Shay & Hernandez co-host open mic

My favorite daughter (O.K. -- my only daughter) and one of my favorite spoken-word performers will be co-hosting an open mic session at the Laramie County Public Library this evening in Cheyenne. Annie Shay and Mikey Hernandez invite you to bring your poems, stories, songs, comedy routines and snappy patter to the library's Cottonwood Room beginning at 6 p.m. Snacks provided! More info at 307-514-1131.

New to the WY Progressives' blogroll: The Bucking Jenny

Pleased to add The Bucking Jenny to hummingbirdminds' Wyoming Progressives blogroll (see right sidebar). She launched the blog in February, tackling the big topics: the Republican war on women, the state legislature's weird need to drug-test everyone but themselves, controversy over the Trayvon Martin shooting, the GOP's vengeful God fixation, etc. Especially liked her exploration of the spirituality in Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It." Jenny, I wish you many thoughtful comments. 

We're number three! -- on the list of most corrupt states

At least we're not number one: States with the most lax anti-corruption laws

Help send Meg to blogger summer camp

Blogger, DJ, activist and perennial hell-raiser Meg Lanker of Cognitive Dissonance in Laramie seeks your vote in the annual Netroots Nation scholarship competition sponsored by Democracy for America. I nominated Meg and am proud as punch of my fave blogger. She's sixth in the standings now and rising fast. Cast your vote at http://democracyforamerica.com/netroots_nation_scholarships/1681-meg-lanker-cognitive-dissonance

Job fair for veterans March 27 in Casper

From Wyofile:

The Wyoming Department of Workforce Services will host a veterans job fair in Casper on Tuesday, March 27, from 9 a.m. to noon at the McMurry Training Center, 2220 N. Bryan Stock Trail.

Employers in the fields of construction, energy, manufacturing and government are scheduled to participate. There is no fee to attend the job fair. Job seekers are encouraged to bring resumes and dress for potential interviews.

“I strongly encourage veterans seeking employment opportunities to take advantage of this job fair which has had a great turn out in previous years. We are expecting that tradition to continue this year,” said Joan Evans, director of the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services.

Biased statements (and proposed legislation) don't just scare away gay people -- they scare away everyone

Some Republican Legislators talk up economic development but also sponsor and support anti-gay legislation. They may want to rethink that strategy.

Interesting article by Melissa Maynard in stateline.org about the crucial role that businesses play when it comes to the gay marriage debate.

Washington state recently passed a gay marriage bill that had support of the governor, key Republican legislators and high-profile businesses such as Microsoft, Boeing and Nike. Bill sponsor Sen. Ed Murray, a Democrats, said this is "how we got moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats to vote for this."

LGBT activists have been successfully lining up business support for years. It's paid off in Washington, Maryland and New York. There's now a looming battle over the issue in North Carolina. On May 8, voters will decide whether to further codify the state's gay marriage ban by putting it in the state constitution.

These are all big states with a strong corporate presence. These businesses want to attract the young workforce and "fear being left behind in places seen as backward by gay workers and other young employees who feel strongly about the issue."

While Wyoming is not exactly a hipster destination (with the possible exception of Jackson), it runs a risk that its biased attitudes may hinder attempts to land new businesses. None of us lives in a vacuum. Outrageous statements travel like wildfire in our social media age.

Stephen Dull V.P. with North Carolina-based VF Corp. (a Fortune 500 company) put it this way: "If you're sending a signal to the world that you're biased, it just doesn't scare away gay people. It scares away everyone."

Laramie County Democrats hold convention on April 14 at LCCC

The Laramie County Democratic Party wil hold its county convention on Saturday, April 14.

The event beguins at 11 a.m., with registration at 9:30 a.m., at the Training Center, Laramie County Community College, Cheyenne.

On April 14, Dems will vote for their preffered presidential candidate and elect delegates to the state convention. The list of candidates is a lot shorter than the one in 2008.

Anyone registered as a Democrat no later than March 30 is eligible to vote at the convention and to seek election as a delegate to the state convention.

REMINDER: Open Mic Night March 28

Laramie County Community College students Annie Shay (music) and Mikey Hernandez (theatre) have put together this open mic night March 28, 6-8:50 p.m., at the Laramie County Public Library in Cheyenne. Bring your poetry and and prose and scripts and music to the library for a fine time.

