Spider-Man's nemesis, steampunk fiction, edgy poetry and hair-raising memoirs all part of Casper literary conference

For a sparsely populated state, we have an amazing amount of arts events. Casper College and ARTCORE have been putting on their fine literary conference for 27 years. This time out, organizers have seized on the college's 2013 theme of "Powerful Women!" and have planned presenters that embody that theme in some interesting ways. Kelly Sue DeConnick, for instance is the top woman writer at Marvel Comics. She is thriving in this male-dominated world with “Osborn: Evil Incarcerated,” featuring Spider Man’s arch-enemy, and a series of Japanese manga adapted into English. Tiffany Trent is best known for her steampunk novel, “The Unnaturalists.” that gives new meaning to "alternative energy." Connie May Fowler writes fantastic novels but will talk at the conference about memoir writing. She’s brought her own experience with an abusive relationship into a powerful memoir and support for orgs that support abused women. Annette Chaudet runs her own successful small press out of small-town Wyoming and Layli Long Soldier transforms her experience on a South Dakota Reservation into edgy poetry.

Quite a line-up.

The 2013 Casper College/ARTCORE Literary Conference will be held Sept. 13-14 in Casper. The events are free and open to the public.

Here's the schedule:

Friday, September 13

Craft Talks:  Second floor, Gateway Building

9–10  AM: Annette Chaudet  Session

10–11 AM: Kelly Sue DeConnick  Session

11–12  AM: Tiffany Trent Session

11-12 AM: Layli Long Soldier Session

Lunch on your own

2–4 PM: WAC creative writing fellowship winners Mary Beth Baptiste, Chad Hanson and Heather Jensen join fellowship judge Connie May Fowler for a reading, Second floor, Gateway Building. FMI: Michael Shay at 307-777-5234 or mike.shay@wyo.gov

7 PM: Tiffany Trent event at the Natrona County Public Library

8 PM: Poetry Slam MC’d by George Vlastos at Metro Coffee downtown

Saturday, September 14

Workshops:  10 AM to Noon, Second Floor, Gateway building. Workshops are free, but space is limited. Please contact jcampbell@caspercollege.edu to sign up for workshop in poetry (Layli Long Soldier) or fiction (Tiffany Trent or Kelly Sue DeConnick).

Participants can sign up to take a workshop with one of the following authors:

Tiffany Trent  (fiction):  Author of YA novel, The Unnaturalists, from Simon & Schuster

Kelly Sue DeConnick (fiction/scripting):  Writer of Marvel Comics’ “Captain Marvel,” “Avengers Assemble” and creator-owned comic, “Pretty Deadly.”

Layli Long Soldier (poetry):  Postmodern Poet, author of the chapbook Chromosomory (Q Ave Press, 2010)

Noon-2 PM:  Artist Talk by Jeanne Stern, “Book Art,”  with reception-style lunch in the Goodstein Gallery

2–3:30 PM: Young Authors award ceremony and reading w/George Vlastos at the Star Lane Center

4-5 PM: Connie May Fowler Master class, “Lifewriting,” Second Floor, Gateway Building

A family story: Strange turn of events at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

My sister Mary went to M.D, Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to save our brother's life by donating stem cells for his bone marrow transplant.

But in the end, he saved her life.

How? Read the story here.

Nicely written, Mary. From the heart!

Tell the EPA that you want clean Wyoming air

Cheyenne writer Edith Cook writes thoughtful op-ed pieces for our local paper, the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. Her favorite subject is the environment, mostly how Wyoming stacks up against the rest of the world when it comes to environmental protections, renewable energy, recycling, etc.

In Friday's WTE, she issued a call for the implementation of new Environmental Protection Agency clean air standards for outdated Wyoming power plants. These standards are opposed by our Governor and legislature and our entire Congressional delegation.

One of the themes running through Edith's piece is the traditional tug-of-war between the state's two major industries: Energy extraction and tourism. Tourists prefer pretty landscapes and clean air. Energy companies tend to dig up landscapes and pollute the air. When writers or musicians or artists bring up these uncomfortable facts, all heck breaks loose. 

But the EPA wants to hear from Wyomingites on these new clean air standards. You can bypass the middleman and write an e-mail or a letter to the following (thanks to Edith for this info). Be sure to comment by tomorrow (Aug. 26) and reference Docket ID No. EPA–R08–OAR–2012–0026:

visit http://www.regulations.gov and follow the simple instructions for submitting comments;

email comments to: r8airrulemakings@epa.gov;

fax comments to: (303) 312–6064;

snail-mail comments to: Carl Daly, Director, Air Program, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 8, Mailcode 8P– AR, 1595 Wynkoop Street, Denver, Colorado 80202–1129.

Colorado county considers attaching itself to Wyoming

The Craig (Colo.) Daily Press reports that 

Moffat County could be moving toward secession from Colorado under the 51st State Initiative.

Moffat County Commissioner John Kinkaid announced his intention Tuesday to write the ballot language that would ask local voters whether they want to join the secession movement.

“It’s up to people like us to make a statement that we’re not happy, and we want to go in a different direction,” Kinkaid said during Tuesday’s commission meeting.

--clip--

The 51st State Initiative made headlines when five counties in eastern Colorado approved putting the question of secession to voters.

“The goal is to form a 51st state,” said Jeffrey Hare, executive director of the 51st State Initiative.

 “The net result would be a state that better reflects the values of those outside the Denver/Boulder corridor.”

And here's the fun part:

Kinkaid said Moffat County, under the referendum, would either join up with the 51st state or maybe become part of Wyoming.

Wyo. Gov. Matt Mead is having none of this, according to an AP story in the Billings Gazette:

Officials in Wyoming were not amused.

"The country and our state face many significant challenges at this time. This discussion does not move us forward," said Renny MacKay, spokesman for Gov. Matt Mead.

Wyoming might come out ahead on the deal. We'd gain a big chunk of real estate (4,751 square miles) without adding a lot of people (13,795). Sure, most are Republicans but that won't matter much in this Republican-dominated state. We would inherit the lion's share of Dinosaur National Monument. It would make a nice bookend to our other national monument -- Devils Tower -- in the northwest corner of the state. We'd get a nice new batch of oil and gas leases (and accompanying mineral royalties). Our borders would creep closer to all that great skiing at Steamboat, the closest major ski area to all of us in Wyoming's southern tier.

If those addled, secession-minded Moffat Countians come knocking, Gov. Mead, I think you should answer. Let's hear what they have to say.

ISLE Journal issues a "call to writers" on behalf of climate change

Saw this call for entries on the Facebook page of author and environmental activist Terry Tempest Williams. Terry divides her time among Utah, Wyoming and assorted worldwide destinations. She will be the closing keynote speaker at the Wyoming Arts Conference in Jackson Oct. 12-14. I'm really looking forward to her talk, as are many others. Register for the conference here. 

