Unsolicited advice for our Congressional Republicans

The fivethirtyeight blog imagines a Socratic Dialogue with Republicans returning to Congress. Wyoming has three of them, including a newly elected RepRep in Cynthia Lummis and Sen. Barrasso, elected for the first time after being named to fill Sen. Thomas’s seat when he passed away in office. Sen. Enzi is the elder of the bunch, returning to the Senate for his third term.

They have their work cut out for them. Wyomingites bucked the Obama tide, joining forces with their brethren and sistren in Utah and Idaho in the West and in Alabama and Mississippi in the South. The Congressional Republican bloc now is Dixie, the Great Plains, and the Northern Rockies. With notable exceptions. No more "Solid South," with Florida, North Carolina and Virginia all turning blue in 2008. In the Rockies, Colorado and New Mexico voted overwhelmingly for Obama, now making up the Southern Rockies a blue bloc of its own. Montana voted big for Obama, thus squeezing Wyoming between the Greenies in the south and the Missoula Mafia in the north. A subversive liberal element has taken over Omaha to our east, insinuating a splash of blue into "Big Red" Nebraska.

While Wyoming is a big square state with muscular borders, it’s still feeling the Democratic pinch.

Who knows what our Congressional delegation is thinking. The people have spoken! We voted 2-to-1 for McCain-Palin so we will pursue the strategies that they so successfully outlined in their campaigns. If only someone could tell us what that what those are. Legalize shooting wolves from helicopters? More tax cuts for the rich? Invading foreign lands? Drill, baby, drill?

Fivethirtyeight offers some advice:

Imagine for a moment that you are a Republican Congressman. I know, I know -- it hasn't been easy lately. Thank G-d you've been on vacation. Tried to avoid the constituents. Too depressing to go to to the office. Hell, too depressing to go to Applebee's. At least you won re-election. And, boy, that Blagojevich stuff was fun to watch! But you're going back to Washington next week, and you've got to start thinking through this stimulus package thing.The first thing you'll need to recognize is that public opinion is running against you. The public doesn't think about the stimulus as being analogous to the bailout. They can differentiate spending on highways or airports or solar power grids from spending on Morgan Stanley. CNN's new poll has the public backing it 56-42. Not overwhelming, but pretty solid. And that number isn't liable to move in your direction, when the Democrats have Barack Obama on their team and you've got Mitch McConnell.

Fact is, you're not going to prevent a stimulus bill from passing. The House is a lost cause. Obama's walking on water right now, and even most of the Blue Dogs come from states that he won. He's not going to lose more than a handful of Democratic votes. Plus, certain of your "friends" -- moderates, blue state types -- are going to vote for the stimulus. The best you could probably do is limit the Democrats to about ~240 yea votes in the House, still plenty enough for passage. More likely, they'll be in the somewhere in the 290s or the 300s.

In you're in the Senate, of course, you could hope to mount a filibuster. But even if you could keep Snowe and Collins and Specter in line, which you probably can't, that is a dicey proposition. This is because the Obama administration will play the Emergency! card. The public is scared, and they want action. If you try to filibuster the stimulus, the Democrats will scream Emergency!, and they will frame your actions as dangerous, and maybe even a little unpatriotic.

Plus, Obama will get a lot of help from the stock market. Equities are very jumpy right now, and they are assuming that the stimulus will pass (see, for instance, the big run-ups achieved in the past month by the steel industry). Were the stimulus
to be significantly threatened by your filibuster, the market might dump 900 points in a day. That'll break your filibuster within 48 hours, and you'll be duly embarrassed in the process.

Good stuff. To read the entire post, go to http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/12/you-are-republican-socratic-dialogue-on.html.

Note to Wyoming's Congressional delegation: we will be watching your every move. When I say "we," I'm referring to the state's progressives -- all three of us. There used to be another one, but he moved to Omaha.

Celebrating Nellie Tayloe Ross, governor, DNC vice-chair and U.S. Mint director

The 2009 Nellie Tayloe Ross banquet will be held at the Cheyenne Holiday Inn, 204 W Fox Farm Rd., on Saturday, Jan. 31, 7 p.m. Cost per person is $75. The event is a fund-raiser for the Wyoming Democratic Party.

Click for a map to the Cheyenne Holiday Inn

WyoDems usually gets a good speaker for the annual dinner, but no names yet.

Here's some bio info on Nellie Tayloe Ross from the Wyoming State Archives:

Nellie Tayloe Ross was born November 29, 1876 near St. Joseph, Missouri. She was educated in public and private schools, and attended a kindergarten training school in Omaha, Nebraska. She taught school for a few years in Omaha before coming to Cheyenne in 1902, following her marriage to William B. Ross. Mr. Ross began a law practice in Wyoming and eventually became active in politics. He was elected as Wyoming’s governor in the 1922 election.

Nellie Ross was an avid supporter of her husband. When he died in office in October 1924, the Secretary of State, as Acting Governor, called for a special election. The Democratic party nominated Mrs. Ross to complete her husband’s term. She initially declined, but upon reflection accepted the nomination. She felt she was the best qualified to understand her husband’s goals and work to realize them. Mrs. Ross won the election handily and became the first woman governor in the United States when she was inaugurated 16 days before Miriam A. Ferguson of Texas. She served from January 5, 1925 to January 3, 1927, losing a bid for reelection.

Following her defeat, Ross continued to be a much sought speaker. She was appointed as a vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1928, and directed the party’s women’s division. She campaigned extensively for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. Following his inauguration in 1933, Roosevelt appointed Ross to the position of Director of the United States Mint, a position she held until 1953. After her retirement she continued to reside in Washington, D.C., and kept busy with speaking engagements. She died in 1977 at the age of 101. Interment was in Cheyenne.

