Tell it like it is M.L. and Wanda and Walt and Eminem and Maria and...

Nice review of the anthology "Working Words" in Hot Metal Bridge, the litmag at University of Pittsburgh. The reviewer, Amanda Brant, points out that "tell it like it is" seems to be the touchstone holding the many pieces together." Who can argue? Not every day that Eminem and Walt Whitman and Jim Daniels and Wanda Coleman and Emily Dickinson and Michael Moore and Maria Mazzioti Gillan get to share the same stage.

The reviewer excerpted the end of Gillan's long poem, “Daddy, We Called You.” Because it is much easier to cut-and-paste than actually type, here it is:

Papa,
silk worker,
janitor,
night watchman,
immigrant Italian,
better than any “Father Knows Best” father,
bland as white rice,
with your wine press in the cellar,
with the newspapers you collected
out of garbage piles to turn into money
you banked for us,
with your mousetraps,
with your cracked and calloused hands,
with your yellowed teeth.

Papa,
dragging your dead leg
through the factories of Paterson,
I am outside the house now,
shouting your name.

Read the entire review at Hot Metal Bridge.

Buy "Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams" at Coffee House Press or from your local bookstore.

No Hobbit Homes for Tea Party Slim

When my neighbor, Tea Party Slim, came to the door, I thought he was going to rub my face in the election results.

But I was wrong.

“I guess you won,” I said, extending my hand.

He shook it. “We did. But that’s water under the bridge. Got a few minutes?”

Slim didn’t wait for an invitation. He breezed right past me and sat on the couch. He held a sheaf of papers in his right hand. He shook them at me. “America’s suburbs are threatened with a gigantic conspiracy.”

“Want some coffee?” I asked.

“Not if it’s that shade-tree grown farmer-friendly commie goop they sell at farmer’s markets and serve at trendy city coffee shops.”

I was taken aback. Slim had never refused coffee before.

“That’s what I’m saying. The cities are talking over, trying to push us suburbanites into U.N.-mandated human habitation zones.”

I had many questions. But first, I had to set the record straight. “Slim, we don’t live in the suburbs.”

“We do too. We’re not in the city. That’s downtown.”

“We’re in the city limits. The suburbs ring a city. Suburbanites have to drive to work.”

“I drive to work. So do you.”

“True, but sometimes I walk. Sometimes I ride my bike. I could ride the bus if I wanted.”

“That’s what they want – public transportation.”

During the past year, I’ve had similar one-sided conversations with Slim. Socialized health care. Missing birth certificates. Elitists in Washington. It was best to get a cup of commie coffee and let it play out. So I did.

“You’ve heard of Article 21?” He was shaking the papers at me again.

“I haven’t.”

He smiled. “I knew it.” There followed a long convoluted explanation, so long, in fact, that it forced me back to the coffee pot. When I returned, Slim was still talking. It was peppered with references to "compact development" and "smart growth" and “sustainable development” and "New Urbanism" and "transit-oriented development” and “creative economy” and "livable communities."

“These all lead to the same thing – the U.N. forcing us to live in Hobbit homes.”

“You mean Hobbit like in the movie? Those nifty little houses in Hobbiton with the round doors?”

“Not so cute if you’re 6-foot-2 like I am and are forced to live in one and give up your two-car garage and three bathrooms and big kitchen and back porch with the gas grill.” He looked like he was going to cry.

“Don’t worry, Slim. None of that is going to happen. Hobbiton is just an imaginary place.”

His face took on the rosy red glare of Tea Party outrage. “You’re darn right it’s not going to happen. Americans have the Constitutional right to live in any kinds of houses we want and drive any kind of truck we want.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said.

“Trucks are our ‘personal mobility machines” – that’s what Ed Braddy of the American Dream Coalition calls them. He’s a real trailblazer – you should look him up. A true visionary.”

“I drive a Prius, but you know that. But I’m thinking of buying that new electric car. Just plug it in at night – no more gas stations.”

He laughed. “Article 21 already has you by the balls. Next thing you’re going to tell me is that you and your wife are going to retire to a cramped city condo instead of a sprawling retirement community in Arizona with a golf course.”

“Yes, Slim, that’s exactly what I’m saying. The misses and I already have a cool condo picked out in Denver. It’s close to stores and museums and relatives. We can walk everywhere or take the light rail. No lawns to mow and water. The apartment complex even has its own roof garden where I can plant my veggies. It’s close to a bikepath and …..

Slim stood. He’d heard enough. “You go ahead and live in a Hobbit home, Frodo.” He shook his papers. “We’re going to fight this at city hall. No human habitation zones for us.”

I stood. “Good luck, man. You’ve had some recent successes so best to strike while the iron’s hot.”

"Join us, Mike. Join the rising tide of outrage against nearly everything.”

I saw Slim to the door. “I’d love to, Slim, but I have to ride my bike to the winter farmer’s market in the renovated historic Depot downtown to buy my locally produced food and locally made Christmas presents. That’s all part of sustainable development, Slim.”

