You can see the end of coal from the People's Climate March

More than 300,000 rally for the People's Climate March Sunday in NYC. Can you say, "Goodbye, coal?" I thought you could.

The rich are different --- they want to destroy Wyoming's public pension plan

Thanks to fellow prog-blogger Rodger McDaniel for his excellent column yesterday in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle and later reprinted on his Blowing in the Wyoming Wind blog. The newspaper's op-ed editor paraphrased a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald for the headline: "The rich think differently." Fitzgerald's quote comes from his short story "The Rich Boy" published in 1926 in Redbook Magazine:

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and kcynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different. ”

The esteemed author had already artfully described how the rich are different in his 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald also had a bad case of wealth-envy. Maybe that's a trait we all possess, thinking that we shouldn't criticize the wealthy too harshly lest we hit it big on the Powerball or strike oil in our backyard.

Most of us are content to labor hard and retire comfortably. That's my philosophy, passed down to me from my father the accountant and my mother the nurse and scores of immigrant ancestors who worked on the railroad and in the factory or on the farm.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I am a state employee of 23 years and expect to retire some time in the next decade.

In Wyoming, rich out-of-staters want to dismantle our state employee pension plan because, well, just because they can -- or think they can. Canadian Maureen "The Hater" Bader of the Wyoming Liberty Group recently wrote a venomous op-ed describing the state retirement plan as "the gold-plated promise of retirement security." Our pension plan is the envy of many, not because it is "gold-plated" but because it has been managed so efficiently that "30-year projections show that the plan is on a trajectory leading to assets totalling 114.7 percent of benefit costs," writes Rodger.

The Liberty Group was founded by Susan Gore, wealthy Texas heiress to the Gore-Tex fortune. This group is a member of the State Policy Network which is a driver of the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC, the organization that hands canned right-wing legislation to Wyoming legislators so they can sabotage the state's workers.

So...

Wyoming Liberty Group's attack on Wyoming's pension plan is nothing more than a cookie cutter provided to them by ALEC and the Policy Network. 

The rich indeed are different. They're out to destroy the middle class. They're doing a fine job. The elimination of the state's pension plan would go a long way to making us lackeys of the oligarchs represented by ALEC, the State Policy Network and the Wyoming Liberty Group.

Day two of touristing on the high plains

At Oregon Trail Ruts State Historic Site: Mike Shay and Brian and Eileen Casey. Thousands of wagons passed this way during the heyday of the trails that cut through Wyoming. 

Why all of the sheriff’s cars at Hawk Springs Reservoir?

A Sunday drowning. But on Tuesday morning, I didn’t know that. We stopped at Hawk Springs to take in the reservoir and the bluffs beyond. We were touristing so stopped at almost every site we came across. When I travel Wyoming, I’m usually zipping to or from a destination and I need to be there at a certain time. Not just work trips but personal ones, too.

I used to be the guy who stopped at all in interesting things. What’s that marker? Where does that road go? Somewhere along the line, I lost that sense of adventure that drove my family crazy.

We stopped at Hawk Springs State Recreation Area because we were escorting my sister Eileen and her husband Brian on a Wyoming adventure. Can’t have an adventure unless you take the road less traveled. Our goal was Fort Laramie but we had all day, so why not stop?

It was quiet at Hawk Springs. Wind rattled the Cottonwood leaves. Some locals fished. We didn’t know it, but search parties scoured the reservoir for a drowned man. On Sunday, James “Jesse” Nelson of Torrington apparently dove into the reservoir to rescue another person who had fallen overboard. That person was rescued by another boat but Nelson was not.

Tragedies happen around us while we look the other way.

But on this day, we were roaming around southeast Wyoming. We stopped in the town of Hawk Springs to take some goofy photos. We met the proprietor of The Emporium, one of the few eating and drinking establishments along this stretch of state road. On this day was closed for a thorough cleaning after a busy summer catering to tourists and Sturgis-bound bikers. The owner invited us to return on the weekend to dine and watch a UW game.

Ever stopped at the Homesteader Museum along Torrington’s main drag? Me neither. You can’t miss it – it’s in the old train station across from the sugar plant. A big caboose sits adjacent to the museum. On the north side of the museum is an old homesteader cabin that once occupied good bottom land near Hawk Springs. It was moved when the dam was built and before the water rose high enough to drown people in 2014. A couple raised their three children in this windowless log cabin. Imagine. The museum grounds also included a one-room schoolhouse and a two-story rancher’s house, all moved from elsewhere in Goshen County. Settlement history in our part of the world may be recent, but there’s a lot of it.

Did you know that Jackson Hole is not the only hole in the state? This part of of Wyoming was historically referred to as "Goshen Hole?" A valley carved by rivers over thousands of years. You get the sense of "hole" when you top of rise of the highway and look down into the valley all the way to Nebraska. 

We picnicked at the city park in Lingle. Mothers and their pre-K kids trooped into the park, set up some soccer nets and commenced a game. One of the younger kids clambered around on the bandshell that was built by the Works Progress Administration in 1941-42, just as the U.S. was entering WWII and men in those WPA and CCC crews were putting on uniforms. Beautiful red-white-and-blue concrete bandshell that’s probably been the home for many Fourth of July concerts with fireworks to follow. Across the front of it is this: “Small but proud.”

