Women Progressives in Wyoming show their steel

Many Progressive leaders in Wyoming are women. And that's the way it should be in The Equality State. Liz Byrd, Kathy Sessions, Kathy Karpan, Nellie Tayloe Ross, Leslie Petersen, Lori Millin, Cathy Connolly, Mary Throne, Wendy Soto -- the list is a long one. Send me more names via comments to add to the list! Meanwhile, here's another great poster from politicalloudmouth.com

Daily Kos: Letter to Wyoming's Sen. Enzi on Social Security Comments

Republican Sen. Mike Enzi of Gillette has been making some strange and inaccurate comments about the Social Security program that millions of Americans depend on for at least some of their retirement. One of my fellow kossacks at Daily Kos, ceprDC, attempts to set him straight. Go to Letter to Sen. Enzi on Social Security Comments

Rev. Rodger McDaniel guest speaker for Laramie County Democrats meeting April 25

Please join us for the monthly meeting of the Laramie County Democrats on Monday, April 25, 7 p.m.

There’s a change in location for this meeting. Instead of the IBEW Union Hall, we’ll be at the Historic Plains Hotel, 1600 Central Avenue

Guest Speaker will be the Rev. Rodger McDaniel, progressive blogger, minister and Rockies’ fan. He’ll be talking about ways to “push back” against the right-wing tide.

For info and agenda, go to www.laramiecountydemocrats.org 

This progressive blogger is off to the Netroots Nation 2011 Conference in June

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve received a scholarship to the Netroots Nation 2011 Conference in Minneapolis. Thanks to all my friends and acquaintances who voted for me. And thanks to Democracy for America. I’ll be hauling myself, my blog and my laptop off to one of the twin cities June 16-19.

I am told that the Minneapolis summer is warmer than Wyoming’s and a bit more humid. I am also told that it doesn’t snow there in June. In Wyoming, you can’t promise that.

As Minnesota Sen. Al Franken said at Netroots National 2010 in Las Vegas: "It's a little bit less glitzy and glamorous than Las Vegas, but it's also a little bit less hot. It's a place with great fishing, beautiful scenery and tons of energetic progressives ready to show Netroots Nation a good time."

"Lots of progressives." Wow. We have a small but mighty contingent of progressives in this state. And we are formulating big plans to push back against the Wyoming red tide. Now -- and in 2012.

As a Red State blogger, I often feel isolated. The conference is an opportunity to trade tips and organizing strategies with other prog-bloggers. I’ve been paying particular attention to Wisconsin bloggers the past few months. Those are some grassroots community organizers who know how to fight a Tea Party governor and his minions who are trying to dismantle 100 years of progress.

On Wisconsin! And, in June, on to Minnesota!

When it gets personal, writers have to dig deeper

I don't need to be invited to write.

But it helps.

Last week, I was invited to attend a writing workshop by Sandra Root-Elledge, associate director of program development for the Wyoming Institute for Disabilities (WIND) at the University of Wyoming. Sandy and I serve together on the UPLIFT board. So I took Friday off and drove over the pass ("blowing snow, icy roads, turn off cruise control") to Laramie. Springtime in the Rockies.

On campus, a collegial group gathered to talk -- and write -- about their children with disabilities. One of us had physical disabilities, and she was accompanied by a scribe. Not all of us were parents -- several of the attendees work with populations with special needs and have many stories to tell.

Workshop leader was Kathy Roberson who, in 2008, started a writers' group for family caregivers at the Boggs Center in New Jersey. She has master's degrees in creative writing and social work. She also has a 20-year-old daughter with developmental disabilities. Kathy as in town with her husband, a fisheries biologist, who was attending a conference. She connected with Sandy at WIND and a workshop was created.

It is difficult to write well and honestly about those closest to you. Way back in the last century, I pitched several publishers and agents about my manuscript about our family's struggles with our son who has ADHD. I received little encouragement but many comments. "Dig deeper," one editor told me. "I don't want to dig any deeper," I told myself, and kept sending out the manuscript. Looking at it now, I realize that the critique was correct. There was lots of good stuff on the page. Nifty sentences, some insights, a bit of humor. But it was heady, my story as told by some person at a remove from my story -- and that person was me.

I've been able to publish some of the book's chapters, often after a lot of revising. One of the essays will appear this September in the anthology Easy to Love by Hard to Raise. That has prompted me to go back and look at the rest of the manuscript and dig deeper. That is at least partly what writing is about -- digging until the writer hits the mother lode.

