Camping not just for "nerdy families, nature geeks and Boy Scouts" any more

CNN says this:

With the economy in a slump, camping seems to be grabbing a new foothold in the travel industry. Once considered by many to be an activity for nerdy families, nature geeks and Boy Scouts, sleeping outside in a tent has become chic -- likely because it is so much cheaper than paying for a hotel room.

The activity also strikes a new chord with Americans who want to get back to basics after an era of excess and overspending.

Outdoor camping's popularity jumped 7.4 percent between 2007 and 2008, according to a report from the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association. Overnight backpacking is up 18.5 percent, the report said.

Here's a response from an ex-Boy Scout nature geek who has a nerdy family that loves camping: "Huh?"

Camping is not an alternative to a hotel room. There are camping trips and then there are hotel trips. When we spend the weekend in the mountains, we camp. When we stay overnight in Denver or travel to Tucson for spring break, we stay in hotels. Campsites are notoriously scarce in Denver's LoDo. You could bring your tent and camp down by the river. But the neighbors may not suit you.

I should take umbrage at these camping johnny-come-latelys. However, umbrage is also in short supply during these tough economic times. So I welcome all these new campers, many of them bound for the wilds of Wyoming this summer. If Bernie Madoff and his diamond-encrusted Hummer pulled up next to our campsite in the Snowy Range, I wouldn't tell him to take a hike. I'd invite him on a hike. What better way to know a person than to guide him on a jaunt over a rocky trail that rises 3,000 feet in two miles? If he's made of stern (but not Bear-Stearns) stuff, he'll make it to the summit. When we arrive, we'll admire the view together. When he turns his back, I'll vamoose, leaving him there in solitude to ponder his many crimes. I'd go back a couple days later with some bread and water.

We kid Bernie.

While camping, you can leave behind all of those economic concerns. Some rookies may worry that they won't have enough money to buy the latest camping gear. Don't let that trouble you. My old pal Dave touts "celebrity camping." You and your friends pile into a jalopy and head for the hills. Reaching a vacant campsite, you back up the car, unload comfy chairs and the beer cooler, and proceed to get "as loaded as a celebrity." Come nightfall, you can throw your sleeping bag (if you remember it) by the fire (if you have the wherewithal to make one) and sleep the sleep of the contented. Or you can just pass out in your camp chair.

Most of us prefer a less minimalist aproach. Besides, we're too old for such foolishness. We car camp, sure, but we also bring the proper equipment. Here's a partial list: tent, sleeping bags, air mattresses, camp stove, matches, food, beverages, cooking utensils, eating utensils, clothes, ponchos, books, journals, bug spray, dog. Optional items include iPods, although they are usually allowed, otherwise there will be a constant mosquito-like whining in my ear from a 16-year-old.

Definitely not allowed on any camping trip: RV, TV, ATV, guns, fishing poles, other fancy stuff. I have nothing against fishing, but killing any fish or fowl will again bring torrents of teen vegan whining into my ears. I liked to fish when I was a kid but do that no more. Now camping is for cooking, hiking, watching wildlife, sleeping under the stars and conversation.

Spending time with my nerdy family -- that's what it's really all about.

Is help on the way for student loan debt?

If Business Week, Daily Kos and U.S. News & World Report think it's an idea whose time has come, who am I to argue?

This strange mix of media outlets have recently run stories about the idea of forgiving student loans -- or at least finding ways to lessen the burdens of those saddled with whopping student debt.

Business Week noted on March 24 that "help is on the way" for those with federal student loans.

The Income-Based Repayment plan, part of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007, will provide some relief to federal student loan borrowers when it goes into effect on July 1. The program will cap most borrowers' monthly payments at less than 10% of their gross income for 25 years, after which any remaining debt will be forgiven. Another program, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness, allows borrowers to make income-based repayments and have their debt discharged after 10 years. "These programs actually provide some major help now and in the immediate future," says Irons of the Project on Student Debt.

But the situation is not quite as rosy for private loan borrowers. Many of these debtors have been unable to meet their monthly payments, putting their loans in forbearance for several years or, in the worst-case scenario, defaulting on their loans. Making matters worse for private borrowers is a clause in the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act that included private student loans as one of 10 debts that can't be forgiven in bankruptcy cases.

Read the entire article at
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/mar2009/bs20090323_558993.htm

I'm one of the 144,000 members of the Facebook group Cancel Student Loan Debt to Stimulate the Economy. We all have horror stories to tell. Some members of the group have raised the point that the $500 we pay each month in student loans might be a better economic stimulus if we could spend it, rather than give it to a student loan conglomerate who uses it to line the pockets of their overpaid executives. It's well known that some of the same giant banks that bundled home and car loans also bundled student loans. The conglomerates made out like bandits, while we were left holding the bag of loans larded with compiling interest and collection charges.

It's consumer spending that stimulates the economy. After all, how many solid gold umbrella stands does one bank executive need? I understand that the purchase of gold umbrella stands contribute to the economy, especially if they are made in the U.S.A. and bought in the U.S.A. But it's a little-known fact that jobs in the the gold umbrella stand industry have all been shipped to Sri Lanka by those same executives who bought those umbrella stands during boom times for precious-metal accoutrements such as gold-flaked gourmet ice cream, gold-encrusted cell phones and 24-carat gold bullion doorstops. Not to mention those golden showers execs administered to us all.

But I digress, in the hummingbirdminds style.

What if that same $500 that went into an exec's gold umbrella stand budget line was instead spent locally on groceries, clothes, car repair and even umbrellas? What if there were thousands -- even millions -- of us doing that? Wouldn't that be better for the GDP and our local economies than the purchase of a few you-know-whats by you-know-who?

Think about it.

Meanwhile, check out a few other articles about student loan forgiveness on the CSLDTSTE group on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=46657437878. Thanks to group founder Robert Applebaum, NYC.

Jon Stewart explains it all for us

Just saw a repeat of Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" smackdown with Jim Cramer of CNBC's "Fast Money." Wow! I didn't see it the first time because the buildup was so overdone that it couldn't possibly live up to the hype. But Stewart's main point was a simple one. Why was CNBC fiddling why Wall Street burned? Certainly they could have better reported the shenanigans behind the scenes, the fact that A.I.G. and Bear Stearns and Citigroup execs were taking our 401(k) money and enriching their own selves, all the time telling us to put more money into our investments and just forget about it. Trust us.

We're at fault too. We let them get away with it. Then. But what about now? Will we hold them accountable? Will Pres. Obama and his money people let them get away with it by propping up their old shell game?

Next time your workplace H.R. people conduct an investment seminar, ask them this question: Why did you tell us to put our money into 401(k)s and deffered comp plans and then forget about it? Is there something you're hiding? Or worse -- something you don't have a clue about because you too never ask WHY?

Start educating yourself by watching the repeat of Stewarty vs. Cramer "Daily Show" episode at http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=220533

Sirota slams greedheads, agrees with Repub Grassley

One of my favorite columnists/bloggers David Sirota writes this:

Remember, the Wall Street Journal shows that taxpayers are now being held hostage, as taxpayer-subsidized banks tell the government "if you want our help to get credit flowing again to consumers and businesses, stop the rush to penalize our
bonuses." And instead of simply nationalizing the banks that taxpayers already effectively own, Geithner, Summers and Obama are bowing down and complying,
offering up a plan that includes no serious executive pay restrictions and simply shovels more taxpayer cash to the same bankers who destroyed our economy.

Read David Sirota :: I Agree With Chuck Grassley

Greedheads planned all along to do us in

Matt Taibbi nails it in Rolling Stone:

...people are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

For entire article, go to Rolling Stone.

Religious affiliation: None

Leonard Pitts, Jr., writes for the Miami Herald, a daily paper known for a tell-it-like-it-is columnists. I first noticed him during the election, when his syndicated columns appeared in our local paper. He targets fools and hypocrites of all stripes, with his most scathing columns targeting conservative foolishness.

His column in today’s Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, "Religion is Losing Us," addresses the recent American Religious Identity Survey which "found a sharp erosion in the number of people claiming religious affiliation." He reels off some of the survey’s finding. He then sums up why many Americans have distanced themselves from religious wackos:

People of faith usually respond to that ugliness -- by which I mean a seemingly endless cycle of scandal, controversy, hypocrisy, violence and TV preachers saying idiot things -- in one of two ways. Either they defend it (making them part of the problem), or they regard it as a series of isolated, albeit unfortunate, episodes. But irreligious people do neither.

