The art of resistance sometimes includes the art of resigning

I am a bit late on this one. Four weeks ago, the remaining members of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities resigned. I recognize some of the names on the committee, notably Jhumpa Lahiri, winner of a 2000 Pulitzer Prize and the 29th annual PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story.

Honorary Chairman of the now-nonexistent committee is Melania Trump. What is her claim to creative fame? Well, the First Lady has her own brand of jewelry offered on QVC. Who designs it? Many creative people work in the fashion industry. You'd think someone who benefits this directly from creativity would take the side of creators. I started some online research with the keywords "Melania Trump fashion." Google came back with almost 4 million results. I quickly grew queasy reading about her "style" -- and looking at photos of her fabulous wardrobe. I looked up "President's Committee on the Arts & Humanities resignation" and found almost 500,000 Google results. That was encouraging -- Melania Trump only outdid the PCAH's action by 8-to-1. Now, this blog  will be added to both searches. In this way, electrons win.

One can get lost in the research. The idea was that this post would be an undercover expose on more Trump rottenness. But I lost heart after about 15 minutes. I need my writing time for my fiction and not the fictional reality of an oligarch and his well-appointed wife. What I can do is feature the PCAH's fine resignation letter and then move on to other things.

This is a repost from a 8/18/17 Jen Hayden post about it on Daily Kos:

In a blistering public letter, the remaining members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH) resigned. ... you can see the original letter below. It’s a work of resistance art: 

Dear Mr. President:

Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville. The false equivalences you push cannot stand. The Administrations refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred only further emboldens those who wish America ill. We cannot sit idly by, the way your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions. We are members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH). The Committee was created in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan to advise the White House on cultural issues. We were hopeful that continuing to serve in the PCAH would allow us to focus on the important work the committee does with your federal partners and the private sector to address, initiate, and support key policies and programs in the arts and humanities for all Americans. Effective immediately, please accept our resignation from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.  

Elevating any group that threatens and discriminates on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, disability, orientation, background, or identity is un-American. We have fought slavery, segregation, and internment. We must learn from our rich and painful history. The unified fabric of America is made by patriotic individuals from backgrounds as vast as the nation is strong. In our service to the American people, we have experienced this first-hand as we traveled and build the Turnaround Arts education program, now in many urban and rural schools across the country from Florida to Wisconsin.  

Speaking truth to power is never easy, Mr. President. But it is our role as commissioners on the PCAH to do so. Art is about inclusion. The Humanities include a vibrant free press. You have attacked both. You released a budget which eliminates arts and culture agencies. You have threatened nuclear war while gutting diplomacy funding. The administration pulled out of the Paris agreement, filed an amicus brief undermining the Civil Rights Action, and attacked our brave trans service members. You have subverted equal protections, and are committed to banning Muslims and refugee women & children from our great country. This does not unify the nation we love. We know the importance of open and free dialogue through our work in the cultural diplomacy realm, most recently with the first-ever US Government arts and cultural delegation to Cuba, a country without the same First Amendment protections we enjoy here. Your words and actions push us all further away from the freedoms we are guaranteed.   

Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions. We took a patriotic oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. 

Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values. Your values are not American values. We must be better than this. We are better than this. If this is not clear to you, then we call on you to resign your office, too.   

Thank you.

A Baby Boomer boyhood was designed to prepare us for the USA's next war

In a July 26 post, I responded to President Trump's disturbing speech to the Boy Scout Jamboree in West Virginia.

There was a riotous Facebook debate about Trump's speech. Comments flew fast and furious. Someone brought up the fact that the Boy Scouts of America was a military style organization. Others objected, saying that the Boy Scouts have nothing to do with the military. It was pointed out that Eagle Scouts recruited into the military get a boost of two rating levels over non-Eagle Scouts. That means a lot, especially when you first join up and need all the bucks you can get.

As for official military connections, the BSA swears there are none.

I beg to differ. It's not a conspiracy by the MIC to recruit the flower of our youth into their plan for world domination. It's fun to think so. Who knows, an Oliver Stone film could be in the works to blow the lid off of this plot. We eagerly await it. We thrive on conspiracies.

A Baby Boomer boyhood prepared me for the military. The Scouts were an integral part of that.

My only military experience was an eighteen-month stint in Navy ROTC. I do have years of Boy Scout experience to draw on. I was a Cub Scout from the late-50s until I joined the Boy Scouts at 11. I served until 1965 when I got to high school. Because we lived in beachside Florida, I have all of the water-oriented merit badges offered at that time. I also have a few others. I learned flag etiquette and often served as an honor guard at Scout functions. I took my uniform seriously. I obeyed the Scout Law.

I look at the Scouts as a military training program. We wear uniforms. We salute. We respect our Scout leaders even when they don't deserve it. We go on survival hikes. We drilled on flag etiquette. And so on.

The Boy Scouts of the 1950s and 1960s were training grounds for Vietnam. We knew how to build shelters, start fires, survive in the outback, dress wounds, deal with snakebites, swim, paddle a boat. If you lived in Florida, as I did, you reconnoitered swamps and rivers. When you canoed Central Florida creeks, you watched out for snakes and gators in the red-brown waters stained by tannin from cypress trees.

Most of all, Boy Scouting taught us obeisance to other men in uniform, those with rank and seniority. Be prepared! Mostly, we were prepared to take orders.

Maybe that's why the chaos of the 1960s was such a shock. It upended all of those norms. Once we learned that our leaders, men in uniforms and men in dark suits, were trying to kill us, all bets were off. Nothing had prepared us for betrayal by the very institutions that trained us: the family, the church, the Scouts, the U.S.A.

We could have grokked this, if we were really paying attention.  Some of our elders tried to warn us. Writers and artists. Martin Luther King Jr. Folk singers. Clergy such as the Berrigan brothers. Veteran writers such as Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller. One of the recurring themes of "Catch 22" is that Yossarian considers his own people as much a threat as the Nazi's Herman Goering Division. They are trying to get him killed.

Quote from Catch-22:

As always occurred when he quarreled over principles in which he believed passionately, he would end up gasping furiously for air and blinking back bitter tears of conviction. There were many principles in which Clevinger believed passionately. He was crazy.
"Who's they?" he wanted to know. "Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?"
"Every one of them," Yossarian told him.
"Every one of whom?"
"Every one of whom do you think?"
"I haven't any idea."
"Then how do you know they aren't?"
"Because …" Clevinger sputtered, and turned speechless with frustration.

And this one:

"The enemy," retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don't you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live."

Who was trying to kill you during the Vietnam era? You get three guesses and the first two don't count.

This betrayal continues. Maybe that's what led to the Dawning of the Trump Era. This long betrayal. If you were a "good Scout" in America's golden age, you didn't question the authority of the church or the family or the government. Our most trusted elders led us into the shitstorm and lied about about it. Democrats and Republicans. Nobody was exempt and nobody was spared.

I hope Ken Burns addresses this in his new PBS documentary on the Vietnam War that starts tonight. It was never just a battle between anti-war hippies and Viet vets. It was a generation coming to grips with betrayal. We never did. Now we have a man at the helm that represented all that was venal about the Baby Boomer generation, my generation. A know-it-all who knows nothing. A draft dodger who wants to blow up the world. But first, he wants to rake in more dough to be the richest bastard in creation. He lies. He cheats. He steals. Trump is the Vietnam War come home to roost.

What makes is especially sad is that serving military and veterans are among Trump's biggest supporters. Did they learn nothing? And why do they remain this way?

We (sort of) survived the Vietnam betrayal. We won't survive this one.

Where is the Wichita Lineman when we really need him?

I am a lineman for the county...

In the late-60s, I loved that Jimmy Webb song, a chart-topper for Glen Campbell. It's a fine song. And it mentions Wichita, a place where I did some of my growing up. It may be the only song that equates hanging power lines out in the sticks with aching loneliness for a loved one.

When I think power lines I think telephone pole. I have been passing telephone poles since I was a seventh-grader in Wichita, probably before that. It's many decades later and I'm still looking at the ranks of telephone poles that march up and down the streets of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Thousands of similar poles were toppled or rendered useless in hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Linemen/women from all over the U.S. and Canada are working on the outage. They are climbing telephone poles that their daddy or granddaddy knew. maybe even worked on. We desperately need these people because they are trained well to do a dangerous and necessary job. We can't just grab our gloves and spikes and shinny up our local pole to fix a problem. It can get you killed.

