Cheyenne joins Main Street development program

Cheyenne took a giant step into the future this week as it was accepted as the latest city in the Wyoming Main Street development program. If it's one thing the city needs, it's downtown development. It's been pursuing it in fits and starts. As part of Main Street, Cheyenne will be eligible for grants and technical assistance from all the good people involved in the program in Sheridan and Rawlins and Laramie and Dubois, etc. Laramie has made some amazing strides in developing its downtown.

Read more here.

Poet Mark Nowak wants to hear your stories about "Working in Wyoming"

Poet and labor activist Mark Nowak is coming to Wyoming and wants to hear your stories about work. This comes from the "Working in Wyoming" Facebook page:

Have an uncle or a sister or a cousin or a friend or a neighbor who works in Wyoming and always tells great stories about their job? Invite them -- no, BRING them -- to one of our "Working in Wyoming" workshops in February. We want all the great Wyoming storytellers to tell us what it means to work in Wyoming. 

The writing workshops will be held in the conference room in the Laramie Plains Civic Center in Laramie. We hope to see you there!

Wednesday, February 20th from 6-7:30 PMSaturday, February 23rd from 2-3:30 PMWednesday, February 27th from 6-7:30 PM

Jack Pugh takes on the intolerance of Rep. Lynn Hutchings in latest WTE column

Wyoming boasts a number of thoughtful and erudite commentators on the Liberal side. You can find some of the on my right sidebar under WY Progressives: Rodger McDaniel, Jeran Artery and Meg Lanker-Simons. There are others, too. Jack Pugh writes and occasional column for our local paper, the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. He wrote a terrific op-ed in yesterday's WTE focused on the recent legislative debates over a proposed domestic partnerships bill. Since the WTE has a very hinky and incomplete web site, Rodger reprinted the column on Facebook. Here's Jack's column:

Martin Luther King, Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Charles K. Steele founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957. It became the driving force in the civil rights movement. Its principal tactic was non-violent civil disobedience. “We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline”, said Dr. King.

I thought of that when I read Laramie County Republican Representative Lynn Hutchings’ crude, brutish, and ignorant comments about homosexuals in her testimony against the Domestic Partnership bill. 

Rep. Hutchings is an African-American. It is always breathtaking to encounter raw, naked bigotry from someone whose race has endured so much of it. 

Describing homosexuals as dirty, diseased and dangerous, Rep. Hutchings told the committee that sexuality has no genetic basis, and that sexual orientation is a choice that can be changed “through the help of others”. 

She went on to express offense at comparing the struggle for full citizenship rights for homosexuals to the black struggle for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s. 

I sent Rep. Hutchings an email asking her some questions about her comments. I didn’t expect an answer, and didn’t get one. 

I asked for her source for the statement “science does not have evidence of a genetic involvement in sexuality”. 

I asked her about her understanding of sexuality as it relates to gender. 

I asked her if her homophobia was religion based. 

I asked her what her experience in civil rights activism was.

And I asked her this: were the principles and philosophy that fueled the civil rights movement limited to the movement or were they universal in scope? 

When ten percent of a species shows a particular trait, as humans do with homosexuality, biologists want to know why. In 1993 Dean Hamer and Simon LeVay published scientific papers in which they offered evidence of a genetic trigger that they said was a biological basis for homosexuality. Other scientists over the next few years supported their findings. Still others have challenged them. 

Debate among biologists and geneticists about the biological origins of homosexuality continues and the question is not scientifically settled. 

Many, if not most, psychologists and psychiatrists assume that homosexuality has a biological basis, and is not a choice based on environment or nurture. Testimony from people subjected to the “help of others” cited by Rep. Hutchings has revealed an ugly form of psychological brutality, and has led to these practices being outlawed in California. 

It was the denial of the civil rights comparison that interested me most. 

Rep. Hutchings wasn’t around when the civil rights movement started and she was a little child when the great events of the movement unfolded. She is one of those lucky ones who never had to run the personal risk of fighting for her rights. Others did that for her. 

That good fortune carries with it a responsibility, however, and that is to understand the nature of the freedom that was fought for, to forever nurture it, and to include everyone in its embrace. 

When Rep. Hutchings denies full citizenship rights to homosexuals she betrays the sacrifices of those who preached and marched and were beaten and sometimes killed in the name of those rights. 

She betrays the courage of the four college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, whose lonely sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter became a national symbol of injustice. 

She betrays the courage and the memory of the Freedom Riders, who endured insult and beatings as they rode their buses across the South to witness against racism. 

