Praise the Darwin -- and put up a billboard

Darwin even looks a little God-like (in the Old Testament sense) on this billboard erected outside Grand Junction, Colo. Grand Junction was chosen, along with sites in Dayton, Tenn., and Dover, Pa., due to some anti-evolutionary nonsense perpetrated by these communities.

The Tennessee and Pennsylvania towns had landmark court cases about the teaching of evolution. In Grand Junction, the Freedom from Religion Foundation has complained to the Mesa County commissioners about denominational prayers in public meetings.

The foundation is made up of agnostics and atheists who fight government displays of religion.

I tend toward agnostic. I'd like to see one of these billboards in Wyoming, although don't want to suffer through any fundie creationist hoo-ha to get one.

"Red Dawn" Wolverines strike again

Some of you may recall this "Cold War" scare film that was set in Colorado after the Soviet invasion.

Thanks to crooks and liars.

Marriage defenseless in wake of bill defeat

House Joint Resolution 17, the so-called "Defense of Marriage" resolution, was defeated on a 35-25 vote after impassioned testimony from lawmakers.

"I look upon this state as the Equality State and I urge you to maintain that status as the Equality State," said Rep. Patrick Goggles, D-Ethete. Rep. Goggles was a delegate at last summer's Democratic National Convention in Denver.

But you can't kill a bill in our lopsided legislature without some Republicans going along for the ride -- sometimes even leading the charge.

Rep. Roy Cohee of Casper, an opponent of the bill, was mentioned in a story this evening on Wyoming Public Radio.

Rep. Roy Cohee says despite claims by fringe groups that the constitutional amendment is needed, he says he believes that the average citizen disagrees and feels that the public thinks they have much more important work to do.

Sen. Enzi: "Thanks for all the pizza"

Fed up with all the crazy talk about a trillion-dollar stimulus package, Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi and GOP Senate colleagues took time out today to accept delivery of dozens of pizzas delivered to the Capitol steps. The Senators were grateful to GOP PAC Americans for Posterity (motto: "No Stimulus Without Pepperoni") for its generosity in times of great stress. "Dig in, fellas," urged Enzi. And they did, with great relish.

Republicans: Crazy or loony?

After the past two weeks, I have to wonder if bipartisanship exists. Are Republicans merely being the opposition party? Or are they crazy?

Quote from John Cole's Balloon Juice at www.balloon-juice.com:

I really don't understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

Art teachers conduct civics lesson in legislative action

Some of my colleagues in the world of arts education have jumped into the legislative battles with both feet. HB0218 is designed to revise the Hathaway Scholarhips to include arts courses. The Hathaways are awarded to high school seniors attending the state's only four-year university or one of its community colleges.

I posted about this bill on Jan. 28. Here's the latest update from wyomingarts:

We had a very exciting day at the Legislature yesterday! The House Education committee was unanimous in their acceptance of the proposal to change HB0218 to reflect Fine and Performing Arts, and unanimous in their acceptance of the bill. Four teachers presented in support of the bill: Cindy Schmid, Cheyenne; Amy Simpson, Cheyenne; Sheila McHattie, Casper; and Kelly Bembry-Hennings, Cheyenne. Many other teachers, and some administrators, also attended to show their support.

The House Education committee made a number of supportive comments about this bill, and several representatives commented that they had received a lot of email on the topic. The committee was joined by the chair of the Senate Education committee (Senator Coe), and also Senator Dockstader. Senator Dockstader, who is married to an art teacher in Star Valley, was kind enough to give the presenting teachers advice on the process, and help us all by talking to a number of legislators. Superintendent McBride was also there and provided some comments on the bill.

This bill still has a number of hurdles to overcome before it is law, but it is well on its way.

What’s next?

The bill is waiting in line on the docket to be presented to the Committee of the Whole (the House). The Majority Floor Leader sets that schedule. The House Floor Majority Leader is Edward Buchanan (Torrington). The bill must be read by the end of the day on Monday, February 9 in order to continue through the process.

If it does get read by end of day Monday, February 9, it will then be voted upon by the Committee of the Whole (House). If it passes, it goes to second reading. It must be read and voted on by the end of the day on Tuesday February 10 to continue to its third reading. It must have its third reading and voted on by the end of the day on Wednesday, February 11. If it passes, it moves on to the Senate Education Committee. If it doesn’t pass, it is dead.

All House Bills must have achieved third reading by Wednesday, February 11, or they are dead.

These are the stages that must occur between now and the time the HB0218 is presented to the Senate side. So, still a ways to go before it becomes law.

You too can be an ozone monitor

Ozone alert:

Pinedale residents could wake up with unhealthy levels of ozone in the air this morning and should take appropriate precautions, state officials say.

Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality officials predicted weather and other conditions will be ideal for high ozone levels in the Upper Green River Basin.

The DEQ ozone advisory -- the first ozone alert of the winter season -- was announced Tuesday on the agency's Web site.

Ozone study alert:

University of Wyoming researchers are seeking volunteers in Sublette County to assist with an air quality monitoring study.

The six-month project will record ozone levels around Pinedale and at various sites in the Upper Green River Basin. It should provide researchers with much-needed data about the distribution of ozone in the basin.

A mobile air quality monitoring lab has been moved to Pinedale to measure ozone levels with state-of-the-art equipment, according to researchers.

Officials said passive ozone monitors are also being placed throughout the basin to map ozone distribution, and human exposure to ozone will be recorded by the volunteers as part of the project. Volunteers in the study will wear a clip-on, passive ozone sampler, which will record how much ozone he or she comes into contact with during an eight-hour time period.

Both of these stories by Jeff Gearino were in today's Casper Star-Tribune.

Stimulating debate needed on stimulus bill

GOP Senators issued a long list of things on Monday they hate about Obama’s stimulus bill:

• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois.
• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film.
• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.
• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship).
• $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.
• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.
• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.
• $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD's.
• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.
• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.
• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities.
• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.
• $75 million for "smoking cessation activities."
• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges.
• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.
• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.
• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.
• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.
• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings.
• $500 million for state and local fire stations.
• $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands.
• $1.2 billion for "youth activities," including youth summer job programs.
• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.
• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.
• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Maryland.
• $160 million for "paid volunteers" at the Corporation for National and Community Service.
• $5.5 million for "energy efficiency initiatives" at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration.
• $850 million for Amtrak.
• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.
• $75 million to construct a "security training" facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.
• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.
• $200 million to lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.

Some of these could stimulate the economy. Some are just wayward bills that never found a home. Some are just silly -- TV converter boxes? The total here is about $20 billion, give or take a few million (I’m too lazy to add them up).

That leaves about $800 billion in spending in the current stimulus bill. Are the GOPers O.K. with all that remains? What about the $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts? Why isn’t that first on the GOP hit list? It’s possible that Republican Senators finally understand that a healthy economy needs the stimulus of the arts. There was a time, back in the 1990s during Newt Gingrich’s Contract on America, that the NEA was under withering fire from the Religious Right and its political handmaiden, the GOP. Congress cut the NEA budget in half, but couldn’t kill it. The agency’s budget rose during Dubya’s two terms.

It’s also possible that the disgruntled Republican senators are listening to some of its senior members who’ve become part of the Senate Arts Caucus, people like Wyoming’s Mike Enzi. Although he’s pretty much a party line guy, Enzi has long supported the arts in his home town of Gillette and throughout Wyoming. He could be talking some sense into his colleagues. It’s possible.

It’s funny to see Republicans getting religion about spending. They didn’t bat and eye when they authorized the war in Iraq and ended up spending (so far) $600 billion in taxpayer funds. They sunk hundreds of billions more into Defense Department appropriations (separate from the war funding) and dried up the treasury with their generous tax cuts for the richest Americans. Now they see the light. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition – to Halliburton! But let's not spend a penny on youth programs or energy efficiency or disease control.

Palin the future brains of the GOP?

Rasmussen Reports features its latest political poll:

One thing for sure: Republicans and Democrats don’t agree on the future direction of the Republican Party.

Coming off a shellacking at the polls in November, the plurality of GOP voters (43%) say their party has been too moderate over the past eight years, and 55% think it should become more like Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in the future, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just 24% think failed presidential candidate John McCain is the best future model for the party, and 10% are undecided.

Only 17% of Republican voters say their party has been too conservative, and 30% say its actions and positions have been about right, with nine percent (9%) not sure.

Nearly two-thirds of Democrats (64%), however, say the Republican Party has been too conservative, and 42% think it should look to McCain for the future. Twelve percent (12%) of Democratic voters see Palin as a future role model, and 40% aren’t sure what’s best for their rivals.

Wow. Republicans think their party has been too moderate the past eight years? That's scary. Scarier still is The Return of Sarah Palin, Airborne Slayer of Wolves. The Republicans need to rename themselves the Lamebrain Party. First Bush, and then the possibility of Prez Palin? Let's hope that Barack Obama sets us on a course that honors intelligence and competence over stupid.

Sen. McCaskill reads riot act to "idiots"

Watch Claire McCaskill (D-MO) take apart the idiot financiers who got us into this mess: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt90KUwCCoE

This one is for my college chum Bob in Missouri.

