In Wyoming, we have our own nattering nabobs of negativism

"In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4H Club -- the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history."

Former vice president Spiro Agnew said this in 1970 about enemies of the Nixon administration, which included journalists, anti-war activists and pointy-headed intellectuals. At the time, none of these categories applied to me. They do now, 45 years later. I had to grow into them.

Agnew resigned in disgrace in 1973, replaced by Gerald Ford, who had some Wyoming roots and later went on the be president when Nixon resigned in disgrace in 1974.

Agnew's alliteration can be credited to William Safire, himself a journalist, and Pat Buchanan, known mostly for being a TV talking head and a presidential candidate. They wrote speeches for the Nixon White House. These guys loved words and it shows. They reached all the way back to the utterings of Captain Haddock, a character in the Tintin comic strip (and a 2011 Spielberg film) by Belgian cartoonist Herge. Captain Haddock was known for his colorful epithets: "Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles" and "Ten thousand thundering typhoons!" Herge knew that sailors were known for their swearing but many children read his comic strip. So he found that alliterative words strung together and said in an angry voice can have the same effect as, well, you know -- a string of obscenities. You can call your critics pansy-ass anti-war dipshits. Or you can call them nattering nabobs of negativism. Those white Southern fundies will know what you're saying, and they can still pretend in public that they don't drink and swear.

Nattering nabobs of negativism. That term could be used for extremist Republicans in our state legislature. They've never seen a new idea they liked. To them, progress is a dirty word.  Technology is almost as scary as immigrants, LGBT people and Medicaid expansion. When our civic leaders promote planning initiatives, Repub extremists see a U.N. plot.

Agnew grew up a Democrat in Maryland and became a Republican and a moderate until Nixon got his hooks into him. Agnew became a mouthpiece for the Southern Strategy, the successful attempt to turn Bible Belt Conservative Democrats into Republicans. We're still feeling its effects. Most conservative ridiculousness comes from the South and deep-red states of the West.

It's difficult to reconcile the overwhelming negativity of the conservative legislature with the positive things I see happening all over Wyoming. The arts are booming, especially art on the local scene. "Local" is the key term here. Artists and artisans are figuring out that the best way to ensure the survival of your community is to grow it from the inside out. Big Coal isn't going to save you, nor is Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Tourism, Big Biz of any kind. Wyoming has always served as energy colony to the nation. That era is over, or at least on its way out. Gigantic wind farms, such as the one planned for Carbon County, may replace gigantic open pit coal mines. But it will be community-driven initiatives that save us. A paranoid fear of the federal government will not help. Nattering nabobs of negativism breed fear and insecurity. Instead, you need to look at what makes your community unique and open the door to change. That's not easy when you live in a small town in windswept Wyoming. It's much easier to blame some outside force for the fact that your town is ready to dry up and blow away. Federal gubment. Liberals. Obama. Enviros. That kind of negativism just quickens the inevitable.

Communities need to ponder their own navels for a bit to know what makes it tick. They may even have to indulge in some planning. It isn't always pretty when people from throughout a community get together to air their ideas. But the opposite is true, too. The death of a town through neglect and attrition is an ugly thing. We keep hearing that Wyoming is aging rapidly and our kids are leaving for more thriving locales.

Nonsensical nattering negativity is not the solution. What about continuing creativity conversations?

How to turn your yard into a destination for birds, bees, and butterflies

The wind is driving me crazy. But the warm weather brings thoughts of gardening. Landscaping, too. I've been wanting to kill my lawn for years. Problem is, you have to replace that grass with something else. My small front yard would look good in rocks. My twin spruce trees rain down destruction. Those needles acidify the soil, a tree's way of banishing competition for resources. I can neutralize the soil and plant a hardier grass. Then I'd have to mow it.

There's no easy way out.

I like the idea of wildscaping, turning my lawn into a habitat for the birds and the bees and the butterflies.

Barb Gorges wrote this week in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle about a Habitat Hero workshop in Cheyenne that will address the idea of wildscaping on the high prairie. The workshop will be held March 28, 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m., at Laramie County Community College. One of the speakers is Susan Tweit, who earned her plant biology degree at UW and now lives near Salida, Colorado. Susan's a fine writer, author of "Rocky Mountain Garden Survival Guide." She also finds time to post a daily haiku and a scenic photo on Facebook. Other speakers include Jane Dorn, co-author of "Growing Native Plants of the Rocky Mountain Area," and Clint Basset, Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities water conservation specialist.

The three panelists will look at yards submitted by participants and describe ways to turn those spaces into destinations for wildlife.

I'd love to see what they recommend for my yard.

Tickets are $15. Register at Habitat Hero Cheyenne.

Can't help myself -- writing nice things about Republicans again

I can't help myself. I keep writing nice things about Republican legislators. This time it's newly-elected Sen. Stephan Pappas of Cheyenne. He's co-sponsor, with Democrat Chris Rothfuss of Laramie, of a bill (SF115) that would protect gays and transgender people from workplace discrimination. The bill passed its first Senate vote on Friday. Here's Sen. Pappas's comments about the bill in this morning's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle:

[Pappas] said Wyoming is being economically affected by not having an anti-discrimination law. Wyoming needs to show the country and the world it lives by its nickname of the Equality State, he said. 

"There's folks we could bring into Wyoming who have a lot of talent who otherwise might stay away from us if we don't protect folks from discrimination," he said.

Pappas defeated Democrat Dameione Cameron in the 2014 Senate race. I walked neighborhoods for Cameron and contributed to his campaign. He had as many Republican and Libertarian supporters as Democrats, a good thing in this red state. Not enough, though. Too many Democrats didn't vote. The campaign on both sides was noteworthy for its decorum. We know that national groups put pressure on Wyoming Republicans to not stray from the fold. In Gaylan Wright's House District 10 campaign, fliers landed in Republicans' mailboxes that said if you vote for a Democrat, your neighbors are going to know. Intimidating in a largely rural state with the highest rate of gun ownership in the nation. The same fliers from mysterious national right-wing groups probably made it to mailboxes in Senate District 7.

But Pappas and the rest of us know that Dameione Cameron is an Air Force veteran from South Carolina who stayed in Cheyenne, worked his way through law school and now has a thriving practice. We also know that he is a successful businessman, proprietor of downtown's Morris House Bistro, the best restaurant in town, known throughout the region for its Carolina low-country cuisine. If my knees were in better shape, I would walk 100 miles to sit on MHB's patio on a summer evening, eat shrimp and grits, wash it down with a cold beer. Almost like Myrtle Beach -- without the mosquitoes. Fortunately, I work only a block away from MHB and can saunter on over for lunch any time.

Did I mention that Mr. Cameron is gay? Must have forgotten. It hardly seems worth mentioning, Cameron being such an outstanding member of the community and all. To get down to basics, he's one hell of an economic generator, if you count both of his businesses and the people he employs. A homeowner, too, with his partner Troy Rumpf. A taxpayer, too. Stephan Pappas knows this. Sen. Pappas, an architect and USAF veteran, lives in Cheyenne and probably knows a few other people in the LGBT community. Whatever his reasons, Pappas is doing the right thing while many of his Republican colleagues dwell in the dim past.

