ALEC influence in Colorado politics tracked by ProgressNow

ProgressNow's blog tracks ALEC influence in Colorado politics. Go to http://progressnowcolorado.org/blog/

Rodger McDaniel: ALEC casts a spell over Wyoming state legislators

Rodger McDaniel writes today about what we've known for awhile -- "ALEC owns your state legislators." Read all about the American Legislative Exchange Council's undue influence on Wyoming lawmaking in Rodger's weekly Wyoming Tribune-Eagle column (if you get the paper), or on his Blowing in the Wyoming Wind blog. Here's a good line:

In a technical sense, ALEC doesn't lobby "in any state" as it claims [on its web site]. It leaves that to legislators who fall under its spell.

Get more details at ALEC Exposed

Forrest King holds art show and sale of his "The Pink Triangle" series to benefit Wyoming Equality

Available for the first time -- the original oil paintings from Forrest King's line, “The Pink Triangle.” Art show and sale at the Rotten Apple Ink, 218 W. 17th St., Cheyenne, on Friday, May 11, 6:30-9 p.m. Complimentary wine and refreshments. Special signed prints will be for sale too, plus other artwork by Forrest King. There will be lots of fine art prints for sale and auction. 100% of the proceeds from prints – and 50% of original arts sales -- go to Wyoming Equality! Wine, food, magic by Aiden Sinclair. Artwork: 50x70-inch woven blanket.

Obama volunteer meet-up set for Saturday at the Laramie County Public Library

Pres. Barack Obama speaks to an SRO crowd right down the road at CU-Boulder earlier this week.

From Robert Vernon-Kubichek, director of the Obama campaign in Wyoming:

Volunteers here in Wyoming come from all backgrounds, but they all have a couple things in common: a personal stake in this election and a passion for making sure President Obama and other Democrats win this November.  

Our volunteers here in Cheyenne are buzzing with energy -- so you should come out and get to know everyone at our volunteer meeting this Saturday.

We'll talk about how we're organizing in our neighborhood and how you can get involved.  

Can you make it? Here are the details:  

What: Cheyenne volunteer meeting

Where: Laramie County Library, Sunflower Room 2200 Pioneer Avenue Cheyenne, WY 82001

When: Saturday, April 28th 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

FMI: Go here

BeatGrass plays at the Atlas April 28

http://facebook.com/beatgrassband

"Bully" screens at Cheyenne International Film Festival on May 19

Cheyenne International Film Festival presents:

“Bully” (2011 TRT: 99 min.)

Saturday, May 19, 1-3 p.m., Lincoln Theatre

Call2ACTion with the Matthew Shepard Foundation
Panel discussion and audience talk-back follows film

Directed by Lee Hirsch (USA)
This year, over 13 million American kids will be bullied at school, online, on the bus, at home, through their cell phones and on the streets of their towns, making it the most common form of violence young people in this country experience. BULLY is the first feature documentary film to show how we've all been affected by bullying, whether we've been victims, perpetrators or stood silent witness. The world we inhabit as adults begins on the playground.

BULLY opens on the first day of school. For the more than 13 million kids who'll be bullied this year in the United States, it's a day filled with more anxiety and foreboding than excitement. As the sun rises and school busses across the country overflow with backpacks, brass instruments and the rambunctious sounds of raging hormones, this is a ride into the unknown.

For a lot of kids, the only thing that's certain is that this year, like every other, bullying will be a big part of whatever meets them at their school's front doors. Every school in the U.S. is grappling with bullying-each day more than 160,000 kids across the country are absent because they're afraid of being bullied-but for many districts it's just one more problem that gets swept under the rug. BULLY is a character-driven film. At its heart are those with the most at stake and whose stories each represent a different facet of this crisis.