She betrays the memory of the civil rights workers, black and white, murdered and buried in an earthen dam in Mississippi because they were registering blacks to vote. 

She betrays the sacrifice of James Reeb of Casper, Wyoming, a Unitarian minister serving in Boston, who was beaten to death with steel pipes by racist thugs at the march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama.

She betrays the courage and conviction of all those, black and white, who linked arms and stood with each other as brothers and sisters and demanded justice from their country. 

And she betrays Martin Luther King’s vision that all of us, no matter who we are, will know the dignity of the Free. That is what the civil rights movement was about for those of us who joined it, and it is what the movement for civil rights for our homosexual brothers and sisters is about. 

Rep. Hutchings and others like her have won the day for now. But they are on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of the future and the wrong side of a vast moral question.

Just as racial discrimination was beaten, so this discrimination shall be beaten. The wall will be taken down, one brick at a time if necessary, but it will come down.

Henry Real Bird will conduct "Shadow of Home" writing workshop March 3 at the Laramie County Public Library

In conjunction with Wyoming's Poetry Out Loud state competition, guest judge and Native-American poet Henry Real Bird will be facilitating a public workshop on Sunday, March 3, at the Laramie County Library, from 1:30 to 4:00 p.m., in the Cottonwood Room on the main floor.

Henry's theme for the workshop, "Shadow of Home" will "take participants beyond reflection and past the stars, sending our thoughts in search of rhyme, exploring realms of dreaming in sound and tunes of a life." 

This workshop is free and open to the public.

Rep. Hans Hunt: Wyoming, love it or leave it

This comes from the Rev. Audette Fulbright's Facebook page. She's a minister in Cheyenne:

I wrote to my Representatives here in Wyoming about a concern I had with expanding carry laws in schools and about fracking. Here is the response I got from Rep. Hans Hunt: 

Rev. Fulbright:

I’ll be blunt. If you don’t like the political atmosphere of Wyoming, then by all means, leave. We, who have been here a very long time (I am proudly 4th generation) are quite proud of our independent heritage. I don’t expect a “mass exodus” from our state just because we’re standing up for our rights. As to your comments on fracking, I would point out that you’re basing your statement on “dangers” that have not been scientifically founded or proved as of yet.

It offends me to no end when liberal out-of-staters such as yourself move into Wyoming, trying to get away from where they came from, and then pompously demand that Wyoming conform to their way of thinking. We are, and will continue to be, a state which stands a head above the rest in terms of economic security. Our ability to do that is, in large part, to our “live and let live” mentality when it comes to allowing economic development, and limiting government oversight. 

So, to conclude, if you’re so worried about what our legislature is working on, then go back home.

Sincerely,

Hans Hunt
Representative Hans Hunt, House District 02

Republican Rep. Hunt ran unopposed in the general election. A good illustration of the dangers of a one-party state. 

"Prison," the horror film that almost destroyed the old Wyoming State Pen, gains cult status

My wife and I watched the recent "Ghost Adventures" episode set in the Wyoming Frontier Prison in Rawlins. Intimations of ghostly presences were everywhere, as always, but the most interesting part was the prison's history.

Zack and his G.A. crew aren't the only ones to film at the prison. Back in 1987, Renny Harlin ("Die Hard II," "Cliffhanger," "Deep Blue Sea") filmed a horror movie there. The film, "Prison," stars actor and poet Viggo Mortensen "("Lord of the Rings," "A History of Violence," Hidalgo")" and Lane Smith. Its recently gained status as a cult film and will be released Feb. 19 in a Blu-Ray disk from Scream Factory. The following info comes from Laramie Live:

Tina Hill, Historic Site Director for The Wyoming Frontier Prison, says that the production company made serious alterations to the historic site that still present problems to this day. One of which is a large hole that was made in the wall of the exercise yard. In the movie the hole was used to construct a second entrance for the prison, but after shooting wrapped the hole remained. 

“We still have the hole in the exercise yard. Which allows people to get in when they’re not supposed to be, and so there’s vandalism on our exercise wall,” Hill says. ”It’s a security issue. You can’t really get spray paint off of concrete. And being that we’re a historic site, we can’t paint over the graffiti because the walls weren’t painted. It would be inaccurate to paint them.”  

Hill also says that the historic site is currently repairing damages the production made to the prison’s A-Block walls. Plaster had been chipped off to expose the brick walls underneath to make the prison look older for the movie. Hill said that the plaster damage was being repaired at the time of the interview.  