We'll see how far this anti-discrimination bill gets. SF115 faces two more votes in the Senate and then moves over to the House. Let's see what our Equality State legislators do. Expect fireworks and crazy talk. But also some pleasant surprises.  

Wearing red -- and happy to have the past two years

Wear Red Day for heart health. 

A new study shows that many people would prefer to die sooner than take a daily pill. From the Atlantic Magazine Online:

In a study published earlier this week in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, a journal of the American Heart Association, researchers from the University of North Carolina and the University of California, San Francisco, surveyed 1,000 people on what they would be willing to give up to avoid taking a daily pill—one without any cost or side effects—to protect heart health. 

Here’s what people were willing to trade: 

• More than 20 percent said they would pay $1,000 or more; around 3 percent said they’d pay up to $25,000.

• Around 38 percent of respondents said they’d be willing to gamble some risk of immediate death; around 29 percent of the people surveyed said they’d accept a small (lower than 1 percent) risk, while 9 percent of them said they’d accept a one-in-10 chance of immediate death.

• When the question changed from risk of death to certain death, around 30 percent said they would trade at least a week off their lives, and 8 percent were willing to give up a full two years.

Eight percent were willing to give up a full two years?

Yikes. I wonder how I would have answered had I been surveyed three years ago? Would I gamble some dough, risk immediate death or trade a couple of years?

Not sure. Maybe I’d accept a small risk of immediate death (less that 1 percent) or trade at least a week. That is a bit unreal when you haven’t faced death, especially cardiac death. Once you do, well, it becomes all too real.

I experienced a heart attack two years, one month and 18 days ago. I had a pain in my stomach. I saw the doctor but he didn’t know what it was. Two weeks later I was in the ER with congestive heart failure. My life was saved, through little effort on my own. I received a stent at the juncture of my Lateral Anterior Descending artery or LAD. Its nickname is “The Widowmaker.” A few months later, I returned to the hospital for an ICD, a combination defibrillator/pacemaker. In the two weeks that I didn’t get help for my heart, it sustained blood loss and permanent damage. I now take ten pills a day to forestall another heart attack. Is it a pain in the ass? Yes. Do I wish I didn’t have to take them? Yes. But do I want to live two more years? I already have….

Today is #WearRedDay for heart health. I am wearing red. I took my pills this morning. I went to work today and tonight, my wife and I are going to a party to see our friends, many of whom visited me in the hospital two years ago. I am glad I had those two years. I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

This week in the legislature: Magna Carta Day and mandatory neon outfits for cyclists

This summer, we're going to party like it's 1890.

Doesn't it always seem like 1890 around here, especially when the legislature comes to town? But this summer is special because we're celebrating the 125th anniversary of Wyoming statehood. On July 10, 1890, a bunch of guys sat down in Cheyenne and agreed to join the union, a move they've been regretting ever since.

Darn federal gubment! Freedom!

We may also be partying 1215-style on June 15 with Magna Carta Day. House Resolution 10 introduced this week by Rep. Jaggi (he's one busy bee)  and other forward-thinking legislators think it's high time we recognize those ticked-off English barons that drafted and signed this historic document.

Be it resolved… That Wyoming celebrate June 15, 2015, the 800th anniversary of the day the Barons of England accosted King John at Runnymede in the defense of their Liberties, as Magna Carta Day. That Wyoming encourage the teaching of the lessons of Magna Carta within and outside the schools of the state. That Wyoming defend its Liberties with the same fierce steadfast determination that the Barons of England showed at Runnymede.

I'm as supportive of due process and as against taxation without representation as the next guy. But these feudal barons and their offspring were the same genocidal madmen who attempted to wipe out my Irish forebears. So excuse me if I don't wish everyone a Happy Magna Carta Day on June 15.

I also have to wonder about teaching the lessons of the Magna Carta in the same schools that forbid the teaching of evolution and climate change, and -- if Republican legislators have their way -- kindergartners soon will be packing heat. And what about legislative time management? Is a Magna Carta bill the best use of time during a 40-day legislative session?

Since I vote and work to elect legislators I can believe in, I earn the right the criticize. Conservatives might argue that bills calling for bicycle safety, marijuana decriminalization and workplace protections for the LGBTQ community are a waste of time. And don't get us started on Medicaid expansion!

Those bills are have one thing in common -- they look to the future rather than the past. The bipartisan bike safety bill (SB103) was introduced by Casper Republican Rep. Tim Stubson, someone whom I have criticized on these pages in the past. A bicyclist was killed by a motorist in downtown Casper last year. Other Casper cyclists have been injured while commuting or just taking a ride around town. We also hear reports from around the state of cyclists being targeted by disgruntled motorists in coal rollers.

Take a minute to ponder this. More people than ever ride bikes. The world celebrates the era of alternative transportation: Cycling, mass transit, electric cars. I saw an online ad for the Storm electric bike (ebike) the other day. Ebikes run on pedal power and, when you're tired or need an extra push, battery power. Top speed is 20 mph, which is much better than this cyclist can do on a flat surface. A Storm ebike costs $500, which is twice my car payment and equal to the cost paid by many truck owners. And just think of the fuel savings.

Wyoming draws cycling tourists. No surprise, with all of the cool scenery one can encounter across the state. I can't take a summer car trip without encountering a cyclist or a group of them. If those cyclists had the feeling that Wyoming was a particularly dangerous place for them, they would take their cycling and their money to some other scenic Rocky Mountain state. To Colorado, for instance, which deserves its bike-friendly reputation. Remember that tourism is a huge economic generator for Wyoming. Teton County and the national parks are the number one destination. My home of Laramie County is number two. Most tourists travel by car/truck/RV. Teton County is studying ways to draw tourists that don't want to be burdened with driving their car from Des Moines or renting one on site. We should be doing the same in Laramie County.

Thanks to Rep. Stubson for SB103. And to co-sponsors Sen. Charlie Scott (R-Casper) and Laramie Democrats Sen. Rothfuss and Rep. Pelkey.

Unfortunately, another bill was introduced this week. It has to do with cycling, but it's really an anti-cycling bill. It stipulates that all cyclists must wear 200 square inches of reflective neon and have flashing lights at the rear of their bikes. The strangest part is this: cyclists must carry a government ID card with them at all times. The bill is another attempt by conservatives to paint Wyoming as a crazy place. Not surprisingly, it was sponsored by House Reps. David Northrup, Donald Burkhart, Hans Hunt, Allen Jaggi (him again), Jerry Paxton and Cheri Steinmetz -- all rural Republicans. I have a feeling that these House Repubs picked up this gem from those Koch Brothers-funded ALEC confabs where lawmakers are wined and dined and programmed with loony legislation.

Here's more from an article in the Jackson Hole News & Guide:

“This is a deeply concerning bill,” Wyoming Pathways Executive Director Tim Young said. “We will not be in support of this. 