Preceded by:

“Art of Misery” (2011 TRT: 4:00)
Directed by Liz Osban (Cheyenne, Wyoming)
Time is fleeting, life is changing and she's absolutely miserable. All in a day’s work of teenage misery.
Tickets - http://ciff2012program3.eventbrite.com/

Joe Minicozzi returns to Wyoming to talk about "The Smart Math of Mixed Use Development" in Casper

Urban planner Joe Minicozzi will talk about "The Smart Math of Mixed Use Development" on Thursday, April 26, at the Casper City Council Chambers at 6:30 p.m. in City Hall, 200 N. David St. Casper's Downtown Development Authority is co-sponsoring the program. It will compare the value of new development outside of downtown with redevelopment within the city core. Minicozzi did similar studies for Cheyenne and Laramie, as well as Fort Collins, Colo. Read more about it in today's Casper Star-Tribune. Arts and culture usually plays a major role in Minicozzi's studies. It did during an excellent presentation he made in Cheyenne in December. He does his homework -- and he's funny, too. Read my post about it here.

Want adsurdist humor in your novels? Think Tim, not Tom

Great quote from a 2011 Wyofile article on Wyoming novelist Tim Sandlin: “When you think American master of absurdist humor with acute observations about contemporary society, characters to fall in love with, and lines you’ll be quoting to your friend, the first name to spring to mind should be ‘Tim’ (Sandlin), not ‘Tom’ (Robbins),” said Sarah Bird, Austin, Texas, novelist and a friend of Sandlin’s.

Sioux City Journal: It takes a community to stop bullying

Sioux City (IA) Journal devotes Sunday front page to anti-bullying campaign. Neat graphic, gutsy move. A new resource is available locally for parents whose children have been the target of bullying in the Laramie County No. 1 School District. Contact UPLIFT for its bullying ombudsman program at 307-778-8686 or 1-888-875-4383.  

LCCC hosts National Poetry Month Open Mic on April 26

National Poetry Month OPEN MIC at LCCC Thursday, April 26. 1-2:45 p.m. in the student lounge. FREE and OPEN to students, community members and faculty & staff. This is a celebration of language, so all performances welcome (singer-songwriters, actors/scenes from plays, poets, fiction and nonfiction writers, readers of classic work by famous authors, etc.). Refreshments provided and drawings for cool door prizes! Even if you can't make it, please spread the word!

Slow start to gardening during a year when the weather warmed too fast

Got tomato seedlings?

Cheyenne blogger Karen Cotton tipped me off to today's "Gardening on the Cheap: 10 Steps to Becoming a Cheerful Cheapskate in the Garden" presentation by Denver's Jodi Torpey at the library. It was sponsored by Laramie County Master Gardeners and the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens. Jodi had many good tips for us frugal gardeners, and I plan to take her up on most of them. I am slow getting started on my veggies this year. I am slow and the weather is warming fast -- not a great combination. I've been posting for the past 4-5 years about my return to vegetable gardening after a long hiatus. First it was all about having a Victory Garden ("Eat a tomato for peace, ya'll!") and then it growing your own and being a locavore and sustainability and all that jazz. But gardening is a struggle around here. It's 6,200 feet and arid and possesses a very short growing season. We have been reclassified from Zone 4 to Zone 5, but a tad more warmth every summer won't make a big difference. It may 50 years from now, but I'll be long gone by then (to Florida).

So I'll persevere with herbs and lettuce and tomatoes and squash and beans, etc.

Meanwhile, I ran into Lindi Kirkbride at the gardening talk and her Cheyenne Alliance Church has started a Seed & Feed Community Garden. Church members and residents of a nearby housing complex are gobbling up the plots. Some of the church's teens will be raising veggies for local shelters and the food bank. Anyway, Lindi says that there are five plots left to interested parties. Fee for each raised bed is $20 per year and water is provided. This is good news because both of the community gardens in Lions Park are booked solid and have waiting lists. If you're interested, e-mail seed&feed@gmail.com.