Veep is clueless about low approval ratings

Now that Americans have repudiated everything that V.P. Dick Cheney stands for (or lies about standing for), we will have to bear his prattling on and on and on as he returns at least part time to Wyoming.

Jared Miller interviewed Cheney for the Casper Star-Tribune. In it,

Dick Cheney spoke about his future plans, why his term in office has been so controversial, and the role his office played in keeping the east entrance of Yellowstone National Park open in winter. Cheney spoke with the newspaper from
his home in Teton County, where he was spending time with family.

Asked about the Obama Administration's (love the sound of that) impact on Western issues, he said:

I guess Sen. Ken Salazar from Colorado is going to take the interior (secretary) job. I think that's helpful to have somebody from Colorado, the Rocky Mountain West, in that post. Now, you know I'd rather have a conservative Republican, given my view of the world. But Democrats won the election, and they get to fill those posts, and we'll see how they do.

I love this question from Miller: "How do you explain your low approval rating?"

I don't have any idea. I don't follow the polls.

LOL

Asked to assess Cynthia Lummis, who ran a lie-laden, mean-spirited, Barbara Cubin-style dirty campaign against Democrat Gary Trauner, Cheney replied:

I thought she would make a very able congresswoman, and I'm sure she will do an excellent job. I thought she ran a good campaign. She knows Wyoming. She's obviously spent a lot of time in public office in Cheyenne, as well as in the ranching business. She's known all over the state because of the time she spent as a statewide office holder. So she starts with an excellent base in terms of putting together a successful career in the House.

Why Wyoming?

We've always considered Wyoming home. It's where we vote and pay taxes ... it's always been an important part of our lives. Now we'll have the opportunity to spend more time here.

"Any future political plans?"

Uh oh.

I've been involved now for a long time... I ended up spending most of my career in politics in government, and I've loved it. But I think there comes a time to step aside, and I've reached that point in my career. We've got a lot of new talent coming along, good people ready to take on major responsibilities, and that's all to the good. Some of us have had a shot at it as I have over the course of the last 40 years. I think it's time now for us to step aside and watch from the sidelines. If I can be helpful from time to time I will, but I have no desire whatsoever to get back into elected office."

That's good news. But Cheney has always been known as a big fat liar.

See photos of New Deal structures in 2009

Now that we're talking about the "new" New Deal in Wyoming, it's a good time to note that we just marked the 75th anniversary of Franklin D. Roosevelt's original New Deal in 2007-2008. It featured a number of events around the state, including celebrations of historic structures built in the 1930s.

Richard Collier, my colleague at Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources, has documented some of these historic structures in an exhibit of 14 large-format black-and-white photographs. The photos depict Wyoming Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Program Administration sites.

Among the structures chronicled in the photographs are the museum and castle at Guernsey State Park in Platte County (just north of us along I-25), a band shell in Lingle and a swimming pool in Veteran (both in Goshen County northeast of here) and the Wardwell Hanger in Bar Nunn (Natrona County).

The exhibit is scheduled to be displayed in 2009 at the following Wyoming locations:

January: Park County Library, 1057 Sheridan Ave., Cody
February: Weston County Library, 23 West Main St., Newcastle
April: Sublette County Library, 144 South Tyler Ave., Pinedale

Any entity interested in hosting the traveling exhibit should contact Nancy Weidel at 307-777-3418 or nweide@state.wy.us.

What's new, Senator Bob?

On Friday, Chris and I received "Bob's Legislative Letter" from our state senator, Republican Bob Fecht. It's an informative one-page newsletter, packed full of updates on Sen. Bob's committee work during the 2008 interim. Thanks for thinking of us, senator, even though we are Democrats. I spent election night Nov. 4 seated next to Bob in a point-counterpoint about the polling results. He's a well-informed guy who wears a large firearm at his side.

One problem with Bob's Legislative letter. It has nothing in it about Bob quitting his Senate seat so he can devote his full attention to his day job as Cheyenne police chief. Seems a bit odd that this most recent of newsletters from our state senator does not carry this crucial information, which was publicly announced on Dec. 19. I could have used a little bit more info about the senator's decision to abandon his seat after the fall election (could have snuck another Dem into the Wyoming Senate) and some details about what happens next.

Guess I'll have to read about that in the local paper.

For background on the former senator, go to http://legisweb.state.wy.us/LegislatorSummary/LegDetail.aspx?LegID=612

Putting Wyoming's artists to work

President-elect Obama is getting torrents of advice from all quarters. Artists and arts administrators are getting into the act. I'm both (although most writers wear the "artist" label very loosely), so I'll offer double the usual two cents worth.

The Obama Transition team has asked all state governors for ideas on how to put people back to work. Lots of work to do, of course, after eight years of Republican looniness and neglect. Roads to repave and bridges to repair. National parks to upgrade and historic structures to save. Boost public transportation. Teach at-risk kids and feed the homeless. Cure the sick health care system. The "green" retooling of industry and energy. Big list, huge challenges.

The Obama team also asked governor's offices for plans on how to put artists to work. Gov Dave passed the question off to our bosses at State Parks and Cultural Resources, and they passed it on to us at the Arts Council. As the staff brainstormed ideas, the arts programs sponsored by Roosevelt's Works progress Administration (WPA) kept popping into my head. State guides written by real writers such as Zora Neale Hurston in Florida and Vardis Fisher in Idaho (and some written by hacks). Mural painted in public buildings from Torrington to Kemmerer in Wyoming -- and all across the U.S. Great photos by Dorothea Lange.