This "Call to Writers" on behalf of climate change by Kathleen Moore and Scott Slovic for the ISLE (Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature and the Environment) Journal.

A Call to Writers

As the true fury of global warming begins to kick in — forests flash to ashes, storms tear away coastal villages, cities swelter in record-breaking heat, drought singes the Southwest, the Arctic melts — we come face to face with the full meaning of the environmental emergency: If climate change continues unchecked, scientists tell us, the world’s life-support systems will be irretrievably damaged by the time our children reach middle-age. The need for action is urgent and unprecedented.

We here issue a call to writers, who have been given the gift of powerful voices that can change the world. For the sake of all the plants and animals on the planet, for the sake of intergenerational justice, for the sake of the children, we call on writers to set aside their ordinary work and step up to do the work of the moment, which is to stop the reckless and profligate fossil fuel economy that is causing climate chaos.

That work may be outside the academy, in the streets, in the halls of politics and power, in the new street theaters of creative disruption, all aimed at stopping industry from continuing to make huge profits by bringing down the systems that sustain life on Earth. These activist efforts need the voices of writers, the genius of thought-leaders, the energy of words.

But there is essential work to be done also in our roles as academics and writers, empowered by creative imagination, moral clarity, and the strength of true witness. Write as if your reader were dying, Annie Dillard advised. “What would you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?” Now we must write as if the planet were dying. What would you say to a planet in a spasm of extinction?[2] What would you say to those who are paying the costs of climate change in the currency of death? Surely in a world dangerously slipping away, we need courageously and honestly to ask again the questions every author asks, Who is my audience—now, today, in this world? What is my purpose? 

Some kinds of writing are morally impossible in a state of emergency: Anything written solely for tenure. Anything written solely for promotion. Any shamelessly solipsistic project. Anything, in short, that isn’t the most significant use of a writer’s life and talents. Otherwise, how could it ever be forgiven by the ones who follow us, who will expect us finally to have escaped the narrow self-interest of our economy and our age?

Some kinds of writing will be essential. We here invite creative thought about new or renewed forms our writing can take. Perhaps some of these:

The drum-head pamphlet. Like Thomas Paine, writing on the head of a Revolutionary War drum, lay it out. Lay out the reasons why extractive cultures must change their ways. Lay out the reasons that inspire the activists. Lay out the reasons that shame the politicians. Lay out the reasons that are a template for decision-makers.

The “broken-hearted hallelujah.” Like Leonard Cohen, singing of loss and love, make clear the beauty of what we stand to lose or what we have already destroyed. Celebrate the microscopic sea-angels. Celebrate the children who live in the cold doorways and shanty camps. Celebrate the swamp at the end of the road. Leave no doubt of the magnitude of their value and the enormity of the crime, to let them pass away unnoticed. These are elegies, these are praise songs, these are love stories.

The witness. Like Cassandra howling at the gates of Troy, bear witness to what you know to be true. Tell the truths that have been bent by skilled advertising. Tell the truths that have been concealed by adroit regulations. Tell the truths that have been denied by fear or complacency. Go to the tarfields, go to the broken pipelines. Tell that story. Be the noisy gong and clanging cymbals, and be the love.

The narrative of the moral imagination. With stories and novels and poems, take the reader inside the minds and hearts of those who live the consequences of global warming. Who are they? How do they live? What consoles them? Powerful stories teach empathy, build the power to imagine oneself into another’s place, to feel others’ sorrow, and so take readers outside the self-absorption that allows the destruction to continue.

The radical imaginary. Re-imagine the world. Push out the boundaries of the human imagination, too long hog-tied by mass media, to create the open space where new ideas can flourish. Maybe it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism or fossil fuels or terminal selfishness. But this is the work that calls us—to imagine new life-ways into existence. Writers may not be able to save the old world, but they can help create the new one.

The indictment. Like Jefferson listing the repeated injuries and usurpations, let facts be submitted to a candid world. This is the literature of outrage. How did we come to embrace an economic system that would wreck the world? What iniquity allows it to continue?

The apologia. Finally this: Write to the future. Try to explain how we could allow the devastation of the world, how we could leave those who follow us only an impoverished, stripped, and dangerously unstable time. Ask their forgiveness. This is the literature of prayer. Is it possible to write on your knees, weeping?

And a Specific Invitation

In the case of global climate change—or, to put it directly, global warming—the importance of this call to the world’s most eloquent voices and most powerful imaginations cannot be overstated. The virtue of applying literary—and more broadly humanistic—voices to this issue is, in part, the fundamental pluralism of such voices. Our goal is not to ask for a single, unified perspective, but to draw forth a chorus of diverse responses to global warming. At this time, we urge our colleagues to apply their talents and their wisdom to the phenomenon that is altering the inhabitability of this planet more profoundly than any other anthropogenic impact. What do you have to say on the subject of global warming? How might your poetic, narrative, philosophical, teacherly, or scholarly voice make a difference?

Are you a poet or a storyteller? A philosopher or an ecocritic? A journalist or a script writer for film? Perhaps a literary essayist who weaves together many different modes of expression? Or is your medium the letter to the editor or the course syllabus? Recognizing the diverse forms of writing employed by writers throughout the world—and perhaps the need to invent or reinvent forms of writing equal to the emergency of global warming—we call upon you not only to feel the heat we all feel in this warming world, but to think about the heat and to find find le mot juste to match this unparalleled environmental and social challenge.

We have previously published climate-related articles and literary work in the pages of ISLE, but there has never been a focused cluster devoted to this essential topic. Now, with a short turn-round time that reflects the unprecedented urgency of this challenge, we invite readers of ISLE to send us scholarly and creative work for a global-warming cluster that will appear in the Winter 2014 issue of the journal. We can consider work received by September 30. Please contact us if you have any questions (kmoore@oregonstate.edu and slovic@uidaho.edu).

We also wish to encourage our students and colleagues throughout the world to devote their efforts to this pressing issue with an eye toward publishing in future issues of ISLE; in other scholarly, creative, or popular forums; and through untraditional and even non-public media, such as behind-the-scenes letters to elected officials or corporate leaders.

Your voice is needed. We call upon you to put your mind to the meaning of climate change. Do you have something better to do?

Kathleen Dean Moore and Scott Slovic

Tim Kaine in Jackson: "Come engage in a real dialogue with a member of the U.S. Senate"

Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia may be running for president in 2016 -- but who isn't? Hanging out with a Virginia Democrat will be a darn sight more illuminating that going to Glenrock to hear our own Sen. Enzi, who wants to shut down the gubment due to the fact that America picked Obamacare over Enzicare. One reason for Kaine's trip is to meet some Liberal high-rollers spending the last weeks of summer at their mountainside vacation homes. But one must go where the dough is. And who knows -- maybe newbie Jackson resident Liz Cheney will stop by for some campaigning tips.