I thought his head would explode. But he calmed himself and smiled. “We’re on a winning streak, you said so yourself.”

“True, but streaks don’t last forever. Just ask a baseball player. Or a Democrat. Even a Republican.”

With that, he said his farewells, got in his truck and drove to his house two doors down.

Inspiration for this piece came from the recent article in Mother Jones, “The Tea Party Targets… Sustainable Development?” by Stephanie Mencimer. Go to http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/11/tea-party-agenda-21-un-sustainable-development?

UPLIFT presents Rodger McDaniel with public service award

Photos by Mindy Dahl

Wyoming Tribune-Eagle education reporter Josh Mitchell wrote about UPLIFT’s 20th anniversary celebration in Wednesday’s edition.

The celebration was held Tuesday evening in the Cole Elementary school gym. One of my fellow UPLIFT board members, Brenda Ducharme, teaches at the school.

UPLIFT, the Wyoming affiliate of Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health, presented Rodger McDaniel (shown in lower left in photo with UPLIFT Director Peggy Nickell) with its public service award. McDaniel is the outgoing director of the Wyoming Department of Health’s Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Division. He will be missed.

I served with Rodger in the early 1990s on the first board of Laramie County Habitat for Humanity. I moved on to other volunteer roles and a few years later, Rodger and his family were in Nicaragua directing that country’s Habitat projects. He returned to his law practice, became an ordained minister and was eventually tapped by Gov. Dave Freudenthal for public service. His retirement was announced last week.

Rodger’s been crucial in bringing vision to a state that struggles with some rotten mental health and drug abuse statistics. Crisis centers – even in the Capital City – are few and far between, as are clinicians. The division’s Medicaid Waiver program for children and teens have helped pay for residential treatment and, even more importantly, aftercare when the child returns home.

Here’s hoping that Rodger and his colleagues have put us on a course that even 2010-style regressive politics can’t change. Wyoming’s new “Code of the West” may be fine for ropin’ and brandin’, but it doesn’t help curtail alarming teen suicide statistics and the state’s shortage of quality children's mental health treatment.

Josh interviewed me for the Nov. 17 story. My two cents worth:

Mike Shay is an UPLIFT board member and both of his children received help from the organization.

UPLIFT outreach coordinators attend school meetings with parents, Shay noted. The organization helps navigate parents through the complex system and connects families with different services, Shay added.

“UPLIFT”s been crucial in Wyoming,” Shay said.

I’d send you to the WTE site to read the rest, but it’s not on there.

As I've said here before, my son struggled with ADHD and my daughter has mental health issues. Both were helped by the incredible UPLIFT staff. We need these professionals to navigate school and government and treatment centers. They serve as guides to us confused, stressed-out parents.

You can find out more about UPLIFT at http://www.upliftwy.org/

Speaking of short stories -- return of Mrs. P

Here are the opening paragraphs of my story included in the new Coffee House Press anthology, Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams:

The Problem with Mrs. P

First problem: nobody was home to help. Not her two daughters, off to school. Not her husband Robbie, who hadn’t been home for weeks, probably right this minute at that whore Gloria’s house.


Second problem: she was seven months pregnant and bleeding like crazy. She pressed a cream-colored towel against her crotch; it bloomed with a red chrysanthemum of her own blood. She stood in the bathroom doorway, eyes sparking, knees shaking.

Third problem: her damn husband had the car. Not that she was in any shape to make the seven-mile drive into Cheyenne, ten if you factored in the hospital which was downtown.

Fourth problem: the telephone was dead, thanks to Robbie not paying the bills like he was supposed to. She had her own prepaid cell phone with a few minutes still left on it. But it was downstairs on the kitchen table. Just the thought of negotiating the stairs brought a throbbing to her abdomen.

Fifth problem, or maybe it was the first: she and her baby boy might be dying.


To be continued...

The Guardian: Tech helps short stories make a comeback

When making pitches to editors and agents, short story writers are often asked two question:

1. Why?

2. Do you have a novel?

My answers are usually these:

1. Because

2. Yes, I have several unpublished novels but right now I am writing stories so why don't you publish them, eh?

We short-form writers have plenty of venues for our work. Most are small magazines or literary magazines attached to colleges and universities. They usually pay in copies or in a subscription or in small amounts of what's known to novelists as "cash."

So, when we see good news regarding short stories, we latch on to it like a Tea-Partier onto a dubious factoid.

Here's part of a story from London's The Guardian:

Technology has enabled literary magazines to solve the two problems holding them back: print and distribution costs, and marketing. The Internet solved the first and social networking is fixing the second.

--snip--

These days, the process of "deep reading" – that is, entering into a trance-like state and becoming mentally and emotionally consumed in another world – often seems like a huge effort, especially when the cheap thrill of Twitter or a blog is just a tap away. However, people are starting to suspect that the Internet connives against us. It sells us the lie that it's better to click or flick in idle spare time than it is to read a book. But after half an hour – after you've exhausted your regular websites and blogs, and everyone on Twitter and Facebook is in bed – you get the same feeling as you do from eating chocolate all day.