And people of faith should ask themselves: What is the cumulative effect upon outside observers of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker living like lords on the largess of the poor, multiplied by Jimmy Swaggart's pornography addiction, plus Eric Rudolph bombing Olympians and gays in the name of God, plus Muslims hijacking airplanes in the name of God, multiplied by the church that kicked out some members because they voted Democrat, divided by people caterwauling on courthouse steps as a rock bearing the Ten Commandments was removed, multiplied by the square root of Catholic priests preying on little boys while the church looked on and did nothing, multiplied by Muslims rioting over cartoons, plus the ongoing demonization of gay men and lesbians, divided by all those ''traditional values'' coalitions and ''family values'' councils that try to bully public schools into becoming worship houses, with morning prayers and science lessons from the book of Genesis? Then subtract selflessness, service, sacrifice, holiness and hope.

The church I attend sporadically (First United Methodist Church) isn’t like this. But the list of transgressions outlined by Pitt are just some of reasons I no longer go to the local Catholic Church.

Churches don’t need me. I used to think I needed a church to bring meaning to my life. But that’s not true. Only I can do that. I still describe myself as a Christian. But when I'm filling out paperwork and I come to the "religion" section, I write in "none."

Arts included in stimulus funds for Wyoming

As I've said many times, my day job is as an arts worker in the Wyoming Arts Council. The WAC is receiving $290,000 of stimulus funds that was included in the $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts funds in Pres. Obama's stimulus bill. All three members of Wyoming's Congressional delegation voted against economic stimulus. One, Rep. Cynthia Lummis from Cheyenne, called the NEA appropriation "crazy." Other Wyomingites have questioned the funding.

WAC Board Chair wrote an article last week called "Arts Mean Business." He makes a great case, and I don't say this just because he's our board chair.

Read the entire article at http://wyomingarts.blogspot.com/2009/03/arts-mean-business-and-economic.html

Live HD opera comes to the big screen

I've never seen a live opera. Never really interested me. Besides, to actually see one, I have to travel to the spiffy new opera house in Denver, pay a fortune for tickets, get dressed up, and probably pay for a fancy dinner. If it was a priority, I'd do it.

Today, I traveled to Cinemark in Fort Collins to see a simulcast of the Metropolitan Opera's "La Sonnambula." My friend Bob lives in Fort Collins and is a long-time opera fan. He spends part of each summer at the Santa Fe Opera. He has season tickets to Colorado Opera. He goes to the Met's simulcasts. He's an opera "Deadhead," travelling across the West, following Verdi and Bellini and even Wagner. I admire that sort of dedication.

I met Bob and his neighbor Art at the Cinemark. Art used to sing opera as a hobby when he was an engineering professor at Ohio State (a.k.a. The Ohio State). Art saw opera at La Scala in Milan in 1973. La Scala is to opera what City Lights Books in North Beach is to beat poets. Or Ryman Auditorium is to C/W musicians. You get the picture. Bob, of course, has seen dozens of operas and studies up on it in his semi-retirement. I'm a novice. Still educating myself in the fine arts -- a lifelong pursuit.

I paid $20 and joined 200-some people to see the opera on-screen. As we have always suspected, technology is a wonderful things for the arts. Sure, we've seen dire warnings about our teens' brains turning to jelly from playing too many rounds of "Halo" or "Resident Evil." But tech geeks also invented the HD camera and iPods and LCD projectors to enhance the artistic experience.

As I watched a 300-year-old opera live in high-def, I thought to myself: "Technology could help opera make a comeback." Yes, most of the people in the crowd were older than my 58 years. And yes, the graying of the performing arts audience is a major concern of arts groups all over the world. Whenever I go to a local symphony performance, the sound of old people snoring competes with strains of Beethoven and Mozart.

But things may be looking up. Did you know that opera has its own version of "American Idol?" It's true. At today's simulcast, we saw a preview of "The Audition," a documentary based on a 2007 nationwide search for the next big opera voice. The singers were almost all in their 20s, with one man coming in at the ripe old age of 30. They all have wonderful voices. The search has conducted regional auditions and the winners all go to the U.S. competition. That winner gets to sing at the Met.

I haven't spoken much about the opera itself. Bellini set his original in a small 17th-century town in the Swiss Alps. The new version takes place in a NYC rehearsal space, with the players dressed in contemporary clothes rehearsing for a performance of "La Sonnambula" set in a Swiss village. Kooky.

But what impressed me most is how the Metropolitan Opera, one of the oldest and stodgiest institutions in one of the oldest and stodgiest areas in the performing arts, is modernizing through technology and by borrowing ideas from reality shows such as "American Idol." Purists will be shocked. Bob tells me that the Mary Zimmerman, director of this new version of "La Sonnambula," was booed when introduced at opening night The Met. However, the place was filled to capacity for today's performance. And much applause was flung at the leading tenor and soprano. Even Bob, an old-line opera lover, loved the changes. And if we learned anything in our most recent past, change is good.

Ex-Veep Cheney still talking nonsense

On the March 18 "Daily Show," Jon Stewart skewered this John King "interview" of Wyoming's Dick Cheney. What's not to skewer? Go to http://crooksandliars.com/taxonomy/term/205

LCDGC plans book as 2010 fund-raiser

The Laramie County Democratic Grassroots Coalition (LCDGC) is compiling a book of recipes, pictures, anecdotes and poetry about -- and from -- Democrats in Laramie County.

The LCDGC has set March 1, 2010, as the deadline to have the book completed and ready for distribution. It will serve as a fund-raiser to help candidates during the 2010 election, which also includes the gubernatorial race.

All Dems in the county are encouraged to be a part of this project.

Mary Lou Marcum is in charge. Submit work to her at "Cookbook," c/o M.L. Marcum, 2598 Tranquility Road, Cheyenne, WY 82009.

FMI: Mary Lou at 307-635-3464 or windywyo@bresnan.net.

Six years on, anti-war poems still stand as witness

In the early part of 2003, I was mightily pissed that we were set to invade Iraq. So, angry, in fact, that I wrote a poem and sent it into Poets Against the War, which eventually became Poets Against War. It wasn’t the greatest poem in the world, but it was heartfelt and relied a lot on the talents of P.B. Shelley. It didn’t make it into the "Poets Against the War" anthology, but it was one of 13,000 poems presented to Congress on March 5, 2003, by PAW rabble-rousers Sam Hamill, Terry Tempest Williams, and several others. So, I mark the anniversary of 2,190 days of pointless war with a poem.

Ozymandias Exploded

With apologies to P.B. Shelley

"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
stand in the desert.
Near them, on the sand, half sunk,
a shattered visage lies,
tells lies and more lies
about the desert war,
last stand in the desert,
last stand for oil in the desert.

Near them, on the sand, half sunk,
a shattered visage lies
whose frown and
wrinkled lips and
sneer of cold command
stand in the desert
keep standing in the desert,
stand for nothing in the desert.

I met a traveller
(might have been a poet)
from an antique land
or maybe from the future.
She came upon a statue in the desert
and on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is George Bush, King of Kings,
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains.

Nothing stands in the desert
nothing beside remains
but to take a stand about the war
in the desert;
nothing beside remains
round the decay of that colossal wreck
boundless and bare,
the lone and level sands stretch far away.

See the poem on-site at http://www.poetsagainstwar.net/displaypoem.asp?AuthorID=5733#453063245

"Flogging Molly" is the best

Rich still make out fine under Obama plan

This chart is for the wingnuts and whiny-babies (sometimes the same thing) who are complaining about Pres. Obama's rollback of Bush's tax breaks for the wealthy. Courtesy of MoveOn:

You say "pork," I say "infusion of capital"

Wyoming’s two senators and one representative brought home the bacon this week.

The $410 billion Omnibus Spending Bill passed by Congress and signed by Pres. Obama includes $14.5 million in spending for Wyoming, all projects requested by the delegation. That includes millions for highway construction and improvements, $1.9 million for a pathways system in Grand Teton National Park, $3.42 million for a biology research lab at UW, almost $1 million for various health and drug prevention programs, $300,000 for renovation of a water treatment plant in Lincoln County and $285,000 for literacy and math programs on the Wind River Reservation. All reasonable requests that serve the public good. It’s almost as if Senators Enzi and Barrasso and Representative Lummis were community activists, even though they’re Republicans.