Kathy Roberson's writers' group in New Jersey has bred some amazing poems and essays and stories. She shared some of them with us last Friday at the WIND workshop. Kathy uses a number of prompts as writing exercises. One was "Write about an article of clothing that holds a distinct memory or meaning." She tells the caregivers that they can follow the prompt or not. Most do, and come up with some amazing writing about quirky bathing suits or Navy blue Converse sneakers or a baby outfit with this script across the chest: "Thank Heaven for Little Boys." As you read this short memoir, you can't help thinking about the challenges as this little boy with disabilities grows up.

To read the prompts and some of the finished work, go to "Writing Our Journey: Poems and Essays by Family Caregivers."

On Friday, Kathy gave us this prompt: "Write about the word ambivalence."

I had to think about this one. Usually I just jump into the writing. Ambivalence, I think, is a term that many of us face daily. I love my children but they drive me to distraction. My wife and I have been a caregiving team for what seems like forever -- we just want to be a couple again. I try to be supportive with my daughter as she wrestles with homework and now tests for her G.E.D. At the same time I'm wondering why she has so much trouble with work that is so easy. I know the answer -- learning disabilities and ADD and a school career filled with failures. Still, I can't get over the fact that neither of my children graduated from high school. My son is on the lifetime plan at a community college. I'm not sure that my daughter will succeed in college or even get there.

This is the time of year when the graduation announcements arrive. The other day we received one from my nephew in Florida graduating from University of North Florida. I'm proud of him but his notice reminds me that I won't be attending a high school graduation this fall. I recall saying this the day my daughter was born: "When she graduates from high school, I'll be 60." Well, I'm 60 and she's not graduating. She'll have her G.E.D. But no diploma.

Where does my ambivalence lie? All over the damn place. I'll try to sum it up: "Enough already with the damn graduation announcements." That's what I wrote about.

Other workshop participants have children with severe developmental disabilities. These children and young adults cannot speak or take care of themselves. They have autism or Down Syndrome or very rare disorders of the brain and spine. They live in group homes and spend their days at the Ark, one of the best centers for the developmentally disabled in the region.

Faced with this, I remember one of my mother's favorite sayings: "Count your blessings, Michael." My mother had to count her blessings often -- she had nine of them, she said, with me the oldest. This didn't count my father, who would be the tenth blessing if you're trying to keep up. My mother was wise but I rarely counted what was good and dwelled instead on the negative. That was part of my depression, this inner turmoil. This is more curse than blessing, but I may not have become a writer without it.

Ambivalence is life. To see life in black and white is to be blind to the colors and shades of gray.

The poems and essays by the workshop participants were sad and funny. Filled with ambivalence.

Kathy left us with one of her poems. It's entitled "Ambivalent Living." It's very personal and does a terrific job of summing up the title.

Ambivalent Living
Kathy Roberson

It's October and the fluttering,
garish, dazzling display of color
defies the unmistakable scent of
melancholy settling; this time of
change resists easy conclusions.

Inside, on the warm couch, her long,
adolescent limbs curl along side me
while she contentedly sucks that one
calloused thumb; fear and faith in
the far future vie for voice, rise in
my throat and are swallowed just
as swiftly as I stand to plan the
fleeting details of our day.

A drawing called Love: a child
poised in mid-air, and a woman,
both arms stretched forward, ready
to catch, enfold, or else hold still,
risk release into open sky. I've mused
since about which way the story was
supposed to go and see now, in this
season of uncertainty, how either way
the name remains the same.

Some Wyoming Democrats wear the cloak of invisibility

Good story by Kirk Johnson in the April 16 New York Times. Wyoming booms with energy development. State government flush with cash. Republicans rule the roost. Democrats invisible -- and some want to stay that way.

Not me.

Go to http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/us/politics/17wyoming.html

Photo of Gillette mural by Steve Remich

D.C. gathering asks "Arts or Sciences?"

At an April 8 gathering in D.C., "Arts or Sciences?" was the topic. We need both, of course

Peter Cunningham, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Outreach at the U.S. Department of Education, had a few things to say:

Some people would also have you believe that we have to choose between the arts and other subjects—but that’s a false choice. We need them both...

--snip--

We care about poetry and we care about the stars and—believe it or not—there’s a literary magazine devoted to poetry about stars. It’s called Astropoetica, and you can find it on the internet.

We live in a great country. Let's keep it that way.

Couldn't agree more, Mr. Cunningham. And we can't have a great country without science and poetry and the arts and research. These are all areas that House Republicans are targeting in their budget cuts. Medicare and Medicaid, too. And so many other things that are crucial to life in the 21st century.