Could we be in a place now where technology has brought us full circle? Where that which took us away from stories is now set to bring us back to them?

"The short story is an essential art form again," says [author and blogger] Nikesh Shukla.

Many writers are now selling their stories separately at places such as Shortlist Press and .

Read the full story here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/nov/10/literary-magazine-technology-internet

I, for one, am happy about this changing state of affairs. I published one story collection in book form and have been contemplating self-publishing the next one. I have published many stories in small mags, although none of them are strictly online versions. Most print mags keep your stories for 3-6 months and it can be up to a year before your story appears.

I've been blogging since 2005, and started my web site a decade ago. But neither has led to a publishing bonanza. I've posted snippets of stories on the web site and I blog regularly about prog politics and Wyoming and writing and mental health and assorted other issues. Perhaps I'm flitting around too much from topic to topic. But what the heck -- it's my time and my blog so I'll write what I want.

I'll be spending the next couple weeks exploring online publishers of short stories. Stay tuned for future reports....

Just what are those chemicals used in fracking?

I was watching the CBS 60 Minutes segment tonight ("Shaleionaires") about natural gas drilling and horizontal drilling and fracking in shale formations. Most of the episode was set in Louisiana and Texas and West Virginia. One guy demonstrated how he could light his water on fire.

This issue has come up in Pavillion, Wyoming, and has been well-documented. Wyoming is now the only state that requires companies to release the chemicals used in fracking. Kind of hard to believe that our oil-and-gas-and-coal state had the foresight to make a stand on fracking. Too bad CBS didn't talk about that.

Oil shale drilling is booming in Laramie, Platte and Goshen counties here in Wyoming. Lots of talk about danger to our water supplies but no hard data yet. Or maybe I should say -- no hard data that's been released to the public.

More later....

UPLIFT 20th anniversary reception on Nov. 16 in Cheyenne

You are invited you UPLIFT's 20th anniversary reception on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 5-7 p.m., at the Cole E.S. Gym, 615 W. 9th St., Cheyenne. Enjoy free food and beverages and learn about UPLIFT's services. More info at www.upliftwy.org

"Lived experience" is the buzz phrase for future mental health care

I am not a clinician.

But I am a parent of two children with mental health issues. As an adult who’s struggled with depression and takes wonder drugs for it, I am also considered a consumer of mental health services.

This “lived experience” may prove to be crucial in the future.

Change, you see, is on the horizon. I would say that the dark clouds of doom are looming, threatening to destroy us all, but that would depress me and I’d have to go lie down and read Kafka for the rest of the day.

The annual conference in Atlanta for the National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health began the day after Black Tuesday, Nov. 2. Many presentations were colored by that fact.

Andrea Barnes, policy wonk for the federation, said this on the opening day’s overview session: “What we know about the Republicans’ agenda is they want to roll back everything, especially prevention funds. The Affordable Health Care Act has some very important pieces regarding mental health. There is no guarantee that all the provisions will be enacted now that the Congress has changed.”

Much talk about change – the bad kind. Some gloom and doom.

But by the end of the conference, I felt hopeful that stressful times and creative thinking may bring about a new and more family- and community-centered way of taking care of our youth.

“We have to find alternative ways to do business,” said Gary M. Blau, Child, Adolescent and Family Branch, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). He urged us to embrace the reality of huge deficits and the changing face of Congress. He said that it was our “lived experience” that will make the difference.

This changing dynamic will not only need involvement from parents and youth and family members and the community. It will be crucial. “We need to implement things that work – things our young people have told us,” Blau said.

As I said earlier – I’m not a clinician. Nor am I part of a social services non-profit and treatment center. I am a lay person on a board for a UPLIFT, the federation affiliate in Wyoming. I do not know all the lingo and acronyms tossed around like confetti at these conferences. However, my wife and I have 20 years of experience helping our children with their mental health challenges.

Here’s a brief intro from Gary Blau as to how this world is changing.

He outlined five areas in substance abuse and mental health that SAMHSA and the federation would like to be included in benefit packages, such as those that are part of Medicaid and Medicare.

1. Respite care, so parents can get a break and even go back to work.
2. Therapeutic mentoring to extend services
3. Behavioral health consultation services. Monitor children in daycare and preschool and get help for those who need it. Can reduce the number of kids kicked out of daycare for aggressive behavior.
4. Use technology to deliver services. “Our kids come out treatment and don’t go to AA meetings. They do communicate via social network sites.” This can be used for e-therapy and peer counseling.
5. Parent and caregiver support services. He said that this is the number one issue for SAMHSA. “We need a cadre of parent support providers, and we’re working on a certification process.”

All of these acknowledge the fact that parents and youth are on the frontlines and know what’s needed. That’s a big change from 20 or even 10 years ago when parents often were blamed for their children’s failing – and therapy was something done to a teen and not with the teen.

These changes will be needed as budgets shrink and more Americans (32 million) enter the health care insurance system via the (mostly) Democratic Party’s reform package.