Included in the bill are a number of programs to boost Wyoming’s creative economy. They include $190,000 (requested by former Rep. Barbara Cubin) for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody for digitizing and editing historic papers of William F. Cody. TV pundits have had a lot of fun criticizing this particular earmark (dare we call them earmarks?), going so far as to make fun of Buffalo Bill. One pundit, who shall remain nameless, referred to Bill as a horse thief and a philatelist, which are fighting words in Cody’s hometown of Cody. Why stamp-collecting is regarded with such low esteem in Park County is a long story and will have to wait for another time. Suffice to say, the barflies at the Irma Hotel Bar tonight are damn mad and are just about ready to shoot somebody, preferably a pointy-headed Democrat.

Here’s another cultural earmark: $114,000 to the Ark Memorial Foundation in Laramie for construction of Creative Arts Center. This was another project promoted by Cubin. The Creative Arts Program at Ark serves mentally challenged teens and young adults. The organization is a trailblazer in theatre and visual arts programs that feature the talents of people thought by some to have no talents. That’s why Ark won a Governor’s Arts Award three years ago.

The bill also included $95,000 to the Carbon County Museum Foundation for construction of multi-use museum, $171,000 to Citizens for Civic Auditorium for planning and construction of Casper Civic Auditorium and $380,000 to the City of Evanston for improvements to the Historic Evanston Roundhouse and Railyard. All these projects were a long time coming and will be a boost to their communities. Anyone who’s been to Evanston’s historic downtown knows what I’m talking about. Renovations to the Roundhouse and railyards and the museum have turned the town into a destination instead of just another pit stop along I-80.

All these projects are a boon to Wyoming, which is trying to reshape itself from the country’s "energy sacrifice zone" into a place with scores of vibrant arts and cultural amenities. These earmarks all mark progress.

You’d think the members of our Congressional delegation would be proud of their ability to help Wyoming plan for the future. But no, they’d rather play pitiful partisan games. All three voted to kill the $410 billion omnibus federal spending bill, calling it "fiscally irresponsible" and "pork-laden." Pork-barrel spending, too.

Pork-barrel my ass.

Bill Luckett, director for the Wyoming Democratic Party, told the Casper Star-Tribune:

The delegation's pointed criticism of earmarks while securing funding for their own pet projects is "blatant hypocrisy."

"It's an insult to the intelligence of Wyoming's people that they scream about earmarks out of one side of their mouth while they stick earmarks in the spending bill with the other side," Luckett said.

"It was Jesus Christ who said, 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,' " he added.

Wyomingites happy, yet vaguely troubled

Wyoming received mixed messages today from national organizations. We all know how distressing mixed messages can be. Makes you want to go out and write a really sad poem.

First, the good news. Wyoming is the third-happiest state, trailing only our brethren and sistren in neighboring Utah, and the sun-drenched residents of Hawaii. This comes from a survey of Americans' well-being, conducted by Gallup in partnership with Healthways and America's Health Insurance Plans.

The bottom three were Mississippi, Kentucky and, at dead last, West Virginia.

The beach-goers and mountaineers of the West obviously are happier than the mountaineers of West Virginia. In fact, the saddest states are in the South. Coincidence? Without all that sorrow, how would they breed such excellent and sorrow-drenched writers as William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor (drenched in sorrow yet darkly humorous)?

According to an AP story:

Jim Harter, a researcher at Gallup, said he was reluctant to explain regional differences without more study, but he suspected that some of the variations are explained by income. For example, when people were asked to examine their status in life now and five years from now, wealthier people tended to score higher.

The survey attempts to measure people's well-being. It examines their eating and exercise habits, work environment and access to basic necessities, just to name some of the criteria.

The massive survey involved more than 350,000 interviews. Examples of the questions include: Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday? Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your job or the work you do? Did you eat healthy all day yesterday? Do you feel safe walking alone at night in the city or area where you live? See the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index at http://www.well-beingindex.com

So, Wyomingites are happy. We see amazing joyfulness every day. Although we may be only imagining it.

On Wyoming Public Radio this afternoon, there was a piece about Wyoming’s low mental health grades. The National Alliance on Mental Illness gave Wyoming a grade of "D" in 2006 and an "F" this year. The state lost points for its shortage of psychiatrists or affordable housing for people with mental health issues.

Both of these problems are real. Moreover, there’s not a single practicing child psychiatrist in the entire state. In case you’re too giddy to take in such a woeful statistic, I’ll spell it out in numbers – Wyoming has exactly 0.0 child psychiatrists for its 520,000 people, maybe 200,000 of them under 18. There are psychiatrists trained to treat adults, and there are psychologists and therapists and counselors. Physicians in small- to medium-sized towns in the state see young people with mental health issues and prescribe medication. But they are not trained in child psychiatry.

So we have a problem. Roger McDaniel sees it as a byproduct of Wyoming’s rural nature. He’s probably right. McDaniel oversees mental health for the state Department of Health. He told the WPR reporter: "To the extent that you try to grade Wyoming against more urban states, we're always going to fare poorly."He added that Wyoming has doubled its funding for mental health, and expanded its regional care.

But here in the Great Wide Open, many mentally ill people go untreated. That’s a sad state of affairs.

But I’m too damn happy to notice.

Lummis judges meat on "Colbert Report"

By now, you've seen (or heard about) Wyoming Rep. Cynthia Lummis's appearance on "The Colbert Report." Here's a link to the clip:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/221062/march-09-2009/better-know-a-district---wyoming-s-at-large---cynthia-lummis

Plans proceed for Cheyenne supercomputer

We are all very excited about the new supercomputer that's planned for a site outside Cheyenne.

Last week, The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) announced the selection of an architectural design team for "a supercomputing center dedicated to advancing scientists' understanding of climate, weather, and other Earth and atmospheric processes."

NCAR sent along this digital version of the proposed design:



Here's sneak peek at some of the equipment that will be used at this super-high-tech facility:





"We are pleased to be moving forward on this world-class, collaborative endeavor," says NCAR Director Eric Barron. "We are advancing an era of scientific progress and discovery through a partnership that will deliver top-notch resources to the world's research community."

We live in exciting times.

Legislature vanishes in the night

Odd not to have the Legislature in town on Friday. They wrapped up the session late on Thursday and melted into the night -- the same way they had arrived way back in January. Tumbleweeds tumbling through the streets, no doubt rolling through the abandoned law-making chambers that used to resound with carefree laughter and the rustling of newly-minted bills. Parking was easy to find. No lobbyists hanging around on street corners, cadging quarters from passers-by. Eerie. But nice.

Poet wraps up 2009 Wyoming Legislature

The Wyoming Legislature ended its 2009 session with a reading -- and a bit of accordion playing -- from our poet laureate, David Romtvedt of Buffalo.

David's one of those multi-talented guys who writes great poetry, plays an assortment of musical instruments (solo and with his band, Fireants), teaches a broad array of college courses and is bilingual. He's attempting to become multilingual, taking courses in the Basque language. It's not an easy language, having roots back to Europe's earliest (and now defunct) tongues. David just returned from the Basque County and had a new song for the legislature.

It was a fandango, which he played on a new Basque accordion and sang in the native language. Members of the Wyoming House and senate were attentive as David performed, and then read a new poem, "The Age of Risk." He also thanked the legislature for their ongoing support of the arts, arts education and the Wyoming Arts Council.

This is the fifth year David's been a guest at the legislature. Usually he performs earlier in the session in order to charge up its members for any arts-related bills on the docket. He may be a good luck charm, as the Wyoming Arts Council's budget has gone up during that same time. And it has nothing to do with multimillion-dollar budget surpluses due to taxes on extractive energy projects. Just a coincidence...

This evening, David was set to talk poetry and accordion at Hobbs Elementary School's "Night of Arts," along with Aussie storyteller Paul Taylor from Laramie and several other artists. That's the school my kids attended. While there, they received a good background in the arts. My son played the trumpet and my daughter, the violin. Lots of writing in the classroom, as well as Young Authors and "Letters About Literature" contests.

After David's legislative appearance, I asked him about the Basque song. He said it was a song by a Basque songwriting team. The subject was the first woman Palestinian suicide bomber who died during the Arab-Israeli clashes. He translated the words, and noted that there is no judgement in the song, no taking sides on whether the bomber was good or bad. Just the story of her dying. It seemed an odd song to be playing to our very conservative legislature. David said he would have told them what it was about, but nobody asked.

