Occupy Casper: "Honk if You Share Your Toys!

From Meg Lanker's tumblr site: At Occupy Casper, Kaylee reminds us to share.

Something organic (and very soggy) about Occupy Denver rally

Author with soggy sign

Whenever I attend a protest in another state, I always try to exhibit a little bit of Wyoming. It ties me to home. It causes strangers to approach and say, "Hey, I'm from Wyoming too." On a fall football Saturday, someone might come up and say "Go Pokes."

That's what happened today in Denver during the Occupy Denver rally and march. A young man perused my soggy sign (see above).

"You're from Wyoming?"

"Yes" I said out of my soggy face.

"I'm from Torrington."

"Cheyenne," I said.

"Go Pokes," he said, making a fist.

"Go Pokes," I answered. "They're going to need a lot of Go-Poking today at Utah State."

He laughed and moved on. We were marching and the rain was coming down. My wife Chris and I took turns holding the sign. It was permanent marker inked on poster board. Neither of us are great sign makers as we lack whatever genome helps you make readable yet artistic lettering on a white board. But the sign possessed some Wyoming soulfulness which probably drew the young Torringtonite to us. And later, two young women from Gillette who now live in Denver.

Getting ready to march

They were young, most of the occupiers. The age of our kids. Motivated and peaceful too. Their signs were mostly better than ours, and some had machine-lettered placards which looked really good. Some had covered their placards with plastic. They had planned ahead. It takes some planning to attend a protest, even when that protest seems to have grown organically out of the wet ground.

Some of the Occupy Denver people have been living outside for weeks. Their impetus comes from Occupy Wall Street, which began its life in Manhattan's Liberty Square Sept. 17. The weather, for the most part, has been glorious. Treatment from the Denver Police, pretty good. People drop off clothes and food. The multitudes have assembled their own security force. I asked one of the security guys how he got his job. "I was tall," he said, "so they asked me."

When it comes to visibility, it helps to be tall. Tall and festooned with orange. It is hunting season, after all, and you can't be too careful.

This teacher testifies about the damage done to public education by the undue influence of large corporations. 

Chris and I located the core of Occupy Denver on the Capitol grounds along Broadway. There's also a small tent city which provides shelter for the hardcore OD crew. Each occupy event focuses on what night be called "testifying." A person calls "mike check," comes to the center of the circle and proceeds to outline his/her reasons for attending. Savvy folks break their narrative into bite-bized chunks so the rest can follow. It's basically repetition. It turns all of us into motivational speakers. It engages the audience.

He: The top 400 in this country

Us: The top 400 in this country

He: Have more money

Us: Have more money

He: Than the bottom 150 million

Us: Than the bottom 150 million

Former First Lady Dottie Lamm interviews one of the more seasoned occupiers

And that person goes on until he/she is finished -- or until someone else in the crowd calls "mike check" and take the soapbox. That person may want to dispute what the previous testifier said. That happened at least once today. One guy, obviously infused with the populism of the day, told everyone that the streets were ours and that we were going to walk in the streets during our march, no matter what the police said.

"Mike check," said one of the tall security guards.

Despite what the previous person said!

Despite what the previous person said!

We are not going to walk in the street!

We are not going to walk in the street!

He went on to explain that OD did not have a permit for today's march and that it might be in the best interest of everyone here not to rile the police who, for the most part, have been very helpful and understanding. We were policing ourselves, he noted, and wrapped up with "peace."

"Peace" we all said.

As we testified, two DPD paddy wagons rolled down Broadway. I couldn't help but notice that a squad of riot-equipped officers clung to the side of each wagon.

"Uh oh," I thought.

"Uh oh," thought those around me.

Occupy Denver occupies Colfax Avenue

As it turned out, there was little cause for alarm. Marchers chanted and followed the rules and we walked down Colfax Avenue. Police prowlers prowled the inside lane and the security teams made sure we followed the walk-don't-walk signs. A seasoned woman in a funky hat came up to me and said that she was interviewing "older" participants and she couldn't help but notice that Chris and I were, possibly, a bit older than the majority of the assemblage. She hoped that we didn't mind if she pointed that out. We didn't mind. She introduced herself as Dottie Lamm and said she was writing a column for the Denver Post. She asked why were here on this cold rainy day. We believe in the cause. We were curious. A good excuse to get out of town. She asked for our phone number so she could interview us in detail later. We traded numbers. And she moved on to interview other older participants.