Some power company contractors were in my neighborhood yesterday. They dug around the base of the telephone pole that sits on the southwest corner of my lot. I was just having my second cup of coffee, searching for excuses to avoid the TV news and start my daily writing ritual. So I grabbed my coffee and went outside to chat. The supervisor was a friendly guy, but busy. He said that he and his crew were inspecting power poles to see "if they would last another ten years." We bantered about other crews like his fixing power lines in Florida. He said he'd be finished with this job in three weeks and be off to Florida. I wished him well and got on with the business of the day.

I wondered how much high-plains wind would it take to topple our poles. We don't get hurricanes. But winds have been clocked here over 100 mph. We easily get 50-60 mph winds each winter. How would my neighborhood poles fare? And why do they need to last 10 more years. Is something magical going to happen in 2027 to replace these poles with something more tech-savvy? Our smartphones need no telephone poles. If you have satellite TV, you don't require a cable strung from a pole into your house. Why can't our electric lines be buried as are lines for gas and sewer? Is it really necessary for power to go out for millions when the poles come crashing down?

I write this as everyone is abuzz about the Hyperloop One Global Challenge. Yesterday, 10 demonstration projects were selected for a transportation system that basically involves putting passengers into giant pneumatic tubes and speeding them to their destinations at 700 mph. One of those projects involves a segment from Cheyenne to Pueblo, Colo., via Denver International Airport. If I could get to DIA by tube in 12 minutes without driving I-25, I would do it in a hyper-second. But we will have to wait until the next decade to see if this happens. Meanwhile, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) has agreed to conduct a feasibility study on the 360-mile route. CDOT is the first governmental entity to form a partnership with Hyperloop One. Nothing yet from the State of Wyoming.

Meanwhile, I write this post on a laptop that connects with the worldwide web via cable lines that are strung on wooden poles that may (or may not) last another ten years.

Portrait of a poet as a young man

Back when I was a poet...

I worked as an orderly in a county hospital. I took classes at the local community college. I walked or road my bike from campus to hospital for my 3-to-11 shift. I changed into my scrubs in the restroom. Then I set off to take care of the alcoholics recovering in the 1200 ward. They weren't so much recovering as being refortified to resume their lives on the streets. The hospital staff did its Sisyphean duty. Feed them, keep them locked up and out of DTs for as long as possible. and then release them back into the wild. We had drug cases too -- it was 1973. A young longhair tripped out on LSD and ran naked down Main Street. I had plenty of empathy for him. Two years earlier, I had OD'd on acid and spent the night in the university infirmary. Bad trips were nothing to laugh about.

I gathered plenty of material for poems and stories as I watched over my charges. I wrote on yellow legal pads. I hadn't yet discovered the ubiquitous and portable composition books. One day I emerged from behind locked doors to take a break. The break room was also the meeting room. I looked for my legal pad but couldn't find it. A nurse eating her dinner pointed to the trash can. The head nurse had seen the poetry scrawled on the legal pad, the same kind that nurses used for notes on their patients. "She said that she'd like to know who had the time to write poetry -- then she tossed it in the trash can."

I was mortified. My poetry in the trash. It was probably the most concrete critique I ever received. I hadn't published anything yet. My curious friends asked me what I wrote in my legal pads.

"Poetry," I said. "Observations."

My roomie on Graham Avenue in Holly Hill, Florida, was Bob the Biker. He was saving up for a new Harley. His old Harley had met a bad end which he didn't want to talk about. I just knew that it involved the Hells Angels in Milwaukee and a statutory rape charge. He was a big dude, a fine mechanic who was helping me rebuild a 1950 Chevy truck which I bought on a whim. My dream was to get it fixed up and use it for beach trips with my dog and surfboard. We never finished it. I sold it for parts after Bob moved on, replaced by an old high school friend, Ned.

"Are you observing me?" Bob asked one night when we'd polished off a case of PBR.

"And what if I am?"

"I'd like to see it. See what you think."

"You're not in it," I said. "I do have some poems."

"That's OK. Poetry is not my thing."

Not a critique. Just a rebuff.

The 1200 Ward was a spooky place. I carried around a soft tongue depressor for patients who went into seizures. I used it more than once. Alcohol caused lesions and scars on brains that led to seizures. A seizure is an awful thing. Eyes roll back in the head and muscle spasms cause the patient to bite down hard on his/her tongue. I got called in to plunge the plastic tool into the mouth so he wouldn't bite his tongue in half. Once the seizure fades, the patient is lethargic and disoriented. I reported the incident and let the nurses take it from there.  I usually returned to the ward break room where I played cards with the patients. We drank bad coffee and played cards. They told harrowing stories of life on the streets. Most patients were middle-aged males. Some were WWII vets, but we hadn't yet seen many from Vietnam. Some were women, who had their own room. Part of my job was to keep the men and women separated. We joked about it but the women often turned tricks for a bottle. One of the women had a college education and a good job before she went into the tank and hit the streets. During my year on the ward, she was there three times, once with a black eye and a missing front tooth.

One patient came in with cirrhosis of the liver. A black man with yellow eyes and a distended belly . No insurance. None of them had insurance -- it was thee county's charity ward. The cirrhotic man was shuffled off to a room of his own. The supervisor closed the door and let him die. That seems odd to say. But all of our patients were on their way to death, some slowly, some quickly.

How did we keep the patients from all going into delirium tremens? The nurses fed them paraldehyde. What's paraldehyde? Here's a quick description from the Mayo Clinic web site:

Paraldehyde is used to treat certain convulsive disorders. It also has been used in the treatment of alcoholism and in the treatment of nervous and mental conditions to calm or relax patients who are nervous or tense and to produce sleep. However, this medicine has generally been replaced by safer and more effective medicines for the treatment of alcoholism and in the treatment of nervous and mental conditions.

To demonstrate its toxic qualities, nurses demonstrated by pouring a dose directly into a Styrofoam cup. It dissolved the cup in seconds. The nurses cautioned that you must put juice in the cup before the paraldehyde. I was impressed, but knew I would never been serving up this potent cocktail. I wondered: if it does that to a cup, what does it do to your body?

Never found out. The bodies of the patients on the ward were already compromised. The drug stopped convulsions and helped them sleep. I had already seen what the DTs could do.

"The dog! The dog!" The man's eyes were with with fear and he pointed at his feet.

"What dog?"

"He's eating my feet. The dog!"

"It's OK. I'll get the nurse."

I did. The nurse brought a healthy dose of peraldehyde and a calming voice.

"The dog," the man said. "My feet."

"There, there," said the nurse. She urged to lie down and go to sleep. It took awhile but that's what he did.

I returned to the break room and the continuing card game. Nobody said anything. They had been there.

Sometimes a call went out on the hospital address system. "Dr. Blue. Please report to 1400. Stat." Translation: "All available orderlies run to the psych ward. A patient is freaking out and we need help." In 1973, all I knew about psych wards came from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Nurse Ratched. Bull Goose Loony. Electro-shock therapy. Lobotomy.

I know a lot more now. My daughter has been in psych wards and treatment centers in five states in the past decade. I have seen patients freak out during visiting hours and the call go out for this generation's version of Dr., Blue. I have seen my daughter freak out in a Casper, Wyoming, treatment center. You look at these events differently when it involves one of yours.

The charge nurse in 1400 was Mrs. Berry. Nobody knew her first name. She was good-looking in a middle-aged sort of way -- that was the view of this 23-year-old. She reminded me of my mother, who was the director of nurses at a hospital across town. Mrs. Berry had a harder edge, maybe because of her charges. She also had a secret. She was fated to become the mother-in-law of my sister-in-law. My future sister-in-law's sister, my future wife, lived a block over from Mrs.Berry and her sons, frequent visitors at my future wife's house. I didn't know them then.