Read more at Arts or Sciences?

Photo (from NEA blog): Nébuleuse Nord America, Luc Viatour © GFDL, www.lucnix.be

Push Brothers! -- great poster for the workplace

Push brothers -- and sisters. Roll back the Republican war on workers. Thanks to Political Loudmouth.

Karoli reports on "ADHD Nation's" reaction to budget bill

I like to share links with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) in their headers. This is a good one on karoli's blog at Crooks & Liars. Go to "Republicans Suddenly Worried About Scaring Seniors? ADHD Nation Take Two." 

Democratic Grassroots Coalition installs new officers April 18 at IBEW Union Hall

Laramie County Democrats Grassroots Coalition meets on Monday, April 18, 7 p.m., at the IBEW Union Hall, 810 Fremont, Cheyenne. Main order of business is the installation of new officers. See you there...

Save the date for the Children’s Justice and Mental Health conference in Cheyenne

This June 14-17 conference is timely, as mental health needs and juvenile justice continue to be big topics in Wyoming. Just yesterday, Gov. Mead was interviewed by Bob Beck on Wyoming Public Radio about the state’s flawed juvenile justice system.

The ACLU and other organizations have criticized the high numbers of juveniles who are jailed, many for minor offenses. Groups have called for a uniform approach towards addressing young offenders. Now, each county decides how to handle juveniles. Gov. Mead says he is trying to get a handle on how large the problem is, but says he does favor some type of uniform approach.

"The goal is not to put as many Juveniles in jail as possible, the goal is to address Juvenile problems and delinquency and address it. Jail is always going to be part of that, but we don't want to put more than we have to in jail."

Mead says he would like to see a Juvenile Justice system with strong accountability, but he does think they need to move away from incarcerating Juveniles. The legislature's Judiciary committee is tackling the issue next week.

Gov. Mead is in the hot seat on this one. His Republican Party supports tough crime laws  and local control. They have a Biblical bent toward “spare the rod and spoil the child.” None of that bodes well for juveniles seeking fairness from the justice system, especially in very rural counties.

The 2011 Children’s Justice and Mental Health Conference, “Well-Being, Family Voice, and Children’s Choice,” will be held June 14-17, 2011, at Little America, Cheyenne

Parent scholarships are available (see below for more info).

The conference agenda is built around several keynote sessions with a selection of breakout sessions. The conference will focus on building the capacity for a broad group of stakeholders including service providers, parents, and policy-makers in the following areas: trauma informed care, understanding the juvenile justice system, parenting children with serious emotional disorders, system of care for children’s mental health, and medication assisted treatment for youth and adolescents.

Internationally known counselor, speaker, and author, Dr. Bruce Perry, will be the keynote speaker. Dr. Perry is a recognized authority on children in crisis. He has been consulted on many high-profile incidents involving traumatized children, including the Columbine school shootings, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Branch Davidian siege. Additionally, Dr. Rick Delaney, a psychologist who specializes in foster and adoptive children and their parents, will be sharing practical strategies for parenting and working with children with serious emotional and behavioral problems.

Conference also includes a panel focusing on the juvenile justice system entitled, “Where Do Parents Fit In?” And Dr. Bob Klaehn will present on medication assisted treatment for youth and adolescents.

There is not a registration fee but participants must register at http://gal.state.wy.us and click on “annual conference” or http://www.courts.state.wy.us/CJP

UPLIFT has been awarded funding from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for a limited number of scholarships to assist with travel/lodging costs.  Parents participating in this event will have the opportunity to engage with other stakeholders and build their skills in understanding and parenting their child.  Parents of children or youth with emotional or mental health disorders need to register for the conference at website listed above and then submit the following information to UPLIFT at 4007 Greenway St., Ste. 201, Cheyenne, WY 82001 or kconner@upliftwy.org

P.S.: I serve on the UPLIFT board. You can leave a comment here if you seek more info.

Local art walk this evening -- and a meeting about energizing the local art scene

This is the second Thursday of the month so that means...

...the Art Design and Dine art walk from 5-8 p.m. Eight local galleries and exhibition spaces are open with new work this evening. Mixed-media artist Pravina Gondalia (sample of her work shown above) will be at Glen Garrett's Gallery, Haitian art will be on display at Clay Paper Scissors, glass artists at Prairie Wind and Deselms, and the art of Ringo Stavrowsky at the Link Gallery. Check out the ADD web site for more info on the shows.