Wyoming DemoCatz take a page from Woody Guthrie's songbook

Wyoming DemoCatz -- "Party Brave" by Alan O'Hashi. Filmed at the Historic Atlas Theatre in downtown Cheyenne. See if you can spy some familiar faces.

Grassroots Coalition holds casino night and costume party fund-raiser March 24

Don't forget - This Saturday, March 24, is the Mardi Gras Casino Night & Costume Party! 

Where: In Cheyenne at Suite 1901, 1901 Central Avenue 

When: 7:30-11:30 p.m.

The cost is $20.00 per person, which includes hors d'ouvres and $20,000 in 
play money. Bring a friend and get an extra $10,000 in play money to enjoy the casino 
games. 

This is a big fund-raiser, so come out and support your Laramie County Democratic Grassroots Coalition!

Occupy Jackson Hole addresses the Teton County Democrats

Small business owner, veteran and Occupy Jackson Hole activist Pete Muldoon gave a speech recently to the Teton County Democrats. It eloquently sums up the motives and beliefs of many of us in the Occupy movement. I was tempted to print the entire speech or provide excerpts, but it's best to read it all in context on the Occupy Jackson Hole blog.

Check out Nancy Sindelar's e-newsletter for progressive happenings around Wyoming

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On a South Dakota St. Patrick's Day, I toast Sen. George McGovern and his populist legacy

Book jacket from the shelves of the
bookstore at the McGovern Center
at Dakota Wesleyan University.

When in South Dakota last weekend, I kept thinking of Sen. George McGovern.

Bomber pilot, U.S. Senator, anti-war presidential candidate, international champion of hunger relief, writer, friend of the working man -- Sen. McGovern has led a long, rich life (he'll be 90 this year) and remains one of my heroes.

I looked out on that yawning open pit mine in Lead and thought about McGovern's book on the West's coalfield wars, the era that gave us the Ludlow Massacre and strong labor unions. It's called "The Great Coalfield War" and represents McGovern's commitment to labor unions. McGovern was born in Avon and grew up in Mitchell where his father was a conservative Methodist minister (and a staunch Republican). He grew up with farmers and small town people and reflected their Prairie Populist values, honed during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. His World War II experience allowed him to look at the Vietnam War through a warrior's eyes and he didn't like what he saw. Nixon clobbered him in the 1972 election. I'm proud to say that I cast my first vote for president for McGovern. I lived in Massachusetts at the time, the only state (along with D.C.) that went McGovern's way. Boston is a long way from the West's wide-open spaces where I now make my home. But I still remember that day almost 40 years ago. The loss was tough but it felt good to be 21 and voting for someone you really believed in.

South Dakota is a bigger and more complicated place these days. I don't pretend to know the details, but Prairie Populism has turned to Tea Party Populism and the results aren't pretty. Still, there's a feistiness behind the Tea Party that one can see in the small towns that gave birth to McGovern and his family and his politics.

Before we leave South Dakota, I have a few things to say about Rapid City. We spent a couple days wandering around and I liked what I saw. The downtown is vital and filled with cool shops. On each corner is a sculpture of a president. That reflects its "City of Presidents" motto taken from nearby Mount Rushmore, the granite mountain that looks down on Rapid City. Funny to think that favorite son McGovern could have been one of the corner statues. Nixon is there instead. Someday, a statue to our first black president will rise from a corner.

Rapid City has the great Firehouse Brewery, home to the Smoke Jumper Stout that I quaffed on St. Patrick's Day. It's housed in what once was the city's main fire house. The food's good, too, and it boasts its own theatre for plays, comedians and musicians. When we were at the mall on Friday, we came upon the Black Hills Community Theatre. When the 43-year-old theatre company lost its old home, it found a new spot at the mall next to J.C. Penney and Radio Shack. The evening we were there, patrons were pouring in to see the classic "Our Town." The Firehouse Theatre's next play is "39 Steps" which, coincidentally, is the show that opens this weekend at Cheyenne's Historic Atlas Theatre. The Dahl Arts Center downtown offers a full slate or art shows and classes.I didn't get to it, but I hear that the South Dakota School of Mines has a nifty art gallery.

We spent Saturday at the St. Patrick's Day parade downtown, and then drove off to Mount Rushmore. You can see a long way from up there, all the way to the Dakota prairie, all the way back to McGovern's roots.