I worked at Halifax Hospital for a year. I resigned to go off to the University of Florida, where I eventually became a prose writer. My first published work was a poem about a break-up. I do not have a copy of that poem. I'm sure it was tragic and filled with a young man's angst. I began publishing stories in newspapers. I joined the staff of the Independent Florida Alligator. I covered city council meetings, trustee meetings, campus events, etc. I was going to be a journalist although I really wanted to be a best-selling author. All I can say about that is I worked as a writer and editor for most of my career. I blog. Bestsellerdom has eluded me. I still write.

I never worked as a hospital orderly again. I was a cashier in the Shands Teaching Hospital cafeteria one summer. I was the only white employee. The African-American staff gave me a hard time but I won them over by September, or so I like to believe. One of the cooks introduced me to grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches. That was what I had every day for lunch. That and chocolate milk.

Back when I was a poet...

The Summer of Love; the Winter of Our Discontent

I laughed when I saw the cover of the Aug./Sept. issue of AARP: The Magazine. Over a Peter Max original illustration was the header: "Celebrate the Summer of Love, 50th anniversary, 1967-2017."

I was almost as far away from San Francisco as a 16-year-old could get in the summer of 1967. In the waning days of summer, I was about to become a junior at Father Lopez Catholic High School in Daytona Beach, Florida.

That summer, my classmates thought that I was moving to a new life in Cincinnati, Ohio. My father was already in Cincy, crunching numbers at the General Electric Works. He moved as did so many others -- Florida's aerospace industry had come to a grinding halt.

But what about the moon landing, the one that was still two years in the future? Much of the prep work was finished. NASA and its many subcontractors (GE among them) didn't need all the engineers and statisticians and accountants that they had brought to Central Florida for the task. An engineer friend of my Dad was pumping gas. Others found tourist-industry jobs so they could continue to enjoy the splendors of The Sunshine State.

Two of my friends, Rob and Ann, had already decamped with their families to Schenectady, N.Y., another big base for GE, the one where Kurt Vonnegut once toiled in PR ("Deer in the Works"). Classmates had thrown us a going-away party. Good-bye and good luck!

I was registered to attend another Catholic high school, this one an all-boys school in Cincy that I was certain to hate. I was not a kid who made friends easily. I would not make the basketball team, as the new school was big and had a hot-shot varsity already in place. If I ever met any girls, Catholic or otherwise, they would ignore me. My good grades were due to take a nose dive and I was destined for failure. This was my dark side speaking, teen angst on overdrive. If I wrote poetry then -- and kept it -- it would be something to read. But I was a jock and a surfer and my type didn't write emo poems or any kind of poems. Or so I thought.

My mother worked at a local hospital and still had a two-year-old at home, along with eight other kids. We couldn't sell our house. All the buyers were on their way back north. Prices plummeted. My father said that he missed his wife Anna and his nine kids. Dad left me his 1960 Renault Dauphine so I could take my siblings to school and basketball practice and anywhere else they had to go. I was delighted to have a car and a license to go on the many dates I imagined that I would have.

After six months, my father surprised us all when he decided to leave GE and try to get a job in central Florida. My future was saved.

It wasn't easy for my father. He was a quiet man. I can imagine his life as a bookish professor or a secluded monk, a man without a huge family and all the pressures that brings. As a kid, he spent his time going to the library and building crystal radio sets in his basement. He wasn't a striver or a climber, which doomed him from the start in the corporate world. I know, as I spent five years as a corporate man, twenty-five years in government. I am an introvert but learned how to be a public person. I was tasked with supporting my family. I did that. But there always is a cost, and you may not know about it until you are retired.

My Dad returned to Florida late that summer. When school started, he was looking for a job. My mom worked as a nurse at a local hospital. We were together again.

What was life like in August 1967 for the average American big family? My parents never had enough money. Both worked, a rarity in 1967. Still, it was never enough. Most of the people we knew were in the same boat.

The Summer of Love? To us, hippies were an anomaly. I thought they were cool but their antics were foreign to me. Sex was dreamed of but an impossible dream, to take a line from a popular 1960s Broadway musical. We sweated and groped in the back seats of cars. There were public school girls who went all the way, or so the public school boys told us. But that wasn't for us.

Remember that this was pre-Disney Florida. Before the boom that caused the founding of dozens of fantasy worlds and caused everyone in Providence and Newark to relocate to Daytona and Sarasota. If it was a feature at Disney, it would be called "A Whole Different World World."

It's a Whole Different World World
It's a Whole Different World World
Segregated schools, no sex on the beaches
Swamps teeming with gators and leeches
It's a Whole Different World World after all

Don't get me wrong -- we admired those people engaging in unbridled sex and drug-taking in The Haight. We might have followed the lead of our parents and cursed those damn hippies. We were fascinated and jealous at the same time. It just seemed so foreign.

Happy 50th anniversary to all of you who engaged in the Summer of Love and lived to tell the tale.

Summer of '67. We all have our stories....

Trump Sonnets: The First Fifty Two Hundred Twenty Five Days w/update

Summer Friday evening: Reading sonnets, sipping saison. 

Talked to my itinerant writer/musician friend Ken Waldman this week. He called from Columbus, Ohio, a place we’ve both worked at different times with our dearly departed friend, poet and bluesman Bob Fox. Ken is at a conference and will soon set off for Seattle. A long drive, as he said, that will take him through Wyoming but not the part I live in. I shall see him another day.

Meanwhile, I have two new books by Ken to review. They are “Trump Sonnets, Volume 1: The First 50 Days” and “Trump Sonnets, Volume 2: 33 Commentaries, 33 Dreams.” The second volume is a review copy and not for sale, not yet – readers have to wait for January 2018. Both books are published by Ridgeway Press in Roseville, Mich. If that sounds familiar, it’s an indie press run in the wilds of Michigan by poet/musician M.L. Liebler. That’s the cool thing about the indie literary world – creative people doing their thing, not waiting around for permission to put their work out into the world. M.L. has been out this way to read and play music and conduct workshops. He brought me to Detroit to read.

I just started reading the first volume of “Trump Sonnets.” The first thing I noticed was a review by Grace Cavalieri from the Washington Independent Review of Books. Grace is another creative free spirit. Here’s what she had to say:

“Anything you ever thought about Trump is here. And more. And this is only Volume 1. Good thing we have the First Amendment or this dude would be an ex pat. Funny and smart though.”

I am going to include some of the sonnets on these pages. Ken said I could. I like this one from Baltimore, home to some of my relatives on Grandma Green Shay’s side:

To Donald Trump, from Baltimore 

You make George W. seem a statesman --
your opening trick. What the hell is next?
Enact bills to place your orange oversexed
visage on stamps and coins? Re-imagine
your university? Republican
top dog, you now own it all. Your context
in history: we’ve seen just how you’ve wrecked
all you touch. Give it time. The American
people is by far your biggest brand yet.
Count me in to see where it all goes.
Sue the senate, your cabinet, run up debt
to Russia and China. And Mexico –-
that wall. Soon appears some sweet young hussy
you’ll have to grab. That’s you, Donald. Fussy.

Ken has had received mixed responses from audiences. No bodily harm, thus far. He is no stranger to those parts of the U.S. that voted for Trump. He usually is referred to as “Alaska’s Fiddling Poet.” This belies the fact that Ken has published ten books, eight of poetry, and nine CDs, two for children. Ken travels the U.S., playing the fiddle and reciting his poetry and judging literary fellowships, as he did for me at the Wyoming Arts Council. He continues to roam the halls at the AWP Conference, no matter if it goes to New York City or San Diego or Austin. A few years ago in Austin, I took part in one of Ken’s off-campus hootenannies upstairs at an old theatre in the music district. We ate, played music, recited poetry and, in my case, prose. It was a fun evening. His events are off-campus because they don’t exactly fit into AWP. It’s not all academic – I’ve been to some lively readings at those conferences, some great spoken-word events. And the book fair is amazing.

But I do have to face the fact that I once represented the academy. Even worse, I was a scout for the literary establishment, a representative for a state arts agency and, for two years (in Pittsburgh and Phoenix), of the National Endowment for the Arts. These are taxpayer-funded entities (for now, at least) that dole out grants and fellowships to creative people, writers included. Ken has never won a literary fellowship, as far as I know. Neither have I, although I have been on a number of panels doling out awards to others. I can name dozens of writers, whose work I admire, who have won fellowships. I can also name others, whose work I admire, who have never won. Fellowships are not the be-all and end-all for writers. But they can give a boost to a career, make a difference between getting published and not getting published.

