Can a blog post be literary in a "narrative, narrative, narrative" sort of way?

This comes from Poets & Writers:

Inspired by a rumination on the New York Times Paper Cuts blog that asked whether a blog could ever rise to the level of literature, the literary magazine Creative Nonfiction is asking blog readers and writers to nominate "vibrant new voices with interesting, true stories to tell" for a special issue of the magazine. Specifically, the magazine is looking for entries of literary ("narrative, narrative, narrative") blog posts that were published between November 1, 2009, and March 31 of this year.

The winning essays will be published in the July 2010 issue of Creative Nonfiction and each author will receive a fifty-dollar reward for one-time reprint rights.

Can a blog post transcend the tendency of its kind toward, as Gregory Cowles of Paper Cuts puts it, being "too topical and too fleeting to count as literature"? The deadline for nominations of previously blogged essays—your own, a friend's, a stranger's—totaling no more than two thousand words each is Monday, April 26. More information is available on Creative Nonfiction's Web site.

Food is the key to being Green

Watched "Food Inc." last night on PBS.

There were the usual villains, corporate ag monsters such as Monsanto and Monfort.

Unexpected heroes in small farmers and ranchers.

It was entertaining and disgusting. Empowering, too. Three years ago I resumed my intermittent gardening career. A few container tomatoes became a backyard garden plot and then two plots and an expanded area this year. I enjoy growing things and eating them. So, my motives in the beginning were entirely selfish.

Well, not entirely. I caught on to the "Victory Garden" idea. The garden had a political sense, a way to stick it in the eye of George W. Bush and his overseas wars and rapacious oil companies and the energy inefficiency of corporate ag. My three tomato plants against the world.

I didn't discover the local food movement until I was well into the process. I live in Wyoming where food is trucked in from temperate climes. No way to be a locavore in this cold and windy place.

Or so I thought. I had to expand my idea of "local" to encompass a 100-mile radius. That brings in the many local and organic farms on undeveloped acreage along Colorado's Front Range. I had to do my homework, get out and meet people at farmers' markets and research local food producers online. I've been sharing asome of my research here. I also have sidebar links on this blog to Wolf Moon Farms and Grant Farms. There are resources in Wyoming and western Nebraska.

So, on Earth Day, there's no reason to look to the skies -- unless you're watching out for hail and snow and tornadoes. Look to the dirt. Plant something. Grow it. Eat it.

LarCoDems meet April 26 at IBEW Hall

From the LarCoDems:

The Laramie County Democratic Party will hold its monthly meeting on Monday, April 26th at 7 p.m. at the IBEW Hall, 810 Fremont Street in Cheyenne.

The meeting will include a panel discussing how to run a campaign. The panel will discuss communications, finances, activities and issues needed to run a campaign in Laramie County.

Panel members include Dave Lerner, Bobby Marcum, Mike Bell and Katherine Van Dell. All candidates, potential candidates and interested individuals are invited to attend this meeting.

For more information about the meeting, please contact Linda Stowers at 307-634-0768.

Writer Lauren Myracle speaks about "Peace, Love & Freedom"

Writer Lauren Myracle spoke about "Peace, Love & Freedom" tonight at LCCC's Bill and Marietta Dineen Writers Series.

Lauren is a best-selling author of books for tween and teen girls. A few years back, when my daughter was somewhere between tween and teen, I bought her a copy of "ttyl." It's a novel told in IM text, a foreign language to some of us Boomers but perfectly comprehensible to 12-year-olds.

Annie said she liked it. That was the last time she said anything positive about anything, as she then was sucked into the vortex of angst-ridden teenhood.

She's still there. But I went to Lauren's presentation and bought her a book, "How to be Bad," co-written by Lauren and two of her teen-writer pals. I liked the book immediately because it had a gator on the cover. A plastic one, but still a gator. Not sure about the plastic reptile's significance. Maybe Annie will fill me in later. She may text me her opinions.

Lauren Myracle has appeared high up on the American Library Association's banned books list. Major target is books in her Internet Girls series, which includes "ttyl," "ttfn" and "l8r g8r." The girl characters in the books talk about teen things. Lauren and her friend Kimberly read an excerpt. Seemed very funny and creative to me. Boys are mentioned a lot. Parties too. A tiny bit of loose language. Nothing even close to the epithets unleashed by the 11-year-old girl character in the new movie, "Kick-Ass." But alarming just the same to some parents.