On Dec. 26, opera director and Harvard arts fellow Thor Steingraber wrote an interesting op-ed piece in the Boston Globe, "How the Arts can Nourish a Struggling Nation." Not all of it bears repeating, as he has a rather simplistic (and outdated) view of the power of the National Endowment for the Arts. But he does offer a short history of what two former presidents did for the arts:

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognized the combined power of American productivity and creativity. Between 1935 and 1943, his Works Progress Administration put 8 million Americans to work. Under the same umbrella, construction workers and engineers built the nation's physical infrastructure, while writers, painters, and performers constructed the nation's cultural foundations. Buildings and bridges, murals and sculptures sprung up in public places around the nation.

It was John F. Kennedy whose commitment to the arts paved the way for the formation of the National Endowment. Kennedy's vision of an America in which ingenuity was championed above all else was not reserved to space travel alone. The arts were included too: "If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him."

President-elect Obama, by seeking ways to make artists a part of a new New Deal, seems to have the same sort of vision. He is asking the state's leaders to provide ideas on retooling the economy. An an agent of change, he's serious about how ALL of us (even pointy-headed artists) can be part of the equation.

You have to be tough to be an artist in Wyoming. It's not a cheap place to live, and jobs are few and far between. There are no cool arts enclaves where artists can band together and support each other. While Jackson, Lander, Laramie and Sheridan all have lively communities of writers, artists, and performers, there are not many outlets to actually sell your art. Yes, all of us have access to the Internet, and many sell work on their web sites. But there are millions of arts web sites. The competition isn't just the gallery down the street -- it's all the galleries from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Chiba, Japan.

The best way to put artists back to work is have them team up with their communities on arts projects and arts education. This may be a shocker to you, but many people who work in the Powder River Basin coal fields and the oil patch around Pinedale do not see art as their main priority. But you'd be surprised at how many are engaged in the arts themselves or through their families. I could bore you with examples all day, but I'll let this one suffice (for now). I was conducting an Arts Council grants training session on a cold January night in the Lander library. In attendance were a handful of leaders of arts organizations and a few artists.

Two men in their thirties walked in and sat down at the back. Big guys, looked like former linemen for Lander High. They were quiet through most of my long, boring presentation. But we learned a lot about them during the Q&A session. One of them used to work in the oil patch but now made his living sculpting with a chainsaw. The other still worked on the rigs, but had an entire scrapbook of beautiful horsehair ropes and bridles that he made. "I want to get off the rigs in the worst way," he said. And I believed him. I gave him lots of info on the Arts Council and the Wyoming Business Council. He was already having some success selling his wares locally. While his buddy was carving logs and dead trees into totems and rodeo cowboys all over the county, the horsehair bridle man was struggling. He may still be on the rigs, and he may not. But I guarantee he's still creating. Something he just has to do. Which is something all of us writers and performers and painters understand.

How to connect artists and communities? It's something we've been doing with some success in Wyoming for more than 40 years. Artists need to be in their communities and of their communities. A new WPA can serve to reconnect us in a time of disconnection. It won't be easy and, sometimes, we'll be butting heads. Artists see the world in new and imaginative ways. That can cause controversy. Forget about "culture wars." That's been a dead-end street for all of us. Let artists work within communities as they create their art. And hope all this new energy can spark debates about our hopes and fears in the rocky times ahead.

Dems: remember your Red State roots

Julie Fanselow started Idaho's Red State Rebels blog in 2003, way before most of us knew what a blog was. It's a great site, and I urge you to check it out on a regular basis.

Julie's post "Red State Expats -- Please Send Money Home" appeared Dec. 19 in the a Huffington Post. She proposes that all those expatriate Idahoans that have moved to more progressive places take the money they might give to candidates in safely Democratic areas (San Francisco, for instance) and send it home to turn their home states a lighter shade of red.

Here are some excerpts:

I thought about the neighborhoods in San Francisco and how they fall silent at the holidays as many city dwellers briefly return to their parents' homes in Provo, Pocatello or Paducah. I thought about similar scenes that will unfold over the next two weeks in New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles and Seattle, as young urbanites visit their hometowns, and then leave utterly thankful that they have found more progressive places to live....

With Howard Dean leaving the DNC, the fate of the 50-state strategy is somewhat uncertain. All the DNC's State Partnership Plan employees were furloughed after the election, pending the formulation of a new program. But even if the new DNC chair fully funds a new SPP, state parties will remain bare-bones operations where your small-dollar contributions can make a huge difference for field operations, activist training, technology, candidate recruitment and communications in 2010 and beyond.

We all need to come together to advance Obama's progressive agenda, but we can't forget about the grassroots community organizing work that needs to happen in states like mine. Democrats are making progress in the red states: 36 percent of Idahoans voted for Obama, up from just 30 percent who voted for John Kerry, for example, and every Idaho county but one voted more Democratic in 2008 than in 2004. With your help -- and that, we hope, of the DNC -- we can continue moving light-red counties into the purple-and-blue tapestry that is slowly but surely filling up the map of our great nation.

Wyoming, as we discovered during the most recent election, has a lot of work to do to get out of The Red Zone. Gary Trauner got hammered by Cynthia Lummis for the state's lone U.S. House seat when Republicans voted the party line. Enzi and Barrasso easily defeated their Democratic opponents in the U.S. Senate races. McCain/Palin won handily. We need more registered Democrats to even the odds. But we can't import in numbers large enough to blunt the Repub advantage.

Remember the Great Libertarian Scare earlier this century, in which Libertarians were urged to move to Wyoming and transform it into an Ayn Rand Utopia? A few made the move, but no word yet on when the Exodus will begin in earnest. Some old-timers may remember a similar scare 40 years ago, when hippies were urged to move to Wyoming, take over local governments, and transform The Cowboy State into a Tie-Dyed Nirvana. That movement may have been nipped in the bud by the infamous incident in which some overzealous cowboys in Cheyenne took sheep shears to a wayward hippie's locks. Not sure why cowpunchers were using sheep shears, but that's the story. It may be a rural legend.