So, I sit in my office in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and write. I give readings, occasionally, as I did last week in Casper for ARTCORE’s Music & Poetry Series. But I write every day. I’m not sure if Ken writes every day but he sure is productive. He lives most of the year in Louisiana now – hope his place didn’t get flooded in the recent storm. He’s probably traveled a million miles across this great continent. He speaks truth to power, his latest subject the big blowhard in D.C.

Read more about Ken, and order his books, at http://www.kenwaldman.com. Buy his latest books at http://www.ridgewaypress.org 

Update 9/5/17 on ordering books: Ken sends word from Seattle that the books are not yet available on the Ridgeway Press web site. Best place to order volume one is Small Press Distribution, which is a great place to order any indie press book. Go here: http://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781564390110/trump-sonnets-volume-1-the-first-50-days.aspx. You can also go to Ken's web site. While the second one won't be out officially until Jan. 1, Ken says that "if someone sends me a check, I'll mail them a signed book." This is the kind of can-do entrepreneurial spirit that Trump would write a poem about if he wrote poetry. 

Music, fiction-out-loud, and the company of friends add to Eclipse Day 2017 in Casper

I joined a million-plus people watching the eclipse in Wyoming on Aug. 21.

I almost missed it. In 2015, when Casper began promoting Eclipse 2017, I thought it silly to plan so far ahead for an event that lasted two minutes.

I see now that Casper had the right idea. Wyoming’s “Second City” was right in the path of totality. Cheyenne, the Capital City, was not. When the eclipse passed my house in north Cheyenne, it would be 97 percent of full. As it turns out, that three percent meant a lot.

On Memorial Day weekend, Chris, Annie and I journeyed up to Guernsey State Park to find a good spot to view the eclipse. Campsites were already booked for eclipse weekend. We got on the waiting list. We also bought a day pass for Aug. 21. That was enough, I thought.

In June, Carolyn Deuel of Casper’s ARTCORE called and asked me to participate in the Music and Poetry series held at Metro Coffee Company. I was set to appear with a young musician, Ethan Hopkins, known around town as The Ukulele Kid. That sounded fun. I planned to read a chapter from my new novel set in 1919 Colorado. The Roaring Twenties was a boom time for ukuleles. Maybe Ethan would know a song from the era. Then Carolyn dropped the bomb, asking me to come up for the evening of Aug. 21. A new opportunity presented itself.

ARTCORE would put me up in a hotel as it always did. The bad news was there was no room at the inn. No room anywhere. She suggested that I arrange a home stay with one of my old pals in the arts world. I made many trips to Casper in the past 15 years. Many were planning sessions for the Casper College Literary Conference and the Equality State Book Festival that grew out of it. I grew close to many fine people in Casper who loved the book and the written word and an occasional beer at the old Wonder Bar. It takes a village, as a noble Democrat once said. It also takes a village to plan a big event such as a literary conference or book festival. I knew that, which was why it was such a treat to find a group who wanted to launch an event that would involve years of planning and last for only a few days. You know, something like an eclipse festival only with books.

This story has a happy ending. Chris and I stayed with our old friend, Liberal Twit of Casper. That’s not her real name, but one we use because she is a private person who spent most of her career at a college library and now spends retirement reading, studying history, and cooking.

I am Liberal Twit of Cheyenne. A Republican librarian gave us both that name when we objected to Lynne Cheney headlining our first book festival in 2006. Lynne is a Casper native who writes children’s books. She once ran the National Endowment for the Humanities in the noted swampland that Donald Trump threatened to drain. Dick also is from Casper. I think he wrote a book, “Into the Quagmire,” or something like that. The federal building in Casper is named after his federal self. So is the playing field of his old high school. We should name Iraq War Two after him too.

We two liberal twits have been causing trouble almost as long as the Iraq War has lasted. We believe we have worked in the fields of the Lord while Dick & Co. labored in one – or maybe all -- of the circles of Hell. That’s just the kind of thing you would expect a Liberal Twit to say.

Chris and I watched the eclipse in Liberal Twit’s backyard. It was very quiet. The moon gobbled the sun bit by bit. We watched through our ISO-approved eclipse glasses. The morning grew quieter as it grew darker. When the moon blotted out the sun we knew it was a cosmic event and not some sign of God’s wrath.  That’s what you get from working in libraries and arts councils and reading lots and lots of books. I am not a better than anyone else because of it, just different. I value that difference.

After the eclipse passed, we were all a bit bedazzled. It was cosmic, yes, but also spiritual.

That afternoon, I set out for downtown. My goal was to buy a Zak Pullen eclipse T-shirt. The festival was still humming downtown. I parked blocks away and walked to the new Daniel Street Plaza. A band played. Vendors vended. Beer purveyors purveyed (it was too early for me). I found Zak’s T-shirt but the vendor only had small sizes. Someone told me to go to the Nicolaysen Art Museum’s gift shop. I walked the six blocks on a hot afternoon. The Nick was closed for a private party – it’s usually closed on Mondays anyway. I returned to my car by way of the Second Street festival. The new plaza is a great spot for concerts and gatherings. Designers put in artificial turf instead of grass. It’s comfortable enough, but doesn’t the artificial stuff absorb heat during hot summer days? People were having a good time – that’s all that matters.

A band played at the Yellowstone Garage, a restaurant bar that I’ve never been in. This area is called the Yellowstone District. Old warehouses are now sites of bistros and ART 321, among other venues. Casper seems to be making more headway with its downtown than Cheyenne is with ours. Its work-in-progress seems further along than the one we got going on.

Ethan and I drew a good crowd for that night’s performance. Ethan’s entire family was on hand. They are a lively bunch and gave the show a jolt of energy. Ethan’s original music is wonderful – he’s already blazing a trail as a songwriter. He did some covers too.

All the chairs were filled by the time I got to the stage. Thirsty people wandered off the street and stuck around for music and poetry. Or prose, in my case. I read the first chapter of my novel-in-progress. The chapter has been worked over by me, my writing group, a writing friend, and me again. I even timed the delivery on my smartphone which, indeed, is very smart. People paid attention – that’s what you want, and all you can ask for.

After a beverage break, in which the espresso machine got rolling again, I read a short story from the anthology, “Blood, Water, Wind, and Stone: An anthology of Wyoming Writers.” The story, “George Running Poles,” is set in Riverton and features two Rez teens skipping school. One of them has a dark secret. You can find the anthology at your local bookstore or order it online from Sastrugi Press in Jackson.

The next morning, I dropped Chris off at the YMCA for a workout and I proceeded to The Nic to get my Pullen T-shirt. I got the last extra-large size. I then saw Aaron and Jenny Wuerker's exhibit of landscapes. I got a chance to meet them, too, as they were on hand to take down the show. Some of the big canvasses were going to exhibits in Denver; others return to the Wuerker's studio in Buffalo. 

It was a long drive home, but at least we avoided the gridlock on Eclipse Day. These were mostly day trippers from points south (Colorado) and many had to get back to their routines on Tuesday, which I did not. Over the course of the last week, I’ve heard tales of people taking eight to ten hours for what usually is a three-to-five-hour drive. Even those folks said that the eclipse was worth it.

And it was. 

Real letter from Wyoming Sen., Mike Enzi; fake content

I had some comments to Sen. Enzi's reply to my letter admonishing him for supporting Republican efforts to  end health care coverage for millions of Americans. I had to use a crayon because that's what it deserves. Republicans have been working overtime to sabotage the Affordable Health Care Act since its inception., That is why it is in trouble. To say otherwise is a lie. 

I agree -- No Nazis at the University of Florida! W/Update

Neo-Nazis support President Trump.

President Trump supports the neo-Nazis.