Middle class revolutionaries on the march

I've been a card-carrying member of America's middle class all my life. I suppose my "card" is that wrinkled old original Social Security card I carry in my wallet. All of us have one of these, from the homeless man crashing at the local shelter to crazy ol' rich guy Bernie Madoff. But most of us are middle class, like it or not.

There was a time that we artsy types wanted to distance ourselves from suburbia. "Middle class" was a putdown among '50s beats and '60s hippies (and hippie wannabes). Odd thing is, the most vocal critics tended to be offspring of the upper classes rather than the sons of daughters of carpenters and insurance salesmen. Middle-class kids like me were raised to strive for better lives that our parents'. Most of us seemed to want that, too, although life has a way of playing tricks on your aspirations.

My father was an accountant and my mother, a nurse. My father was the first college graduate in his family, courtesy of the G.I. Bill. My mother's nurse's training was paid for by the U.S. Navy, although World War II ended before she could serve in the military. My parents' first house came through a no-down-payment, low-interest loan through the V.A. It was in Aurora, Colo., Denver's burgeoning eastern suburb. We lived just down the street from Fitzsimons Army Medical Center where Ike recovered from one of his heart attacks. Pres. Ike was married to Mamie, a middle-class girl from Denver.

My parents and millions like them made up the middle class. Their ungrateful kids wanted something else, something better, something....who the hell knows. Most of us claimed territory in our parents' socio-economic cadre, whether we wanted to or not. In the 1980s -- that "Me Decade" when TV's "Thirty-something" was all the rage -- we didn't grasp the fact that forces energized by the so-called Reagan Revolution were on a search-and-destroy mission. Target: me and my neighbors. Those forces took steroids during the Dubya Administration.

But now the Reagan/Bush/Bush tide is ebbing.

On Friday, Pres. Obama signed an executive order forming a Working Families Middle Class Task Force. Point man is Veep Joe Biden. Here's what he had to say:

"America’s middle class is hurting. Trillions of dollars in home equity and retirement savings and college savings are gone. And every day, more and more Americans are losing their jobs. President Obama and I are determined to change this. Quite simply, a strong middle class equals a strong America. We can’t have one without the other. This Task Force will be an important vehicle to assess new and existing policies across the board and determine if they are helping or hurting the middle class. It is our charge to get the middle class – the backbone of this country – up and running again."

Who would have thought there would come a time when being middle class was revolutionary?

The task force's first meeting will be in Philadelphia Feb. 27. I would have preferred a place closer to Middle America. Aurora, Colo., for instance. Or possibly Cheyenne, Wyo., or Omaha or Wichita. I formally invite the task force to Cheyenne. The Veep can stay in my guest room.

One thing that's encouraging -- you can submit your ideas to the task force here.

Contact your legislators about including the arts in Hathaway options

A bill modifying the requirements for Wyoming's Hathaway Scholarship was recently introduced by Wyoming Rep. Elaine Harvey from Lovell. The bill would allow a student to substitute two years of music education in grades 9-12 instead of foreign languages. The bill does specify "music" and not the larger category of "fine and performing arts."

The bill has been assigned the number HB0218 and is entitled Hathaway Success Curriculum. The bill (as of 1/31) can be read here. It has been referred to the House Education Committee. It is scheduled to be heard on Monday, Feb. 2. For updates on the status of the bill, go to: http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2009/Bills.htm.

The bill could be modified several times. It can be modified in committee, on the floor of the House, or -- if passed -- by the Senate committee or on the floor of the Senate.

Music teachers Cindy Schmid and Amy Simpson met with Rep. Elaine Harvey and Rep. Joe Barbuto last week. They were able to help them organize talking points for the bill, but did not feel they were successful in making the case to modify "music" to "fine and performing arts."

People in arts education have divided opinions about the bill. On one hand, it would be a great thing that students have options when it comes to scholarship-sanctioned courses. The bill would be a great entry point into the Hathaway program. Once legislators open the door to one art form, others are sure to follow later. The no-cost bill might be seen favorably by legislators wary of big ticket items during tough economic times.

On the other hand, once music is approved as an alternative, perhaps legislators might feel they've done their final bit of Hathaway modifying and close the door forever. That's a danger, although hard times don't last forever -- and neither does a seat in the state legislature. Educators in visual arts and theatre are concerned about this possibility.

Those who want to see the broader category of "fine and performing arts" in the Hathaway legislation suggest these talking points:

1) Wyoming does not have stand-alone standards in music; all of the arts are together under Fine and Performing Arts. Currently, students must gain proficiency in the arts in order to graduate with two of our three diplomas. Keeping it consistent with the current system is simpler for administration purposes, and for districts to advise students.

2) Not all students are good at music. If the purpose is to create successful students, providing as many avenues as possible for success is important. Changing the requirement to the Fine and Performing Arts allows students to select from music, art, dance or theatre.