"Generally speaking, this is an inappropriate way to look at bike legislation in Wyoming,” he said.

Young said he wondered whether legislators would also force pedestrians to carry identification and wear neon clothing while on public thoroughfares.

One doesn't see many pedestrians walking along the state's rural highways. One doesn't see many pedestrians walking city streets. But maybe we would if neon clothing became a Wyoming fashion statement.

I look forward to walking The Neon Streets of Cheyenne. There might even be a song in there somewhere.

Ireland's Great Hunger lives on

"Skibbereen 1847" by Cork artist James Mahony (1810–1879), commissioned by The Illustrated London News, 1847

I have never been hungry enough to eat grass or old shoe leather.

Ireland's Great Hunger starved a million Irish and sent many packing for America. Some starved and sickened along the way in the so-called coffin ships. Those left at home ate anything they could find. Many starved anyway.

Our English overlords stood by and did nothing. They did import corn to Ireland but none of the starvelings could afford it. Some relief came from unexpected sources. Knowing what it was like to starve on "The Trail of Tears," Cherokees in Oklahoma sent food to the Irish. The Turks did too.

A mythology builds up around any earth-shaking event that causes the diaspora of hundreds of thousands of people. The Irish have immortalized the Great Hunger in song and story and art. Family stories, too. My own Shay relatives left Ireland for the U.S. in 1847. They farmed in New England and then moved to Iowa, where they prospered. They may have hungered and thirsted through the years, when drought and pestilence visited the Iowa City area. But they were never threatened with starvation of the type they faced in Ireland.

Even amidst prosperity, does the Great Hunger linger within us?

According to an article on the Irish Central web site:

Irish historian Oonagh Walsh believes that the Great Hunger triggered a higher rate of mental illness among later generations, including both those who stayed in Ireland and those who emigrated. 

She believes that severe nutritional deprivation between 1845-1850 caused "epigenetic change." Here's more:

Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression. These do not necessarily involve changes to the genetic code, but the effects may persist for several generations. Walsh estimated that the impact from epigenetic change from the Great Hunger lasted for a century and a half.  

Walsh’s research is still at an early stage, but she expects to see a correlation between the high rates of mental illness and the effects of maternal starvation. She also thinks there may be a connection between the Great Hunger and cardiovascular and other diseases.

Just think about this a bit. We all know that mental and physical traits can "run in a family." Red hair, height, odd behavior. Remember Aunt Clara? We had to keep her in the attic -- she thought she was the Queen of Sheba.

What if our genes, damaged by cataclysmic hunger, contributed to Aunt Clara's delusions?

Researchers have been busily studying the causes of mental illness for generations. Genetics play a role. Trauma, too, as in PTSD. And what is starvation if not a major trauma, as important as war or torture or physical abuse?

Walsh has also researched the dramatic growth in Irish lunatic asylums in the 19th century. The first was built a dozen years before the potato famine. But it continued well into the latter part of the century, along with increased patient populations. They included those with behavior problems as well as "lunatics at large." Families stashed their problem children in the asylums; Aunt Clara too. Husbands stashed inconvenient wives in asylums, freeing them to marry a newfound love interest.

The U.S. built asylums, too. Many are now closed, the sites of horrendous treatment of patients, torture and murder. Others grew up as medications and treatment options improved.

The Wyoming State Hospital in Evanston opened in 1887, three years before statehood, and was first called the Wyoming Insane Asylum. I don't have to imagine "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" scenes or strait jackets and padded rooms and lobotomies -- I'm sure all of that happened there as it did at other asylums, from Ken Kesey's Oregon State Hospital to the notorious Trenton State Hospital in New Jersey. Society's cast-offs are always treated badly.

We are now enlightened. We have super-drugs for the mentally ill. Our treatment has gone beyond shock therapy and mind-numbing drugs. We are stardust. We are golden.

If only that were true.

Anyone with a mentally ill family member knows the challenges of finding the right treatments. This isn't a problem faced only by rural states such as Wyoming. It is a problem everywhere.

It is refreshing to see researchers such as Oonagh Walsh dig deeper into the origins of mental illness. Perhaps my grandfathers' depression was due to being shell-shocked in World War I. Perhaps it was part of the epigenetic change inflicted on his Irish forebears. That doesn't help him, as he's long gone. But it might help me, an aging Irish-American who also suffers from depression.

It may also help my daughter, who's had major struggles with her mental illness since she was 14. She now is a patient as the place formerly known as the Wyoming Insane Asylum. Her parents are now trying to help her in any way we can. Some of that is practical parental involvement. We are strong advocates for our daughter. Knowledge is part of that. We more we know, the better.

And this is what feeds my imagination: the vision of a starving mother in 1847 scouring the fields of County Cork for a few grains of barley. Her future depends on it. She may starve, but the memory of it will last for generations.    

I know what kind of state I want to live in

One of the highlights of Gov. Matt Mead’s State of the State speech on Jan. 13 was his proposed initiative called Wyoming Grown. It was prompted by the fact that Wyoming is “losing 60 percent of our greatest talent” when young people educated in Wyoming move elsewhere after graduation. Gov. Mead wants to “keep kids in Wyoming after graduation.” So, Wyoming Grown will recruit those “who have left the state and bring them back."

He was skimpy on the details, which I’m sure he supplied those in his budget request for this program. But it will include a new web page by the Tourism Office. It will strengthen businesses that will be able to hire these young people in Cheyenne and Casper, Lusk and Meeteetse.

Concluded the Governor: “Let’s open the door to get our young people home.”

Kudos to Gov. Mead. This goes along with his description of Wyomingites as builders, not hoarders. We all want to build the state, not see it wither away. The state is aging rapidly and we need new blood desperately. This Republican Governor is big on technology and infrastructure and new jobs. He promotes local economic development, which has led to a downtown resurgence in Rawlins, Casper, Rock Springs, Lander and many other communities. He’s also a supporter of the arts and creativity. 

I cannot speak for young people as I’m not young myself. I am a parent of two Millennials, one of whom – my son Kevin -- lives and works elsewhere, namely Tucson, Arizona. What would lure him back to Wyoming? Well, he likes the outdoors. He was a Boy Scout and is a dedicated camper and rock climber. His parents and sister live in Wyoming and we would like to see him more often.
 

But Tucson is a city with a lively arts and cultural scene. Kevin is involved in theatre and music and also is a dedicated gamer. He’s a big fan of public transportation due to the fact that he’s never had a very reliable car and, well, insurance and car payments really add up. Tucson has light rail and a marvelous bus system. A university with lots of cultural offerings. It’s warm, too. His first summer there he described as “hotter than the surface of the sun.” But he’s acclimated and, like most Tucsonans, ventures out in July only under cover of darkness. But January, well, that’s when his Wyoming family visits.

