Montana and Wyoming fiction writers give freaks a pass

“Giving freaks a pass is the oldest tradition in Montana. And you, my friend, are a blue-ribbon, bull-goose freak.”

That’s a line from Thomas McGuane’s new novel, “Driving on the Rim,” Maile Meloy reviewed the novel (mostly favorably) and referred to those lines as her favorites. I like them too.

I haven’t read a McGuane novel since “92 in the Shade.” And that was decades ago. More recently I’ve read McGuane’s essay collection, “A Sporting Chance.” Practically everything I know about cutting horses I know from this fine book. McGuane raises and trains cutting horses in Montana. As a youth, I was chronically allergic to horse hair and hay and weeds and almost everything else you can find on a ranch. Fortunately, I was a city boy and not a farmer’s son out on the prairie.

I have since been on horseback five or six times without collapsing with an asthma attack. But my sensibilities are totally non-horse and horses know it.

Maybe that’s why I’m so taken with McGuane’s facility with horses. Horses and language. As Meloy points out in the NYT review, McGuane’s novels are a little baggy while his essays are succinct works of art. She also points out some factual inconsistencies regarding some of the book’s characters.

But she’s willing to give McGuane a pass on this. Just as the attorney in the book in willing to give a Montana-style pass to the main character. Meloy gives McGuane a pass because he’s such a damn fine writer and he’s written a good book.

I sometimes get a bit suspicious when a fictional character’s freakishness is called out. It’s almost as if the author, who’s spent thousands of words portraying his character’s quirkiness, must now actually say the word “freak!” Just in case you missed all the clues.

But there’s something a bit deeper here. Have the quirky characters of the Rocky Mountain West become a bit of a stereotype? Quirky people live here, denizens of the Great Wide Open. They often have fled the more settled places of the East and South and Coastal West. They are tough individualists drawn to the live-and-let-live Code of the West. It’s not a code, exactly, more like guidelines. But you know what I mean.

Used to be all the freaky characters came from the minds of writers of the South – William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Larry Brown, Kaye Gibbons, Barry Hannah, Harry Crews, etc. Along came Annie Proulx, Lee K. Abbott, John Nichols, Rick DeMaranis, Ron Carlson, Alyson Hagy, etc. These writers of the West wrote great stories and novels about freakish people driven by a search for solitude or personal freedom or some undefined crucial core value. Southern characters, on he other hand, were driven more by ghosts of the so-called glorious past and the constraints of their old-time religion.

I love freaky characters. I often try to invent some for my stories. But just because you live in a freakish place, such as Montana or Wyoming, that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook when it comes to creating believable characters.

Name the freakiest place you know. If you’re a button-down Midwesterner, Boulder, Colorado’s Pearl Street Mall might test your sensibilities. If you’re a hipster from Boulder, a trip to Sun City, Ariz., might cause you to come unglued.

Wyoming is pretty freaky, I must admit. Bill Sniffin’s Sunday newspaper column was devoted to the antics of the former Miss Wyoming-World, Joyce McKinney. McKinney is the focus of Errol Morris’s latest documentary, “Tabloid.” In 1977 in London, she kidnapped a former boyfriend, a young LDS missionary, and forced him to have sex for three days. The British tabloids had a field day with this woman who committed rape on a man. That’s the focus of Morris’s film.

Sniffin of Lander also recalled that McKinney surfaced a few years in Tennessee, paying a man to burglarize a house “to pay for an artificial leg for a three-legged horse.”

As Playlist says about Morris’s story: “Intoxicatingly entertaining and outrageously wild, Hollywood’s top writers could never have dreamed this up.”

Hollywood writers? No. But Mountain West writers – of course.

Democrats plan phone bank for Oct. 25

Dem press release:

The Laramie County Democrats regular monthly meeting scheduled for Monday, October 25, will not be held. Instead of the meeting we would request members walk for their preferred candidate or join us at the headquarters at 408 W. 23rd Street in Cheyenne to phone bank.

We will conduct a phone bank Monday-Thursday from 6-8 October 25th through October 28th and again on November 1st. The phone banking will be to Get Out The Vote.

Thank you in advance for your support in this mid-term election. Vote Democrat!!

Linda Stowers, chair of Laramie County Democrats

"It is our labor that keeps this whole world together"

Lines from M.L. Liebler's poem "Making it Right" in Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams from Coffee House Press:

We dream that, maybe, prosperity
Is really just around the corner. So we
get up every morning with hope, and

We return each night to the broken houses
Of our lives, seldom realizing that it is our
Labor that keeps this whole world together.

Read a favorable post on this anthology on Daily Kos at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/10/19/911857/-What-about-the-working-class. Also a great review in the Detroit News at http://www.detnews.com/article/20101020/ENT01/10200311/M.L.-Liebler%E2%80%99s-new-anthology-an-ode-to-the-labor-movement

For my Detroit readers: Get thee to the Working Words reading at 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 22, at the Walter Reuther Labor Library, Cass Avenue at Kirby, Wayne State University, Detroit.

For my Wyoming readers: M.L. will be in Cheyenne in late February for a reading and performance with musician and Moby Grape founder Peter Lewis. Stay tuned for details.

More on Dem canvassing -- Ken McCauley's schedule

Ken McCauley is running for Wyoming House District 8. He is a good man. You can tell because I have one of his signs in my yard. And he's a Democrat in Wyoming. This makes you tough.

Details for the Ken McCauley canvass the Saturday, Oct. 30. Meet at 9 a.m. at 3612 Moore for breakfast. If you can't make this event you can call Mike Bell for other times to walk for Ken. Mike's number is 307-631-7641.

Democratic candidates' canvassing schedule for final two weekends

Partial list of canvassing activities for Democrats in Laramie County:

Wendy Soto: October 23, 24, 29 and 30 at 9 am and 1 pm. Meet at her house at 3429 Essex Road. Also canvassing on October 31 at 9 a.m. Food will be provided.

Robert Aylward: October 23 & 24 at 1 p.m. Meet at the parking lot of the Holiday Inn.

Ken McCauley: October 30th, 1 hour (details will follow).

Tim Thorson: October 23 in Western Hills -- meet in the parking lot of the Yellowstone McDonald's at 9:30 and/or 2 p.m. October 24 in the Avenues -- meet at our house, 2915 Carey, at 1 pm.

6,500-member Wyoming Education Association endorses Mike Massie

WEA Endorses Massie/Reaction to Cindy Hill Attacks from Ronald Sniffin on Vimeo.

Thomas Lux: "Times are hard"

From "The Deadhouse at the Workhouse" by Thomas Lux, included in the new Coffee House Press anthology, "Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams," edited by M.L.Liebler:

You get sent to the workhouse because you worked
and worked
yourself so deep in debt
you took a loan to pay the debt,
then another to pay the interest on the loan
(all the while working, day labor,
night labor, and thumping
a bowl of porridge on the table each noon
for the kids and wife) and then
you make a deal with the local loanshark
who's happy to help you out
but breaks your knees the following week
when the bank won't remortgage your house
so you can pay his vig. Times
are hard.....

Colorado billboard comes down, but hatred remains

Free speech is one thing. Flat-out hatred is another. This billboard (Grand Junction Sentinel photo) was along I-70 in Grand Junction, Colo. On Friday, it was taken down by the sign company. It shows the president as (from left to right) terrorist, gangster, Mexican bandit and a gay man. Vultures perch overhead and rats scramble underneath. Are those bullet holes in the sign? Or were they placed there by the “artist” to implant bad ideas into right-wing nitwits?

Seemingly rational people hate Barack Obama, the duly-elected 44th president of the United States of America. Only on the surface are these people normal. Within them beat hearts of hate. That sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it – a heart that hates? If you “have a heart,” you feel something positive about someone or something. Supposed to, anyway. All these people seem to have is a “hearty” hatred for our president. So many of them are well-off, too. You can’t rule our racism. But you know that they are bummed that Pres. Obama wants to end the sweetheart tax cuts doled out by their Repub pal George W. Bush. “Have a heart,” Pres. Obama, “and don’t take my tax cut away?” They would never beg. They think they own the country and it should all be their way of the highway.