3) All of the arts provide important benefits to students. A variety of studies has shown correlations between participation in the arts and the likelihood a student will stay in school. All of them develop higher order thinking and creative problem solving skills, which are in high demand in the workforce today.

4) People who participate in the arts are more likely to vote, volunteer and generally participate in public life.

These last two, of course, would also be a danger to Republican hegemony in Wyoming. Another great reason to throw the arts into the mix.

The members of the House Education committee are: Del McOmie (Fremont); Bob Brechtel (Natrona); Cathy Connolly (Albany); Bernadine Craft (Sweetwater); Ross Diercks (Niobrara/Weston/Converse/Goshen); Allan Jaggi (Uinta/Sweetwater); Thomas Lubnau (Campbell); Robert McKim (Lincoln); Matt Teeters (Goshen/Platte). Contact them through legisweb.state.wy.us/

Lummis says no to U.S. economic recovery

Here's Wyoming Rep. Cynthia Lummis's statement explaining her vote against the stimulus package designed to rescue the U.S. from the recession:

Following her vote against the $816 billion economic stimulus package, U.S.Representative Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., issued this statement:

“The economy is in a downturn, and is in need of help – we are all feeling that reality. However, I believe this economic stimulus package will not deliver the shot in the arm we are looking for. We cannot borrow and spend our way back to economic prosperity.

“The stimulus package provides enough spending to give every man, woman and child in America $2,700, but will cost each and every household an additional $6,700 in debt.

“Huge amounts of government spending have never been an effective tool for economic recovery. It has been tried here and around the world before, and it has always been found wanting.

“This bill, meant to stimulate our economy, has among other crazy things, money for the National Endowment for the Arts, the 2010 census, and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. This is not stimulus – it is a bridge to bankruptcy – and it is not how tax dollars should be spent.

“That is why I have cosponsored alternative measures that cut taxes and give individuals and small business back the money they’ve earned. This is a true stimulus for the economy.“

The bill I support, the ‘Economic Recovery and Middle-Class Relief Act of 2009’ would cut income taxes 5 percent across the board, and permanently lower the capital gains, as well as repeal the alternative minimum tax.

“It would also include a 1 percent across-the-board budget cut for everything but defense and veterans – a first step in the right direction of true fiscal discipline. “While there are a variety of programs in the President’s stimulus package that I could support on their own merits, I hope to consider them in next year’s budget, and not in a stimulus free-for-all, like the one being considered in Congress now.”

Republicans brought us this economic crisis with their tax cuts for the rich and an unnecessary crusade in Iraq. That war alone has cost the U.S. almost $600 billion (see http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home). That could pay for the stimulus package that Lummis so blithely dismisses.

It's also good to know that Lummis is on record against funding for the arts. That's a continuation of her predecessor's ignorant anti-arts stances. Gives us something to use against her when she runs again in 2010.

Also, this release refers to an $816 billion stimulus package. The actual amount is $819 billion. That's a difference of $3 billion. And Lummis once was Wyoming's treasurer? Makes you wonder.

Guess which big square state is hopelessly Republican? (Hint: It's not Colorado)

A recent Gallup Poll shows Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Alaska as hopelessly Republican, with Nebraska as a runner-up due to one of its electoral votes going to Obama.

Wyoming was not the most Repub of states. Utah gets that honor.

But here's a weird thing. Oklahoma leans Democratic, yet all 77 of its counties voted for McCain. Of Wyoming's 23 counties, all but two (Albany and Teton) went to McCain. So which is the most regressive, politics-wise?

Artists and their communities

During his campaign, Pres. Obama talked about the importance of the arts, calling for a young “artist corps” to work in low-income schools and neighborhoods; affordable health care and tax benefits for artists; and efforts at cultural diplomacy, such as sending artist-ambassadors to other countries.

And according to a story in the Sunday New York Times:

Arts groups, meanwhile, are urging federal departments like Transportation or Labor to factor culture into their financing. A transportation enhancement program, for example, could pay artists for related public artworks; through the Labor Department displaced arts professionals could receive new training to stay in the work force. “Every one of these places is a vehicle through which the money is going to flow, and we want to make sure the arts is part of it,” said Bob Lynch, director of Americans for the Arts.

But what arts executives are most eager for, they say, is additional direct financing and a president who sends the message that art is important. The country’s 100,000 nonprofit arts groups employ some six million people and contribute $167 billion to the economy annually, Mr. Lynch said. “I don’t think of this as a bailout for the arts,” he added. “It’s an economic investment in the arts.”