"People are freaked out by female sexuality," said Lauren.

She read some letters from parents. One father named Chuck used the following words to describe Lauren and her work: "loose morals," "pedophile," crap," "no conscience," and "misguiding youth."

A woman named Leslie from Idaho wrote a letter blasting Lauren, saying she was going to complain to the school library and get the book taken off the shelves. But Lauren says that she always replied -- and tries to "kill them with kindness."

In this case, it worked. Leslie had a sense of humor and by the end of a series of letters, began to come around. She still wasn't going to let her 12-year-old daughter read Lauren's books.

Not sure I would have the patience or kindness to respond to these kind of letters. Kurt Vonnegut used to say that he welcomed book-banning, book-burning and all kinds of censorship because it boosted sales. I'm sure he also got a vicarious thrill out of laughing in the faces of the troglodytes.

Lauren drew a line in the sand over one challenge. Scholastic Book Fairs told Lauren that her book "Luv Ya Bunches" would be accepted if she removed all the references to the "two moms" of one of her characters. Lauren said no -- and her editor backed her up.

She tells stories of parents challenging her books at school and public libraries. Library copies of her books have been found in dumpsters. There have been cases of people stealing all her books from the library and disappearing.

These aren't kids doing this.

The author is a Christian and sings in her church choir. She made a point in saying that there are many types of Christians. In her church, she noted, Jesus wouldn't hate a girl that had two moms.

Lauren Myracle lives in Fort Collins with her kids and husband, poet and high school teacher Jack Martin. Her web site is www.laurenmyracle.com

The 3/50 Project promotes local businesses

Rebecca Barrett of downtown Cheyenne's Link Gallery was on Channel 5 this morning promoting The 3/50 Project. She said look it up on the Internet and since Rebecca commands respect with her Brit accent and big hair, I obeyed.

The 3/50 Project has simple goals. Go to three local businesses and spend $50. The nicely-designed web site says it this way:

What three independently owned businesses would you miss if they disappeared? Stop in. Say hello. Pick up something that brings a smile. Your purchases are what keeps this business around.

It doesn't ask you to spend all of your disposable income at local stores and restaurants. Just $50. The 3/50 project site says that "if half the population spent $50 a month locally, they would generate $42.6 billion in revenue." Such a modest goal. You'll spend $50 taking your spouse out to dinner for Mother's Day. In fact, you're pretty darn cheap if you just spend $50 at your locally-owned restaurant. May I suggest some local artwork or possibly a book written by a local author?

In Cheyenne, we're challenged by a hard fact -- most of our restaurants are chains. Mom-and-pop diners and locally-owned restaurants don't seem to go over too well in Cheyenne. We have some nice ones downtown but drive along Dell Range and all you see is a conglomeration of olivegardenapplebeeschilisihopsherrys. I eat at these places. The 3/50 Project wants to me to spend some of my money at local places. I can do that.

I've been to Laramie many times lately. Downtown are Sweet Melissa's Vegetarian Cafe, Jeffrey's Bistro, Coal Creek Coffee and the Anong's Thai Cuisine which is the second of a two-restaurant conglomerate that started in Rawlins. Downtown Laramie also has two indie bookstores. Some cool little shops to buy arts and crafts and bread and all kinds of stuff. The Big Hollow Food Co-op too.

Sure, it's a college town, and its clientele may be a bit more eclectic that Cheyenne's. I live in a government and military and railroad town, crossroads of two major interstates. City of some pretty big shoulders. Rocky Mountains shoulders -- not Sandburg's Midwestern big-city variety.

Still, no matter where they live, shoulders have to eat. And shop.

UW panel discusses Wyoming's new "Code of the West"

The University of Wyoming sometimes has its finger on the pulse of topical events.

And sometimes not.

But I'm hoping I can get to this panel discussion on Wyoming's new legislatively-mandated "Code of the West."

You might remember that I wrote a satiric column about the new code way back in February. It was reprinted on the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle's op-ed page.

The topic continues to fascinate --

Cowboy ethicist Jim Owen's "Code of the West" will be the focus of a panel discussion Tuesday, April 27, at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

The free event, coordinated by the UW American Heritage Center's (AHC) Alan K. Simpson Institute for Western Politics and Leadership, will begin at 5 p.m. in Room 129 of the Classroom Building.