We know that now. Whatever you choose to call them -- neo-Nazis, alt-right, white supremacists -- they are intolerant bastards who attacked and killed and injured people in a university town, Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend. They do not deserve a soapbox at any of our universities. Yes, that also is intolerant. But they are taking a page from the Brown Shirts Playbook and want to raise havoc wherever they can. They look at campuses as fertile ground for their racist bilge. Campuses are liberal bastions, politically correct bastions where people bend over backyard to accommodate The Other. But what happens when speakers arrive on campus with messages of hate against The Other. And those speakers operate with the imprimatur of the president of the U.S.? We have never faced this before. That's why we must stop the alt-right and their leader who is a stand-in for Trump. Let's start with stopping Richard Spencer.

Here's some info on a proposed Sept. 12 Spencer appearance at my alma mater (class of '76), the University of Florida. It comes from The Chronicle off Higher Education, which has been featuring some great articles about how campuses are trying to deal with this issue. Texas A&M recently cancelled a speech by Spencer. Now it's UF's turn. This was in today's Chronicle:

In a statement on Saturday announcing that Mr. Spencer's group was seeking to rent space at the University of Florida, W. Kent Fuchs, the university’s president, suggested that his institution might have no choice but to grant the request, so long as the group covered the associated expenses and security costs. He called Mr. Spencer’s potential appearance there "deeply disturbing" and contrary to the university’s values, but said "we must follow the law, upholding the First Amendment not to discriminate based on content." 

Mr. Fuchs urged the campus community not to engage with Mr. Spencer’s organization and "give more media attention for their message of intolerance and hate." Soon after he issued his statement revealing that the group had sought to rent space there, however, a Facebook page titled "No Nazis at UF" sprang up to summon people to the campus for counter-protests. 

Check out the No Nazis at UF page. Comment. Write Pres. Fuchs. Tell him that "Make America Hate Again" is not part of the Gator Spirit. 

UPDATE 8/17/17: UF Pres. Fuchs has cancelled the event. See press release here.

This train is bound for glory -- maybe

Chris and I helped our city celebrate its 150th birthday this week.

One hundred and fifty years ago this summer, Col. Gen. Grenville Dodge staked out the city of Cheyenne on the windswept southeast Wyoming prairie. It featured Crow Creek and its consistent water supply lined with a few hardy trees. More importantly, it was right along the path that Union Pacific had chosen for its transcontinental railroad. The plains tribes already used the gangplank of the Laramie Range to cross the mountains. They followed the herds and the weather.  The railroad was just trying to link up with the Central Pacific on its way east from the West Coast.

Just as it did for native peoples, the Rocky Mountains presented one of the biggest challenges to the railroad. Terrain and weather presented problems. Cheyenne was founded in July and winter comes early. Cheyenne became a base to build the highest elevation section of the railroad, and base camp to build bridges to cross canyons. It spent more time as a Hell on Wheels site that any other railroad town.

Cheyenne still is a railroad town. It is the state capital. The intersection of two interstate highways. One of these -- I-80 -- follows the rails except when it comes to Elk Mountain, the most-closed section of interstate in the U.S. every winter. All of us who have done time driving I-80 curse the Elk Mountain stretch. Beautiful and scenic in July. Cringeworthy in January.

Cheyenne has lots of celebrate. It shouldn't be here, as the weather isn't the most temperate. Its tomato growers are a persistent bunch, always coming up with creative ways to plant and ripen our fruit in an 90-day growing season, even 100 or 110 during good years. We have to watch out for late frosts, early frosts, freezing winds in June that kill the flowers, July hail that rips the plants to shreds. Still, Cheyenne is home to a huge Master Gardeners program and, soon, the most impressive botanic gardens conservatory for a city of its size in the U.S.

Thus summer marks a milestone for Cheyenne. What will it look like in 150 years? I won't be around, but someone will be growing tomatoes in my neighborhood. It may be an android tending an indoor hydroponic set-up. But maybe not. Humans like to grow things. That's how we survived all of these years.

I can envision a dystopian version of our future. Since we are high and dry, many coastal Americans will flock here, possibly sparking a refugee crisis that alarms the U.N. Trump may start a nuclear war. That will wipe Cheyenne off the map as we are host to the largest assemblage of nuclear missiles in creation. Cheyenne may end up being a slave labor pool for oligarchs. Diseases may wipe out all humans, clearing the way for a generation of giant bugs such as those seen in "Starship Troopers," filmed back in Wyoming's heyday at Hell's Half Acre. Wyoming has a long relationship with the devil and his minions. Devils Tower, of course, and the original white man's name for Yellowstone, Colter's Hell.

Dystopian versions for the world are big right now. Perhaps that will continue. I tend to think that the future is a mix of Utopia/Dystopia. Just like the present. You can have a great party for your hometown even while a lunatic sits in the driver's seat. We don't know where this train is headed, or if we'll arrive safely. But darn it, we can party hearty along the way.

Happy birthday, Cheyenne!

UPDATE 8/13: When reading the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle's "Cheyenne at 150," I discovered that I had demoted Gen. Grenville Dodge to colonel. I corrected that mistake. Along the way, I researched Dodge and found him a fascinating character. I also wondered why there is no Dodge Street in Cheyenne. Many other people important to the city's founding have namesake streets. Why no Dodge?

We hear once again from Mitch McConnell's BFF

Nothing happened in Washington D.C. this week. Absolutely nothing.

I did receive a nice note from Sen./Dr. John  Barrasso, Mitch McConnell's BFF. More of the same gobbledygook. I reprint it here as a public service:

Dear Michael, 

Thank you for taking the time to contact me. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on health care. 

There is no question that there are significant challenges related to health care in our nation. During my time practicing medicine in Wyoming, I saw these problems firsthand through my own patients and their families. One of my top priorities in the Senate is improving the quality and lowering the cost of care for all patients. 

Right now, the country is engaged in a serious and important debate regarding the future of Obamacare. As I travel around Wyoming, family after family keep telling me they are paying much more and have fewer choices for health insurance since Obamacare passed. For some of these families, the cost of Obamacare is more than their mortgage and the high deductibles make it burden to actually see the doctor. For these folks, the law is clearly not working. I told these families I would vote to repeal this law -- I kept my promise. 

With that being said, Congress must do more than repeal this failed law. We need real reforms that will actually deliver on the promises made during the Obamacare debate. First, we must focus on lowering the cost of insurance and the cost of care. Since 2013, premiums in Wyoming are up 107%. This is simply not sustainable or affordable. Second, we need to give states back the authority to regulate health insurance. Simply put, Washington bureaucrats do not understand how care is delivered in Wyoming. Finally, we need to give patients more control over their health care dollars. Instead of sending more and more money to insurance companies, patients need to be empowered to choose the right care that works for their situation.

Thank you again for sharing your views with me. I value your input. 

John Barrasso, M.D.
United States Senator

BTW, Sen./Dr. Barrasso. You kept your promise. That's the problem. You kept your promise to try and dismantle Obamacare yet you offered no viable replacement. We will remember your promises -- and your actions -- at election time.

And just when have you been traveling around Wyoming. Where? You have not held a single town hall on this issue.

Latest post on Studio Wyoming Review talks about dystopia and book arts and boxed wine

From "Liberty Walking" by Sue Sommers

Studio Wyoming Review is in the Extras section of Wyofile, Wyoming's online publication. It's kind of like a newspaper in that it features fresh content every day. But it's also like a magazine in that it does long-form features which newspapers, especially small ones, don't do, unless they come from wire services. And just like this blog, it is only online.

Here's some background info on Studio Wyoming Review.

I've been writing for the site for a couple months. I have written two reviews during that time. You can read my first one here. The second one appeared today and is available here.

I am not an artist. I am an arts appreciator. I worked as an arts administrator for 25 years, mainly in the literary arts and publications. What I know about the visual arts I picked up from wonderful artists in Wyoming, Colorado, and others across the U.S. I have to view an exhibit two or three times to get down what I want to write about it. That's not too unusual for magazine writers. It is odd for newspaper reporters, especially beat reporters who often have to interview people on the fly or by phone and submit an intelligible story before deadline. That's what I had to do as a sports reporter.

Me: Hey coach how does it feel to whip the tar out of the Bulldogs?
Coach: Great. The boys gave it 110 percent tonight. They left it all out on the field.
Me: What exactly did they leave out on the field?
Coach: The usual. Guts. Heart. Attitude. Spleen. Brain matter.