Fort Laramie was our next stop. I’ve written about it before. This National Historic Site was a favorite destination when the kids were young and we were looking for a jaunt into history. This frontier fort along the North Platte and Laramie rivers was a thriving place for much of the 19^th century. It closed when the frontier was declared closed in 1890, which is also the year of the Wounded Knee massacre. The fort’s buildings almost disappeared from disuse and scavenging by citizens from the town of Fort Laramie. But, as often happens, the government stepped in and saved it. Drat that damn gubment. Now southeast Wyoming has a beautiful historic site to add to many others and an economic generator. Lots of cars and campers in the parking lot on this Sept. 16 afternoon. A big bus, too, filled with tourists anxious to explore history and plug some Euros into the Wyoming economy.

Chris and I has never been to the historic sites celebrating the wagon ruts and Register Cliff. The Oregon Trails Ruts State Historic Site marks the place where thousands of wagons and handcarts cut a swath through the side of a hill on the Oregon/Mormon/California trails. When you stand in the ruts, you can imagine the hard slog that these pioneers experienced. The major traffic would have been in June as they planned to reach Independence Rock near Casper by the Fourth of July. They already had glimpsed Laramie Peak shimmering in the distance and wondered, “How are we going to get over that?” But the trail turned northwest from here, following the path of the river through the relatively flat county on the way to Fort Caspar.

There’s a marker at the wagon ruts that celebrates the site in language a bit flowery for my tastes. A photo of it is included. I wanted to rewrite it in simple language, something a little more Hemingwayesque. Maybe you’d like to take a crack at it.

The marker at Register Cliff was a bit more to my liking, as it actually mentions the natives of this area, who also happened to etch petroglyphs into this site. Their signatures were destroyed by a sea of immigrants, a metaphor for what happened to their tribes as the wagons rolled West.   

"Wagon wheels cut solid rock, carving a memorial to Empire Builders." Not sure when this sign was installed but it could use a few updates.

Day one of touristing on the high plains

Hanging out at Esther Hobart Morris's statue at the Wyoming State Capitol with Brian and Eileen Casey.

My sister Eileen and her husband, Brian Casey, visited us this week in Cheyenne. They live in Orlando, Florida, and had never been to Wyoming. Eileen is a history buff and Brian likes trains. I told them, “You’ve come to the right place.”

Visitors from distant climes help me focus on the clime I’m in. I’ve lived in Cheyenne 23 years but have not seen everything there is to see. A human trait, to take for granted the place where you live.

On Monday, their first day in town, Eileen, Brian, my wife Chris and I toured Cheyenne. We exploited the state capitol building, which is in the beginning of a $250 million renovation. I saw Leslie in the Governor’s office and went in to say hi. She asked if we wanted to see the inner office, the place where Gov. Mead signs bills, and we said yes. She let Eileen and Brian sit in the Gov’s chair and I took photos. We wondered if we could walk into the Florida governor’s office, sit in his chair and take photos. Probably not. We toured the legislative chambers and viewed the art. I took time to actually view the art on the walls instead of just passing by. On the House side, the portrait of the 1913 group had a tear in the middle. The tear is about the width of a human head, which is due to the fact that one disgruntled legislator plucked the portrait off the wall and bashed it over the head of a colleague. Those are the kind of details that make history come alive.

We next toured the state museum. I’ve been in there a hundred times. But on this, the 101^st visit, I saw things I didn’t know were there. It is a gift to have fresh eyes alight on a thing and say “I didn’t know that.” That’s what museums are all about, right? We ate lunch at the historic Albany and then toured the Depot Museum. Trains created Cheyenne. The magnificent depot was created in view of the State Capitol to remind legislators to not forget what side their bread was buttered on. These days, legislators don’t have a view of the Powder River Basin coal fields, but that lesson has a prominent place in their memory.

You can see the coal trains from the second-floor museum viewing room. It’s a busy rail yard, which delighted Brian almost as much as the big model train in the next room. You’re in choo-choo country, pardner!

Time flies when you’re touristing. We walked around the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, a place that I love. The flowers are in their last gasp of beauty before the frosts arrive and the snow falls. The folks at the gardens did a great job of resurrecting the flower beds after our June and July hailstorms. I showed off the architectural plans of the new building. I’m very proud of it, as I was one of the forward-thinking voters who approved it during the election of 2012. Without Chris and I and thousands of others, we wouldn’t be creating a city for our children and grandchildren. Take a bow, ya’ll.

We wrapped up the day with a barbecue at our house. A fitting end to a fine, late-summer day in the high prairie.

To be continued….

So you want to write a novel?