That night, over corned beef and cabbage at the Firehouse, I toasted Sen. McGovern. Here's to you -- one of the good ones. Your like may never be seen again.

Demographic shifts spell doom for GOP, but not in Wyoming

Why are these aging white guys laughing?

This comes from Reader Supported News:

Pew Research Center Director Andrew Kohut had this to say following the release of a survey last Wednesday that showed support for the GOP tanking among college-educated, young and non-white voters:

"The Republicans really are the party of white people, and especially older white people," Kohut told reporters as the poll was released. "They've done nothing in this campaign to make themselves be more favorably viewed" among other parts of the electorate.

Republican strategists such as Karl Rove keep arguing that the Republican Party needs to find ways to reach out to other demographic groups, particularly Latinos.

The example of what could happen if the party does not do so is California, where the GOP became alienated from Latinos just as their voting percentage began to rise rapidly. Over the last five election cycles, California has moved from being a swing state to being one of the most solidly Democratic states in the country.

Republicans don't face that sort of dire situation nationwide, in part because the nation's demographics differ from California's. Whites without a college degree form a much larger percentage of the voting population nationwide, and that group has become a bastion for the Republicans. But as the country becomes less white and more college-educated, the picture is changing. And the numbers in the Pew survey provide some bad omens for the GOP. 

Latinos, for example, view the Republican Party unfavorably by a 2-1 margin (30% favorable, 60% unfavorable). By contrast, Latinos view the Democrats favorably, 56%-31%. The picture among Americans under 30 is almost as negative, with 34% viewing the GOP favorably, while 53% have an unfavorable view. Their view of Democrats is almost the exact opposite, 54% have a positive view, and 35% negative. 

Among those with a college degree or more, only 31% said they had a favorable view of the Republicans, while 66% were unfavorable. That group, which was a key to Barack Obama's victory in 2008, views Democrats favorably by 55%-42%. 

No chance any time soon that Wyoming will waver from its Republican voting patterns. The state is 91 percent white and is aging rapidly. Until serious cohort replacement takes place, it's the Democrats who are doomed in The Equality State.

Smoke and Black Hawks and history in the air over Mount Rushmore

We cruised up to Mount Rushmore National Memorial yesterday afternoon. It's a 27-mile drive from Rapid City past a weird assortment of tourist attractions -- sprawling waterslide parks, Bear Country USA, Reptile Gardens ("See Maniac, America's Giant Crocodile"), Old MacDonald's Farm petting zoo ("Pig races!"), Black Hills Maze, Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns, etc. Most are closed for the season. A few are closed for good.

Anyway, we got to Mount Rushmore. I've been there but my wife Chris has not. I took the kids there 13 years ago when my son was at Boy Scout summer camp near Custer. It's an impressive place. It took 14 years and 400 workers and a million dollars and tons of dynamite to carve the faces of four presidents into Harney Peak Granite. Why bother, you might ask. But therein lies the tale. Local promoters thought it would be a great celebration of American freedom and a terrific tourist attraction. They were right about the latter. The former is still being debated, which seems fitting. The ranger at the visitor center said there was a recent History Channel documentary that called Mt. Rushmore a "testimonial to white privilege." Or maybe that was "testament to white privilege." He seemed upset by the idea. But you have to admit that those are some big white faces up there on a mountain that is still claimed by High Plains Indian tribes. I'm not privy to the current state of white-Indian relations regarding Paha Sapa. But it's always been testy, not to mention bloody.

We took many photos. We walked the Presidential Trail. A beautiful day in the Black Hills. As we made our way from one interpretive placard to another, we heard the sounds of a helicopter. Looked up to see a Black Hawk hovering nearby. We wondered if it was some sort of spring weekend military demonstration. Or maybe a visit by a V.I.P.? A president, perhaps? But we would have heard about that.  

The Black Hawk dipped behind the trees, hovered, and the buzzed off. We forgot about it until we got back to our car in the parking lot and saw a plume of smoke on a nearby ridge. Uh oh. The Rapid City Journal's cover story Saturday morning talked about the extreme fire danger caused by unseasonably warm temps and high winds. On our return to Rapid City, we passed fleets of police cars and firefighting trucks blocking a side road. Smoke was in the air. So was a Black Hawk.

Good news. The authorities jumped on the fire and put it out quickly. The cause appears to be target shooters, as shotgun shells littered the charred ground and targets were affixed to surrounding rocks. Not sure what to say about that. There are many things one can do safely in a tinder-dry forest. Discharging firearms is not one of them. 

