You can't stomp on 75,000 fired-up Democrats

Slightly-doctored photo of me at the 2008 Democratic National Convention wrap-up at Mile High Stadium/Invesco Field in Denver. We were unstompable on this night. And so we shall remain. Go to http://www.moveon.org/ to add your "Don't Stomp on Me (Us)" photo to the mix. And while you're at it -- VOTE!

Right-Wingers Using Public Employees as 21st-Century Welfare Queens

From Alternet on those damn gubment employees welfare queens: Right-Wingers Using Public Employees as 21st-Century Welfare Queens

UPLIFT holds 20th anniversary reception Nov. 16

It's been my privilege to serve on the board of UPLIFT since 1998. UPLIFT is the Wyoming affiliate of the National Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health. I'll be representing the board at the National Federation's 21st annual conference in Atlanta next week.

UPLIFT's mission:

Encouraging success and stability for children and youth with or at risk of emotional, behavioral, learning, developmental, or physical disorders at home, school, and in the community.

UPLIFT staffers accompany families to school I.E.P. meetings and guide them through the mazes of state paperwork for extended treatment for mental health issues.

As a board member, I invite you to the 20th anniversary reception on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 5-7 p.m., at the Cole Elementary School Gym, 615 W. 9th St., Cheyenne. Enjoy food and beverages and learn about UPLIFT's services. This event is free and open to the public. It's a chance for us to thank those who have supported the organization since its inception in 1990.

As is the case with so many non-profit social services agencies, the UPLIFT budget is tight these days. Most of the funding comes from federal and state sources. Private funding, or unrestricted government funds, are hard to come by. So UPLIFT is embarking on a campaign to raise its profile and raise money -- all at the same time.

Go to the spiffy updated UPLIFT web site for more info.

And join us on Nov. 16.

Washington Monthly: On the edge of the next real estate boom -- and Utah shows the way

So many things to like in this Washington Monthly piece about the The Next Real Estate Boom. Western cities such as Salt Lake City, Denver and Portland are leading the way towards close-in walkable communities. But it's not about big chunks of federal money dropped on big projects. It's about private-sector funding and streetcars and affordable houses and zoning law changes and energy-saving construction. Local collaborative efforts. Democrats and Republicans and Independents and Libertarians and Greenies and Tea Partiers working together for the common good.

Dogs and cats, living together...

Just go read it.

Attention America: RepubliCorp will own you!

The B.A. degree divide in the West

Interesting story and graphics about education levels across the U.S., as featured in Daily Yonder.

Top ten rural counties in the U.S. with highest B.A. degree levels are all in the Intermountain West, with two in Wyoming. Those two counties, Teton and Laramie, are blue on the map and also more blue as far as number of Democratic Party voters. Teton County (Jackson, Wilson, etc.) has also been rated by the Western States Arts Federation Creative Vitality Index (CVI) as one of the top arts counties in the U.S.

Of the top ten rural counties with the fewest B.A. degree-holders, only two are in the West (Alaska and S.D.), one in the Midwest (Ill.) and the rest are in the South.

Read more at The B.A. Divide on Daily Yonder

Montana and Wyoming fiction writers give freaks a pass

“Giving freaks a pass is the oldest tradition in Montana. And you, my friend, are a blue-ribbon, bull-goose freak.”

That’s a line from Thomas McGuane’s new novel, “Driving on the Rim,” Maile Meloy reviewed the novel (mostly favorably) and referred to those lines as her favorites. I like them too.

I haven’t read a McGuane novel since “92 in the Shade.” And that was decades ago. More recently I’ve read McGuane’s essay collection, “A Sporting Chance.” Practically everything I know about cutting horses I know from this fine book. McGuane raises and trains cutting horses in Montana. As a youth, I was chronically allergic to horse hair and hay and weeds and almost everything else you can find on a ranch. Fortunately, I was a city boy and not a farmer’s son out on the prairie.

I have since been on horseback five or six times without collapsing with an asthma attack. But my sensibilities are totally non-horse and horses know it.