The panel will include Owen, founder of the Denver-based Center for Cowboy Ethics and Leadership and director of "Code of the West," which last month was signed into law as the official Wyoming state code; Sam Western, a Sheridan-based author; and David Wrobel, chair of the Department of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The discussion will bring varied points of view to the questions of whether the cowboy appeal and image is helpful to our region or whether it hinders economic growth and cultural development. Or does it do both?

The speakers will also discuss the historical roots of the cowboy appeal and why Owen's code has achieved such popularity, and, in some cases, criticism, by co-opting that appeal.

Peter K. Simpson, UW's Distinguished Simpson Professor in Political Science Wyoming Politics, Policy and Culture, will moderate the panel discussion.

The AHC's Alan K. Simpson Institute for Western Politics and Leadership focuses on the acquisition, preservation and research use of the papers of prominent individuals who and businesses and organizations that have provided leadership -- political, economic, social and cultural -- for Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain West.

For more information, contact the AHC at (307) 766-4114 or go to the official Web site at http://ahc.uwyo.edu.

Some thoughtful people on the panel. Sam Western is at UW this semester teaching Wyoming business history. He wrote a memorably scathing book about his state, "Pushed Off the Mountain, Sold Down the River." Sam also writes for The Economist. I'm sure he'll have some interesting comments about the code.

Earth Day has come a long way -- but the journey is far from over

Earth Day 40 years ago -- and now ...

I wasn't paying too much attention to Earth Day in 1970.

But I am now.

My formerly all coal-powered blog now taps into some alternative energy generated at the Happy Jack Wind Farm west of Cheyenne.

Like WOW -- training and promoting Wyoming's art and artists

Negotiated the foggy summit between Cheyenne and Laramie yesterday. This time of year brings fog and snow and rain and hail and any number of interesting weather conditions. It also brings lots of arts events.

On Friday, Works of Wyoming (WOW) in Laramie was hosting its first-ever Starving Artists' seminars. It included sessions on "Photographing Your Work," Developing an Arts Web Site" and "Promoting Yourself as an Artist." I dropped in just in time for the latter, taught by digital artist and graphic designer Chuck Egnaczak, who once taught in the University of Wyoming art department and now is at the University of Tampa.

I was the only writer in a classroom full of artists. But every topic covered by Chuck applied to writers as well.

Some notes from my journal:

"Building a personal brand is critical."

"Self-promotion is the most important thing you can do."

"Before you put up a web site, establish its purpose. Design it as a focused strategic ad for you."

"Testimonials are the most efficient way of selling in the U.S."

"Design your own multimedia CV to promote your work."

I thought about my web presence as a writer. I have a blog that's mostly about politics. I have a web site that's moribund. I have established a fan page on Facebook but haven't activated it yet.

Time to rethink all this. Most successful writers I know have their names on their web sites and blogs. I don't, having opted for a more thematic approach in hummingbirdminds. That's in keeping with creative blog titles that match the blogger. "Left in the West" to match Montanan Matt Singer's leftie slant. "Big Square State" to denote the home of some very active Colorado prog-bloggers. "Red State" is a conservative blogger's site and comes from a red state much like my own. And so on.

Again, most successful fiction writers I know keep politics off of their sites -- or keep it to a minimum. This is mostly true of my moribund web site. It features samples of my short fiction. Also essays on a variety of topics: literary tourism, ADHD, mental health and politics. My blog, on the other hand, focuses on my stand as a progressive in a red state. It's a pretty good brand, but I really haven't used it to further my writing career.

By the way, "brand" is a common term in the West. A public walkway that connects the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens with the Old West Museum features imprints of brands from local cattle ranches. If you're a rancher, that brand covers all aspects of your life, from the ranch itself to your family's identity to the cattle you raise. Having a brand is not only important -- it's crucial.

When you say "brand" here, pardner, you better mean it.

Mr. Egnaczak spent a lot of his time on this very subject. I've been thinking about it ever since.

The WOW's Starving Artists' seminars covered three days. It drew artists from around the state. WOW's Sarah Dahlberg says that there will be others. Meanwhile, Works of Wyoming's brochure lists a full slate of activities. Next up is "Works (for and by) Fabulous Women."