One thing's clear -- we need to work harder getting out the Dem message. We need better candidate recruitment -- and training for activists. We also need to keep our hair short.

During the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, Cheyenne fills up with kids and grandkids and assorted relatives who have moved away from their spawning grounds. This short-term migration also occurs during Cheyenne Frontier Days each summer. Many of these people have found great jobs and new lives down the road in Colorado, which voted blue in a big way in 2008. Others are spread all over the nation. Not all are progressives or Dems or believers in the audacity of hope. But some are. I have a message for them: Help!

James Galvin offers his reading list

Award-winning poet James Galvin writes for Orion Magazine. His environmentalism has roots in his family's ranch near Tie Siding along the Wyoming/Colorado border, where he grew up. His memoir, The Meadow, remains one of the best books about growing up in rural Wyoming (along with Teresa Jordan's Riding the White Horse Home). It blends his experiences with observations about Wyoming geography, geology and landscape.

On Dec. 17, he wrote in Orion about his reading list. Here are some excerpts:

Much of my reading is involved with my teaching, so right now I am immersed in the collected poems of both Yeats and Frost.

As for contemporary poetry, I read it all the time, currently a terrific new book by Jane Mead called The Usable Field, and W.S. Merwin’s newest collection, The Shadow of Sirius. I think it may be his best book, which is saying a lot.

In fiction, my favorite writer is Faulkner, but my favorite book is Moby Dick. I say book instead of novel because it is more than half non-fiction. I go back and back to Faulkner and Melville as I do to Dante and Shakespeare.

As for contemporary fiction, I don’t read that much of what’s written in America, though I do love the short stories of Deborah Eisenberg and James Salter.

I spent three months in New Zealand recently, where, when I wasn’t “tramping”, I read everything by Haruki Murakami.

For non-fiction, I like Alexandra Fuller.

Alexandra Fuller's latest book is The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, set in Wyoming's oil and gas fields. During the Equality State Book Festival in September, Fuller read an excerpt from the book that tore my heart out. She lives in Wilson, Wyo.

First the alarming statistics, then action

First, the alarming statistics. No blogger worth his/her/its salt lacks alarming statistics. These are brought to you by sessions at the Governor’s Round Table on Children’s Mental Health Nov. 5-6 in Cheyenne.

On the national scene:

• 4.5-6.3 million children and youth in the U.S. suffer from a serious emotional disturbance
• 65-80 percent of these children and youth do not receive the specialty mental health services and supports they need
• Of this, 4.5-6.3 million children, an estimated 70 percent, are involved in the Juvenile Court System

So, in many cases, undiagnosed mental health problems lead to time in court and possibly juvenile detention and/or jail. So, preventive care and early intervention make sense. The mental health profession employs a stunning amount of jargon. I’m still unraveling it, and may have to consult a linguist for help. But in mental health as it is with all aspects of health care, the earlier you catch the problem, the easier it is to treat.

The legal system has its own labyrinthine ways. But one thing seems clear to me: once you’re an offender caught in the legal maze, it’s tough to get out. If you’re a juvenile with mental health needs and drug/alcohol problems, the odds are stacked against you. Wyoming leads the nation in out-of-home placements and juvenile detention.

I’m primarily interested in the mental health aspect. It’s what I’m involved in personally. I see a crying need for solutions in all of these areas.

In a Governor’s Round Table session that addressed "Reducing the Number of Wyoming Children in Placement," panelists (see list below) proposed solutions. Here’s a summary:
1. Wrap-Around Services
a. SAGE Initiative
b. Children’s Mental Health Waiver
2. Need community services and programs to address these needs and serve these children and families. (This doesn’t even touch on mental health needs of families caring for these children.)
3. Family Treatment Courts

All of these options are being addressed. My focus is on number one, although they're all interconnected.

For a page full of links about mental health care and substance abuse, go to http://wdh.state.wy.us/mhsa/recovery/CARecoveryLinks.html. A good place to start.

Governor’s Round Table panelists: Stacey L. Obrecht, Attorney Director, Wyo. Guardians Ad Litem Program; Rick Robb, Director, Child Welfare Services, Wyo DFS; Brenden McKinney, Director, and Lori Hutchinson, Wyo. Casey Family Programs; and Eydie Trautwein, Interagency Coordinator, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Division, Department of Health.

Wyoming mental health care hinges on travel to far-off places

Yesterday in Casper, I paid $1.18 per gallon of gas. That's with my King Soopers discount card. As the fuel flowed into Chris's Saturn, my bare hands absorbing the below-zero Wyoming cold like meat sponges, I marveled at the drop in gas prices since we'd been making the almost weekly trips to Casper in August. Now at $1.21 a gallon, what were they back in August? Two dollars. Maybe $2.50? CNN says that Cheyenne has the lowest gas prices in the nation but I can tell you that Casper's prices beat Cheyenne's. That's not the reason we make the 360-mile round trip each week. "Hey Chris, let's drive though this blizzard to get some cheaper gas in Casper."

We go to Casper to see our bipolar daughter who's in WBI, a residential treatment center. It's the closest place -- with the best treatment for adolescents -- in Wyoming. She's been there since August 4. Before that, she spent six months at Poudre Valley Mountain Crest in Fort Collins, just 45 miles south of Cheyenne. We could drive to Ft. Collins in 35-40 minutes, as it's downhill from Cheyenne. Casper takes from two-and-one-half to three hours, as it's uphill and down, and the headwind can sometimes be ferocious.