Dottie Lamm, in case you don't know, is Colorado former First Lady, wife of Governor Dick Lamm (1975-87). Dick Lamm was a firebrand in his day, as was his wife. She ran for the U.S. Senate in 1998 and was defeated by Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who had earlier defected to the Republicans.

We walked down Colfax in the rain. We received quite a few honks and we yelled in response.

Who are we?

We are the 99 percent!

What's democracy look like?

This is what democracy looks like!

Whose street is it?

Our street!

But we didn't walk in it. We walked along the sidewalk to Fillmore, crossed the street (with police assistance) and headed back to the Capitol. More chanting. More rain. We called it quits, had lunch and drove back to Cheyenne in a heavy rain.

What had we learned? A lot, as it turns out. I'll explain tomorrow...

Call for submissions: Art Works poster contest

Sample poster from the Obama campaign

From a press release:

The Obama campaign is seeking poster submissions from artists and designers across the country to convey why we support President Obama's plan to create jobs now, and why we'll re-elect him to continue fighting for jobs for the next four years. You can make your poster about that broad theme, or focus on a specific aspect: why we've got to rebuild and modernize our roads and bridges, help veterans find work once they've returned home from service, support the small businesses that are the engine of our economy, make sure teachers can stay in their classrooms, and so on. The posters should include the words from one of the suggested slogans below or visually interpret the concepts they represent. 

The campaign will choose 12 finalists once the submission period closes on November 4, 2011, and then put the finalists to a vote. 

Finalists will be chosen based on the following criteria: 

· Adherence to stated theme: Why you support President Obama's plan to create jobs now and his re-election campaign to continue fighting for jobs for the next four years.
· Appropriateness of tone: Conveying determination and strength
· Creativity and aesthetics
· Quality of workmanship 

Three winners will get a framed print of their poster signed by President Obama and a limited edition of their poster will be sold in the campaign store with proceeds benefiting the campaign. 

· Deadline: November 4, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Submissions after November 4, 2011 will not be eligible.
· Poster designs should be 16” x 20”.
· Posters may be graphic, typographic, illustrated, collaged, or include photography taken by the designer.
· Posters must include the following URL: www.barackobama.com/jobsplan
· Posters can be produced by litho, digital, or silk-screen print.
· Posters must be viable for reproduction by digital printing.
· You hereby represent and warrant that all equipment, materials, and facilities used to produce your poster are owned by you and were not provided by a corporation, labor union, foreign national, or federal contractor. Any disposable materials purchased specifically to produce the poster will be treated as in-kind contributions to Obama for America.
· Each person may submit no more than five submissions.
· All submissions will become property of Obama for America.
· When you've finished your design, please upload a PDF or JPEG of finished poster for the site on barackobama.com/artworks. (At least 380px x 480px, please.) Upload size cannot exceed 10 MB. Please also include the title of your poster, your name as you'd like it to appear, and a short paragraph about your poster. 

Suggested slogans: 

• Fighting for jobs 

• Get America back to work

• Rebuilding America

• Made in the USA

• More jobs for veterans

• Hire America's veterans

• Support small businesses

• Every child deserves a great school

• More jobs for teachers

• Put teachers back in the classroom where they belong

• Tax cuts for the middle class

• Support the middle class

• Ask millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share

• We believe in the American dream

• Out-build, out-educate, out-innovate

SUBMIT A POSTER HERE

"Occupy Casper" at noon Saturday across from the Dick Cheney Federal Building

Pamela RW Kandt announces Occupy Casper on Saturday, Oct. 8, noon-1 p.m., in Pioneer Park, Center & B streets, across from the Dick Cheney Federal Building in Casper, WY.

From Pamela:

Let's stand together and say "No More!" to greed, corruption, inequality, poverty -- politicians no longer work on our behalf or care about our well-being. We are the 99% of Americans stuck with the bill for corporate bailouts, economic shenanigans and bad government. We're old & young, middle class & poor, straight & gay, graduates & dropouts, conservatives & liberals. We are America and we deserve better!