Maybe that’s why I’m so taken with McGuane’s facility with horses. Horses and language. As Meloy points out in the NYT review, McGuane’s novels are a little baggy while his essays are succinct works of art. She also points out some factual inconsistencies regarding some of the book’s characters.

But she’s willing to give McGuane a pass on this. Just as the attorney in the book in willing to give a Montana-style pass to the main character. Meloy gives McGuane a pass because he’s such a damn fine writer and he’s written a good book.

I sometimes get a bit suspicious when a fictional character’s freakishness is called out. It’s almost as if the author, who’s spent thousands of words portraying his character’s quirkiness, must now actually say the word “freak!” Just in case you missed all the clues.

But there’s something a bit deeper here. Have the quirky characters of the Rocky Mountain West become a bit of a stereotype? Quirky people live here, denizens of the Great Wide Open. They often have fled the more settled places of the East and South and Coastal West. They are tough individualists drawn to the live-and-let-live Code of the West. It’s not a code, exactly, more like guidelines. But you know what I mean.

Used to be all the freaky characters came from the minds of writers of the South – William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Larry Brown, Kaye Gibbons, Barry Hannah, Harry Crews, etc. Along came Annie Proulx, Lee K. Abbott, John Nichols, Rick DeMaranis, Ron Carlson, Alyson Hagy, etc. These writers of the West wrote great stories and novels about freakish people driven by a search for solitude or personal freedom or some undefined crucial core value. Southern characters, on he other hand, were driven more by ghosts of the so-called glorious past and the constraints of their old-time religion.

I love freaky characters. I often try to invent some for my stories. But just because you live in a freakish place, such as Montana or Wyoming, that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook when it comes to creating believable characters.

Name the freakiest place you know. If you’re a button-down Midwesterner, Boulder, Colorado’s Pearl Street Mall might test your sensibilities. If you’re a hipster from Boulder, a trip to Sun City, Ariz., might cause you to come unglued.

Wyoming is pretty freaky, I must admit. Bill Sniffin’s Sunday newspaper column was devoted to the antics of the former Miss Wyoming-World, Joyce McKinney. McKinney is the focus of Errol Morris’s latest documentary, “Tabloid.” In 1977 in London, she kidnapped a former boyfriend, a young LDS missionary, and forced him to have sex for three days. The British tabloids had a field day with this woman who committed rape on a man. That’s the focus of Morris’s film.

Sniffin of Lander also recalled that McKinney surfaced a few years in Tennessee, paying a man to burglarize a house “to pay for an artificial leg for a three-legged horse.”

As Playlist says about Morris’s story: “Intoxicatingly entertaining and outrageously wild, Hollywood’s top writers could never have dreamed this up.”

Hollywood writers? No. But Mountain West writers – of course.

Democrats plan phone bank for Oct. 25

Dem press release:

The Laramie County Democrats regular monthly meeting scheduled for Monday, October 25, will not be held. Instead of the meeting we would request members walk for their preferred candidate or join us at the headquarters at 408 W. 23rd Street in Cheyenne to phone bank.

We will conduct a phone bank Monday-Thursday from 6-8 October 25th through October 28th and again on November 1st. The phone banking will be to Get Out The Vote.

Thank you in advance for your support in this mid-term election. Vote Democrat!!

Linda Stowers, chair of Laramie County Democrats

"It is our labor that keeps this whole world together"

Lines from M.L. Liebler's poem "Making it Right" in Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams from Coffee House Press:

We dream that, maybe, prosperity
Is really just around the corner. So we
get up every morning with hope, and

We return each night to the broken houses
Of our lives, seldom realizing that it is our
Labor that keeps this whole world together.

Read a favorable post on this anthology on Daily Kos at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/10/19/911857/-What-about-the-working-class. Also a great review in the Detroit News at http://www.detnews.com/article/20101020/ENT01/10200311/M.L.-Liebler%E2%80%99s-new-anthology-an-ode-to-the-labor-movement

For my Detroit readers: Get thee to the Working Words reading at 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 22, at the Walter Reuther Labor Library, Cass Avenue at Kirby, Wayne State University, Detroit.

