JACKSON HOLE’S ALTERNATIVE VOICE | PLANETJH.COM | JANUARY 18-24, 2017
What’s Your Status?
Examining deportation fears in Jackson Hole and the agencies enforcing immigration law.
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2 | JANUARY 18, 2017
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JACKSON HOLE'S ALTERNATIVE VOICE
VOLUME 15 | ISSUE 2 | JANUARY 18-24, 2017
13 COVER STORY What’s Your Status?
Examining deportation fears in Jackson Hole and the agencies enforcing immigration law.
WHAT’S YOUR STATUS? Examining deportation fears in Jackson Hole and the agencies enforcing immigration law.
Cover illustration by Cait Lee
4 THE NEW WEST
21 FREE SPEECH
5
22 MUSIC BOX
DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS
24 CREATIVE PEAKS
6 REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK
30 SATIRE
8-11 THE BUZZ
THE PLANET TEAM PUBLISHER
Copperfield Publishing, John Saltas EDITOR
Robyn Vincent / editor@planetjh.com
ART DIRECTOR
STAFF REPORTERS
Cait Lee / art@planetjh.com
Meg Daly
SALES DIRECTOR
COPY EDITOR
Jen Tillotson / jen@planetjh.com SALES EXTRAORDINAIRE
Caroline LaRosa / caroline@planetjh.com
Chambers, Aaron Davis, Natosha Hoduski, Sarah Ross, Ted Scheffler, Chuck Shepherd, Shannon Sollitt, Tom Tomorrow, Lisa Van Sciver, Todd Wilkinson, Jim Woodmencey, Baynard Woods
Jessica Sell Chambers CONTRIBUTORS
Mike Bressler, Rob Brezsny, Jessica Sell
MEMBER: National Newspaper Association, Alternative Weekly Network, Association of Alternative Newsmedia
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January 18-24, 2017 By Meteorologist Jim Woodmencey During the first half of January 2017 we have received almost 21inches of snow in town. That surpasses the average snow in January of 19 inches, and also blows by the 14.5 inches we had in January 2016. We would need a few more good storms before the end of the month to exceed the record January snow of 56 inches from 1969. Also impressive is the 2.28 inches of total precipitation so far this January, which eclipsed the long-term January average of 1.50 inches.
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This past week was cold, even for mid-January in Jackson. The high temperature in town this past Sunday was minus 2-degrees, which actually broke the record for that date for a cold maximum temperature. The old record was a high of minus 1-degree, from January 15th, 2007. That 2-below zero reading came after a morning low of minus 24-degrees. Those highs and lows are about 30 degrees colder than the averages for this time of year.
Not much hot to mention this week. Temperature inversions left the cold air pooling in the Hole though this past weekend, with mountain temperatures quite a bit warmer. If you happened to get up out of the valley, or crossed the mountains to the Idaho side, you would have found temperatures around 30-degrees. Average high temperatures are in the upper 20’s this week and we should see something closer to that for highs this coming week.
NORMAL HIGH 27 NORMAL LOW 6 RECORD HIGH IN 2005 50 RECORD LOW IN 1962 -49
THIS MONTH AVERAGE PRECIPITATION: 1.5 inches RECORD PRECIPITATION: 4.9 inches (1969) AVERAGE SNOWFALL: 19 inches RECORD SNOWFALL: 56 inches (1969)
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Jim has been forecasting the weather here for more than 20 years. You can find more Jackson Hole Weather information at www.mountainweather.com
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4 | JANUARY 18, 2017
THE NEW WEST A Requiem for Toughie What happens when one species no longer cares about the survival of another species? BY TODD WILKINSON
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irst, a digression: I completely get Elon Musk’s enthusiasm for a manned space mission to Mars, how it’s part of humanity’s yen for going where no person has ever gone before. You know—the Star Trek kind of stuff, to seek out new life and civilizations, to boldly paddle a kayak into the nether of Uranus. And like you, I grasp the technological dividends resulting from investment in space travel and the unexpected insights divined just from trying to get there. The Apollo program of the 1960s, which put us on the moon (despite skeptics who said it cost too much and that we’d never succeed) resulted in revolutionary digital gadgets we now hold in our hands. Our rallying around Apollo achieved the nearly unthinkable, galvanizing national unity and pride that’s sadly lacking in today’s America. Apollo was a Manhattan Project aimed at the cosmos. It helped transform the way we live on Earth. It’s example of how a major public/private investment in research and development—such as one, say, that would hasten game-changing advances in clean, renewable energy— would yield similar profound results. Finding scalable alternatives to fossil fuels pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, after all, appears to be our only hope for slowing human-caused climate change. But to all this talk by Musk and others who want to expansively establish a colony on Mars, I ask: Why not spend a fraction of that saving what’s in our own backyard? Apart from the escapist romance Mars portrayed by Hollywood, what would colonization really mean: A barren
world absent other beings; a limited outdoor existence that would require trudging around in the equivalent of a hermetically-sealed snowmobile suits equipped with artificial life support; inhabiting a true biological desert where the only other major organisms are cousins of microbes found in Yellowstone’s hot springs. Certainly, people could ride mountain bikes with an oxygen tank fitted in their backpacks, shred the Martian dunes, assail canyon walls, and high-mark hillsides to their hearts’ content on electric snowmobiles and dirt bikes. The intrepid, with endorsement deals from gear manufacturers, could strive to plant their flags and be the first to have their names entered in summit logbooks. And then what? It wouldn’t take long before dwelling on the red planet in underground Quonset huts got old. Or maybe for a certain kind of person it wouldn’t. Mars—devoid of trees, green grass, blue water, no sounds of songbirds, frogs or crickets, no wolf howls, owl hoots or bugling elk, no rushing streams or croaking frogs; no smells of pine, wildflowers or sage; no pressing the flesh against anything else with a soothing spirit or heartbeat. You may have heard about the wonders of IBM’s Watson computer, a human-built supercomputer that can process 500 gigabytes, the equivalent of a million books, per second. Extraordinary. But there’s no feat of human accomplishment yet that comes close to matching the sophisticated self-willed natural engineering of a living species. Wyoming is famous for resuscitating the existence of the black-footed after it was thought extinct. In contrast, a few months ago an amphibian named Toughie died in captivity at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. He was the last Rabbs’ fringe-limbed treefrog, a species millions of years in the making that winked out, eliciting barely a yawn of a reaction from humankind. In spring 2016, photographer Joel Sartore, who is compiling a portfolio of animals that recently have gone extinct or teeter on the edge of it, projected the image of Toughie onto the wall of St. Peters Basilica in Vatican City. In a commercial sense, a free-market economist might argue that Rabbs’ fringe-limbed treefrogs were practically “good for nothing”; worthless even. A person couldn’t make money trapping them and selling their pelts, burning them in a smokestack to generate electricity, serving them
SNOW PACK REPORT SPATIAL VARIABILITY In nature differences are more common than similarities. Every snowflake, every snowpack, and every season has its own unique characteristics. This season has been wintry with below-zero temperatures and blustery storms with heavy snowfall. In the mountains, from January 8 to the 13, a strong storm produced more than forty inches of snowfall and high winds to the valley floor. Avid, local skiers reported that most large avalanche paths slid during the storm. The days following the storm the snowpack settled inches per day and settlement cones of snow grew around the trees. Clear nights, temperature inversions, and various snowpack depths have added to the spatial variability within our snowpack. At lower elevations faceted snow holds soft, loud skiing. At mid and upper elevations solar aspects have formed a sun crust. During clear, calm nights surface hoar
on restaurant menus, using them as building materials or turning them into jewelry, like gold. But if a NASA rover ever happened upon a frog like Toughie on Mars, it would be a reality-shaking discovery. In order for a single species—even Homo sapiens— to exist, a life-support system must be in place. The persistence of a single species, in turn, depends upon the persistence of other species. Remove enough species from the web of life and the things that support it, and it increases the likelihood of ecological collapse. I thought about Toughie a few months ago as Tom Mangelsen and I walked through the Cincinnati Zoo grounds with the zoo’s renowned director Thane Maynard (known as the host of the 90-Second Naturalist broadcast on radio stations coast to coast). Tom and I were there to give a talk about Jackson Hole Grizzly 399. Maynard led us to the place where Martha, the last passenger pigeon in the world, died on Sept. 1, 1914. Yes, our planet has constantly been changing and species have come and gone, but never before has a single species been responsible for the destruction of so many others. We are in uncharted territory. Ironically, people justify the push to colonize other planets as a hedge for our species to survive a planetary catastrophe. They wrongly assume it would be easy to replicate life here elsewhere. Here on Earth, members of Congress, including elected officials from Wyoming, want to cut federal investment in science that advances our understanding of terrestrial life. They want to do away with agencies and regulation devoted to environmental protection. They deny climate change and evolution. And they want to censure the teaching of science in public schools if it doesn’t align with the agendas of their campaign contributors’ political and religious ideology. There are words for this kind of mentality. If they don’t understand why the environment on this planet matters, they ought to spend a single day on Mars. PJH
Todd Wilkinson has been an environmental journalist for 30 years. His work has appeared in publications ranging from National Geographic to The Washington Post. His award-winning column, The New West, appears in The Planet every week and is syndicated via thebullseye.media
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or winter’s dew has grown as water vapor from the snowpack condenses on the snow’s surface. These feathery snow crystals are beautiful until buried and then can be very tricky to identify. Often times the sun or wind will destroy these delicate feathers, but take note where they may be buried, especially if found on a hard crust. Once a slab is formed over surface hoar it becomes a persistent weak layer and can take a long time to heal. The deep snowpack has buried the early season’s persistent weak layers further down than a person could probably affect the snow. The snowpack’s depth above tree line is eight to 10 feet, at mid elevations five to six feet, and at lower elevations into the valley floor one to three feet. Although prolonged dry periods and lots of snow have contributed to stabilizing the snowpack, always check the slope you intend to ride as each one is a different from the last. – Lisa Van Sciver
DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS Getting Deep in DC Meet your new Washington watchdog that has been unleashed in the nation’s capital. BY BAYNARD WOODS
GETTY IMAGES
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meetings, and filing daily-ish blogs. I add the “-ish” because sometimes a day will be spent poring over documents after a request is fulfilled. But even then, I want to keep you up to date on how we come to the story and will be posting documents online. I’d love for the conversation to go both ways. I want to hear how what is happening in Washington that is affecting you— and especially to get tips for Freedom of Information requests, the formal process for accessing info those in power typically try to keep on the down low. The federal government is likely to become far less responsive to requests for information and so I’ll be forced to rely on these legal document requests to state officials that communicate with members of the administration. And for that, I’ll rely on you, readers, to act as collaborators. I’m willing to put myself on the line and I promise to you that I will never back down in the face of power. But in order to ask the right questions, I need to hear from you. I reckon there’s a difficult and sometimes insane fight ahead of us, but it is the fight we were made for. If we don’t fight now for truth, freedom of expression and press, equality under law, human rights, and diversity, we may no longer have that chance. I’m grateful to share this with y’all. PJH Baynard Woods is editor-at-large for Baltimore City Paper, where he was previously arts editor and managing editor. For the last year, he has been covering Baltimore for The Guardian. He also happens to have a PhD in philosophy with a dissertation on how people become tyrants. His column, Democracy in Crisis, will appear every week in The Planet. SEND COMMENTS TO EDITOR@PLANETJH.COM
JANUARY 18, 2017 | 5
Too many of us realized too late that Trump’s lies were the essential element of his campaign, not merely an accidental feature. Each lie is calibrated to elicit an emotional response. Even if it is fact-checked and disproven, the emotion remains—and is often turned against the fact-checker, who is then presented as sniveling and out of touch. We were fighting mythology with facts. This column will continue to do that, relentlessly, while also realizing that it has to fight for facts—for the very idea that they matter—and for truth. Rather than allowing Trump to drive the agenda of the column with his tweets, I will track the patterns of the false claims, tacking them to real effects and actions the regime is taking. It’s worth remembering that alt-weeklies have always been better than anyone else at covering art in our respective cities—and this will serve us in good stead in the days to come; those techniques we’ve honed thinking about complicated performance art pieces will prove useful tools for analyzing the absurdist performance of the new administration. We’ll bring that same scrutiny and spirit of snark to bear on the rise of extremists, like the “alt-right,” which has taken the prefix that has defined our papers for decades and made it racist. I’ll watch the evolutions of hate groups and chronicle their uses and abuses of language as they pertain to the Trump regime—and document the ways the regime uses those groups. This will not be a partisan column. As we saw in the Bush years, Democrats are masters of caving, back-peddling, and downright cowardice and we will also hold them accountable for collusion. But this is also not the average, false equivalence, partisan divide. We will have to rethink a lot of what we do—while keeping a close eye on signs of resistance. In addition to a weekly column, I’ll also be tweeting from hearings, protests,
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emocracy in Crisis is a new column designed to take the prefix “alt” back from a certain white nationalist movement, and hold the Donald Trump regime accountable. Alternative weekly newspapers, like The Planet, have never had “access” at a national level and have never had to worry about losing it. We have always reported as outsiders and Democracy in Crisis will continue that tradition, cultivating sources in the agencies and committees where policies will become reality, making liberal use of Freedom of Information Act requests and public meetings acts to get beyond the lies that the administration seems intent on using as a modus operandi. This column will expose any creeping authoritarianism and norm-violations and call them out with outrage when warranted, and gallows humor when possible. I will be reporting inside the Beltway, while not being of that world. I am based in Baltimore, where I covered the Baltimore Uprising for Baltimore City Paper. Baltimore is a deeply segregated, post-industrial city that is simultaneously part of the Rust Belt, the South, and the East Coast. We are a broken and battered city with a hell of a lot of heart. Take away the teargas and riot police and the soaring homicide rate, though, and Baltimore is like a lot of cities around the country, struggling to make things work for all of its residents and gazing with fear and mistrust at the new federal government as it begins to reshape urban policy that will impact all of us. Keeping close tabs on Washington and bringing news of its power brokers and political machinations to alt-weeklies around the country is the first step in checking the power of those in government. Just like our scrappy towns and cities and neighborhoods, we at the alt-weeklies have always prided ourselves in never kissing official ass or being bowled over by celebrity. But we are also, obviously, in a troubled industry—not only alternative weeklies, but the press in general. And we face particular challenges at this moment.