Legislature: Not a cent for children's health needs, but lots of dough for pet projects

Joan Barron reports in today's Casper Star-Tribune that Gov. Freudenthal is "puzzled at the overall thrust of the legislative session that wraps up tonight."

He said he was disappointed that the Wyoming House last week rejected a bill to set up a health care reform pilot program financed with tobacco fund money, and another proposal for $90,000 to expand the children's health insurance program.

"I think there's some ideological stuff going on, particularly in the House. They want to meddle in your personal life. Somehow the government can do that, but it can't help kids get insurance," Freudenthal said. "That doesn't fit for me, particularly when we are heading into these economic times."

He said health care costs are not coming down, which is he why he liked the health care reform pilot program. The pilot may not have worked but it could have provided the state with information about what might work, he said. "I don't know if it's just ideologically without rudder and it's just kind of the winds and the mood of the House or whether there's a purpose," he added.

The Legislature, dominated by Republicans, spent an inordinate amount of time on some of the Far Right's favorite topics -- gay rights (very much against), guns (FOR!), abortion (against) and "fetal rights" (FOR!). They socked away more money that we don't have, as budget surplusses have shriveled with falling energy prices. But it's more important for Republicans to sock away money than to spend it on children's health needs.

Sk(r)ewed priorities.

Rocky's rocky road leads it to the Net

As noted on these e-pages last week, Denver's Rocky Mountain News published its final edition last Friday.

Some of its out-of-work reporters and columnists now write on I Want My Rocky. Mary Voelz Chandler still covers the arts beat and wrote a piece about Colorado's Arts Advocacy Day taking place on Friday, March 6. On that day, the Colorado Council on the Arts will meet to talk about its drastic state budget cuts (25 percent) -- and decide how to spend $314,000 it will receive from the 2009 Economic Stimulus American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It has to send an application for that money to the National Endowment for the Arts by Friday, May 13.

In Cheyenne, all of us at the Wyoming Arts Council heard today that our cut of the stimulus package is about $290,000. We only have ten days to assemble an application.

To read more of Chandler's IWMR column, go to http://www.iwantmyrocky.com/2009/03/03/arts-advocacy-day-a-chance-to-consider-saving-jobs/

And you thought Wyomingites stood up to bullies like Limbaugh...

Video clip from Heather via Crooks & Liars:

Registration opens for Wyoming Coalition for the Homeless "Walk in My Shoes"

Here's a great way to help out a good cause -- and get a bit of exercise.

WALK IN MY SHOES, presented by Beacon Hills Baptist Church, Saturday, June 13, 2009.

Walk begins at the Wyoming Coalition for the Homeless building, 907 Logan Avenue, Cheyenne. Check-in time 8 a.m. Walk begins at 9 a.m.

Pre-registration fee is $12. Registration on day of walk is $15.

Ghost walkers are welcome, which are people who have a conflict on that day, and can’t walk, but want to help. Ghost Walkers are eligible for door prize drawings. Fill out the registration form below and mail it with your check to the address below.

WALK IN MY SHOES 2009 REGISTRATION FORM
(Copy and paste this form onto a MS Word document, print it and fill it out.)

Make check(s) out to:
Beacon Hill Baptist Church (mark "WALK")
MAIL TO:
Walk In My Shoes
c/o Beacon Hill Baptist Church
110 Central Avenue

Name: _____________________________

Address:____________________________

Telephone:__________________________

Walker: _________ Ghost Walker_________

Waiver: I hereby waive all claims against Beacon Hill Baptist Church, the City of Cheyenne, the Cheyenne Parks and Recreation Department, SHY-WY Amateur Radio Club, the Wyoming Coalition for the Homeless, their board members, volunteers, event sponsors and other personnel involved in the event for any injury I might suffer in this event. I attest that I am physically fit and prepared for this event. I grant full permission for organizers to use photographs of me and quotations of and from me in legitimate accounts and promotion of this event.

Signature:___________________________
(participant or parent/guardian)

Wear a dark suit and march down to the coal-fired protest

Another weekend of big confabs and protests in Washington, D.C....

Some 10,000 college students are in D.C. this weekend for Power Shift '09, an event meant to energize young people (and at some future point, their elders) into making the big switch from coal- and gas-powered energy to alternative energy. I took a look at the Power Shift '09 web site map to see if any Wyoming students were registered. The map showed two registrants from Laramie, presumably from UW. After attending the creativity conference at UW this past week and hearing about scores of innovative student projects (Evolve Revolve, Pokes Vote, etc), I'm a bit surprised more didn't travel to this D.C. event. But it's expensive to travel and with spring will come more and numerous opportunities to network and protest in our nation's capital.

There is a protest on Monday on Capitol Hill against the coal-fired plant that powers Congress. It was organized by environmental writer Bill McKibben and well-known Luddite essayist Wendell Berry. This event is sponsored by Capitol Climate Action. McKibben had asked protestors to dress less like, well, hippie-dippy protestors and more like Congressional reps. I like the idea. Imagine the impressive sight of thousands of men and women in dark suits (not yet time for spring wardrobe changes) marching in cadence, swinging their laptop cases.

Some of the air was let out of the protest when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid ordered the Capitol Power Plant to finish its switch from coal to natural gas. But the protest will go on, according to McKibben writing on the Grist web site:

We'll still be protesting on Monday in D.C., but it looks like the protest may be half victory party too! Late Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter off to the Capitol Architect -- the guy in charge of buildings and grounds, as well as the century-old, mainly-coal-fired power plant that Congress owns and which is located just a few blocks from the fancy dome and the National Mall. The two leaders told him to stop shoveling coal into the power plant's boiler and finish the switch to natural gas. Now, it just so happens that this is the same coal plant targeted for the first mass civil disobedience in the history of the American climate movement.... It didn't take much of a push to convince Congress that the time for change had come. It's an almost giddy feeling -- sort of like what most of America felt on election night when the voters actually chose to elect the smart guy. It feels like the system is working (sort of) the way it's supposed to.

Not to be outdone, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank, has announced a counter-protest to the Capitol Climate Action, the biggest civil disobedience on climate issues in U.S. history. It's called the "Celebrate Coal! and Keep Energy Affordable" rally.

As a veteran of protests and counter-protests, I'm not fearful of collisions between warring energy factions. It is possible that the day could erupt into a melee when one group of dark-suited protestors collide with another. Laptops could get switched, Blueberries Blackberries lost, Blu-Ray headphones knocked from skulls. But who knows? Maybe some common ground will be found, some blend of goals and ideas.

I think not.

Here's McKibben:

This is one small power plant. We need to start shutting down the whole vast coal archipelago that provides half the nation's electricity. That's going to be a tough, grinding job that requires a huge movement. And it's somehow going to have to stretch around the world, to China and India and everywhere else where coal is commonplace. (That's why we've got 350.org up and running; we're not going to solve this one city at a time).

Here's part of a press release from the Competitive Enterprise Institute:

CEI has applied to the U. S. Capitol Police for a permit to hold the rally in front of the Capitol Power Plant on the south side of E Street, S. E., between South Capitol Street and New Jersey Avenue, S. E. The District of Columbia Metropolitan Police have also been notified that the rally will be held on the north side of E Street if the Capitol Police deny the permit. The anti-coal protest group, Capitol Climate Protection, has apparently not applied for a permit to protest around the Capitol Power Plant.

“The goal of Celebrate Coal! is to publicize the colossal benefits of coal-fired power and the need for access to affordable energy. If the anti-coal zealots are allowed to prevail politically, electric rates will skyrocket for most Americans and many jobs will be lost in energy-intensive industries as a result of higher power prices,” said Myron Ebell, Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy at CEI and one of the event’s organizers.

Taxes on Wyoming's coal, gas and oil pay my salary. That makes me a bit conflicted. I won't be at the D.C. protest or counter-protest, but I think it's terrific they're happening. But the real battleground on this issue will be in Wyoming. We dig millions of tons of coal out of the ground each year and send it to power plants across the U.S. and overseas. We burn some of that coal in colossal plants and send most of the power out of state. How in the world are we going to deal with that -- and find alternatives?