Republicans in Wyoming think they own the state -- which they do. In public gatherings, they utter coded hate-filled things about “ObamaLand” or “ObamaCare,” and they expect everyone in attendance to nod like bobble-head dolls. “Wait until Nov. 2” they say gleefully. To them, 11/02/10 has taken on some magic glow, as did 11/04/08 did for Dems lo these many years ago. Now that I think of it, these really aren't coded messages. There are just some ultra-conservatives who have an irrational hatred of our president. For more on his topic, see Frank Rich's column in today's New York Times.

These people think that Republicans and their Corporate Overlords should rule the roost. No room for Dems or non-believers. Sick.

Repub candidates sighted in neighborhood

I was home this afternoon when Jack Nicholas came to call.

No, not Jack Nicklaus. He's golfing somewhere, especially on a nice day like this.

Jack Nicholas is father to Bob Nicholas, running for Wyoming House District Eight. Jack, who once served in the state legislature, and Bob are both Republicans. However, there is nothing on his brochure that says "Republican." There is one tiny little "(R)" on his logo. But that's it. Not sure if that means much. Laramie County does have a fair share of Dems. Most importantly, in this district, Republicans have a slight edge over Democrats, registration-wise. And it has sent a Dem (Lori Millin) to the legislature during the past two elections.

Last week on these pages, I said I had not seen any Republicans campaigning in my general neighborhood. No Repub flyers, either. Today, I had a nice chat with Jack. I like a guy whose Dad hits the bricks to electioneer. He pointed at my array of Democratic candidate signs and said, "I guess I'm walking into the lion's den." I said that wasn't the case, that I was always ready to listen. I did admit that I'd been campaigning for Bob's rival, Ken McCauley. I told him that I liked Ken's platform and would probably vote for him. I also said I would read the brochure.

Nicholas's brochure is brown and prairie gold -- UW's school colors. Many Candidates use the Cowpokes' colors. It's the only four-year university in the state. He's also a Casper College and UW grad, and worked as an instructor at Central Wyoming Community College. I do like community college people. I'm one myself.

I can't see any part of his platform to disagree with. What about his web site?

Couldn't find one. It was only a 10-minute Google search. But the candidate's site should have been one of the first links. I Googled Ken McCauley and his site came up third on the list. Good site with lots of info. Go to http://www.mccauleyforhouse.com/

I like Ken's material, in print on online. I'll need more on Nicholas.

Stat tuned...

UPDATE 10/17: I just realized how kind I was being to a Republican candidate. If I ever get a chance to talk to him, I should ask this: "Will you renounce the Republican Party's politics of hate?" Makes me think of the question the priest asks your godparents when you are baptized: "Do you renounce Satan?"

Maybe that's a better way to put it...

Tom Tomorrow imagines a Tea Party World

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

Wyoming Public Radio candidate debates' audio

Listen to candidates' debates aired on Wyoming Public Radio:

WPR: Wyoming Public Radio and the Associated Students of the University of Wyoming held two debates (2010-10-13)

Listened to some of the Massie-Hill debate yesterday. Now sure that Massie is the one.

Writers of West and South "immersed in loss"

"Westerners are immersed hourly in loss."

So said Rick Bass, Southern-born and now a citizen of the Rocky Mountain West. He was one of the guest writers Oct. 8 at the annual Literary Connection at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne.

It’s an old script. Extractive industries remove our timber, coal, trona, gold, copper, uranium and oil. Access roads criss-cross our wild lands, leading to loss of animal habitat.

When each stake is played out, or expenses and regulations outdo profits, "the industries withdraw, blaming environmentalists, but never taking responsibility for their actions," Rick says.

The jobs leave with the industries. Anger and loss follow.

Rick bemoans the “trashing of our wild gardens” in the West. He doesn’t just “bemoan.” He writes angrily about the loss. He works vigorously to defend the wild places, notably his own Yaak Valley in western Montana. He has served on the board of the Yaak Valley Forest Council and Round River Conservation Studies.

“The biota of the Yaak is the ecological equivalent of a Russian novel,” he says. “Not one species in the Yaak has gone extinct since the Ice Age. Maybe it’s the only valley you can say that about.”

His life as a writer and hunter suits the Yaak. He describes how the predator-prey relationship speaks to the conflict inherent in a short story or novel.

“In the Yaak, everything eats meat and is searching for it,” he says. “What is the hunt but story in pursuit of story?”

The predator may move through the landscape, he adds, but it is “the prey which directs the hunter’s movements.” Both are moving through a landscape which is both horizontal and vertical and filled with impediments.

“The hunted shapes the hunter – the dramatic tension between them is story.”

The hunting culture is vastly different from the farming culture down on the prairie. “Corn is not trying to elude you,” he says. “When you step into the woods, there’s nothing in you but imagination.”

I am not a hunter but I can imagine the hunt. Not the same thing as actually doing it. I know that there is a huge difference between stalking the frozen “fecal-drenched chicken” (Rick’s term) to the pursuit of a wild deer in the wild woods.

But thinking metaphorically, I can relate to the act of stepping into the woods of a story. Writer in pursuit of a story, moving through a complicated landscape. I start the pursuit but often the “prey” takes me on a wild ride that I didn’t anticipate when I started.

Rick is convinced that “there is a river of spirit that flows shifting and winding between me and the land.” This is some sort of “third spirit – a spark that ignites between us and the landscape.”

So the landscape is crucial to Rick Bass the writer and the hunter. So is the sense of loss that occurs when that landscape is plundered.

“The narrative is in full crisis now,” he says. There’s also a strange diminishment of time and space evident now. Is this sense of loss going away?

“I still can imagine a happy ending.”

Rick’s stories, of course, don’t necessarily have happy endings. He read sections of several – “Her First Elk;” “The Hermit’s Story;” “The Cave.”

He read the full text of “The Canoeist,” a story told mostly in the conditional tense – “would.” That’s a rarity. Very short – and a love story, too.

After the reading, emcee and fiction writer Laura Pritchett of Colorado said that she likes Rick’s “really funky odd love stories.”

Many of his stories are “funky odd,” going back to the stories set in the South in “The Watch.”

Stories riven with loss and dark humor. Two traits of writers I admire, whether they be West or South. As a passport-carrying member of both places, I know.

Torrington conference gives boost to locally-based ag economies

Sheridan's Sam Western writes for The Economist, WyoFile and an assortment of other publications on issues important to Wyoming and the high and dry West. His latest piece for WyoFile is about agriculture. Sam's not an aggie, and neither am I, but we both know that corporate large-scale ag has proven destructive to the High Plains. Not only on the landscape but on the human culture.

The "localvore" movement may have a partial solution. A recent ag summit was held in Torrington. The local Table Mountain Winery participated, as did Meadow Maid Farms out of Yoder which offers an increasingly popular CSA program.

But Sam's article tells it better in today's Wyofile story:

"Wyoming agriculture is beginning to plant new seeds, and poor counties, known for monoculture, lead the way," reports WyoFile correspondent Sam Western. Sam found himself very pleasantly surprised in late summer when a conference in Torrington featured delicious meals from local producers. He went on to examine what the local food movement, and what new ventures in agriculture might mean to the traditionally agricultural, and poor, counties in southeast Wyoming. As a small supplement to the economic changes that recent oil industry interest in the Niobrara formation may bring, that is.

The problem in modern agriculture, declared Torrington conference speaker Joel Salatin, "is creating holistic, complementary systems to create salaries for the next generation. The average age of the American farmer is 60 years old. Farmers hit retirement age and then give it to the kids. That’s too late. The time to pick up that youthful enthusiasm is when they are 16-18 years old. We need to build enough income into farms to hire ourselves and our children and next generation."

Some of these topics will be discussed at a state-sponsored conference on AgriFuture, starting tomorrow, Oct. 13, in Evanston. And meanwhile the legislature may be weighing in on issues regarding sales of home-made food from local products: a bill to exempt such sales from safety regulation got a committee endorsement in Buffalo earlier this month, despite serious objections from food safety experts.