My friend Joanne Kennedy over at Joanne Kennedy Books on Facebook is teaming up with two other Cheyenne fiction writers for this:

Have you always wanted to write a novel? Laramie County Library is presenting Novel Writing University every Tuesday night for six weeks, beginning September 23. Classes will cover all elements of fiction writing, from getting started to writing dialogue, from characterization to resonant endings. Submitting to agents and editors will also be covered, along with self-publishing and marketing. Whether you're a beginner or a more experienced writer, these classes will help you improve your craft and understand the steps to publication. The class will be taught by multi-published authors Joanne Kennedy, Amanda Cabot, and Mary Gillgannon. Join us!

Joanne and Mary are my former critique partners at the Cheyenne Area Writers Group (CAWG). They are terrific teachers and know their way around a novel -- short stories, too, as I can testify. I've seen Amanda in action at several writing conferences, including the annual WWInc gathering. They all are kind and meticulous, a winning combination. Get more information at the Laramie County Public Library web site.

Join the "Shatter the Silence" walk Sept. 10 in Cheyenne

Join Stop Suicide Cheyenne, the VA Center, Prevention Management Organization, and Grace for 2 Brothers for the World Suicide Prevention Day Silent Walk on Wednesday September 10th. This event begins at 11:45 a.m. at the Depot Plaza in Cheyenne with keynote speakers to talk about suicide prevention. A silent walk will take place up Capitol Avenue to the Capitol Steps where there will be recognition of those lost to suicide.

Hemingway found a clean, well-lighted place to write in Wyoming

Me sitting at Hemingway's writing desk at Spear-O-Wigwam in the Big Horn Mountains.

Ernest Hemingway found something in Wyoming.

A book, or a way to finish a book. He wrote portions of A Farewell to Arms in Arkansas and Kansas and Sheridan, Wyo., eventually finishing it in a log cabin in Wyoming's Big Horn Mountains. Hemingway was a globetrotter back when it took a long time to get anywhere. You crossed oceans by ship and continents by rail. Travel was measured in days and weeks rather than hours. The author sojourned in Paris, Spain, Cuba, Africa, Canada and all over the U.S.: Chicago, Kansas City, Key West, Sheridan, Wyo. and Sun Valley, Idaho, to name a few. He hauled his typewriter and manuscripts along with him. After he became a successful author, he travelled with 26 suitcases, according to Valerie Hemingway, who served as Hemingway's secretary in the 1950s.

It's odd to think of a peripatetic author and war correspondent traveling with 26 suitcases. That's just one of the odd Hemingway facts you discover when hanging out at the Spear-O-Wigwam Mountain Campus near Sheridan with Val and other Hemingway fans. We were there to start the planning process for a 2018 Hemingway celebration. Why 2018? Since much of a A Farewell to Arms was written in Sheridan and the Big Horns, a 90th anniversary celebration is in order. The idea was hatched by Sheridan College's Susan Bigelow. Our August planning session coincided with the Spear-O-Wigwam presentation by Ms. Hemingway. More than 100 people traversed the rugged Red Grade Road for her afternoon talk.

A Farewell to Arms is based on Hemingway's experience as an ambulance driver in Italy during World War I. If you didn't read the novel during one of your college survey courses, you may have caught up with it as an adult. Perhaps you saw one of A Farewell to Arms movies. Gary Cooper as Frederic Henry in 1932 pursuing Nurse Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes). In 1957, Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones were the ill-fated couple. There were stage plays and radio plays as well.

After A Farewell to Arms was published in 1929, Hemingway was a success. He wrote one best-seller after another. He accumulated residences and books and suitcases. Other writers began to copy his spare style, which Gore Vidal called "the careful, artful, immaculate idiocy of tone that has marked Hemingway's prose." "Idiocy of tone?" What's Vidal mean by that? Is the accent on "idiocy" or on "tone?" Not only has the author been copied -- badly -- but satirized, too, by Alan Coren and Woody Allen. There is the annual Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, with winners announced at the annual Hemingway Days in Key West, which also holds a Hemingway Look-Alike Contest and marlin fishing tournament. There are Write like Hemingway and the Six-Word Hemingway Story competitions.

Some of these tourism-themed events may seem excessive. But think about it? How many writers are celebrities these days?   Not just those celebrities who are famous for fame's sake, but those who actually have been engaged with the world and pioneered a new writing style in the process? I can't think of any contemporary writer who's done what Hemingway did. Wyoming's own Mark Jenkins is a globe-trotting, mountain-climbing adventurer and a fine writer. As far as I know, the only people calling him "Papa" are his two daughters. Sebastian Junger has written of adventure on the high seas and in the Afghan battlefields, and he's considered a hunk, but he's not Hemingway. Montana's Jim Harrrison and Tom McGuane can be considered celebrities in the writing world, but I'm not sure if your average person on the street would recognize those names.

Hemingway was bigger than life and he liked it that way. He made a fine living as a writer and it enabled him to travel the world. Alas, he did have to find time and a place to write. In 1928, he tried sequestering himself at the Sheridan Inn before it was the Historic Sheridan Inn and just a hot, noisy, and crowded hotel. So he rode up the mountains to Spear-O-Wigwam, sat down at a desk in a rustic cabin and finished the book that would make a splash over the next decade.