Brando: Very few people care enough to be a witness to life

From Artists Supporting the Arts in Public Schools on Facebook:

Acting -- all of the arts -- is about observation. As Tennessee [Williams] said, it is about being a witness. Very few people can do this. Very few people care enough to do this. The actor, the writer, the artist, the musician witnesses the world and its people -- and then he tells the stories he has remembered, overheard, surmised. Always attempt to be a witness. Remember those you've loved; those who moved you. In almost every performance I've ever given -- and of which I've been somewhat proud -- I've had a piece of my mother, overwhelmed by life, consumed by sadness, poisoned by alcohol, but still reaching out to me and rubbing my forehead until I fell asleep. I take that memory and I implant it in every character I play. I honor her efforts through gangsters and emperors and brutes and saints. The loving hand on the forehead, when the fist of life is bashing her own head. --Marlon Brando/Interview with James Grissom/1990

Democrat-o-thon in Cheyenne on Aug. 18 w/update

Kathleen Petersen, secretary of the Laramie County Democrats Grassroots Coalition, sends this:

The Laramie County Democrats Grassroots Coalition is hosting a Garden Party and Concert at Joe Corrigan's house, 3626 Dover Street in Cheyenne, on Sunday, August 18, with music presented by Dave Shaul and Friends. The festivity begins at 6 p.m. and goes until 9 p.m. There will be finger food and silent auction items and music. Please bring a lawn chair so you can sit and enjoy the music, bring a beverage of your choice and bring a friend too! For more information call Kathleen at 307-421-4496.

Earlier in the day, the Laramie County Democrats are holding a bowl-a-thon at Two Bar Bowl in Cheyenne. More details later...

More details later... The bowl-a-thon has been postponed for a later date. See you at the garden party!

Meet a Democratic U.S. Senator when Jon Tester comes to Wyoming Aug. 27

Spend an evening with farmer, former school teacher and Montana U.S. Senator Jon Tester when the Wyoming Democrats bring him to Sheridan on Aug. 27. The reception and fund-raiser will be held at Black Tooth Brewery, one of the state's best brewpubs in one of Wyoming's liveliest downtowns. Dems are all about brewpubs and the arts and fellow Dems and thriving communities and creative placemaking and shopping locally and supporting our local progressives. Tix are $75. FMI: http://www.wyodems.org/event/evening-senator-jon-tester

Sen. Enzi seeks out liberal bastions in Wyoming during August listening tour

Nancy S at Veterans for Peace Wyoming Chapter 65 has been paying attention to Sen. Enzi's listening tour schedule during the Congressional recess. Note that Sen. Enzi will be listening at all of these liberal bastions in WYO:

Wednesday August 14th, Glenrock: Senator Enzi will be in town for an hour, tell him what for.  2:30 PM, Senior Center, 615 W. Deer St.   Info:  www.enzi.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2013/8/enzi-announces-august-listening-sessions.  Free. 
****************************** 
Friday August 16th, Buffalo: Senator Enzi will be in town for an hour, tell him what for.  10 AM, Public Library, 171 N. Adams Ave.  Info:  www.enzi.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2013/8/enzi-announces-august-listening-sessions.  Free. 
****************************** 
Thursday August 22nd, Worland: Senator Enzi will be in town for an hour, tell him what for.  1:30 PM, Museum & Cultural Center, 2200 Big Horn Ave.  Info:  www.enzi.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2013/8/enzi-announces-august-listening-sessions.  Free. 
****************************** 
Thursday August 22nd, Greybull: Senator Enzi will be in town for an hour, tell him what for.  4 PM, Community Hall, 527 1st Ave. South.  Info:  www.enzi.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2013/8/enzi-announces-august-listening-sessions.  Free.

P.S.: The counties -- Big Horn, Converse, Johnson and Washakie -- that house the above-mentioned towns cast an average 80% of their votes for Mitt Romney (remember him?) in the 2012 presidential elections. Some guy named Obama got most of the remainder. Wonder what happened to him....

Living foods do not bite back

The Cheyenne Tuesday Farmers Market has a nifty web site that gives details about the farmers, handmade food purveyors and artisans that sell their wares at the Sears parking lot off of Dell Range.

It seems fitting that local food and art are being sold in the shadow of the mall, home to enough Made in China stuff to stock every garage in Cheyenne. I don't have a garage, so someone will have to take my share.

At the Saturday market at Depot Plaza, I've been buying some of Yoga Oasis's delicious cashew cheese pate and healthy flatbreads made from "sprouted nuts, seeds and grains," some with fruit and veggies. Yoga practitioner, artist and chef Debbie Matthew is the proprietor and sometimes is accompanied to the market by her son, who also makes a mean banana bread. I haven't purchased any of her art, nor do I plan to travel to Laramie for yoga classes, but I am eating her homemade "living foods." Too early to tell if they're good for me, but they do not bite back like some other things I've eaten.

Since my heart attack in January, I've been searching out foods that won't contribute to another one. I eat heartily on vegetables from my garden and the farmers' market. I'd eat my lawn if I thought it had any nutritional value. I've cut way back on the salt and the red meat. I eat fewer snacks. My ice cream cravings have been tempered by the memory of constantly beeping hospital room monitors. Too bad -- I love ice cream.

I am trying to be good. I spend countless hours clogging up the grocery store food aisles while I try to grok the sodium and saturated fat contents on food labels. I am beginning to understand that the grocery store may not be the best place to find edibles. Eighty percent of the store's foodstuffs are bad for you.

It's clear that I can only buy some foods from farmers markets. The season is short in the Rockies and budgets are lean.

If you haven't already, go to the market today from 3-6:30 p.m.

Is Cheyenne on the map yet?

Dan Danbom was waxing quite eloquently Thursday in The Denver Post about "putting Denver on the map." It was a clever piece about the phrase "putting ______ on the map," the ______ in this case being Denver.

I am a Denver native and I know Denver's need to be on the map, to be a part of the national conversation. Denver has always had a knack for keeping itself on the map. When the Union Pacific bypassed the burgeoning mining supply town in favor of a Wyoming cross-continent route, William Byers and fellow civic boosters cajoled politicians into getting a spur built from Cheyenne to Denver. Byers was the founder of The Rocky Mountain News and newspapers needed growth for advertising revenue and transportation was essential for that. The railroad beat the heck out of thousand-mile covered-wagon or horseback treks or just plain walking.

Denver had already proven itself to be a breeding ground for hucksters with the great gold rush of 1859. Gold was discovered along Cherry Creek and Denver City entrepreneurs blared the news to the rubes back East, who had no clear idea of the difference between an actual gold field and golds flecks embedded in a river bank. The madding crowd rushed to Cherry Creek with their picks and shovels, only to find that the gold was way up yonder in Central City and Gold Hill and Idaho Springs. While you're in Denver, prospector, why not avail yourself of our white lightning and fleshpots and buy some supplies while you're at it?