Live-stream Obama House Parties and local candidate forum Oct. 12 in Cheyenne

Cheyenne Democrat Lori Brand sends this:

Connie Filopovitch and I are hosting one of the Live-Stream Obama House Parties along with a candidate forum on Tuesday, Oct. 12.

At 5 p.m. will be the live webcast with other Organizing for America House Parties across the country.


At 6:30 p.m. we will have a candidates' forum. If you are a candidate in or a supporter of a candidate, this would be the time to give a short presentation. I have invited Sandy Shanor who is running for the LCSD#1 School Board.


See you on Tuesday at 629 Oakhurst in Cheyenne.

FMI: Connie Filipovitch-Sarmiento, 307-421-7492

Democrat Gaining Momentum in Wyoming

This was posted Oct. 3 on Daily Kos. Better late than never.

Democrat Wendt Gaining Momentum in Republican Wyoming

After the election, Democrats will make great pets

You learn lots of things while walking Cheyenne neighborhoods for your favorite Democratic Party candidates.

I did that on Saturday as I dropped off door hangers for Senate District 5 candidate Lori Millin and flyers for District Court Clerk candidate Wendy Soto.

About those door hangers… A steady northwest wind blew on Saturday. Cooled things off, and also made it difficult to hang a door hanger so it wouldn’t blow away. Forget all of the west- and –north-facing homes – about half of my assigned territory. It’s so easy to smack the top of the hanger against the door knob and watch it magically attach. There’s a technique that I’ve learned over the years. Grab the lower end of the hanger and BAP it on the tiny part of the knob. It’s all in the wrist. This also works on screen door knobs and fancier knobs that have the latch you work with your thumb.

But the wind calls for different methods. First, you can’t get a good wind-up as the wind snatches the hanger in mid-motion. If you then use old-fashioned manual attachment techniques, the raging wind will snag the hanger from its perch and send it to Nebraska. This leaves lots of wind litter. It’s also a waste of precious campaign dollars, especially this year when Democrats are holding bake sales and maxing out credit cards to get cash. It’s also unseemly to see Dems running down the street after skittering door hangers and flyers. I can just see those Republicans now, sitting on their verandas, sipping mint juleps, lighting cigars with 20-dollar bills, watching us run. “Those Democrats are so entertaining,” they might say. “After the election, they will make great pets."

Speaking of Republicans, I didn’t see a single Repub candidate out on the hustings. I kept my eyes and ears open as I slipped campaign material through screen doors or rolled it up to slip between door knob and door jamb. I saw no Repub material, either. A curious overnight with only a few weeks left to go. The Repubs must feel confident. Wyoming is a one-party state, after all, and never more so than this year when its Repub Gov candidate leads the Dem candidate by a huge 30-point margin.

Still, we persevere. On one street, I ran into the Democrats' Laramie County Clerk candidate Tim Thorson and his wife Elizabeth. Tim was placing another yard sign. Tim has been very aggressive in the sign department. He also has four billboards placed around the county. A hard-working Dem politician.

And not the only one. I also spotted Dem House District 8 candidate Ken McCauley knocking on townhouse doors along Lawrence Ave. He leaves flyers in doors when he gets no answer. When he does get an answer, he asks for a few minutes to talk about the issues. According to Ken, people get a bit cantankerous when they discover his party affiliation. They often change their mind after discovering Ken is a U.S. Air Force combat veteran and has solid ideas for the district. One 90-something voter (also a military veteran) spouted the Fox News repertoire of Death Panels and cutting big gubment and those damn commies and socialists. Ken said, “I’m a combat veteran and have been fighting socialists all my life.” The man changed his tune and shook Ken’s hand.

Now, a socialist commie pinko peacenik such as me might take umbrage at this. Let me take a short-time out for some umbrage.

Ah, that’s better.

How do you fight this sort of Tea Party crap, where people get into your face and spew a barrage of nonsense?

Shoot back. Humor’s good, too, but it’s often wasted on the brainwashed. Ken is a combat veteran and a Democrat and a smart guy with great ideas. Should he not make use of all of his credentials? I’ve voted for Democrats with impressive military combat credentials? Remember John Kerry? JFK? George McGovern? They were the best candidates for the job. JFK was elected, while Republicans Swift-boated Kerry and did something similar to McGovern back in 1972. Although the Dems basically sunk themselves during both of those elections. And who can forget Al Gore’s 2000 popular-vote victory over George W. Bush? The guy who served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam in a non-combat role vs. the Texas Air National Guard pilot who skipped maneuvers stateside?

I’ve also voted for many candidates who never served in the military. In fact, if I had voted the straight Wyoming Republican Party slate for U.S. House and U.S. Senate in 2008, I would have voted for three candidates who never served in the military. All three, however, support both of our ongoing wars and the continuing bloated defense budget.

And so it goes.

I encountered one gentleman who asked me point-blank if Lori Millin voted for Obama. I said that I supposed so as she was a Democrat. He then asked if she supported charter schools. I said that she supported education although I didn’t know about her position on charter schools. He then said that that was the problem with us doorhanging people, we didn’t know what our candidates stood for. He was a Republican and active in politics. I asked if he wanted me to retrieve the door hanger if he didn’t want to read it. He said he would read it. I asked if he voted the straight party line and he said he didn’t. I said that I was a Democrat and I didn’t support the straight party line which is very difficult to do in Wyoming anyway.

He then added that he had called Mike Massie’s office multiple times and hadn’t received a response. Mike is the Democratic Party candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction. I said that that was very odd as Mike was big on returning calls and he’d spent lots of time talking about education all across the state. The man said, “I’d like to talk to him."

We left it at that. The best conversation I’ve had with a Republican in a long time. I got in my car and found Lori in an adjacent neighborhood. I told her about my talk and she got in her car and went over to talk to the man. She spoke to the man and his wife. They were big supporters of charter schools. Lori supports them as long as the rules are followed. Republicans insist on charter-school support from local school districts but don’t want to be bound by rules of the district or the Wyoming Department of Education. She sees that as a problem. Her kids attend Laramie County schools.

I also see this as a problem.

What I like is that Lori went to the man’s house to talk to him about his concerns. That’s not easy. It takes courage. You don’t have to be in the military to appreciate courage.

Sometimes it takes an artist to interpret war's horror

From GOOD magazine:

Design Boom recently featured this simple but incredibly powerful installation by Brooklyn-based artist Sebastian Errazuriz. Using the wall outside his studio, he's created a simple tally of some sobering numbers: military combat deaths in Iraq in 2009, and military suicides in 2009

From Design Boom:

'When I first found the overall statistics that summed the 304 suicides by US soldiers during 2009, I was shocked. I tried to find a number to compare that statistic. To my surprise the suicide statistic doubled the total of 149 US soldiers that had died in the Iraq war during 2009 and equaled the number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan.'

Errazuriz's first instinct was to post the statistic on facebook—dumbfounded by the lack of response and interest, he bought can of black paint and decided to 'post' the news in the real world on his own wall outside his studio in Brooklyn. Equipped with a ladder, he marked a black strip for every dead soldier, until both the suicide rates and war rates occupied the entire wall and were registered as a single image.

The sign is back

Petersen for Governor sign disappeared yesterday from my lawn. Just happened to have another.

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Tea Partier lurking behind every Wyoming sagebrush

On Sunday, Rasmussen Reports released a telephone survey of “Likely Voters” in Wyoming.

No surprise:

Republican Matt Mead leads Democrat Leslie Peterson, 61%to 25%. This is pretty close to the majority held by registered Republicans over registered Democrats.

No surprise:

Mead, a former U.S. attorney, is favored by 84% of membersin his own party.

But all of this is scary and weird:

Twenty-six percent (26%) of Wyoming voters consider themselves membersof the Tea Party movement, much higher than the national average.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Tea Partiers in Wyoming favor Mead. Only 38% of non-Tea Party members support the Democrat, while a majority(51%) favors the Republican.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of all voters in the state say the Tea Party movement is good for the country.