Wyoming really can’t compete with the lights of the big city. How you gonna keep ‘em down on the ranch after they’ve seen Portland and Austin and Nashville?  See, we’re not even talking about huge metropolises such as New York and L.A. It’s the urban mix that draws young people. If they aren’t progressive when they arrive, they tend to get that way by mixing with folks that aren’t like them. Different genders. Sometimes people who are bending the genders and shattering the status quo. Different ethnicities. People from different parts of the country – different parts of the world. To be a part of the urban mix, you need tolerance and flexibility. Curiosity, too, a sense that you’d like to know what makes your neighbors tick. Sure, you can say the same thing about city folks coming to Wyoming. They have to be flexible and respectful when living and working in a more conservative climate. Some are better with that than others.

Wyoming has one big problem that won’t go away anytime soon. Some of its residents think that they exist in a “Wyoming is what America was” bubble. Right-wing loonies air their prejudices and grievances as if it were 1915 rather than 2015. We live in a world when the dumbest ideas hit the airwaves with lightning speed. Witness how much fun the talk show hosts had with all of the many nonsensical Republican responses to Pres. Obama’s recent SOTU speech.

So, when a conservative legislator proposes an anti-gay piece of legislation, the news travels far and wide. Young people, the heaviest users of smart phones and social media, are privy to the news immediately and spread the word about those dumbbells in Wyoming. I don’t like it when the legislators in my adopted state get painted as wackos.

But if the shoe (or boot) fits….

So, our Republican legislators promote a “right to discriminate against people we don’t like” (HB83) bill and an “Agenda 21 is a U.N. commie plot” (HB133) bill. Rep. Jaggi from Uinta County speaks like a bit player in an old Hollywood western when he refers to Native Americans as “Injuns” in a public meeting. This makes me wonder if Republicans really care about bringing our young people back to the state. Maybe they are angling for a certain type of young person, one who is already a diehard Republican, watches only Fox News and already believes that it is OK to discriminate against those who don’t think/act/look like you do.

I don’t think that’s what Governor Mead has in mind. He is a college graduate, earning everything up to his J.D. His wife, our First Lady, is a college graduate and a strong supporter of education. They have two children who will go to college and may be the future leaders of the state just as Gov. Mead’s mother and grandfather were leaders. I think that Gov. Mead is thinking ahead to the kind of Wyoming he wants to leave to his children. That’s not the regressive version of the state that the extremist members of his own party envision, if it’s appropriate to use that term. To envision, you need a vision, not just a tendency to dig in your heels and say no to all change and all progress.   

I don’t know if my children or grandchildren will live and work in Wyoming.

I do know what kind of state I want to live in.   

Dear Florida: Sorry we burned all of that coal but it couldn't be helped

The February issue of National Geographic features an excellent -- and scary -- article about the effects of global warming on south Florida. As the planet warms and sea levels rise, Miami is destined to be either 1. A floating city; 2. nonexistent. Some are planning for the inevitable. Many are not.

National Geographic maps show one of the worst-case scenarios for sea level rise. In 2100, a five-foot rise is expected, which would inundate most coastal areas.

If sea levels rise five feet, nearly one million of the current homes near the coast will be below the average day’s high tide.

--clip-- 

In total, some $390 billion worth of property could be damaged or lost—a sum fives times as great as Florida’s state budget.

I grew up in one of those sea-level homes a half block from "The World's Most Famous Beach." It's possible I learned my love of hyperbole from Daytona Beach boosters. I did learn to surf and love the ocean. At one time, I was thinking of becoming a marine biologist. My brothers and I arose every morning with dreams of good surf. Often we were disappointed. But we usually spent a part of every day in salt water -- or on it. I wasn't big on fishing but some of my brothers were. We were water people.  

I now live on an ancient seabed in Wyoming. Sometimes, when the wind blows from the southeast, I smell salt water. Sometimes I also smell the refinery, but that's another story. Parts of Wyoming's ancient seabed contain seams of coal produced by flora and fauna from those ancient seas and seashores. For a hundred years or so, we've been digging up the coal to burn in power plants that add pollutants to the air and warm the climate. In this way. we contribute to the sea gobbling up my old Florida home and, one day in the far future, providing some bitchin' surfing in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

In Gov. Mead's State of the State speech this week, he received applause and enthusiastic huzzahs from legislators when he said this:

“In coming years, I will continue to work with bulldog determination on coal initiatives, port expansion, new technology, and value-added products. And in coming years, we don’t need to let up, we need to double down. We must assure coal’s continuity.”

Surf's up!

Avid baseball fan (and political organizer) Christine Pelosi to speak at Dems' dinner

Political organizer Christine Pelosi will be the special guest for the 2015 Nellie Tayloe Ross Gala put on by the Wyoming Democratic Party on Feb. 7 at the Holiday Inn in Cheyenne. Get your tix here.

I read Christine Pelosi's bio on Huffington Post, where she's a columnist. I absorbed all of the stuff about her famous mom, political organizing, the books she's written, and so on. But then I got to the important stuff: "An avid baseball fan, she lives within walking distance of her beloved World Champion San Francisco Giants."

OK, so I'm a Rockies fan and it may be decades before the Rox knock off the Giants for National League West dominance. But still -- walking distance of an MLB ballpark? Color me jealous. 

Here's the rest of the bio:

Attorney, author, and activist Christine Pelosi has a lifetime of grassroots organizing and public policy experience. She conducts leadership boot camps based on her books Campaign Boot Camp: Basic Training for Future Leaders (2007) and Campaign Boot Camp 2.0 (2012). Both books emerged from her years of grassroots activism and service with the AFSCME P.E.O.P.L.E. Congressional Candidates Boot Camp, which worked with approximately 120 challengers from 2006 to 2012, 33 of whom were elected to Congress. Her trainings with candidates, volunteers, and NGO leaders span over thirty American states and three foreign countries. She appears regularly on national television and radio. Her blog postings at the Huffington Post focus on current events as well as the role of social media networks, technology in politics and the unique leadership challenges for women candidates. Her next book, Women on the Run, will be released in 2014.

Christine holds a JD from the University of California Hastings College of the Law and a BSFS from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She has served as a prosecutor in San Francisco, a special counsel in the Clinton-Gore administration, and a chief of staff on Capitol Hill. A former executive director of the CA Democratic Party, Christine chairs the CA Democratic Party Women's Caucus, led the CA Democratic Party Platform Committee for thirteen years, has been elected five times to the Democratic National Committee, where she cofounded the DNC Veterans and Military Families Council and serves as a vice chair, and serves on the Stakeholder Board of the Young Democrats of America. 

An avid baseball fan, she lives within walking distance of her beloved World Champion San Francisco Giants and serves on the Giants Community Fund board of directors. She is married to Emmy-nominated filmmaker Peter Kaufman; their daughter Isabella was born in 2009. An advocate for working moms, Christine traveled with her infant daughter to 21 states and 3 foreign countries performing campaign boot camps to advance Democrats and democracy.

Thinking about extremists close to home

I've been offline for several days. Some gremlin in my Charter cable service. I called for assistance. The woman at Charter was very nice. She promised to send a repair crew to my house sometime in 2016.