St. Patrick's Day -- a look back

On the road to the Black Hills this St. Patrick's Day. Too preoccupied with the upcoming St. Patrick's Day Pub Crawl in Deadwood to write anything original. So I'll leave my readers with this St. Patrick's Day column from 2011. It covers a lot of Irish genealogical history: Potato Famine, Irish Diaspora, excessive drinking, superiority of Irish literature, Catholicism, etc. Read it here.

See it now -- Wyoming Video Contest

Big Horn Samurai Sinema's home-grown filmmaking talent on display in Wyoming Video Contest. Scary, too. Music by Ten Sleep's Jalan "Trailer Park Fire" Crossland.

Felicia Follum's "Make it Plain" exhibit to be held in conjunction with the Shepard Symposium at UW

Artist and fellow progressive blogger Felicia Follum (see blogroll on right sidebar) will be featured in an exhibition "Make it Plain," March 19-April 2 in Gallery 234, room 004 in the lower level of the UW Union. A reception for the exhibit is scheduled for Wednesday, March 28, from 6-8 p.m. Admission to both events is free and open to the public. It’s an African-American view of history and religion, as well as an exploration of the ways we persecute members of society today. This exhibit is being shown in conjunction with the Shepard Symposium for Social Justice , March 28-31.

Classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller -- with a twist -- opens March 23 at the Atlas Theatre

Tickets are on sale now for the CLTP production of The 39 Steps. Directed by Steve Lien.

Take a classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller, stir in a healthy dose of spy novel noir and a heaping dash of Monty Python hilarity and you might start to understand this intriguing, riotous and fast-paced comedy. A cast of 4 plays more than 150 characters in this full-throttle tale of an ordinary man on an extraordinary adventure to save all of Britain from a shadowy cadre of devious spies.

Performances are March 23-April 1 at the Historic Atlas Theatre. Special $10 ticket performance on Thursday, March 29, 7:30 p.m. 

Contact 307-638-6543 or online at www.cheyennelittletheatre.org

Soldier-poet Brian Turner will talk about his work at Equality State Book Festival Sept. 14-15 in Casper

Brian Turner

Here's some exciting news. The Wyoming Arts Council announced yesterday that soldier-poet Brian Turner will serve as judge for its creative writing fellowships in poetry. Turner will travel to Casper Sept. 14-15 for the Equality State Book festival to read from his work with the three poetry fellowship winners. He also will participate on a panel with fellow Iraq War vet Luis Carlos Montalvan. He's a U.S. Army Iraq War veteran and author of "Until Tuesday: The Story of a Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him." Here's some info on Turner and his books:

He is a soldier-poet who is the author of two poetry collections, Phantom Noise (2010) and Here, Bullet (2005) which won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award, the New York Times “Editor's Choice” selection, the 2006 Pen Center USA "Best in the West" award, and the 2007 Poets Prize, among others. Turner served seven years in the U.S. Army, including one year as an infantry team leader in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. Prior to that, he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999-2000 with the 10th Mountain Division. Turner's poetry has been published in Poetry Daily, The Georgia Review, and other journals, and in the Voices in Wartime Anthology published in conjunction with the feature-length documentary film of the same name. Turner was also featured in Operation Homecoming, a unique documentary that explores the firsthand accounts of American servicemen and women through their own words. He earned an MFA from the University of Oregon and has lived abroad in South Korea. In 2009, Turner was selected as one of 50 United States Artists Fellows.
At the Casper College Literary Conference Sept. 14-15, 2012, Brian Turner will read from his work together with the fellowship winners. He also will participate on a panel about soldier-writers.
Here’s what critics had to say about Here, Bullet: 

 "In sharp, straightforward, yet lyrical language, Turner exposes the many costs of war.” — Library Journal 

“The day of the first moonwalk, my father's college literature professor told his class, ‘Someday they'll send a poet, and we'll find out what it's really like.’ Turner has sent back a dispatch from a place arguably more incomprehensible than the moon—the war in Iraq—and deserves our thanks...” — New York Times Book Review

Printed fellowship applications will be available next week on the WAC blog and web site.

The postmark deadline is June 8, 2012.For more information, contact Michael Shay, 307-777-5234 or mike.shay@wyo.gov, or visit the WAC web site at www.wyomingartscouncil.org.