Saturday Night at the Movies -- "Milk"

Saw "Milk" tonight. Saturday Night at the Movies with the family. Sean Penn was terrific, as was Josh Brolin. A history/civics lesson as well as a damn fine movie. I'd forgotten about the defeat of California's Prop. 6 in 1978. Makes you wonder how Prop. 8 snuck in over the transom in 2008. Some of the same anti-human forces at work today.

Elton John performs benefit concert in Laramie on April 3

Elton John has announced that he will perform April 3 in Laramie at UW's Arena Auditorium. It's a benefit concert for the Matthew Shepard Foundation, an organization founded by Judy Shepard after the murder of her gay son, Matthew.

Tickets for the Laramie show, $35-$85, will go on sale at 8 a.m. Monday, March 2, at wyomingathletics.com.

Here's a statement about the event from Judy Shepard:

"Ten years ago, Sir Elton did a concert in Laramie to benefit the Foundation. It was wonderful beyond description. He is a gracious and generous human being. We are sincerely grateful for his continuing support."

The Friday evening concert will be held amidst the proceedings of the Public Art Symposium set for April 2-4 at the UW Conference Center. So all you Wyoming artists out there can come to the symposium on Thursday, Friday and Saturday -- and spend a little time with Sir Elton on Friday night.

Photo: Elton John's 1971 album, "Tumbleweed Connection," with lyrics by Bernie Taupin. "Where to Now, St. Peter?", "Ballad of a Well-Known Gun," and "Burn Down the Mission." Western themes explored by Brits, with amazing results. My favorite Elton John album.

Coen brothers present: "Clean Coal"

Rocky Mountain News R.I.P.

The Rocky Mountain News in Denver will publish its final issue tomorrow. Read all about it at http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/feb/26/rocky-mountain-news-closes-friday-final-edition/.

The newspaper was founded in 1859 by William Byers, one of the many hucksters to stake claims at the fledgling outpost located at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte in Colorado Territory. Byers hauled his printing press in a wagon all the way to pre-Denver. The paper survived floods and fire and the ravages of time. It just couldn't deal with the Internet.

In the early 1980s, I covered high school sports for the Rocky. Just for a year. From 1978-1981, I wrote about high school sports for the competing Denver Post. I moved on to managing editor of a weekly newspaper, Up the Creek, which began its life covering the lively singles scene in Denver's Glendale enclave. It moved from drooling (in print) over wet T-shirt contests to covering arts and entertainment and culture in a rapidly growing city. We made fun of the Rocky and Post for their mistakes. We dueled with Westword over stories and ads (Westword won). I then moved on to other things, as people do. I love newspapers, and hate to see a good one go into the dustbin of history.

But here I am, writing on the Internet and reading newspapers such as the Rocky and the Post and the NY Times and the London Guardian and all the others for the price of a few cents of electricity.

Weird times, eh?

Obama's speech shows us the way

Alternative energy... health care... education...

The Big Three.

So glad that Pres. Obama revisited the three priorities that he hammered home during his race for the presidency.

Get busy on alternative energy to get rid of our dependence on the oil sheiks. Build windmills and upgrade the energy grid and build solar cells and design better hybrid cars. And clean coal? Nobody knows what that is but we can pour money and energy into ways that will make Wyoming's huge coal reserves cleaner and more useful in the alt-energy future.

Health care is crucial. Single-payer health care, the kind that Republicans (including our Wyoming delegation) hates. But the only kind that can solve our tangled health care system.

Tax breaks for college students. More college loans. A renewed commitment to post-secondary education. Everyone commit to at least a year of college? Why not? If I had my way, I'd always be taking a course.

Shovel-ready projects? We have plenty of those that require actual shovels -- highway construction, rebuilding cities, renovating homes. Then there are some that use metaphoric shovels. Projects in the arts and education and science.

I hear white noise in the background. Wait -- it's Bobby Jindal from Louisiana, another Republican naysayer. White noise, the droning of a political party with no ideas.

Stimulate the economy by cancelling student loan debt

I've been on Facebook for a few weeks. I have 29 friends, most of them far-away family members. My sister Mo in Tallahassee prompted my interest in FB, which had just been another PC time-waster until she started a family group. It's been fun to see what my four brothers and four sisters are up to. It's also educational viewing the posts by my nieces and nephews in college (and high school) in Florida -- and my son in college in Tucson. Exams, parties, rock concerts -- my niece Erin just went to a "wrock" concert, and I'm trying to figure out what it is. They post many more photos and videos that their elders. It's a multimedia melange to them. We're still figuring it out...

I've read a couple of anti-Facebook columns lately. I haven't been on long enough to be angry at this social networking site. One writer said that he didn't need FB to talk to his friends -- and didn't want to make any new friends who spend all their spare time on Facebook.

Facebook has a "groups" section. You can start your own group -- Red-headed Nazis for Christ, Recycling Geeks of America, etc. -- and you can invite all of your new friends to join. Some of these groups have gathered a huge number of joiners. One is Cancel Student Loan Debt to Stimulate the Economy. It boasts more than 83,000 members who want to wipe clean the student loan slate and spend their money on more important things, such as a faster laptop to accommodate all their new FB friends. I joined this one, as I'd like to persuade the lender of my grad-school loan to knock off some of the thousands in interest and fines it has piled onto my loan.

Some have commented that the group's members are just a bunch of whiners, people who took out loans voluntarily and now want to default on those loans, ruining the system for others. As if there was a "system" to student loans. If the act of finding, applying and receiving a student loan is systematic, I haven't seen it. My son gets tuition assistance from Pima Community College, but hasn't yet taken out a loan. I encourage him to avoid it if possible.

Pres. Obama has taken a step in the right direction, with tax credits for college expenses and other programs. But, as in the mortgage loan mess, many of us are carrying around student loans bloated by expanding interest and fees that drag us down. As is the case with "responsible homeowners" and their mortgages, we're just looking for a little relief -- not a bailout. Or default.

Wyoming to get $538M in stimulus funds

Today's Casper Star-Tribune has a list of funds coming to Wyoming through the Democrats' stimulus plan. It comes from the National Conference of State Legislators, via Sen. Mike Enzi's office. Enzi, of course, voted against the stimulus, as did our other senator and lone representative. It must be painful for them to release information about legislation that will bring much-appreciated help to their state -- and one which they had nothing to do with.

Here's the list thus far:

Fiscal Stabilization Fund $15 million
Medicaid $110 million
Highways and bridges $157.6 million
Transit capital grants $9.3 million
Drinking water state revolving fund $19.7 million
Clean water state revolving fund $19.5
Weatherization assistance $19.8 million
State energy program $20.4 million
Emergency food and shelter $200,000
Immunization $1.6 million
Foster care/adoption assistance $300,000
Elderly nutrition $500,000
Child care $2.6 million
Head Start $1.1 million
Community service block grant $5 million
Grants to local education authorities $25 million
School improvement $6.8 million
Special education Part B $25.8 million
Special education Part C $1.8 million
Vocational rehabilitation $1.6 million
Educational technology $3.1 million
School lunch equipment $100,000
Public housing capital fund $1.4 million
HUD affordable housing grant $3.6 million
Homeless prevention $1.7 million
Internet crimes against children $1.6 million
Violence Against Women Act $800,000
Unemployment insurance/state administration grants $900,000
Employment service $2.1 million
Law enforcement grants $5.6 million
Community service for older Americans $600,000
Job training for adults $1.2 million
Job training for youths $2.9 million
Dislocated workers $900,000

Less than $100,000 each for:
Community assistance/food assistance
Education for homeless
Crime victims assistance

Total: $538.6 million, give or take a few bucks.

I don't see anything in here for the arts, although $50 million in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts was included in the stimulus plan. Perhaps the NEA needs to figure out how they'll handle the funding before numbers can be released.

MoveOn meets with LarCoDems Feb. 24

Nicole Novotny sends word that the next meeting of the Laramie County Democratic Party will feature guest speaker Kate Wright, regional coordinator for www.MoveOn.org

The meeting will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 7 p.m. at the Historic Plains Hotel in downtown Cheyenne.

After Kate's presentation, the Laramie County Democratic Party will discuss future fund-raising and the election of new officers for 2009 and 2010.

Nebraska and Wyoming share a trait: lack of children's mental health care services

The daily newspaper was invented for this.