Also at the Link Gallery -- Alan O'Hashi will announce the line-up for the Cheyenne International Film Festival. The first festival last spring was fantastic and I'm looking forward to some boffo movies (and box office) this year. Get more info at www.cheyenneinternationalfilmfestival.org

And don't forget the food and beverages at Ruby Juice and the Laramie County Public Library Cafe, co-sponsors of the art walk.

Prior to the art walk from 4-5:30 p.m., the Cheyenne Arts Council will host a meeting at the Historic Atlas Theatre, 211 W. 16th St., to "present its mission, image, goals and action plan -- the arts community is invited to express interest and to get involved." Get more info at 307-222-4747 or www.cheyenneartscouncil.org.

Artists and writers and performers and arts workers and arts funders and arts appreciators should show up. Remember what Woody Allen said about "showing up." It's especially important now as the Cheyenne Arts Council takes shape.

Tea Party Slim is not so civil about The Civil War

Tea Party Slim and I were on the back porch discussing the American Civil War. We would have been on the front porch but the Wyoming west wind was blowing too damn hard. Under shelter, we sipped iced tea festooned with sprigs of mint.

“You mean The War Between the States, don’t you?” said Slim.

“The Civil War is what I’m talking about,” I replied. “It was 1861-1865. It started with the South seceding from the Union and firing on a military fort in Charleston Harbor.”

“That’s the one I’m talking about – The War of Northern Aggression. The South just wanted to live in peace…”

“…with their slaves.”

Slim held up his hand. “Not all Southerners had slaves. In fact, 85 percent of them did not.”

“But 15 percent did. And they were the merchants and land barons and politicians that forced the issue. People like Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Scarlett O’Hara’s pa, Mary Custis, etc.”

“You mean Mary Custis, granddaughter of Gen. George Washington, slaveholder?”

“One and the same.”

“Or Thomas Jefferson, slave owner and well, you know… He liked his female slaves.” Slim was trying to be delicate.

“Sally Hemmings – we all know the story,” I said. “And I’m sure there are hundreds like it all across the South. The Massa had all the power and when he came calling, well, how could a girl turn him down?”

“O.K., O.K., enough of that,” said Slim. “People make mistakes.”

“Rape is merely a mistake?”

“Let’s get back to the politics. This stuff makes me sick.”

“Rape is politics.” I had to get in one more jab. “But we were talking about The Civil War. Ken Burns called it that on PBS.”

“Don’t get me started on PBS.”

I dearly wanted to get him started on PBS, one of the Tea Party’s favorite targets, but held my tongue. “Shelby Foote is interviewed on the show. He’s a Southerner and he calls it The Civil War.”

“He has to do that on TV.”

I disappeared inside and brought back Shelby Foote’s massive three-volume The Civil War: A Narrative. “Shelby Foote called it The Civil War.”

“His publisher made him do it,” said Slim. “The War of Northern Aggression: A Narrative wouldn’t be welcomed in those New York literary circles.”

“Foote was from Mississippi, land of great writers” I added. “You can borrow the books if you want.”

“No thanks,” he said. “I’ve read all I need to about The Civ… I mean, The War Between the States.”

I held the books in my lap. They weighed a ton. I wondered if I should tell Slim that I’d only read half of the first volume.

“That’s the problem – the victor gets to tell the story,” said Slim. “The North won. The North tells their side of the story.”

“I told you that Foote is a Mississippian,” I said. “Did you watch him on the PBS series? He spoke very kindly about the South and Southerners and said some harsh words about the North. The Union generals stunk, for one thing.”

Slim smiled. “They did, didn’t they? McClellan was the worst.”

“It’s hard to say who the worst was,” I replied. “So much competition. But they did find a leader in Grant. And Sherman is credited with creating the “total war” concept with his march through the South.”

“Talk about rape and pillaging.”

“And burning crops and houses and generally laying waste to the countryside.”

“The War of Northern Aggression – like I said.”

“The Civil War – like me and Shelby Foote and Ken Burns and millions of others said. You can look it up.”

We sat in silence. I could tell we had reached an impasse. Slim was looking a bit glum. I decided that the day needed some new energy. “I’m surprised, Slim, that you didn’t once mention the magic words.”

He looked at me. “Magic words?”

“States’ rights,” I said.