And, finally, we get to the crux of the matter (also no surprise):

John McCain carried Wyoming over Barack Obama by a 65% to 33% margin in November 2008. Now just 32% of Wyoming voters approve of the job Obama is doing as president. Sixty-seven percent (67%) disapprove of his job performance. This is considerably higher disapproval that is found nationally in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

So, Republican Matt Mead will be our next governor. The majority of Tea Partiers will vote for Mead, as will some Democrats. Dems will vote for Mead because he is a moderate in the tradition of many Wyoming politicians. Repubs don’t have to be moderate, but let’s just say it’s a tradition. Democrats, such as Gov. Dave Freudenthal, have no choice – wearing the cloak of Republicanism is crucial to victory. He ran against Republican loonies in two races and won both times. Will Mead stay moderate? Or will he have to kowtow to the very loud Tea Party.

A look at his web site shows a few Tea Party planks slipping in. Here’s one on his “Health Care and Quality of Life page,” which is also a priority of the Republican Party:

Wyoming should join with other states in the ongoing legal challenge against the recently passed federal health care law. In my view the law is unconstitutional and infringes on individual liberties. Our state’s voice should be heard. Under the new federal law, the Federal government is meddling in one sixth of our national economy. The law will kill jobs, distress small businesses, and hurt future growth. The expansion of Medicaid, the mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance or be penalized – these and other aspects ofthe federal law are not good for Wyoming or our citizens. This is not the time for our State to remain silent.

However, on the same page, he says this:

As Governor, I will tackle the tough issues that affect quality of life, like unemployment, health care, treatment of juveniles, domestic violence, services for persons with disabilities, teenage pregnancy, and the elderly. I want the best for Wyoming families now and in the future. We want safe, friendly communities and the ability to enjoy our great outdoors.

Some disconnect here. Can’t have great health care without health care reform. Many thousands of Wyoming families depend on Medicaid. To curtail the teenage pregnancy rate, will he engage in education or the Republicans usual weapon of choice – fear?

Four weeks left to election day. In Wyoming, you can vote early. Do it now or later – but vote!

The Tea Party is counting on you to stay home.

M.L. Liebler in DFP: New Book salutes "uniqueness of working-class culture"

Detroit Press Press Pop Culture Reporter Julie Hinds penned an article about poet and poetry activist M.L. Liebler. M.L. edited the recent anthology "Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams" from Coffee House Press. One of my short stories is in the anthology.

Here's an excerpt:

It includes a powerful, eclectic assortment of writings, from poetry and short fiction to memoirs and nonfiction. And, of course, there are rock lyrics -- a reflection of the artistry of the genre and the impact that music has always had on Liebler, who considers the Beatles among his earliest teachers.

The lyrics to "Lose Yourself" by Eminem and "The Big Three Killed My Baby" by Jack White, two working-class heroes from the Motor City region, are featured in "Working Words." So are songs by one of America's greatest music icons, Bob Dylan.

At 500-plus pages, the anthology also contains works by old-school greats like Willa Cather, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, contemporary writers like Amiri Baraka and Andrei Codrescu and many writers with Michigan ties, including Philip Levine, Michael Moore, Bonnie Jo Campbell and Liebler himself.

In an introduction to the book, Liebler, who lives in his hometown of St. Clair Shores and is the poet laureate there, describes how he had two goals for the project: to let American writers tell stories of work and to pay homage "in the most inclusive and diverse way to the uniqueness of working-class cultures" and his own roots.

Read the DFP piece at http://www.freep.com/article/20101003/FEATURES05/10030324/M-L-Liebler-wants-to-make-poetry-accessible-to-everyone

Denver developer/preservationist Dana Crawford to address "Partnerships for Preservation" conference

Just in the past year, many exciting things have been happening to renew Cheyenne's downtown. The Depot and its outdoor plaza have brought life to downtown on summer weekends with concerts, a farmer's market and various events inside the Depot. Just recently, local organizers launched the Lights On! project to turn the main floor of the Hynds Building into an arts center. City planners are still pondering downtown's big hole, hoping that inspiration will strike.

Here's another event, geared mainly toward preservation of historic areas (including downtown):

"Buildings, Business & Bankers - Partnerships for Preservation"

Buildings, Businesses, and Bankers - these are the keys to achieving our collective vision for historic areas in our communities. The mission of this conference is to bring together the best from each of these realms to advance momentum for community development and preservation.

Featuring award-winning preservationist Dana Crawford and community marketing and branding specialist Ben Muldrow.

Join us and be part of the movement!

Wednesday, October 13, 4:30 p.m., through Friday, October 15, 2 p.m., at the Historic Plains Hotel, 1600 Central Avenue, Cheyenne.

RSVP by Oct. 6.

FMI: http://www.cvent.com/EVENTS/Info/Agenda.aspx?e=abc3372d-1d90-4e17-a236-af305b712d88

The Lancet: "ADHD is not purely a social construct"

Purely a social construct? I never thought that, but others did -- and do. Partly a social construct, I would have said. So, this study is not exactly good news but it does help explain a few things.

From The Lancet medical journal in London:

Our findings provide genetic evidence of an increased rate of large CNVs in individuals with ADHD and suggest that ADHD is not purely a social construct.

Read the summary at http://www.lancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61109-9/fulltext. Huff Post and others also covered the study. If you had ADHD, you would already be Googling.

Getting a handle on health care reform's impact on our families

All of us with special needs children are doing our best to understand health care legislation. Just our luck that we'll have it all memorized and then the Repubs will claim victory in November and try to roll back the clock on this issue -- that's what they've promised. So good at undoing -- so bad at doing.

The following info comes from the Statewide Family and Consumer Networks Technical Assistance Center. It features great links to help families grok the ins and outs of health care reform. Thanks to Peggy Nickell at Wyoming UPLIFT for passing this along:

Links to Resources on Healthcare Reform

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed The Affordable Care Act into law. This comprehensive healthcare reform law includes many provisions that will impact children, youth and their families. Many websites have been developed and updated with information designed to help families and healthcare consumers navigate these changes. The following are links to sites that provide extremely helpful guidance on the new healthcare reform law and implementation:

 The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has developed a website dedicated to helping people better understand the new healthcare law. It includes a section titled Families with Children that provides resources on a variety of topics. Here is a link to that section of the website: http://www.healthcare.gov/foryou/family/index.html.

 The Kaiser Family Foundation has created a new section of their website titled Explaining the Basics of Health Reform. It includes multiple resources to help explain many of the complex provisions included in the law. Here is a link to that section of the website: http://www.kff.org/healthreform/basics.cfm#explaininghealthcarereformseries.

 The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law has developed a health reform section of their website that helps to explain the comprehensive provisions of the law and includes links to other websites that also provide helpful analysis. Here is a link to the Bazelon site: http://www.bazelon.org/Where-We-Stand/Access-to-Services/Health-Care-Reform/Final-Law-and-Implementation-.aspx.

 The National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare has added a Policy Issues and Resource section to their website dedicated to the recently enacted healthcare reform law. This section of the website also includes access to archived Webinars on Healthcare Reform. Here is a link to the website: http://www.thenationalcouncil.org/cs/healthcare_reform.

 Resources developed as part of a joint project of The George Washington University's Hirsh Health Law and Policy Program and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have been posted to a website titled Health Reform GPS ~ Navigating Implementation. Here is the link to the website: http://www.healthreformgps.org/.

 Families USA has created a section of their website titled Health Reform Central ~ The Road to Implementation that includes a series of helpful resources. Here is a link to the website: http://www.familiesusa.org/health-reform-central/.

Localarts: Shoot-out at Cheyennewood Oct. 15-17

Wyoming's Barrasso and Enzi join 43 other Senators to block bill to stop sending US jobs overseas

Daily Kos blogger MinistryOfTruth was suitably upset today when Senate Republicans voted to keep sending American jobs overseas.

45 Senators BLOCK bill to stop sending US jobs overseas with a tax cut wet kiss. This is MADNESS!

Americans: Stop being so very, very, very afraid

Ask me. Go ahead.

From Al Haug, Minneapolis.