For my Wyoming readers: M.L. will be in Cheyenne in late February for a reading and performance with musician and Moby Grape founder Peter Lewis. Stay tuned for details.

More on Dem canvassing -- Ken McCauley's schedule

Ken McCauley is running for Wyoming House District 8. He is a good man. You can tell because I have one of his signs in my yard. And he's a Democrat in Wyoming. This makes you tough.

Details for the Ken McCauley canvass the Saturday, Oct. 30. Meet at 9 a.m. at 3612 Moore for breakfast. If you can't make this event you can call Mike Bell for other times to walk for Ken. Mike's number is 307-631-7641.

Democratic candidates' canvassing schedule for final two weekends

Partial list of canvassing activities for Democrats in Laramie County:

Wendy Soto: October 23, 24, 29 and 30 at 9 am and 1 pm. Meet at her house at 3429 Essex Road. Also canvassing on October 31 at 9 a.m. Food will be provided.

Robert Aylward: October 23 & 24 at 1 p.m. Meet at the parking lot of the Holiday Inn.

Ken McCauley: October 30th, 1 hour (details will follow).

Tim Thorson: October 23 in Western Hills -- meet in the parking lot of the Yellowstone McDonald's at 9:30 and/or 2 p.m. October 24 in the Avenues -- meet at our house, 2915 Carey, at 1 pm.

6,500-member Wyoming Education Association endorses Mike Massie

WEA Endorses Massie/Reaction to Cindy Hill Attacks from Ronald Sniffin on Vimeo.

Thomas Lux: "Times are hard"

From "The Deadhouse at the Workhouse" by Thomas Lux, included in the new Coffee House Press anthology, "Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams," edited by M.L.Liebler:

You get sent to the workhouse because you worked
and worked
yourself so deep in debt
you took a loan to pay the debt,
then another to pay the interest on the loan
(all the while working, day labor,
night labor, and thumping
a bowl of porridge on the table each noon
for the kids and wife) and then
you make a deal with the local loanshark
who's happy to help you out
but breaks your knees the following week
when the bank won't remortgage your house
so you can pay his vig. Times
are hard.....

Colorado billboard comes down, but hatred remains

Free speech is one thing. Flat-out hatred is another. This billboard (Grand Junction Sentinel photo) was along I-70 in Grand Junction, Colo. On Friday, it was taken down by the sign company. It shows the president as (from left to right) terrorist, gangster, Mexican bandit and a gay man. Vultures perch overhead and rats scramble underneath. Are those bullet holes in the sign? Or were they placed there by the “artist” to implant bad ideas into right-wing nitwits?

Seemingly rational people hate Barack Obama, the duly-elected 44th president of the United States of America. Only on the surface are these people normal. Within them beat hearts of hate. That sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it – a heart that hates? If you “have a heart,” you feel something positive about someone or something. Supposed to, anyway. All these people seem to have is a “hearty” hatred for our president. So many of them are well-off, too. You can’t rule our racism. But you know that they are bummed that Pres. Obama wants to end the sweetheart tax cuts doled out by their Repub pal George W. Bush. “Have a heart,” Pres. Obama, “and don’t take my tax cut away?” They would never beg. They think they own the country and it should all be their way of the highway.

Republicans in Wyoming think they own the state -- which they do. In public gatherings, they utter coded hate-filled things about “ObamaLand” or “ObamaCare,” and they expect everyone in attendance to nod like bobble-head dolls. “Wait until Nov. 2” they say gleefully. To them, 11/02/10 has taken on some magic glow, as did 11/04/08 did for Dems lo these many years ago. Now that I think of it, these really aren't coded messages. There are just some ultra-conservatives who have an irrational hatred of our president. For more on his topic, see Frank Rich's column in today's New York Times.

These people think that Republicans and their Corporate Overlords should rule the roost. No room for Dems or non-believers. Sick.

Repub candidates sighted in neighborhood

I was home this afternoon when Jack Nicholas came to call.

No, not Jack Nicklaus. He's golfing somewhere, especially on a nice day like this.