Despite the damages, Hill says there’s no sour-grapes about the production of Prison coming through the site. ”Now, we’re pretty much happy that [the production] happened. We wish that the people who were in charge of the prison at the time would have taken a little bit better care, and maybe have not let the production do the damage that they did.” Hill goes on to say the historic prison now has measures in place to prevent further damage from film and television productions.

The "serious alternations" done to the prison caused locals to form a joint powers board that took over the facility and turned it into a museum. It now is on the National Registry of Historic Places. More than 15,000 visitors a year tour the place that's famous for its spooky Halloween tours.

See the "Prison" trailer at http://youtu.be/pYTHIs1c8uo. It's an action-packed flick, gory in spots, and  you can see how some damage might have been done.

Rep. Filer speaks out about HB79: "I believe that this legislation wages war on every employee in Wyoming"

The Wyoming Democratic Party's legislative update from yesterday contained more info about Rep. Tim Stubson's HB79. I wrote about this bill on Feb. 5 -- read the post here. This anti-worker bill passed the House and will be considered soon by the Senate. Here's more from the WDP's legislative update:

HB 79 Collection of Unpaid Wages: This is an example of legislation that is worded to imply the opposite of what the law would actually do. The bill amends Wyoming statute to exclude any accrued vacation wages from owed wages at termination if the employer states in writing that is their policy. Representative Lee Filer spoke out against this legislation stating "I believe this is legislation that wages war on every employee in Wyoming." It's currently on General File in the Senate. The Wyoming Democratic Party strongly opposes this bill. 

Flowers and glass art grow together at Cheyenne Botanic Gardens

US Bank Glass Art Celebration will be held at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens February 8-​​17. It’s free and open to the public thanks to main sponsor US Bank. Hours are Mon.-Fri., 8 a.m. – 5p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 10 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. Visit the tropical greenhouse while viewing the region’s largest Glass Art Show on display at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens Greenhouse. Glass art includes stained glass, glass beadwork, etched, melted and other glass art creations. Many pieces can be purchased.

Rep. Tim Stubson takes aim at state employee benefits, part two

HB79 looks like another anti-state-employee bill to me. It passed the House while budget talks were going on a topic that always gets the lion's share of attention. Let's hope our senators have more sense. Read about Tim Stubson's HB 79 here: http://www.wyomingbusinessreport.com/article.asp?id=64480. What's gotten into those Republicans from Natrona County? One hopes that Laramie County senators have more sense than to sign on to this one, thereby alienating a key constituency. Contact info for your Reps and Senators can be found at http://legisweb.state.wy.us

Rep. Sue Wallis's Food Freedom Act makes sense

Hummingbirdminds supports Rep. Sue Wallis's Food Freedom Act (from Wyoming Business Report):

This week, the Wyoming House of Representatives passed the Food Freedom Act.

The sponsor of that House Bill 108, Rep. Sue Wallis, a Republican from Recluse, said the legislation will open up local commerce and help small business. 

HB 108 would deregulate the sale of homemade foods at such things as farmers markets and in individual transactions between producers and consumers.

Wallis said if all 200,000 or so households in Wyoming spent just $20 a week on locally grown food, more than $200 million would be pumped into the Cowboy State economy. That money will turn over at least three or four times in the economies of cities, towns and counties, she said economic studies show.

Detroit's M.L. Liebler braves spring jackalope roundup for gig in Rock Springs

Detroit's M.L. Liebler

Wyoming's Jackalope

Our Detroit pal, M.L. Liebler, will be returning to Wyoming in March. His last stop in WYO was last June in Casper. In the spring of 2010, he served as one of the judges for the Wyoming Poetry Out Loud finals in Cheyenne. He was traveling with Peter Lewis whom some of you of a certain age will remember as one of the founding members of the psychedelic L.A. band Moby Grape. M.L. and Peter gave a concert at the Historic Atlas Theatre and also taught a songwriting workshop at the Laramie County Public Library. The workshop was especially memorable as it's the only time that I've actually written a song and then tried to sing it in front of an audience. No Grammy for me, I'm afraid.

Here's the info on M.L.'s visit:

On Friday, March 1, 7:00 p.m., spoken-word poet M. L. Liebler will perform with Grammy-winning Eminem producer and musician Steve King at Western Wyoming Rock Springs Community College in Rock Springs. Free & open to all. We've warned M.L. to watch out for the Jackalopes on the highways to the gig as it's roundup time. Contact Professor Rick Kempa at RKEMPA@wwcc.wy.edu or go to http://www.wwcc.cc.wy.us/

Go out right now and buy Cowboy Tough at your local bookseller

Listen up, people!