Works of Wyoming is calling for artists for our Fabulous Women Show. If you make artwork for or about women (women's issues, tribute to a woman in your life, etc.) or you are a woman and make art, you are eligible to participate in our show. Work can be in any media. Applications can be found online at www.worksofwyoming.org and should be submitted to wow@uwyo.edu by Friday, April 30. There will be a $15 entry fee for works chosen.

Our show is also open to spoken-word artists and musicians if your work is for, about, or by ve minutes to perform or read a piece. Titles, lyrics or descriptions of pieces must be submitted by Friday, April 30, to be eligible.

The gallery opening will be held on Friday, May 14, 6 p.m.

Another big WOW event happening May 14 -- I'll be on hand at 3 p.m. talking about Wyoming Arts Council programs for individual artists.

I encourage my fellow writers in Cheyenne and Laramie to enter a piece for the "Fabulous Women" opening night event. I may do the same.

Not only is it important for artists and writers to get their work out into the public domain. We need to support these homegrown efforts to promote Wyoming's creative folks. WOW sells local art in its gift shop. Offices are in the old civic center building -- new uses for attractive old buildings.

Local art. Local artists. Local writers. Local business.

I pay taxes to the gubment, the gubment fixes my street (maybe)

I'm just finishing up my taxes. I have to pay this year. The payment would be a lot bigger if it wasn't for the Making Work Pay deduction. I'm thankful for that. And I'm glad I used a pencil to fill out my forms the old-fashioned way.

Now if they (the Big Gubment "THEY") could only fill the potholes on my street.

Find out more about Wyomingites and taxes at http://www.ctj.org/obamastaxcuts/wy.pdf

Carlton Davis, author of "Bipolar Bare," speaks April 20 at UW Disability Days

Bill Ayers will speak in Laramie -- townsfolk shaking in their boots

This is old news now, but Bill Ayers is coming to speak at the University of Wyoming in Laramie on April 28. This convoluted story gets more interesting all the time. Suffice to say that it took free-speech advocate Meg Lanker a few weeks to get Ayers to Laramie. He won't be speaking on campus -- that's been ruled out by the administration. But he will be speaking somewhere in Laramie.

I like this quote from UW that appeared in today's Casper Star-Tribune:

On Monday, UW General Counsel Susan Weidel told Lanker in a phone call and a two-paragraph e-mail that the university wouldn’t allow Ayers to speak anywhere on campus.

“The University of Wyoming will not be available as a venue for the event you are hosting for Mr. William Ayers,” Weidel wrote in the e-mail.

“As I mentioned in our telephone conversation, you may want to consider other large venues both public and private in both Laramie and Cheyenne,” Weidel concluded in her e-mail.

Quite nice of Ms. Weidel to suggest other venues in Wyoming towns other than Laramie. But I think she missed the point, which is having Mr. Ayers speak in Laramie.

The Star-Trib story also had this quote:

Brian Profaizer, president of the University of Wyoming conservatives, said that while he isn’t as opposed to Ayers speaking off-campus as he would have been if Ayers spoke on campus, he fears problems when Ayers finally shows up.

Profaizer said he is particularly worried that, even though Ayers won’t speak at UW, many university alumni still might stop sending donations.

“I thought that Laramie, overall, the city the university, we sent a strong message the first time,” Profaizer said.

“There were a lot of upset people the first time around, and I think that that anger is just going to be escalated.”

Empathetic Republicans are always so concerned that anger may be escalated. That's only when it comes to speeches by Liberals. Who cares when Tea Party activists threaten bodily harm against elected officials?

I thought Wyomingites were supposed to be a live-and-let-live bunch? After all, former sixties radicals Angela Davis and Bobby Seale have both spoken to UW. But the wingnuts latched onto Ayers with Pit Bull zeal during the 2008 elections. They're not going to let go easily.

And when did Wyomingites turn into such weinies? Intimidated by a little ol' leftist? People in Laramie scared? What would The Virginian say to that?

This just in -- Tea Party saboteurs unmasked

The Tea Party’s Tax Day protests are just around the corner on April 15. It may be a coincidence, but I’ve been reading a lot of wingnut posts advancing a conspiracy of major import. Some Tea Partiers contend that those protest signs that snarky progressives like to make fun of, those with misspelled words and terrible grammar, are actually designed and carried by snarky progressive saboteurs. Anyone else heard this?