Artists leave it all out on the canvas, or in the 3-D piece. Guts. Heart. Attitude. Spleen. Brain matter. Artists, though, care less about the score and more about what shows up in the finished work. It's up to us to see what that is. Sometimes I can be off base. Sometimes I'm dead-on. It's subjective, as are all things human.

Take a look and see what you think and feel. You have to hurry for the "Utopia/Dystopia" exhibit, as it is only up through Aug. 7.

Is it possible to talk politics with our neighbors?

Do you know your neighbors' politics?

Probably not. They may know mine, as I haven't been shy about posting campaign signs for Democrats. We stuck an Obama sign in our front yard in 2008. All sorts of candidates for local and state offices. Democrats except for an occasional candidate for a non-partisan seat such as mayor or city council.

A few neighbors have asked about my signs. But most pretend they don't exist. They may actually see me and think, "there's our neighbor, Mike, out working in his yard." They may think that I don't pay enough attention to my yard, that I might do a better job of tending my lawn or cleaning snow from my sidewalks. They don't say so. As I convalesced at home from a heart attack during the winter of 2013, neighbors shoveled my walk, brought me soup, asked about my recovery. People can be so kind.

It was an odd feeling to take some time out this weekend, knock on doors, and ask people about their politics. It wasn't every neighbor, just a sampling printed out from the Vote Builder app. It included registered Democrats, those who had voted "D" in recent elections, people who had signed in at a Dem event. The Dems have decided it is crucial to talk to real live people if we have a ghost of a chance of displacing the Trump junta in 2018 and 2020. See, there's my partisan self shining through. I have concluded that you can't actually conduct a conversation with a diehard Trump supporter. Many Trump supporters have decided the exact same thing with diehard Democrats. We are balkanized like never before. Ask the people of the Balkans how it turned out when everyone started shooting their neighbors instead of talking with them. It was a messy 20th century.

Chris and I received a list from Taylor, our summer intern from Maine, and walked our precinct. Our intern is a dynamo and she is trying to get as much done as possible as her time in the West grows short. The future of our country is in her hands, and the hands of our children. I am retired and Chris is on the cusp of retirement. We have a slower pace. We've walked many neighborhoods during many campaigns. We take our time. And that's what people seem to want, time and attention. They are befuddled and distressed at the recent turn of events. They want to talk about it.

One woman who was about my age escaped from her barking dogs and sat with us on the porch. Yes, she voted for Democrats and would be interested in volunteering for the local party. She filled out one of our response cards, which updated her contact info. Our cards feature a blue Dem bison. The bison looks friendly. Some conservatives see Dems as dangerous radicals intent on taking away their guns and replacing their coal rollers with bicycles. I shouldn't be saying this, but it's all true, everything you've heard on Fox News. We want you to stare into the image of the blue bison and tell you that you are getting sleepy, sleepy, sleepy. And then bam, we have you in our clutches. Where did you hide those guns? Give us the keys to your truck.

The woman on the front porch knew the former chair of our Democratic Party Grassroots organization. "I don't see how she gets it all done," the woman said. Periodically, she rubbed her hands together, said they were sore from working in her garden. She had a beautiful yard. The dogs stopped barking. She handed me her card. We said our farewells and marched on down the street. We met a libertarian man who had registered as a Dem to vote for Bernie Sanders. He didn't think he wanted to remain involved with the Democrats due to their tax policies. He owned one of Toyota's first hybrid cars and recently drove 700 miles into Iowa on one tank of gas. He looked like a handy guy -- we interrupted him working around the house. A paddleboard was attached to the top of his truck. The man looked at it and I could see that he'd rather be on the water than talking to us.

We moved on. One woman voted for Dems but spent most of her winters in Arizona. "No politics in Arizona," I said. We all laughed. She filled out a card, said she might be interested in attending some Laramie County summer events.

We moved on. A couple walking down the street waved at us. We waved back. I wondered if they wondered what we were doing in their neighborhood. One man asked if we lived around here. We answered in the affirmative. For 22 years. Three different places. Our kids attended Hobbs Elementary, McCormick Junior High and Central High. Voted in this precinct and worked at the polls. At the next house, the couple warmed up to Chris as soon as she said she worked at the Y. They were a mixed race couple whose son had been spending his summers at the Y for four years. His parents called him out and introduced him. Chris and the twelve-year-old recognized each other.  The woman said she voted for Democrats but was too busy working three jobs to volunteer. She and her husband both filled out cards because they were angry at current events. They didn't mention Trump but didn't have to. He was black, she was white. We chatted about kids and the Y and school but only made a few references to politics. They urged us to contact them, as if they felt a pressing need to do something, anything. We said we would. Secretly, we hoped that the Dems would follow through as the party hasn't always been the most efficient political machine in Wyoming. I know that Chris and I would see to that.

We said we had to go across the street to talk to their neighbor. They told us he was hard of hearing so we had to talk loud. They didn't know that he was a Democrat. We walked over and rang the man's doorbell but no answer. The couple yelled from across the street, said that their neighbor was probably going for his walk as he usually did every day at this time. We said we'd come back.

But our time on this July afternoon was limited. Chris had to go into work for a couple hours. I had to shop for a Sunday garden party with colleagues who, during last election season, had raised quite a bit of money for legislative candidates who ended up getting walloped on Nov. 8. But we missed working with each other. We missed each other. We were neighbors, after all. People who cared about their neighborhoods and their city and their state and their country.

We walk neighborhoods for our country.

I do not believe Sen./Dr. Barrasso when he says he is "passionate about ensuring that patients are able to get the care they need"

Wyomingites call John Barrasso a U.S. Senator.

Before turning to politics, he was Dr. John Barrasso in Casper. An orthopedic surgeon, like the very capable docs in Cheyenne who replaced both of my knees, operations covered by Medicare and my supplemental insurer, CIGNA. I give a lot of credit to CIGNA for its service. I also pay the company more than half of my retirement income to provide necessary coverage for me, my diabetic wife, and my mentally challenged daughter. My knee docs are not in the Senate. Not yet, anyway. They may have noted how much money Barrasso is raking in as as pal of the Koch Brothers and other right-wing funders. And the senator has great hours and plenty of vacation days. He hardly works at all! 

I'm not sure what to call Barrasso. A physician would not demean his profession the way he does. Lately, he's been up to no good in the U.S. Senate, working to deny health care to thousands of Wyomingites. 

So I write letters and postcards. They are cordial but insistent. I do no name calling or cursing. I don't want to get on the Senate's Shit List, which I hear is getting longer by the day.  

My senators write me back. This afternoon I received an e-mail response from Sen. Barrasso. A laugher, if you're into dark humor. Read it and weep or laugh, the choice is yours. You can get your own response, suitable for framing, by writing to Sen. John Barrasso, 307 Dirksen Office Building, Washington, DC, 20510. Get a full list of his mailing addresses and phone numbers in Wyoming by going to http://www.barrasso.senate.gov

Dear Michael,  

Thank you for taking the time to contact me. It is good to hear from you. 

There are serious challenges facing health care in our nation. As a doctor, who practiced in Wyoming for over twenty years, I am passionate about ensuring that patients are able to get the care they need. Right now, Congress is in the middle of an important debate about the future of Obamacare.  

For the past seven years, patients have experienced the impact of this law. The people I talk to in Wyoming tell me they are facing higher premiums and fewer choices. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, premiums in Wyoming are up 107% since 2013. We also have just one single insurance company willing to sell Obamacare policies.  

This law cannot continue in Wyoming or across the country. This is why I voted to repeal Obamacare and will continue to support this effort. Patients need relief from the law’s mandates and taxes that are making health insurance unaffordable for so many families. Importantly, we can do this while still ensuring that people with serious medical conditions continue to have access to insurance coverage.  

The repeal of Obamacare is just the first step. We need to make changes that ultimately lower costs and improve quality of care received by all patients. In particular, this means letting states decide what works best in their local communities. This is especially important so places like Wyoming can meet the needs of residents in our rural communities.  

Michael, thank you for contacting me. I appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments about this important issue. 