Hemingway killed himself -- did I mention that? He was bigger than life but in the end was felled by depression and a family trait. When Margaux Hemingway killed herself in 1996 in Santa Monica, she became the fifth generation of Hemingways to do so. We talk a lot about suicide but still it continues, by gun and rope and pills.

I sat at that desk in Hemingway's cabin. He wrote in longhand before breaking out the manual typewriter to do the finished draft. He'd do the revising on paper before getting down to the QWERTY keyboard. Wonder if the other guests at the ranch heard Hem's tap-tap-tap on the keys. Sounds like that writer fella -- says he's working on a novel about the war.

That was a small act by a big man. Left a lasting impression on the world. I think it's only right that the folks of Sheridan County want to celebrate it.

But how? There's the rub. And we have four years to figure out how to do it.

Human Rights Campaign holds reception in Cheyenne

This announcement comes from Wyoming Equality: 

HRC Wyoming: Cheyenne Community Reception 

Sept. 18, 6-8 p.m., at The Suite Bistro, 1901 Central Ave, Cheyenne

We are excited to invite you to an upcoming community reception with the Human Rights Campaign in Wyoming. You are invited to join us in Cheyenne for a community gathering with brief remarks from HRC Director of Programmatic Development, Brad Clark, followed by a reception including complimentary hors d'oeuvres and beverages. 

We hope you can join us and ask that you please RSVP in advance. Go to http://action.hrc.org/site/Calendar/2118893071

Satire is in the eye of the beholder

I love good satire. Problem is, readers don't often get it. Good satire is usually presented as a straightforward news article or opinion piece that can often be mistaken for your run-of-the-mill newspaper story. In satire, the subject is taken to an extreme, an exaggeration for what the writer hopes is a comic effect. Since there is so much craziness on the Internet already, it's hard to pick out satire unless it's labeled as such. This is why it is so helpful for Andy Borowitz to label his "The Borowitz Report" pieces in The New Yorker as "news satire." Here's a recent brilliant example:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Across the United States on Wednesday, a heated national debate began on the extremely complex issue of children firing military weapons. 

“Every now and then, the nation debates an issue that is so complicated and tricky it defies easy answers,” says pollster Davis Logsdon. “Letting small children fire automatic weapons is such an issue.”

Logsdon says that the thorny controversy is reminiscent of another ongoing national debate, about whether it is a good idea to load a car with dynamite and drive it into a tree. 

“Many Americans think it’s a terrible idea, but others believe that with the correct supervision, it’s perfectly fine,” he says. “Who’s to say who’s right?” 

Similar, he says, is the national debate about using a flamethrower indoors. “There has been a long and contentious national conversation about this,” he says. “It’s another tough one.” 

Much like the long-running national debates about jumping off a roof, licking electrical sockets, and gargling with thumbtacks, the vexing question of whether children should fire military weapons does not appear headed for a swift resolution. 

“Like the issue of whether you should sneak up behind a bear and jab it with a hot poker, this won’t be settled any time soon,” he says. 

Get news satire from The Borowitz Report delivered to your inbox.

If this appeared as a standard news article in the local paper, I can easily see my neighbor, Tea Party Slim, reading it over his morning java and nodding his head in agreement. "Yes, children shooting automatic weapons is an extremely complex issue." Slim also reads loads of stuff on the Internet, as do I, where it is possible to mistake satire for another example of human weirdness -- or vice versa. Each of us carries baggage from our political POVs. I see Borowitz's piece as a terrific satire on our gun nut culture. Slim sees gun ownership and the firing of automatic weapons as a God-given right via the Constitution. He can't laugh at this because he'll be laughing at some of his own deeply-head beliefs.

Are there conservative satirists? P.J. O'Rourke comes to mind. He pokes fun at me and my fellow Liberals and I admit it gets under my skin sometimes but it is funny. Tom Wolfe made hay satirizing the hippie culture, the Black Panthers and the New Left back in the 60s and 70s. Ann Coulter is too heavy-handed to be an effective satirist, but sometimes I've found humor in her Liberal-baiting columns.

There must be some contemporary conservative satirists I haven't read because, frankly, I'd rather poke fun at the other guy. That's my God-given right under the Constitution. However, if a person can't laugh at himself, well.... that's really absurd.

Maybe Gov's new science panel may negate some of the damage done by the legislature

Democratic Party Gubernatorial candidate Pete Gosar was bemused by Gov. Mead's announcement of the selection of a panel to improve science education at our only four-year public university. This from Gosar's Facebook post:

The current administration appoints a panel to upgrade science at the University of Wyoming, but just a few months ago censored science for Wyoming students in K-12. Let's hope this panel puts in a full complement of remedial science courses at UW to ensure that our students can learn after graduation what they were denied before graduation.

It's difficult to live down the embarrassment of the legislation from last legislative session that banned schools from adopting national science standards. Gov. Mead signed off on the legislation offered by Rep. Matt Teeters (R-Lingle) who, thankfully, lost his primary challenge and will no longer darken the halls of the legislature with his Dark Ages approach to book larnin'. 

How many science panels and commissions does it take to negate one piece of boneheaded legislation?