Bad company: Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan and Cynthia Lummis

What do Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan and Cynthia Lummis all have in common? A lot, as it turns out. Read Rodger McDaniel's new blog post at http://blowinginthewyomingwind.blogspot.com/2012/04/what-do-ayn-rand-paul-ryan-and-cynthia.html

Bid on work by local artists during May at the Cheyenne Family YMCA silent auction

Works by local artists Marlin Glasner, Tom Shaffer, Aaron Curry, Win Ratz, Joyce & Casey Stone will be up for bids at a silent auction held during May by the Cheyenne Family YMCA. The artwork may be viewed beginning May 1 in the swimming pool lobby. Proceeds go to the YMCA's Community Support Campaign. Hours 5 a.m.-9 p.m., M-F; Saturday 7 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sunday noon-4 p.m. FMI: Chris Shay at 307-634-9622.

Check out the new Cheyenne Botanic Gardens web site -- and the proposed new building

Architect's rendering of the proposed Cheyenne Botanic Gardens building

The Cheyenne Botanic Gardens has a new web site. I don't know how new it is because this is my first check-in of the growing season. But it looks fantastic. It's a product of Warehouse Twenty One, the very fine local "full-service marketing firm" that also is working with us at the Wyoming Arts Council. We, too, will soon have a new web site, logo, social media strategy, etc., from WH21. Its staff is creative and energetic and a pleasure to work with.

The Cheyenne Botanic Gardens has grown dramatically during my two decades in Cheyenne. It recently added the Paul Smith Children's Village and its new facility will be on the next sixth penny tax ballot. The renovation/expansion cost is $14 million, with an additional $2 million for operations maintenance. And, yes, I'm voting for it. The only time I've voted against a city building project was the bloated $55 million rec center project of a couple years ago. The 2012 ballot has another proposal for a rec center that makes more sense.

Why is it important to have a new CBG building? On the aesthetic side -- the current building is way too small and cramped. Not enough space to grow seedlings for the gardens and to educate the public about our High Plains oasis. More room is needed to showcase those plants and flowers that grow in more tropical climes.

People have never been more interested in sustainable living. Everyone is a gardener, it seems, and no better place to feed the frenzy than the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens. There are two community garden plots adjacent to the CBG grounds. People need guidance on how to coax their own veggies from this rocky, high altitude soil. I've been fighting the good fight for years, folks -- it ain't easy.

My wife Chris and I love the summer evening concerts and plays on the CBG grounds. A larger facility will enable Director Shane Smith and staff to program more year-round events. Our community is growing and so is the demand for quality events.   

Finally, projects such as the new Botanic Gardens building show that Cheyenne is serious about being a great place to live. Our public library has been voted the best in the U.S. We boast one of the region's best greenway systems. The Historic Depot Plaza downtown is a gem, although the rest of downtown still needs a lot of work. But things are looking up with the Hynds Building project and the Dinneen complex which will hold the first 17th Street Art Fair in its parking lot this summer.

To sum it up -- if you believe in a vital Cheyenne, you need to vote yes on the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens.

LCCC Celtic Ensemble debuts April 22 with concert at St. Mark's in Cheyenne

Laramie's Meg Lanker-Simons taking Cognitive Dissonance to Netroots Nation 12

Meg Lanker-Simons of Laramie (a.k.a. Cognitive Dissonance) was one of the top three vote-getters in round two of the Netroots Nation 12 scholarship contest. That means she gets her registration and lodging paid to attend the largest annual gathering of progressive bloggers June 7-10 in Providence, R.I. Interesting to note that Meg was the only Wyoming blogger in the sweepstakes. She undoubtedly will be telling us the story this Friday night on her KOCA-FM radio show and on her blog at http://cognitivedissonance.tumblr.com/

Wyoming Democratic Party moves headquarters back to Cheyenne

This news was announced over the weekend at the county caucuses. Here's coverage from today's Casper Star-Tribune:

After spending more than a decade in Casper, the Wyoming Democratic Party is moving its headquarters back to Cheyenne, a party spokesman said Tuesday. 

