for the imagination. I still support the space program and was briefly encouraged by George W. Bush when he announced future missions to Mars. Then we discovered that he meant Mars, Iraq, and the wind went out of our sails.

I hold out hope for future leaps of the imagination. Look up! Imagine other worlds! Build spacecraft and go forth!

Bowie's "Space Oddity" came out before U.S. walked on the moon

"Space Oddity" by David Bowie, was released to coincide with the Apollo 11 moon landing. The BBC featured the song during its TV coverage of the 1969 lunar landing.

Read today's story in UK Telegraph on top ten moon hits. Go to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/space/5871370/Apollo-11-moon-landing-Moon-music.html

Man in the Moon is so very lonely

Lots of newspaper articles and TV coverage marking the 40th anniversary of the U.S. moon landing. All of them seem to ask the same question: WTF?

It was a gallant quest, sparked by a challenge from JFK. A challenge that got many of us pulling in the same direction for a brief shining moment. JFK also kept us heading down the road to ruination in Vietnam. JFK's successor, LBJ, turned that road to ruin into a ten-lane expressway, and decided not to run for a second term in the wake of disastrous results, leaving the field open to Nixon. He did continue NASA's lunar flights but, in his second term, was distracted from the mission by break-ins and paranoia and Christmas bombings and cross-border incursions and trips to China.

Our lunaracy ended about the same time as Nixon's. And we haven't been back to the moon since.

Beating the Bolsheviks to the moon had more to do with beating the Bolsheviks than it did with the moon. We were demonstrating our superiority as the planet's only God-fearing democratic capitalist republic. We not only demonstrated this in space, but also in Hue and Managua and Cuba and Laos and Berlin and Tehran and Taiwan and Jakarta. We were so busy spreading democracy in these places that we forgot about the Sea of Tranquility -- ran out of money, too. Not to mention imagination. Reagan, too. Don't forget about him.

Think about all this next time you wonder: Man on the Moon -- WTF?

What's with these Western Dems and a reasonable health care plan?

JC at 4&20 blackbirds kicks ass with a post today about Mont. Gov. Brian Schweitzer's apparent about-face on the benefits of Medicaid payments to states and the efficacy of the Dems' health-care plan.

Here's a sampling:

Gotta better plan Brian? Or have you just turned into one of them naysayers. If ya got some cards, ya better lay em out on the table.

And this:

And if Montana (and other states) had a real health care plan, Congress wouldn’t have to act.

Ditto for Wyoming. No health care plan here. And Medicaid is a lifeline to thousands of state residents. Including my family, who benefitted from a Medicaid-funded program for teen mental health treatment. More about that later. But read JC's post here:

http://4and20blackbirds.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/schweitzer-dumps-on-the-poor-medicaid-and-obamas-health-care-reform-agenda/

Midsummer day's Victory Garden blogging

If mid-summer is mid-July, then we're already past it. If it's actually 45 days into cosmological summer, we're not quite there, as that's sometime in early August.

But if we're talking growing season, we've reached the halfway mark, at least in Wyoming. First frost can come any time after Labor Day, but may not arrive until late September. But once August merges into the school year, the best growing days are gone.

I've harvested spinach, leaf lettuce and some broccoli. Spinach is gone but lettuce still leafing and broccoli still heading. Just ate the first zucchini of many more to come. Three inches long and the size of my pointer. Tasty. No yellow squash yet and the lone brookneck is not looking so good. Wonder what I did wrong there. All tomato plants are fruiting and next weekend should bring lots of cherry tomatoes. I have six house guests from Tennessee and maybe it's time to call on them for fried green tomatoes. But not crazy about that, although the Fannie Flagg book was good as was the Hollywood film. Green tomato recipes are best for the tail-end of the season, when I'm snapping the greenies off the plants in advance of north winds.

Pole beans are raging on the south side of the house where they share space with wildflowers. marigolds, and a red crabapple tree that's made it through five winters and is as high as the top of the kitchen windows.

This week, the "victory" in Victory Garden is for the triumph of the Democrats' public-option health care plan over the ignorance of the Know Nothings (you know who you are Sen. Enzi and Sen. Barrasso and Montana's confused Sen. Baucus and Nebraska's compromised Sen. Ben Nelson) and the greedheads at the insurance companies.

Obama advocates for community colleges

Look, private colleges are O.K. I hear they have some good ones in places like Cambridge and Palo Alto and Oberlin. But, as a graduate of one community college and two land-grant universities, I'm a firm believer in public-funded higher learning.

Yesterday, Pres. Obama unveiled the American Graduation Initiative, a 10-year, $12 billion plan to invest in community colleges.