Bill Ivey is director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University and a former NEA chairman. “There has never been an administration that looked at the cultural agencies as a partner in advancing big, overarching policy objectives,” he said in an interview. “That’s a real unfulfilled
opportunity and I think this administration is poised to do a better job.”

Arts groups said that they would seek to drive home the idea that culture is an economic engine. “Arts jobs are jobs,” said Marc A. Scorca, president and chief executive of Opera America. “We see opera companies cutting health care, administrative staff — these people are taxpayers and rent payers and mortgage payers, just like every other employee.”

“Arts jobs are jobs.” I like that quote. Six million people work in the arts and contribute billions to the economy. We could create more jobs in the arts, and that would be a start. What we really need are artists living and working in their communities. That means artists throwing pots in the garage or writing poetry in the garret -- and being actively involved in their communities. That’s Civics 101 stuff, those high school precepts that many of us have forgotten. It means engaging your neighbors on the arts. It also means finding ways to incorporate arts in the days to day doings of your town. Most arts groups in Wyoming were started by artists who learned budgeting and organizing and grant-writing skills via OJT. Most were -- and still are -- volunteers.

Last week, my son and I visited the Roosevelt Row Artists’ District in Phoenix. It’s been 13-some years since I was in downtown Phoenix. More buildings have gone up downtown, and the city is now serviced by a slick new light-rail system. The Arizona Arts Commission at Fifth Avenue and Roosevelt is a few blocks away from a light-rail stop. The AAC offices are in an historic building and used to be surrounded by derelict buildings and a few small arts organizations. People now actually live and work in the area.

East along Roosevelt is the artists’ district. We visited its Third Friday open house. Artists live and work out of old bungalows that a decade ago were abandoned wrecks and crack houses. There was a steady stream of people investigating the shops and galleries. The big crowds come on First Friday events, when vendors line the streets and local bands perform.

Greg Esser directs the Roosevelt Row district and was instrumental in getting it off the ground. In the beginning, he and his fellow artists spent a lot of time dodging crack dealers and deciphering arcane zoning regulations. These days they’re attending city meetings to find out how big budget cuts will affect the district. They also took time out to fight the city’s plan to build a football stadium right on top of their heads. The stadium was eventually built west of the city in Glendale. It was in the news last weekend as the Cardinals played for the NFC championship. Lots of Philadelphia fans in town for the big game, dressed in their greenish jerseys. I saw them crowding into the light rail and jostling each other in downtown bars. Economic development.

Cities love sports money almost as much as they like building new stadiums for fat-cat owners. A whale of a stadium can bring economic development to your neighborhood for the eight NFL home games and two NFL home pre-season games. There are college football games, too, and sometimes mega-concerts. But on most nights, the desert wind is whistling through the empty corporate skyboxes. Some of them will be empty next season, abandoned by bereft tycoons who laid off employees while investing in skyboxes and gilded umbrella stands.

The big irony in all this? Many of those same tycoons supported symphonies and art museums and other big-box arts entities. How will those places fare during this recession? The first thing I heard on my rental car radio in Phoenix was the governor's office announcing a $1.6 billion budget shortfall. The AAC had to slash its programs for individual artists -- for starters.

Once a city's residential and business district is established, it not only has activity 24/7, but it generates energy and tax income. It also keeps down crime. Sure, that tattooed guy with the nose rings and purple hair may look like someone you don’t want your daughter to bring home for dinner. But if you ask, you’ll discover he’s a working artist, a guy who renovated his old home on the Row, pays a mortgage, works by day in his studio and as a barista at night. He’s making your city a better place.

That goes for all towns and cities, whatever the size. I’ll have more to say about that in later posts.

Make It Happen. Again.

President Obama said this in his inaugural address: "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified."

Alliance of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has released a new video highlighting the lessons to be learned from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression. To see the video, go to “Make America Happen. It links FDR’s New Deal with President-elect Barack Obama’s calls for bold action and civic engagement in response to our present crisis.

I'm a member of the Wyoming Public Employees Association (WPEA)/Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1990. AFSCME does some great things on behalf of government workers.

States can benefit from Obama arts surge

I’ve been an arts worker for almost 18 years, both at the Wyoming Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. "Arts worker" has a nicer ring than "arts administrator" or the one I actually carry around on my business cards, "Individual Artists Program Specialist." I work to ensure that Wyoming artists and arts organizations survive and thrive. I have an affinity for artists because I’m a working writer with a stake in the health of the arts scene. We writers are spending almost as much time unlocking the secrets of "the new publishing paradigm" as we are writing (more about that in future posts).

The U.S. now has a new political paradigm. I worked to elect Pres. Obama not only because he was the best candidate. He also was one of the few with an arts platform. His inaugural celebration featured poetry and lots of music. He had arts advisers during the campaign and, after Nov. 4, a transition team devoted to arts and culture. The Democratic leadership in Congress has included a $50 million boost in National Endowment for the Arts funding in its gigantic stimulus package.