None of it can happen without advocacy. “If folks in this room don’t advocate, our very existence is threatened,” said Blau.

I consider this blog an advocacy tool. More to do, of course, both locally, statewide and in Congress.

For more info, go to the federation web site at http://www.ffcmh.org/ or SAMHSA at http://www.samhsa.gov/. For help in Wyoming, go to http://www.upliftwy.org/ or call 307-778-8686.

Happy 65th birthday, Neil Young -- keep on rockin' in the free world

On Veterans Day... A story from the front lines of empathy

Six days before Veterans Day 2010, Afghanistan War veteran and author Wes Moore had this message:

“As a society, we need to be more empathetic, tolerant and proactive.”

This was unlike other speeches I would hear in the week leading up to Nov. 11. It was a crowd of some 700 people whose mission includes empathy, tolerance and activism. It is the annual gathering of the Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health. While I’m sure there were military veterans in the room, most attendees you would fall under that term sneared at by Mrs. Palin and her pals -- community organizers.

Lest you think that Mr. Moore is some namby-pamby community organizer…. Well, he is a community organizer. Not much namby in his pamby (or vice versa).

He served in Afghanistan in 2005-2006 with the U.S. Army’s elite First Brigade of the 82nd Airborne. Trained in the art of combat and the art of jumping out of planes in full battle gear. He grew up in a single-parent family in a tough Baltimore neighborhood. He graduated from military school and Johns Hopkins. He later became a Rhodes Scholar and studied in scores of foreign countries. He was special assistant to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2007. He writes. He thinks. Soon, he’ll be a father for the first time.

We should be thanking him for his service. Instead, he thanked us.

“Thanks for the work you do,” he said on this chilly Atlanta Friday. “There’s no way we can advance in society with only a sliver of society engaging in the conversation.”

He added that there are “no expendable kids and no expendable zip codes.”

As a teen, Moore felt that he was expendable. He started getting in trouble. His mom was scared. She found a military school who agreed to take her son. He went to Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania -- but wasn’t happy about it. Moore ran away. His mom sent him back. He ran away again. His mom sent him back. After returning from his fifth AWOL, Moore felt something click in him. He found himself in the midst of an opportunity. He was being encouraged to excel.

So he did.

As he pursued military service and education, Moore discovered that others who had grown up in his neighborhood were falling through the cracks in those beat-up mean streets.

One was Wes Moore – the one in the title of the book The Other Wes Moore. He and three other young men robbed a jewelry store. As they fled with $400,000 in stolen goods, one of the men drew a gun and shot and killed an off-duty Baltimore police officer. A multi-state manhunt ensued. The robbers were captured and tried. The other Wes Moore now serves a life sentence without parole in prison.

“This was the wind in the back of the project – I wanted people to understand these neighborhoods we come from.”

Moore corresponded with the other Wes Moore and later they met face-to-face. Soldier Moore found out that Prisoner Moore was smart and tough. He wanted no pity but agreed with Soldier Moore that action was needed to save other neighborhood kids.

“We can’t look at them as ‘those kids,’ “ Moore said. “We need to say ‘our kids.’ “

He added: “Potential in the U.S. is universal but opportunity is not. The biggest gap we have in our country is the expectation gap.”

We applauded wildly, of course. We all agreed on the mission. How could we not. Poor kids and kids of a different color and kids with mental health issues all need to be considered “our kids.” But we diverge on the methods.

Moore asked us to consider some things.

"You are out there every day and know we can’t wait for someone else to figure it out,” he said. “Answers don’t lie in state capitol buildings, they lie in our communities.

“You are all the change agents.”

He didn’t say it but I was thinking it – you can’t count on solutions from the federal government. We are moving away from that dynamic. Community organizers need to think more creatively about the first word in this description – community. For too long, we’ve looked at money and answers to come raining down from D.C. Most of the time, the answers were coming from us, although there was that fed cash, too.

But the rains have turned to showers and, once the weird new Congress is in place, a drought will surely follow.

We’ve already seen that with our Wyoming federation affiliate. Some of the government funding sources are drying up. Corporate and private sources don’t have the cash to spare. How will our youth get services during the coming drought?

Moore isn’t waiting around for someone else to take the lead. He wrote a book. He’s speaking to all kinds of groups, motivating grass-roots work on mental health and fatherhood in the black community and prison recidivism. He works with the kids in his old neighborhood and in New Jersey where he now lives (in the photo, Wes is talking to students at Patterson Middle School). He’s tackling it head-on, just the tactic you might expect from an Army officer turned community organizer.

“We have a saying in the Army – you can’t hit a target you can’t see,” he said. That got a spirited hoo-ah from the back of the room. Moore acknowledged it and moved on. He’s a mover.

Wes, since I didn’t get a chance to say this last week when you signed my book: “Thanks for your service. Happy Veterans Day.”

Wes Moore's book info: The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates, 256 pages, Spiegel & Grau, ISBN-10: 0385528191; ISBN-13: 978-0385528191

Can't leave well enough alone? You must be a blogger.