John Barrasso, M.D.
United States Senator

In which Sen. Enzi tries to calm this heart patient's fears about the Senate's health care bill

I am always impressed how quickly Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi replies to my letters, postcards, e-mails and phone calls. I am just one of his many constituents. I am a registered Democrat and never voted for him. Of all the GOPers objecting to Pres. Obama's ACA, Enzi, at least, had some of his own common-sense proposals. 

But like the rest of the GOP, the Trump-era Enzi has gone off its rocker. He and his pal, Sen. Barrasso, helped craft the nastiness that is the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA). The goal should be to provide universal health care. Instead, it deprives millions of coverage in order to give tax breaks to the rich. 

So I complained. Enzi's response was predictable. I like to publish them online. You have to read between the lines to see what it actually says: "We destroyed the ACA and now want to replace it with something much worse. And you can't do anything about it."

So here's his response: 

Dear Mike: 

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has caused skyrocketing health care premiums, imposed mandates and taxes, and is collapsing individual insurance markets. Millions of Americans and thousands of Wyomingites have demanded we take action on these issues. One proposal in the Senate, the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), would address these problems and help ensure the most vulnerable among us get health care.

There are people suffering under the current health care system created by the ACA and more will follow suit if we do nothing. The health care status quo is simply unsustainable and changes must be made. The recent vote on the motion to proceed provides us with an opportunity to improve our health care system. I will continue to work to find the best way forward while keeping in mind the health care needs of Wyomingites.

Thanks for contacting me.

Sincerely,
Michael B. Enzi
United States Senator

This 1960s Boy Scout wonders if Trump knows anything about the Scout Oath

Did U.S. Army General and Supreme Allied Commander of Operation Overlord (and later president) Dwight D. Eisenhower ever go ever go to a Boy Scouts of America Jamboree and invite the crowd to jeer his predecessor, Army artillery officer and WWI combat veteran (and later president, the guy who okayed the big nuke drop on Japan) Harry S. Truman?

Hard to imagine, isn't it? But Trump has submerged us so far into his own sewer that on Monday, he invited the crowd to jeer his predecessor, Barack Obama, and cheer The Donald, himself, our celeb president. Obama, by the way, was in Boy Scouting as an international Cub Scout. Trump, of course, was not. Both men have served as honorary Scout leaders, one excelled at the task and the other, our current president, brought shame upon the Scouts forever.

Ike and Harry both addressed the Scouts at jamborees. When he addressed the Scouts, Truman (according to The Washington Post),

extolled fellowship: “When you work and live together, and exchange ideas around the campfire, you get to know what the other fellow is like,” he said. 

And this:

President Dwight D. Eisenhower invoked the “bonds of common purpose and common ideals.” 

They were both officers and, presumably, gentlemen. They wouldn't stoop to criticizing fellow officers in public. In private and after a few drinks, well, that's another matter. The presidency has rules and protocol. Trump is intent on transgressing them all.

Trump has said he knows more about the military than his generals because he went to military school. That's like saying I know everything there is to know about women because I married one.

My knowledge of the military is mainly through a stint in ROTC, reading, and the stories told by veteran friends.

But I was in the Boy Scouts. I was a Cub Scout in Denver and Moses Lake, Wash. My mother was a den leader. I was a Boy Scout in four states -- Washington, Colorado, Kansas, and Florida. I attained the heady rank of Star Scout, just two ranks short of the vaunted Eagle. I then discovered girls. Merit badges didn't seem so important anymore.

The Scout Oath did. So did the law, motto, and.code.

The Scout Oath (from memory):

On my honor I will do my duty to God and to country, to keep myself physically fit, mentally awake and morally straight.

Here is the actual oath:

On my honor, I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.

I forgot a few of the details. I did remember honor and duty, God and Country, and that all-important fourth line.

The oath was reinforced daily at home and at Catholic School. I've never forgotten those lessons.

I am an imperfect human being. But this Scout would never behave as Trump did on Monday.

Trump is a disgrace to the uniform he never wore. .

Seventy years after his first visit, what would Sal Paradise think about Cheyenne Frontier Days?

"Hell's bells, it's Wild West Days!"

A line from Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." A character named Slim can't restrain himself when he finds he's landed in Cheyenne during Frontier Days in 1947. Kerouac dropped in on his way to Denver. Sal Paradise (Kerouac) spends some time exploring Cheyenne before he sets off to see Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) down on Larimer Street, the place where all the rootless ones hang out. In the 1950s, my parents warned us kids about all the bums on Larimer Street. It now boasts a better class of bum. Good eats and great beer. Major League Baseball only a few blocks away. Light rail at the no-longer-decrepit Union Station. In a 2015 post, I wrote a bit more about Kerouac and Frontier Days.

Cheyenne Frontier Days is celebrating its 121st year. That's a lot of years to put on an event. The year 1896 was many American wars ago, many cowboys riding broncs, many kids chowing down on carnival funnel cakes. I appreciate how much it takes to put on "The World's Largest Outdoor Rodeo" and attendant events. Volunteers make it work.

I've volunteered at the Old-Fashioned Melodrama (in its 61st year) for many years at downtown's Atlas Theatre. I've been on stage as emcee and served in many capacities at the front of the house -- bartender, house manager, concessions, etc. The Atlas is going through exterior renovations. Interior looks great. Revamped theatre, new tables and chairs, and -- finally -- AC. The new lobby bar looks great. Beyond that, there is still millions of dollars in work to be done to the building and its upper floors. Anyone involved in the non-profit arts world knows that the work is never done. The Cheyenne Little Theatre Players was founded in 1930 and now owns two theatres, which is quite a task for a community theatre organization. A small staff, a dedicated board, and dozens of volunteers keep things moving along. And welcome to CLTP's new ED,

The City of Cheyenne celebrates its 150 year in August. You can find a schedule of events at  https://www.cheyenne.org/cheyenne150/. It's a newbie when compared to some East Coast cities. But a lot can happen in a century-and-a-half. Our kids, who live elsewhere, contend that nothing happens in Cheyenne. I have a different perspective. When Chris, Kevin and I moved here in 1991, we found few things to do outside of Kevin's school and youth sports. Adults hung out at bars. Teens and young adults and Warren AFB personnel drove to Denver and Fort Collins for amusements. Cheyenne still challenges them. Colorado still beckons. Liberals in this conservative bastion seek comfort in togetherness and in activism, sometimes the same thing. Still, the Know Nothings make life a struggle for the Open-Minded. I have blogged quite a bit about Cheyenne .Its people are a treasure. The politics are a challenge. I love it. I hate it. But I have always been actively involved in the community and plan to continue.

Happy birthday, Cheyenne.

"Wonder Woman" not just another fanboy film

I'm too old and jaded to be a fanboy.

Maybe that's why I dislike standard comic book hero movies. They're like fireworks displays. Lots of pop and sizzle, but what are you left with? I like movies that have substance or are just downright weird. "Logan" had substance. "Deadpool" was weird and profane. 

The new "Wonder Woman" has substance and weirdness. I really liked it.

Who would have thought that World War I could be so topical? A century after the U.S. blundered into The Great War, many of its themes have come back to haunt us. How does a country blunder into war? Can you say Vietnam and Iraq? Who uses poison gas? Can you say Saddam Hussein and Bashar al-Assad? What country bombs civilians? Bet you can't name just one.  

Here's another question: If Wonder Woman finds and kills Ares, the ancient God of War, will war cease to exist?

You will get no spoilers from me. But "Wonder Woman" is traditional in that it places a quest as its central theme. Diana (a.k.a. Wonder Woman, played by Gal Gadot)), the only child on the mysterious island of the Amazons, trains to be a warrior. No surprise, then, that she gets the call to save the world. The call comes in the form of an American spy (Capt. Steve Trevor, played by Chris Pine) who crashes a stolen German plane into the sea off the island. WW rescues him. Trevor has stolen the poison gas recipe book from the German mad scientist (Doctor Poison) who is managed by German General Ludendorff, one of the few historical figures portrayed in the movie. Ludendorff wants to keep Germany in the war during its waning days of November 1918, when an armistice is threatening to break out. The general commands his troops to find the spy and the stolen book. They follow the spy to the island and a battle ensues where WW discovers a hint of her superpowers.