On Feb. 1, the Omaha World-Herald published a long article, "Safe Haven kids finally got right help." The article, by staff writers Matthew Hansen and Karyn Spencer, was based on interviews and research into 10,000 pages of documents released to the paper by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. It takes time and patience it took to read that many pages of bureaucratese. It takes skill to translate that into an article that is heart-breaking. Read it at http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10552927, and then read Judith Warner's column in the New York Times that alerted me to the OWH piece. Go to http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/is-there-no-place-on-earth/?emc=eta1

I've written several posts about the weird happenings surrounding Nebraska's "Safe Haven" law. Parents, at their wit's end with kids (mostly teens) who had mental health and behavior problems, abandoned them to Nebraska's authorities. One mother drove her child to Nebraska all the way from Georgia.

Nebraska is Wyoming's neighbor to the east. Both states reflect the fact that there is a severe shortage of mental health care practitioners and facilities in the nation's rural areas. Here's a paragraph from Warner's column:

In 1990, the Council on Graduate Medical Education estimated that by 2000, the United States would need 30,000 child psychiatrists; there are now 7,000. Many rural areas have no child psychiatrists or psychologists at all. Often, pediatricians end up providing mental health care, but they aren’t trained for it and often aren’t reimbursed for it by health insurance. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is currently working with the American Academy of Pediatrics to try to formalize ways to collaborate on caring for children with mental health needs, but models for such joint care are scarce. And doctors have no financial incentives to talk to one another on the phone.

Many rural areas have no child psychiatrists or psychologists at all. Wyoming, with its 97,000 square miles of mostly "rural," doesn't have a single child psychiatrist. Psychologists? Yes, in the state's cities of Cheyenne and Casper, maybe a few others. There are licensed therapists who can provide counseling and possibly point harried parents in the right direction. There are non-profits such as UPLIFT and its outreach specialists who can do the same thing. (Note: I'm an UPLIFT board member). But when you are a parent faced with a mentally ill child, you need lots of guidance and professional help. Your child will likely need medication -- you need an M.D. for that.

Why do I care about this? My daughter just spent 2008 in a residential treatment facility. My wife and I are involved in our communities and know our way around mental health care and twelve-step programs. We have health insurance, but knew it wouldn't come close to covering the costs.

When it comes to long-term care for your own child, we often felt the way this mother described it to the OWH reporters:

Theresa Thomason, an Omaha native who lives in Oklahoma, said she had been struggling to get her adopted foster child into a residential program for his psychiatric problems.

She called an elected official and said she was taking her son to Nebraska unless someone helped her. A barrage of phone calls, e-mails and faxes followed. Her son was admitted within days.

"Why on God's green earth does it take all that to get help?" she asked.

Good question, Theresa.

More about some of the possible answers in future posts.

How much stimulus dough will come to WYO?

Ben Neary of the Associated Press reports that Sen. John Barrasso estimates Wyoming may receive up to $540 million from Pres. Obama's economic stimulus bill.

But Barrasso, a vocal opponent of the $787 billion stimulus bill, warned Wyoming lawmakers on Friday that they will have to consider carefully whether to accept federal dollars that may come with strings attached.

The Republican said only one copy of the lengthy bill was distributed in the Senate before last week's vote to approve it. He said that made it impossible for senators to read it before voting on it.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal has said this week that his administration is working to make sense of the bill and to determine whether accepting federal money would commit the state to future expenditures.

It's one hell of a deal when federal money comes with strings attached. Such as, when the feds give Wyoming money for highways, the gubment expects the money to be used for highways. The gall! The same goes for federal funds for education, toxic waste clean-up, even the arts.

Some Repub governors have made noises about not accepting the stimulus money. Louisiana's Republican Gov. Bobby Jindel, currently GOP Golden Boy, made some threats along those lines last week. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin took time out from Mardi Gras festivities to say he'd take any of those federal funds that the Gov turned down. Still a lot of rebuilding to do in New Orleans.

That's the thing. Repub Govs may jabber all they want about not accepting stimulus money. But when it comes right down to it, they take it because their constituents -- Dem and Repub -- need it. Govs of southern states have been the most vociferous. They usually have sent Repubs to the U.S. House and Senate. But in the end, they'll take the money. State budgets are in touch shape. And Republican margins of victory weren't all that impressive in the recent elections.

In Wyoming, our budget surplus, brought to us by the energy extraction industries, have shrunk. All agencies in state government have been told to plan on 5 percent budget cuts this year and 10 percent for budgets in the next biennium. These are permanent cuts, not storm warnings that may be lifted in a few months. Wyoming is not exempt from the economic distress that's afflicting its neighboring states. A lumber mill shut down in Laramie this week, throwing 67 employees out of work. There's a lot of that going on.

Instead of worrying about some imaginary strings attached to the stimulus package, I'd suggest we take the money and keep people employed -- and put others back to work.

Twists and turns in arts-funding story

In the Feb. 15 New York Times, reporter Robin Pogrebin chronicled the odd story of how the $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts managed to stay in Pres. Obama’s economic recovery bill. Not a pretty story, but it does illustrate some of the horse-trading that goes on in Congress. And the importance of government funding for the arts.

Here are excerpts of the story interspersed with my commentary based on 17-plus years as an arts worker, including a two-year stint at the NEA:

There was a whiplash quality to the action surrounding the arts money. As the week wore on, things weren’t looking good. Although a House version of the bill had included the $50 million, the Senate version approved no arts money at all. The Senate even voted 73 to 24 on Feb. 6 for an amendment ruling out stimulus money for museums, arts centers and theaters. And some conservative Republicans had denounced the arts as bonbons for a leftist elite with no place in an emergency stimulus bill.

The challenge for culture boosters in Congress was to convince a House-Senate conference committee that the arts provide jobs as other industries do, while also encouraging tourism and spending in general.

"We had the facts on our side," said Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a New York Democrat who is co-chairwoman of the Congressional Arts Caucus. "If we’re trying to stimulate the economy, and get money into the Treasury, nothing does that better than art."

A 2007 Americans for the Arts report, Arts & Economic Prosperity III: The Economic Impact of Nonprofit Arts and Culture Organizations and Their Audiences, contained the following economic stats:

Nationally, the nonprofit arts and culture industry generates $166.2 billion in economic activity every year -- 63.1 billion in spending by organizations and an additional $103.1 billion in event-related spending by their audiences. It included 5.7 million full-time equivalent jobs, $104.2 billion in household income, $7.9 billion in local government tax revenues, $9.1 billion in state government tax revenues and $12.6 billion in federal income tax revenues.

That's a lot of simoleons. Big numbers cause Congress to sit up and listen. It also helps that arts supporters were contacting their reps and senators. People like you and me and our close personal friend, Robert Redford.

In his conversation last week with Ms. Pelosi, a California Democrat, [Robert] Redford said he drew on his film experience to argue for the arts as an economic engine. "Ticket takers or electricians or actors — all the people connected with the arts are at risk just like everybody else is," he said in an interview. He said he also reminded Ms. Pelosi that his Sundance Film Festival brings more than $60 million to Park City, Utah, each year.

You have to wonder why Utah's entire D.C. delegation voted against the stimulus bill. Sen. Hatch has not always been a friend to the arts, but he's had his moments. Sen. Bennett is a longtime arts supporter. But both are Republicans. They were only taking orders from their leadership, as were Wyoming's Sen. Enzi and Sen. Barrasso.

Did you know that Utah has the nation's oldest arts council? That's a fact. Arts are huge in the state, especially in Salt Lake City, with its symphony and ballet companies and Mormon Tabernacle Choir and public art programs and museums and... The list goes on and on. And earlier this year, the Utah Arts Council got rid of its folklorists as it faced budget cuts. One would think the stimulus funds for highways and airports and building renovation would have appealed to Utah's delegation. After all, you need all those things so people can get to the arts.

As the details of the final bill were being hammered out, tens of thousands of arts advocates around the country were calling and e-mailing legislators... The tide turned. In addition to preserving the $50 million allocation, the final bill eliminated part of the Senate amendment that would have excluded museums, theaters and arts centers from any recovery money.

That Senate amendment, proposed by Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, had grouped museums, theaters and arts centers with implied frivolities like casinos and golf courses.

During debates on the bill, some Republicans had labeled the arts "highbrow" and "a luxury" that was populated with leftist artists and arts supporters. It was reminiscent of the so-called "Culture Wars" of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when a few NEA-funded projects casued an uproar and became a rallying cry for Jerry Falweel, Pat Robertson, and his fellow travelers in the Religious Right.