Denver was born, and got a place on the map.

By the time I was born in Mercy Hospital almost 100 years later, Denver had not only managed to survive but thrive. It had weathered the boom and bust cycle a dozen times and, in 1950, was booming, thanks to all those WWII vets who had trained in Colorado, liked it and decided to desert their villages in Illinois and New York for life at 5,280 feet. The suburbs and the ski industry was born, which eventually led to the birthing of many Baby Boomers such as myself. We transformed Denver into a pretty cool place to be in the sixties and seventies. Boulder became a counterculture Nirvana and Denver a sports-loving, ski-crazy city with Red Rocks and Rainbow Music Hall and a singles scene with lots of wet T-shirt contests. Gentrification followed, and then came the lattes and craft beers and the Broncos, at long last, winning a Super Bowl and putting Denver on the sports map.

I digress.

I'm not sure why Danbom needed to write about putting Denver on the map at this late date, unless it was to cast stones at other, less map-worthy burgs such as Cheyenne. Here's his comment about Cheyenne:

You have to wonder: Why does Denver have to be on the map? When someone promises that something will put us on the map, the implication is that we are currently not on the map and instead in some sort of obscure, anonymous place that no one has ever heard about and therefore is destined to dry up and blow away. Like Cheyenne.

Danbom may not have been up north in awhile. But Cheyenne is still here. Yes, it is dry and the wind blows, but thus far it has not picked up Cheyenne and blasted it to smithereens -- or to Nebraska. We are pretty well anchored here in southeast Wyoming, just across the border from Colorado. We don't plan on going away any time soon.

Yes, life is slow in Cheyenne. We are a Capital City just like you, but growth is slow in this place and that is how many Wyomingites like it. Not me, but, to borrow a nicely-turned phrase from the Pope, "Who am I to judge?"

Wyoming has always gone its own way. If growth comes at all, it comes slowly. The search for oil and gas and precious minerals often fuel the booms. Just look at Gillette. If the coal gives out, or those dern Obama EPA bureaucrats get their way, Gillette may be as ephemeral as Jeffrey City, the uranium boom town that has pretty much dried up and blown away, except for the crazy artists at Monking Bird Pottery and the barflies across the street at the Split Rock Bar & Cafe.

Cheyenne has been on the map for many years, but maybe not for the reasons that urban hipsters imagine. No, not for Cheyenne Frontier Days, although that's what the organizers imagined when they nicknamed it "The Daddy of 'em All." And no, not for our legislature which has become one of the nuttiest in the West.

We got on the map big time during The Cold War, when the Russkis had Cheyenne and its nukes as one of its primary targets. That's one heck of a map. It may be getting a bit frayed around the edges since The Wall came tumbling down. But maybe not. Putin's Syrian policies and Mr. Snowden and Pussy Riot and anti-gay legislation could dust off those old maps and give us all a reason to live again.

Live, or die.

Thanks to Ken Jorgustin at the Modern Survival Blog for this cool map. Here's what he had to say: "Oh, and there is no way I would want to be living near the three large zones in Montana, North Dakota, and the corner of Wyoming-Nebraska-Colorado where there are evidently numerous nuclear missile silos."

Republicans agree on one thing -- denying health care to our neighbors

Including thousands of our friends and neighbors in Wyoming. Read more about Pres. Obama's Friday press conference at  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/09/obama-obamacare_n_3733933.html

Cardiac Chronicles: Heart blockages happen

I spent much of my blogging time in the mid-2000s giving grief to Pres. George W. Bush. Samples may be read here and here.

And now he has a stent, as do I.

Docs in Houston caught Pres. Bush's arterial blockage before he had a heart attack. This is a good thing, as about a third of first-time heart attacks kill. Seven of ten heart attacks are by first-timers, with fewer than 200,000 repeaters.

The big three risk factors are high blood pressure, high cholesterol (LDL) levels and smoking. I was guilty of one of three -- high cholesterol levels. I have never had high blood pressure, except when watching Republican debates while off my meds. I quite smoking 29 years ago, when my wife Chris was informed that she was pregnant. After almost three decades, you'd think that the bad effects of smoking would have wended their way out of me. Every time I go to the doctors, I'm asked if I smoke. I always answer "Yes, but I quit 29 years ago."

I watch the nurse type in "Ex-smoker."

I wonder: "Why are you an ex-smoker whether you quit smoking 29 years ago or 29 weeks ago or 29 days ago?"

Those first 29 days are the hardest. Followed by the next 29 days. And then the next. And so on. It's easier once you get to years.

So I send healing thoughts and prayers to Pres. Bush. He plagued my waking and sleeping hours for eight years. But mortality comes to us all. We share that.

Coming soon to Wyoming: Ca phe da at 8,000 feet

Billboard for Wyoming's newest roadside attraction

An entrepreneur from a city named for a Southeast Asian revolutionary whose heroes were George Washington and Thomas Jefferson buys a tiny town and its convenience store at 8,000 feet in Wyoming's windswept Laramie Range with the plan of cornering the U.S. coffee market with healthy servings of ca phe da.

If this isn't an illustration of the American/Vietnamese Dream, I don't know what is.

Pham Dinh Nguyen of Ho Chi Minh City bought Buford (pop. 1) last year for $900,000. On Sept. 3, he will debut Buford PhinDeli Town. It will dispense coffee and gasoline, not necessarily in that order.

I am curious and plan on stopping by. How about you?

Art Design and Dine lights up Cheyenne on Aug. 8

Art Design and Dine gets cranking this Thursday, Aug. 8, 5-8 p.m. Fine art to peruse all around town. Down on 15th Street, within spitting distance of the railroad tracks, is Clay Paper Scissors Studio and Gallery. Featured artist is Luke Anderson -- get a peek at his artwork above.

And remember that the Ancient Sage at 18th and Capitol is now the Art Corner Co-op. Drop by and see the array of work by co-op members.

Get more info at http://artdesigndine.org.

"Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" and "Even Cowboys Carry Cell Phones"

This anthology debuts Sept. 15 with one of my short stories and work by Wyoming pals Echo Roy Klaproth of Shoshoni (our new poet laureate) and Rick Kempa of Rock Springs. Reserve your copy now at http://www.upcolorado.com/book/New_Titles/2894

My piece is called -- appropriately enough -- "Cowboy Stories." It has a little something to do with Cheyenne and Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and PETA and drinking and branding and a few other things Western.

Homegrown tomatoes a hard row to hoe in Wyoming

Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love & homegrown tomatoes

So sings Guy Clark in "Homegrown Tomatoes." He'll be in Wyoming next weekend, playing at the Targhee Bluegrass Festival at the Grand Targhee Resort at 7,850 feet on the west slope of the Tetons. Not many maters grown at that altitude. Not many grown anywhere in Wyoming.

