Wyoming
updated
10:25 p.m.
We heard from Kate Wright of Wyoming Conservation Voters at a house gathering last night in east Cheyenne. Kate talked about the WCV's 2011 Conservation Scorecard for the Wyoming Legislature. As expected, most legislators of both parties came up short when it comes to voting to preserve and protect one of the most beautiful environments in the world. Not surprisingly, the big money wielded by t...
Hummingbird Minds - 12:28 p.m. - 10 clicks 
I’m always amazed at what artists can do with glass. Fused glass, stained glass, blown glass, cast glass, slumped glass, recycled glass art, etc. Artist and art teacher Marianne Vinich and her students are creating fused-glass pieces as centerpieces for the Governor’s Arts Awards gala Feb. 24 in Cheyenne. If you like glass in all of its art forms, plan to visit the Glass Art Ce...
Hummingbird Minds - Thu 7:08 a.m. - 12 clicks
Cheyenne Winter Farmers' Market Inside the Cheyenne Downtown Depot Saturday, Feb. 4, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. The Winter Farmers’ Market offers products grown, raised or crafted within 150 miles of Cheyenne. It will provide an opportunity to purchase locally grown all- natural beef, lamb, turkey, bison, farm fresh eggs, honey, along with locally crafted a...
Hummingbird Minds - Thu 6:03 a.m. - 11 clicks
Artist and writer Aaron Wallis writes about his experiences seeking affordable care in Jackson in Don't get sick...if you're poor in Jackson . Funny, and not so funny. ...
Hummingbird Minds - Wed 6:07 p.m.
I live in Cheyenne, Wyoming, area code 82009. My house is located less than ten miles from the Colorado border. It might as well be a million miles. In 2008, Wyoming voters went for John McCain over Barack Obama by a 65-33 percent margin. This was the lowest percentage of “blue” voters in any state, outdoing even neighboring Utah and ...
Hummingbird Minds - Wed 6:23 a.m. - 14 clicks
We had an extended meeting of the Laramie County Democrats last night at the IBEW Hall in Cheyenne. A reception began at 6. We welcomed the new executive director of the Wyoming Democratic Party , Robin van Ausdall, and the new Wyoming coordinator for Obama for America , Bob Vernon-Kubichek of Laramie. It's an election year. A biggie. A presidential year in which the Republicans will be thro...
Hummingbird Minds - Tue 6:09 a.m. - 15 clicks
From Linda Stowers: The Laramie County Democrats will be meeting on Monday, January 30, at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Union Hall, 810 Fremont, Cheyenne. There will be a reception at 6 p.m. for the new Executive Director of the State Party, Robin Van Ausdall, with the 7 p.m. business meeting to follow. Everyone welcomed. ...
Hummingbird Minds - Sat 8:00 p.m. - 14 clicks
I got tomatoes out the ying-yang and it's only January 28! I exaggerate. But not by much. Cheyenne is now officially in a warmer zone in the USDA's "Plant Hardiness Zone Map." Our high-and-dry-and-cold climate once was in zone 4, which could be described this way: "Don't put your mater plants in the ground until after Memorial Day. And be prepared for frost t...
Hummingbird Minds - Sat 4:01 p.m. - 20 clicks
Open Mic Night at The Paramount Café, 1607 Capitol Ave. , in downtown Cheyenne , will be held on Friday, Feb. 3, 6-9 p.m. If you would like a slot that night, call the café at 307-634-2576! Some info from our pals at the Paramount: “The café lacks a PA system but our acoustics sound great and the sound carries well. We are so excited to hear some local arti...
Hummingbird Minds - Jan 27 - 6 clicks
Eight years and counting for downtown's "hole" (WTE photo). Build a spec building at the hole site in downtown Cheyenne? The idea is to add the building's cost to the sixth-penny tax vote later this year. Not everyone likes the idea, but who's got a better plan? Anyone? Anyone? Read the WTE story: Downtown "hole" plan gets mixed reviews ...
Hummingbird Minds - Jan 25 - 4 clicks
Sent my latest short-story manuscript off to the publisher this morning. The publisher is reviewing the manuscript to see if it merits publication. After reading each story 20 times looking for continuity breaks and sneaky typos and awkward punctuation, I have my doubts about its readability. But who can tell? I would reveal the name of the publishing house but that could spell doom. So many th...
Hummingbird Minds - Jan 25
On Sunday, The Denver Post's Ray Mark Rinaldi reviewed some of the first alarming outbreaks of Occupy-themed art in the city. An excerpt: "As an artist you have a responsibility to be relevant, to put something out there that has meaning," said Denver hip-hop artist Molina Speaks, explaining why he feels connected to Occupy. Molina talked at a community forum Monday [Jan. 16], ...