As of May 1, the state Democrats will set up shop in a converted house at 1909 Warren Ave., according to spokesman Brodie Farquhar. 

The Democrats have had their headquarters in downtown Casper since 2000. Farquhar said several Democratic legislators in southeast Wyoming – about the only area of the state that still has Democratic lawmakers – pushed for the move to Cheyenne so they could have access to the party office and so party staffers could help them during the legislative session.

Wyoming Democratic Party hires Brodie Farquhar as new communications director

This is good news:

The Wyoming Democratic Party has hired Brodie Farquhar as its new communications director.

Farquhar came to Wyoming in 2000 and has written extensively for state and regional media.

Farquhar has written for the Casper Star Tribune as a staff writer and as a freelancer, covering natural resources, politics, education, the state legislature and more. He served two years as managing editor for the Wyoming Business Report, building a cadre of freelance writers around the state. He has also written extensively for New West, High Country News, Yellowstone Journal, Billings Gazette and Wyofile.com, which he co-founded.  

Farquhar has also served public relation stints for the Colorado School of Mines, Crested Butte Mountain Resort and Michigan chapter of The Nature Conservancy. “I know how to work with reporters, from small-town weeklies to major dailies and networks,” he said. Guiding reporters around the West’s energy development sites was a particularly valuable experience when Farquhar worked with the Energy & Minerals Field Institute at Mines.

He has a bachelor's degree in journalism and a master's in natural resource policy from the University of Michigan, where he was a Scripps Fellow for Environmental Journalism.

Farquhar said he's always striven to maintain journalistic objectivity, but is looking forward to an opportunity to be an advocate for the Democratic Party and progressive values. "I believe most people have beliefs and values firmly rooted in fairness, common sense and the progressive tradition, contrary to the drumbeat of right-wing talk radio. I want to help Wyoming citizens look beyond the surface, to the real core and context of today's issues," said Farquhar.

Farquhar has covered every conceivable beat in his journalism career, but has developed expertise in covering such natural resource issues as energy development, western water rights, agriculture, wildlife, the Endangered Species Act, snowmobile use in Yellowstone, wolf and grizzly bear recovery plans. In his coverage of the 2006 Wyoming legislative session, Farquhar first wrote about the American Legislative Exchange Council, which writes corporation-friendly legislation, and more recently, voter ID and “shoot to kill” bills.

Farquhar and wife Sharon have three children and one grand-daughter, as well as a mellow golden retriever and calico cat.

"Good Night, Ryan:" Yet another Iraq veteran dies by his own hand

The film that accompanies Nicholas D. Kristof's New York Times story makes me incredibly sad -- and pisses me off. Why isn't more being done to take care of these young people that we send to war?

THERE’S a window into a tragedy within the American military: For every soldier killed on the battlefield this year, about 25 veterans are dying by their own hands.  

An American soldier dies every day and a half, on average, in Iraq or Afghanistan. Veterans kill themselves at a rate of one every 80 minutes. More than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year — more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since those wars began.

Investigative reporter Ari Berman to speak at Wyoming Democratic Party state convention May 26

Delegates, alternates and interested parties are invited to hear Ari Berman speak at the Wyoming Democratic Party’s state convention luncheon on Saturday, May 26, noon-1:30 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Laramie. Tickets are $25.

Berman is a contributing writer for The Nation magazine and an Investigative Journalism Fellow at The Nation Institute. He has written extensively about American politics, foreign policy and the intersection of money and politics. His stories have also appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone and The Guardian, and he is a frequent guest and political commentator on MSNBC, C-Span and NPR. His first book, Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics, was published in October 2010 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. He graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University with a degree in journalism and political science.

The registration deadline for guaranteed event seating is midnight on Thursday, May 10, 2012. Register at http://www.wyomingdemocrats.com/ht/d/RegisterForConvention/i/1374582