One two things guaranteed in WYO
High altitude and a short growing season

And, sometimes, hail in July.

So I'm no Guy Clark. But you know what I'm talking about. Homegrown tomatoes are a tough chore here, even if you live in a Banana Belt community such as Lander or Buffalo.

This urban gardener has six plants this year. Plenty of fruit on the vine. Barring a hailstorm or Biblical plague, I expect a fair crop this year. Best not to get too optimistic. Not exactly sure how farmers deal with the vagaries of growing things on a large scale. I was reading yesterday about a hailstorm that decimated the barley crop in Wyoming's Big Horn Basin. The barley plant is at its peak and ready to harvest just when hail season is at its peak. That doesn't seem fair, does it? The blooming barley is delicate and ripe for destruction. Mother Nature is a cruel mistress. Barley, of course, is one of beer's main ingredients. The barley crop in the Basin is bound for big brewers, craft brewers, and home brewers. Whiskey distillers, too, such as Wyoming Whiskey in Kirby.

No barley, no beer. I weep.

Hailstorms tend to be localized so it's likely that some plants survived when the wind tore through the barley. We send our best wishes to the Basin barley growers.

And now, for this gardener, there are tomatoes to tend.

Wyoming Equality hopes to set new attendance record at Rendezvous on Aug. 7-11

Joe Corrigan at Wyoming Equality sends this notice about next weekend's annual Rendezvous in the Laramie Range:

Rendezvous is fast approaching, (Aug 7-11) and we want to let you know that you have an opportunity to participate in what we’re hoping will be the biggest and best Rendezvous ever! Online and mail in registrations have been unprecedented! We are really hoping to beat our old attendance record of 450.

And it’s no wonder folks are lining up to help celebrate the 21^st anniversary of this camp out! Have you seen the agenda?  This year we are featuring live entertainment every single day!  We will have everything from singing around the camp fire, karaoke, the bluegrass band “Beatgrass” will be performing Saturday, and of course our headliner this year is nationally known comedienne Vickie Shaw!

The forest looks green and plush and should make for excellent flora and fauna hikes, ATV rides, kayaking and everything else the Medicine Bow National Forest has to offer!

So what are you waiting for? Get your camping gear together and help us make this year’s Rendezvous historic and record breaking!

Text, email or Facebook your friends.  Let’s make this another record breaking year!

Text, e-mail, Facebook and blog! Here it is, Joe... 

Register at Wyoming Equality.

Cheyenne salutes Laramie's food-loving, coffee-loving, book-loving locals

Night Heron Books in downtown Laramie is now publicly growing some of its own food in a mini-greenhouse on the sidewalk in front of the store. Funding came from a grant through Feeding Laramie Valley, a nonprofit "dedicated to achieving local food equality and justice." Night Heron staff grows greens for salads, basil for homemade pesto, and herbs and spinach for soups and sandwiches. So, you can eat some yummy local greens with some locally made bread while you read one of Wyoming's excellent authors. Tastes great in August but will really taste great in January as wicked wind-driven snow attempts to rip your face off on your way into the store's warm confines. You have to admire the resourcefulness and creativity of our pals who live at 7,200 feet. By comparison, those of us on the other side of the hill in Cheyenne attempt to grow things at a mere 6,200 feet. 

 

  

 

New vid from Wyoming Democrats: "Wyoming GOP Too Extreme"

WYO wingnuts to stage "Impeach Obama" protests

Some people are hot under the collar and will stage an anti-Obama protest tomorrow from highway overpasses in Casper. This news comes from the Billings Gazette:

Jacqueline Judd, Wyoming leader of Overpasses for Obama’s Impeachment, said participants in the national movement want the president of the United States to answer for his “tyrannical, treasonous, unconstitutional actions.”

--clip--

Judd... said there’s proof Obama forged his birth certificate, declared war on Libya and funded the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida. They want Obama impeached now because they fear he will revoke the right to vote by next fall and seek a third presidential term.

“Many of us believe that if we wait until election time for senators and representatives, we the people will be no more,” Judd said. “We will be under a socialist, communist country, no doubt in my mind.”

Lest you think that Casper will be the only place in Wyoming with wingnuts waving signs from highway overpasses, Judd says that Cheyenne will also hold an overpass protest. Plan on being there from noon-7 p.m. And remember to stay hydrated, people.

You all are a big late with the overpass idea. The innovative Overpass Light Brigade has been stringing lighted protest signs over highways for years. Here's a neat one from Madison, Wisc.:

Thanks to Meg Lanker-Simons at Cognitive Dissonance who tipped me off on the Casper protest. I'm going to miss you, Meg. Give 'em hell in law school.

Healing salves of meds and stories

From Elephant Journal:

In many shamanic societies, if you came to a shaman or medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: 

When did you stop dancing?
When did you stop singing?
When did you stop being enchanted by stories?
When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence? 

Where we have stopped dancing, singing, being enchanted by stories, or finding comfort in silence is where we have experience the loss of soul. 

Dancing, singing, storytelling, and silence are the four universal healing salves.

I have always depended on the kindness of Prozac, Remeron and its related SSRIs. I also believe in the healing salves of art and stories and solitude. Exercise, too, especially swimming. Walking too -- I write as I walk.

Hanna hit with satirical blast

It could have been Any Town, U.S.A., but it was Hanna, Wyo.

A satirical post on National Report carried news that the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") was requiring government-assisted citizens in Hanna to be implanted with an ID chip.

Tea Partiers went wild. "We warned you!" Satire-lovers had a good laugh. And nobody will get sued -- probably.

Sandra Davidson, a communications law professor at the University of Missouri School Of Journalism, said it’s doubtful any legal action will come of the story, even if some take it seriously.

“If it can’t be taken as literally true, it can’t be defamatory,” she said. “In this country, we have a broad First Amendment right to satire,” Davidson said.

Read more about it at the Billings Gazette. 

Why We Write

Why I write, and why I continue to blog. Flannery O'Connor wrote scores of letters during her short life. She might have been a blogger, especially as she stayed close to home during the illness that killed her at 39 in 1964. Thanks to The Bloomsbury Review for posting this on Facebook.

High Plains politics getting more interesting all the time

If you're bored with regional politics, you're not paying attention.

In Wyoming, State Superintendent Cindy Hill has been stripped of her powers by fellow Republicans in the Legislature. She's now suing the state and plans to run against our sitting Gov, Matt Mead. Many Tea Party types have come to Hill's aide, pledging their support in 2014 in the form of votes and crazy letters to the editor. This week I saw Cindy Hill riding in an old-timey carriage in the Cheyenne Frontier Days parade. She smiled and waved from the carriage. Hardly anyone smiled and waved back.

Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick, has announced a run for Mike Enzi's seat in the U.S. Senate. Sen. Enzi is a soft-spoken, well-read man who votes with his party 99 percent of the time. If you've seen Liz Cheney on Fox, you know that she swallowed the same bitter pill as her old man. In fact, she is a bitter pill. Maybe that could be her slogan: "Liz Cheney: A Bitter Pill Who Hates Obama More Than Mike Enzi Does." In an op-ed in this morning's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle (and on Wyofile July 23), Kerry Drake interviewed former legislator and fellow blogger Rodger McDaniel about Ms. Cheney's run for the Senate. Rodger ventured that she could spend up to $4 million in the primary race. Enzi, in the other hand, has never spent more than $3.50 to defeat any challengers. I jest. He did spend in the low six figures last time out, but he better get on the 2014 money-raising stick PDQ, as Liz is rich and is spoiling for bear.

North Colorado -- like North Carolina or North Dakota. Some say that has a nice ring to it. A handful of denizens of north and east Colorado want to form a 51st state, North Colorado. They are fed up with all the liberals from Denver making all the rules. Bans against high-capacity magazines and automatic weapons. Anti-fracking laws. Pro civil unions for all. Pot legalization. The state is going to heck in a handbasket and secession is in the air. While reefer heads in Boulder experience flashbacks to 1969, good ol' boys in Sedgwick County are riding on the way-back machine to 1861. According to the AP, more than four dozen people showed up to a secession meeting in Fort Lupton this week. More than four dozen? That doesn't seem like many, unless you know that the population of some of those plains counties is five dozen.

I have a modest proposal for the secessionists. Join Wyoming. We're a no-nonsense state on issues such as guns, same-sex marriage and pot. A big yes on the first and a resounding no on the last two. Fracking? Hell, you can frack in your own backyard and the feds and the staties will leave you alone. We don't have any state income tax either, which means you can keep all that fracking loot to buy guns and high-capacity magazines. We have plenty of wide open spaces for shooting practice. People just think those are firecrackers from our thriving fireworks industry. Another thing -- our Legislature hates Obamacare. In fact, if you join Wyoming you can buy any darn health care plan you can afford, as thus far the state has refused to go for Medicaid expansion or any of that socialized medicine nonsense.

One suggestion, though. I know that the Weld County commissioners were the ones who put you up to the idea of North Colorado. But if I were you, I'd ditch Weld County. It's home to the city of Greeley which is filled with Democrats. It has a university, too, and you know that they're the breeding ground of radical liberal educators who keep brainwashing our rural kids in the ways of Howard Zinn and beatnik poets. I was in Greeley last week and saw a merry band of hipsters walking down the sidewalk toward the local brewpub. You know what they say -- cities breed hipsters and Democrats, not the other way around. See if it's possible to excise Greeley from its county, That way, when you join Wyoming, you're not bringing thousands of registered Democrats with you.

You may have to give up the name "North Colorado." Still, Wyoming has a nice ring to it, don't you think? One of your counties is already named Cheyenne. You may not know this, but "Wyoming" means "freedom." Not literally, but you know (a wink and a nod) what I mean when I say "freedom" surrounded by quotes. Freedom!

And South Dakota still has only two senators?

I've been on the Wyoming escalator beat for almost a week now, so I wonder how I missed this story in the Saturday Sioux Falls Argus-Leader:

Unlike remote Wyoming, it’s [South Dakota] got at least six sets of escalators — or five, if one doesn’t count the stairless moving ramp that takes pedestrians between floors at the Sioux Falls Regional Airport.

S.D. has scads of people-moving elevators, too. And 309 grain elevators.

Read the rest here.

Makes sense that Wyoming has two escalators and two U.S. senators

Nate Cohn at The New Republic doesn't think that Wyoming deserves two U.S. Senators.

And not just because Liz Cheney is running for one of them.

It's our low population numbers. It's been pointed out before, but Wyoming (pop. 576,000) has fewer people than many urban counties. Cohn trots out the numbers:

—There are at least 100 counties with more people than Wyoming. [I've lived in three of them: City and County of Denver and Arapahoe in Colorado and Montgomery County in Maryland.] 

—Rhode Island’s largest county has more people than Wyoming. 

—Fairfax County (VA) has twice as many people as Wyoming. There are more Romney voters in Fairfax County than voters in Wyoming, the second reddest state. 

—There are almost as many Romney voters in wildly Democratic Brooklyn as there are in Wyoming.   

—The student body of the University of Wyoming (13,992) would be the state’s seventh largest town.

And so on.

That's the real problem with Liz Cheney's decision -- now everybody in creation knows that there is such a place as Wyoming and that we have two U.S. senators, just like those big states. Mike Enzi is one of them (for now). Dr. John Barrasso is the other. Our little joke about Barrasso is that the most dangerous place in the world in that patch of real estate between Barrasso and a news camera. I saw him yesterday evening on our local Channel 5. He's in town to ride a horse in today's opening Cheyenne Frontier Days parade. WYO politicos have to know how to ride a horse. In D.C., they wear dark suits  and ride in limos as do others of their ilk. In WYO, they wear Wranglers and boots and a cowboy hat. Writes Nate Cohn:

Wyoming is a place with two escalators; it probably shouldn’t get two senators.

Again with the escalators. It's quaint, isn't it, to live in a state that has fewer escalators than your average station on the D.C. Metro? Have you ever taken a ride on the Dupont Circle escalators? Wyomingites have been known to quaver in fear when confronted with a ride from the sun-drenched city streets into the murky depths of the subway. Even our coal mines don't have murky depths. We don't have traffic either. Cohn notes that he's visited Wyoming and drove through our biggest city in two minutes. He must have been speeding; it takes me at least 5.27 minutes to drive I-80 through Cheyenne, starting at the Wal-Mart Distribution Center and exiting at Campstool Road, site of the Lowe's Distribution Center. We love our distribution centers.   

Just goes to show that people in other places are fascinated and repelled by Wyoming. We should use our entrepreneurial skills to showcase some of the odd things about the state, things that would interest our urban cousins. The "Wacky Wyoming Tour" would showcase our two escalators in Casper along with the place near Jackson in which gravity causes objects to roll uphill. We could show tourists the Casper elementary school classroom where Liz Cheney had her first Neo-Con revelation.

Other suggestions for stops on the Wacky Wyoming Tour?

Liz Cheney candidacy exposes Wyoming's aircraft carrier and escalator gaps

Liz Cheney, offspring of Dick and Lynne, declared her candidacy yesterday for U.S. Senate. She will be challenging Sen. Mike Enzi, who once had the temerity to work with a Democrat, the late Ted Kennedy.

Mother Jones carried a story today, "Ten Important Facts about Liz Cheney." Number 1: She just moved to Wyoming last year. Number 2: She's the daughter of Darth Vader Dick Cheney. And so on.