These peaceful gatherings are flowering rapidly across the nation because people are overwhelmingly unhappy with what's happening in this country. Join us on Saturday to share your frustration and express your support for the 99%. Bring signs, kids, family, friends and neighbors. We're all in this together! RSVP at Facebook.

A short story about one government-issue, middle-class, Middle-American family from Denver

My government-issue parents in Denver, circa 1950. Thanks to my sister Mary for the photo.

I was born in Denver at the tail end of 1950.

My father was a World War II veteran who used the G.I. Bill of Rights to graduate from Regis College (now Regis University) in three years. It was a private Catholic college, one he never could have afforded without the government program, promulgated by Pres. Roosevelt and sponsored by Democrats and Republicans, that provided college degrees for millions of American men. The U.S. Navy paid for my mother's nurse's training at Mercy Hospital in Denver. The war was over before she finished so she didn't have to join the fight. But she did use her government-supported training to help support her nine children from 1946 until she died forty years later. My father spent most of his working life building Defense Department-funded ICBM missile silos around the West and then with the space program in Florida. His salary, directly and indirectly, was paid by Uncle Sam.

My father's father made a pretty good living in Denver selling insurance with Mutual of New York. But before he joined private industry, he served with the Iowa National Guard on the U.S. Mexico border and then in France with the AEF. After repeated gas attacks, the Army shipped him to Fitzsimons Army Medical Hospital outside Denver. During his recuperation, he struck up a friendship with an Army nurse, Florence Green from Baltimore, who had traded the life of a debutante to tend to shattered soldiers on the front. The U.S. Army trained her in the healing arts. Grandpa Shay was forever grateful. Both Grandma and Grandpa received the lion's share of their medical care from Veteran's Administration hospitals in Denver and Cheyenne. They both were buried in Denver's government-administered military cemetery, Fort Logan. You can go visit them. Notice what a fine job the V.A. does in maintaining this national landmark. Go ahead, notice.

My mother' mother was the first postmistress in a little town outside Cincinnati. She liked her government paycheck. But one summer she joined her sister and two friends for a road trip via flivver to the Rocky Mountains. The roads were rough. Fortunately, Brevet Lt. Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower had led the U.S. Army's Motor Transport Company from D.C. to California in 1919 and made the road navigable. A year later, she was following the same government-blazed trail and, a year after that, she and her sister were living in Denver and visiting the mountains regularly.

Ike was from Kansas but he liked Denver. He got married in Denver to Mamie Doud and later fished the U.S. Forest Service mountain streams during his breaks from the Oval Office. During one Mile High trip, he suffered a heart attack and recuperated at Fitzsimons Army Hospital. I was four -- almost five -- at the time. Our family lived just off of Colfax Avenue in Aurora and my father took me down to the corner, pointed at the well-lit building across the street, and said: "Our president is right over there." The president was a Republican. My father was a Democrat -- then. But he said "our" president. Gen. Eisenhower had been his supreme commander in the ETO. And now he was his -- our -- president. We then walked back to our $8,000 house, purchased without a down payment and paid for with a low-interest loan. At the end of his life, my father was astonished that he paid twice as much for a new car as he paid for his first house. He was a Florida Republican by then, a by-product of Nixon's southern strategy. He seemed astonished by many things, particularly the Liberal politics of his eldest son. Even though he passed away almost a decade ago, Dad may be astonished still.

Spawn of our government-sponsored parents (see above), taken in her backyard in Daytona Beach, Fla.,
where we used to watch government-sponsored rockets blast off into space (from the Mary Shay Powell archives).

My mother's father came from Ireland in 1917. He worked with his brother on the Chicago El until he got sick and had his infected lung removed at the city's charity hospital. The doctor advised him to take his one remaining lung and go to the healthy climes of the West. Grandpa made it as far as Denver, liked it, and decided to stay. He worked at the post office for many years, and then the railroad. He also was a handyman and a helpful neighbor. He only had a sixth-grade education, but I learned more from my Grandpa Hett than I did from almost anyone else. He was a strong believer in the healing power of ice cream. This also is my belief.

These are my forebears. An imperfect lot, to be sure, and I carry on that tradition. It is possible that we all would be perfectly fine without the programs and opportunities offered by our citizen-funded government. It is possible, yet unlikely.