But that’s not just a boost in the NEA budget. Here’s a description from a press release:

On Jan. 15, the U.S. House Democratic leadership released details of an $825 billion economic stimulus package with $275 billion in tax breaks and $550 billion in spending. The proposal includes a $50 million allocation for the National Endowment for the Arts, with the stipulation that 40 percent of such funding be distributed through state and regional arts agencies, the balance to go out in direct grants from the NEA. The proposal further stipulates that all funds must be awarded by September 30, 2010, using existing grant-making procedures.

The specifics of the proposal announced by the Democratic leaders include an unusual statement of accountability attached to the measure, referred to as "an historic level of transparency." Among the safeguards, the measure states: "Public notification of funding must include a description of the investment funded, the purpose, the total cost and why the activity should be funded with recovery dollars. Governors, mayors or others making funding decisions must personally certify that the investment has been fully vetted and is an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars. This will also be placed on the recovery website....There are no earmarks in this package."

So, $20 million of stimulus funding for the arts will go through existing state and local arts agencies’ programs, including those at the Wyoming Arts Council. That’s a real relief, since the NEA has spent the past eight years inventing new programs that we have to find resources for. And the WAC always has more demand for funds that it can fulfill. The stimulus plan will be at least a short-term boost. It goes to a vote in the U.S. House as early as Wednesday. You may want to urge your U.S. rep to support the stimulus package. Wyoming has a new one, Republican Cynthia Lummis. It's time to test her mettle. You can e-mail her here; or phone her at 202-225-2311; or write her at this address.

But what’s the long-term outlook for the arts? An elitist tag has been hung on arts organizations, especially the large institutions such as symphonies and art museums and theatre companies. Artists haven’t helped, spending more time holed up in the academy than being an active member of their communities. Maybe that’s about to shift.

(More arts musings tomorrow)

Heart Mountain Center takes shape

Whenever I'm in Park County, I try to stop at the site along Hwy. 14A of the Heart Mountain Internment Camp from World War II. Thousands of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast were interned here following FDR's presidential order. The best time to stop is on a windy and cold January day. You get the full picture that way, what it might have been like to arrive in northwest Wyoming after being forcibly removed from your home in balmy southern California. I don't have to imagine the cold. I do have to imagine the despair and sense of abandonment they felt. The camp held up to 11,000 people from 1942-45. I look up at the camp's namesake, Heart Mountain, and try to see the heart at its summit. A geologist told me that the mountain looked more like a heart until a landslide carried away part of the summit.

At long last, the Heart Mountain site is getting an interpretive center. Ruffin Prevost reports in the Billings Gazette that the center's first phase is nearing completion, "incorporating a design that evokes two barracks from the original camp (see artist's rendering above).

And with only a handful of original buildings and a lone chimney still standing on the site, backers of the new center hope to re-create for visitors the gritty details of camp life.

"This is history - it's a big deal. I'm just so proud and pumped about being part of it, and it's going to mean so much to a lot of people," said Allen Rapacz, president of Schutz Foss Architects, with offices in Billings and Gillette, Wyo. Construction began in August and should be complete sometime next month, he said, adding that initial funding has covered building the exterior of the center's main structure, with the interior and an additional adjacent section to be completed later.

"We're trying to replicate what it looked like then, but using modern materials," Rapacz said. Sections of the center's interior will re-create barracks rooms, showing the spartan and primitive conditions under which internees lived, he said. "We will actually re-create exactly what that was like, with wood siding on the inside, and just one single light bulb in the room," Rapacz said, adding that former internees and their families will provide some original furnishings.

Dave Reetz, head of the Heart Mountain Foundation, said that one section of the center will be named in honor of former internee and Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta and retired Sen. Alan K. Simpson, Reetz said.

"The Mineta/Simpson Friendship Hall will recognize their unique and long-standing relationship, which has come to symbolize the enduring bond between the former internees and their Wyoming friends," Reetz said. Simpson and Mineta met nearly 65 years ago during a Boy Scout gathering near Heart Mountain, and eventually served together in the U.S. Congress.

I've heard both Simpson and Mineta speak on the subject. It's fascinating that a white boy from Cody and a "Jap" kid from the internment camp could meet and become friends -- and then serve together in Congress. Simpson's a Wyoming Republican (and an outspoken one at that) and pretty much the party's senior statesman these days. His sense of moderation fell out of favor and was negated by other Wyoming Republicans who served recently in D.C. You know who I'm talking about.