At the end of the piece, MoJo had this to say about Wyoming:

Wyoming, a state with two working escalators, has two senators in Washington due to the infallibility of the Founding Fathers. The official state dinosaur is the triceratops. In February of 2012, legislators in Cheyenne briefly considered building an aircraft carrier to prepare for a societal collapse.

Wyoming may have only one escalator. But since when does the escalator count determine a state's status? Wyoming long ago got rid of its escalators in favor of stairs in order to give its citizens better cardio workouts so that they would be in tip-top shape to bushwack through the wilderness to shoot wolves. And how many wolves does MoJo have? That's right -- none. That's exactly the number of official dinosaurs it has -- zero. Wyoming not only has an official state dinosaur, but it also has a state insect, a state fossil, a state grass, and a state code, The Code of the West, the best rootin' tootin' code you can have. The first precept of the code is "Dance with the one that brung ya." The second precept is "Don't take any wooden nickels." The thirds precept is "Never play cards with a guy named Doc." The fourth is "Take off that stupid cowboy hat when you're in my house, you moron. Didn't your mama teach you any manners?" And so on. This code is recited before every session of the legislature, which makes about as much sense as the legislature itself. How many official codes do you have, MoJo?

And how many aircraft carriers do you have? None? I thought so. We don't have one either. We would have, if it wasn't for those lily-livered Liberals that control the Wyoming State Legislature. Some of our knowledgable conservatives thought it would be prudent to prepare for the day when the United States went to hell in a handcart and we would have to fend for ourselves. The best solution they could think of was an aircraft carrier. I know, it may seem strange to have an aircraft carrier in a dry, landlocked state. But that's just what we wanted to enemy to think. Remember this precept of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" -- "Anyone who excels in defeating his enemies triumphs before his enemy's threats become real." Our legislators were only planning for the day that Idaho or Montana gets an aircraft carrier or possibly an entire fleet. Colorado will never be a threat because its Liberal leaders are unilaterally disarming and soon all the available conscripts will be soundly stoned. But if we ever get that neighboring 51st state, the one that will be made up of a dozen rural Colorado counties and led by Tea Party types, that will be a state to look out for. That will be a state that may beat us to the punch, aircraft carrier-wise. That may be a state that will out-loony us.

One more word about escalators. The Atlantic Online carried a piece today about our state's escalator gap. It turns out there are two escalators in WYO, both in Casper. That number could be four if you count the up and down escalators as separate conveyances.

Nothing like a Fox Network wingnut/East Coast carpetbagger declaring a run for the Senate in the loneliest state in the union to focus the media's evil eye of Sauron on Wyoming.

Yarn bombing yields explosion of flowers in downtown Cheyenne

Yarn bombing is a wonderful trend. Also called yarn storming or graffiti knitting, its practitioners create colorful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fiber to dress up impersonal public spaces. I there ever was an impersonal public space, the fence at The Hole in downtown Cheyenne has to be one. Thank you, graffiti knitters, for adding a dash of color to an eyesore -- and drawing attention to it in the process. Find out more about the art of yarn bombing here.

Coco's now playing in that big pond in the sky

Coco and Annie

Our dog Coco passed today. We had her put to sleep, as the old saying goes. Put out of her misery.

We humans get to make that decision about our pets. Our family has had to make it too many times. A choice between peace and what we perceive as more suffering. Coco was too good a dog to allow her to keep hemorrhaging or suffer seizures as the cancer ate through her brain and into the skull.

She was only 7. Our previous dog, Precious, lived to 14 and, our cat, Diamond, 12. That seems about right for a dog and pretty darn good for a tom cat who spent most of his time outside. We just lost a black-and-white tom, Bubba. One night he didn't come home. He left behind his brother Teddy, who now seems a bit rudderless. 

Today was Coco's fourth trip to the vet for her persistent malady. First it seemed like a dental problem and then an immune system disorder and finally, today, we discovered the grim truth. As the vet explained the shadowy mass in her brain and the missing bone mass, we knew what decision to make. We postponed the end, taking Coco for a walk along the greenway adjacent to Avenues Pet Clinic.

While my wife Chris stayed in the office to put Coco's paperwork in order, our daughter Annie and I walked the dog to a local pond. Coco went right in, scattering the ducks, and then ignoring them. She lifted her paw, smacked it down on the water and tried to gulp the geyser that erupted into the dry Wyoming afternoon. She wasn't really a water dog. She never went farther than leg-deep. We once took her swimming in the Flaming Gorge Reservoir. The clear water was cool on that cloudless August day. We all got as wet as we could, but Coco halted before her torso touched the surface."This is as far as I go, silly humans."

Coco liked one other form of water. I put the nozzle on the garden hose and turned it on full blast. I let the water jet onto the lawn, and Coco leapt and bit it. She attacked that water, occasionally hacking as a wave of Rocky Mountain runoff clogged her throat. She did this as long as I held the hose. It could have been hours -- she always outlasted me.

Coco despised baths, and she suffered through brushing her thick brindle coat. She liked humans well enough, and she grew up with cats. But she wasn't overly fond of other dogs. She carried on a long-running feud with Tommy the Golden Retriever next door. They shared a fence. Coco would perk up when she heard Tommy moving about. She raced to the stockade fence where she and Tommy faced off separated by an inch of weathered wood. Most contests were declared a draw. As far as I know, she and Tommy never actually had a physical clash. Nobody seems to know what got them started.

Coco was a stray that was caught up in one of the Laramie County Humane Society dragnets. When Annie and I met her, she shared an enclosure with a bigger dog. When Annie approached, Coco moved to the gate, growled at her kennel mate and then jumped up, inviting Annie to pet her. She did. The sign on the kennel said half pit bull, half Labrador. She didn't look like either.

I urged Annie to move along, as had had lots of pups to consider. She wanted a little pup, while Coco's age was listed as six months. We visited all the dogs. While I was busy petting a little German Shepherd mix, Annie disappeared. I found her back at Coco's cage. She wanted to take the pup for a walk at the adjacent dog park. I could tell that she and Coco were a good match. Annie was 13 and she and Coco ran around for an hour. "I want this one," Annie said finally.
 _
Now she's 20 and Coco's no longer with us. After we all arrived home from the vet's, Annie composed a slide show of Coco photos. Coco gamboling through the snow. Coco in a pond. Coco on Annie's lap. Brief moments in our lives.

Annie will finish up at the community college soon and will be off to some university and then will be busy with other things. Coco's memory will fade. She will own other dogs and cats. Her kids may insist, as she did with us, as did her brother before her.

As for me, I may be done with dogs. I have said farewell to too many of them. But one day, I will miss the miss the cold nose pushed into my face too early in the morning. I may miss the feel of a dog's sloping head in my aging palm. I may even miss a bark erupting for no discernible reason. There's nothing for this but to get another dog, as painful as it seems right now.

Farewell, Coco. Enjoy that big pond in the sky. And don't go in too deep.