Hundreds and hundreds of "Battered Brides" in Laramie County

"Battered Bride" (close-up) by Forrest King, oil painting, 36x48 inches

According to Safehouse: In Laramie County, one in every four women report that they are or have been the target of domestic violence. That's a shocking 21st-century statistic for the largest county in The Equality State, one that houses the State Capitol in Cheyenne where our legislators convene annually to discuss issues important to its citizens. If this isn't a pressing issue, I don't know what is.

Sometimes it helps to see a visual. Local artist Forrest King has done that for us. He's been working for months on his "Battered Bride" painting. As it nears completion (see above), he will exhibit it Thursday (today), Oct. 6, 4-7 p.m., at Safehouse's "Would You Walk in Her Shoes?" fund-raiser and consciousness-raiser for Safehouse at the Historic Depot in Cheyenne. You can see a series of photos documenting Forrest's "Battered Bride" project on Facebook. 

Come down to the Depot this afternoon. Walk around in "her" shoes for a few minutes. And then contribute to Safehouse, write a letter to the ed (and your state legislator), practice nonviolence in your own life.

LCCC Dems host presentation by author Andrea Batista Schlesinger Oct. 18

The Laramie County Community College Democrats in Cheyenne kicked off their first semester of existence this week with a successful bake sale (loved those brownies).

Next up: A presentation by Andrea Batista Schlesinger, author of "The Death of 'Why?': The Decline of Questioning and the Future of Democracy." It will be held in the LCCC Student Lounge on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 4 p.m. Refreshments will be served. Free and open to the public.

On Oct. 8, we Occupy Denver, site of the Democratic Party's 2008 convention -- was that only three years ago?

The arts, especiaslly the graphic arts, are laying a huge part in the Occupy Wall Street movement.  This event's right down the  road in my hometown of Denver. www.occupywallstreet.com

Convergence Wyoming: Historic preservation not just for Earth anymore.

Milford Wayne Donaldson, California’s state historic preservation officer, will be a featured speaker at the Convergence Wyoming 2011 in Cody Oct. 6-8. He will speak about some of the finer points of historic preservation. And its most otherworldly ones. In 2010, Donaldson successfully sought historic preservation status for the Apollo 11 moon landing sites.

The reasoning behind the first-of-its-kind designation was simple: Scores of California companies worked on the Apollo mission, and much of their handiwork remains of major historical value to the state, regardless of where it is now or what it was for used for then.

“It has a significance that goes way further than whether it came from a quarter million miles away or not,” Mr. Donaldson said. “They are all parts of the event.” 

While Apollo 11 was indeed a landmark mission — during which Neil A. Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon and he and Buzz Aldrin apparently ditched their boots — it wasn’t exactly tidy. Worried about the weight of their landing capsule, the harried lunar explorers left behind tons of trash, including empty food bags, electrical equipment and, yes, several receptacles meant for bodily waste. 

There is also a collection of artifacts of historical note and emotion: Mr. Armstrong’s footprint, for example, and an American flag. Apollo 11 also left behind a mission patch from Apollo 1, in which three astronauts died in a fire, and a message from world leaders. 

And while some of the garbage might seem like, well, garbage, California is just one of several states seeking protection for the items in the face of possible lunar missions by other nations as well as a budding space tourism industry. 

--clip-- 

Mr. Donaldson said he hoped his commission’s vote might help goad the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization into placing the landing site on the World Heritage List, an international compilation of famed landmarks. 

“I think there’s a threat from private companies,” Mr. Donaldson said. “And with today’s technology, they could probably pinpoint this.” 

That said, Mr. Donaldson admitted that there were no “space cops” available to safeguard the state’s newest historical resource. But, like the Apollo astronauts themselves, he seemed optimistic that Friday’s vote might lead to bigger and better things. 

“Hopefully,” he said, “this will take off.”

Register for Convergence Wyoming at http://www.convergencewyoming.com/register-today/. Article source: New York Times

Follow "Rebuild the Dream" on Free Speech TV

Watch live streaming video from freespeechtv at livestream.com

Van Jones explains it all for you

SEIU brothers and sisters join Occupy Wall Street

My brothers and sisters in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) are now joining Occupy Wall Street. I'm a member of the Wyoming Public Employees Association, an SEIU affiliate. It's comprised of state employees such as myself. Kudos to these brave union members:

The United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United and Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 have said they will participate in the protest next Wednesday [Oct. 5].