Difficult to know. Word travels fast in this cyber-age. I read the bios of those appointed to the panel and was impressed. They are supposed to make some recommendations to the Gov by Nov. 1, just four days before the election. One of those recommendations should be: "Repeal the legislature's anti-science footnote and keep Republican legislators as far away from education legislation as humanly possible."

Then maybe we can get back to the business of being a player in the 21st century instead of a bystander.

2014 Equality State Book Festival showcases the art of the book

The Equality State Book Festival marks its fifth anniversary Sept. 11-13 in Casper. It offers a great line-up of authors, as always. Nina McConigley of Casper (now Laramie) will deliver the keynote on Saturday. Nina's book of short stories, Cowboys and East Indians, is getting rave reviews and earned her the 2014 PEN Open Book Award. Other presenters: include best-selling author Joshilyn Jackson (gods in Alabama, A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty), flash-fiction writer and social media guru Meg Pokrass, writer and founder/curator of the Handmade/Homemade book exhibit Deborah Poe, Jackson poet Matt Daly and many others. One of the themes of this year's bookfest is book arts. Poe's book arts exhibit will be on display at the Casper College Visual Arts Building and the University of Utah Book Arts group will be conducting a workshop on Saturday. Make your own book! You still have to write the innards, though. Can't get away from that.

This is the fifth statewide book festival (held during even years) and it gets better with age. I'm a bit biased as I serve on the planning committee, the only non-Casperite in the bunch. Kudos to the committee's co-directors: Laurie Lye and Joseph Campbell. Laurie came out of retirement to help out this year when former co-director Holly Wendt decamped to a new teaching job in her home state of Pennsylvania. Thanks to Laurie. Have you ever organized a three-day arts event? It takes time and effort and attention to a dazzling array of details. Think about all of the fairs and festivals held throughout Wyoming each year. Your friends and neighbors do that work, often for no pay but for the joy of putting on a show.

Get more info at http://www.equalitystatebookfest.com/

As I begin my tenth year of blogging liberally and locally and snarkily...

Not sure why, but old friends are finding me via my blog. Maybe my analytics are peaking after nine years on Blogger. My first couple years in the blogosphere were spent trying to figure out what to write about 3-4 times per week. I called it "hummingbirdminds" after a quote in Wired magazine from hypertext pioneer Ted Nelson. Nelson was asked about his severe case of Attention Deficit  Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). He said that people with ADHD have "hummingbird minds." That seemed to fit. My wife and I raised a son with ADHD and we got to see a hummingbird mind up close and personal. His attention could flit to more places in five minutes than mine did in a day.

At first, I thought I would blog about ADHD. I was working on a book based on our experiences with our son. I figured that I would put excerpts up on the blog, editors and publishers would discover me, and soon I would be dreaming of ways to spend my five-figure book advance. That didn't happen, mainly because  my own short attention span wandered off-topic and I began writing about writing, politics, life in Wyoming and other fascinating topics. Much to my chagrin, I was not a one-topic blogger like some of my more successful friends on the blogosphere. A romance novelist. A knitter. A diehard St. Louis Cardinals fan. A high-altitude gardener. All were making hay online, especially the gardener. Their blogs engendered readers and comments and numbers. My posts earned a smattering of visits and an occasional comment. 

Leading up to the 2008 elections, I began focusing on politics. As my blog's subhead says: "Blogging Liberally and Locally in Wyoming." The "blogging liberally" term I borrowed from Drinking Liberally, a great idea and a great site. "Locally," of course, I got from the local movement that has been sweeping the country and making a big difference in our politics and in business. I try to act locally and shop locally. 

My political blogging earned me a trip to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, a scholarship to Netroots Nation 2011 in Minneapolis and a mention as Wyoming's top state liberal blog by Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post's "The Fix" blog. Good experiences. Good times. 

What's next? More politics. More wise-ass comments. I plan to self-publish another book of short stories by the end of the year -- beware of marketing posts about my book as self-publishing means self-promotion and lots of it. When I first began to blog, I heard that shameless self-promotion on your blog was gauche. It just wasn't done. Then along came social media and self-promotion became the rule rather than the exception. It's as American as apple pie. So I will post snippets of my work and even stage a book giveaway or two. 

But I won't totally leave off of politics. I'd be afraid that my old conservative friends wouldn't find me online. There is nothing like old friends....

Who out-crazied who -- or whom -- in last night's Wyoming gubernatorial debate?

I was pleased to see 40-some people last night at Music & Poetry at Metro Coffee Company in downtown Casper. They had so many other choices: Sharknado II reruns, bicycling, drinking, canoodlling, riding the rapids on the North Platte, napping, The Internet, etc. Perhaps the biggest conflict took place last night in Riverton, where the three Republican gubernatorial candidates were duking it out. The debate was aired on Wyoming Public Radio.

I listened to none of the debate.  I was preparing my work to be read aloud in public. And we had a fine time right there at Metro, with Chad Lore performing his own humorous songs and then cutting loose with with some Dylan and a rollicking version of "St. James Infirmary Blues."

According to WyPols, two of the three Repub Gub candidates did their best to out-crazy one another. Who won?  