Cheyenne Sunday gardening review

Silvery Fir Tree tomatoes on the vine. I've had particularly good luck with this variety.  The Ailsa Craigs are looking good too.

A bunch of greens

My tomato patch with petunias

Packman broccoli with petunias and columbines

One plays it cautiously this time of year. Gardening on the high plains comes with myriad dangers. Hail can fall when cumulonimbus clouds blow in from the Laramie Range. Weather reports yesterday carried warnings of hail and we have the same today. Two years ago my tomatoes were decimated by one of these monsoon season storms. I've harvested lots of greens and some Major variety broccoli already. The waiting game continues. Meanwhile, I enjoy the greening of my backyard.

WYO Shakespeare Festival Company explores "the quality of mercy" Saturday in Cheyenne

Shylock, Portia, Antonio and the crew from the Wyoming Shakespeare Festival Company come to Cheyenne Saturday for a production of "The Merchant of Venice." Curtain rises outdoors at 5 p.m. in the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens. It's free -- bring friends, a picnic, folding chair and an umbrella.

The WSFC works out of Lander and tours the state each summer with a different offering of The Bard. Friday evening, the troupe faced severe thunderstorm warnings in Torrington. But nature's elements don't faze the WSFC. Last July, the players were soaked to the bone as they weathered Cheyenne's only serious thunderstorm in the summer of '12. "King Lear" never looked so good or so wet.

The players are led by Diane Springford, who received a Governor's Arts Award for her efforts. The players are volunteers who devote many hours to rehearsals and travel. Have you ever been involved in local theatre? I have, and am continually amazed by the devotion of actors, directors, costumers, back stage crew, set builders, ticket takers, etc. It takes a village to put on a show. The reward? Putting on a great show. It feeds the ego and challenges you in ways you never anticipated. As in any artistic pursuit, there are good performances and bad ones. You get this sinking feeling when you blow a line or miss a cue. A good performance brings applause and euphoria. 

Shylock is a controversial figure among Shakespeare's characters. This intro was on the title page of the first quarto:  

The most excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. With the extreme cruelty of Shylock the Jew towards the Merchant....

Shylock, the Jewish money lender, is seen through the eyes of a playwright in 1596 Christian England. In the play, set in Venice, Shylock can only be redeemed by converting to Christianity. At the time, the Inquisition was still in effect in Italy and most of Catholic Europe.  

I see the play through the eyes of a 2013 American, one who knows about pogroms and the Holocaust. Today's audiences have to push beyond ourselves to experience the lives of these historic characters and to marvel at Shakespeare's language. As Portia says:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes...

Mercy.

See you in the gardens this evening. 

The Equality State votes no on equality -- again

Kerry Drake wrote a fine piece this week about Living Blue in Wyoming, a Facebook page that had a blast poking fun at Wyoming Know Nothings. I liked this page awhile back, but you can go and do that now. We need as many blue voices as we can get. Humor, too. Nice example today on LBIW of a meme lambasting Sen. Enzi (see below) for his no vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill that would ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Three Republicans, including Utah's Orrin Hatch, voted with Dems on this equality bill. The Beehive State voted yes but The Equality State voted no? Embarrassing move for this usually moderate Republican.

The Cardiac Chronicles: No moon walks after "Happy Juice"

They shot me up with some of that Michael Jackson happy juice. You know, propofol, the anaesthetic that Michael allegedly took for 60 nights straight for insomnia until it, combined with some other stuff prescribed by his doc, killed him. The drug's nickname is "Milk of Amnesia" for its milky color and its major side effect.

Earlier, I was on some other happy juice for my ICD surgery. But I was awake. It's odd to be lucid while a coterie of docs and nurses and technicians hover over you. It's a bit like a bad dream, although the happy juice makes it not so bad.

As announced earlier on these pages, I had surgery on Monday, part of my continuing recovery from a Christmas 2012 heart attack. The docs implanted an ICD, an implantable cardioverter defibrillator. This is part defibrillator, part pacemaker. It will correct arrhythmias and shock me back to reality should I be threatened with sudden cardiac death. Patients such as me who have heart muscle damage that leads to a reduced ejection fraction have a 5-8 percent chance of experiencing sudden cardiac death. I don't like those odds. They are much higher than the chance of getting hit by lightning during a lifetime (1/6250) or the odds of injury from mowing the lawn (3,623 to 1). It's even worse that getting killed in a car wreck (77-1).

Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD) Sucks. I'm having T-shirts made.

So I agreed to have the procedure.

One complaint, though. Last time I had a CRMC Cath Lab procedure, Led Zep was on the stereo. This time, I had to settle for Journey. Not sure if this was a tribute to Journey's upcoming concert (with Styx) on July 19 as part of Cheyenne Frontier Days. I took it as a bad sign.

But all was copacetic. Betsy was my nurse-guide. She stuck to me like the glue the docs used to seal my incision. She explained the proceedings to me. First came the preparations and then my chest was swabbed with orange goop and then, when that was dry, they draped me with sterile drapes. Finally, a tent was constructed over me. I was a bit claustrophobic until Betsy rolled back the tent walls and I could see her smiling face again. I couldn't actually see her face as she wore a mask. The nurses plopped something heavy dangerously close to my crotch.

"Ooomph," I said.

"Don't move," they said. "You'll contaminate the sterile field."

A disembodied voice informed me that I was getting some happy juice through my IV. After that, I only remember a few things, as happy juice is an amnesiac. Someone was kneading my chest like a baker kneading dough. It started to hurt but I'm not sure if I asked why they were baking bread and not not installing my gadget. When that was over, a big head appeared over me. Someone said "anesthesiologist" and "happy juice." Next thing I knew, I was rolling back to my room. I found out later that that last hit of juice was the propofol, which only put me out for five minutes or so while they tested my new gadget. Nurse-guide Betsy reported to my wife Chris that I was not happy with being test-shocked. My legs went flying up, she said, and I had a stern look on my face.

Wouldn't you?

After surgery, I slept for awhile and woke up feeling giddy. Happy juice can produce euphoria, which may have been Michael Jackson's desired side-effect. I had lot of visitors who said I looked good. I felt good.

The next day, the walls came crashing down. I slept 12 hours and didn't feel so chipper when I awoke Wednesday morning. Hangover Part I.

Oh, about that bread-kneading thing. Nurse Rita explained later that the surgeon had to insert his/her fingers through the incision and "knead" a pocket for the ICD.

So I wasn't imagining things.

I found a couple of videos of the procedure in YouTube. First one comes from Halifax Health in Daytona Beach, Florida. I was an orderly at this hospital as I worked my way through community college in the 1970s. My mom also died there in 1986, but that's another story. Go here.

A more recent operation comes from December 2011 out of Holland (that's a guess, as I didn't recognize the language). English speakers may have a hard time with the audio, but the video is very detailed. Go here.