His eyes bulged. Steam poured out of his ears. The glass shattered in his hand. “States’ rights,” he bellowed. “That’s what it was all about. No matter what you call the war, it was about the rights of a state or group of states over the rights of a federal government. Why just look at what’s happened since. We got the feds telling us what to do, from what crops we grow to the kind of cars we drive. Half of Wyoming is owned by the feds and we should take it back, we should….”

As Slim went on and on, I sat back in my chair and sipped my mint tea. The history of The Civil War weighed heavily on my lap and in my mind.

Photo: Tea Party uber-patriot. Photo by Don Jenkins, The Daily News

UW prof Christine M. Porter receives huge grant to build sustainable community food systems

The following comes from a University of Wyoming press release. I'm going to reprint the whole darn thing not only because this is such a cool project but also because it is spring and getting close to planting season and I'm in a pretty good mood.

A University of Wyoming professor is leading a $5-million, multi-state project to build community food systems that nourish populations in both current and future generations.

Christine M. Porter, assistant professor in the College of Health Sciences Division of Kinesiology and Health, leads the five-year "Food Dignity: Action Research on Engaging Food Insecure Communities and Universities in Building Sustainable Community Food Systems," project. It is funded by the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Competitive Grant program.

This is the largest USDA grant the university has received, says Bill Gern, UW vice president for research and economic development. Porter’s project has three facets: extension, research and education.

The project's extension portion includes five community food initiatives. Each will create a local steering committee to disperse small grants that invest in citizen solutions to their own food system issues.

Two of the initiatives are in Wyoming -- Gayle Woodsum of Action Resources International is organizing the Albany County project and Virginia Sutter of Blue Mountain Associates, Inc. will lead the Wind River Indian Reservation initiative. The others are Dig Deep Farms and Produce in Alameda County, Calif.; Whole Community Project of Cornell Cooperative Extension, Tompkins County, N.Y.; and East New York Farms!, Brooklyn, N.Y.

The research focuses on developing case studies of what each community has already done and during the next five years will make clear what factors influence their successes and failures as they work to create sustainable community food systems that provide ample and appropriate food for all, Porter says.

The education portion aims to create new cross-disciplinary undergraduate minors in sustainable food systems to prepare UW and Cornell University graduate students to engage in this work.

"At UW, the team developing the minor is considering nesting this within a more generic sustainability program of study," Porter says.

She says the project comes at a crucial time in today's economy.

"We are close to peak oil and peak soil, are enduring the greatest wealth and income inequality in decades, and somewhat ironically, face soaring rates of both food insecurity and obesity," Porter says.

While there is no single cure-all for these problems, Porter and her team view community food system development as a core part of the solution.

"We'll never compete with China in making plastic buckets or tennis shoes," she says, "But we can grow, process and sell our own food. The more we localize food systems, the more local jobs we create and the fresher our food is when it reaches our plates."

She also says research shows that medium-sized producers are more productive than industrial-scale farms and also tend to be more attentive to ecological and community sustainability.

While finishing her doctoral degree work, Porter says AFRI had a call for proposals to foster food security and local economic development through a blend of research, extension and education.

That pushed her to "dream bigger than I ever would have before dared." She assembled a team of more than two dozen top-notch community food practitioners and UW and Cornell University representatives for the "Food Dignity" proposal.

Many UW faculty, staff and students are involved in the project, including Urszula Norton, Kent Becker, Bill Gribb, Cole Ehmke, Deborah Paulson, Jill Lovato, Cheryl Geiger, Leslie Darnall and Peggy McCrackin. 

For more information about the project, contact Darnall at (307) 766-2141, email ldarnall@uwyo.edu or visit the website at www.fooddignity.org .

Photo: Alexa Naschold admires cabbage at a community garden. Her mother, Christine M. Porter, UW Department of Kinesiology and Health assistant professor, received a $5 million grant for a multi-state sustainable community food project study. (Photo by Christine Porter)

Children's Mental Health Awareness Week (May 1-7) celebrates "the diversity and resilience of families"

Most children with mental health challenges do not get the help they need.

Here are some facts to mull over from the Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health:

• 1 in 3 adolescents (aged 13 to 18) with mental disorders receive services for their diagnosis.
• Half of adolescents with severely impairing mental disorders never receive treatment.
• Service rates are highest for adolescents with ADHD (59.8%) and behavior disorders (45.4%).
• Fewer than 1 in 5 adolescents with anxiety, eating, or substance use disorders receive treatment for those disorders.
• Hispanic and Black adolescents are less likely than their White counterparts to receive services for mood and anxiety disorders.