Leslie Petersen drops into Cheyenne Sept. 28

The Leslie Petersen campaign sent this notice:

Leslie Petersen, Democratic Candidate for Governor, will hold a News Conference in Cheyenne in the Wyoming Capitol on Tuesday, September 28th at 10:30 AM.

Governor Freudenthal will appear with Petersen to talk about her candidacy at the beginning of the press conference.

The subject of the press conference is funding for our communities and the need for adequate and reliable funding for local services.

Leslie will take questions from the media and the public after her opening remarks.

"Helping Hands for Haiti" features art, food and music Sept. 30 in Cheyenne

Clay Paper Scissors Gallery in downtown Cheyenne will host a reception for its new show "Helping Hands for Haiti -- paintings and drawings by Paula Egan-Wright," on Thursday September 30, 5:30-7 p.m. Traditional Haitian food will be served and music will be provided by the Haitian Quartet

Paula Egan-Wright, an East High School French teacher, spent part of the summer in Haiti helping with earthquake relief at an orphanage. While she was there, she produced beautiful and poignant paintings and drawings of the people, places and the destruction wrought by the earthquake. Full of hope and life moving on, these paintings provide a moving documentary of a country struggling to regain its feet after disaster. Paula's drawings include portraits of children and people, and show the changes to famous places like the President's Palace and the Iron Market. All proceeds will go to support the orphanage in Haiti. Helping Hands for Haiti will be up through October 23, 2010.

Current gallery hours are Fridays and Saturday, 1-5 p.m.

FMI: Call 307-631-6039.

Follow the gallery on Facebook! Become a fan at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cheyenne-WY/Clay-Paper-Scissors-Gallery-Studio/84834729244

Wyoming already has its Tea Party candidate in Rep. Cynthia Lummis

David Wendt, Democratic Party candidate for Wyoming's lone U.S. House seat, wrote a fine editorial for Sunday's Casper Star-Tribune. In it, he wonders why Rep. Cynthia Lummis has sided with the Tea Party when that's definitely not Wyoming's cup of tea.

In his words:

Here in Wyoming we didn’t have to wait until the primary election was over to have our Tea Party candidate. This summer Rep. Cynthia Lummis had already signed on as a member within the 435-member U.S. House of Representatives of the 28-member "Tea Party caucus." Others of this group included Rep. Joe Barton, who felt it necessary to apologize to BP for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Do we really want to marginalize our state by sending back as our one representative in the House of Representatives, a member of this extremist caucus? What does the Tea Party know or care about Wyoming’s interests? On issues near and dear to Wyoming, like keeping the Wyoming Range off limits to drilling, Rep. Lummis has distanced herself from even her traditional conservative colleagues, Sens. Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, by opposing this cherished legacy of the late Sen. Craig Thomas.

The Tea Party has reaped a harvest of fear in national politics. They have played upon legitimate fears of economic insecurity, government overreaching, terrorism, and illegal immigration to create a harvest of anti-tax hysteria and religious intolerance. Wrapping themselves in the mantle of God and country, they purport to "take our country back" from their fellow Americans, as if all those who don’t share their views are traitors.

But is fear what we are about here in Wyoming? We pride ourselves on our frontier heritage. We have always brought to our challenges a spirit of self-reliance and courage to face the unknown. Time and again, we have summoned forth the initiative to respond to such challenges as the struggle for women’s equality, the preservation of public spaces and natural resources, and the fulfillment of our role as the nation’s energy workhorse.

Read the rest at http://trib.com/news/opinion/forums/article_6cee1ea1-c2e6-5887-9528-714efe6833e5.html

Read the full list of the members of the Tea Party Caucus at Michele Bachmann's (yes, that Michele Bachmann) web site at http://bachmann.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=199440

Rep. Lummis, the company you keep!

Can you say Equality State?

By Jeremy Pelzer at the Casper Star-Tribune:

Wyoming and nine other states signed onto a legal brief Friday claiming a federal court "exceeded its judicial authority" when it ruled that the U.S. Constitution requires legal marriage to include same-sex couples.

In the amicus brief, which was set to be filed late Friday afternoon with the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals, the states criticized a California federal judge's ruling last month that California's Proposition 8, a voter-passed ban on same-sex marriage, was illegal on federal constitutional grounds.

In the ruling, Judge Vaughn Walker wrote that there was no legitimate state interest in preventing same-sex marriages and that "moral disapproval" alone wasn't sufficient reason to justify banning it.

The case, Perry vs. Schwarzenegger, is currently on appeal. Lawyers for both sides have said they expect the case to ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

The other states joining the brief are Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.

Among other points, the 39-page brief asserts that same-sex marriage is not a fundamental right; questions the legal grounds of the decision; and holds that individual states, not the federal court system, have final say in decisions about whether to allow same-sex marriages.

The brief also states that Walker's definition of marriage as the state's approval of a couple's choice to live with, commit to and form a household and economic partnership with each other is a "staggeringly broad" definition that could open the door to polyamorous or even non-sexual marriages.

Dogs and cats living together! Married people not having sex! Polyamority!

Why is this the business of the State of Wyoming?

Wyoming Hell Pig rampages through book festival

The "Hell Pig" (a.k.a. Archaeotherium) display at the Tate Geological Museum at Casper College. I was attending "A Conversation about Dinosaurs" at the Tate as part of the Equality State Book Festival. Dino illustrator Ray Troll was one of the speakers. His colorful "Hell Pig" illustration adorns Tate T-shirts.

More on Hell Pig from an October 2009 Casper College press release:

Kent Sundell, Casper College geology instructor, appeared on a new National Geographic TV series: "Prehistoric Predators." The segment in which Sundell appeared was entitled: "Killer Pigs."

"At four feet wide and 1,000 pounds, the killer pig was a prehistoric battle tank that dominated the North American landscape. Endowed with some truly unique bioengineering traits, the killer pig relied on its massive three-foot-long skull and binocular vision to catch its prey," said the National Geographic Society on its website: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/prehistoric-predators/3885/Overview.

The National Geographic crew filmed Sundell in the field at Douglas, Wyo. and at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center for three days in June of 2008. Sundell has proven that the local prehistoric pig specimens from Wyoming, scientific name Archaeotherium, are “definitely predatory in nature.”

GOP pledges to turn back the clock to 2008... or 1958.. or is that 1848?

"Tomorrow, my health insurance will suck less."

That was Rachel Maddow on her Wednesday evening show.

On Thursday, Sept. 23, all our health insurance policies now suck less. That's when some of the provisions in the health reform legislation we fought so hard for kicked in. You can find all the details at http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/benefitsofreform?source=issues.

You can call it Obamacare if you want. The Republicans do this in the form of a curse. Every time they utter the name "Obama" it's in the form of a curse. They have been programmed to do this by Fox, or maybe the Tea Party, or maybe their tiny little minds can do nothing else. The Republican lexicon now consists of very few words that matter.

Which brings me to the Republican "A Pledge to America," released on the same exact day that our insurance plans began to suck less. This is the day that the Republican Party platform began to suck even more and, possibly, stink to high heaven.

"Repeal Obamacare." You probably saw that one. You can translate that any way you want to. I choose to think it sends this message to the Republican Pod People: "Scary black man from Kenya with Muslim origins and no birth certificate still wants to kill grandma! And you too! And billions of unborn white conservative babies!"

Repubs pledge to make the rich even richer than you and me by keeping George W. Bush's tax cuts. This past week, Forbes Magazine released its list of the 400 weathiest Americans. Their wealth, combined, is $1.37 trillion. I don't know about you, but this is a little more than the net worth of me and my closest 399 friends. These richy-rich folks are whining that a return to a reasonable 39 percent tax bracket will stifle American ingenuity and cause them to hire fewer employees. They shall be forced to sleep under bridges and beg for crusts of bread on the streets.

All nonsense, of course. Pres. Bush paid back his rich cronies when he and Congress (Democrats too!) passed these tax cuts and then waged two wars with less tax money than before and ran up a huge deficit.

In its pledge, the GOP vows to "roll the government back to 2008 levels." What the GOP won't have to do it roll back Pentagon spending to 2008 levels because that would be a decrease in spending. To the GOP, defense spending is sacrosanct. So repubs plan to "freeze stimulus spending and impose hard limits on future spending."