That's a lot so far, but the action has barely begun. It's charming to think that the German mad scientist would have a poison gas recipe book. She wears a facial prosthetic due to a war wound, possibly damage from a gas attack. On the Allied side of the war, French artists made facial prosthetics for soldiers disfigured in battle. One can only assume that artists in other countries were doing the same. While the war's casualties were horrendous, modernized battlefield medicine saved many who would have died in previous wars. So we called on our artists for a solution.  

I'm not going to tell you whether WW stops Ares' mad reign with her God Killer Sword, that World War I truly was the "war to end all wars." As we all know, the world is a wicked and warlike place. Ares himself tells us that it's not his fault that humans are so warlike. He just helps them along a little and they do the rest. 

Taking a page from the book of Sisyphus, humankind replays its fate over and over again. If only we had one person to blame it all on.

Alas, war is hell, as WW sees. It also is forever. Zeus created humans and within us lies the seeds of our own destruction. If that's not a timely lesson, well, you haven't been paying attention. 

P.S.: After I wrote this, I read other reviews of the movie, including one on Roger Ebert's web site, Vulture and in conservative National Review. The best was by Mark Hughes in the May 30 Forbes. It's a blend of industry forecast -- he predicts that "a $90 million domestic opening with a 3.2x multiplier would get it to a stateside cume about $288 million" -- and insight. And he shows some real insight. 

Looking for some post-ecliptic music and prose in Casper on Aug. 21?

Musician Ethan Hopkins and writer Mike Shay

I will be on stage with musician Ethan Hopkins on Eclipse Day, Aug. 21, 7:30 p.m., at Metro Coffee in Casper. This is the final outing of the summer for the "Music and Poetry" series sponsored by ARTCORE, Casper's vibrant local arts agency. The title is slightly misleading. I will be reading prose, not poetry, as I need many more words to express myself than the average (even above-average) poet. I will be reading from my novel-in-progress, "Zeppelins Over Denver," which has Wyoming characters in it but takes place in the Denver of 1919. I will share some excerpts here in the month or so leading up to the event. I also want to give you some tastes of Ethan's music. Take a look and listen of this vid clip from Ethan's web site: https://www.facebook.com/ethanhopkinsmusic/videos/1824071751243851/

Casper will be in the cone of totality for the solar eclipse. During the day, I will be somewhere in that cone of totality. But at night, I will be in the spotlight at Metro.

To get tix to the ARTCORE event, go to http://www.artcorewy.com/tickets.php. Also check out ARTCORE's upcoming season. Excellent, as always.

Skeletons rejoice at Liz Cheney's defense of Trumpcare

My skeleton crew rejoices at Rep. Cheney's defense of the Congressional Republicans bill to revoke health insurance for 22 million Americans and turn their lazy asses into corpses. My favorite line in the letter is "I appreciate your thoughts and concerns." My second-favorite is this. "No state suffered more than Wyoming under one-size-fits-all regulatory burdens imposed by the Affordable Care Act." I like this one too: "As Congress continues the process of improving our health care system..." It goes on and on. If you want a letter like this, just write Rep. Liz Cheney, at one of her many offices in WYO or call her directly at 307-722-2595. Just ask for the skeleton letter, or the form letter that covers the AHCA, a.k.a. American Harvest of Corpses Act. You'll be glad you did. 

Denver Comic Con -- an unexpected place to find some good advice on literary fiction

Chris and I accompanied our Millennial daughter Annie to Denver Comic Con on Saturday.

"Accompanied" might be a bit of a stretch, since she ditched her Boomer parents as soon as it was feasible. This wasn't too hard as she already had her entrance ID so just got into the line surging toward the Colorado Convention Center. Chris had to find a shady spot to test her blood glucose levels while I searched for the "will call" window. I was on a mission to trade in my paper tickets for entrance badges. I walked around the entire Con Center which looks a bit like a starship at rest, one with a gigantic blue bear staring inside. It could be an alien bear, an anime bear, a bear that is also a shapeshifter, a perfect disguise for an "Aliens"-style alien, or one from "The Predator" series, or those rapacious aliens in "Independence Day" or "War of the Worlds."

The heat may have been getting to me. I kept yearning to be in the AC with a cool Brewt, the official beer of Comic Con from Breckenridge Brewery. But first, I had to crack the code that would let me inside. I located various long lines, none of which were the correct ones. I finally found the "will call" line when I saw others of the dispossessed using their paper tickets as fans. The line moved fast as it was mostly in the shade of one of the DCC's giant wings. Twenty minutes later, I had our badges and eventually located Chris and we finally were admitted to the inner sanctum.

I was unofficially the oldest person in the building. Even veteran actor Kate Mulgrew, whom we heard speak in the BellCo Theatre, is younger than me by a few years, if my arithmetic is correct. Captain Janeway has transformed herself into the dastardly prison den mother in "Orange is the New Black." Her Russian accent is pretty good, which may hold her in good stead with our new Overlord, Vlad Putin. Mulgrew is the oldest of eight in an Irish-Catholic family (I am the oldest of nine). That wasn't the only thing we had in common. She said that reading is the basis for success. She is working on her second book while ensconced in her house in Galway reading through the Irish masters: Joyce, Trevor, O'Brien. This summer, she is even tackling Proust, which earns her major brownie points in the literary world.

Janeway is still the only female captain in the long-running "Star Trek" series. She hears rumors that one of the top-ranking officers in the latest series (set to debut this fall) is female. But she is not the captain. Mulgrew is a big Hillary fan which automatically makes her a big non-fan of whatever alien life form now occupies the White House. That's as close as she got to politicking which, she said, speakers were warned to steer clear of. As if....

People watching was the best use of my time. So many cosplayers from so many different books and TV shows and movies. One person was dressed as the Lego captain. He must have been hot in there. Princess Leia continues to be popular, as are various Trek characters. Annie is a big "Doctor Who" fan and there were plenty of doctors and even a few Daleks. One of my faves was a hoodie-wearing Donnie Darko and the Big Scary Rabbit that haunts his life in the movie. We ran into some theatre friends from Cheyenne all costumed up, including two female Ghostbusters.

We lunched on soggy overpriced sandwiches. We went to one of the NASA panels that addressed "The Science of Star Trek." The speakers quizzed us on the feasibility of Trek items, including communicators, transporters and artificial intelligence. Communicators were an obvious yes but a big no on the molecule-rearranging transporter ever seeing the light of day. This dooms my dream of someday avoiding the drive from Cheyenne to Denver. I would trade the possibility of misplaced molecules with driving I-25 any day.

My day ended with an authors' track panel entitled "Start Short, Get Good." The five published panelists spoke of writing short stories as a way to break into the sci-fi lit world. Catherynne M. Valente, author of "The Orphan's Tales," said this: "It's always been a hustle to get short fiction published." And this: "It's a struggle to get people to read short stories who also are not aspiring writers." As a test, she had audience members raise their hands who read short stories -- the majority of us complied. Then she asks for a show of hands of aspiring writers -- many raised hands. That got a laugh.

This continues a theme that I have heard for decades at everything from national AWP conferences to Wyoming Writers, Inc., conferences to book festivals. The question is: Are you buying and reading the work of the authors you like? That patronage is crucial to the survival of small presses and literary magazines.

Michael Poore ("Up Jumps the Devil") spoke up for the survival of these small markets. He said that he publishes some of his "character-driven stuff" in the literary markets.

"Genre fiction has lots of rules," Poore said. "In a literary story, you can get away with more. People tell me that they read my stories but don't like stories that don't end."

That sounds like a great description if literary fiction -- stories that don't end. I remember my insurance salesman uncle saying that he liked my first book of stories but was surprised that they had no end. Slice of life. Minimalism. Whatever term you use, it's shorthand for literary fiction which doesn't always coexist with genre fiction. Poore, on the other hand, seems to live in both worlds. He has published stories in some of the best litmags (Agni, Glimmer Train, Fiction) and sci-fi mags such as Asimov's. His story "The Street of the House of the Sun," was selected for The Year's Best Nonrequired Reading 2012, edited by Dave Eggers.

So, by the end of the day, I at last has found my tribe. These panelists face the same challenges I do, which warmed the cockles of my heart and made me very, very thirsty.

I went in search of Brewt.