Marine with PTSD who helped others commits suicide

Soldier Loses Battle with PTSD: MyFoxHOUSTON.com

This is the saddest thing I've seen in a long time (try to ignore the annoying lead-in ad). PTSD is real, people.

"From "Brokeback Mountain" to "Beyond Brokeback" -- the long life of a short story

On Friday, as I drove the pass back to Cheyenne, I thought about the impact and mystery of the arts. I had just seen a staged reading of “Beyond Brokeback” at the Shepard Symposium for Social Justice at UW. “Beyond Brokeback” is another chapter in the story of “Brokeback Mountain,” a short story written by Wyoming writer Annie Proulx back in the last century. She wrote it in the mid-1990s and it made its debut in the The New Yorker magazine in 1997. It was in Proulx’s 1999 collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories. The first edition of the book featured illustrations by renowned Western artist William Matthews. A signed copy is worth a lot, I’m told by eBay.

That, as we say in the short story writing business, is that. The New Yorker copies get recycled and books are read and put up on the home library shelf. Its bookstore shelf life, especially in the dark ages of the 1990s, was probably a couple of months. The book was used in the Wyoming Humanities Council “Reading Wyoming” series. One of the stories, “Pair a Spurs,” was excerpted in Deep West: A Literary Tour of Wyoming by the Wyoming Center for the Book. I co-edited the book with Wyoming Poet Laureate David Romtvedt and then-director of the Center for the Book, Linn Rounds.

So the story's already had more visibility than is usual for the genre. Annie Proulx is a Pulitzer Prize winner, after all, for the The Shipping News, set in Newfoundland but written in Wyoming. The critics liked it, yet many Wyomingites did not. The stories featured (in no particular order) a crazy mother who tossed her infant into a creek, a half-skinned steer, wanton hussies, a smattering of drunks, a talking tractor, crazy old coots and violence a-plenty. I, for one, liked the talking tractor in “The Bunchgrass Edge of the World.” And I was proud of myself for tracking down and reading the Icelandic Saga that was the basis for “The Half-Skinned Steer.” 

I read some – but not all – of the stories in Close Range. I missed “Brokeback Mountain.” It wasn’t the subject matter of two young cowboys having a homosexual relationship. I just didn’t get around to it until I listened to the entire audiobook during a long drive across the state. The tale ended as I drove a secondary road in Fremont County. I pulled over to take a deep breath so that I wouldn’t cry on company time. The scene with the shirts in the closet was one of the most powerful endings of any American story. I sat there on the side of the road, contemplating this very touching love story between two men of the West.

As I mentioned, Close Range was not beloved here in The Equality State. The former state parks director, a Wyoming native and voracious reader, said that he liked the stories but wished that they had been written about Nebraska. During a drive to Cody with a colleague, I excitedly plugged in the Close Range audiobook. We listened to the first two stories. After the second concluded, my colleague asked if we could listen to something else. “The stories are depressing,” she said. We listened to an oldies station the rest of the way.

I’ve spoken with Annie Proulx several times. At an art museum opening in Casper, she told me that she was dismayed that people thought her stories about Wyoming cowboys and barmaids and oil patch workers were inaccurate and hard to believe. Proulx, a dogged researcher, said that the stories were based on real incidents dug from the archives. She changed the names and added details and gave it her own writerly touch. The author was already working on another collection of Wyoming stories – she did three in all.

We skip ahead to 2005. “Brokeback Mountain,” the film by Ang Lee starring Jake Gyllenhaal and the ill-fated Heath Ledger, opened with much fanfare. Theatres in some small towns refused to show the film. There was even a question whether it would be screened anywhere in Wyoming (it was).  The film made a lot of money and gets some Oscar nominations. At the Oscar ceremony in 2006, novelist Larry McMurtry and screenwriter Diana Ossana won the award for best adapted screenplay from Proulx’s story.

Meanwhile, thousands of people were leaving comments on the Ultimate Brokeback Forum web site. Their comments were angry, sad, sweet and funny. They arrived from all over the world and from all kinds of people young and old, gay and straight, rural and urban. Site founder Dave Cullen says that the site recorded 500,000 posts the first year. Another 50,000 to 100,000 lurkers came by to see what was going on.

A lot, as it turned out.

Cullen culled the commentary and poetry and song lyrics and came up with enough intriguing narrative to fill a book, Beyond Brokeback: Impact of a Film. On December 11, 2010, the fifth anniversary of the movie’s release, Gregory Hinton debuted his adaptation of “Beyond Brokeback” at the Autry Museum in L.A. The museum is named after its benefactor, cowboy crooner Gene Autry who died one of the richest men in America. The show was part of the museum’s “Out West” series, a clever bit of word play.