Joanne Kennedy, my friend and one-time colleague in the Cheyenne Area Writers Group, debuted her new novel today. It's entitled Cowboy Tough. On the cover is a hunky cowboy, and this blurb: "HOT! HOT! HOT!" So says New York Times bestselling author Carolyn Brown. If you don't believe me that Joanne is one hot writer, better believe Carolyn, who's the author of the upcoming Blue Ribbon Jalapeno Society Jubilee. According to the book jacket, everything is big in Cadillac, Texas, especially the jalapenos.

I've read a lot of Joanne's writing but I'm not so hot on cowboy romances. That may seem hard to believe but it's the truth. Here's what Night Owl Reviews had to say about her previous novel, Cowboy Crazy: "A fast-paced, delightful read that will leave readers longing for a cowboy of their own." Sigh!

Lest you doubt my veracity as a writer and reader, won't you trust my word as an arts administrator? How many Wyoming-based cowboy romances do you know that open with references to Picasso, Modigliani and Van Gogh?

There I've gone and ruined it for you...

"Ladies in Red" event Feb. 9 raises awareness for women's heart disease

The good people at the Cheyenne Regional Medical Center's Heart and Vascular Institute saved my life after a recent heart attack. Turns out that February is heart month and the American Heart Association is promoting women's heart health. Why? Heart disease is the number one killer of women in the U.S., with 500,000 dying every year. A number of my colleagues going through cardiac rehab with me are women who've had stents or bypasses. They are outnumbered by us hard-living men, guys who never gave up smoking or Big Macs or stress. But the women's heart disease stats are a revelation.

The 4th annual "Ladies in Red" seminar and fund-raiser will be held on Saturday, February 9, 9 a.m. to noon, in the Kiwanis Community House at Lions Park in Cheyenne. Nationally recognized speaker Donna Hartley will offer insight and humor to share what she’s learned from her own journey of surviving a plane crash, melanoma and open-heart surgery.

To register, call (307) 633-6050 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. $25 registration fee, includes brunch and giveaways. The completed form must be mailed to Cheyenne Regional Medical Center with payment. Or you can call (307) 633-6050.

High-speed rail map envisions a 22-minute trip from Cheyenne to downtown Denver

This was on Facebook today: New map: US High Speed Rail System. This map is inspired by ideas from various agencies and advocacy groups including Amtrak, The Transport Politic, Wikimedia Commons, Florida High Speed Rail, SkyscraperPage Forums, Southern High Speed Rail, Southeast High Speed Rail, Ohio Department of Transportation, California High Speed Rail Authority, Midwest High Speed Rail Association, US DOT Federal Railroad Administration, Texas High Speed Rail and Transportation Corp. Get PDFs and posters at https://sites.google.com/site/californiarailmap/us-high-speed-rail-system

New Greenpeace video about our Powder River Basin coal

New video about plans for our Powder River Basin Coal (includes model trains and special effects).

Groundhog may make appearance at Cheyenne Winter Farmers Market

The Cheyenne Winter Farmers Market is located inside the historic train depot the first Saturday of each month from November through April starting at 10 a.m. and ending at 2 p.m. Next winter farmers market is Saturday, Feb. 2 -- Groundhog Day.

All vendors sell items that are produced in Wyoming or northern Colorado, but within a 150 miles of Cheyenne. All items are produced by the vendors behind the tables, NO FOOD BROKERS OR FOOD RESELLERS are allowed.

Get more info here.

"Go Red for Women" Day is Feb. 1

Men and women both have heart attacks. Funny thing is, most people think that heart disease is an older guy's disease. An an older guy who's recently had a heart attack, I am secure in the fact that guys have heart disease. Most of my colleagues in the cardiac rehab program are men. But there's also Brenda from the post office who had heart surgery earlier in the year and Paula, a heart patient who taught high school kids for 30 years. I was also surprised to find that, of the many nurses who lead us through our paces in rehab, many have been heart patients. One has a pacemaker, another has had four heart operations, and yet another has two stents. They are heart patients looking after heart patients. What could be better than that?

Friday marks the tenth anniversary of the American Heart Association's "Go Red for Women" Day. People will be wearing red to mark the fact that more than 500,000 women die each year from heart disease, making it the number one killer among women.

Wear red tomorrow. I am. Do it for the women you love.