During my down time, magazine cartoonists and editors at a satiric journal in Paris were massacred by jihadis. A liberal blogger was flogged in Saudi Arabia for "insulting Islam." A bomb went off outside NAACP headquarters in Colorado Springs. 

Just another eventful few days on Planet Earth.

Hard to tell who planted the NAACP bomb. The FBI is offering a $10,000 award for information on a guy seen lurking around the building prior to the explosion. If it was 50 years ago, I would guess the KKK or similar racist organization was behind it. The Klan has a long history in Colorado, mostly in Denver. Ben Stapleton was the successful KKK candidate for mayor in 1923 and stacked city offices with Klan members. When I lived in Denver in the 1980s, it was a pleasure to drive down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard into Stapleton International Airport. 

The Klan still exists. In June 2013, KKK recruitment flyers were distributed in Colorado Springs. Voters in the Springs recently elected a right-winger to the legislature, Gordon Klingenschmitt. He's the head of the Pray in Jesus Name Project, listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Known mostly for his anti-LGBT screeds, he's also an Obama hater - he once wrote that Pres. Obama was ruled by at least 50 evil spirits. Just 50? He's a hater of Democrats in general. Here's a Klingenschmitt quote:

“Democrats like [openly gay Colorado congressman Jared] Polis want to bankrupt Christians who refuse to worship and endorse his sodomy. Next he’ll join ISIS in beheading Christians, but not just in Syria, right here in America.” 

There's no shortage of loonies right here in the U.S. We may have inept bombers, but at least we don't have France's problems -- not yet, anyway. 

And we're not flogging liberal bloggers, not even in Wyoming.

I have a right to speak my mind. Jihadis have a right to speak their minds, but not execute those who do likewise. Klingenschmitt has a right to speak his mind.

I have a right to ridicule your writings and utterings. You have a right to ridicule my attempts at satire, lampooning and humor.

#JeSuisCharlie.

And so are you.

It's 1939 in Cheyenne, Wyoming -- what side are you on?

I'm working on a short story set in 1939 Cheyenne. I rarely venture this far back in time. Two stories in my first collection were set in post-World War II Wyoming and Colorado. I have gone far into the future with some of my sci-fi. But never back to the 1930s. I wasn't around then, but my parents were, both young people struggling through the Great Depression with their working-class families. I've read fiction set in the thirties. Nelson Algren, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Steinbeck, Eudora Welty, Irwin Shaw. The twenties and thirties may have been the golden age of the American short story. I've read hundreds of them. Big Blonde. How Beautiful with Shoes. A Rose for Emily. A Bottle of Milk for Mother. The Killers. Flowering Judas.

One of my favorites is Irwin Shaw's "Sailor Off the Bremen." Shaw is best known for his post-war novels such as "The Young Lions" and "Rich Man, Poor Man." But it's his stories that I've read and studied. They were collected into a volume, "Five Decades."

"Sailor Off the Bremen," published in The New Yorker in February 1939, is about international politics and revenge. In New York Harbor, communists stage an anti-Nazi demonstration aboard the German ship Bremen. A Nazi steward beats up a demonstrator, whose family and friends believe that the Nazi should pay. They find out who the steward is, trap and beat the crap out of him.

When I first read that story decades ago, I knew little about the years leading up to World War II. I was a student of the war. As was the case with many Baby Boomer boys, we watched movies and TV shows about the war our fathers fought in. Some of us read books, too, as my father had a great library. We knew war as boys know war. Names of battles, famous generals, types of airplanes and tanks.

What caused the war? Hitler and the damn Nazis. Tojo and the stinkin' Japs. Excuse my use of the term "Japs" -- that's how Americans spoke about residents of the Empire of Japan during the war and after it. That's about as far as it went until I got older and began reading about it. America was dragged kicking and screaming into it. I don't mean after Pearl Harbor, but before it, when many Americans had no reason to care what happened to French farmers and Chinese peasants. We'd been dragged into another European war in 1917, and many wondered why we had to bail out the French and the Brits once again. Isolationism was rampant, especially among those in the individualist-minded Rocky Mountain West. Many of the leading isolationists in Congress were from Montana and Idaho and South Dakota. Probably Wyoming, too, although I haven't done any research on the matter.

I am reading a book on the subject. "Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's fight over World War II, 1939-1941," by Lynne Olson.  I just finished a section about the very close Congressional vote to extend the conscription act, a vote held four months before Dec. 7, 1941. Conscription had been passed a year before in which young men were drafted into the army for a year. That year was up and many of those young men wanted to go back home. They spent their time digging ditches and marching around with fake rifles and didn't see the point as the U.S. wasn't at war. So when Roosevelt and his interventionist allies tried to extend the draft, many in Congress weren't eager to sign on, including ,many Democrats. The final vote was 203 aye and 202 nays. And some of the ayes were about to change their votes when Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn closed the vote with an arcane procedural move. It took the U.S. a long time to mobilize after the Dec. 8 declaration of war. Imagine how long it would have taken if the draft had been abandoned? History can turn on a single vote.

One thing is clear -- even four months before we entered the war, isolationism was strong in this country. I wondered what it was like for the average joe, the guy who became G.I. Joe in the war years. The economy had picked up once we got into the 1940s, but problems of the Great Depression hadn't gone away. What made you an interventionist and what made you an isolationist? in 1941, there wasn't a bomber or missile that could reach the U.S. from potential enemies. But what would happen if Hitler took over the world and eventually threatened us? And what about all of those rumors of Nazis murdering Jews?

As always, I tried to put myself in that era in the form of a fictional character. And so goes my story and along with it, hours of research. Research can be addictive, especially in this age of unlimited accessibility to online sources. But I stopped myself and wrote the story. It's called "Ras Tafari in Cheyenne." I'm excerpting it on my blog because I don't know what else to do with it. If you have any ideas for markets, let me know. The excerpts will begin in mid-January -- I'll keep you posted.

What makes Cheyenne Cheyenne?

One of the best things to happen to Wyoming communities in 2014 is a resurgence of downtown redevelopment. Wyoming Main Street gets some credit for that. But the energy to get the job done comes from within the community. That's the way it should be, don't you think?

Rock Springs, Gillette, Rawlins -- all communities that refurbished downtowns in the past year. They rebuilt streets and sidewalks, added new lighting and purchased public art. Rock Springs and Rawlins provided funds for businesses to redo their storefronts. All of these places added business to their central core, the traditional heart of their cities.

What do I-80 travelers think about when they buzz through Rawlins? Who would want to live there -- it's so desolate? Sure, on a bitter January day, Rawlins can look at bit intimidating. Sure, the state's hulking gray prison lurks just behind the bluffs to the south. The rock escarpments that ring the town may look a bit foreboding to coasters. And that 60 mph west wind that strips the enamel from your teeth? Not much to say but keep your mouth shut. I suppose that's good advice anytime.