More at http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/29/unions-and-liberal-groups-to-join-occupy-wall-street-protest/

Katie Goodman conducts improv comedy/life coach workshop within shouting distance of WY

Katie Goodman, improv comedian, author, and rabble-rousing singer/songwriter ("I Didn't F*ck It Up"), will be conducting a workshop at Chico Hot Springs, MT, Oct. 8-9. This is as close as she will ever get to Wyoming, unless she tap-dances over the border into Yellowstone while she's at Chico.

Here are the details:

Katie will present her workshop teaching how to use the tools of improv comedy in every day life. This workshop will be presented at the gorgeous Chico Hot Springs, one hour from Bozeman, near Yellowstone National Park in Montana.

Click here for reviews and testimonials. For additional information about the workshop, click here.

The cost is $255 which includes a beautiful Chico lunch both days and Katie's book to take home. Rooms run from $45 - $200, so to book your room, call Chico directly and pick what you like: 406-333-4933. Most participants stay over Saturday night, but you are certainly welcome to make a longer retreat of it and stay Friday and Sunday or longer. The workshop hours are 9am - 4:30 both Saturday and Sunday.

Lunches are provided for workshop participants both Saturday and Sunday. Exceptional cuisine from one of the region’s finest restaurant is available in the Chico Lodge restaurant for breakfast and dinner, as well as other budget options nearby. Other activities available include massage, hiking, horse-back-riding and more. And of course, the wonderful hot springs of Chico are included with your stay at the Lodge.

To register or for more information, email us or call 406-522-7623. 

Locavores unite -- Second to last Tuesday farmers' market of the season Oct. 4

Cheyenne's Market for Local Products. Eat Local. It’s Thousands of Miles Fresher!

Tuesdays through October 11, 3-6:30 p.m., Historic Train Depot Plaza, Cheyenne

Featuring:

            Free Honey Crisp Apple for each Market Patron!

            Big Trailer Load of Pumpkins this Tuesday Only

            Grassfed lamb is back in stock

           

Plus all your favorites:

Locally grown Produce: Squash, Onions, Potatoes, Peppers, and More!

Colorado Tree-Ripened Fruits: Apples, Pears, Frozen Pie Cherries

Fresh Breads and Baked Goods

Gourmet Pasta, Raviolis, Pesto

Smoked Salmon, Trout, Dips, Soups, Chowders, German and Austrian Foods

BBQ to Dine on the Plaza or Take Home

Cheyenne Honey and Baer's Jams

Grassfed Beef, Bison, Chicken, Jerky, Eggs

Local, Organic and Natural Body Care

House Plants

Wood Crafts, Hand-made Cards, Alpaca Products, Jewelry, Glass Gifts, Baby Blankets, more!

For more information, see our website:  www.wyomingfreshmarket.org

Cheyenne's Reproacher in concert this weekend

Joel Funk, one of my son Kevin's friends, is in the local metal band Reproacher, Cheyenne’s “crust punk heavyweights.” The band plays with three others this Sunday, Oct. 9, at the Lion's Park Old Community House. Bring earplugs, says the Facebook invitation. Of course, that’s also what CFD tells patrons attending summer concerts by Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum. Amplified music is loud! Bring earplugs! For event info and to RSVP, go to http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=140694529361884&notif_t=event_invite. Support local music!

CSU's 100 Views of Climate Change looks at the subject from all angles

Until John Calderazzo showed me his web site, I didn't know that there were 100 views of climate change.

That's the name of his site, 100 Views of Climate Change. It's an official Colorado State University site, one among hundreds at this place that started its life as Colorado A&M -- the big white Aggie "A" still lurks on the mountain above town.

John teaches in the CSU creative writing program which is part of the English Department. He is a writer of creative nonfiction which, put simply, means that he uses fiction writing techniques in his published books and articles and essays about volcanoes, rain forests, watersheds, etc. He takes his facts as seriously as he takes his technique. His book on volcanoes is fascinating. He once taught in China and had written extensively about Asia. Recently, he climbed his first big mountain, a 19,000-footer in Mexico. Pretty good for a guy who won't see 60 again.