Jack Nicholas is father to Bob Nicholas, running for Wyoming House District Eight. Jack, who once served in the state legislature, and Bob are both Republicans. However, there is nothing on his brochure that says "Republican." There is one tiny little "(R)" on his logo. But that's it. Not sure if that means much. Laramie County does have a fair share of Dems. Most importantly, in this district, Republicans have a slight edge over Democrats, registration-wise. And it has sent a Dem (Lori Millin) to the legislature during the past two elections.

Last week on these pages, I said I had not seen any Republicans campaigning in my general neighborhood. No Repub flyers, either. Today, I had a nice chat with Jack. I like a guy whose Dad hits the bricks to electioneer. He pointed at my array of Democratic candidate signs and said, "I guess I'm walking into the lion's den." I said that wasn't the case, that I was always ready to listen. I did admit that I'd been campaigning for Bob's rival, Ken McCauley. I told him that I liked Ken's platform and would probably vote for him. I also said I would read the brochure.

Nicholas's brochure is brown and prairie gold -- UW's school colors. Many Candidates use the Cowpokes' colors. It's the only four-year university in the state. He's also a Casper College and UW grad, and worked as an instructor at Central Wyoming Community College. I do like community college people. I'm one myself.

I can't see any part of his platform to disagree with. What about his web site?

Couldn't find one. It was only a 10-minute Google search. But the candidate's site should have been one of the first links. I Googled Ken McCauley and his site came up third on the list. Good site with lots of info. Go to http://www.mccauleyforhouse.com/

I like Ken's material, in print on online. I'll need more on Nicholas.

Stat tuned...

UPDATE 10/17: I just realized how kind I was being to a Republican candidate. If I ever get a chance to talk to him, I should ask this: "Will you renounce the Republican Party's politics of hate?" Makes me think of the question the priest asks your godparents when you are baptized: "Do you renounce Satan?"

Maybe that's a better way to put it...

Tom Tomorrow imagines a Tea Party World

Damn you, left-wing bloggers! Damn you to hell!

Wyoming Public Radio candidate debates' audio

Listen to candidates' debates aired on Wyoming Public Radio:

WPR: Wyoming Public Radio and the Associated Students of the University of Wyoming held two debates (2010-10-13)

Listened to some of the Massie-Hill debate yesterday. Now sure that Massie is the one.

Writers of West and South "immersed in loss"

"Westerners are immersed hourly in loss."

So said Rick Bass, Southern-born and now a citizen of the Rocky Mountain West. He was one of the guest writers Oct. 8 at the annual Literary Connection at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne.

It’s an old script. Extractive industries remove our timber, coal, trona, gold, copper, uranium and oil. Access roads criss-cross our wild lands, leading to loss of animal habitat.

When each stake is played out, or expenses and regulations outdo profits, "the industries withdraw, blaming environmentalists, but never taking responsibility for their actions," Rick says.

The jobs leave with the industries. Anger and loss follow.

Rick bemoans the “trashing of our wild gardens” in the West. He doesn’t just “bemoan.” He writes angrily about the loss. He works vigorously to defend the wild places, notably his own Yaak Valley in western Montana. He has served on the board of the Yaak Valley Forest Council and Round River Conservation Studies.

“The biota of the Yaak is the ecological equivalent of a Russian novel,” he says. “Not one species in the Yaak has gone extinct since the Ice Age. Maybe it’s the only valley you can say that about.”

His life as a writer and hunter suits the Yaak. He describes how the predator-prey relationship speaks to the conflict inherent in a short story or novel.

“In the Yaak, everything eats meat and is searching for it,” he says. “What is the hunt but story in pursuit of story?”

The predator may move through the landscape, he adds, but it is “the prey which directs the hunter’s movements.” Both are moving through a landscape which is both horizontal and vertical and filled with impediments.

“The hunted shapes the hunter – the dramatic tension between them is story.”

The hunting culture is vastly different from the farming culture down on the prairie. “Corn is not trying to elude you,” he says. “When you step into the woods, there’s nothing in you but imagination.”