Our daughter needed a different type of treatment. That became clear to her psychiatrists and therapists and eventually to us. You may be surprised to learn that the switch had very little to do with insurance -- or lack thereof. My insurance with the state is adequate for most needs, although it falls way short when it comes to mental health treatment, including that for drug-and-alcohol dependency. Once our daughter entered treatment in January for suicide threats and some very real cutting, the clock was ticking. We figured the insurance would cover a couple months and we would tighten our belts for the co-payments. We had no idea what we would do after that.

Horror stories are rampant when it comes to teens' mental health. We know people who withdrew their mentally ill kids from facilities because the insurance ran out and they were as afraid of financial failure as they were of the fate of the kids. You can see the fear in their eyes. They desperately want help for their kids but don't want to lose their house in the process. They don't know where to turn for help. The mental health bureaucracy seems like a fortress when you look at it from the outside. You don't see an entrance anywhere and you wonder if you have the strength to climb the walls.

I found a way inside, I'm happy to say. The Wyoming Department of Health's Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Division sponsors the Medicaid Waiver Program for children and adolescents (collectively called "youth"). It makes up for insurance shortfalls in mental health care. It relieves at least one of the burdens of families whose kids are going off the deep end. Program administrators help you negotiate the bureaucracy and sign all of the paperwork. Be forewarned -- there are mounds of paperwork. But the results are worth it.

I had some advantages when our daughter's problems erupted. I've been a board member on a non-profit social services agency for a decade. I've served on the Governor's Mental Health Advisory Council. Our son had his own problems six years ago, so we had some experience in finding proper care. I work in the state government, the same one which houses the Mental Health Fortress.

All that said, I had no clue about the ins and outs of this Medicaid Waiver -- and how it could help our daughter. I didn't know that it could pay for care inside and outside the state -- and also provide support after our daughter's discharge.

We hope that comes soon. Nobody else can claim that they are Annie's parents who love her very much and are willing to travel to Casper each weekend to be with her. We talk to psychiatrists and therapists and nurses and state personnel. We have to somehow know what is right for our daughter and what feels strange. We get the phone calls that say Annie's taken a turn for the worse, that she's carved her arms or freaked out and had to be restrained. We also get calls that say she's making progress and could be home in early 2009.

On Sunday in Casper, I fueled the vehicle that brought back Annie from her weekend pass. We dropped her off, knowing she's getting better and that we will make the trip again this Wednesday for a four-day Christmas pass. It's sad to leave her behind -- again -- but we know there's an end to these long, cold but strangely fuel-efficient trips.

P.S.: More on this subject in future posts, including lists of resources.

Get your red-hot short stories now!

Ominous black-and-white cover photo with disembodied arm

Are you partial to open-ended short stories with depressing themes?

Do you like your dark humor served with a dollop of irony?

Neo-Nazis on the loose in Deseret! Bikers and bunny rabbits in Wyoming! Unrequited love in The Sunshine State!

If this appeals to your baser reading instincts, treat yourself to a copy of The Weight of a Body, my 2006 book of short stories, now available at $7.98 a copy at Ghost Road Press. Order two – one for yourself, one for a distant relative. I’ll sign your books, if you can track me down.

Go to www.ghostroadpress.com now. You may be glad you did.

Calling all students for Good Mule Project

Remember how "community organizers" were disparaged by certain Republican politicians during the recent election campaign?

But while Sarah Palin wasn't looking, community organizers went out and beat her and McCain's butt.

Over in Albany County, students at the University of Wyoming in Laramie registered voters in record numbers. Now UW is sponsoring The Good Mule Project, "a student-led initiative to increase awareness of social and environmental justice issues, to encourage civic mindedness, and to promote cross-cultural understanding."

It will be held in conjunction with all the Days of Dialogue activities surrounding Martin Luther King, Jr., Day at UW.

The Good Mule Project will be held on campus Jan. 24-25. The key word will be CHANGE (sound familiar?) and aims to "develop student leaders who are informed voices for positive social change" (there's that cool word yet again).

Workshops will be held on grassroots organizing, fund-raising, event planning, online organizing, working with the media, "UW Going Green," lobbying, and many others.

Download a copy of the application at http://www.uwyo.edu/cvssupport/The%20Good%20Mule%20Conference%20application.doc or pick one up at the UW Center for Volunteer Service. Applications must be e-mailed to the_good_mule@yahoo.com by Dec. 31.

Thanks to Nancy Sindelar's excellent e-mail newsletter for the tip.

Cheney returns to Wyoming to "have fun"

V.P. Dick Cheney will abandon his official residence in D.C. on Jan. 20, 2009, right on time but way over budget.

Jared Miller reports from the Casper Star-Tribune capital bureau that Mr. and Mrs. Cheney will arrive in their home town of Casper on Inauguration Day.

Vice President Dick Cheney will waste no time getting back to Wyoming after he and President George Bush officially leave office next month. Cheney and wife Lynne are slated to fly to Casper immediately after the Jan. 20 inauguration ceremony for a reception that night at the home of family friends Mick and Susie McMurry, said state Treasurer Joe Meyer, a longtime friend of the Cheneys.

The private reception will offer a chance for the vice president to begin to "decompress" after eight years in office, Meyer said.

Close friends, including some members of the Cheneys' 1959 Natrona County High School graduating class, are expected to attend. "It will be low key," Meyer said. "It's just a chance to get out of that [Washington, D.C.] environment, come home. There are so many friends here, and let's have fun."

Rumor has it that many fun parlor games are planned. They include "Pin the Blame on the Other Guy;" "Let's Waterboard a Democrat;" a new version of "Risk" in which chickenhawks get to make the moves and teen-aged G.I.s from Rawlins and Lovell get to die; and a Republican version of Monopoly, in which bankrupting the U.S. Treasury is the goal. A fun time will be had by one and all.