I had a chance to visit with John when he was in Cheyenne for the Literary Connection put on by LCCC. He served as my first adviser when I went to CSU in 1988 as a thirty-something corporate dropout. We had a lot in common, including Florida roots, and he was only a few years older than me. We worked on several free-lance writing projects together. It's always good to see an old friend.

As is true with many Boomers in their sixties, John is not sitting in his office counting paper clips and marking off the days until retirement on a wall calendar. Well, he may be doing that but he's also bringing the climate change debate to CSU, Fort Collins, Colorado's Front Range and the Rocky Mountain West. He and his wife, Sue Ellen Campbell, are doing this together. Sue Ellen is also a published writer, professor and environmentalist. The duo has seen first-hand the depredations of climate change. They have written extensively on the subject.

When it was time to do something about it, they thought that they might as well start close to home. So many scientists at this university. Climatologists, soil biologists, ecologists, bioethicists, agronomists, water hydrologists and so on. And sometimes, to translate the work of these scientists, in come the artists, writers and performers.

No reputable scientist disputes the fact that global climate change is a real thing. However, the topic of "global climate change" sparks as many storms as a spring Rocky Mountain low pressure system. Policies that address climate change would affect almost all the ways that we've done business in the West for 100 years. They would affect coal mining, oil and gas drilling, coal-fired plants, transportation, infrastructure, home construction, and almost any other topic you could think of. Just the term "climate change" sends Wyoming Republicans into a tizzy. It's likely they work in the energy industry. It's certain that much of their election war chests come from EnCana and Peabody, etc. Many of their constituents work in the energy industry and make better money doing that than they would in almost any other endeavor. Local business groups and chambers of commerce welcome energy companies and energy jobs. The mayor of Gillette was just in Washington, D.C., telling a congressional committee to send more energy jobs his way.

So, it's not surprising that any hint of doing something about climate change causes berserkity to break out all over.

Chris Drury: "Carbon Sink: What Goes
Around Comes Around"

Here's a recent case in point from Wyoming's lone four-year university. A very talented artist, Chris Drury from the U.K., designed and installed a public art work on the UW campus. It's entitled 'Carbon Sink: What Goes Around Comes Around." It's made of real Wyoming coal and real beetle-killed trees from Wyoming forests. The burning of one of these things -- coal -- undoubtedly caused the warming planet which led to the pine bark beetle surviving winters which led to the killing of the trees. All of the parts will eventually return to the earth from whence they came, which is one of the messages of the piece. A giant circle of coal and wood spinning across a university lawn on its way back to the source. This also is our fate. The fate of humankind, of course, will be determined by the way we treat the planet.

Here's how the project was described on the UW Art Museum blog:

Chris Drury's Carbon Sink: What Goes Around Comes Around places beetle-kill pine and coal -- both natural resources in Wyoming -- in a formal structure derived from a mushroom spore, twisting into a vortex to suggest the natural process of decay, decomposition, and transformation.  Typical of the artist's work, who routinely connects natural phenomena from the macrocosmic to the microcosmic, the whirling deep, dark, and beautiful reflective properties of the coal play off the raw wood that has been charred so the materials merge at the center.

Some Wyomingites were not amused (snippets from stories about the installation from both the New York Times and The Guardian via Inhabitat): 

The coal industry immediately took offense: “They get millions of dollars in royalties from oil, gas and coal to run the university, and then they put up a monument attacking me, demonizing the industry,” stated Marion Loomis, the director of the Wyoming Mining Association.  

Two legislators also jumped into the fray -- Republican Representative Tom Lubnau and Gregg Blikre from Cambell County, site of the massive Powder River Basin coal mine. 

“While I would never tinker with the University of Wyoming budget – I’m a great supporter of the University of Wyoming – every now and then you have to use these opportunities to educate some of the folks at the University of Wyoming about where their paychecks come from,” stated Lubnau.

Read more here: Chris Drury’s “Carbon Sink” Art Installation Strikes Nerve of Wyoming Coal Industry Carbon Sink by Chris Drury – Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World 

As it turns out, it was a tempest in a teapot. No coal-crazed Republican legislators attacked the UW Art Museum budget. But we'll have many more of these. Some will be a lot more serious.