So who out-crazied who in this debate? It’s tough to call a winner, because both Haynes and Hill both worked so hard for the title. But our money is on the superintendent, if only for this nonsensical answer she gave about whether she would ever support same-sex marriage: 

“Marriage is between a man and a woman, period. We have sisters and brothers, moms and dads, and aunts and uncles, and sons and daughters, and we all have to work together and live together, and it’s critical. Marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Huh?

See you at the Music & Poetry Series in Casper Monday night

Each summer, ARTCORE in Casper sponsors the Music & Poetry Series. It features a performance by a musician or music group and a reading/performance by a poet or prose writer. On Monday, Aug. 11, at 7:30 p.m., at Metro Coffee Company, 241 S. David, the series features Chad Lore on guitar and vocals and me as the prose writer. Usually, the musician takes turns with the writer -- 20 minutes of deathless prose followed by 20 minutes of fine music. Intermission for caffeinated beverages. Then 20 more minutes or prose and the warm summer night wraps up with music, as it should.

Get a preview of Chad's music by going here and here. You can preview my writing by reading many years worth of blogging on this site. That consists mainly of snatches of memoir and humor interspersed with liberal political musings. I rarely include fiction on my blog because I still am skittish about publishing my work online before it is published in book form. I published my first book of short stories with a small publisher and, for the past two years, I have been pitching my second book to small and medium-sized publishers with no success. Short stories are not always welcome fare at the offices of publishers. I sit down to chat with industry professionals at writing conferences to discuss my work. The conversation usually goes something like this:

Me: "I write short stories."

Publisher gives me a look usually reserved for poets, English majors and plague victims -- a combination of pity and boredom. Their response usually is this: "We don't do short stories" or "Short short collections don't sell."

Me: "Oh."

Publisher: "Do you have a novel?"

Me (lying): "Yes."

Publisher smiles: "Send me a synopsis and a couple of chapters."

I don't. I could, I suppose, as I have several novel manuscripts propping open doors and serving as foot rests. But they are ancient history, written when I was learning how to write and then abandoned for other projects. I don't even have electronic versions, as they were written on ancient mechanical devices, such as the Smith-Corona portable typewriter and the first of many electronic typewriter/word processors. I could scan them and then proof them with my eagle-eyed editing. But I'd rather write.

What will I bee reading Monday night? Come to Metro Coffee and find out. It will be short, as in short story. If you see me carrying in a huge manuscript, don't worry -- I like to prop up my feet while listening to music.

Sunday round-up: Retirements, departures and Sturgis season

Rita Basom, my colleague for the past 23 years, retired on Friday. We enjoyed a gala week of farewell lunches, a smashing retirement party and an art gallery reception. I will miss her. Funny how well you get to know someone when you work and travel with them 40 hours a week over the course of two-plus decades. Enjoy your retirement, Rita. See you at the theatre.

Javier Gamboa, communications guy for the Wyoming Democratic Party, is leaving Cheyenne for Austin, Texas. He's the new social media guru for the Texas Democrats. Javier's been a dynamo for the WyoDems and we wish him well in at his new job. A farewell party for Javier is being held on Friday, Aug. 8. Go here for more details.

As I write this evening, I hear Harleys roaring north to Sturgis. The sounds if Harleys remind me of my late brother Dan, who had a lifetime love of motorcycles. My only trip to Sturgis was six years ago when I drove up to meet Dan and our old friend Blake. They drove from Florida to South Dakota in a camper hauling their bikes. Dan invited me to ride as his bitch on the back of his bike, which I readily accepted, knowing that I may not be a bitch but I was pretty bitchin', even in my advancing state of aging. We rode around Sturgis, gawked at motorcycles and motorcyclists. I came out of a vendor's tent to find myself walking behind a young woman whose very tanned behind was visible out of a pair of backless leather chaps. It was hot out, so I'm sure she was thankful for the breeze. We drank a bit of beer that day. Dan paced himself as the designated driver. I witnessed my first belly shot at One-Eyed Jacks Saloon. It gave new meaning to "belly up to the bar." I miss you, Dan! You can read my posts from Sturgis 2008 here and here.

WYOPEP: Wyoming slips from first to forty-first in the nation in care of its disabled

The Forgotten People of Wyoming - From 1st to 41st in the Nation in Care of Its Disabled from WYOPEP on Vimeo.

Watch this video and wonder why Wyoming, with funding galore, can't take care of its disabled citizens.

Wyoming Democrats respond

The Wyoming Democratic Party is fighting back in a timely manner, which I appreciate.

We are outnumbered by Republicans. That is true and will remain true in the foreseeable future. But that doesn't mean we should be relegated to a position of Repub Lite.

Dem Party Chief Robin Van Ausdall was on the front of Friday's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle urging Dems not to cross over in the Aug. 19 primary and vote for one-time moderate Gov. Matt Mead in his race vs. Tea Party loony Taylor Haynes and partially dismissed Superintendent of Public Instruction Cindy Hill.

How did crossing over work for us in 2010?

NOT!