Did your mom or grandmother ever say, "You can't leave well enough alone?"

Funny expression. When it something "well enough" and why should you leave it alone? Shouldn't it be "well done" or just finished?

Many bloggers I know can't leave well enough alone. Maybe that's what drew them to blogs in the first place. Unlimited space where you can ignore well enough into eternity.

Anyway, some of you followed my serial tale of the Oct. 22 near-miss crash with a drunk driver on I-25. I told the installments on Facebook as sat in my Ford on the way to Pueblo later than day.

I received an "unsafe lane change" ticket which I was going to pay but thought better of it. The young driver who almost killed us was busted for DUI -- drunk at 8:15 a.m. So I decided to write a letter to the Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles and copies to various other agencies (see the end of the letter).

Here's the letter:

Oct. 26, 2010

Colorado Division of Motor Vehicles
Department A
Denver, CO 80243

To Whom It May Concern:

I am not a perfect driver.

But I am a pretty good one.

I drive thousands of on-the-job miles around Wyoming each year. That’s in all kinds of weather. I put thousands of personal miles on my own car each year traveling back and forth between Cheyenne and Fort Collins and Denver, which is my home town.

No tickets. No wrecks. Maybe a few close calls, but that’s to be expected in the Rocky Mountain states, where driving conditions can change in the blink of an eye.

That’s how accidents happen – in the blink of an eye. I may have blinked on Friday morning, Oct. 22, near the Harmony Road interchange on I-25 in Larimer County. I looked in my side view mirror, clicked my turn signal, and then eased into the left lane. I was avoiding the heavy morning traffic merging on to the highway.

Next thing I know, I saw a green Subaru on my left. I pulled back to the right lane, slowed and watched as the Subaru kicked up a cloud of dust from the median and then crossed right in front of me and off to the right. In the chaos, I slowed and pulled off to the right shoulder about 100 yards down the road. I got out of the car and made my way back to the Subaru. It was upright facing the wire fence. The car had a few dings and the tries were flat. The driver was out of the car and seemed to be O.K. I apologized, certain that I had caused the accident. The driver was young, maybe mid-20s, with a sparse beard. He was dressed in black. His hands shook from the shock, or at least that’s what I thought at the time.

Thirty minutes later, he wore handcuffs in the back of a Colorado State Patrol car. He was on his way to jail for driving while impaired.

And I got a ticket for unsafe lane change. Or, as the ticket read: “Changed lanes when unsafe.”

Funny how your perception can change almost instantaneously. One moment I’m feeling terrible because I may have made a bad move that led to the wreck of another person’s car. The next minute I’m thinking, “We could all be dead.” “All” meaning my wife of 28 years, my 17-year-old daughter and me. And the driver of the Subaru who was drunk at 8:15 on a Friday morning.

When I was merging left on the highway, I didn’t see the driver of the Subaru because he wasn’t there. My guess is that he was behind me and tried to speed around me on his way to work, which is where he said he was going. My statement to the police said that “I didn’t see the Subaru.” I meant that literally. When he looked in my side view mirror, the Subaru wasn’t there. And then, in the blink on an eye, he was there and spinning out of control in his 4WD Subaru Outback. That’s one safe car, known for its reliability and safety. That the driver emerged unhurt speaks to that.

But you can give an impaired driver the world’s best car and he or she can find ways to do unsafe and dangerous things in it.

I am contesting my ticket. I may end up paying it when I go to court in Ft. Collins on 1/14/11, and that’s something I can live with. But I want the record to show that the unsafe lane-changing driver was not me but the driver of the Subaru. He was unsafe when he got into his car that morning. He was unsafe speeding down the highway. My miscalculation resulted in his unsafe and unsound response that downed a highway light pole, wrecked his car, and could have resulted in death or injuries to my family and any number of other drivers on the road that morning.

I conclude by commending the Colorado State Patrol, the Larimer County Sheriff and the ambulance EMTs who were at the scene. Professionals all. One patrolman even jumped my car, dead on the side of the road from extended use of emergency blinkers. Thanks to him, we quickly resumed our trip to Pueblo. We were late, but intact.

Sincerely,



Michael Shay

Cc: Colorado State Patrol
Larimer County Court
Farmers Insurance

Art blossoms all over Georgia -- and in airports all over U.S.

"Dogwood," a sculpture by John Portman in downtown Atlanta. I think this a dogwood blossom in bronze I(although I couldn't determine the medium). These blossoms light up the Georgia spring which usually occurs in late March. In Wyoming, the calendar may say spring but the landscape cries snow and cold. The Atlanta airport has a fantastic public art program. Walking the concourse like walking the corridors of a museum. Art, history and science displays.

Here's another airport that really values art:

What hath Coke wrought?