During his announcement at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan, Obama noted that the economic recession and a changing U.S. economy have reduced the number of automotive industry jobs, a mainstay in Michigan.

The "hard truth is that some of the jobs that have been lost in the auto industry and elsewhere won't be coming back. They are casualties of a changing economy," Obama said, adding that "even before this recession hit, we were faced with an economy that was simply not creating or sustaining enough new, well-paying jobs."

Obama called the investment in community colleges crucial because "jobs requiring at least an associate degree are projected to grow twice as fast as jobs requiring no college experience" in coming years.

I enjoyed my classes at Daytona Beach Junior College (then D.B. Community College and now Daytona State College) more than I did the first two years at Enormous State University in a C.S.A. state. At 22, I was older by a few years, time tested and weathered after a sojourns as a college ROTC dropout wandering the U.S. That may have helped. Time to knuckle down and take enough courses to graduate and head off to another Enormous State University. I rode my bike or hitched a ride to class, and spent off hours at the library or canoodling with my girlfriend who lived a few blocks away.

At 3, I clocked into my job at Halifax Hospital where I spent the next eight hours riding herd on alkies and druggies dredged off Daytona's streets and thrown into the place officially labeled 1100 but we called it the drunk tank. Usually there were two orderlies working behind the ward's locked doors. Sometimes it was just me. I was a big dude, and I held the keys to the kingdom, so they didn't mess with me. We all played cards and told stories, some of which were true. Every so often a patient would go into D.T.'s or devolve into a seizure. I was ready for either. Every so often a call came over the loudspeakers for "Dr. Blue." That meant that all the ordleries were needed at 1400 -- the psych ward. Some very large loonie the size of Chief Broom was going haywire, knocking down doctors and nurses like a scythe through Kansas wheat. I was lucky -- I never got my teeth knocked out during those calls. Usually it took three or four of us to subdue the subject. A few scrapes, a few stories for later regaling at Big Daddy's Bar.

Education comes in many forms. I graduated in May 1974 with a group of auto mechanics and nurses and dental hygienists and pre-law candidates and a few other misguided English majors. I quit my job that August, saying my farewells to the patients (I knew them all by then) and the ghosts and some of my compatriots who were still working on their educations. I headed 100 miles up the road to Gainesville and the next phase of my public education, paid for with loans and work-study jobs. I graduated from UF in 1976 and kept moving on, eventually landing in Denver in 1978 for the adult phase of my education.

The education never ended. Nor will it. I've taught at several community colleges. I like the range of students -- 18 to 78. Some who are just taking composition 101 for the credit and don't give a hoot about the minimalism of Carver and the maximalism of Henry James. Others are like the Vietnam vet whose daughter urged him to finish his associate's degree at the same time she earned hers. Or the grandmother who travelled 140 miles round trip from Kimball, Nebraska, to Cheyenne to take my creative writing class. She had stories to tell. Or the Air Police zoomie who loved to write -- and told me the stories of the ghosts swirling around Warren AFB. Or the recent divorcee who kept journals for the 20 years of her marriage but ripped them up in a burst of anger. And now she wanted to resurrect those shredded memories.

It's not too outlandish to say that there's a direct line from my time at community colleges to my work last year to elect Obama. Sure, Harvard is great. But real democracy is born in the crowded halls and classrooms of your local community college.

Take time to check out the American Graduation Initiative at http://tinyurl.com/m4u746.

Steve Earle drops into Sheridan Aug. 8

Musician and songwriter Steve Earle will perform in concert at the WYO Theater in Sheridan on Saturday, Aug. 8, 8 p.m. Tickets are $29 adult and $27 senior, military and students.

Here's the announcement from the WYO Theater web site:

The WYO is proud to present a special solo acoustic concert of Steve Earle, touring in support of his new album Townes, a 15-song set comprised of songs written by Earle's friend and mentor, the late singer-songwriter, Townes Van Zandt (Pancho and Lefty and White Freightliner Blues, to name just two). Townes debuted May 28 at number 19 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, the highest debut in Earle's career, and at number 6 on the Billboard Country Chart.

Earle is a master storyteller in his own right, with songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Travis Tritt, The Pretenders, Joan Baez and countless others. His 1986 debut record, Guitar Town, shot to number one on the country charts immediately establishing the term "new country" or sometimes "alt-country," followed by an exciting array of twelve releases including the biting hard rock of Copperhead Road (1988), the politically-charged Jerusalem (2002) and, more recently, the Grammy-winning albums The Revolution Starts...Now (2004) and Washington Square Serenade (2007).

FMI: http://www.steveearle.com/. Listen to Steve Earle's acoustic version of Pancho and Lefty at http://www.myspace.com/steveearlemusic