WyoDems' communications director Javier Gamboa (right) with fellow Dems at Cheyenne Day house party (from left): Rep. Mary Throne, Senate District 9 candidate Dameione Cameron and activist Chris Shay. A good time was had by all, Dems, Repubs, Indies and even those who don't give a damn and just want to stomp and holler.

Taylor Haynes was all over social media on Friday slamming the Dream Act and Obama's immigration policy. Haynes doesn't like those nogoodnik immigrants. So Wyoming Democratic Party Communications Director Javier Gamboa wrote a response which I would share with you here except that my cut-and-paste tool is not working. This always saves me a lot of work actually writing my own stuff. But go to this link and read Javier's response: http://www.wyodems.org/media

It's not easy being a Democrat in this very red state. But it begins to lose all meaning when, lacking our own candidates, we throw our weight (what there is of it) behind the most moderate Republican. Problem is, a so-called moderate Republican governor has to deal with a legislature increasingly composed of extremist conservatives. Lots of reasons for this, including decades of gerrymandering by Republicans. But the moderates, such as Cale Case from Fremont County, are leaving. Those who remain are being pulled further to the right. At least two rural social-issue moderates have died in the past year: Rep. Sue Wallis of Campbell County and Sen John Schiffer of Johnson County. Wallis was replaced by a right-winger who once wrote that people with AIDS should be rounded up and put in concentration camps.

I've never crossed over. It can be a useful tool but what's the point? I already know a number of Democrats who register as Republicans just so they have someone to vote for in the primary. That skews the number of registered Democrats. And those people tend to not get involved in progressive politics, some because they're afraid of losing their jobs and others because they have their own businesses and fear that being a visible D in an R world would kill the bottom line. We have to live in the real world. Wyoming, for the most part, may be a tolerant place, but that tolerance only goes so far. I've never been shot at or beat up walking neighborhoods for Dem candidates. But if looks could kill? I'd be dead a thousand times over.

I'm glad that the Democratic Party continues to speak up long and loud. Being visible is a form of resistance against the status quo. It's sad to think that we live in a place where just registering and voting as a Democrat can be a radical act.

James M. Cain: "The world's great literature is peopled by thorough-going heels"

James M. Cain was a member of the California school of hard-boiled fiction in the 1930s and 1940s. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were his contemporaries. But while Hammett and Chandler explored the world through private eyes, Cain looked at it from the P.O.V. of a working class woman called Mildred Pierce with a viper for a daughter, and a bored roadhouse wife who lures a poor sap into killing her husband. Cain found drama in the lives of regular folks.

Maybe that's why he likes short stories. He wrote the intro to For Men Only, a book of stories by (mostly) men and for men fighting in World War II. This is part of World Publishing's "Books in Wartime" series, thinner and smaller books in service to the war effort. The 70-year-old volume did its job admirably, only now coming aparts at the seams. It has a handwritten inscription on the inside cover: "Bill -- Xmas Greetings 1945 -- Peg-o." Peg-o had nice handwriting. Wonder where she and Bill are now? Did they get hitched, or was this just a literary wartime fling?

In the intro to the anthology, Cain praised the short story.

In one respect, not usually noted, it is greatly superior to the novel, or at any rate the American novel. It is one type of fiction that need not, to please the American taste, deal with heroes.Our national curse, if so perfect a land can have such a thing, is the "sympathetic" character.

Cain's main characters were not sympathetic. And when I think of memorable short stories, it's not "sympathetic" characters that stand out but ones rife with human foibles. Think of the misfit and the grandmother in Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Raymond Carver's stories are populated with an assortment of deluded humans, such as the fishing buddies in "So Much Water so Close to Home." Annie Proulx's Wyoming stories are filled with the most arresting array of barflies and cowboys and real estate speculators. You don't want to hug a one. In my story "Roadkill," a World War II veteran is faced with a moral choice that may change his life for the good -- or it may not.

Cain concludes his intro:

The world's great literature is peopled by thorough-going heels, and in this book you will find a beautiful bevy of them, with scarce a character among them you would let in the front door. I hope you like them. I think they are swell.

I do. And they are.

Music and melodrama and politics mix during Cheyenne Frontier Days

We are up to our eyeballs in Cheyenne Frontier Days.

CFD is a 10-day extravaganza of parades, rodeo and nighttime concerts by big-names such as Lady Antebellum, John Mellencamp and up-and-comers Florida-Georgia Line. I read yesterday that attendance for concerts now surpasses that of the rodeo, and that the CFD folks are expanding the size of the stage and updating the electronics. In the 1970s, Johnny Cash pulled up to CFD with a pickup towing a trailer filled with mikes, amps and speakers. These days, Brad Paisley hauls his gear and people around in a caravan of buses and semis. That’s what these big arenas shows require.