Ol' Doc Pemberton offers up a serving of CoCola (Southern pronunciation) at the World of Coca Cola in Atlanta. I was taking a walk in the sun during a break in the Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health conference. One of the discussion topics has been the high incidence of drug and alcohol abuse among youth with mental health issues. Way back when, patent medicine was laced with coca and laudanum. Parents gave it too their kids for all kinds of reasons. Our heritage of abuse? My understanding is that the coke in Coke was replaced early on with caffeine, which is the drug of choice for most of us now.

'To Learning'

The entrance of the old Carnegie Library in Atlanta is now a monument or public work of art, depending on how you look at it. New central library not so new. One of those dreadful square concrete mid-sixties buildings. Art inside helps warm the space.

In U.S., opportunity is not universal

Wes Moore, author of "The Other Wes Moore," today at the Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health conference in Atlanta: "In the U.S., potential is universal but opportunity is not."

Looking forward to reading the book.

More Atlanta public art

"The Rites of Spring" by Eliot Weinberg. Cold day in Atlanta. It is warmer (I hear) back in Cheyenne. Wes Moore speaking at Mental Health conference luncheon.

Big statues, big themes, big vision

"Ballet Olympia" (1991-92), conceived and designed by John Portman from Paul Manship's "Maenad" (1953), a three-foot bronze figurine. Created in the run-up to the 1994 Olympics.

Harvey Deselms talking about a bronze on every Cheyenne corner. How about this one in Atlanta across from my downtown convention hotel? Within a block of the hotel are at least seven original sculptures. I don't like them all but none are horses or cowboys, which is a vast improvement.

Real Wyoming suicide problem trumps imaginary one

From Fox News:

U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis said Friday that some of her Wyoming constituents are so worried about the reinstatement of federal estate taxes that they plan to discontinue dialysis and other life-extending medical treatments so they can die before Dec. 31.

Instead of worrying about some imaginary suicide problem in Wyoming, Lummis could be doing something about a real suicide problem (from an article by Baylie Evans in the 8/28/10 Wyoming Tribune-Eagle):

Since 1999, Wyoming has had one of highest suicide rates in the nation. In 2002, 2003 and 2006, Wyoming had the highest rate of any state.
It's a statistic that many say is unacceptable, but is largely ignored or avoided by the general public.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among Wyoming youth, said Keith Hotle, the suicide prevention team leader with the Wyoming Department of Health. Only car crashes kill more teens.

If a new disease was the second-leading cause of death for youth, "that would be front page news all over the state," he said.

Instead, the topic makes people cringe.

People such as Rep. Lummis, no doubt.

Has she shown similar outrage about this real problem?

Read the rest of WTE's disturbing article at http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2010/08/29/news/01top_08-29-10.txt

Election Day 2010 Cheyenne

Mike and Mike in the morning -- electioneering for House District 8 candidate Ken McCauley. Lots of waves, honks and thumps-ups at the corner of Dell Range and Yellowstone. Hot chocolate helped too.

Join David Wendt and his "Lummis Left Us Behind Tour"

Last-minute pitch from Democrat David Wendt for Wyoming's lone Congressional seat:

Candidate for Congress David Wendt concluded his “Lummis Left Us Behind Tour” on Sunday in Green River. Wendt addressed a number of issues on the tour, including Lummis’ record of voting against student loan reform, against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and of failing to fully support our Veterans.
In Green River, Wendt spoke on those issues, and called special attention to the Wyoming Range. Lummis voted “NO” on a bill that protects the Wyoming Range from oil and gas drilling.

Here are his prepared remarks:

“Hello, thank you all for joining me today. I have had the great honor, over the past seven months, of traveling the state of Wyoming as a candidate for the United States House of Representatives. I am currently on the last leg of my final campaign road trip and I am very excited to bring the ‘Lummis Left Us Behind Tour’ to Sweetwater County. It’s always a pleasure to visit with the hard-working people here in this wonderful part of the state.

“I believed, when I began this campaign, that it was my duty to step up and run. I believed then and believe now that Wyoming does not have the representation that it deserves. Too many have been left behind by my opponent, Rep. Cynthia Lummis.

"In Laramie, I spoke with students left behind when my opponent sided with Wall Street on a bill on student loan reform. I met with veterans in Cheyenne and spoke about small businesses in Casper and discussed the fact that my opponent, in her first vote in Congress, opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which provides protection to women, who too often do not receive the same pay as their male colleagues when they perform the same job.

“But it isn’t simply this group or that group that has been left behind. Wyoming has been left behind. There is no better example than the Wyoming Range – just a short distance from where we stand right now. Opening the beautiful Wyoming Range to oil and gas drilling is absolutely wrong – and it’s not a partisan issue.

“Protecting the Wyoming Range was a signature issue of the late Republican Senator Craig Thomas. It is an issue that has won support from Senators Barrasso and Enzi. This is an issue that the citizens of Wyoming, from all political beliefs, can unite around. My opponent chose another route.

"It is time that we take some Wyoming values to Washington. We can solve the difficult issues facing this country, but we need to restore civility and a sense that we’re in this together. That’s the Wyoming way and I intend to bring Wyoming’s citizen-legislator style of governance with me to Washington. My opponent and her Tea Party colleagues are committed to a politics of division. That approach is wrong and fails to uphold our great Wyoming traditions.