The Autry event comes with its own connection to Wyoming (funny how they keep on coming up). Gregory Hinton grew up in Cody where his father was editor of the newspaper. He acknowledges the sad fact that many LGBT kids in rural places depart rather than stay, believing (for many good reasons) that there is no place for them. They flee to cities where being gay is not an excuse for revulsion or name-calling or worse. As one commentator said on the Ultimate Brokeback Forum, there are three items from the film that every gay young man knows: the closet, a bloody shirt, and a tire iron.

Hinton was invited to present “Beyond Brokeback” at the Shepard Symposium. This symposium is named for Matthew Shepard, the young gay man from Casper who was severely beaten and left for dead on an October night in Laramie. The theme of this year’s Shepard Symposium was “CREATE: Activism Toward Social Justice.”

Friday’s “Beyond Brokeback” staged reading featured these talented people: James Bowyer, Lee Hodgson, John J. O’Hagan, Peter Parolin, Hannah Peterson, Katie Stearns and Katrina Zook. Bowyer also played the piano and sang along with Zook. Shawn Kirchner wrote the original songs. The reading was directed by O’Hagan and produced by Hinton and O’Hagan. It’s important to name the names.  Not only did they do a terrific job on stage, they breathed life into people they’d never met. We heard stories from a farmer who’d just tended to his 95 cows, a 57-year-old divorced woman who was making some big changes, and a gay Jackson, Wyo., resident who loved his natural surroundings but was mystified by the prejudice he received from humans. A “senior division” gay man regretted his lonely, anonymous suburban life – yet still was willing to give love another try. A married woman took her tough-guy husband to the movie and was shocked when he admitted crying at the sad ending. “He’s going to get lucky tonight,” she quipped.

These were the voices of real people shaped by the art of a writer and told by actors and teachers and singers. They transformed the work. And it lives on.

What can be made of this long history of this short story turned script turned movie turned web site turned book turned script turned stage performance? It’s miraculous how one creative work can beget so many other creative works. The movie received most of the attention. But the saga now is entering another phase.

As mentioned earlier, Greg Hinton knows what it’s like to grow up different in the rural West. His formative years go back a few decades. But when you survey the state now, you realize it hasn’t gotten much better. Witness the foofaraw over the “Erase the Hate” banner removed from the Wheatland schools last year. Witness the huge outpouring of anti-gay sentiment during Wyoming’s recent legislative session. Rural school continue to reject the state’s anti-bullying program because school boards, stacked with fundamentalists, fear that anti-bullying has an agenda to protect LGBT youth. It does, of course. No bullying means no bullying – period. No bullying of gays or lesbians or ethnic minorities (only 8 percent of the state’s population and less in rural areas) or those with physical or mental or psychological disabilities. All that these small-town school boards see is what they hear in their tight-knit circles and close-minded churches and (of course) Fox “News.” It’s no surprise that these rural areas send some of the most close-minded people to the state legislature.

Greg Hinton wants to take “Beyond Brokeback” to small towns and rural communities around the state that shaped him. His goal is to put scripts in the hands of teachers and ranchers and home-school moms and have them read the commentary from “Beyond Brokeback.” It would be entertaining and educational. It may open up a few minds. Audience members might even see themselves in there somewhere.  As Hinton said when he introduced the staged reading on Friday:

"I was born on the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana, grew up in Cody, and went to school in Boulder, Colo. I experienced bias as a rural-born Western man.”

But he felt forced to leave the places that he loved. “But not everybody is leaving anymore. That’s what today is all about.”

I am a straight man (“senior division”) who was born in the West, grew up in the South, and returned to the West because I love it. I didn’t experience the same kind of bias that LGBT youth did in the West or the South. I saw it, though, and now know many who experienced it then -- and are experiencing it now. LGBT youth need to hear the voices of people like them. They are not alone. And "it gets better."

If you’re interested in hearing more about Greg Hinton’s project, or you have an interest in bringing a staged reading to your community, send me a comment here or look me up on Facebook.

It's official -- Tea Party now in charge of the G.O.P.

We knew all along  that the Tea Party was steering the G.O.P. during this so-called "budget showdown." Anti-abortion zealots and climate change deniers are shutting down our government. It's as if my crazy neighbor, Tea Party Slim, was in charge of telling us all where to work and how to dress and who to vote for and which church we must attend (or else).