Chris and I don’t plan of going to any concerts. As is the case with most Cheyennites, we do our share of volunteering during the week. Tonight we’re at the Cheyenne Old-Fashioned Melodrama, now in its 58th year at downtown’s Historic Atlas Theatre. I manage the house while Chris manages the box office. All the barkeeps and waitrons are volunteers, although they do get a few tips in the course of the night. All the players are volunteers, too, as is the backstage crew. It takes a lot of people to put on a show. But it’s fun, and it’s a tradition that brings in the crowds to see a totally locally written and produced event. The melodrama also is a major fund-raiser for the Cheyenne Little Theatre Players, our community theatre which puts on a dozen productions annually.  Come on out and see the melodrama tonight, “The Merchant of Vengeance.” Another classic tale written by Rory Mack and Brooks Reeves.

Amidst all the revelry, political campaigns are raging. Primaries are Aug. 19, just a month away. Chris and I walking neighborhoods for Senate District 9 candidate Dameione Cameron. Dameione is uncontested in the primary but has a Republican challenger in the general election. The incumbent has dropped out, leaving the field wide open. We’ve had some interesting conversations, including one with a Dem who was pissed off that Pres. Obama is not taking a stronger stance with Vladimir Putin. It’s rare that anyone won’t talk at all, although we have been excused quickly by some when they learn that DC is a Democrat. DC is a local attorney and businessman --- he and his partner Troy Rumpf run the Morris House Bistro – and his support comes from an alliance of Dems, Repubs and Indies. His district is mostly urban, or as urban as we get around here, so his support is younger, more non-partisan and more ethnically diverse than one usually sees in Wyoming. His campaign manager is Jordan, a young African-American from DC’s home state of South Carolina.

Will this be a good year for Dem candidates? Could be, as we have a record number of Dems running for the legislature and two solid challengers in the statewide offices of Governor and Superintendent of Public Instruction. The past few years have not been good for education in Wyoming. The legislature and Gov. Mead vs. Cindy Hill. Hill is not running again for superintendent. Instead, she has chosen to go after Mead in the Gov’s race. She sat out the recent debate, which is smart, considering she tends to say dumb things in public. The third Repub candidate, Tea Party fave Taylor Haynes, also says dumb things in public. In the debate, he said we should open Yellowstone National Park to oil and gas drilling. He later walked back those comments, but those of us paying attention know he gears most of his public utterances for the “Don’t Tread on Me” crowd. Wyoming’s economy would almost disappear if the three million summer tourists took their money to Rocky Mountain National Park or Yosemite. Casper and Cody and Lander and Evanston all bill themselves as stops along the way to Yellowstone. So does Cheyenne.

So, when Dems go to the polls on Aug. 19, we won’t find much in the way of contested races. We can check a number of D boxes and then walk away, knowing we’ve done our duty. Four years ago, Dems talked about switching party affiliation on election day and voting for a moderate such as Mead instead of wind-eyed ultra-rightists such as Ron Micheli. It was a close contest. Political pundits said that Mead owed his office to Ds in the state, as he went on to handily beat the Democratic challenger. We didn’t get much for our efforts. So no switching this time. And we really mean it. 

Death may come for the archbishop, but old books live on

Just finished reading Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop. For some reason, I have a hardcover copy of the book's 23rd printing in 1930 by Alfred A. Knopf. I must have picked it up at a garage sale or possibly the annual library book sale. I have it stashed in my old book shelf with my other old books, such as For Men Only, a "Books in Wartime" collection of short stories from 1944 with an introduction by James M. Cain; a 1930 Nancy Drew novel, The Mystery at the Lilac Inn; and Marching Through Georgia, an 1895 account of Sherman's March through the South during the Civil War. None of them are collectible, as far as I know. Most are missing their jackets, and some appear to have been gnawed on my the family dog or maybe a bibliophile with a taste for old book glue.

Death Comes for the Archbishop smells like an old book. 80-year-old paper has a distinctive smell. Musty, earthy, blessed. The book's in good shape. It's lived in the Rocky Mountain West for most of its life. In 1943, it was owned by Besse Abbott Houghton. Her name in very nice script is written on the inside front cover. On the bottom left of that page, is a sticker for Stationery Books & Gifts, J.F. Collins, Inc., Santa Fe, N.M. Santa Fe, of course, is the site of most of the action in Archbishop. 

The book has a note at the end about the history of the typeface: "Old Style No. 31 composed on a page gives a subdued color and even texture which makes it easily and comfortably read." The typeface originated in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the 1870s. The book was written by a U.S. author, born in Virginia but is best known for her Nebraska roots. The book was manufactured in the U.S., "set up, electrotyped, printed and bound by the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass. Paper made by W.C. Hamilton & Sons, Miquon, Penn."

And the book's innards? Fine writing by Willa Cather. Not sure why she turned to the Catholic history of New Mexico after spending most of her professional life writing about the Scandinavian Protestants of western Nebraska. She respects her subjects and writes with heart and soul, which is what I expect from a Cather book. The author traveled often to Santa Fe, visiting fellow authors Witter Bynner and D.H. Lawrence and exploring area history. These days, this book by Red Cloud, Nebraska's favorite daughter, is one of the best known novels about Santa Fe. There's even a Willa Cather Room at the city's Inn of the Turquoise Bear. I'd like to stay in that room. I'm a literary tourist. Show me a hotel room named for an author and I'd like to stay in it.

Time to find another book. Old or new, it doesn't matter.