"Because here in Wyoming, we roll up our sleeves, work together and solve problems. We believe that people should get a fair chance, that students should have opportunities to pursue world-class educations, that we must support our small businesses instead of special interests. We believe that women have a right to equal pay for equal work and that we must support our nation’s Veterans. We cherish our great land and believe we must maintain it for future generations.

"Wyoming has been left behind by Cynthia Lummis, but if voters elect me, I’ll go to Congress and take Wyoming with me.”

Wendt’s “Lummis Left Us Behind Tour” made stops in Laramie, Cheyenne, Casper and Green River.

David Wendt, a Democrat, has more than 30 years of bipartisan public policy experience working with Democrats, Republicans and Independents on issues of international security.

For more information on David Wendt, please visit http://www.wendtforwyoming.com/ or call the campaign headquarters at 307-734-3913.

W.D. Ehrhart's "The Farmer" from Working Words

Poem by W.D. Ehrhart, Vietnam veteran, writer and high school teacher. This is included in "Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams" from Coffee House Press.

The Farmer

Each day I go into the fields
to see what is growing
and what remains to be done.
It is always the same thing: nothing
is growing; everything needs to be done.
Plow, harrow, disc, water, pray
till my bones ache and hands rub
blood-raw with honest labor—
all that grows is the slow
intransigent intensity of need.
I have sown my seed on soil
guaranteed by poverty to fail.
But I don't complain—except
to passersby who ask me why
I work such barren earth.
They would not understand me
if I stooped to lift a rock
and hold it like a child, or laughed,
or told them it is their poverty
I labor to relieve. For them,
I complain. A farmer of dreams
knows how to pretend. A farmer of dreams
knows what it means to be patient.
Each day I go into the fields.

This poem is currently published in Beautiful Wreckage, New & Selected Poems, Adastra Press, 1999 Copyright © 1984 by W. D. Ehrhart, The Outer Banks, Adastra Press, 1984

You can still volunteer for Wyoming Democrats

From Linda Stowers, Laranmie County Democrats:

We still have much todo tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday. We are asking for volunteers to do some phone calls tomorrow and Monday. If you can make any calls for the Get out the Vote campaign, please stop by the headquarters at 408 W. 23rd St. in Cheyenne tomorrow (Monday) between 12-2:30 p.m. I will be at the office to give you some calls. These will be Democrat calls to remind people to vote.

In addition, if you don't have anything to do on Monday we are going to do some walking for Mike Massie. Please come to the headquarters office anytime you have free on Monday to receive some walking areas. Thanks for your help.

Cheyenne statue project should include all those people (and creatures) who influenced Cheyenne

Interesting front page article in today's Halloween edition of the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle.

Local gallery owner Harvey Deselms is promoting a project to put bronze statues on every corner of Capitol Avenue between the Historic Depot and the Capitol Building. That's eight blocks times four corners equals 32 statues.

A cowboy is next up, which is no surprise. There are no shortage of cowboy and/or cowboy with bucking bronco statues in Cheyenne. Sure, I guess there's room for a few more cowboys along the street. But this represents only a small part of Cheyenne's heritage.

I like the two new statues proposed for Depot Square. A young woman "dressed in 19th-century garb" leaving the train station and a cowboy on his way into the train station. The titles are, respectively, "A New Beginning" and "Hard to Leave."

But why cowboy-era cowboy and woman? Why not have a World War II G.I. emerging from the station to be greeted by his family? Wonder how many soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen traveled in and out of the depot during the war? Our entire region, from Colorado Springs to Cheyenne and up to Casper, were hugely influenced by war industries. It's often said that many young men who trained in Denver and Cheyenne and Colorado Springs returned here to live after the war. They were drawn by the wide-open spaces and mountains and climate. The Tenth Mountain Division soldiers returned from the war to create the modern ski industry.

I'd love to see oilfield roughnecks and miners and Basque sheepherders represented on the streets of Cheyenne. Native Americans, of course. It is pleasing to note that the renovation plan for the Capitol Building complex will include Esther Hobart Morris and Chief Washakie flanking each other in front of the historic building. We have a Buffalo Soldier in the pocket park outside of F.E. Warren AFB. But we need one on the city's downtown main street.

This is suggested only partly in jest -- what about a guy in a suit carrying a briefcase? Cheyenne is a government town, after all, and government employees outnumber agricultural workers (a.k.a. cowboys) any day of the week. Wyoming soon will add a statue of Governor Stan Hathaway next month to the front of the Hathaway Building. A governor is a bureaucrat -- probably the state's chief bureaucrat -- so it would be appropriate for the Gov statue to be surrounded by his aides and assistants and all the people who make the state work. This is not myth. This is reality.

We should consult the Cheyenne and Arapaho and Lakota tribes who used to inhabit the region before the railroad and horse soldiers arrived. While Wyoming's Chief Washakie is a great addition to the Capitol Complex, he was a Shoshone, a mountain tribe. As far as I know, we have no representation of the many Native American horsemen who inhabited these lands. 