I am not a hunter but I can imagine the hunt. Not the same thing as actually doing it. I know that there is a huge difference between stalking the frozen “fecal-drenched chicken” (Rick’s term) to the pursuit of a wild deer in the wild woods.

But thinking metaphorically, I can relate to the act of stepping into the woods of a story. Writer in pursuit of a story, moving through a complicated landscape. I start the pursuit but often the “prey” takes me on a wild ride that I didn’t anticipate when I started.

Rick is convinced that “there is a river of spirit that flows shifting and winding between me and the land.” This is some sort of “third spirit – a spark that ignites between us and the landscape.”

So the landscape is crucial to Rick Bass the writer and the hunter. So is the sense of loss that occurs when that landscape is plundered.

“The narrative is in full crisis now,” he says. There’s also a strange diminishment of time and space evident now. Is this sense of loss going away?

“I still can imagine a happy ending.”

Rick’s stories, of course, don’t necessarily have happy endings. He read sections of several – “Her First Elk;” “The Hermit’s Story;” “The Cave.”

He read the full text of “The Canoeist,” a story told mostly in the conditional tense – “would.” That’s a rarity. Very short – and a love story, too.

After the reading, emcee and fiction writer Laura Pritchett of Colorado said that she likes Rick’s “really funky odd love stories.”

Many of his stories are “funky odd,” going back to the stories set in the South in “The Watch.”

Stories riven with loss and dark humor. Two traits of writers I admire, whether they be West or South. As a passport-carrying member of both places, I know.

Torrington conference gives boost to locally-based ag economies

Sheridan's Sam Western writes for The Economist, WyoFile and an assortment of other publications on issues important to Wyoming and the high and dry West. His latest piece for WyoFile is about agriculture. Sam's not an aggie, and neither am I, but we both know that corporate large-scale ag has proven destructive to the High Plains. Not only on the landscape but on the human culture.

The "localvore" movement may have a partial solution. A recent ag summit was held in Torrington. The local Table Mountain Winery participated, as did Meadow Maid Farms out of Yoder which offers an increasingly popular CSA program.

But Sam's article tells it better in today's Wyofile story:

"Wyoming agriculture is beginning to plant new seeds, and poor counties, known for monoculture, lead the way," reports WyoFile correspondent Sam Western. Sam found himself very pleasantly surprised in late summer when a conference in Torrington featured delicious meals from local producers. He went on to examine what the local food movement, and what new ventures in agriculture might mean to the traditionally agricultural, and poor, counties in southeast Wyoming. As a small supplement to the economic changes that recent oil industry interest in the Niobrara formation may bring, that is.

The problem in modern agriculture, declared Torrington conference speaker Joel Salatin, "is creating holistic, complementary systems to create salaries for the next generation. The average age of the American farmer is 60 years old. Farmers hit retirement age and then give it to the kids. That’s too late. The time to pick up that youthful enthusiasm is when they are 16-18 years old. We need to build enough income into farms to hire ourselves and our children and next generation."

Some of these topics will be discussed at a state-sponsored conference on AgriFuture, starting tomorrow, Oct. 13, in Evanston. And meanwhile the legislature may be weighing in on issues regarding sales of home-made food from local products: a bill to exempt such sales from safety regulation got a committee endorsement in Buffalo earlier this month, despite serious objections from food safety experts.

Live-stream Obama House Parties and local candidate forum Oct. 12 in Cheyenne

Cheyenne Democrat Lori Brand sends this:

Connie Filopovitch and I are hosting one of the Live-Stream Obama House Parties along with a candidate forum on Tuesday, Oct. 12.

At 5 p.m. will be the live webcast with other Organizing for America House Parties across the country.


At 6:30 p.m. we will have a candidates' forum. If you are a candidate in or a supporter of a candidate, this would be the time to give a short presentation. I have invited Sandy Shanor who is running for the LCSD#1 School Board.


See you on Tuesday at 629 Oakhurst in Cheyenne.

FMI: Connie Filipovitch-Sarmiento, 307-421-7492