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6 | JANUARY 18, 2017
NATOSHA HODUSKI
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK
Dispatch from Chios: Water Landing It’s 3 a.m. and a dinghy teeming with shivering people has arrived to the shore. BY NATOSHA HODUSKI
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awoke to my phone buzzing. It was the Chios Eastern Shore Rescue Team’s “Alpha” number calling (the person who carries the Alpha phone for the night is the coordinator for boat landings). It’s always jarring when your phone goes off mid-REM cycle, but when I’m on-call for boat landings I always nearly jump out of my skin when my phone rings. That night my best friend Thomas Hinkel rolled over in the bed next to mine. “Is it Alpha?” he murmured, half-asleep. Depending on wind conditions and the Turkish Coast Guard’s patrol patterns, these days we have one refugee boat landing a night in Chios. However, there was a time when rubber dinghies, 20 at a time, full of families bobbed across the Aegean. Since the European Union closed its borders, global political forces have suffocated the influx. But not even the harsh winter conditions and mounting political pressure have tamed refugees’ quests for safety. Many still attempt the harrowing journey. It was so frigid when I was on-call for boat landings that I didn’t think anyone would dare cross the straight. The shore was crystallized in rain, but the wind had died off, so it was possible. Our coordinator was still relaying details as I nodded my head, taking a few mental notes about the conditions outside and how far the refugees would need to be ferried in by the Greek Coast Guard before they made it to the Port Hut. Once they reach the hut, we try to provide dry clothing and food to as many people as possible before the military bus whisks them away for registration. It’s a miracle we have so many safe arrivals. For
Left: Refugees queue for the bus to Vial, where they will be processed. Right: Noor donned in her new kitten hat. refugees donned in fake life jackets, to get off course in a flimsy, overloaded rubber dinghy crossing four miles of choppy water can spell disaster or death. People with little to no aquatic experience are given a crash course on starting the engines on the rubber rafts and then pushed out to sea where they are to captain themselves across the rough channel. If they get caught in a current and pushed south, it becomes nearly impossible to make a safe landing. That night the boat was picked up by the Greek Coast Guard, and was then ferried into port where we met them with hot tea and as many comforting smiles as we could muster at that hour and in that weather. Half of the refugees were soaking wet and shivering. All of our volunteers have had hypothermia training for situations just like this. A pregnant woman, another woman with damaged cartilage in her knee, and a man about to go into hypothermic shock were all immediately taken to the emergency room. The rest of the men queued outside in the whipping winds, and the women and children moved into the Port Hut where we store supplies. Chios’ governance has cut electricity and heat to the Port Hut, because it’s on a “historical site.” The veracity of this claim has not been substantiated, as far as I know. Nevertheless, the place refugees are first met in Europe is a dark and cold one. When the refugees are unloaded from the boat, it’s our job to get them into warm, dry clothing as fast as possible. I was put in charge of a mother and her two daughters. The baby appeared to have been carried, because she was relatively dry, but the mother and the toddler were soaked to their waists. Shaking all over, the little’s girl’s teeth chattered in that psycho-mechanic sort of way. “Shoo esmeek?” I kept asking the girl, trying to get her to focus on me. “Shoo esmeek?” Her mother replied, “Noor, she Noor.” I nodded my head with a wince at the mother who would not let us help her into dry clothing until her daughter was warm and dry. The whole time that mother’s fingers shook so violently she could barely hold her baby. She kept trying to help us change her toddler’s clothing, but her fingers were too stiff and cold to undo the buttons. I wrapped Noor in a big, thick scarf and put animal hats on her and her sister, one of them a fox, the other a cat, and I couldn’t help but wonder what their story was, that
they were desperate enough to cross the sea on one of the coldest nights of the year. When we had them settled under piles of UNHCR blankets with piping hot “shai,” we encouraged them to sleep. It was still three and a half hours until the bus would come to take them away for processing, and in the meantime I wandered outside to see how the men were getting on. Half of them couldn’t fit in the port hut. When people are lying down, the capacity of the small structures maxes out around 30. Everyone over that number is forced to stay outside. Women and children have priority for enjoying the warmth and protection of the Port Hut’s walls. Men are left to their own devices in the surrounding area, cuddling into their blankets with their backs to the wind as they are denied even a semblance of privacy, forced to strip and change beneath the boom lights of the streets. Once everyone is in relatively dry clothing, the waiting game begins. The bus will come, they’ll each report their country of origin and get their mug shot taken before being driven to the military camp where they will claim asylum. In the meantime, we wait. Thomas and I stamp our feet, murmuring about whether or not it’d be horrible if we sat in the car for 15 minutes “just to warm our hands. Just to get out of the wind for a minute.” My ears ache in the cold. That kind of ache that gets down in your eardrum and makes your eyes water. This is the new world these people are being born into. Second class citizens, treated with a “race to the bottom mentality” by every country they flee to. After hours of me sneaking off to the car for a few minutes of warmth, the bus pulls in. “Yalla! Yalla! Yalla!” the Frontex guards start shouting, raising the refugees from their slumber as they’re herded onto the bus. Soon, I’m surrounded by silence. Everyone is gone, and the only evidence they’ve left behind is the empty shai cups. I hate knowing that tonight, as the clouds clear, I am waiting for that jarring call from the Alpha phone that means this whole process is about to start again. PJH
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JANUARY 18, 2017 | 7
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WYOMING LEGISLATURE
THE BUZZ
Bill Battle Royale Welcome to Wyoming’s 2017 legislative session, where abortion, ‘anti-discrimination’ and public lands are the issues du jour. BY SARAH ROSS
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lass is in session for state lawmakers who are considering legislation that could have critical impacts on people’s rights and the environment. According to the Pew Research Center, Wyoming has the shortest legislative session in the country. So everything moves fast, explained Sabrina King, policy director of the Wyoming chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. But the session’s rapid pace can spell problems for constituents, she says. “People don’t always see or know about [legislation] until after it’s been voted on … they don’t always have time to mobilize their communities.” However, Rep. Andy Schwartz, Jackson-D, calls Wyoming’s short session a good thing. “We’re truly a citizen’s legislature. When we’re not in session, we’re in our communities … and every representative truly cares about representing their community.” Where King and Schwartz agree? They both encourage citizens to stay informed about proposed legislation and to contact their representatives.
BILLS AT A GLANCE Senate Joint Resolution 4: Wyoming Civil Rights Amendment
Sponsors: Sens. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs; Leland Christensen, R-Alta; and Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower; Reps. Tyler Lindholm, R-Sundance; David Miller, R-Riverton; and Cheri Steinmetz, R-Lingle This bill would alter the state’s constitution to “prohibit discrimination against and to ban preferential treatment” based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in employment, education, or public contracts. King called it an anti-affirmative action resolution, which could harm underrepresented communities. In addition, it does not include protections of LGBTQ or disabled citizens, an exclusion Schwartz, calls problematic. “It’s in conflict with the US Constitution,” he said.
Wyoming lawmakers take their oath ahead of the 2017 legislative session. When changes are made to the state constitution, every future bill must align with its mandates. If this is passed, it could make future legislation related to the rights of LGBTQ or disabled citizens unconstitutional. Rep. Dave Miller, R-Riverton, a co-sponsor of the bill, told the Casper Star Tribune that the bill would bar hiring “based on what race you are.” Sponsors argue that Cowboy State employers are hiring people and the state’s university and colleges are admitting students based on minority status. However, Bruce Palmer, vice chair of the Wyoming Democratic Party, calls these concerns ironic and unnecessary. “It would cast a chilling effect across people who come from different backgrounds. Our Native American population would be shocked to hear they’re being treated preferentially … so would women in a state where … there’s the largest gender pay gap in the country.” Wyoming Public Media reports that women make 67 cents to every dollar earned by men. If this trend continues, Wyoming’s pay gap will be the last to close. If the bill is ratified in the constitution, state funding that is reserved for people historically underrepresented in higher education could become unconstitutional. At University of Wyoming, there are about 10 yearly scholarships awarded to racial minorities on campus.
Senate File 32: Police Body Camera Bill
Sponsor: Joint Judiciary Interim Committee This bill would restrict people’s access to audio and video recordings by law enforcement agencies, including footage from body cameras and vehicle cameras. In order to view any footage, citizens would have to go to court. It is filed in the context of several highly publicized instances across the country of police officers shooting black men, many of which were caught on film. Rep. Dan Kirkbride, R-Converse, is a member of the Joint Judiciary Interim Committee, which proposed the bill. Kirkbride calls his perspective limited because the bill originated in the Wyoming Senate, and he is new to the committee. However, he sees the bill as important to protecting privacy: “There are things that could be inadvertently caught on camera that are privacy violations that have nothing to do with the issue at hand.” Kirkbride points to the example of a police officer’s body camera running in a house where medical records are visible. In that instance, he says, the footage should not be publically accessible. Schwartz told The Planet that during discussion of the
bill, another representative used the example of cameras catching footage of expensive art on someone’s walls. If that were to become public, that representative worried about art being stolen. In contrast, Teton County Sheriff Jim Whalen told PJH that police should err on the side of transparency: “I don’t want law enforcement to look at a bill like that and hide behind it and not disclose information that should be disclosed … in Wyoming, we believe the public have the right to know.” Whalen sees the need to strike a balance. Footage related to an ongoing current investigation, for example, needs to remain private. In addition, Whalen says sometimes the way information is released can be frustrating. “The media will take some bits and pieces of a video and they will utilize that to the disadvantage of the police,” he said. Still, Whalen, whose department has been wearing body cameras since 2015, believes that “there should be a really good reason for footage to be withheld.” Schwartz agreed. “One of government’s main priorities is to be transparent.” King’s concerns are slightly broader. What has become clear during discussion of this bill, she says, is that “there are no statewide best practices about usage of body cameras.” This means, for example, “there are no requirements for disclosure to domestic violence or sexual assault victims that they’re being recorded, no guidance on when cameras should be turned on or off.” There is also no statute to prevent “body cameras from being used as general surveillance ... concerning particularly for communities of color, poor communities and immigrant communities.” King sees this bill as the opening for conversations about the ethical use of body cameras. “There is a huge opportunity here for law enforcement agencies to work with their communities and organizations like the ACLU ... and the Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence to put together best practices.”
House Bill 116: Abortion Amendment
Sponsors: Reps. Cheri Steinmetz, R-Lingle; Scott Clem, R-Gillette; Roy Edwards, R-Gillette; Chuck Gray, R-Casper; Marti Halverson, R-Etna; Mark Jennings, R-Sheridan; Lars Lone, R-Laramie; Garry Piiparinen, R-Evanston; Nathan Winters, R-Thermopolis; Sens. Wyatt Agar, R-Thermopolis; Dave Kinskey, R-Sheridan; and Curt Meier, R-LaGrange. HB 116 would forbid the selling of fetal body parts— already illegal at the federal level—and use pain as the measure by which to define viability. Under this
regulation, women could not have an abortion after the point their fetus can feel pain. The bill does not specify how that would change the viability date, but other states that have passed this legislation have changed the viability date from the Roe v. Wade standard of 24 weeks to 20 weeks, according to an article by the University of Texas Law School. There is contention among experts about when a fetus can feel pain. The Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that the “neurological pathways that allow for the conscious perception of pain” to not function until after 28 weeks gestation. Sharon Breitweiser, the executive director of NARAL Wyoming, says this measure has other motives. “It’s ... one more attempt to further restrict women’s access to services.” Providers in Wyoming already only do abortion early on in pregnancy. The impact may not be dramatic, but she argues it is bad policy. “Medical experts are better positioned to consider the issue of viability than politicians,” she said. Breitweiser believes this bill would chip at reproductive rights, increase stigma and “create hostile environments for providers of legal, safe abortion.” Due to the efforts of Breitweiser and other Wyoming choice advocates, every anti-abortion bill has been stopped since 1989. She believes this one will likely not pass constitutional muster. Unsurprisingly, the director of Right to Life Wyoming, Sheila Leach, has a different view. “We need laws and policy to protect vulnerable humans. This should be a priority for any government … the slaughter of unborn people is a blot on our nation’s character.” Right to Life Wyoming hopes to overturn Roe v. Wade, and sees legislation like this as “a good start.” Returning the decisions surrounding abortion to the state is its goal.
132: Abortion Amendment
House Bill 135: Government Anti-Discrimination Act
“Medical experts are better positioned to consider the issue of viability than politicians.”