But there's so much to see and do. The intriguing historic prison is downtown and the site for some entertaining candlelight tours during Halloween season. The old prison even appeared on an episode of "Ghost Adventures" in which Zak & Co. discovered that the exploration of a quirky local home was almost as exciting as the haunted prison. We acknowledge that the show is filled with P.T. Barnum hoopla -- but it also showcases some great historic tidbits. And how many nationally-televised shows get to Rawlins?

Rawlins recently revamped their downtown streetscape and added two beautiful hawk sculptures by Boulder's Joshua Wiener. Next time, get off the interstate and do some exploring -- and maybe some dining and shopping.

It's the people who make the place -- and those creative ventures that people undertake. Art, music, writing, sculpting, cooking, ghost adventuring, etc. You just have to ask yourself: what makes my community tick?

What makes Cheyenne Cheyenne? That's the question we're asking locally. Everyone knows about our Old West heritage. Every July, we stage a big party with that theme at its center. But Cheyenne also is about transportation -- railroads, highways and air travel. That last one may be a bit of a surprise, as our tiny airport is outshone by so many others in the region. But our town has a storied history when it comes to flying. The Carl Spaatz Flying Circus, Eddie Rickenbacker's crack-up, Lindbergh and the Army Airmail Service, the advent of United Airlines, etc. -- you can look it up.

Dinosaurs walked here -- and I'm not just talking about Republican legislators. Native Americans were the first human inhabitants and Cheyenne, as its name suggests, is rich in pre-white-settlement history. Buffalo soldiers? We had them at Fort D.A. Russell.

We are enriched by the arts. An article in Sunday's WTE celebrated a banner year in music for Cheyenne. Arts Cheyenne will engage in an "arts blitz" in 2015 to build interest for a downtown Artspace project that will rehab an old building and turn it into live-work spaces for artists and -- possibly -- offices for arts groups and visual arts and performing spaces. The Children's Museum project is really taking off.

This is what Cheyenne needs -- thinking and acting locally. For too long we have thrown up our hands and ceded arts and culture and music and beer to Fort Collins. For good reason -- FoCo almost invented the craft beer scene in the Rocky Mountain West. It also has a thriving arts scene. But it wasn't always that way. When I was a grad student there in the late 1980s, nobody called it FoCo but they did call it an aggie town or cowtown -- a sleepy place which young people deserted on weekends to go to Denver and Boulder and the mountains. Meanwhile, bored kids from Cheyenne were traveling to Fort Collins because that's where things were happening. Weird.

From the Fort Collins Coloradoan:

Collin Ingram, a musician himself, says he's been in Fort Collins for the past three years and, in that time, has seen the music scene grow and expects that to continue.  

The next big step, however, is the community determining the value it wants to place on the music scene in Fort Collins, Ingram said.  

"We need to decide if the scene is going to be a cool thing that happens here — with bands and a couple festivals every year — or if we're going to kind of move toward the scene being a quintessential part of what makes Fort Collins Fort Collins … the same way beer makes Fort Collins Fort Collins, or the way CSU makes Fort Collins Fort Collins."

What makes Cheyenne Cheyenne? You decide.

And what makes Wyoming Wyoming? Volunteerism and generosity. Neighbors helping neighbors.

News comes about a devastating Dec. 30-31 fire in Dubois that destroyed several historic downtown buildings. Needs of Dubois is handling contributions for relief efforts. Send checks to NOD, PO Box 865, Dubois, WY 82513, and please note "Dubois Fire" in the memo of the check. You can also contribute online at http://www.gofundme.com/duboisfire. Almost $10,000 had been raised by noon on Jan. 2.

2014 -- that was the year that was

A look back at this rapidly-fading year....

January

Wyoming Highway Patrol on the alert for legal Colorado pot crossing the border....The creeds and oaths of our youth....Medicaid expansion rally at Wyoming Capitol....Whale of a tale on a Florida beach....Artspace comes to Cheyenne....From beach boy to beach cowboy....Feeding your fiction-writing habit....Remembering Rep. Sue Wallis.

February

Cheyenne launches Artspace project....Unplanned winter off-roading in Wyoming....Halfway mark of painful legislative session....Colorado burger wranglers commute to Chey-town.

March

Courage v. Wyoming may force state to live up to Equality State brand....Irish or not?...Florida vs. Wyoming in retirement destination battle....Avoid politics in gardening discussions....Psychiatrists aren't crazy about living in Wyoming....Spring is lion time.

April

Welcome to the Magic City of the Plains....Cheyenne corners the market on Gov candidates.... Dumbing down state science standards....Wishing Colorado a happy 420 day....The future belongs to aggies and artists.... Revisiting the Great D&D Panic of the 1990s....Putting the community in community college.

May

Miss Atomic Bomb....Writers Speaking Out Loud....Wonky in Rock Springs....Famous for all of the wrong reasons....Cindy Hill's little red book.

June

Remembering my mother and the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps....Summertime in WYO....St. Michael in downtown Cheyenne....Visiting a sick friend....Lesson for politicians -- beware of poets....That was one super day.

July

How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm....Revisiting a 1970 pot protest in D.C....Welcome to the West's wet years....Old books live on....Music, melodrama and politics at CFD....Wyoming Democrats respond.

August

At the Music & Poetry Series in Casper....As I begin my tenth year of blogging liberally....Gov's science panel....Satire is in the eye of the beholder.

September

Hemingway found a clean, well-lighted place in Wyoming's Big Horn Mountains....Day one of touristing on the high plains.,..Day two of touristing on the high plains....The rich are different -- they want to destroy Wyoming's public pension plan....Americanism trumps conservatism in Colorado schools.

October

Envisioning the future of Cheyenne's downtown....Final words on Mental Health Awareness Week....Wyoming Liberty Group threatens state retirement plans....VOTE!....Book preview for "Living Behind the Carbon Curtain."

November

Lifting of Wyoming's same-sex marriage ban a big surprise....Might be time to change that obnoxious county name....New generation of book censors....If we're going to keep our young people in the state....No Black Friday for me....Yummy Gore-Tex for seniors.

December

This progressive wants to go to Mars...What happens when Wyoming tourists no longer want to drive?....Gubment-hating righties invade Wyoming.

So much to write about. So little time. Happy New Year!

Wyoming Community Media to do film on New Deal artists

Jackson Pollock and Thomas Hart Benton visited the Saratoga, Wyoming, rodeo in 1938. According to Alan O'Hashi at WCM, Benton painted this mural with Pollock as the harmonica player at the card table on the left.

This news comes from Alan O’Hashi at Wyoming Community Media:

WCM was funded by the Wyoming Humanities Council and the Wyoming Arts Council to produce a documentary about New Deal artists in Wyoming. We have some leads but need more. Are there any historians out there who have any info or can point us in the right direction:

• EE Stevens murals in Niobrara County

• Jackson Pollock and Thomas Hart Benton in Saratoga during July 4th in the 1930s

• Alan True asked by Lester Hunt to design the license plate bucking horse

• Robert Russin did his WPA art elsewhere but moved to Wyoming and taught at UW

Production will happen when the weather breaks in the spring.