Hummingbird Minds - Jan 25
Chuck Pyle, Colorado's "Zen Cowboy," will provide the music and humor at the Wyoming Democratic Party's Nellie Tayloe Ross banquet March 3: Chuck Pyle has won high praise from both fans and peers alike throughout an inspired performance career of over 40 years. When reviewers first gave him the "Zen Cowboy" moniker, he decided to, as he says, "Always ride the horse in the direction it'...
Hummingbird Minds - Jan 24
From a Wyoming Democratic Party press release: Tonight, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz released the following statement on the results of the Republican primary in South Carolina: “If tonight proved one thing, it's that the central rationale of Mitt Romney’s campaign is cratering. He came into South Carolina with a 20 point lead -- a state where jobs and the e...
Hummingbird Minds - Jan 21
Here's some good news -- and get-well-soon wishes from fans in Cheyenne (from the Casper Star-Tribune ): Country music legend Merle Haggard plans to play Cheyenne Frontier Days this summer. Event organizers said Haggard would play July 22 with Chancey Williams and the Younger Brothers Band, of Wyoming, as the opening act. It will be the second time Haggard has...
Hummingbird Minds - Jan 19
Sen. Liz Byrd looks on as Wyoming Gov. Mike Sullivan signs law authorizing Martin Luther King, Jr./WY Equality Day at a 1990 ceremony in the State Capitol. On Monday, we commemorated Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday with events around the country. The one held in Cheyenne featured a march by several hundred people from Depot Plaza to the State Capitol. Leading the parade w...
Hummingbird Minds - Jan 19
Can you imagine a school district anywhere banning the writing of Sherman Alexie, Leslie Marmon Silko, William Shakespeare, Roberto Rodriguez, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Sandra Cisneros and Henry David Thoreau? This is what the Unified Tucson School District board did when it ordered the removal of "Rethinking Columbus" and other books from the curriculum. This was in response to the Arizona S...
Hummingbird Minds - Jan 16
I was wondering when someone was going to make the link between Wyoming's official "Code of the West" and the rise of corporate personhood. Great column by Dave Throgmorton writing in the Rawlins Daily Times . Go to Rawlins Times opinion columns ...
Hummingbird Minds - Jan 16
Amazon.com has just released the anthology “Easy to Love but Hard to Raise: Real Parents, Challenging Kids, True Stories" from DRT Press . Order your copy here . Here’s the book blurb: If there's anything the 32 parent-writers and 15 experts of Easy to Love but Hard to Raise want you to know, it's this: YOU ARE NOT ALONE. We've been there....
Hummingbird Minds - Jan 15
University of Wyoming Poetry Slam Wednesday, January 25, 8:00 pm UW Union Gardens Those wishing to compete can sign up at either the Student Activities Council event table on Wednesdays in the Union Breezeway, or in the Campus Activities Center in the basement of the Union. Limited to 25 contestants, so competition spots will be given on a first-come, first-served basis. ...
Hummingbird Minds - Jan 14
For any who may be reading this series for the first time : this is a thought experiment where I try to see what would happen if the size of the House of Representatives were doubled to 870 members from 435. And yes , I know Republicans have the trifecta. This entire series is theoretical to begin with, gimme a break. Ohhhhhhhhhhhk! La-homa where the wind comes sweeping down the plain! And t...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Jan 8
Railroaders, electricians, state employees, teachers, construction workers, students, artists, a contingent from Occupy Fort Collins (CO), retirees and at least one minister gathered together for the "We are the 99%" rally today in Cheyenne. ...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Dec 10 - 14 clicks
No politics tonight, just a song from a decade back, with some pics taken on a western run about the same time, plus the usual pretty stuff you find on the intertubes. For every one who's missing one tonight. ...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Nov 27
There's this ad that's been running for many weeks now, that makes me cringe every time I see it. It must be the image of the Chalkboard, and the speechless professor ... ConocoPhillips Natural Gas -- "Classroom" http://youtu.be/... The Natural Gas (NG) promotional transcript: pro-NG student 1: "Aren't you getting a little emotional?" anti-NG student: "Aren'...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Nov 23
I attended the second General Assembly for Occupy Cheyenne Monday night. We met outside in the parking lot of a city park. Temp hovered around freezing but thankfully the wind was not blowing. By the light of of city lamps and T's flashlight (somebody came prepared), we spoke about next steps. ...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Nov 23
No freaking way! That stuff does get into the Ground Water -- What about all these heart and flowers PSA's , we've been forced to watch on the TV, promising us how fracking safe, Fracking is? Busted! Fracking Chemical Found in Wyoming Water Supply by Tina Casey, cleantechnica.com -- Nov 13, 2011 The U.S. EPA has just released test results indicating that at least one comm...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Nov 15