Made me think. Why would a snarky progressive go out of his or her way to make signs and attend Tea Party rallies? Yes, there is the camaraderie of hanging out with a bunch of American patriots. And the stirring speeches – can’t forget those. You can sign petitions to nullify various nefarious government practices. You can get free copies of the Constitution. If it’s a nice day, you can get fresh air and a tan.

Then I received a copy of the following e-mail. Its origins are murky, but it smacks of authenticity. It made me rethink my entire belief system, or at least that part that covers tea bags, spelling and grammar.

The e-mail harkens back to those halcyon days of last April when Tea Partiers were first stirring the pot.

The e-mail:

Dear Fellow Conspirators:

Here’s an update on our effort to disrupt Tax Day 2009 protests planned by the Tea Party across the U.S.

We’ve had limited success on recruiting people for Operation Miss Spell. As of this writing, we were able to locate and recruit less than a dozen saboteurs for upcoming Tea Party rallies. The plan, of course, was brilliant in its simplicity. A bunch of snarky progressives were going to carry signs with misspelled words and bad grammar into the fray. An uproar would ensue. Lots of photos taken. Photos go viral. Tea Partiers would look bad. Ridicule would nip their grassroots revolution in the bud.

We ran into problems almost immediately. Several organizers (including yours truly) were veterans of sixties’ antiwar protests. We were ready to mix it up again, storm the ramparts, engage in street theatre. Problem was, I just had knee surgery and Jim’s allergies were acting up. Sunshine was all for donning her old hippie dresses and carrying signs, but she was invited to a chakra-cleansing retreat in Marin County so had to bow out.

We thought we’d be able to find some fellow travelers, old hippies who had taken one too many bad trips. We’d just hand them misspelled signs and point them in the right direction. They’d be thrilled to march again. We felt that they would fit right in with the clueless multitudes. But then we told them to get haircuts or shaved heads to fit in with the crewcut and balding crowd. They balked. “Gotta let my freak flag fly, man.” We dropped that idea.

We turned to the younger progressive crowd. The bloggers were no help, as they were too busy blogging their outrage to actually go out into the sunshine and feign outrage. One prog-blogger even said what we had expected all along – “I only go out at night – and that’s to the corner coffee shop with free wireless so I can blog some more.”

We tried some of the union members. Teachers’ union members (especially English teachers) said they wouldn’t be caught dead with a sign that spelled "socialism" as "socilism" and "liar" as "lier." We told them it was for a good cause, but they threatened to send us to the principal’s office. History teachers didn't like the idea of comparing an elected U.S. president with Hitler or Stalin. Teamsters wanted to get paid overtime – who were we to argue? Those in the service unions were overwhelmingly ethnic, which ruled them out immediately. We even tried actors and actresses, figuring they’d like to engage in a little street theatre. But they started to rewrite the plan. An avant-garde troupe from Chicago wanted to dress in drag and hold hands while carrying signs. We told them it would defeat the entire purpose. Nobody would believe they were Tea Partiers. And they might get their asses beat. Actors – always trying to rewrite the script.

This brought us to the plan’s major problem. Tea Partiers are white and old. Progressives tend to be non-white and young. Sure, there are a few of us aging white hippies in the mix. But not nearly enough to infiltrate all the Tea Party shindigs.

We’re recommending that Operation Miss Spell be abandoned. It’s turned out to be a gigantic hassle. We have some other ideas, such as hiding all dictionaries and disabling computer Spell Check programs with our "Brown Acid" virus. The committee will continue working on this.

In my book, every week is National Library Week

For links to a library near you, go to http://www.wyominglibraries.org/

For more about National Libraries Week, go to http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/pio/natlibraryweek/nlw.cfm

Local community college stimulated by gubment

I am a graduate of -- and a fan of -- community colleges. They were called junior colleges back in my day due to the fact that they were considered junior partners to four-year colleges. Farm teams, if you will. The place where second- and third- and even fourth-stringers went to brush up on their math and grammar and chemistry before they could consort with their high-SAT-scores brethren and sistren.

Community colleges are now cool. Witness the cool new sitcom "Community" on NBC (with Chevy Chase, no less). Pres. Obama is almost as excited about community colleges as he is about health care reform and NCAA men's basketball bracketology.

I think he picked Kansas as national champ. He's not always dead-on.

Our local community college has received some stimulus funds from the gubment. Here's what the Associated Press reported yesterday:

Laramie County Community College officials say the Cheyenne school is receiving about $5.3 million in federal stimulus funds to contribute to its upcoming budget.