Will they do that with Pentagon spending too? No, due to the fact that they don't hate the troops but the Democrats do. This is sometimes just implied by Repubs but often they say it out loud.

Wyoming's Rep. Cynthia Lummis made this statement on Thursday:

"While people in Wyoming and people all over the country have been speaking out, those in power have carried out a job-killing, budget-busting agenda. The wishes of the American people have been blatantly and repeatedly disregarded."

Wyoming is a one-party Red State. It's lone rep and two senators are all GOPers now, as usual. When they speak about "the people of Wyoming," they're thinking of their conservative base, which is almost everyone they know. Those "speaking out" the past year are the Tea Party fringe. When they speak out, the GOP listens. Many Liberals wonder: "Huh?" I've been to Tea Party rallies and have asked that question many times.

At its Sept. 8-9 meeting in Buffalo, the state legislative committee pledged to vote in December on a bill to establish a $2 million "litigation account" to pay for "legal challenges to portions of the new national health care reform law." This was reported Friday in the Casper Star-Tribune. Republican Sen. Charles Scott of Casper wrote the bill. He says that "Obamacare" will result in higher costs in Wyoming.

There's that scary word again. Scott contends that "Obamacare" is an extreme far-left bill. That tickles many of us Progressives who actually wanted a single-payer system. Health reform was a compromise. But Repubs always think they are the only ones who should have a say and they whine when they are forced to compromise. They have very little practice doing this, as "No" and "Hell No" are their favorite terms.   

So, the Wyoming people have spoken. "Stop the scary black man in Washington, D.C. He wants to kill Grandma and take away her guns! And he wants to make rich people less rich! UnAmerican!"

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

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

The Detroit Metro Times had this to say about the book

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

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

Sunflower Sunday

Giant backyard sunflowers still scaring the neighbors and capturing the late summer sun. And what a sun today!

Linda Stowers: Support your local Democratic candidates

Message from Linda Stowers, Chair of the Laramie County Democrats (Go Linda!):

Dear Fellow Democrats,

I am proud to say I’m a Democrat in Wyoming. Not many people are saying that these days, but I think we need to step up and share our views and candidates with our neighbors. We have a great slate of candidates in Laramie County. At the County level we have Jeff Ketcham, County Commissioner, Wendy Soto, District Court Clerk and Tim Thorsen , County Clerk. All three are hardworking and dedicated individuals and we must elect them this fall. At the Legislative level we have Kathryn Sessions, Lori Millin, Ken McCauley, Robert Aylward, Jim Byrd, Mary Throne, Ken Esquibel and Gary Roadifer. We have the opportunity to pick up two additional House seats and a Senate seat. We must also help Leslie Peterson, Mike Massie and David Wendt with their statewide campaigns.

We have our office up and running. Stop by the office located at 408 W 23rd (across from the County Library) and pick up literature, signs or drop off a donation. If you can’t stop by give us a call at 307-634-9001 and we will have a sign delivered or literature sent. We can also use volunteers to help canvass, conduct phone banks or send out flyers on behalf of our candidates.

Upcoming events include an ice cream and pie social in Burns on September 18th, a Roadside rally on September 23rd ,a Chili Dinner on October 17th and a Victory Party on November 2. Candidates also have activities planned so there will be many opportunities to show your Democratic colors whether they be purple, red, blue, yellow or other colors of your choice. Stand up and be counted as a Democrat and support our Laramie County Candidates.

I have three campaign signs in my yard. How about you?

FMI: http://www.laramiecountydemocrats.org/

History of book festivals in Wyoming, part two

Smoke is in the morning air. Residue from the fire that destroyed the Hitching Post Inn, a Cheyenne landmark.

The Hitch was the site for the first Wyoming Bookfest on Oct. 26-27, 2001. We remember that fall for the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the anthrax attacks on Congress. Then came the invasion of Afghanistan by U.S. forces. Smoke was in the air that year, too.

Meanwhile, in Cheyenne, a handful of writers and booklovers were organizing what we hoped would become an annual tradition.

If I remember correctly (and I don’t always) the idea started with a meeting of local writers Chip Carlson and Larry Brown with Gene Bryan, who then was in charge of events at the Best Western Hitching Post Inn Resort and Conference Center, a.k.a. “The Hitch.” That’s pretty much what everyone called it, then and now.

The three co-conspirators thought a bookfest was just the thing for Cheyenne. Unlike its surrounding states, Wyoming had yet to have a statewide book festival. It would benefit writers, booksellers and The Hitch.

Linn Rounds, then head of the Wyoming Center for the Book, was pulled into the committee. So was I. Kathy Murphy, secretary to Wyoming Dept. of Commerce Chief John Keck, volunteered to keep track of all the proceedings. She did a great job, Kathy, alas, died a few years later. In the end, we had a great collection of people, including Kathleen Gillgannon of the YMCA Writer’s Voice, and reps from the Laramie County Public Library and the Wyoming Humanities Council.

Warning for anyone planning a book festival – it’s a lot of work. Forty-two poets, writers, editors, storytellers, musicians and at least one wood sculptor participated in the Oct. 26-27 event. That doesn’t include booksellers and presses featured at the book fair. Committee members were running around like crazy people, getting people to the correct rooms and finding more chairs when needed.

It got off to a heady start with a Friday evening reading by four poets laureate: Robert Roripaugh of Wyoming, Mary Crow of Colorado, David Lee from Utah and Bill Kloefkorn of Nebraska. The crowd was SRO, and it was a real thrill to have four great poets reading their work at one event. Just think of how many square miles are represented by these people from four big almost-square states.

David Lee was fresh from his appearance at the first National Book Festival on the National Mall in D.C. That event was organized by the Library of Congress and First Lady Laura Bush.

We also had a guest speaker that evening in U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi. Sen. Enzi and his staff no longer had offices in D.C. due to the anthrax attacks. So he brought a batch of staffers with him to Cheyenne. He spoke about the recent happenings in the capital, but then launched into one of his favorite subjects – books. He’s a big reader – I’ve watched him buy bags full of books from Wyoming writers. For the life of me, I can’t understand how he can be a booklover and also tolerate some of the Know Nothing views of his Republican Party.

Sen. Enzi also was in town for a very somber event. This was the funeral of one of the first G.I.’s killed in Afghanistan. U.S. Army Spec. Jonn Edmunds of Cheyenne was on a helicopter bringing troops to the war zone when it crashed Oct. 19 in Pakistan. All aboard were killed.

Thousands attended the Saturday funeral. We had hoped for thousands that day at the bookfest, but fell a bit short. It wasn’t for lack of trying. We had fantastic sessions on writing cookbooks, westerns, mysteries and poetry. We had some of the best anthology editors in Wyoming talking about “Editing Western Anthologies.” Local writer C.J. Box, who’s now published more than a dozen mysteries and won the prestigious Edgar Award, talked about “Whodunits on the High Plains.” I was on a panel with writers Teresa Funke and Jeffe Kennedy talking about “Starting (and Maintaining) Your Writing Critique Group.” My group is still intact, as is Teresa’s. Jeffe’s group in Laramie is defunct – and she now lives in Santa Fe.

On the Children’s Stage in the now-destroyed Saddleback Lounge, my son and his pals at East High staged an open mike. It also saw performances by Aussie storyteller Paul Taylor and the Cheyenne Youth Symphony.

We were exhausted by the end of the day. In the ensuing weeks, we went over all the evaluations. Most negative comments were about lack of attendance and lack of book sales. Lots of people had lots of ideas about how to make it better. More publicity. More big-name authors. Bigger book fair. Get more people to do the work. Involve more local organizations and business.

Here’s on comment I liked: “A number of authors travel a great distance to attend —at last give them a sandwich for lunch.”

You want mayo or mustard with that?

Here’s a great comment from C.J. Box: “The bookfest shouldn’t be all things to all people… While musical performances and wood art may bring in some folks, the bookfest should be about books and authors.”