These bills are put forth during a particularly critical legislative session. Electeds are also tasked with pressing issues, such as a $300 to $400 million-dollar deficit in education funding and a highly contentious proposal regarding the transfer of federal lands to the state of Wyoming. Both Palmer and Breitweiser called the aforementioned bills unnecessary distractions during such a turbulent time. Some of the real problems in the state are within health and human services organizations. Last year, Gov. Matt Mead cut the state budget by almost $250 million due to sluggish revenue in the energy sector. This had a large impact on the organizations dependent on that funding. The Wyoming Department of Health alone cut $90 million from its budget. No bill has been filed in regard to how schools will manage the deficit, though an education funding bill will likely be proposed soon by the House Education Committee, the Casper Star Tribune reported. If constituents have stances on any proposals, Schwartz says he welcomes feedback and encourages people to listen to discussion on bills through the Wyoming Legislature’s website. Wyoming’s legislators’ contact information is available at legisweb.state.wy.us.
MORE COWBOY STATE BILLS, FEATURING GUNS, LAND & MONEY Senate File 71: Electricity Production Standard
Sponsors: Sens. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs; Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower; Reps. Scott Clem, R-Gillette; Roy Edwards, R-Gillette; Tyler Lindholm, R-Sundance; David Miller, R-Riverton; Mark Baker, R-Rock Springs; Jim Blackburn, R-Cheyenne; Michael Madden, R-Buffalo This bill would block the use of renewable energy. If passed, the bill would discourage the use of wind and solar energy by charging “an administrative penalty of ten dollars” for each megawatt-hour. “Eligible” resources would be: coal, hydroelectric, nuclear, oil, natural gas, and net metering systems, like rooftop solar panels for an individual home.
Public lands constitutional amendment This highly contentious resolution would amend the Wyoming constitution “to provide for the management of and public access to lands granted by the federal
House Bill 137: Wyoming Repeal Gun Free Zones Act
Sponsors: Reps. Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester; Mark Baker, R-Rock Springs; Scott Clem, R-Gillette; Roy Edwards, R-Gillette; Chuck Gray, R-Casper; Mark Jennings, R-Sheridan; Lars Lone, R-Laramie; Garry Piiparinen, R-Evanston; Tim Salazar, R-Dubois; Bunky Loucks, R-Casper; Sens. Curt Meier, R-LaGrange; Anthony Bouchard, R-Cheyenne; and Cale Case, R-Lander Sponsors seek to remove current restrictions on concealed carry laws. If passed, “persons lawfully carrying weapons in Wyoming ... may carry a concealed weapon in ... any meeting of a government entity, and meeting of the legislature or a committee thereof.”
House Bill 140: Minimum Wage
Sponsor: Rep. James Byrd-D, Cheyenne This act would create protections for workers such as raising the minimum wage, providing for training wages, and increasing minimum wage for employees receiving tips. The minimum wage would be raised to $9.50 per hour. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Wyoming has the lowest minimum wage in the country at $5.15 per hour. PJH
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JANUARY 18, 2017 | 9
Sponsors: Reps. Cheri Steinmetz, R-Lingle,; Susan Wilson, R-Laramie; and Nathan Winters, R-Thermopolis; Sens. Paul Barnard, R-Evanston; and Curt Meier, R-LaGrange HB 135 intends to protect “the free exercise of religious beliefs and moral convictions.” But it would protect people like Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who made news for refusing to issue a marriage license for a samesex couple. Same-sex marriage has been legal in Wyoming
Major distractions?
government to the state.” It would add 25 million acres to Wyoming’s current 3.5 million acres under state ownership. The amendment originated in the Select Federal Natural Resource Management Committee, which met in November. Members of the committee were slated to discuss the recent $75,000 study by Y2 Consultants of Jackson that explores the feasibility of transferring management of federal lands to the state. The study, commissioned by the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments, determined it would be a costly endeavor for Wyoming to manage lands under federal mandates with little benefit to the state. Though no specific transfers are on the table, the committee felt that the amendment was worth discussion, according to committee member Rep. Tim Stubson (R-Casper). “I don’t support wholesale transfer of public lands, but I think there’s an opportunity for more responsible management,” Stubson told PJH on January 3 (The Buzz, Public Land Peril). “What we’ve seen over and over again is that we get really good input at the state level that gets ignored once it’s sent to DC.” However, opponents of the amendment note that public lands belong to the public at large, not just Wyomingites. “When we start locking people out, we are forgetting that our second largest industry is recreation,” said Bryon Lee of the Wyoming Wilderness Association. Proponents say the federal government is “mismanaging the land, delaying the permitting of oil, gas, and mining projects.” Wyoming’s US Congressperson, Liz Cheney, has supported the proposal, though a 2016 study by Colorado College found the majority of Wyomingites oppose a transfer.
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Sponsors: Reps. Scott Clem, R-Gillette; Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester; Roy Edwards, R-Gillette; Chuck Gray, R-Casper; Timothy Hallinan, R-Gillette; Dan Laursen, R-Powell; Mark Jennings, R-Sheridan; Lars Lone, R-Laramie; Garry Piiparinen, R-Evanston; Tim Salazar, R-Dubois; Cheri Steinmetz, R-Lingle; and Nathan Winters, R-Thermopolis; Sens. Paul Barnard, R-Evanston; Dan Dockstader, R-Afton; and Curt Meier, R-LaGrange The second bill on abortion would amend reporting laws. King says its effect would be to “create criminal penalties for failing to report abortions.” While reporting requirements already exist, the new proposals stem from fear that there are more abortions occurring than are being reported, and that there are unreported late term abortions. However, Breitweiser believes there is no evidence for this claim, and the only way to determine if it was true would be to “go rifling through medical centers,” violating patient’s right to privacy.
since 2014, when the Supreme Court found the ban on it to be unconstitutional. Yet, the bill states that people who see marriage “as the union of one man and one woman” should not face “discriminatory action” in their places of work, for example. The bill also includes transgender-exclusionary language, such as: “‘man’ and ‘woman’ mean an individual’s biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at the time of birth.” Another bill related to the rights of transgender citizens will likely be proposed soon. Roy Edwards, R-Gillette, told the Casper Star Tribune that he is drafting a resolution that would require people to use bathrooms and other changing facilities that correspond with the sex listed on their birth certificate.
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THE BUZZ 2 Storm Blows Roof off Housing Crisis How a community of commuters hurts Jackson Hole during emergency situations. BY JESSICA SELL CHAMBERS @jessellechambers
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winter storm that hampered access to the valley last week highlighted this area’s enduring housing crisis. From START Bus and schools to the service industry, Jackson was scrambling while its commuter population could not get to work. Barry Staples is a START Bus driver who lives in town. “We had seven drivers that couldn’t get to work from either end. That meant the commuter buses were not running. That, in turn, means that many individuals that take the commuter buses also did not make it to work.” Transit director Darren Brugmann confirmed Staples’ stories of START’s current squeeze. He said START is no different from other employers in town. “Many of our employees travel to work on our own buses,” Brugmann said. “We’re at the whim of mother nature also.” Schools were also affected. For the first time since 1979, Teton County School District closed its doors partially due to a lack of essential staff to drive school buses and to open the schools. According to Teton County School District spokeswoman Charlotte Reynolds, almost 30 percent of the 495 people who work for the district live outside of the county. Indeed, employers all over town felt the crunch last week when workers countywide couldn’t get to work. But people like Christine Walker, workforce housing solutions consultant for Navigate, said this should not be surprising. “When we have such a large percentage of our workers living outside, of course there will be problems,” she said. “Hopefully this will be a wake up call for people to support housing solutions. It’s not that difficult to say ‘yes’ to something, such as a 1 percent sales tax to provide housing to people that’s safe, warm, and welcoming.” The exact number of people who commute into the valley is hard to quantify, Walker noted, but approximately 40 percent of the workforce is coming from elsewhere. According to the Town of Jackson’s most recent workforce numbers, 47 percent of its full- and part-time staff lives outside of the county, that’s 53 of 112 employees. And of the town’s critical response workers, 57 percent are beyond the county’s borders, 36 of its 63 critical workers. But just focusing on critical workers is problematic. People tend to think in terms of critical service providers as most affected, Walker noted, and not of the people who live paycheck-to-paycheck and who lost a day or two of work due to the storm. That could make or break a family, she said. Preventing shutdowns, Walker explained, like last week, is “typically why government gets involved in housing—to maintain a local workforce with housing that is affordable to them.” Given Jackson’s tourism based economy, it has even more “essential” workers because even when things shut
down the tourists are still here. Adam Barton, a SkyWest employee at Jackson Hole Airport, has commuted from Victor for six years. “This is the first winter since I’ve been here that it’s been a real issue,” he said. “Usually they close Teton Pass in the evening, but it’s been closed in the mornings and during the day.” However, Barton says he has it relatively easy, unlike some of his friends who work in restaurants. He said the airline doesn’t punish employees who can’t get in or are late due to closures (though they don’t get paid). And, he said, other establishments, like restaurants, require their employees to use an alternative route. “That would bother me if my employer forced me to [drive through the canyon]. It’s two and a half hours each way instead of 45 minutes,” Barton lamented. “And to ask a lot of people to drive in those conditions, especially if you’re part-time?” Some are trying to learn from last week’s town shutdown. Rich Ochs, Teton County’s emergency management coordinator, hopes to use last week’s scenario as a planning tool. “We don’t have a good handle on it,” Ochs admitted, regarding how the valley’s various departments are affected by the closures of all major arteries. “The situation we had last week was bad. Although we lost [Highways] 191, 22 and 89 due to the snowstorm, it could be wildfires, earthquakes, landslides, a dam failure in the future. We could have things happen any time of year,” Ochs said. The landslide in the canyon, Ochs added, took weeks to clear. “This could be a good place to draw on lessons learned and to share best practices for different folks. What is their plan for continuity of operation?” He’s asking department heads to determine what routes impact their services the most in order to plan for the future. As people are getting pushed out of Idaho as housing prices increase there, Ochs says more people, especially hospital workers and patients, are commuting through Hoback Canyon, making that artery more important than in the past. The Cliff Creek fire this summer, which forced closure of the canyon, Ochs noted, revealed that.