Go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/07/tea-party-roadblock-polls_n_846122.html

Dick Cheney's legacy -- sickly Wyomingites and water supplies that catch fire

“Gasland” was not exactly a gas – but it did make me think.

The documentary was screened this evening at the Kiwanis Community House in Cheyenne before 60-some people. It explores natural gas drilling throughout the U.S., mainly that taking place in shale oil plays like the one beneath us in southeast Wyoming.

The film’s director, Josh Fox, traveled from his rural homestead in Pennsylvania to our wide-open Rocky Mountain spaces, interviewing those who’ve been impacted by the byproducts of drilling. Weld County, Colo., was his first stop. He watched homeowners flick their Bics under kitchen faucets. Fires erupted. The air and groundwater are being polluted by fracking chemicals. People are getting sick. The Wyoming DEQ issues air pollution alerts for rural Sublette County due to the energy boom. Air quality is as bad as L.A.’s on some days.

Wyoming rancher and former oil patch welder John Fenton attended the Cheyenne screening. He’s a cowboy working his in-laws’ spread near Pavilion. He’s surrounded by gas wells and storage tanks. Clouds composed of gas and chemical byproducts sometimes envelop his house. His three-year-old son began having seizures as soon as the family moved in. His wife has recurring headaches. His mother-in-law has lost several of her five senses. She’s consulted docs throughout the West and they have no answers. The Feltons can’t drink their water. For 18 months, John made the 80-mile round trip to town to fetch his water. He now has water delivered.

These are good people whose lives have been upended by the rush to pump as much gas from shale as possible – and damn anybody who gets in the way. Sure, it’s great to develop homegrown energy. You’ll find bipartisan agreement on that. But at what cost?

John has joined a delegation traveling to D.C. several times. They have met with the Wyoming Congressional delegation. “I’d like to say that they listened and are working hard for us,” John said. “But they’re not. Their loyalties lie elsewhere.”

Remember these names: Sen. Mike Enzi, Sen. John Barrasso, Rep. Cynthia Lummis. They boast that they stand up for the citizens of Wyoming. But they don’t. Rep. Lummis, one of the richest members of Congress who can’t be bothered with the concerns of “the little people.” Sen. John Barrasso, a physician who can’t be bothered with the health problems of farmers and ranchers. Sen. Mike Enzi, entrepreneur whose loyalties lie elsewhere – with big corporations instead of with Wyomingites trying to make a living from the land.

It is shameful to contemplate the power of oil and gas companies. It’s also shameful to note, as Mr. Fox does in his film, that the catalyst for these problems was none other than Wyoming’s not-so-favorite-son, Dick Cheney. His secret energy commission drafted what became the 2005 energy bill which exempted oil and gas companies from the Clean Air Act, the Safe Water Drinking Act, EPA regulations and almost any other environmental regulations. This is known as The Halliburton Loophole.

Thanks, Dick. I hope the people of Teton County remember Mr. Cheney as they try to protect the Hoback River Basin from rampant and largely unregulated gas drilling. Dick has a home in Jackson, you see. His ritzy neighbors might not be pleased when they can’t breathe and their gold-plated water faucets start catching on fire.

Most of the post-film discussion focused on citizen action. As I mentioned earlier, the Niobrara Oil Play Boom is happening right now in southeast Wyoming. Not too much to ask to require better oversight of the drilling process, from beginning to end, by the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. Not too much to ask our legislators to be looking out for our needs rather than those of energy companies and lobbyists. Not too much to ask for our county commissioners and city council members to be looking out for the health and welfare of Laramie County citizens.

They may need extra persuasion. Attend commission and council meetings. And there are several organizations working hard for citizen rights. They are the Powder River Basin Resource Council and the Wyoming Outdoor Council. They were the co-sponsors of the free film screening. These conservation organizations got involved in the Pavilion situation. But not much happened until the Environmental Protection Agency got involved, according to the PRBRC’s Jill Morrison.

Both the PRBRC and the Wyoming Outdoor Council seek full disclosure on chemicals and processes used in the drilling process, from beginning to end. Not too much to ask, is it?

Don't forget Cheyenne "Gasland" screening

From the Wyoming Outdoor Council:

What: Free showing of "Gasland"

When: Thursday, April 7th, at 7 p.m. Followed by questions and discussion with Gasland’s featured Pavillion, Wyoming landowners John and Catherine Fenton. Doors open at 6:45 p.m.

Where: Cheyenne, Kiwanis Community House, Lions Park, 4603 Lions Park Drive, Cheyenne