Speaking of the railroads... Irishmen? Scotsmen? Chinese? Local visionary (and fine writer) Lou Madison has proposed a number of sculptures for the city. I especially like his idea of a monumental sculpture for the Cheyenne rail yards which would show workers building the rails that led to the founding of Cheyenne. The city would just be a bump in the road if not for the railroad.

And the highways that bisect our city limits. They are works of art unto themselves. Downtown Cheyenne offers some historic markers dedicated to the Lincoln Highway, and we have a huge Lincoln head at the top of the pass that marks the thoroughfare. But thousands of trucks and cars travel down I-80 and I-25 every day. How about a monument to a trucker on one of the downtown corners? How much money do truckers spend each day at the county's truck stops and restaurants and motels? Perhaps we could commemorate a trucker stopped by a blizzard that closes the Summit? Trucker sits in a booth at a truckstop while waitress serves him coffee and a slice of apple pie. Could call the sculpture: "Long haul trucker parks his ass." Something like that. Maybe "Night owls at the diner?" I think that's already been used.

My father built ICBM missile silos from Kansas to Colorado to Washington State. We should have a representation of that bit of history along Capitol Avenue. In many ways, nukes made Cheyenne. We could have a statue of a missileer at his/her station, or a down-sized version of an MX.

We can't forget our geological history. Cheyenne was once on the fringe of an inland sea. Wouldn't it be great to have a huge ancient crocodile rising from the concrete, trying to snatch its prey? The tourists would love that. Lots of photo opportunities. You could actually put a dinosaur bronze or one of a prehistoric mammal (woolly mammoths, sloths, etc.) on each downtown corner. 

Cowboys are wonderful. That's apart of Cheyenne's heritage. But that's not all there is. Delve into the history and let's come up with a sequence of statues that speak to Cheyenne's interesting and sometimes strange history.

You can't stomp on 75,000 fired-up Democrats

Slightly-doctored photo of me at the 2008 Democratic National Convention wrap-up at Mile High Stadium/Invesco Field in Denver. We were unstompable on this night. And so we shall remain. Go to http://www.moveon.org/ to add your "Don't Stomp on Me (Us)" photo to the mix. And while you're at it -- VOTE!

Right-Wingers Using Public Employees as 21st-Century Welfare Queens

From Alternet on those damn gubment employees welfare queens: Right-Wingers Using Public Employees as 21st-Century Welfare Queens

UPLIFT holds 20th anniversary reception Nov. 16

It's been my privilege to serve on the board of UPLIFT since 1998. UPLIFT is the Wyoming affiliate of the National Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health. I'll be representing the board at the National Federation's 21st annual conference in Atlanta next week.

UPLIFT's mission:

Encouraging success and stability for children and youth with or at risk of emotional, behavioral, learning, developmental, or physical disorders at home, school, and in the community.

UPLIFT staffers accompany families to school I.E.P. meetings and guide them through the mazes of state paperwork for extended treatment for mental health issues.

As a board member, I invite you to the 20th anniversary reception on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 5-7 p.m., at the Cole Elementary School Gym, 615 W. 9th St., Cheyenne. Enjoy food and beverages and learn about UPLIFT's services. This event is free and open to the public. It's a chance for us to thank those who have supported the organization since its inception in 1990.

As is the case with so many non-profit social services agencies, the UPLIFT budget is tight these days. Most of the funding comes from federal and state sources. Private funding, or unrestricted government funds, are hard to come by. So UPLIFT is embarking on a campaign to raise its profile and raise money -- all at the same time.

Go to the spiffy updated UPLIFT web site for more info.

And join us on Nov. 16.

Washington Monthly: On the edge of the next real estate boom -- and Utah shows the way

So many things to like in this Washington Monthly piece about the The Next Real Estate Boom. Western cities such as Salt Lake City, Denver and Portland are leading the way towards close-in walkable communities. But it's not about big chunks of federal money dropped on big projects. It's about private-sector funding and streetcars and affordable houses and zoning law changes and energy-saving construction. Local collaborative efforts. Democrats and Republicans and Independents and Libertarians and Greenies and Tea Partiers working together for the common good.

Dogs and cats, living together...

Just go read it.

Attention America: RepubliCorp will own you!

The B.A. degree divide in the West

Interesting story and graphics about education levels across the U.S., as featured in Daily Yonder.

Top ten rural counties in the U.S. with highest B.A. degree levels are all in the Intermountain West, with two in Wyoming. Those two counties, Teton and Laramie, are blue on the map and also more blue as far as number of Democratic Party voters. Teton County (Jackson, Wilson, etc.) has also been rated by the Western States Arts Federation Creative Vitality Index (CVI) as one of the top arts counties in the U.S.

Of the top ten rural counties with the fewest B.A. degree-holders, only two are in the West (Alaska and S.D.), one in the Midwest (Ill.) and the rest are in the South.

Read more at The B.A. Divide on Daily Yonder

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