Locally drained Another issue is providing relief for the critical response workers who do live in town and are forced to work nonstop when others are locked out. “We start to see the fatigue set in with all the overtime,” Ochs said. Some of the more important people to have on the job, he said, are dispatchers, but they have a symbiotic relationship with responders. “Right now, we’re just lucky to have dispatchers living in the town and county.” But Ochs says it’s hard to get continuity of operation plans in place for situations, such as last week’s storm, because personnel is in a constant state of flux due to high job turnover. “They move because they can’t afford to live here, it makes it really hard to plan.” And lacking personnel, he said, compounds hazards. “Call volume goes up when roads are bad, but if no one is there to be sent out then calls just mount.” Law enforcement was strained too on a day when emergency responders were more necessary than usual. The sheriff’s department was seriously understaffed. Lieutenant Tom Combs rattled off a list of those who could not make it to work: two patrol deputies, one patrol supervisor, two detectives, two detention officers, three court security deputies, and two civilian support personnel. “Fortunately no critical incidents took place,” Combs said, “however, with only two deputies on the road and a large number of collisions, all calls for service had significant delays and no follow-up was conducted in cases pending in investigations as there were no detectives.” Worst-case scenario for a day like last Monday, he said,
would be if there were a major criminal offense, injury of fatal collision, or multiple Search and Rescue calls with insufficient responders. But Combs isn’t optimistic the community will be able to adequately address the housing issue. “As personnel who have been able to live within the community for many years retire, we will continue to see a decline in the number of essential personnel living here.” Combs said safety is paramount and increasing the number of personnel always working and able to respond is a realistic but costly solution. He said if Jackson can’t accommodate its workforce and housing costs are rising in Teton Valley, Alpine, and Star Valley, where many responders live, the next objective is to keep people as close as possible, but not even that is fool proof as last week demonstrated. “The other solution is for our community to seek ways to build truly ‘affordable’ housing developments if possible,” Combs said. The town didn’t have a full crew of its employees either, including police officers, but they managed. “We were short,” said Jackson town manager Bob McLaurin. “There are 17 houses that we own. We had employees, not our full contingent but we were getting by.” Recognizing the need to focus on the valley’s housing woes, the same day the storm shut things down, town and county officials unanimously voted to give Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust $1.95 million dollars for its Redmond and Hall affordable housing project. The project will provide 28 affordable rental units and has been in the works since 2013. There will be another vote in February for a final approval. JH Community Housing Trust executive director Anne Cresswell said the storm highlighted the need for projects like Redmond and Hall. “We just have to start taking actions, making investments, making decisions, moving the ball forward—it’s never going to be perfect.” Regarding last Monday’s meeting, Councilman Jim Stanford said, “It couldn’t have been a more fitting backdrop for that discussion.” Stanford says staffing shortages touched the entire community. “That’s why you need deed-restricted affordable housing that the town and county employees can have access to, as well as other pillars of the community.” Though Stanford added that this kind of weather was at one time commonplace and people made do. “People just aren’t used to this. Twenty years ago, the pass would be closed the better part of a week.” He cited the growing demand for high quality services and the simultaneous refusal to allot resources to providing them. “We’ve gotten really spoiled with the canyon and pass being open. There’s only so much people can do.” The town did receive some complaints from people, McLaurin noted, but he too said a lot of people just haven’t lived here long enough to remember “a good old-fashioned storm.” “Everybody here does the job that needs to be done,” he said. “It’s a problem, it’s not the first time, won’t be the last.” McLaurin says the town is working overtime, not just during last week’s storm, but in general. Snow removal is paramount in preparation for the next storm. The town is running out of places to put it all, which adds to the budget, as the town must hire contractors to haul snow away. He pointed to the snow pile at the rodeo grounds which has grown to enormous heights, where a small bulldozer has been working near constantly pushing snow higher and higher up the man-made mountain. PJH
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THE BUZZ 3 Proceed with Caution Avalanche forecaster: ‘Bucket list’ lines should not be a priority right now. BRIDGER TETON AVALANCHE CENTER
BY SHANNON SOLLITT @nonner22
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The aftermath of one of many avalanches, this one in Granite Canyon on January 13, following the snow apocalypse. requires a lot of introspection and understanding of one’s risk threshold. “A big error for a lot of advanced users is being careful about not thinking you know more than you know,” Comey said. Amy Golightly, associate director of the Teton County Search and Rescue foundation, said that ultimately, it’s “just a matter of people making good choices and trying to be prepared and aware of the consequences.” Still, with such a large audience from such varied levels of experience, Comey says it’s difficult to know how to communicate his forecast and its implications to the public. “People communicate differently, and how people interpret communication is different, too,” he said. Comey is not leading these discussions alone. Backcountry Zero, a Teton County Search and Rescue initiative, is committed to providing education and materials to help people stay safe in the backcountry. TCSAR announced a series of workshops this month designed to promote avalanche awareness. The first, Avalanche Rescue Skills for Snowmobilers with Mike Duffy and Dan Adams, is 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, January 19. Then on January 31, Sarah Carpenter will lead a discussion on how to read and interpret the avalanche forecast. “It’s super important to really get people to understand the dangers [of traveling in the backcountry],” Carr said. “Backcountry zero is a great vehicle to get that message out.” During these discussions, Comey cautions against pointing fingers, especially in the wake of tragedy. A common reaction to such incidents, he said, is for people to say “that wouldn’t happen to me because I wouldn’t have made those decisions,” when really they’re just justifying they’re next trip. The reality, he said, is that “those things can happen to any of us ... the important thing is to kind of learn about it, not be so judgmental about it, and be happy those people are OK.” Visit jhavalanche.org for a detailed, daily avalanche report. PJH
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JANUARY 18, 2017 | 11
dangerous. Savvy decision-making can literally be a matter of life or death. It’s not only the skier’s (or snowboarder’s or snowmobiler’s) life on the line. Teton County Sherrif’s Sgt. and Search and Rescue supervisor Matt Carr noted the risks TCSAR volunteers take with every rescue mission. This particular incident required 19 Search and Rescue volunteers, from the helicopter driver to short haulers (the people who lower themselves down from a rope attached to the bottom of the helicopter) to medical staff. According the incident report, it took an hour and 57 minutes to transfer the patient to an ambulance from the time the call was placed. “That’s a very fast time,” Carr said. The mission also cost Search and Rescue around $3,790. It pays for the helicopter by the hour—$3,485/ hour—for as long as the rig is in the air, plus $1,000 per day for the hangar. There haven’t been any reported incidents since Thursday to Carr’s memory, but winter is always busy for TCSAR and Carr said this year feels “right on par” to meet last year’s 20 rescues. Since November, Search and Rescue has conducted 11 snow-related rescues. Four incidents in December included operation periods for the missing Targhee snowboarder. Others included the Twin Slides avalanche on Teton Pass, three rescues in Rock Springs Bowl just outside the boundary of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, and overdue or stranded snowmobilers on Togwotee and Teton Pass. Each rescue happens at the expense of the volunteers’ time and Teton County Search and Rescue’s limited resources. With so much at stake, why take the risk? Comey thinks that a lot of decisions in the backcountry are fueled by a “bucket list” mentality, especially among people who aren’t in the valley long-term, that pushes recreationists toward “big, bold lines” in less than ideal conditions. “People are knocking off bucket lists in a season or two or three that might take me 20 years,” Comey said. “There’s no hurry ... Wait until we know that it’s perfect. There are plenty of other places to ski.” Navigating backcountry terrain requires knowledge of avalanche conditions and how to read them, but it also
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skier-triggered avalanche in the wake of last week’s massive multi-day snowstorm that deposited almost five feet of snow in the mountains has compelled discussion about safety and decision-making in unpatrolled terrain. Around 3 p.m. last Thursday, Teton County Search and Rescue received a call about a human-triggered avalanche in No Name Canyon, just south of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort boundaries. The slide partially buried a 22-year-old skier who injured his back, ribs and leg. The other members of his party were unharmed. Thursday’s incident is one in a string of close calls this winter. Just one day earlier, a series of slides closed Highway 89 for several hours and buried a five-ton truck. Last month, an avalanche on Teton Pass swept a motorist across Highway 22, inciting uproar about backcountry ethics and responsibility. Officials say the avalanche was human triggered though they lack the evidence to prosecute anyone. No one in either incident was seriously injured. Bob Comey is a ski patroller for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and an avalanche forecaster for Bridger Teton Avalanche Center. He says the sheer volume of snowfall so early in the season has made the snowpack—particularly during big storms—precarious. “It feels like we’re in mid-season,” he said. “We’ve transitioned and we’ve transitioned early.” Avalanche forecasters have been closely monitoring snowfall since September. Jackson saw “record moisture” in October, Comey says, followed by a dry spell in November. This created a weak layer of ice upon which the rest of the season’s snow rests. “Then game on with powerful storms one after another.” All three incidents have fueled a larger conversation about decision-making in the backcountry. Much of the discussion about Thursday’s incident became an effort to point fingers of blame on the skier who triggered the slide. The avalanche danger that day was “considerable,” and the previous day forecasted “extreme” danger at high altitudes and “high” danger at mid and low altitudes following the storm. The last time Comey remembers seeing avalanche danger that high was February 2015. Comey said that periods of frigid weather followed by warm, heavy snowfall create unstable snowpack and unsafe conditions. The definition of extreme, he noted, is that “natural and human-triggered avalanches are certain.” In other words: “It’s a good day to stay home and let it settle out.” Conditions on Thursday, however, appeared innocuous to some. The sun shone for the first time all week, and avalanche danger had dropped to considerable. Still, Comey warned venturing into avalanche terrain is always
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Leading Economic Indicator
NEWS OF THE
WEIRD
The salary the Golden State Warriors pay to basketball whiz Stephen Curry may be a bargain at $12 million a year, e r but the economics is weirdabout the prices Curry’s fans pay on the street for one of his used mouthguards retrieved from the arena floor after a game. One used, sticky, saliva-encased teeth-protector went for $3,190 at one August auction, and SCP Auctions of California is predicting $25,000 for another, expelled during the NBA championship series last June. ESPN Magazine reported “at least” 35 Twitter accounts dedicated to Curry’s mouthguard.
Cultural Diversity
In parts of Panama, some men still fight for access to women with the ferocity of rutting male elks. The indigenous Ngabe people mostly keep to themselves in rural areas but have surfaced in towns like Volcan, near the Costa Rican border, where in December a reporter witnessed two men fist-fighting to bloody exhaustion on the street in a typical “Mi Lucha” (“my struggle”), with the loser’s wife following the winner home. As the custom loses its cachet, only about a third of the time does the wife now comply, according to the website Narratively. (Bonus: It’s an often-easy “divorce” for the Ngabe—for a fed-up wife to taunt her husband into a losing fight, or for a fed-up husband to pick a fight and take a dive.)
The Continuing Crisis
For all MEETING AGENDAS AND MINUTES WEEKLY CALENDAR JOB OPENINGS SOLICITATIONS FOR BIDS PUBLIC NOTICES AND OTHER VALUABLE INFORMATION
Visit our website
TetonWyo.org The public meeting agendas and minutes for the Board of County Commissioners and Planning Commission can also be found in the Public Notices section of the JH News and Guide.
Over a six-year period (the latest measured), drug companies and pharmacies legally distributed 780 million pain pills in West Virginia—averaging to 433 for every man, woman and child. Though rules require dispensers to investigate “suspicious” overprescribing, little was done, according to a recent Drug Enforcement Administration report obtained by the Gazette-Mail of Charleston—even though half of the pills were supplied by the nation’s “big three” drugmakers (whose CEOs’ compensation is enriched enormously by pain pill production). Worse, year-by-year the strengths of the pills prescribed increase as users’ tolerance demands. (West Virginia residents disproportionately suffer from unemployment, coal mining-related disabilities and poor health.) n University of Kentucky professor Buck Ryan disclosed in December that he had been punished recently (loss of travel funds and a “prestigious” award) by his dean for singing the Beach Boys classic “California Girls” for a lesson comparing American and Chinese cultures— because of the song’s “language of a sexual nature.” The school’s “coordinator” on sexual harassment issues made the ruling, apparently absent student complaints, for Ryan’s lyric change of “Well, East Coast girls are hip” to “Well, Shanghai girls are hip.” n Because the 2015 San Bernardino, California, terrorist attack that killed 14 and seriously wounded 22 was a “workplace” injury (in that the shooters fired only at fellow employees), any health insurance the victims had was superseded exclusively by coverage under the state’s “workers’ compensation” system—a system largely designed for typical job injuries, such as back pain and slip-and-falls. Thus, for example, one San Bernardino victim with “hundreds of pieces of shrapnel” still in her body even after multiple surgeries and in constant pain, must nevertheless constantly argue her level of care with a bureaucrat pressured by budgetary issues and forced to massage sets of one-size-fits-all guidelines.
Wait, What?
The Las Vegas Sun reported in December that Nevada slot- and video-machine gamblers left almost $12 million on the floor during 2012 (i.e., winning tickets that remain uncashed for six months, thus reverting to the
By CHUCK SHEPHERD state), running the five-year total to nearly $35 million.
n The pre-game injury report for college football’s Dec. 31 Citrus Bowl included two University of Louisville linebackers, Henry Famurewa and James Hearns, who were out of action against Louisiana State because of “gunshot wounds.”
The Entrepreneurial Spirit!
Latest in Vending Machines: 1. Passengers awaiting trains in 35 stations in France now find kiosks dispensing short stories to pass the time. A wide range of selections (even poetry!), in suggested reading-time lengths of one, three and five minutes, can be printed out for free. 2. The only U.S. vending machine for champagne is now operational in the 23rd-floor lobby of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Las Vegas. Moet and Chandon bubbly can be purchased with $20 tokens sold at the front desk.
New World Order
Recent Awkward Apps: 1. The Kerastase Hair Coach (a “smart” hairbrush with Wi-Fi, monitoring brush strokes “on three axes” to manage “frizziness, dryness, split ends and breakage”); 2. The still-in-prototype “Kissenger” (with a “meat-colored” rubbery dock for a smartphone that the user can kiss and have the sensation transmitted to a lover’s receiving dock over the internet); 3. The Ozmo smart cup (to “effortlessly” “empower you with a platform for better hydration choices” in your water and coffee consumption—with software for other drinks coming soon!) (Bonus: Old-school users can also just drink out of it.); 4. The Prophix toothbrush (with a video camera so you catch areas your brushing might have missed); 5. Spartan boxer briefs (stylishly protecting men’s goods from Wi-Fi and cellphone radiation).
Unclear on the Concept
In December the European Union’s 28 nations reached what members called a historic agreement to thwart terrorists: a ban on private citizens’ possessing semi-automatic weapons—but exempted terrorists’ firearm of choice, the Kalishikov assault weapon. (Finland vetoed inclusion of the AK-47 because of concerns about training its reservists.)
Least Competent Criminals
A December post on the Marietta, Georgia, police department’s Facebook page chided a shoplifter still at large who had left his ID and fingerprints (and inadvertently posed for security cameras). The police, noting “how easy” the man had made their job, “begged” him to give them some sort of challenge: “Please at least try to hide.” Suspect Dale Tice was soon in custody.
Update
In January, tireless convicted fraudster Kevin Trudeau, who pitched magical remedies for countless ailments on late-night TV for almost 20 years (dodging investigations and lawsuits until the feds caught up with him in 2014) was turned down in what some legal experts believe might be his final judicial appeal. Still, he never gives up. From his cell at a federal prison in Alabama, he continued to solicit funding for appeals via his Facebook fans, promising donors that they could “double” their money. Also, he said he would soon share “two secrets” that would allow donors to “vibrate frequencies … to create the life (they) want.”
The Passing Parade
Steve Crow of Point Loma, California, near San Diego International Airport, told a reporter he had given up— since no relief had come from the 20,068 complaints he made during 2016 about airport noise. Thanks this week to Bruce Alter, the News of the Weird Senior Advisors and Board of Editorial Advisors.
What’s Your Status?
By Jessica Sell Chambers @jessellechambers
He felt helpless. Many undocumented immigrants face the reality that at any moment their families can be torn apart. Conventional wisdom says to obey the law and all will be OK, but for some, all it takes is being at the wrong place at the wrong time, or a minor slip-up. Sometimes, where local law enforcement overlaps with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an unfortunate few fall through the cracks, are separated from their families and forced to leave the place they consider home. And once this happens, there is nothing anyone, not even local law enforcement, can do to reverse the process.
The day everything changed
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Jose remembers opening the door to his dilapidated apartment, where he lived with his very pregnant wife and their son, to find a neighbor’s friend agitated and yelling at him about noise. He said he could do nothing to calm her. She threatened to call the police. He closed the door. A second knock came. He opened the door expecting the same young woman, but instead he was met by a police officer. Confusion and then chaos ensued during
his interaction with the officer and Jose says he was wrongfully arrested for assaulting a police officer and taken to jail. Jose had no criminal history and the charges were dropped. He claims he was even issued an apology. Nevertheless, he sat in jail for days and was then transferred to an ICE detention facility in Denver. He was released after 20 days. But things only got worse. A long five years, three attorneys, and more than $20,000 later, Jose was ordered to leave his family and the country when his last attorney failed to file some paperwork on time. He was given 30 days to leave the place he had called home for 17 years. Today, sitting on the floor of his family’s apartment in Jackson, he reflected that at the time he felt like the fate of his small family balanced on the moods of those who had power over his future, from the arresting officer the night of the incident to the judge in Salt Lake City. He said the last six years of his life had been determined by whether “someone was having a good day, if the judge’s wife had been nice to him, if they had good coffee.”