FMI: http://www.goredforwomen.org/wearredday/about/

Rep. Sue Wallis (R-Recluse) explains HB168 cowboy poet style

It was quite educational listening to the debate on HB168 today in the Wyoming House. HB168 is the Domestic Partners Rights and Responsibilities Act. Many of us were surprised when it made it out of committee on a 7-2 vote. That one small victory enable the bill to be aired in public, so both naysayers and supporters could sound off.

Most eloquent of the supporters was Rep. Sue Wallis (R-Recluse). Rep. Wallis is a rancher and cowboy poet, one of the founders of the annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko. One of my favorite Wyoming moments was listening to Sue and her late husband, Rod McQueary, talking turns reciting cowboy poetry at a humanities conference two years ago in Riverton.

Rod passed away in December. Rep. Wallis is still grieving. As she works on behalf of her constituents in the Wyoming House, she is missing the Cowboy Poetry Gathering. This year's event celebrates Italian cowboys and their poetry. Wish I was there to hear that. That's what makes Elko so special. The organizers include something new every year. It might be Basque poets or Native Americans or Mexican gauchos or the horsemen of Mongolia.

Rep. Wallis is cut from the same cloth. She thinks big.

She rose in support of HB168. She also is one of the co-sponsors. She recalled that when Rod died in December, she was accorded all courtesies and privileges that attached to being a survivor heterosexual spouse in Wyoming. She was at Rod's side the entire time and saw his out of this world. All the paperwork came to her, as did all property and possessions. Nobody questioned her choices of burial plans.

"I have numerous friends, colleagues and relatives who are in a relationship with members of the same sex," said Rep. Wallis. "Some of these couples have been together for decades. One couple - two elderly gentlemen -- have been together for 40 years." She paused for emphasis. "They are good and decent in every sense of the word."

But something terrible happens at the end of a relationship. "When one of my elderly friends loses his mate, on top of the heartbreak of losing his mate he will have to go through all sorts of contortions to justify himself."

"This is not just in any way, shape or form."

Rep. Wallis knows her Bible. She sounded astonished at some of the comments of the naysayers, people using The Good Book to justify their hatred and prejudices. She cautioned them not to cherry-pick certain passages that may or may not apply to the present situation.

"You don't get to cherry-pick what you like and then deny someone else the opportunity to love in all of its facets," she said, noting that the main tenet of the New Testament was Jesus's words to "love your neighbor as yourself."

But it was a passage from the Old Testament that got her fired up. She noted that some in the House chambers had quoted a passage that referred to a man lying with another man as "an abomination." She quoted some other "abominations" quoted in the Bible. She asked her rancher colleagues to pay particular attention to Leviticus. It's considered an abomination "to not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip the edges of your beard." She wondered aloud how many of Wyoming's bearded ranchers knew they were committing abominations with their razors.

Leviticus also warns against "sewing your field with mingled seed" and "mixing your herds."

Said Rep. Wallis: "Maybe you didn't know that cross-breeding your herd for hybrid vigor was an abomination to the Lord."

I'm a city boy. I barely know one end of a cow from another. But Rep. Wallis does. She lives on a family ranch in the most remote part of Campbell County. Her family's been on the land for generations.

She summed things up in a straightforward Wyoming way: "This is about simple common human decency and respect for our fellow human beings."

And then she sat down.

"Rent" auditions set for Feb. 3-5 in Cheyenne

Auditions for the rock musical "Rent" will be held on Sunday, February 3, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Monday, February 4, 4:30-6:30 p.m., and  Tuesday, February 5, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Call-backs will be Wednesday, February 6, 6:30-8:30 p.m. All auditions held at the Historic Atlas Theater in downtown Cheyenne 

Here's more info from the Cheyenne Little Theatre Players web site:

To audition, we ask that you sing a song from the show "Rent" or another contemporary musical. You may bring your own accompanist or an accompanist will be provided. There will be no cold readings of dialog. We may ask you to sing a song from the show after your initial audition. You will also be learning and performing a short dance. For call-backs, we will be assigning songs from the show "Rent," including duets.  

IMPORTANT!! The Director, Brenda Lyttle, is looking for singing actors who are confident and fearless. "Rent" is an adult show with adult roles, language and situations. The characters must be believable and real. The singing must be strong and confident. This show is set in the Lower East Side of New York City. Racial diversity is crucial. We strongly encourage singing actors of African-American and Hispanic descent to audition.  

Go to this link for more details: Rent Auditions

HB168 debate going on now in Wyoming House

Listen now to the debate on Wyoming House bill HB168: http://legisweb.state.wy.us/lsoweb/session/AudioHWindows.aspx