But even that battle had shades of gray. The NEA's budget was cut in half following Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" and Republican victory in the 1994 elections. Newwt got his way and almost all of the fellowship programs for individual artists were eliminated. All but the ones in creative writing, as various high-profile writers and Hollywood types appealed to Mr. Gingrich's vision of himself as a writer. He is a writer, of speculative fiction and history. So the creative writing fellowships were spared on the turn of an artistic ego and a few well-placed words.

Here's a few final words from the NYT article:

In arguing for the $50 million in arts money on the House floor on Friday, Rep. Obey made similar points. Arts workers, he said, have 12.5 percent unemployment: "Are you suggesting that somehow if you work in that field, it isn’t real when you lose your job, your mortgage or your health insurance? We’re trying to treat people who work in the arts the same way as anybody else.

Enzi/Barrasso/Lummis pout -- and won't release stimulus details to Wyoming

On Sunday, Jared Miller of the Casper Star-Tribune wrote about Wyoming’s share of Pres. Obama’s national stimulus legislation.

One of the strangest aspects of the story is that the state doesn’t yet know how much money will come to us via the stimulus. Here’s why:

The Associated Press estimates that Wyoming's share of the funds will be roughly $400 million, including millions for education, weatherization projects, nutrition programs, grants for Internet crimes against children and other recipients.

Lynne Boomgaarden [Gov. Dave Freudenthal's point person on the stimulus package, who also serves as director of state lands and investments] said Friday she was working with a number of sources in Washington, D.C., to create a clearer picture of Wyoming's share of the federal stimulus funds. At this point, she said, the figures are largely speculative."I think when you are seeing numbers you are seeing people's best guesses at numbers," Boomgaarden said.

One reason for the lack of public information about the stimulus in Wyoming could rest with the state's congressional delegates.

Congress members from some other states released detailed lists of proposed stimulus spending after Friday's vote. U.S. Sens. Mike Enzi and John Barrasso declined to provide information about Wyoming's share of the stimulus Friday night.

Enzi, Barrasso and Rep. Cynthia Lummis voted against the bill.

Enzi, in a news release, noted that the legislation is the "single most expensive bill in the history of the United States."

"Unfortunately, the legislation we have before us is partisan and reads like a list of liberal priorities bundled together that could not gain support individually," Enzi said in the statement.

Obama to sign stimulus bill in Denver

It's fitting that Pres. Obama is signing the new stimulus bill Tuesday at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, just 100 miles down I-25 (which is closed right now due to blizzard conditions). The stimulus bill aims to put people to work (and back to work). It also features money for the National Institutes of Health and various other science and medical facilities.

Not sure why the president chose Denver. It is the site of his nomination as the Democratic Party's candidate for president. Without Denver's Democrats, Obama would not have carried Colorado on Nov. 4. O.K., Boulder contributed too. Denver is smack in the middle of Colorado and not far from the center of the nation. With a bit of a stretch, Denver might be able to claim "Heartland" status. It's also my birthplace, which doesn't count for much. I do love the place though.

I've spent hundreds of hours in the DMNS, first as a kid and later as an adult. We've taken field trips to the museum, mostly when our kids were young and impressionable. I loved the dinosaur skeletons that used to be the place's main attraction. The bones were dug out of formations in Colorado and Wyoming. Reconstructed in the museum as a brontosaurus, it had to be taken down and reassembled as scientists continued to uncover more info. That's the way it should be, right? Science marches on. Change happens.

When the economy needs a fix, you get started fixing it.

Rep. Lummis doth object too much

Wyoming's brand-spanking-new Rep., Repub Cynthia Lummis, is wasting little time learning how to tow the party line, especially when it comes to the economic stimulus legislation. She voted against it twice -- joining the rest of her naysaying right-wing brethren and sistren. For eight years -- four terms -- Lummis's predecessor, Barbara Cubin -- never met a spending bill she didn't like. The Repubs ran up a huge deficit and now they've rediscovered their fiscal conservative roots.

Anyway, here are the parts of the stimulus bill that Rep. Lummis found objectionable:

1. $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts;
2. $2 billion for the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund, providing funds to organizations such as ACORN, which has been accused of practicing unlawful voter registration in recent elections;
3. $8 billion for a High Speed Passenger Rail Program, after the House did not include any funding for the program and the Senate included $2 billion, which will fund at least one project from Las Vegas to Los Angeles
4. $1 billion for a Prevention and Wellness Fund, which can be used for sexually transmitted disease education and prevention programs at the CDC
5. $500 million to replace a 30-year old computer system at the Social Security Administration
6. $500 million for a health professions training program -- funding which an earlier committee report said were allocated because, “a key component of attaining universal health care reform will be ensuring the supply of primary care providers.”

Let's take these one at a time.

1. The $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts stipulates that the funding goes for grants to activities and projects “which preserve jobs in the nonprofit arts sector threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn," with 40 percent of the amount going to state arts agencies and regional arts organizations (“in a manner similar to the agency’s current practice”) and the remainder going out in competitive grants from the NEA. Matching requirements are waived.

So, if 40 percent of that total equals $20 million. and it's divided equally among 62 state/territorial arts agencies and regionals, that would mean $322,000 for the Wyoming Arts Council, where I work. That means a lot of grants to arts councils and schools and libraries. Also, the other 60 percent of NEA funding will go out in grants to organizations in all states, including Wyoming. That's a nice infusion of capital in tough times. Not to mention the fact that arts orgs in the state could apply directly to the NEA.

In her press release, Lummis didn't have to mount any specific objection to arts funding. Her Repub clan knows that "NEA" is a code word for "the agency that funds pornographic art." So, in Lummis-speak, $50 mill to that outfit is a big waste of taxpayer money -- and a slap in the face to all good fundies.

2. ACORN. Remember how Sarah Palin objected to community organizers, notably anyone involved with ACORN. Registering voters? What kind of commie crap is that? So, all the right-wingers have to see is ACORN and they go bat-shit crazy.

3. Railroads. Not sure why Republicans hate mass transit so much. Americans are crazy about their passenger trains, especially new light-rail systems that are springing up everywhere, notably in the cities of the West, e.g. Denver and Phoenix. Trains settled the West and drove off the buffalo and the Indians. Since Wyoming Republicans hate wolves so much, you'd think they'd come up with a plan to build a train through Yellowstone. But a top-notch train system would be great for the country and help make us more energy efficient. A high-speed rail line along the heavily traveled I-15 corridor from L.A. to Las Vegas could save us millions of gallons of fuel a year. Oh, now I see. Rail systems mean energy savings. No need for foreign oil. Or Texas oil companies. That will never do.

4. Why would Rep. Lummis be against disease prevention? Again, we're dealing with those right-wing code words. "Sexually transmitted diseases." Only "those people" gets STDs, you know, the darker-skinned populations. And the licentious ones, those people with no morals and no means. Non-Christians. Non-Republicans.

5. Social Security Administration? Is that thing still around? I thought Dubya banished it?

6. Uh oh. "Universal health care." Those are fighting words to Republicans. Again, it's code. Universal health care equals single-payer system equals socialized medicine equals "We're no better than the Canadians." A program to train more primary care providers would lead to a ready supply of doctors for rural and underserved communities, something desperately needed in states such as Wyoming. You'd think that Wyoming's lone U.S. Rep. would support a program that would get doctors out into small communities where they're really needed.

Gosh, I could go on and on but it's getting late.

We deserve better representation than this.

Shocker! Barrasso/Enzi vote against Senate stimulus bill

No surprise here. Wyoming's two Republican senators -- Mike Enzi and John Barrasso -- both voted against the $838 billion economic stimulus package in the U.S. Senate.

The bill passed the Senate anyway, by a 61-37 margin, mostly along party lines. All the "no" votes were cast by Republicans. What a bunch of naysayers.

In an AP story, Barrasso said that the legislation is not a stimulus bill but is a spending bill. He says the bill does little in the way to create jobs now. Enzi ridiculed the bill, saying it spends a lot of money without knowing whether it will work.

Wonder what else Congress spent a lot of money on without knowing whether it would work? The Iraq War, to mention one. Jury still out on that one. No Republicans (except Nebraska's Chuck Hagel) and some Dems voted for war bills over and over again, with nothing to show for it.