The Gazette article didn't say when the center will be open to visitors. The exterior will be completed in February, with the interior to be finished when more money's available. Funding thus far has come from state and federal governments, along with corporate and foundation money and individual contributions.

Wyoming's heady mix of "homegrown and imported storytelling"

Jenny Shank at New West writes in her 1/21/09 Western Book Roundup about one litblog's attempt to sum up the literary achievements of each state. Omnivoracious editors Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey are doing a state-by-state roundup of good books. They also tie it into politics, by noting the electoral votes of each state (Wyoming has three) and then accompanying each post with a bookish version of the state's quarter. The Wyoming quarter has been redesigned with a photo of Jack Schaefer. Lest you don't know Schaefer's claim to fame, read this Omnivoracious post by Tom Nissley:

It seems somehow fitting to have on our Wyoming quarter a man who never lived there. Jack Schaefer, author of Shane and over a dozen more Westerns, was an Oberlin grad and an Eastern newspaperman who fell in love with the Old West but only moved out to New Mexico later in life (and, as far as I can tell, hadn't even set foot in Wyoming when he wrote Shane). Wyoming, as a literary state, seems to exist mostly as an idea in the head of writers from the East: the best-known classic Wyoming book, The Virginian, was written by a friend of Theodore Roosevelt who prepped at St. Paul's and had two Harvard degrees, while the best-known modern Wyoming book (or at least story), "Brokeback Mountain," is by a woman who lived in Vermont for decades and moved out to Wyoming a few years before her story first appeared. Unlike Colorado to the south, which Ben Kunkel pointed out has been strangely ignored by novelists except as a site for Armageddon, Wyoming does stand for something in the American literary imagination, but neither has it developed the fertile combination of homegrown and imported storytelling of Montana, to the north.

Here's my three (or, rather, four) for Wyoming:

Shane by Jack Schaefer: Last year, twenty-three years after the Western Writers of America chose Shane as the greatest Western novel of all time, they chose George Stevens's 1953 adaptation as the greatest Western movie of all time too. I must say I would have liked to have seen how it would have turned out with Schaefer's own pick for his dark leading character, George Raft, instead of Alan Ladd.
The Virginian by Owen Wister: In an earlier vote, the WWA members chose The Virginian as the greatest Western novel ever. It certainly is the one that started it all.
Close Range by Annie Proulx: Subverting the Western, or expanding it? Long before
Jake and Heath first rode up into the Rockies, "Brokeback Mountain," when I ran across it in The New Yorker, knocked me out like few others I've ever read there. This is the first of three collections of "Wyoming stories" from her so far.
Where Rivers Change Direction by Mark Spragg: I snuck in a fourth here because I was so happy to find a promising book by someone born and bred in the state. (Yes, I know, I could have chosen Lynne Cheney instead.) Spragg's written two novels since, but his debut, a memoir of growing up on a dude ranch near Yellowstone (where no doubt he met many Easterners who had read Owen Wister), is the one that has brought the most passionate responses, at least on our site.

I can already hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth by Wyoming writers. Schaefer's "Shane" is universally admired, and Mark Spragg (shown in photo, ready to be placed on the Wyoming coin) has tons of fans all over the country. Most of us see Owen Wister as a fair writer in the school of Old West Fantasy. Wister's old fishing pal, Ernest Hemingway, better represents Wyoming. Our only claims to Hemingway are his fishing trips and the fact that one of his many weddings took place in the Cheyenne train depot.

Annie Proulx is a great writer with a crusty personality. The now-retired director of Wyoming's state parks (and inveterate reader) once told me that he admired Proulx's writing but wished she had written about Nebraska instead of Wyoming. Half-skinned steers and talking tractors and mothers bent on infanticide are not the stuff of tourist brochures.

Proulx, for her part, said that all of her stories in "Close Range" had their genesis in real events documented in newspaper clippings she unearthed as she went about her usual dogged research. She also wrote all of her books, including the award-winning "The Shipping News," in Wyoming, although she didn't move here full-time until the mid-1990s. She recently told the L.A. Times that she's moving away.

The less said about Lynne Cheney the better. She is a Casper, Wyoming, native, but her books are more the fevered ramblings of a doctrinaire Republican that actual U.S. history.

Nissley's list is a bit stingy. Wyoming may not have the literary cachet of our Montana neighbors, and we don't boast the number of apocalyptic (and post-apocalyptic) novels set in Colorado, but we can hold our own when it comes to books. By the way, Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle" does have scenes set in Colorado. But the man himself lives in Wyoming. Dick grew up on Colorado's eastern prairie.

As a writer, and one who works with writers at my day job, I offer my own list.

Alyson Hagy of Laramie is a great short story writer and I'm reading her new novel, "Snow, Ashes." She has an upcoming book of stories set in Wyoming. She grew up in Virginia.