The next day, Jan. 21, Cheney will be in Cheyenne addressing the Wyoming State Legislature. Later, he will be feted by the Long's Peak Council of the Boy Scouts, where he will receive a "distinguished citizen" award. Wow, the Boy Scouts sure have gone downhill since I was in it, even since my son was in a Long's Peak Council troop in Cheyenne. I wonder if Cheney will have the gall to recite the Scout Oath:

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

It's difficult to determine which words Cheney will choke on. "On my honor," is my guess, since he has none. "Duty" is another one, since he apparently did his "duty" by invading foreign lands, quashing constitutional freedoms, and enriching himself with war boodle. "Law" could be another stumbling block.

If you have the stomach for it, you can pay $175 to attend the Boy Scout event at Little America in Cheyenne. "Contributors" will have to fork over up to $15,000 to attend.

"If you want to meet and greet and rub elbows with the Cheneys, it's going to be $15,000," said Long's Peak Council's Sheryl McBride, who should know better.

Who wouldn't want to rub up against those elbows. Cheney has rubbed elbows with some of the best: George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Donald Rumsfeld, Wall Street rip-off artists. That's a lot of greasy elbows.

After this gala, what will Dick and Lynne Cheney do next? According to the CST report, they will keep their mountain fortress in Jackson, but also are building a house in Maryland. Wonder how many houses that is? As many as McCain?

Mountain West still a frontier for doctors

Joan McCarter blogs from Boise about issues in the Rocky Mountain West. Her posts appear regularly in New West and (as mcjoan) on Daily Kos. Leading up to the election, she was guest blogger on the Denver Post’s election site.

She’s written widely about health care issues in the rural West. A year ago in New West, she rolled out some shocking statistics. They won’t be a shock for residents of Lusk, Wyo., Montpelier, Idaho, or Glasgow, Mont. These small rural towns are hours from any major medical facility and sometimes have no doctor of their own.

The situation isn’t much better in the West’s small cities, such as my town of Cheyenne and Pocatello and Bozeman and so on. Here’s info that McCarter detailed in a 2007 New West post:

Yup, Idaho is dead last when it comes to the doctor to patient ratio, around 140 for every 100,000 residents.

It’s actually not much better for the rest of the region. None is in the top half of states when it comes provider access: Nevada comes in at number 48 (not counting D.C.), Wyoming at 47, Utah at 44, Arizona at 37, Montana at 35, New Mexico at 32.

The health care debate in the country and the region has largely been focused around insurance--a valid concern, since some 47 million Americans are uninsured, about 16 percent of the total U.S. population....

Of course, having health insurance is small comfort if it takes you four or five or even six months to get an appointment with a regular family doctor.

In a Friday, Dec. 12, post on New West, she goes on to write about hoped-for changes with Obama at the helm and former S.D. Sen. Tom Daschle as new chief of Health and Human Services. Read the entire article at http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/our_broken_health_system_its_not_just_about_insurance/C530/L37/

According to McCarter’s above figures, each doctor has 700-some patients. No wonder it’s tough to find someone to look after your infected toe or broken arm. Not sure how many nurse practitioners or physician’s assistants there are in the West. It’s possible they take up some of the slack, but they’re obligated to practice under physician supervision. So, no doctor, no physician’s assistant or nurse practitioner.

During my 17 years in Cheyenne, I’ve been relatively healthy. Only a few visits to Dr. B’s office during that time. Once for bronchitis, once for a sinus infection and once for gastroenteritis caused by drinking some bad water up in the Snowy Range. Also, two complete physicals. Each of those times, I saw a C.N.P. or physician’s assistant. They were good, they fixed me up but they were extensions of Dr. B. They wouldn't have been there without his credentials.

McCarter's focus is on general practitioner, docs who can serve an entire small community. We use to call them family doctors. Small- to mid-sized towns are lucky if they have one. Specialists are rare to nonexistent. That's why people in Goshen County have to travel to Cheyenne or Scottsbluff or Casper. Or, in some cases, have to go all the way to Denver or Billings. There are allergists and orthopedic doctors in Cheyenne who dedicate some of their work days to satellite offices in Wheatland and Scottsbluff. A well-known orthopedic clinic even has a plane for its physicians, allowing them to see patients all around the state.

But, as with all things in Wyoming, some specialists are nonexistent. Pediatric psychiatrists and neurologists, to name two. You have to travel across borders for that level of care. We have made the trip to Fort Collins and Denver many times to see specialists. Neurologists in Denver; psychiatruists in Fort Collins and Denver; my wife's endocrinologist in Fort Collins.

Yes, as McCarter says, it's great to have health insurance. Without it, we never could have afforded the right kind of health care. It also would make a big difference if there were more general practitioners to serve this high, wide and lonesome (and rapidly aging) state. Perhaps Mr. Daschle can help us get there.

One thumb's up, one thumb's down for Sen. John Barrasso

Wyoming's Sen. John Barrasso had a very busy day today. On the plus side, he stood up for clean water. Here's a bit of the press release on his web site:

Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo) is demanding the Department of Defense own up to its role in contaminating Cheyenne’s water wells.

Barrasso fought for the results of the tests in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report. The report outlines the possible sources of trichloroethylene (TCE) found in Cheyenne’s water supply. A nearby nuclear missile site where TCE was once dumped is currently being cleaned up under the Superfund laws by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Barrasso called for the DoD to take direct responsibility for the contamination during a speech on the Senate floor. “The Army Corps over the last few years has looked to blame almost any other entity it can for the contamination in the city’s wells. Such claims have included that there might have been a train derailment carrying the contaminant in the area. They have also blamed a handful of nearby oil rigs, and a local shooting range. Anyone but themselves.”