Vice President of Administration and Finance Carol Hoglund says the college will get $2.2 million in stimulus money to help with salaries and costs of enrollment growth. The school will also receive $3.15 million in stimulus money for major maintenance needs.

Glennbeckistan casts its fundie eyes on Wyoming

Why is Glenn Beck casting his crazy eyes at the southwest corner of Wyoming?

Could it be that one of the Republican Party candidates for Wyoming Governor is right-winger and potential Tea Partier Ron Micheli from Uinta County? Is it a coincidence that southwest Wyoming once was part of Utah Territory until it was taken away in punishment for LDS polygamy?

Methinks that Ron Micheli is a card-carrying member of Glennbeckistan.

For more info on this strange and amazing country, go to Chip Ward's article on truthout at http://www.truthout.org/welcome-glennbeckistan58079

Cheyenne's Art Design & Dine featured local art & local food and local friends

I had a great time during Art Design & Dine on Thursday in Cheyenne.

Eight local Cheyenne art and design venues were open for what was billed as "an evening of art, food and fun."

Agreed.

My first stop was Georgia Roswell's Artful Hand Studio and Gallery on the corner of First Avenue and House. It's across the street from the house of my first boss in Wyoming, Joy Thompson. Georgia and Dave Rowswell ventured out from Georgia to live and work in Cheyenne -- and we're glad they did. Georgia incorporates paints and old jeans and cheesecloth and okra into her work. Yes, okra. I'm not a fan of okra unless its teamed up with Andouille sausage and shrimp and tomatoes in gumbo. But Georgia has found a cool new use for this heretofore slimy vegetable.

Georgia has a great new piece showing an aerial view of the Florida Keys (in photo, "The Keys," mixed media, 7"x24"). She's spent a lot of time in Siesta Key. Not my favorite Keys' locale. But she's done a fine job incorpirating cheesecloth and paints in this piece. Made me homesick for the beach. Any beach.

Artful Hand also featured work by local artist and librarian Meghan Cochrane. Meghan spoke about her quilting technique using aerial photographs. She was able to salvage discarded black-and-white aerial photos from the 1940s. She cuts them apart and weaves them by hand and sewing machine to make intriguing photo paper quilts.

Local artist Win Ratz also had work in Artful Hand.

Georgia served up some of her delicious baked goods.

Rebecca Barrett's Link Gallery also featured art and food. The food came from 901, the hot new downtown drinking and dining establishment. Naturally, I haven't been there yet as I'm about as "with it" as black-and-white photos from the forties.

Lots of people in the Link admiring regional art and watching a performance by a local punk/spoken word band. Alan O'Hashi was on hand to announce the line-up for the Cheyenne International Film Festival.

I only managed to visit two of the evening's eight galleries before I launched into a coughing jag. I've been sick all winter, and now have a cough that won't go away. Doctor tells me to take more vitamin C and D and get more sleep. I have a feeling I need some beach time. But the closest I'm going to get for now is ogling the Florida Keys hanging on the wall of the Artful Hand.

Sustainability Summit April 12-13 at UW

UW has had some bad luck of late with speakers. First Bill Ayers gets the ax and then Vandana Shiva cancels her keynote speech at the Shepard Symposium.

But this event is coming up next week and it looks like a winner:


This Sustainability Summit is intended to provide a forum for local leaders and interested citizens to learn about environmental, social, and economic sustainability. The Wyoming Sustainability Summit will provide a venue for sharing information about challenges and successes with sustainability initiatives and how to successfully address these issues in residences, businesses, and communities. We hope this summit will stimulate conversation within and between Wyoming communities. The Summit will include panel discussions, keynote presentations, and round table discussions between community leaders and citizens.

General public registration is now closed. Walk-ins are welcome on the day(s) of the conference for $25, if seating remains. Meals/snacks will not be available for walk-ins.

Contact: Jill Lovato, Co-Chair, UW Campus Sustainability Committee, and Haub School/Ruckelshaus ENR Project Coordinator, (307) 760-4149, or mailto:jillberg@uwyo.edu?subject=Wyoming%20Sustainability%20Summit.

Speakers:

Kick-off Speaker - Taylor Haynes MD, UW Trustee, Owner/President of Thunderbasin Land Livestock & Investment Company, and member of the Ruckelshaus Institute Board. Haynes will discuss organic beef ranching and holistic resource management.