Any novel by Tim Sandlin of Jackson. Tim has been called a writer of comic novels, which could be seen a pigeonholing but I view as a high compliment. Life is easy, comedy hard. Tim is originally from Oklahoma.

Jon Billman moved away from Wyoming. But his W.W. Norton collection of stories, "When We Were Wolves," is terrific. He's originally from South Dakota, I think.

There's a Wyoming cadre of mystery writers that includes Cheyenne's C.J. Box (Wyoming native), Craig Johnson of Ucross and the writing team of Mike and Kathy Gear of Thermopolis. The Gears write geological mysteries and historical novels based on their anthopological research.

International adventurer Mark Jenkins of Laramie has a collection of his Outside Magazine columns in the book, "The Hard Way."

My favorite book set in the state goes back to the 1970s. It's "Little America" by California writer Rob Swigart. Kooky.

Alexandra Fuller of Wilson has two stunning non-fiction books set in her native Zimbabwe (called Rhodesia when she was growing up there) and the most recent, "The Legend of Colton H. Bryant," set in the southwest Wyoming oil patch.

And while we're discussing Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" (see Colorado entry), I must note that there's almost a chapter's worth of Wyoming in the book.

Don't forget Gretel Ehrlich's "The Solace of Open Spaces" and Teresa Jordan's memoir, "Riding the White Horse Home." Gretel's from California but moved to Wyoming, where she was struck twice by lightning and returned to California to recuperate. She's now back in Wyoming. Teresa grew up on a family ranch near Cheyenne.

Speaking of memoirs, you can get any better than Jim Galvin's "The Meadow." Galvin's family ranch straddled the WY-CO border. He's best known as a poet, and teaches at the University of Iowa creative writing program.

A notable book of poems: "Beyond Heart Mountain" by Lee Ann Roripaugh, a Laramie native. The book was published by Viking-Penguin and won the National Poetry Series award. The poems are told from the personae of Japanese-Americans interned at the WWII Heart Mountain Camp near Cody. Lee Ann's mother is Japanese and her father is the Wyoming Poet Laureate Emeritus, Bob Roripaugh (see photo below).

That's enough for now. Don't want to overload my readers. In Wyoming, we too are omnivores when it comes to appreciating good writing.

Here's a gaggle of four Wyoming poets addressing the crowd at the Wyoming Book Festival in September 2007 in Cheyenne. Shown (left to right) are Bob Roripaugh, Wyoming Poet Laureate Emeritus, Harvey Hix and Craig Arnold, both from Laramie and profs in the UW creative writing program, and David Romtvedt, Wyoming Poet Laureate and author of many books, including the most recent, "Some Church," from Graywolf.

Other possible Inauguration poems

It's possible that ceremonial poetry has to be bad poetry. How can you write something that encompasses the hopes and dreams of millions of people? Poets rely on small things, on fleeting images and emotions. All that can be lost during a reading in front of the massive U.S. Capitol to 1.8 people shivering in the cold.

So many other poems would have been better than the one Elizabeth Alexander penned for the Inauguration. Voice in Wartime offers some examples at http://curricula.voicesinwartime.org/Home/EducationPackets/InauguralAddressesandPresidentialPoetry/PresidentialPoetry/tabid/527/Default.aspx.
The site features previous U.S. Inaugural poems. But the better offerings are ones written by living poets on the occasion of Barack Obama's Inauguration. These poets didn't have to present their work in front of millions. Yusef Kumanyakaa's long single-stanza poem is too convoluted and the poet's voice too mellow to make it effective. Gary Soto writes a short poem. Soto would have been a great choice to perform on Jan. 20. Also Bob Holman, the poet behind the Nuyorican Poetry Cafe in NYC and a participant at the Taos Poetry Bouts.

Here's Soto's poem, "Making the News," written for the occasion:

It's not right to burn newsprint,
The stink of ink in the air,
But I have to crumple at least a few pages
And strike a match in the fireplace--
The bad years go up in a question mark of smoke.
Or should I make confetti from the sports section,
Or shape a dunce hat from the business page—
I, the investor in rubber bands
That shot me in the foot.
Or should I cut out coupons--

Two cans of soup for the price of one.
Or, for a laugh, should I spread open the comics
On the kitchen table and string a macaroni necklace,
The playground craft I could master.
I choose smoke and fire,
The sting in my eyes on this January day,
And poke a wreath of newspaper
Until it crackles with a steady fire.
Let's air out the square and oval rooms.
Let's wave at a dog frolicking on the lawn.
Let's hear children and the tap of rain on a tulip.
Let's welcome the new resident to our house,
His handshake strong from the clasp of so many.