Barrasso noted the clear connection between the nuclear missile site and the nearby Cheyenne water wells.

Applauding the city of Cheyenne and the state of Wyoming for their successful efforts to protect the folks of Cheyenne, Barrasso said, “Let me be clear, the city of Cheyenne’s water is safe.” Barrasso said that Wyoming taxpayers should not foot the bill. “Untold thousands of local taxpayer dollars have gone to keep TCE out of the water supply. The Army Corps and the U.S. Government has a responsibility to fund the clean up. They have a responsibility to fix the problem. It is time to do so.”

Ranking Member of the Superfund and Environmental Health Subcommittee, Barrasso pushed for testing between the one mile area of the nuclear missile site and the city of Cheyenne’s wells this year.

I live close to the nuke sites. But my neighborhood has been more worried about contamination from the adjacent Wyoming Air Guard Base. The feds have been drilling test wells in my neighborhood to measure TCE contamination. One was right at the edge of my lot. No contamination found, which is relief to us parents and gardeners. It is good to know that your U.S. Senator cares about your drinking water.

On the other hand, Barrasso voted against the so-called bailout of the U.S. auto industry. Unlike some of his hypocritical Republican colleagues, he didn't blame the auto workers for the sad shape of the industry. He issued this terse statement:

Taxpayer money alone cannot solve the problems that the auto industry created for itself.

I will not ask Wyoming taxpayers to subsidize failure.

The time has come for these companies to undergo substantial restructuring on every level without putting taxpayer dollars at risk.

Republicans have a lot of gall to denigrate working stiffs when the auto company CEOs and shareholders and investors were busy raking in the dough. They've been subsiding failure for eight years under Bush. Failure of the investment banks. Failure of mortgage lenders. Failure of two wars. One failure after another.

Is this the course they'll follow for the years under the Obama administration? They'll be outnumbered in the both the House and Senate. It won't be a veto-proof majority in the senate, but the Democrats can make very miserable for them -- and I hope they do.

Football aside, which university is the best?

A non-sports argument erupted yesterday on "Mike & Mike in the Morning" on ESPN2.

Mike Greenberg, a graduate of the Northwestern University Journalism School, saw the match-up between Northwestern and Missouri Dec. 29 in the Alamo Bowl and dubbed it the Journalism Bowl, a battle between schools with the best two J-Schools in the U.S.

He received all sorts of e-mails in response. One really cracked him up -- me too. It came from a guy who worked at NBC 17. It read: "With all do (sic) respect... you forgot the Gators and its great Journalism School." That last part is not verbatim, but the first line is. Here's a guy arguing for the superiority of his university training and he doesn't check his spelling. It's possible he made a mistake. More likely he didn't know the correct word.

Can we forgive him because he's a TV guy?

Mike didn't. He and Mike Golic banned the perpetrator from the show for life but later changed their minds, banning him though the Gators-Sooners national championship match-up. Along the way, Greenberg wondered about the national rankings for Journalism Schools, saying he'd look it up later.

I looked it up and and found that most people in the know consider Northwestern, Missouri and Columbia the three top J-Schools in the country. After that, it depends on who you talk to. University of Florida is on some lists (with all do respect). Syracuse, USC, Texas, Arizona State, Ohio State, and UC-Berkeley all appear regularly. Columbia will not be in a BCS game anytime soon. So Greenberg may be right about the Alamo Bowl. Oklahoma-Florida may be the BCS championship game, but it will not decide the fate of journalism in the 21st century.

I bring this up because I was an English major at UF and came within a couple credits of minoring in journalism. During my final two semesters (1976), I worked as a reporter for the Independent Florida Alligator, which is one of the best college newspapers in the U.S. (you can look it up). I also worked for UF Information Services, writing press releases and taking photos of jocks for game-day football programs.

I wonder how the UF English Dept. stacks up against Oklahoma's? How do you compare the two? Number of graduates? Graduates who went on to be famous? How many of them know the proper spelling of "due" as in "with all due respect?" What about college creative writing programs, especially the graduate M.F.A. programs? Iowa gets the nod there. The Hawkeyes play South Carolina in the Outback Bowl On New Year's Day. Wonder how many poets play linebacker for Iowa? Wonder how those corn-fed Iowa novelists would match up against the Gamecocks' brooding Southern memoirists?

Other M.F.A. writing programs of note are Stanford, which breeds some pretty good football players; Syracuse (ditto); Brown, where lacrosse is preferred over football; Arizona and Arizona State, both having off-years on the gridiron; Texas (got screwed by the BCS computer); Columbia, which hasn't fielded a real football team since Kerouac's era; and Florida State, which boasts scores of great creative writing faculty but still can't find a way to beat the Gators on the football field. FSU plays Wisconsin in the Champs Sports Bowl on Dec. 27. Pound for pound, I think the gritty short-story writers from FSU can lick the post-modernist weenies from Madison. Wanna bet?

Still regrooving blog following election rush

It's been tough deciding where to go next as a blogger. I've enjoyed the past three years blogging about politics, particularly the Wyoming variety. It gave my "hummingbird mind" a clear focus. I had some big fat targets on the national scene. Dick Cheney was a rich one (ain't that the truth) and it was an added bonus that he comes from Wyoming. Bush was always on-message, or maybe off-message -- I could never really tell. The Invasion and war in Iraq really pushed my buttons, and led me to my involvement with county and state politics and, eventually, the national scene.

Many bloggers have commented on the ennui that followed Nov. 4. But some bloggers are, at heart, political junkies. NPR's Political Junkie, to name just one. Arianna Huffington and her crew at Huff Post and the many Kossacks at Daily Kos. On the Rocky Mountain side, you have the energetic Montanans at 4&20blackbirds and Left in the West. Square State in Colorado and Red State Rebels in Idaho. The Celtic Diva in Alaska has gone to the Soapblox format and now has the assistance of some dedicated bloggers who followed the dirt on Sarah Palin, no matter where it led. There are more blogs of note, so many more.