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hen Jose* kissed his boys goodbye one morning in 2014, they had no idea it would be more than a year before they saw him again. In the weeks leading up to his deportation deadline, he and his wife had discussed how that dreaded morning would go. They decided not to alarm the kids— better if Jose were seemingly off to work instead of off to Mexico for an undetermined amount of time. “I pretended nothing was happening, everything was normal,” he said. “In the morning I told them I was going to work and I left.” Since a Salt Lake City immigration judge issued his removal order from Jackson Hole a month earlier, Jose had had a deep pit in his stomach. He knew that for his wife, single parenting two boys in the valley would be exceptionally hard, but there was no alternative. Though he hadn’t returned to the Mexican town where he was born in more than 11 years, he knew it didn’t offer anything for him or his family, especially not the medical care his youngest child needs. From 1,000 miles south of the Mexican border, Jose would be able to do next to nothing to help his wife. Sending money to America would be pointless–a pittance.
Examining deportation fears in Jackson Hole and the agencies enforcing immigration law.
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Tearing up roots
It’s hard for the average citizen to fully understand what it’s like to live in fear of being deported and separated from your family and friends. But for someone like Jose, he knows one encounter with a highway patrolman could alter his life. Immigration law is one of the more complicated legal spheres. There are distinctions between local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, which determine the laws these agencies enforce, as well as jurisdictional limitations, funding, and the list goes on. Immigration law is federal, and therefore not technically enforceable by local law enforcement. On occasion, these agencies cooperate and share info, mostly to keep dangerous people off of the streets or to solve heinous crimes. Identity is often the first piece of solving crimes or enforcing laws. When someone is pulled over for a traffic violation, an officer asks for identification simply to ascertain a person’s identity. They run a quick check through local dispatch for any notes on past interactions and then in the state’s record management system (RMS). If it’s not the person’s fifth time driving without a license, for instance, which is a common offense of undocumented immigrants, the officer is likely to issue a citation or a warning. During these instances, at no point does a person’s immigration status have any importance, according to Jackson Hole Police Chief Todd Smith. In a perfect world, officers wouldn’t ask about status during stops where that information is irrelevant. But locally, immigration attorney Rosie Read, of Trefonas Law, says there have been reports of law enforcement asking for immigration status during routine traffic stops. However, body cameras worn by officers provide a new avenue for accountability, Read noted. After a couple clients informed the attorney that they had been asked about their status during routine traffic stops, Read sought out footage from body cams and lo and behold, the evidence was there. Read advised: “You can politely tell the officers that you do not want to talk about your status or would like to speak with a lawyer first.” Regarding officers who do not follow protocol, Smith said sometimes even after training, officers “go right, when you trained them to go left.” The answer, he says, is to call them in and address the issue. Smith said problems, “are quickly identified and don’t last long in law enforcement.” However, officials from both JHPD and Teton County Sheriff’s Office maintain the vetting process is rigorous and problems like this are few and far between. Even though officers don’t ask about a person’s status that doesn’t mean the info is not gleaned or outright expressed, but it’s still usually extraneous, Smith said. “A person’s immigration status is not relevant, it’s an interesting fact to know but it has no bearing on the reason for contact.” Unless they need to track down a person for a crime, and there’s reason to believe the person is foreign born and may flee the country, a person’s status and the folks at ICE have little to do with everyday police work. However, during routine interactions with local law enforcement, those without IDs face an increased chance of arrest. According to a FAQ info sheet from Trefonas Law, technically, undocumented Wyoming residents cannot legally drive and doing so could result in arrest. But both officials of JHPD and TCSO said it is not their policy to arrest for driving without a license, especially if the person has ID. In general having a valid ID helps. Read said consulate issued IDs, passports, and licenses from other states are acceptable. “Even the Mexican Consulate Metricula ID— previously most local law enforcement wasn’t accepting it because the Consulate wasn’t verifying ID well enough, but new cards being issued in the last year are being accepted,” she said. Regardless of ID, if during contact with law enforcement a person is unruly, has a criminal record or a history of repeated violations, or an officer suspects this person will not show up in court to address his ticket, the person will likely be taken into custody. Simply avoiding arrest is the best possible way to avoid ICE. Smith explained that it is upon formal booking in jail that ICE is notified due to extensive criminal checks. The
fingerprints of any foreign-born individual who comes into the jail are automatically sent to ICE. And convicted or not, as Read said, “There’s no way to undo that. Once ICE knows you’re here, it’s too late.” When asked how often ICE is contacted due to a wrongful or dismissed charge, Smith said it wasn’t often. Read agreed, but she says it does happen. “What’s really unfortunate is if it’s a serious charge, they treat that as gospel—you’re treated as if you were convicted.” But not even that is guaranteed. Just because ICE is made aware of an undocumented person’s whereabouts in this process that doesn’t mean they will do anything about it. Sergeant Todd Stanyon of TCSO claims Wyoming Highway Patrol calls ICE every time they stop a foreign-born individual, but he said, “ICE is so stretched. Anecdotally, when ICE does come to take someone, it’s someone who has repeated offenses, often for domestic violence or repeated DUIs.” Even though officers ultimately have discretion over when to arrest and public safety is paramount, Smith said officers like to miminze the amount of paperwork they fill out, and arrests in general are paperwork intensive.
Eyes on enforcement
The current ICE Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) dictates that immigrants apprehended for committing a crime are to be prioritized for “removal” based upon specific criteria. Proponents believe the new system effectively targets criminals, which more or less seems to be the case in Teton County. According to PEP directives, resources, enforcement, and removal policies of aliens in the country “should continue to prioritize threats to national security, public safety, and border security.” The second priority group it lists as “misdemeanants and new immigration violators.” Priority three includes other immigration violations. However, the program provides for a lot of interpretation and discretion at all levels, from local law enforcement to immigration officials. From a number’s standpoint, the structure and targeting of PEP appear to be working well. According to Department of Homeland Security’s mandated reporting, ICE deportations were slashed by more than half from 2012 to 2016 when 240,255 people were deported, 99 percent of whom aligned with immigration enforcement priorities. Locally, PEP seems to be working as intended as well. Since it was introduced, Read says most of the people arrested here do not fall in the priority enforcement categories, so there’s been a drop off in notices to appear, the charging document for deportation proceedings. But it’s difficult to get info on how many people, and for what crimes, have been turned over to ICE from Teton County jail. Tracking down an actual person from the Cheyenne ICE field office is difficult too. However, a quick look at 2016 arrest reports by race and charge provided by the Jackson Hole Police Department reveals approximately 25 of 123 Hispanics arrested were for violent crimes. Roughly 20 percent of the total arrested potentially fall into PEP categories. DHS/ICE chalks its high rate of PEP deportations to increased cooperation with local law enforcement. With greater streamlining, DHS expects to see those numbers increase in the future, according to its annual report. However, not everyone views the cooperation as positive. According to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, DHS is the largest law enforcement agency in the country, and since its inception 14 years ago, it has built a massive infrastructure that exploits local resources to detain and deport immigrants. Even when localities take steps to limit interaction with ICE though, some interaction is unavoidable. ILRC reports “tremendous success of local policies that disentangle local law enforcement from ICE” and it supports initiatives to do so. The organization maintains that communities are healthier overall when they know their local law enforcement agencies are not involved in deportations; people are better integrated, children live in less fear and crime drops. Overall, Wyoming receives a moderate rating from ILRC,
Natrona County withstanding, which means there is general non-compliance with ICE detainers. Jurisdictions in the “moderate” category will inform ICE of someone in custody and their scheduled release, but will not hold anyone for them. But this designation seems to be slightly different from how Teton County operates. The sheriff’s office cooperates with ICE through the use of detainers, or administrative warrants requesting that individuals in custody be held and turned over to ICE. Stanyon said the sheriff’s office honors any request from ICE. “If Immigration is looking for someone, they can send a detainer. But, if they’re not in our custody then there’s nothing the sheriff can do,” he said. “ICE has come and waited at a hearing to take someone after it’s over. They tell us, ‘we’re here looking at someone’ but they come and do their own thing.” According to an October 2016 legal update on immigration detainers, ILRC says the detainers that ICE uses continue to be ruled unconstitutional in federal courts and “recent court decisions have found even greater legal defects with ICE’s enforcement operations.” In response to the latest rulings, hundreds of jails stopped honoring ICE detainers.
Trickle-down fears
Some cities, municipalities, and detention facilities have implemented policies to curb local law enforcement’s cooperation with ICE to protect community members like Jose. These actions have garnered attention from Presidentelect Donald Trump, even though his actual position on immigration is hard to nail down. After flip-flopping wildly on the subject of immigration, Trump released his “Contract with the American Voter: 100 Day Action Plan” in October. Canceling all federal funding to “sanctuary cities,” the list declares, will be one of his first actions as president. In spite of this, many high profile cities have vowed to carry on with their protective policies. There is no archetypal sanctuary city in America, but according to VICE News, there are hundreds of counties in the US that provide some form of “refuge.” Generally, this means towns, cities, counties, or holding facilities refuse to assist ICE except in the case of violent crimes. What this looks like in practice varies. According to a CNN Money report, New York City, where officials have refused to turn immigrants over to ICE for things like jumping turnstiles or traffic violations, could face a loss of $10.4 billion in federal funds, applied mostly to human, children’s and housing services. NYC does not, however, offer protection to violent or felony offenders. Santa Fe’s Mayor Javier Gonzalez has implemented similar measures to protect the immigrant population. The same article reported his city stands to lose $6 million dollars, 2 percent of its annual budget. “The loss of federal funds would be certainly devastating,” Gonzalez told CNN, “but we’re not going to compromise our values. We’ll have to find our way through it and we will.” Gonzalez’s decision is not solely altruistic. Santa Fe’s tourism-driven economy, which brings in about $1.4 billion a year, also plays a role. He says the new immigrant provides “a critical supply of labor and skill sets that are needed to meet the ongoing demand of a healthy tourism economy.”
Mining trust
Local law enforcement officials have their own immigrant fears, although they stem from a different aspect of policing: public trust. Cooperation between the public and local law enforcement is essential to police work. Lieutenant Tom Combs, of the Teton County Sheriff’s Office, said during training deputies are told: “The badges we wear are the symbol of public trust—they are meaningless without the trust of the public.” “We want as good of a relationship with our Latino community as possible,” Combs said. Balancing public trust with law enforcement duties is a practice supported by research. According to the National Institute for Justice, “research consistently shows that minority groups are more likely than whites to view law enforcement with suspicion and distrust.” And when trust is eroded police lose the ability and authority to function effectively. In a way, local law enforcement faces a dilemma. Their job is to enforce laws–granted, not federal laws. And even though it helps to cooperate with federal agencies on occasion, it also helps to cultivate and maintain trust with the local population, no matter their status. Often unnoticed is the underside of Jackson, Combs said. “We also know we have Latino gang members here in addition to hardworking people. We do a good job of dealing with who we need to deal with.” Though Combs says their job relies on people wanting to report things and not feel they will be targeted for immigration. But there is also maintaining the trust of those who oppose unlawful immigration at any cost. Whalen reports most of the email and communication he receives from the public on this matter is from those who encourage him to help ICE. His job, he says, is to enforce the law.
“You get used to the stress. We humans evolve to handle our situations.”
Why the fear then?
Even though Jose’s story appears to be the exception to the rule, the randomness of how someone like Jose ends up being torn from his family is seemingly what exacerbates the fears of many undocumented people—that, and a history of discrimination, unfair treatment and targeting. PJH cover story “Melting Pot of the West” (January 3) by
JANUARY 18, 2017 | 15
Aside from human factors there are other drawbacks to local law enforcement cooperating with ICE. From an economic standpoint, Jackson Hole could take a lesson from Santa Fe regarding the protection of its tourism/immigrant -driven economy. In 2007, the Jackson Town Council and the Teton County Board of Commissioners commissioned a study by the University of Wyoming on the economic impacts of Latinos
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Weighing the cost
in the county. At that time, according to the study, Latinos comprised 6 percent of the county’s population. The UW study found that immigrant workers held 15 percent of jobs in Teton County in 2007, which were concentrated mainly in tourism/service related jobs and construction. The immigrant labor force accounted for 11 percent of Teton County’s $3.2 billion industry output ($355 million). The study noted that due to some limitations, it was not possible to estimate if the overall economic impact was a net positive or negative. But in the 10 years since the study was conducted, the population of immigrant workers has grown and their economic impact decidedly has too. Jackson’s economic benefit from its undocumented workforce needs to be weighed against a possible loss of federal funding. If Congress were to pass legislation limiting or eliminating federal funding to locations that implement protective measures for immigrant populations, Jackson could potentially be at a financial risk. Kelly Thompson, the Town of Jackson’s financial director, provided PJH with the 2016 budget audit for the town’s federal awards. In 2016, the town received $3.17 million in federal funds, 7 percent of the town budget. Of the total federal funding, START operational monies accounted for 70.8 percent, and the remaining $950K went to capital projects. Thompson said if this funding were lost, the town council would have to decide where to rustle up funds to replace it, not an easy feat.