Casper gathering planned for Wyoming Vietnam vets who've written about their experiences

Author Starley Talbott Thompson posted this item on the Wyoming Writers, Inc., Facebook page:

Lee Alley, Wyoming veteran and author of "Back From War: Finding Hope and Understanding in Life after Combat," is part of an effort to put together an event for veterans of the Vietnam War next year in Casper. He is looking for other Wyoming authors who have written about their experiences in Vietnam. For more details contact Lee Alley at leeballey@yahoo.com or Linda Fabian at linda@wyshs.org

Find out more about Lee Alley on the Wyoming Authors' Wiki.

Gubment-hating righties invade Wyoming

The takeover of Wyoming by right-wing zealots has begun.

It may seem that Wyoming was lost to the rising tide of extremism a long time ago.

But you ain't seen nothing yet.

Republicans handily outnumber Democrats in both chambers of the state legislature. We got a new batch of right-wing crazies in the most recent election, notably Harlan Edmonds in HD 12 who defeated incumbent Democrat Lee Filer. Filer had been a staunch advocate for his constituency and had shown how to get things done even though outnumbered. But voters in his district, the ones who showed up, punched that "R" button, letting Red State partisan politics rise above their own best interests. Edmonds is a gubment-hating state employee. His wife is on the board of the Wyoming Liberty Group, a right-wing lobbying group funded by Susan Gore and backed by the Koch brothers. Its goals include destroying the state's pension system. Its ultimate goal is to turn Wyoming into the poster child for a philosophy that starves state government to make it small enough to drown in a bathtub, as Tea Party favorite Grover Norquist once famously said. Wyoming can then become the ultimate refuge for the new oligarch class -- energy billionaires, Dick Cheney and family, Susan Gore, Wal-Mart heirs, Wall Street rip-off artists and all of their fellow travelers. Wyofile's Gregory Nickerson has done several articles on the impact of outside forces on Wyoming politics. On Dec. 9, he wrote about a conservative think tank the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), a 501(c)3 nonprofit based in Naples, Florida, conducting a push poll in Wyoming. The results, of course, showed that 70 percent of Wyoming residents oppose Medicaid expansion in Wyoming.

They spent $742,000 on the Uncover Obamacare project in 2013. The Wyoming effort is part of that campaign for year 2014.

One of FGA’s principal funders is Donors Capital Fund, an Arlington, Va., donor-aggregator group that raised $60 million in 2013. It granted $213,500 to the Foundation for Government Accountability in 2012. 

Donors Capital Fund also gave $240,000 to the Wyoming Liberty Group in 2009, $230,000 in 2010, and $15,000 in 2011.

Word on the street says that funneled more than $1 million into Wyoming last year. The Wyoming Liberty Group had nine attorney-lobbyists on their staff during the last legislative session and are certain to have more in 2015. As Wyoming blogger Rodger McDaniel stated in a Dec. 13 op-ed in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Rep. Cale Case (R-Lander) is on the board of directors of the Liberty Group. One wonders why a state legislator would be on the board of a group hell-bent on destroying the state employee retirement system. Rep. Case used to be a moderate. We wonder when that changed.

See more at http://wyofile.com/gregory_nickerson/florida-group-takes-aim-wyoming-medicaid-expansion/

What happens when Wyoming tourists no longer want to drive?

Gas prices are lower and expected to go even lower. We may be in for $2.50 gas prices in early 2015.

Yellowstone had a record 4 million visitors in 2014.

All good news for Wyoming.

Or is it?

America's love affair with cars may be over. Hard to believe for us Baby Boomers. I've been driving for almost 50 years. I couldn't wait to get my license and a car and tear around Volusia County, Florida -- and possibly use my new motorized self to get a date.

I did get a date or two. And I've driven in hundreds of counties all over this country and had a pretty good time doing it.

But those days may be over, at least in urban centers where most of the population lives. Kids these days -- they don't dream so much about piloting their own car as they do about saving the planet. Public transportation and car-sharing and walking and biking are hip.

Teton County, the gateway to Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks and the cornerstone of Wyoming tourism, just opened a new terminal for its Southern Teton Area Rapid Transit (START) bus line. We have buses in Cheyenne and Casper and maybe a few other communities. But none of us has a transportation terminal that includes a "bus barn" for storing vehicles indoors away from the cruelties of Wyoming weather. The first phase of this transportation terminal was dedicated Friday. When it's completed, it will even include employee housing, a real concern for any middle class person hoping to make a living in one of the richest counties in the country.

The state has no plans to widen tourist-clogged Teton County roads. And many environmentally-conscious residents don't want those roads widened anyway. So the county plans for more rapid transit to get residents and visitors out of their cars. As it is now, visitors can fly into Jackson and spend a week without a car. In fact, they may prefer that.

The town of Jackson's web site had a link to this article written by Tim Henderson for the PEW Charitable Trusts. It talks about the drop in rates for commuting by car, not only in cities but here in the Great Wide Open:

Western areas known for wilderness and a car-loving culture are seeing big decreases. In Oregon, Washington and Colorado, the percentage of workers commuting by car dropped by either 3 or 4 percentage points. 

The car commuting rate in Teton County, Wyoming, with its breathtaking mountain views and world-renowned skiing at Jackson Hole, dropped from 79 percent to 70 percent. No other county saw a larger decline. 

“We took a number of actions between 2000 and 2010 with the intention of changing the mode of travel away from the auto, particularly for the work trip in our area,” said Michael Wackerly of Southern Teton Area Rapid Transit. Some of the steps included providing commuter buses to get workers from neighboring Idaho, bus passes for Teton Village employees and higher parking fees to encourage bus use. For Teton County, the motivation was largely environmental. 

“A transportation system oriented toward automobiles is inconsistent with our common values of ecosystem stewardship, growth management and quality of life,” said the county’s 2012 master plan.

The Western Greater Yellowstone Consortium, a four-county partnership in Wyoming and Idaho, cites the expectations of Eastern tourists, many of whom come from cities where driving is falling out of favor. “A growing percentage of those visiting our National Parks from the nation’s urban centers and other countries expect to have alternatives to driving a private vehicle,” the group said in laying out its transportation goals.

You can read the rest of the article at http://townofjackson.com/current/more-cities-and-states-car-commuting-skids/

Many tourists "expect to have alternatives for driving a vehicle." They may be prompted by an environmental ethic. They may not want to be bothered with the hassles getting around unfamiliar territory on their own. Or they may not want to endure a National Lampoon-style family summer vacation family trip from Des Moines to Yellowstone. Where's Aunt Edna?

Sure, Jackson may be filled with tree huggers (along with the occasional Dick Cheney). But what about tourists visiting other Wyoming destinations? It's hard to imagine Cheyenne Frontier Days without city streets clogged with coal rollers and RVs. But even at CFD, the city uses school buses to transport tourists from a big parking area off of I-25 to concerts and the rodeo. And the city offers a free downtown circulator bus each summer. Downtown is very walkable and there are more and more reasons to walk around in it. We have a superb bikepath system, although commuting by bike on roadways still can be a harrowing experience.