I've taught in high schools and middle schools for 22 years, and I think I'm qualified to render a judgment in this case: this football coach and guidance counselor isn't fit to be around young people, and probably isn't fit to associate with human beings of any variety whatsoever. But he's still providing "guidance" to the young men and women of his school, even after spewing some of the most o...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Nov 14
Author, entomologist and University of Wyoming Professor Jeffrey Lockwood writes this week in WyoFile about the collision between art and energy policy in Wyoming. ...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Nov 12
A lot of Kossacks and probably even more people of Wyoming will be unsurprised by the recent findings of the EPA. For those of us here in Oklahoma, it's probably too late, but those of you who live in eastern states where hydraulic fracturing is just getting underway, should sit up and take notice Abrahm Lustgarden for ProPublica reports: A pair of environmental monitoring wells dril...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Nov 10
As the country awaits results from a nationwide safety study on the natural gas drilling process of fracking, a separate government investigation into contamination in a place where residents have long complained that drilling fouled their water has turned up alarming levels of underground pollution. A pair of environmental monitoring wells drilled deep into an aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., con...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Nov 10
Our roundtable session Oct. 29 at the John R. Milton Writers' Conference at the University of South Dakota was entitled, “Snarky Slacktivists or Online Outlaws?: Leftie Bloggers in Red State Wyoming.” Presenters were Michael Shay (me), hummingbirdminds prop.; Jeran Artery, author and editor of Out in Wyoming ; and Meg Lanker-Simons, the power behind Cognitive Dissonance . The fourth member...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Oct 31
I find this to be a little more fun than generic redistricting: Canada-style, for those who don't know or remember, is a form of redistricting started at Swing State Project modeled after the Canada form of Congressional districts, called ridings. The two big differences are they have names instead of numbers, and are much (much) smaller, at 110,000. So a state that would only get 1 congressiona...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Oct 30
On a sunny Saturday in Wyoming's capital city, a group of some 90 people came out for Occupy Cheyenne . It was spurred on by several Facebook pages, a Twitter hashtag, a handful of local prog-blogs, a notice in the weekly shopper newspaper, and word of mouth. ...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Oct 16
The heist has grown beyond just your local Post Office, now they want to trash one of the world's finest distribution systems too.. It's the friday before Christmas 2013, the winds are rising, and the temperature is dropping. On a reservation in South Dakota a retired veteran and National Park Service Ranger checks his bank balance and sees that he can afford to send another stocking stuffer a...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Sep 26
There is a common element between three seemingly disparate international crime stories – 1) A flight out of N. Korea bound with 35 tons of explosives; 2) A money laundering scheme by Mexican drug lords; and 3) a Russian tax fraud scheme. All of these endeavors were funded through shell companies owned by Australian businessman Geoffrey Taylor and his sons: Shell companies that is, cor...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Sep 16
An excerpt from Chapter 4 in my book Some People Who Wander Are Lost June 10 The RV park is empty except for two motor homes that are staying over and three stragglers like myself. The sun is hot and high, the horizon treeless. “Say, you’ve got Wyoming plates. What’s the road like to Casper?” It’s a little man in a powder blue shirt, double knit pants and a yellow golf...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Aug 31
An exerpt from Chapter 2 in my book, Some People Who Wander Are Lost. March 18 Elevation 8640; information courtesy of the Wyoming Department of Transportation. I’m driving to Laramie because it’s Saturday morning and I own a new truck. The brief and bouncy storm that bestowed rain on Cheyenne last night dropped snow in the hills twenty miles to the west. The wind picks up the crystals and...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Aug 31 - 2 clicks
I'm not changing the title. Each diary is new, and I think a set title helps people find a blog - there are so many. "Life" refers to my life, and I doubt if adding "my" would change anything, AND I live in Wyoming. My "paradigm" should you wish to call it that, is based on an integrated p.o.v. That is, I'm not religious or political, therefore those belief systems have much less influence on ...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Aug 30 - 3 clicks
If you live in town as I do, Sundays are generally quiet: anyone with a camper, boat, or motorhome has left town for the cool mountains, lakes, or reservoirs, with ATVs, dirt bikes, or kayaks strapped on anywhere they'll fit. We're a vehicle-heavy culture. Houses are mostly small where I live, and wouldn't even count as garages in one of those episodes on HTV. Even mobile homes will have some ki...
DailyKos (Wyoming) - Aug 28 - 2 clicks