And what about Bush's crackpot plan to cut taxes for the richest Americans? That cost the U.S. treasury $1.3 trillion. It led to the current crisis. And Enzi and Barrasso want more of the same?

I wish I had someone in the U.S. Senate that represented me.

I attempt to explain U.S. history

While I blog, my daughter Annie sits next to me doing her U.S. History homework. The topic tonight is World War I.

"Who -- or what's -- The Big Four?" she asks.

I reel off names of three of the allied countries in the war: England, France, U.S. Can't think of a fourth. Russia?

"No, Italy." She's looking at a list in the book, "The Americans: Reconstruction to the Twentieth Century." The Big Four were the allied powers who assembled at Versailles on 11/11/09 to screw the Germans which led to the economic collapse of Germany, which led to Hitler, Blitzkrieg, The Final Solution and all the rest.

"No Man's Land?" She searches her text, which is the size of the Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary. No wonder these kids have bad backs. Get them a couple good paperbacks about the war and toss out the text. I recommend "All Quiet on the Western Front," "Johnny Got His Gun," "The Good Soldier Svejk," and "Soldier of the Great War." Just pick two.

I Google "No Man's Land" and come up with some photos showing dead soldiers hung up on barbed wire. I tell her that No Man's Land was the hellish space between trenches where most of the dying took place.

"What kind of weapons were used?"

I see what she's doing. She knows I'm keen on history and knows, with little prompting, I will blurt out a very long and convoluted answer. "What kind of weapons do you think they had?" I ask.

"U-Boats."

Check.

"Tanks?"

They started out with horses, which were obsolete when the tanks appeared. Your great-grandfather's Iowa cavalry unit went to France with all their horses and never rode them into battle. Too dangerous, what with tanks and machine guns and barbed wire.

"Did the horses get hurt?"

This kid loves her animals. Not a kid anymore, 15 with a birthday in March. "I don't think the horses got anywhere near the front lines."

She nods, puts away her work sheet and closes the book. "I'm going to work out."

She heads to the basement treadmill, leaving me thinking about World War I. What a pointless slaughter that was. My grandfather was gassed and ended up spending a year in the hospital after the war. On the plus side, that's where he met my grandmother, an Army nurse. This union led to my father and then to me and, eventually, to my daughter.

High school history doesn't track the vagaries of people's lives -- just the big themes like weaponry, world leaders and treaties. Those books I mentioned earlier, that's where you get the individual stories that illuminate the big picture. Svejk just wants to make it through in one piece, but people keep trying to kill him. Those people tend to be on his own side, which also baffles American pilot Yossarian in "Catch-22."

As often happens, we have to leave the final word to the poets. Here's Wilfred Owen, who was killed a week before the Armistice: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."

Praise the Darwin -- and put up a billboard

Darwin even looks a little God-like (in the Old Testament sense) on this billboard erected outside Grand Junction, Colo. Grand Junction was chosen, along with sites in Dayton, Tenn., and Dover, Pa., due to some anti-evolutionary nonsense perpetrated by these communities.

The Tennessee and Pennsylvania towns had landmark court cases about the teaching of evolution. In Grand Junction, the Freedom from Religion Foundation has complained to the Mesa County commissioners about denominational prayers in public meetings.

The foundation is made up of agnostics and atheists who fight government displays of religion.

I tend toward agnostic. I'd like to see one of these billboards in Wyoming, although don't want to suffer through any fundie creationist hoo-ha to get one.

"Red Dawn" Wolverines strike again

Some of you may recall this "Cold War" scare film that was set in Colorado after the Soviet invasion.

Thanks to crooks and liars.

Marriage defenseless in wake of bill defeat

House Joint Resolution 17, the so-called "Defense of Marriage" resolution, was defeated on a 35-25 vote after impassioned testimony from lawmakers.

"I look upon this state as the Equality State and I urge you to maintain that status as the Equality State," said Rep. Patrick Goggles, D-Ethete. Rep. Goggles was a delegate at last summer's Democratic National Convention in Denver.

But you can't kill a bill in our lopsided legislature without some Republicans going along for the ride -- sometimes even leading the charge.

Rep. Roy Cohee of Casper, an opponent of the bill, was mentioned in a story this evening on Wyoming Public Radio.

Rep. Roy Cohee says despite claims by fringe groups that the constitutional amendment is needed, he says he believes that the average citizen disagrees and feels that the public thinks they have much more important work to do.

Sen. Enzi: "Thanks for all the pizza"

Fed up with all the crazy talk about a trillion-dollar stimulus package, Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi and GOP Senate colleagues took time out today to accept delivery of dozens of pizzas delivered to the Capitol steps. The Senators were grateful to GOP PAC Americans for Posterity (motto: "No Stimulus Without Pepperoni") for its generosity in times of great stress. "Dig in, fellas," urged Enzi. And they did, with great relish.

Republicans: Crazy or loony?

After the past two weeks, I have to wonder if bipartisanship exists. Are Republicans merely being the opposition party? Or are they crazy?

Quote from John Cole's Balloon Juice at www.balloon-juice.com:

I really don't understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

Art teachers conduct civics lesson in legislative action

Some of my colleagues in the world of arts education have jumped into the legislative battles with both feet. HB0218 is designed to revise the Hathaway Scholarhips to include arts courses. The Hathaways are awarded to high school seniors attending the state's only four-year university or one of its community colleges.

I posted about this bill on Jan. 28. Here's the latest update from wyomingarts:

We had a very exciting day at the Legislature yesterday! The House Education committee was unanimous in their acceptance of the proposal to change HB0218 to reflect Fine and Performing Arts, and unanimous in their acceptance of the bill. Four teachers presented in support of the bill: Cindy Schmid, Cheyenne; Amy Simpson, Cheyenne; Sheila McHattie, Casper; and Kelly Bembry-Hennings, Cheyenne. Many other teachers, and some administrators, also attended to show their support.

The House Education committee made a number of supportive comments about this bill, and several representatives commented that they had received a lot of email on the topic. The committee was joined by the chair of the Senate Education committee (Senator Coe), and also Senator Dockstader. Senator Dockstader, who is married to an art teacher in Star Valley, was kind enough to give the presenting teachers advice on the process, and help us all by talking to a number of legislators. Superintendent McBride was also there and provided some comments on the bill.

This bill still has a number of hurdles to overcome before it is law, but it is well on its way.

What’s next?

The bill is waiting in line on the docket to be presented to the Committee of the Whole (the House). The Majority Floor Leader sets that schedule. The House Floor Majority Leader is Edward Buchanan (Torrington). The bill must be read by the end of the day on Monday, February 9 in order to continue through the process.

If it does get read by end of day Monday, February 9, it will then be voted upon by the Committee of the Whole (House). If it passes, it goes to second reading. It must be read and voted on by the end of the day on Tuesday February 10 to continue to its third reading. It must have its third reading and voted on by the end of the day on Wednesday, February 11. If it passes, it moves on to the Senate Education Committee. If it doesn’t pass, it is dead.

All House Bills must have achieved third reading by Wednesday, February 11, or they are dead.

These are the stages that must occur between now and the time the HB0218 is presented to the Senate side. So, still a ways to go before it becomes law.

You too can be an ozone monitor

Ozone alert:

Pinedale residents could wake up with unhealthy levels of ozone in the air this morning and should take appropriate precautions, state officials say.

Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality officials predicted weather and other conditions will be ideal for high ozone levels in the Upper Green River Basin.

The DEQ ozone advisory -- the first ozone alert of the winter season -- was announced Tuesday on the agency's Web site.

Ozone study alert:

University of Wyoming researchers are seeking volunteers in Sublette County to assist with an air quality monitoring study.

The six-month project will record ozone levels around Pinedale and at various sites in the Upper Green River Basin. It should provide researchers with much-needed data about the distribution of ozone in the basin.

A mobile air quality monitoring lab has been moved to Pinedale to measure ozone levels with state-of-the-art equipment, according to researchers.

Officials said passive ozone monitors are also being placed throughout the basin to map ozone distribution, and human exposure to ozone will be recorded by the volunteers as part of the project. Volunteers in the study will wear a clip-on, passive ozone sampler, which will record how much ozone he or she comes into contact with during an eight-hour time period.

Both of these stories by Jeff Gearino were in today's Casper Star-Tribune.