Chris Drury is obviously a thoughtful man in search of meaningful discussion of a big subject.

Maybe UW needs a dose of 100 Views of Climate Change. CSU is right down the road...

Chris Hedges: Join the Wall Street revolt or stand on the wrong side of history

Woman protester arrested on
Sept. 24 at Wall Street

This is pretty amazing stuff from someone who has so much to lose:

There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.

This is Chris Hedges writing on Truthout.

Chris Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years

Read it at The Best Among Us/Truthout

Creative placemaking video of 13-year-old artist in Sheridan, Wyoming

Sheridan Artist Lauren Sarantopulos from Indie Media: The New Journalism on Vimeo.

The Wyoming Arts Council features 13-year old Lauren Sarantopolus as she discusses her work at the Sagebrush Community Art Center in Sheridan. Video by Alan O’Hashi.

It's important to "Step Up for Kids" in October in Wyoming

With Wyoming Tea Party Republican legislators refusing to step up for our children on so many issues – early childhood education, health care, mental health issues, daycare standards, juvenile justice, poverty rates -- it's more important than ever to "Step Up for Kids."

That's what a lot of us will be doing across Wyoming in October. Sponsored by Wyoming Children's Action Alliance.

Here's the rundown:

The fourth annual Step Up for Kids Week is taking place throughout the communities and

counties of Wyoming the week of October 8-15. The purpose of these events is to

bring hundreds of people together to raise awareness of all children’s issues and the need

for investment in children in our local communities, our state and our nation.

These are dates and activities across the state.

October 9-13 - GILLETTE

A series of advertisements/articles will run in the Gillette paper. Articles will focus on children’s issues and parenting tips.

October 11^th  CASPER:  “Kids:  A Long Term Investment”

First Interstate Plaza – Corner of First and Center Streets

10:30 a.m. Two booths, one on health care, staffed by Barb Rea; one with materials about the value of quality child care, developed and staffed by Dianna Webb and Deb Nelson.

11:30 – Refreshments available.

Noon – Program begins. Program Emcee Heidi Dickerson welcomes crowd, notes theme, and introduces mayor or other city representative.

·     Proclamation read by Mayor/City Council Members

·     Students from Woods Elementary introduce former State Representative Ann Robinson. Ann speaks about opportunity for Wyoming Legislature to invest in children

·     Students from Woods Elementary introduce Parent Pam McMichael. Pam speaks about value of investing in Head Start

·     Student from Woods Elementary introduces Jackie Brown or Chelsea DiPaolo. Chelsea speaks about Gear Up

·    Woods student introduces B&G Youth of the Year - Youth of Year introduces B&G Club staffer who was a critical mentor - B&G Club staffer (yet to be identified) talks about working w/YOY and long-term commitment to kids

·    Woods student introduces Bethany Cutts - Cutts talks about the importance of early childhood development and the importance of high quality care to all children, whether in public or private programs or care centers; calls for state investment in quality care.

October 11^th - RAWLINS

Carbon County Higher Education Main Campus, 705 Rodeo – Classroom #1

5:30 – 7:00 pm Family information booths

7:00-8:30  p.m.  Linda Burt-Director of Wyoming ACLU

                                Juvenile Justice in Wyoming

October 14^th – EVANSTON AND MOUNTAIN VIEW

Evanston Child Development Center:
March For Kids

Our Children will walk/parade to our local government buildings/courthouse. There we will have a guest speaker (tent. Mayor Joy Bell). This event will be advertised in our Center Newsletters and Local Newspaper. Children will then parade back to the Center for a bbq. During the month of October we plan to have flyers and information available for parents on child growth and development, etc.

October 14^th - The Children's Learning Foundation:
March For Kids

Same idea as ECDC

Saturday, October 15^th - CHEYENNE

Lions Park Community House

10 am - 12 noon

Fun Activities For Kids & Community Resource

Information For Parents!

Adbusters' Occupy Wall Street poster asks: What is our one demand?

I love this Occupy Wall Street poster from Adbusters. Curious about the origins and goals of the protest? The Nation  explains it all for you at http://www.thenation.com/article/163719/occupy-wall-street-faq