There is a huge difference between Jackson and Cheyenne, One of the first comments I heard after moving to Wyoming in 1991: "Too bad you live in the ugly part of the state." It's true -- Jackson Hole is gorgeous while you have to hunt for the beauty in the High Plains. It's there, but it's not staring you in the face as it is every day in The Hole. More and more, Teton County residents realize what a gift they have. It's reflected in transportation policies and planning and a strong "locals" movement and arts and cultural activities such as the summer's Wild Festival which has the goal of "deepening our connection to nature through the arts."

In Wyoming, tourism is as important as digging carbon out of the ground to incinerate in giant power plants that obscure our national park vistas and contribute to global warming. But changes in national attitudes and demographics may be the real key to the state's future.

Wyoming Democrats respond to Rep. Cynthia Lummis's comments about the Affordable Care Act

This was posted on the Wyoming Democratic Party web site today:

Yesterday during a hearing about the Affordable Care Act in the House Oversight Committee, Wyoming Representative Cynthia Lummis suggested that issues enrolling in the Affordable Care Act were partly to blame for her husband’s death.  

The following is a response from Pinedale's Ana Cuprill, Chairwoman of the Wyoming Democratic Party: 

“Wyoming's Code of the West reminds us to be “tough, but fair” and to “know where to draw the line.” Representative Lummis missed the mark on both accounts yesterday. Rep. Lummis voted more than 50 times with her Republican colleagues to repeal Obamacare. The real consequence of those votes is time and effort wasted by the administration defending the law instead of addressing “glitches” that would make the process of enrolling go more smoothly. I will agree with Rep. Lummis that there is no time to be glib about the problems with healthcare. Now is the time to find solutions that will have real impact on people's lives. While we are sorry for the tragic loss of Rep. Lummis’ husband, we are glad for the thousands of people in Wyoming and millions of Americans with access to quality, affordable care. We’re relieved for families who no longer face bankruptcy, can’t be dropped from coverage when they get sick and don’t face lifetime maximums when a sick child needs care. We’re still concerned for the thousands of people in Wyoming who make important health decisions based not on the best available care, but whether or not they can afford to have any care at all. We believe using her truly unfortunate situation to attack the Affordable Care Act was disingenuous and call on our Congresswoman to join us in finding ways to improve the Affordable Care Act."

Well said, Ana Cuprill. And amen.

Aaron Abeyta will be keynoter at 2015 Wyoming Writers conference

Aaron Abeyta

This news comes from Wyoming Writers, Inc., WYO's statewide writing org:

The Board of Wyoming Writers is excited to have the poet, Aaron Abeyta, from Adams State University in Alamosa, Colorado, as our presenter in poetry workshops, and as our keynote speaker. When the word got out that Aaron was coming, we got messages from people praising the choice. Poets, writers, and teachers who have had the privilege of working with Aaron in a variety of workshop and classroom settings were enthusiastic about both his writing and his thoughtful approach to teaching and motivating poetry from the roots up.

Aaron says: “The poet must be both ‘piper’ and ‘bard,’ tender and turbulent, dangerous and comforting; the poet must be able to understand, as Czeslaw Milosz put it: ‘In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent: a thing brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us, so we blink our eyes….’ ( Ars Poetica)” In our correspondence he excerpted another poet from workshop material, the American, Mary Oliver: “‘…just/ pay attention, then patch/ a few words together and don’t try/ to make them elaborate, this isn’t/ a contest but the doorway…’ (from Praying). In short, we must be observant and ‘prayerful’ in our watchfulness of the world around us.”

Aaron has a B. A. in English, and an M. F. A. in Poetry from Colorado State University. His most recent collection: Letters from the Headwaters (Western Press Books) in out this year. An earlier collection, Colcha won the American Book Award for Poetry, and the Colorado Book Award. His list of publications and appearances is lengthy.

Aaron will be at the WWInc. conference June 5-7, 2015, in Cheyenne, just a short six months from now. Get more info here. 

Aaron is a fellow grad of the excellent CSU creative writing program. One of his mentors was poet Bill Tremblay, who also mentored me although I am not a poet. A slew of CSU writers have visited Wyoming during the 23 years I've been in the state. Both Bill and Aaron taught at the Words Worth Writing Symposium for high school students, a very fine workshop spearheaded by poet Diane Panozzo when she taught at Cheyenne East High School. 

See you in June.

This progressive wants to go to Mars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But back to politics.

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

Sunday morning round-up: Yummy Gore-tex for seniors, Wyoming Medicaid expansion and "The Poor Are Always With Us"

As we draw closer to the next Wyoming legislative session, we eagerly anticipate having fun with oddball bills promulgated by Republican legislators. State employees may see attempts to change the pension plan from an almost-fully-funded defined benefit plan to something crafted by the Koch Brothers and their minions at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Fellow prog-blogger Rodger McDaniel wrote yesterday about the Wyoming Liberty Group which is working overtime against the current retirement system, calling it a "gold-plated pension plan." The money behind the WLG is right-winger Susan Gore of Texas, who has nothing better to do with her billions than to ensure that hundreds of retirees eat cast-off Gore-tex plucked from dumpsters instead of living -- and eating -- comfortably in retirement. Wonder if Gore-tex tastes better than three-day-old pizza crusts or half-eaten Big Macs? We may all find out if Gore and her outside agitators have their way with the legislature.

Dem gubernatorial candidate Pete Gosar pressed Gov. Mead on this issue for months during the campaign. Now it appears that Medicaid expansion is coming to Wyoming. This excerpt comes from Talking Points Memo:

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead's administration is officially recommending that the state expand Medicaid under Obamacare, making the Republican governor the latest conservative to embrace a key pillar of the health care reform law. 

The state department of health released a modified plan to expand the low-income insurance plan, the Casper Star-Tribune reported, which pulls from the alternative expansion plans pursued by some other states. 

If you are among Wyoming's 17,000-some uninsured, get more info at the Wyoming Department of Health.

Love this quote by a writer I admire, Walter Mosley (from Vintage Shorts):

“A good short story crosses the borders of our nations and our prejudices and our beliefs. A good short story asks a question that can’t be answered in simple terms. And even if we come up with some understanding, years later, while glancing out of a window, the story still has the potential to return, to alter right there in our mind and change everything.”

Earlier today, I dug out the 1985 Tobias Wolff story anthology, Back in the World. I was talking about Wolff yesterday after I found out that he's one of the presenters at the 2015 Jackson Hole Writers Conference. I was talking to a writer friend about one of Wolff's stories. I thought it was called "The Rich Are Always With Us." I was in the ballpark -- the story's called "The Poor Are Always With Us."  I first read the story a couple decades ago and it stayed with me. It has to do with conflicts between generations in Silicon Valley. Now that I found it, I had to read the story again. I suggest you do the same. I didn't even have to look out the window to realize the effect Wolff's story had on me then and now.