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16 | JANUARY 18, 2017
Sarah Ross, detailed the plights of immigrants who settled in Wyoming, a state with a long and hostile history towards them. Ross discussed the 1950s initiative “Operation Wetback,” where upwards of 100,000 Mexicans were rounded up by US immigration officials and forcibly deported in cargo ships to Mexico. The discriminatory initiative, where nearly 100 people died during their deportation, stemmed from fears that Mexicans were taking white America’s jobs—a notion that has managed to endure among some Americans to this day. During a November 2015 campaign speech, Trump lauded Operation Wetback as a possible model for his immigration plan. Ross also reported on the 1990s roundups in Jackson Hole. A week before Labor Day, in 1996, more than 150 people were rounded up, inked with temporary identification numbers on their arms and transferred to the jail in patrol cars and horse trailers. JHPD’s Smith remembers the 90s raids—that occurred under former president Bill Clinton’s immigration policies— because he participated as a low ranking officer. He says back in the 90s people did not embrace immigrants, and that immigrants were far less deterred by fear of deportation. People would get deported and sometimes be back within 60 days, he said. Word of mouth is also pretty powerful for memorializing events. According to the Latino Resource Center’s 2015 Latino Community Assessment that polled more than 500 Latinos in the valley, about 80 percent of people polled did not live in the valley during the raids. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the memory of it did not last, or that people don’t import experiences from places they lived before Jackson. “All people have a life before they come here. Maybe they had some interactions in Texas or Arizona and weren’t treated right. We’re a collection of our life experiences,” Smith said. Nowadays, local law enforcement focuses on criminal immigrants. “Things progress, the world is a different place,” he said. Indeed, Smith has the numbers to back up his assertions that things have changed. The police chief runs reports on his department’s arrests every couple of weeks and provided PJH with arrest reports classified by race and charge for both 2006 and 2016. Numbers from all agencies in the valley that use the jail, such as the National Park Service, are included. Of the 770 arrests made in 2016, Hispanics accounted for 123—16 percent of the total; whites accounted for 606 arrests, or 79 percent of the total. Smith said 2016’s numbers reflect ideal arrest percentages. Jackson’s Latino population fluctuates between 20 and 30 percent of the total population and law enforcement officials aim for arrest numbers to be commensurate with that. Teton County’s numbers are lower. When compared to 2006 numbers, arrests in general decreased by 15 percent in 2016. A decade ago, there were 902 arrests in the system, which included 172 Latinos and
702 white arrestees, 19 and 78 percent respectively. In 2006, Latinos made up less than 6 of the population in Teton County yet accounted for 19 percent of arrests. Latinos today make up approximately 25 percent of the population and only 16 percent of arrests in the county. Teton County’s immigrant arrest numbers are in line with findings from conservative public policy research organization, the CATO Institute’s study on immigrant criminality: “With few exceptions, immigrants are less crime prone than natives or have no effect on crime rates.” Jackson’s arrests fit the study’s mold: incarceration rates of native-born citizens are routinely two to five times higher than that of immigrants. That being said, local data has some holes. Whalen, though he doesn’t run arrest reports, says he is confident in his department’s monitoring and review process. Initially, he did not believe in “faith reliance” on data over the supervisory system, but he would not be opposed to using it to crosscheck performance in the future. Whalen said he wants the community and the press to hold him accountable and to inform him of any potential trends skewed in any direction. While he has not received word one way or another from local organizations, he says he hopes this communication could be more robust moving forward. And in fact, Whalen said, movement in that direction was already underway as he was scheduled to attend a meeting with several stakeholders and the JHPD the following day.
Partnership for the future
Before the Christmas holiday, representatives from both the police department and sheriff’s office sat down with the staff of One22 and Trefonas Law Office, and other stakeholders, to discuss immigration under a Trump administration and how they could partner to ensure the best outcome for the community. Overall, Read says the meeting was successful and everyone was more or less in agreement. TCSO’s Combs attended the meeting. He echoed Read: “The meeting this morning was awesome. Fear can be abolished with good communication.” Attendees decided to collaborate on a future informational meeting, likely after Trump’s inauguration when more concrete details are known. Consensus was that law enforcement would have a more visible role in whatever is to come. From a legal standpoint, Read said they are planning for a worst-case scenario regarding everything immigration. “The best thing we can do, in my opinion, is to continue that approach of trying to provide accurate, clear information about what we can realistically expect from the Trump
administration.” Trefonas Law staffers had already prepared an information sheet with the five most frequently asked questions regarding Trump and immigration, which they hope to circulate in both English and Spanish. Read said town electeds are working on legislation to protect nonviolent undocumented offenders. “But Jackson doesn’t run the jail, the sheriff does,” she said. While some have advocated for a joint agreement between the town and county, it would be difficult to procure because the sheriff follows directives from the state. In the meantime, Read encourages members of the community to lobby state legislators to allow undocumented residents to get driver’s licenses in the state, and for Wyoming to soften its cooperation with ICE. In a separate conversation, Whalen committed to PJH that he would lobby the county to expand START service as a means to help unlicensed drivers with their commutes. “Our main goal is to prevent violations, and a more robust public transportation system makes sense,” he said. By and large, the numbers seem to check out in favor of fairness and non-discriminatory local practices. And anecdotally, Teton County exercises discretion with how and when to cooperate with ICE. Jackson’s undocumented immigrant community is not in danger of being turned over to ICE indiscriminately, with the exception of a hapless few. However, necessary protections for undocumented immigrants could take on new meaning if Trump decides to expand the definition of criminal alien to include all unlawful immigrants. As a community, residents would then need to decide if the town should implement other measures to protect people. While the future of undocumented immigrants in the US remains uncertain, Jose says a life in Mexico for some is far riskier than possible deportation from the US. Visibly wrenched, he recounted his grueling and dangerous journey back from Mexico. He shared images and stories from beyond the border—a trailer full of lifeless children gutted for organs, women dressed in drag to avoid being pimped or raped, of his kidnapping by Mexican mafia. Jose risked his life making his way back to his family and “the only place that feels like home.” “You get used to the stress,” Jose said, describing the fear of deportation. “We humans evolve to handle our situations. If there’s a chance for my kids to have a better future than the one that I have myself, it’s worth a try at least. It’s a risk you have to take and I hope the payoff is good and if it isn’t, then at least I tried.” PJH
*This person’s name has been changed.
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n Dance & Fitness Classes All Day 8:00am, Dancers’ Workshop, $10.00 - $16.00, 307-733-6398 n Level 1 Avalanche: Decision Making In Avalanche Terrain (AIARE 1) 8:00am, CWC-Jackson, $375.00, 307-733-7425 n Digital Photography 9:00am, CWC-Jackson, 307733-7425 n Engaging Board and Staff in A Strategic Approach to Change 9:00am, Community Foundation of Jackson Hole, $20.00, 307-739-1026 n Teton Valley Great Snow Fest 9:00am, Teton Valley, 208399-2884 n 6th Annual Snowscapes Snow Sculpting 9:00am, Driggs City Center, Free, 307-690-2234 n Sleigh Rides 10:00am, National Elk Refuge, $15.00 - $21.00, 307-733-0277 n PTO 3:30pm, Mangy Moose, Free, 307-733-4913 n Silver Metal Clay: GR 4-8 4:00pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $99.00 $118.00, 307-733-6379 n Open Studio: Figure Model 6:00pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $10.00, 307733-6379 n Great Until Late 6:00pm, Local Stores, Free, 307-733-3316 n Intermediate Spanish 6:00pm, CWC-Jackson, $110.00, 307-733-7425 n Content Marketing 6:00pm, CWC-Jackson, $40.00, 307-733-7425 n Ruff Readers Open House 6:00pm, Teton County Library, Free, 307-733-2164 n Ramen Night At The Handle Bar 6:00pm, Handle Bar, 307-7325056 n Gallim Repertory with Fran Romo 6:30pm, Dancers’ Workshop, $25.00 - $75.00, 307-733-6398
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n JD High Country Outfitters Winter Fly Tying 6:30pm, JD High Country Outfitters, $75.00, 307-733-3270 n Israel’s Border: Threats are a stone’s throw Away 7:00pm, JHJC Center, Free n KHOL Presents: Vinyl Night 8:00pm, The Rose, Free, 307733-1500 n Jack Nelson Band 8:00pm, Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, $5.00, 307-733-2207 n The Bo & Joe Sexy Show 9:00pm, Town Square Tavern, Free, 307-733-3886
THURSDAY, JANUARY 19
n Dance & Fitness Classes All Day 8:00am, Dancers’ Workshop, $10.00 - $16.00, 307-733-6398 n Teton Valley Great Snow Fest 9:00am, Teton Valley, 208399-2884 n 6th Annual Snowscapes Snow Sculpting 9:00am, Driggs City Center, Free, 307-690-2234 n Sleigh Rides 10:00am, National Elk Refuge, $15.00 - $21.00, 307-733-0277 n Beginning Throwing 10:00am, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $184.00 $220.00, 307-733-6379 n Toddler Time 10:05am, Teton County Library Youth Auditorium, Free, 307733-2164 n JD High Country Outfitters Brown Bag Fly Tying 11:00am, JD High Country Outfitters, Free, 307-733-3270 n Waxing Tips for Skate Skiers 12:00pm, Teton Recreation Center, $12.00, 307-739-9025 n Stackhouse 3:30pm, Mangy Moose, Free, 307-733-4913 n After School Monthly Workshops 3:30pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $180.00 $216.00, 307-733-6379 n Après Ski and Art 5:00pm, Diehl Gallery, Free, 307-733-0905
Compiled by Caroline LaRosa n REFIT® 5:15pm, First Baptist Church, Free, 307-690-6539 n Sustainability Series presents: Taming the Wild Waste 5:30pm, Spark JH, Free, 303483-8207 n Mental Health Support Group 6:00pm, Board Room of St. John’s Medical Center, Free, 307-732-1161 n Great Until Late 6:00pm, Local Stores, Free, 307-733-3316 n Intro to Papermaking 6:00pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $132.00, 307733-6379 n Tricks of the Trade: Exposure Mythology 6:00pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $38.00, 307733-6379 n Backcountry Skiing Film Festival 6:00pm, Wildwood Room, $5.00, 208-201-1622 n Armchair Adventures: Bicycling Cornwall, Wales and Ireland 6:30pm, Teton Recreation Center, $5.00, 307-739-9025 n 22 in 21: The State of Our Community 6:30pm, Snow King Resort, Free, 307-733-8687 n JD High Country Outfitters Beginners Fly Tying 6:30pm, JD High Country Outfitters, $75.00, 307-733-3270 n Jackson Hole Communty Band 2017 Rehearsals 7:00pm, Centre for the Arts, Free, 307-200-9463 n The Met - Live in HD: Nabucco 7:00pm, The Center Theater, $12.00 - $20.00, 307-733-4900 n Major Zepher 7:30pm, Silver Dollar Showroom, Free, 307-732-3939 n Jack Nelson Band 8:00pm, Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, $5.00, 307-733-2207 n Salsa Night 9:00pm, Pink Garter Theatre, Free, 307-733-1500 n The Sweet Lilies 9:00pm, Town Square Tavern, Free, 307-733-3886
FREE SPEECH Equality State, 2.0 A women’s march this weekend in Casper will draw supporters from Jackson Hole. BY MEG DALY @MegDaly1
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 20
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SATURDAY, JANUARY 21
n Dance & Fitness Classes All Day 8:00am, Dancers’ Workshop, $10.00 - $16.00, 307-733-6398 n REFIT® 9:00am, Dancers’ Workshop, $10.00 - $20.00, 307-733-6398 n Teton Valley Great Snow Fest 9:00am, Teton Valley, 208399-2884 n 6th Annual Snowscapes Snow Sculpting 9:00am, Driggs City Center, Free, 307-690-2234 n Kotler Cutthroat Classic Pond Hockey Tournament 9:00am, Kotler Ice Arena, Free, 208-399-2884 n Women’s Skate Ski Workshop 9:30am, START Bus shelter at Stilson Parking Lot, $35.00, 307-739-9025 n Sleigh Rides 10:00am, National Elk Refuge, $15.00 - $21.00, 307-733-0277 n Teton Valley Winter Farmers’ Market 10:00am, MD Nursery, Free, 208-354-8816 n Fat Bike Workshop 10:00am, Turpin Meadows Ranch, 307-690-0712