A few months after the bookfest, the committee met for a brainstorming session. We stormed our brains out. We all wanted to have another bookfest, but there wasn’t enough interest to form a solid committee to write grants, enlist sponsors and plan the myriad bookfest details.

It was five years before there was another book festival. This one was a true statewide book event, the Equality State Book Festival in Casper. It was six years before there was another bookfest in Cheyenne, and that was the Wyoming Book Festival in downtown Cheyenne. It’s a project of the Wyoming Center for the Book at the Wyoming State Library.

Planning for the first ESBF began in late 2004. It involved a very motivated and dependable planning committee. A big budget too – more than $100,000. Lots of sponsoring organizations in Casper and throughout Wyoming.

The third ESBF will be held Sept. 24-25 at Casper College and environs. I’m on the committee but the real work is done by the Casper people, especially the co-chairs Laurie Lye and Holly Wendt.

Here’s to you, bookfest organizers. Lots of work and little glory. But people come out to see their favorite authors and buy books. Every year, bookfest authors go to local schools to get kids excited about reading. Bookstores sell books. Authors read from their books. There’s a late-night slam for poets. Workshops for striving writers and poets.

We’ve all learned some lessons since that first bookfest when the smoke from 9/11 was still in the air.

The Hitch was not officially an historic site, just the place of many memories for many people. It fell on hard times, then sold to new owners and then closed by the health department. Nine years ago it was the place where some concerned citizens constructed the foundation for bookfests to come. Part of the state's creative economy, you might say.

Now it’s smoke and ruins.

See you in Casper as we keep building bookfest traditions.

History of book festivals in Wyoming, part one

Before book festivals arrived in Wyoming in the 21st century, we had many localized book events. I remember the mass book signing at the Western Writers of America Conference in Cheyenne in (not sure of the year but I think it was 1999). The writers took over Barnes & Noble, which is the way it should be. Lots of books sold, too.

Wyoming Writers, Inc., always has a bookstore room and an authors’ signing as part of its annual conference. I’ve participated in at least one Wyoming Authors’ Day at the Central Wyoming College Library in Riverton – and there have probably been more. I was part of a huge author signing in Denver in 2006.

I’ve attended many book fairs, such as the one held annually by the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association in Denver. There is a huge book fair at the annual Associated Writers and Writing Programs annual conference. The last one I attended was in Austin and was trapped for days in the massive book fair, missing such enlightening literary sessions as “Hemingway’s Tiny Penis and How It Made Him a Terrible Writer” and “Chick Lit – Scourge or Menace?” Instead, I bought books and met editors of presses and literary magazines which might some day print my stuff. I attended an intriguing publishing session entitled “Mike Shay’s Stuff Sucks, Which is Why We Don’t Publish it in Our Prestigious Journals.”

But book festivals are a different animal. Lots of writers and lots of books and lots of workshops with writers. Fun, too.

I was on the committee that helped plan the first Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver. I served as a volunteer emcee at the 1995 RMBF and planned a reading of Tumblewords writers from Wyoming and the rest of the Rocky Mountain West at the 1996 RMBF. As an emcee, I met and introduced historian Robert Massie, activist/actor/writer Russell Means and children’s writer Jack Gantos. If I remember correctly, the slide projector’s bulb burned out and we couldn’t locate another one, which put a dent in Gantos’s presentation. Fortunately, he’s a forgiving soul, and now is coming to Casper for his second stint at the Equality State Book Festival.

The third biennial Equality State Book Festival is Sept. 24-25 in Casper. I’m the only non-Casper person on the planning committee. Despite my long-distance status, I’ve been on the committee since 2004 when we began planning the first bookfest for fall of 2006. Yes, it took almost two years to put the first one together. We had grants to write, venues to secure and writers to contact. First, the money. I wrote a successful collaborative grant to the National Endowment for the Arts. Co-sponsors were the Wyoming Arts Council, my employer, and the Casper College Foundation. The NEA saw fit to approve $10,000. The foundation came through with some big bucks and we were on our way.

What happened next? Why are book festivals different from literary conferences? Does this blog make my head look big? Tune in tomorrow.

Helpful links:
www.equalitystatebookfest.com
www.mountainsplains.org
http://arts.endow.gov
www.caspercollege.edu
www.wyomingartscouncil.org
www.westernwriters.org
www.wyowriters.org

The Bee... the Bee... the Bee is back...

...sucking nectar as a matter of fact. I think that Sir Elton would give me leave as I take liberty with his (Bernie's?) lyrics. If not, he can go suck nectar. It appears that this is the same bee I see every morning at my giant sunflower. Can that be? Not much bee activity in my garden this summer. Makes me wonder about the bee shortage reported these past few years. When I visited the CSU gardens last week, hundreds of bees swarmed the blossoms.

Bees find home in giant Wyoming sunflower

For this cellphone photo, I was trying to get very close to my giant sunflower. And then I saw the giant bee. It's great to see bees return to the garden. Just didn't want him to sting me in the eyeball.

News from the front: Irish look on as Scots march on Estes Park

I have all sorts of feelings when I go to the Long's Peak Scottish-Irish Festival in Estes Park.

Questions, too. For instance, why do the Scots get top billing?

My wife Chris has a great insight into this: Who better to organize something than Scots?

Talk about your stereotypes. Scots are a no-nonsense, business-minded, well-organized race who can plan the heck out of any event.

The Irish, on the other hand, are Guinness-swilling layabouts who attend the Scottish-Irish Festival to swill Guinness and lay about watching Celtic fusion bands, most of whom are Scottish.

As a disorganized Irishman, I can't disagree. I would much rather have a Scotswoman such as Chris organizing a festival, a checkbook, a life. Of course, she is Scots-Irish by birth and German-Irish by upbringing (she was adopted). If you take all those pedigrees and put them into one person, you should have a well-organized beer-drinking lass who, when offended, will either cut off your head with a William Wallace-style sword or invade your country. Or both.

But she knows her birth mother’s name and that was Cummings and now she’s an officially enrolled member of the Cumming clan. Its crest has a lion and the motto “Courage.

I took photos as she marched in Saturday’s presentation of the clans. A strong military theme infuses the festival. Cannons sound in the distance. True, those cannons are shooting bowling balls into the reservoir, and one errant bowling ball even sank the green inflatable Loch Ness Monster that is a festival tradition (R.I.P. Nessie). A Colorado pilot did a flyover in a British jet trainer. The Canadian general who now runs NORAD in Colorado Springs was the keynoter at Saturday’s opening ceremonies. World War II vets of Iwo Jima were introduced in a celebration of the 75th anniversary of that World War II battle. Some young marines even recreated the flag-raising ceremony on Mount Suribachi. It wasn’t quite as impressive as the fake flag-raising that opens “Flags of Our Fathers,” but it was pretty good.

And the day included many references to the Sept. 11 anniversary, and the wars that followed.

As a lifelong civilian and peacenik, I look at these military traditions as part of the whole. This is much like the Boy Scouts, which drips with military-influenced traditions but is – at its core – a worthwhile organization for your sons. Unless they are openly gay. Which brings us back to the U.S. military and its don’t ask, don’t tell policy.

Pipe and drum bands have origins in war. I spotted one large bearded gentleman wearing a black T-shirt that had the “Black Watch World Tour” stops printed on the back. Quite a list, including gigs in Guadaloupe and then North America in the late 1700s (we know how that turned out), France in 1916, all the way to Iraq in 2003-2005.

The Black Watch is a famous British military unit and a famous pipe and drum band. My father played Black Watch records real loud on his home-built stereo, and he took my brother and me to see them perform. When they launched into “Scotland the Brave,” you could feel it in your gut.

At Saturday’s Estes Park ceremonies, the music opened with a performance by the Marine Band from Twenty-Nine Palms, California. That’s the desert training base that launches the Marines who fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many casualties over the past nine years. More to come, alas.

The Marine Band was comprised of men and women with lots of different ethnic groups represented. Like all marines, they are trained in combat weaponry. Unlike most marines, they play a mean tuba. The few, the proud, the tuba players. Trombone, too, and drums. Flute, even. Or “pipe,” as in pipe and drums.