I'm not giving up the blog, just shifting focus to issues that are my passion. That's the advice imparted by Ariana H. last week on The Daily Show. "Write your passion." All writers have heard this before. Many ignore it at their peril. Some ignore it and get rich (I'm not one of them, drat the luck).

My passion is not really politics. It was a rush being part of the gallant effort that led to the Obama victory and majorities in the U.S. House and Senate. I certainly will dabble in politics when I feel the urge, but will spend most of my blogging time on books and fiction writing, the arts, mental health issues and, yes, Wyoming and its quirkier aspects. On occasion, I will blend books, fiction, the arts, mental health (or lack thereof) and Wyoming. This could be a dangerous mix, but I'm up to the challenge.

I'm almost finished with my post-election regrooving and soon will return.

Help your Republican friends celebrate the Winter Solstice Holidays

Here's a Christmas and/or holiday gift that will bedevil your Republicans friends and family members. Especially those in the former Confederate state of Georgia, who think that the re-election of Saxby Chambliss is some sign from The Almighty that the Repub resurgence (or possibly The Rapture) is upon us.

Four years of Barack Obama and the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate and House! That amount to 48 months, 208 weeks and 1,460 days. Help them mark each one in excruciating detail with this calendar. You do have to contribute $35 to the Obama campaign, but how can you put a price upon the joy of holiday giving?

"Secretary of Arts" idea a good one, but now's the time to boost NEA funding

I heard that musician/composer Quincy Jones is pushing President-elect Obama to appoint a "secretary of arts." I Googled "Quincy Jones" and came up with this info from his web site:

Quincy’s call for a U.S. secretary of the arts has inspired an online petition. It was during his recent interview with John Schaefer on WNYC’s Soundcheck that Quincy let the words fly. "The next conversation I have with President [-elect Barack] Obama is to beg for a secretary of the arts," he said....

One listener who heard Q’s call is Jaime Austria, who plays bass in for the New York City Opera and the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra. "As soon as I heard Quincy use the words that he would beg Obama for secretary of arts, I rushed to my computer and typed out a petition." Word is spreading. As of this writing, the online petition has more than 1,000 signatures.

If you'd like to sign, go to http://www.petitiononline.com/esnyc/petition.html

Adding an arts secretary to the president's cabinet may be a great idea. It would elevate the arts into the prominent position it deserves. But what's the process to add another cabinet position? It sounds like a battle that Obama doesn't need to fight during the next couple months. There's the tanking economy, lack of universal health care, multiple wars to stop, etc.

Besides, we already have the National Endowment for the Arts and it's been underfunded since the Newt Gingrich budget assault following the 1994 Congressional elections. The NEA's current budget is around $144 million, or about 50 cents for each American. Obama wants to boost that budget, and those of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Obama is a strong supporter of arts education. It's in his platform and he spoke of it often during the campaign. If the NEA budget were doubled, half of all the additional funding over $175 million will go directly to arts education. Obama also aims to beef up arts education in the Dept. of Education.

The great news is that he has lots of allies in the House and Senate to accomplish these goals. Some are Democratic newbies, some are moderate Republicans, such as Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi. He has sided with his party on many issues, but he's an arts supporter and a member of the senate Arts Caucus. There is that pesky U.S. budget deficit to deal with, but Obama has pledged to "spend, baby, spend" to rev up the economy. The arts and economic development go hand-in-hand. The arts brings more money into cities than does professional sports. Denver's a great example. You can look it up.

Quincy "Q" Jones is a fine musician and supports the work of the NEA. But his time with the president-elect will be better spent if he advocates for more money for the NEA. Later, Q might be a fine choice for Secretary of Arts. He could inject some music into those drab cabinet meetings.

11/08: One for the history books

November 2008 goes down in history at midnight tonight. And what a month it was. Last-minute surge to elect Barack Obama as president. Lots of Dems elected to U.S. House and a few newbies to the U.S. Senate. It took awhile for Alaska to count its votes, as they were transported to the capital by Todd Palin's sled dogs. Georgia has a run-off on Tuesday, with Democrat and Vietnam veteran Jim Martin and Republican chickenhawk Saxby Chambliss duking it out for the U.S. Senate. I've lost track of proceedings in Minnesota. Is Al Franken our first comedian/script-writer/author/radio host to be elected to the U.S. Senate? We've had actors, of course, and jocks, but never someone who wrote for Saturday Night Live. Guess I'll have to go check out the Minnesotans on leftyblogs.

The month wrapped up with the horrible attacks on Mumbai. Terrorism is still with us, an ongoing problem that will be Obama's to handle. He will announce his National Security team tomorrow (Dec. 1) and let's hope they work fast to undo torture policies, close Gitmo and get us out of Iraq. Meanwhile, they can focus on the real terrorist threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Here in Wyoming, Republicans still rule the roost, although we get two more years of Democratic Governor Dave Freudenthal (Gov Dave) before the 2010 gubernatorial elections. No names are surfacing on the Dem side (thus far) but it's inevitabvle that there will be a slew of Repubs interested in the job. Wonder if some of the WyoGoppers returning from D.C. will be interested in running for office. This is always the hidden danger of a Dem in the White House.

The state legislature comes to town in January and there is talk about the budget surplus being less surplustic due to a drop in oil and gas prices as well as a downturn in tourism which leads to a drop in taxes. Press reports during the past week say that the economic downturn has yet to hit Cheyenne and the rest of Wyoming. How long will that last?