n Spanish Language Classic and Skate Ski Workshop 1:30pm, START Bus Shelter at Stilson Ranch Parking Lot, $28.00, 307-739-9025 n Kris Lager Band 3:00pm, Grand Targhee Resort, Free, 307-353-2300 n Aaron Davis & the Mystery Machine 4:00pm, K Bar at Teton Mountain Lodge, Free n Après Ski and Art 5:00pm, Diehl Gallery, Free, 307-733-0905 n The Center Presents Seven Things I’ve Learned: An Evening with Ira Glass 5:00pm, The Center Theater, $35.00 - $55.00, 307-733-3886 n Great Until Late 6:00pm, Local Stores, Free, 307-733-3316 n Wine Dinner 6:30pm, Dornan’s, $85.00, 307-733-2415 n Snow Ball V 7:00pm, Driggs Community Center, $15.00, info@downtowndriggs.org n Tasha 7:30pm, Silver Dollar Showroom, Free, 307-733-2190 n Jack Nelson Band 8:00pm, Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, $5.00, 307-733-2207 n The Center Presents Seven Things I’ve Learned: An Evening with Ira Glass 8:00pm, The Center Theater, $35.00 - $55.00, 307-733-3886 n Nappy Roots 9:00pm, Town Square Tavern, $15.00 - $20.00, 307-733-3886 n Lounge on Fire 9:30pm, Mangy Moose, $7.00, 307-733-4913
SUNDAY, JANUARY 22
n Teton Valley Great Snow Fest 9:00am, Teton Valley, 208399-2884 n 6th Annual Snowscapes Snow Sculpting 9:00am, Driggs City Center, Free, 307-690-2234 n Kotler Cutthroat Classic Pond Hockey Tournament 9:00am, Kotler Ice Arena, Free, 208-399-2884 n Sleigh Rides 10:00am, National Elk Refuge, $15.00 - $21.00, 307-733-0277 n Major Zephyr 3:30pm, Mangy Moose, Free, 307-733-4913
JANUARY 18, 2017 | 21
n Dance & Fitness Classes All Day 8:00am, Dancers’ Workshop, $10.00 - $16.00, 307-733-6398 n Open Studio: Portrait Model 9:00am, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $10.00, 307733-6379 n Teton Valley Great Snow Fest 9:00am, Teton Valley, 208399-2884 n 6th Annual Snowscapes Snow Sculpting 9:00am, Driggs City Center, Free, 307-690-2234 n Kotler Cutthroat Classic Pond Hockey Tournament 9:00am, Kotler Ice Arena, Free, 208-399-2884 n Sleigh Rides 10:00am, National Elk Refuge, $15.00 - $21.00, 307-733-0277 n Airport Exhibit Opening & Activities 11:00am, Jackson Hole Children’s Museum, Free, 307733-3996 n Feathered Fridays 12:00pm, Jackson Hole & Greater Yellowstone Visitor Center, Free, 307-201-5433 n Brain Works 3:00pm, St. John’s Medical Center, $300.00, 307-739-7493 n Kris Lager Band 3:00pm, Grand Targhee Resort, Free, 307-353-2300 n Screen Door Porch 3:30pm, Mangy Moose, Free, 307-733-4913 n Locals Appreciation Night 4:00pm, Snow King Mountain, Free, 307-201-KING n Friday Tastings 4:00pm, The Liquor Store of Jackson Hole, Free, 307-7334466 n Après Ski and Art 5:00pm, Diehl Gallery, Free, 307-733-0905 n Great Until Late 6:00pm, Local Stores, Free, 307-733-3316 n Natural Dye 6:00pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $99.00, 307733-6379 n Pam Drews Phillips Plays Jazz 7:00pm, The Granary at Spring Creek Ranch, Free, 307-7338833
n Free Public Stargazing 7:30pm, Center for the Arts, Free, 844-996-7827 n Country Western Swing with BJ & Clayton 7:30pm, Dancers’ Workshop, $65.00 - $90.00, 307-733-6398 n Tasha 7:30pm, Silver Dollar Showroom, Free, 307-733-2190 n Jack Nelson Band 8:00pm, Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, $5.00, 307-733-2207 n The Teton Valley Foundations Great Snow Fest Party with One Ton Pig 8:00pm, Knotty Pine, $8.00, 208-787-2866 n Jackson Hole Snowboarder Magazine Party with Cut Chemist 9:00pm, Pink Garter Theatre, $32.50 - $35.00, 307-733-1500 n Analog Son 9:00pm, Town Square Tavern, 307-733-3886 n Lounge on Fire 9:30pm, Mangy Moose, $7.00, 307-733-4913
| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |
illions of “nasty women” decked out in pussy gear galore will take to the streets Saturday, January 21, one day after President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. The main march, Women’s March on Washington, happens in Washington, D.C., with hundreds of affiliate marches taking places in cities and towns across the country. Casper, Wyoming, is one of those cities, and a contingent of Jackson women intend to be there. Some local women have cited personal reasons for attending, like Anne Marie Wells, who is helping to organize the Jackson group. “I am completely devastated that an admitted sexual assailant is going to be our president,” she said. “One in three women will be abused in their lifetime, that means a third of the women who voted for Trump will be or have been assaulted in their lifetime, and yet they still voted for someone who will do that to other women.” Like Wells, many women feel a personal sense of threat or attack is looming with the incoming administration. Trump has spoken openly about assaulting women and his vice president, Mike Pence, has an antichoice, anti-LGBTQ track record. However, marches this weekend are not necessarily focused on the incoming administration and instead aim to mobilize people around social justice. The organizers of Women’s March on Washington released their guiding vision last week. “Our liberation is bound in each other’s,” the statement reads. “The Women’s March on Washington includes leaders of organizations and communities that have been building the foundation for social progress for generations. We welcome vibrant collaboration and honor the legacy of the movements before us—the suffragists and abolitionists, the Civil Rights Movement, the feminist movement, the American Indian Movement, Occupy Wall Street, Marriage Equality, Black Lives Matter, and more.” By situating WMW as part of this historical legacy, the organizers tie themselves to a powerful set of allies past, present and future.
“I think that’s very important to identify those intersections of feminism and to support each other in that way,” Wells said. “And to realize that the life of an upper class white woman is going to be different from a queer woman or a woman of color. It’s important to recognize those differences, support each other and stand behind each other.” About 20 people attended the first Jackson meeting for the Casper march. Organizers held another meeting Sunday to make signs and discuss effective protest protocol. “All our signs will be messages of hope and peace and not messages of negativity or vulgarity,” Wells said. In Casper, organizers aren’t sure how many people to expect. “The march is for women and their allies and marginalized people, because it’s not just women who will be hurt by policies being discussed in Washington,” said Jane Ifland, coordinator for the Casper march. Similar marches are planned in Cheyenne and Cody, Ifland added. The Casper march is also nonpartisan. Ifland says she specifically wanted the march to be open to anybody who voted for Trump but disagrees with his approach to social justice. “We see the need to assert the rights of not just women, but also all members of our diverse communities,” she said. “The strength of our nation lies in our diversity, and defending the dignity and equality of all our people is defending America’s highest ideals.” Similarly, the march’s national leaders set out a broad platform based on diversity in their vision statement. A key component of that diversity is a commitment to LGBTQIA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual) rights. “We firmly declare that LGBTQIA Rights are human rights and that it is our obligation to uplift, expand and protect the rights of our gay, lesbian, bi, queer, trans or gender non-conforming brothers, sisters and siblings,” the statement reads. Local members of the LGBTQ community, like Wells, say they fear a backlash against queer-identified people as Trump takes office. “For me as a queer person, it hits really personally that such a significant portion of my nation voted for that antiLGBTQ platform,” Wells said. “Whatever reason was more important to them than voting for someone who sees me as an equal human being. Now I fear for my safety and the safety of my friends.” Casper’s march begins at 200 S. Beech at noon Saturday, January 21. Protestors will march west on Second Street and end up at The Lyric civic auditorium, where there will be informational booths by social justice and women’s organizations, as well as discussion and training groups. For more info, visit the Women’s March– Wyoming Casper Facebook page, facebook.com/events/640183099485929 PJH
| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |
22 | JANUARY 18, 2017
MUSIC BOX Beat Science Legendary hip-hop DJ Cut Chemist headlines Jackson Hole Snowboarder Magazine party along with the electric soul of Late Night Radio. BY AARON DAVIS @ScreenDoorPorch
T
he 12th issue of Jackson Hole Snowboarder Magazine encapsulates the unnerving resilience of local snowboarders and the journeys that have cemented their love for snow. When it comes to enduring hip-hop and its architects, that same type of spirit can be used to describe iconic turntablist and beat maker Cut Chemist, who will headline the magazine’s annual throw down this Friday. JHSM parties have sown a legacy for bringing hip-hop’s finest players to the stage, from De La Soul to Talib Kweli, and Cut Chemist keeps with the tradition. Scratching, mixing and producing, Cut cut his teeth during a time when DJs spent hours digging through vinyl masterpieces, sampling and splicing together different beats to create fresh musical gems. For fans of hip-hop heavyweight Jurassic 5, Cut, born Lucas MacFadden, is a household name. He founded the group along with his teenage buddy Chali 2na, though many know him through the Grammy-winning Latin funk outfit Ozomatli, which headlined Rendezvous Fest in Teton Village back in 2009. Cut has also collaborated with fellow turntablist and beat extraordinaire DJ Shadow on a number of projects including the underground smash Brainfreeze and its follow-up, Product Placement. In 2014, Cut and Shadow had another brilliant idea—the Renegades of Rhythm tour. The duo traveled the country playing only vinyl from Afrika Bambaataa’s massive original record collection. The tour has become the stuff of legend as the two DJ/
Cut Chemist producers managed to deliver a lesson in the origins and essence of hip-hop at every show. JHSM/PJH editor Robyn Vincent happened to be at the duo’s Los Angeles stop. “In a time when a lot of DJs press buttons on their laptops and don’t quite know how to connect with a crowd, this show was so unique,” Vincent said. “Dropping funk, disco and classic breakbeat records, they had thousands of people under their spell who all seemed to recognize they were witnessing a historic performance.” Whether producing, remixing, film scoring, or performing, Cut has helped create a benchmark for DJ diversification. He has developed a taste for music and rhythms from around the world while keeping his ethic for the hip-hop tradition. “It’s important to widen people’s musical vocabulary and I feel it’s my job as a DJ to do so,” Cut told Dublab last fall. “When I was coming up, my favorite DJs were the ones who skillfully played the most obscure music while still making people dance. Hip-hop is not a specific type of
music, it’s how it’s presented. I feel I’ve always proved that and will continue to do so.” Also akin to the snowboarder mentality, Late Night Radio heats up the show with the mantra “emotion over energy.” The DJ/producer has been touring the theater scene with his friend Michal Menert of Pretty Lights, among others. While Pretty Lights is the godfather of the electric soul/space jazz scene birthed in Denver about 15 years ago, the godfather himself, Pretty Lights creator Derek Vincent Smith, points to Late Night Radio as the most promising of the next generation of beat makers and DJs. That should be the only encouragement you need to show up early for this one. 12th annual JH Snowboarder Magazine party with Cut Chemist and Late Night Radio, 9 p.m. Friday, January 20 at the Pink Garter Theatre. First 100 people through the door will receive a limited edition Avalon 7 faceshield featuring this year’s cover art by Bryan Iguchi. Snowboard silenbt auction with decks from Never Summer, Lib Tech, Arbor
WEDNESDAY PTO (Mangy Moose) THURSDAY The Sweet Lillies (Town Square Tavern) FRIDAY JH Snowboarder Magazine Party with Cut Chemist and Late Night Radio (Pink Garter) SATURDAY Tasha (Silver Dollar), Nappy Roots (Town Square Tavern), Lounge on Fire (Mangy Moose) Late Night Radio and more begins at 8 p.m. $32.50-$35. PinkGarterTheatre. com, 733-1500.
Boogie with Lager at MOM For a guy from America’s Breadbasket to fall in love with the soul music of Otis Redding, Ray Charles, Van Morrison, and Wilson Pickett is not out of the ordinary. But to tour out of Nebraska for the last decade and build a fanbase through the middle of the country with “boogie trance” and “heavy soul” is pretty surprising. Kris Lager Band delivers a legitimate rock ‘n’ roll revival complete with feel good dancing, singing and hollering. It’s an intensity that rings loud and funky through a pair of cool shades on the band’s latest effort Rise and Shine, which brings a raw Black Keys vibe with vintage keyboard textures, a swamp-pop sensibility, and monster guitar riffs. “I’m huge into boogie artists like John Lee Hooker and Magic Sam,” Lager told Lagniappe Weekly last month. “They’ve both been huge influences on my guitar playing.
SUNDAY Freda Felcher (Silver Dollar), Stagecoach Band (Stagecoach), Open Mic (Pinky G’s)
I kinda tip my hat to those old boogie guys that know how to play a good swanky guitar.” Kris Lager Band 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday, January 20 and 21 at The Trap Bar at Grand Targhee Resort. Free. GrandTarghee.com.