Keynote Speaker - Bob Dixson, Mayor of Greensburg, Kansas. Mayor Dixson will discuss Greensburg's GreenTown program, which is an effort to provide support, resources, and information to residents on creating a model green building community and sustainable principles for rebuilding processes.

Synthesis Speaker - Duke Castle, The Castle Group. Castle will discuss Oregon-based the Natural Step Network, a nonprofit organization that he founded in 1997 to show business and community organizers how they can move toward creating a sustainable society while maintaining a healthy economy.

Lunchtime Speaker (April 12) Brian Kuehl - Managing Partner of the law firm, The Clark Group. Kuehl will discuss how engaging the whole community contributes to sustainability. His talk will include case studies from around the United States to explain how the act of bringing together traditional adversaries is essential for sustainability.


Accommodations:
Hilton Garden Inn and other lodging (click here). Discounted rooms ($99) are available at the Hilton until March 12, on a first-come, first-serve basis. Please indicate that you are attending the "Wyoming Sustainability Summit" when you reserve your room, or contact for Breann Tolman at (307) 721-7570.

UW cancels Ayers' speech, but he still gets paid

From the AP today:

The director of a University of Wyoming center that invited a former 1960s radical to campus says he canceled the event because of safety concerns and because the event's purpose was lost.

The invitation to William Ayers to speak drew hundreds of protests.

Ayers was invited by Franciso Rios, director of the UW Social Justice Research Center.

Rios says he and other UW officials received hostile e-mails and telephone calls about Ayers' scheduled speech on Monday.

Rios says Ayers had originally been invited to speak about educational issues, but controversy over Ayers' personal history had overshawdowed that.

Rios says Ayers will be paid a $5,000 speaking fee. The money comes from the center's private endowment funds.

In praise of indie bookstores supporting local authors in Rocky Mountain states

Hummingbirdminds saw this post on the Rocky Mountain Authors at the Tattered Cover Facebook page. While it was written with Colorado authors in mind, I think it can easily be revised to reflect an interest in writers from a Big Square State other than Colorado.

Here's my revised version:

There are lots of good reasons to read work by local Rocky Mountain authors. Here are a few, and feel free to add your own good reasons to this list!

1. Buying a book by a local author from your local Tattered Cover Book Store helps to keep money in the State of ColoradoWyoming, instead of sending it off around the country where ColoradoWyoming residents can't benefit from sales taxes or business incentives. Money spent in ColoradoWyoming, ON ColoradoWyoming, STAYS in ColoradoWyoming.

2. By supporting local authors, you help diversify the knowledge that can be distributed through the written word in the Rocky Mountain region. We write lots of books here in the Rockies that can be found nowhere else on Earth (except perhaps online on the Tattered Cover website! http://www.tatteredcover.com/).

3. When you buy a local author's book, you are helping to nurture the artistic and intellectual community of ColoradoWyoming. Studies show that great cities and great communities are great not because of their technology or industry, but because of their arts and cultural offerings. Every time you buy a locally written book you add another brick to the cultural palace of the Rocky Mountains!

Other states in the Rocky Mountain West may want to do some customizing of their own. What say you Montana and New Mexico and Utah and Arizona and Idaho?

Now go investigate other regional writers at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Denver-CO/Rocky-Mountain-Authors-at-the-Tattered-Cover/351469358952?ref=nf

I noticed a very fine section of Rocky Mountain writers (past and present) during a visit last week to Lander's Book Basket on Main Street. I know that the bookstore disguised as a barn at Sweetwater Junction packs plenty of heat by local and regional writers. I didn't stop there during my recent trip due to the fact that I couldn't see the turnoff in the blizzard. I could go on and on about fantastic bookstores in unexpected places. You can find a long list at the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association page.

Check out Bill Ayers' letter on Meg's blog

Meg Lanker, Laramie rabble-rouser and radio personality, printed a letter from activist Bill Ayers on her blog, http://www.wyomingnewsunderground.com/2010/04/doublespeak-at-university-of-wyoming.html.

This was in response to his invitation and then disinvitation to speak at the University of Wyoming. It's a long letter so I won't reprint it here. But I welcome you to read it and then spread it far and wide like tumbleweeds of truth unleashed by a righteous Wyoming cyclone of social justice.