The Marines were followed by the police pipe and drum band from Ottawa, Canada. Then came the massed pipe and drum corps from a bunch of different places, including Wyoming. When they marched into view, I got a glimpse of the amazing sight and sound that once confronted African and Indian tribesmen as they lined up to fight the British invaders.

There looked to be hundreds of pipers and drummers. They made that kind of sound.

After her clan march, Chris joined me in the stands. We watched the proceedings together. When it concluded, we were torn. Head over to the clan tents for a wee dram of single-malt Scotch? Or find the Guinness stand for a cold brew? We opted for the latter, and some food. No cultural differences here.

The enemy has been spotted -- and he's right next door

In this cleverly doctored photo from Pavlovian Obeisance (thanks P.O.!), Gen. Petraeus points out the fact that we have much more to worry about from domestic terrorists than from the foreign variety. If you look closely, it appears that the general is pointing to the nest of right-wing subversive elements in Afton, Wyoming. Or is that Pinedale? Looking at it from a Glenn Beck perspective, one might assume that the general is pointing out one of the state's lone cadres of latte-swilling, veggie-chomping Liberal Democrats -- the ones in Jackson and vicinity. They must be eliminated! First Jackson, then prog-bloggers in Cheyenne!

You can read about the recent arrest of a right-wing domestic terrorist at Think Progress:

A study released today by former leaders of the 9/11 Commission finds that “terrorism is increasingly taking on an American cast.” Warning of “a much more diverse threat,” the report urges the U.S. government to prepare for “the radicalization and recruitment of Americans to terrorist ranks.” While the report rightly warns of threats from radical Muslim extremists, law enforcement officials should also be concerned about right-wing zealots, as a 2009 Homeland Security report warned.

For instance, this past Tuesday, the FBI arrested 26-year old Christian radical Justin Carl Moose in Concord, N.C. for “providing information to create explosives” to “blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic.” Through his conversations with an FBI informant and his Facebook page, Moose expressed virulent “anger at abortion doctors, President Barack Obama’s health care plan, and plans to build a mosque near ground zero in New York city.” He goes on to describe himself as “the Christian counterpart to Osama bin Laden” who “has learned a lot from the muslim terrorists and have no problem using their tactics”:

Long's Peak Scottish-Irish Festival

Members of the wandering Celtic clans of Wyoming

Book burning humor featuring that book burnin' guy in FLA (and fellow travelers)

Kurt Vonnegut's books were target of many a book burnin'. Unpatriotic (imagine that?). Bad words. Anti-Christian. Blah, blah, blah. He said he welcomed the bump in book sales created by the publicity. I've never been to a book burning, not even in Gainesville. Have you?

Senate Repubs as Groucho: "I'm Against It!"

Sen. Barrasso of Wyoming does look a bit like Groucho...

Even on Labor Day, corporations busily creating fewer jobs

As always, bona fide populist Jim Hightower is angry and is making sense when it comes to corporate greed. Great reading for Labor Day (or even the day after Labor Day):

America's corporate chieftains must love poor people, for they're doing all they can to create millions more of them.

They're knocking down wages, offshoring everything from manufacturing jobs to high tech, reducing full-time work to part-time, downsizing our workplaces, busting unions, cutting health care coverage and canceling pensions -- while also lobbying in Washington to privatize Social Security, eliminate job safety protections, restrict unemployment benefits, kill job-creating programs and increase corporate control of our elections.

It's said that the poor and the rich will always be among us. But nowhere is it written that the middle-class will always be there. In fact, it is a very recent creation in our society (and an unavailable dream for most people in the world). America's great middle class literally arose with the rise of labor unions and populist political movements in the 1800s, finally culminating in democratic economic reforms implemented from the 1930s into the 1960s.

Read the rest at truthout.

You can light a fire with "Ignite Cheyenne"

Hey, everybody. You can "Ignite Cheyenne." I first heard about "Ignite" last year from Jeff Fruwirth. He's been participating in Ignite Fort Collins for awhile. Here's the info, cross-posted from wyomingarts:

If you had five minutes to say something to the people of Cheyenne, what would you say?

Well think it over, because we are giving you a chance to say it. "Ignite Cheyenne" is a place where people from Cheyenne and southeastern Wyoming can come to share ideas, hobbies, socialize and have a great time. Ignite Cheyenne is about showcasing your ideas and your passion. Both of those things can make Cheyenne an even better place! We want to hear you talk at Ignite Cheyenne.

Location: Historic Plains Hotel, 1600 Central Avenue, Cheyenne

Date: October 5, 2010

Schedule:

6 p.m.: Doors open -- Come for mingling and drinks

7 p.m.:  First group of talks

7:30-8 p.m.: Intermission

8-8:30 p.m.: Second group of talks

9 p.m.: Go home enlightened

Tickets: Starting September 3 at 9:30 am.,. you can get them on the blog. Tickets are free, but you must register to attend.

Agenda: Presenters have not been picked. If you’re interested in presenting, head over here to read some guidelines on the talks, then contact us here

Event Curators: Anna Nowak, Jeff Fruhwirth and Juliette Rule

What is Ignite, exactly?

On the website, Ignite is called a “global movement.” Here we just like to think of it as a group of people gathering around to share stories, tips and tricks that make life and work easier, and a forum for people to talk about their passions.

How does it work?

Each speaker at Ignite will get 20 slides to tell their story. However, there’s a catch: each slide will auto-advance after 15 seconds, making the total time of the talk 5 minutes. The format of the slides embodies the Ignite tagline “Enlighten us, but make it quick.”

How much does it cost?

"Ignite Cheyenne" is free to the public, but you do need to sign up for a free ticket. You can sign up for tickets starting at 9:30 am on Friday September 3, here. Having you register helps us by letting us know how many people to expect, and in turn how much food and beer to provide (also free) at the event.

What do I need to do?

Just show up. If you enjoy yourself, make sure to tell your friends and come back next time (we are shooting to coincide with Global Ignite Week for Ignite Cheyenne 2). If you’re feel really brave, give a talk!

We will be uploading pictures from the event to our Flickr page and the talks to our YouTube Channel.

What are some possible topics? What about these:

Ideas for filling up the hole in downtown Cheyenne

Public arts in Cheyenne -- beyond the bucking bronco.

Oil boom or oil bust?

Cheyenne -- a state of mind or a mind of state?

Cheyenne Frontier Days -- Is that All There Is?

Etc.....

History of Haters in America, Part I

Passed along by always-vigilant activist Meg Lanker of Laramie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Labor Day!

What the poem "The Hurt Locker" sounds like

I read Here, Bullet from Iraq War vet Brian Turner when it first came out. He has a new book and I will buy and read that too.

The Poetry Foundation web site posted a video of Brian reading "The Hurt Locker." Here's the narrative from that post:

Brian Turner’s “The Hurt Locker” started as a poem and ended as a Hollywood blockbuster. In his latest collection, Phantom Noise, the poet-soldier continues to explores the contradictions of war and the battles he fights long after returning home. Read a review by Courtney Cook at the Washington Post:


In his new collection, “Phantom Noise,” Turner is the same soldier, with the same keen eye, but he is even more battle-weary. Taken together, these books are an unusual two-part portrait of a decade of war: its strength, its wounds, its fantasies of home and, as it happens, the strange beauty of a stubbornly foreign culture. Taken alone, “Phantom Noise” is an unsettling plunge into a returned soldier’s dislocation. Through images that recur again and again, from Iraq to a podium in Colorado, from a field hospital to a pristine day on Puget Sound, we go deep inside this soldier’s relief, grief and alienation.

Feds to Pavillionites: Don't drink the water!

This post goes along with my earlier one about Laramie County Niobrara Shale drilling boom. At Tuesday's meeting, saw a nice film clip about horizontal drilling and fracking from Noble Energy, one of the boom's major players. It went into details about how drillers take pains to protect the water table. It rang with sincerity. But I wonder: Did Pavillion residents see a similar video before drilling and fracking started in their area?

See the PBS report at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/environment/feds-warn-residents-near-wyoming-gas-drilling-sites-not-to-drink-their-water/3338/