MONDAY BOGDOG (Mangy Moose)
Flowering Front Range folk-grass Three-part female harmony and the delicate delivery of The Sweet Lillies have been fully embraced by Colorado’s progressive grass-Americana scene. Following in the footsteps of fellow Coloradoans Elephant Revival and Paper Bird while also bringing to mind string band Crooked Still, it boils down to quality songwriting for the quartet. The Front Range outfit released its self-titled debut in October. It’s a solid collection of tunes recommended for lovers of down tempo string music with heartfelt lyrics. The Sweet Lillies, 10 p.m. Thursday, January 19 at Town Square Tavern. Free. 733-3886. PJH
TUESDAY Andy Frasco (Town Square Tavern), One Ton Pig (Silver Dollar), White Lightning Open Mic (Trap Bar)
MONDAY, JANUARY 23
n Dance & Fitness Classes All Day 8:00am, Dancers’ Workshop, $10.00 - $16.00, 307-733-6398 n Digital Photography 9:00am, CWC-Jackson, 307733-7425 n Beginning Painting 9:00am, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $160.00 $191.00, 307-733-6379 n Create with Me: Ages 2 & 3 with caregiver 9:15am, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $75.00, 307-7336379
n Sleigh Rides 10:00am, National Elk Refuge, $15.00 - $21.00, 307-733-0277 n Kindercreations Ages 3-5 10:30am, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $80.00, 307-7336379 n Library Mountain Story 2017 3:00pm, Various Locations, Free, 307-733-2164 n B.O.G.D.O.G - Band On Glen Down on Glen 3:30pm, Mangy Moose, Free, 307-733-4913
n After School Kidzart Club: Grade K-2 3:30pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $165.00, 307733-6379 n Handbuilding Plus! 3:30pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $150.00, 307733-6379 n Studio Sampler 3:45pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $264.00, 307733-6379 n Hootenanny 6:00pm, Dornan’s, Free, 307733-2415 n Great Until Late 6:00pm, Local Stores, Free, 307733-3316
n Printmaking 101 6:00pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $200.00, 307733-6379 n Library Mountain Story 2017 7:00pm, Various Locations, Free, 307-733-2164 n The Center Presents National Theatre Live’s broadcast of One Man, Two Guvnors 7:00pm, The Center Theater, $10.00 - $18.00, 307-733-4900 n Intro to Astrophotography 7:30pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $280.00, 307733-6379
n Jack Nelson Band 8:00pm, Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, $5.00, 307-733-2207 n Kris Lager Band 9:00pm, Town Square Tavern, Free, 307-733-3886
TUESDAY, JANUARY 24
n Dance & Fitness Classes All Day 8:00am, Dancers’ Workshop, $10.00 - $16.00, 307-733-6398 n REFIT® 8:30am, Dancers’ Workshop, $10.00 - $20.00, 307-733-6398
JANUARY 18, 2017 | 23
n Winter Wonderland - Ice Skating on Town Square 4:00pm, Town Square, $0.00 $8.00, 307-733-3932 n Stagecoach Band 6:00pm, Stagecoach, Free, 307-733-4407 n Great Until Late 6:00pm, Local Stores, Free, 307733-3316 n Library Mountain Story 2017 7:00pm, Various Locations, Free, 307-733-2164 n Freda Fletcher 7:30pm, Silver Dollar Showroom, Free, 307-733-2190
| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |
SEE CALENDAR PAGE 24
| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |
24 | JANUARY 18, 2017
n Sleigh Rides 10:00am, National Elk Refuge, $15.00 - $21.00, 307-733-0277 n Toddler Time 10:05am, Teton County Library Youth Auditorium, Free, 307-733-2164 n Photoshop Basics 3:00pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $140.00, 307-733-6379 n White Lightning Open Mic Night 3:00pm, The Trap Bar & Grill, Free, 307-3532300 n Brain Works 3:00pm, St. John’s Medical Center, $300.00, 307-739-7493 n Library Mountain Story 2017 3:00pm, Various Locations, Free, 307-7332164 n The Maw Band 3:30pm, Mangy Moose, Free, 307-733-4913 n Hand and Wheel 3:45pm, Ceramics Studio, $180.00 - $216.00, 307-733-6379 n REFIT® 5:15pm, First Baptist Church, Free, 307-6906539 n Great Until Late 6:00pm, Local Stores, Free, 307-733-3316 n Fat Bike Demo 6:00pm, Summit HS/Middle School Groomed Ski Track, Free, 307-739-9025 n Silver Metal Clay - Projects 6:00pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $137.00 - $164.00, 307-733-6379 n Handbuilding Clay 6:00pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $184.00 - $220.00, 307-733-6379 n Watercolor 6:00pm, Art Association of Jackson Hole, $160.00 - $191.00, 307-733-6379 n Basic Excel 6:00pm, CWC-Jackson, $40.00, 307-733-7425 n Library Mountain Story 2017 7:00pm, Various Locations, Free, 307-733-2164 n One Ton Pig 7:30pm, Silver Dollar Showroom, Free, 307732-3939 n Jack Nelson Band 8:00pm, Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, $5.00, 307-733-2207 n Andy Frasco & the U.N. 9:00pm, Town Square Tavern, $5.00, 307-7333886
FOR COMPLETE EVENT DETAILS VISIT PJHCALENDAR.COM
CREATIVE PEAKS River of Words The Mountain Story Festival explores the intersection of outdoor adventure and storytelling. BY MEG DALY @MegDaly1
I
t’s the time of year to cozy up by the fire with a good outdoor adventure story—after spending the day adventuring in nature, of course. And it’s also the time of year for Teton County Library’s Mountain Story Festival, four days of peeking behind the curtain to examine what makes a memorable outdoor tale. This year’s festival features the celebrated outdoor writer, Kevin Fedarko, author of The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History through the Heart of the Grand Canyon. The festival kicks off Sunday, January 22, with a presentation by outdoor writer Matt Hansen, editor-at-large for Powder. Hansen will discuss outdoor media and the emergence of sponsored content. “The rise of digital media has enabled magazines like Powder to tell different stories in different ways. But it also presents some interesting challenges,” Hansen explained. He cited an award-winning story in Powder, “The Human Factor,” sponsored by Black Diamond. “It was a multi-year project. We hired a writer to look at how skiers and snowboarders in the backcountry are caught in avalanches even though they know the risks,” Hansen said. “We never could have done that project without Black Diamond.” When working with a sponsor, Hansen said the challenge from an editorial standpoint is the potential for opening yourself up to oversight by another company and their marketing department. “You have to be clear about where you draw the line,” he said. “So far we have been very good at saying, ‘we need full editorial control.’” Next up, on Monday, January 23, local outdoor writer Molly Loomis teaches a two-hour workshop about writing a compelling personal narrative within an outdoor adventure story. Loomis is also offering manuscript critiques for outdoorsy scribes, including 45-minute one-on-one meetings. Space is limited and writers will be accepted on a first come, first served basis. Loomis is accepting nonfiction manuscripts of up to 3,000 words. Contact molly@loomisink.com.
Author Kevin Fedarko will impart his adventure storytelling knowledge on Jackson folks next week. Also on Monday, it’s an evening of the library’s wildly popular Cabin Fever Story Slam series; the theme is “Lost and Found.” Anyone can throw his or her name in the hat to tell a five-minute true story, memorized, based on the theme. Maybe you got lost in a proverbial jungle and took days to find your way out. Or maybe you lost something precious—a ring, a manuscript, a love—and found out something profound about yourself in the process. The winning storyteller will receive two front row seats to the Moth Mainstage at the Center for the Arts on January 29. The Mountain Story Festival continues Tuesday, January 24, with two events featuring Kevin Fedarko, author of the The Emerald Mile. The book, a New York Times Bestseller and winner of the National Outdoor Book Awards, tells the tale of a trio of river guides in 1983 who set out to run the Colorado River at a time when torrents of water were being released from the Glen Canyon Dam, creating ferocious conditions. Their goal: to set a record as the fastest run the canyon had ever seen. “But it’s about more than that,” noted Leah Shlachter, the library’s adult programming coordinator. “It’s also about the history of the Grand Canyon, conservation efforts, and the Glen Canyon Dam itself.” Fedarko will discuss how he constructed the book and learned how to let the story evolve on its own. This event will be of particular interest to writers and also fans of the book who rightly wonder, how did he create the complex story that provides as much thrill as it does insight into America’s fraught relationship with the wild? What he learned from river guides in the Grand Canyon, Fedarko told PJH, was a tale in which there were clear villains. “The story you are handed is that there is extraordinarily beautiful landscape carved out and polished by this exquisite river that is the defining feature of the American Southwest,” Fedarko said. “And then in the mid 20th century these terrible things were done with two enormous
dams, and Glen Canyon Dam in particular was this act of evil.” When he started his book, he assumed his story would have the same moral dimensions as the story he’d been taught. “The problem with writing nonfiction is that if you are going to write about something and it involves people, at some point you have to go talk to them,” Fedarko said. And when he talked to the supposed villains at Glen Canyon Dam he learned they weren’t one-dimensional. “You encounter real people and your preconceived ideas collide against who those people really are.” Tuesday evening, Fedarko and his friend, National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, will talk about their 740mile journey on foot through the heart of the Grand Canyon. “It was far more difficult and more complicated than we predicted,” Fedarko said. “We thought we knew this place. Boy, did we get served up a heaping dose of humility and harshness. We just got the worst spanking either of us had gotten by a place or a landscape.” McBride teaches a photography workshop on Wednesday, January 25. Designed for photographers of all levels, the workshop will delve into the skills and perspective needed to tell an evocative visual story based in nature. The final event of the festival happens Wednesday evening when Jackson filmmakers Dirk Collins and Arden Oksanen take viewers behind the scenes of their TV series about Teton County Search and Rescue. “I hope people walk away from the Mountain Story Festival not only energized and inspired, but with an enhanced perspective on how outdoor adventures are entwined with other worlds such as literature, art, politics, and environmentalism, and we can connect all these threads through good storytelling,” Shlachter said. “Also, I hope that Mountain Story challenges preconceived notions about what it means to be an adventurer.” Visit tclib.org for more info. PJH
BEER, WINE & SPIRITS
Winter Wining Grapes to warm the bones after a day in the Jackson Hole tundra. BY TED SCHEFFLER @critic1
I
f you live in the Cayman Islands, sunny Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro or other places with year-round warm weather, the wine you choose to drink isn’t likely affected by the seasons. But in Wyoming, Mother Nature should play an influential part in your wine buying and ordering decisions. I’m not saying you can’t or shouldn’t drink your favorite bright, summer sauvignon blanc during a cold snap; I’m not the wine police. But as our habits—eating and otherwise—change in wintertime, it makes sense that our wine selections would change, too. Many of us tend to be a bit more housebound in cold weather; we physically slow down some. And when it comes to food,
we eat more hearty stews, roasts, braised and baked dishes, chilies, soups and slowcooked meals than in warmer weather. And so, you’ll naturally want to select wines that complement those foods rather than overwhelm them. One of my favorite winter seductions is Provençal-style beef daube, but I wouldn’t think of drinking it with a light pinot grigio. A key component to achieving successful pairings is to pay attention to texture. That is, the textures of both the food and the wine. A thick, hearty beef stew begs for a big, rich red to drink with it—perhaps one from Côtes du Rhône or Châteauneuf-duPape in France. They tend to have big fruit backbones, chewy tannins, high alcohol levels and dark, earthy flavors. A couple of good options would be Guigal Côtes du Rhône ($17.75) or the more luxurious Mont Redon Châteauneuf-du-Pape ($45.96). Another reason reds fit so well into our wintry ways is temperature. In hot weather, we want cold (or at least cool), refreshing drinks—in other words, white wines. When it’s chilly, we turn to those served at warmer temperatures—the reds. Not all winter reds have to be big, brooding, serious wines. Take, for example, 19 Crimes Red Blend ($10.99) from southeastern Australia. Like its name—which refers to the 19 different crimes that would result
IMBIBE to eschew white wines entirely. But unlike in the spring and summer—when I’m interested mostly in light, un-oaked white wines— in winter I turn to heavier, oaky ones (both white and red) with bigger bodies and chewier textures than my summertime sippers. In other words, chardonnay. A white burgundy like Louis Jadot Meursault ($67.97) is 100 percent fermented and aged for 15 months in wood barrels before bottling. The result is Meursault that is rich enough to pair with roast turkey, pork and cream sauces. Domestically, big, rich chardonnays from producers like Rombauer ($35.99), DeLoach ($13.95) and Landmark ($27.49) are great for winter enjoyment. PJH
in British rogues being sentenced to live in Australia—this blend of shiraz, pinot noir, grenache and cabernet sauvignon is whimsical, almost tasting like a chocolate-vanilla shake in a wine glass. It’s also a fruit bomb, bursting at the seams with currants and dark fruit flavors. Enjoy it next to a warm fireplace on its own, or pair it with red meat. Syrah, merlot and cabernet sauvignon are perfect partners for winter dishes, and Poggio al Tesoro Bolgheri Mediterra ($26.99) is made with all three of those varietals. It’s a fragrant and fruity wine that is rich and complex, yet light enough to pair with dishes such as roast chicken or pastas with sauces like carbonara, Alfredo or cacio e pepe. Other red wines especially well-suited to the season are zinfandel, pinot noir (particularly with mushroom dishes), sangiovese, Barolo, malbec and Rioja. Obviously, I’m not going
ELY U Q I N U PEAN EURO
Dinner Nightly at 5:30pm
Local is a modern American steakhouse and bar located on Jackson’s historic town square. Serving locally raised beef and, regional game, fresh seafood and seasonally inspired food, Local offers the perfect setting for lunch, drinks or dinner.
Lunch 11:30am Monday-Saturday Dinner 5:30pm Nightly
45 S. Glenwood
HAPPY HOUR Daily 4-6:00pm
Available for private events & catering
307.201.1717 | LOCALJH.COM ON THE TOWN SQUARE
For reservations please call 734-8038
R DINNEAGE I H LUNCTETON VILL I T S IN FA BREAKE ALPENHOF AT TH
AT THE
307.733.3242
| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |
Trio is located just off the town square in downtown Jackson, and is owned & operated by local chefs with a passion for good food. Our menu features contemporary American dishes inspired by classic bistro cuisine. Daily specials feature wild game, fish and meats. Enjoy a glass of wine at the bar in front of the wood-burning oven and watch the chefs perform in the open kitchen.
F O H ‘ E TH
JANUARY 18, 2017 | 25
Featuring dining destinations from buffets and rooms with a view to mom and pop joints, chic cuisine and some of our dining critic’s faves!
EARLY BIRD SPECIAL
20%OFF ENTIRE BILL
Good between 5:30-6pm • Open nightly at 5:30pm Please mention ad for discount.
733-3912 160 N. Millward
Make your reservation online at bluelionrestaurant.com
TETON THAI
Serving the world’s most exciting cuisine. Teton Thai offers a splendid array of flavors: sweet, hot, sour, salt and bitter. All balanced and blended perfectly, satisfying the most discriminating palate. Open daily. 7432 Granite Loop Road in Teton Village, (307) 733-0022 and in Driggs, (208) 787-8424, tetonthai.com.
THAI ME UP
Home of Melvin Brewing Co. Freshly remodeled offering modern Thai cuisine in a relaxed setting. New tap system with 20 craft beers. New $8 wine list and extensive bottled beer menu. Open daily for dinner at 5pm. Downtown at 75 East Pearl Street. View our tap list at thaijh. com/brews. 307-733-0005.
Two- fer Tuesday is back !
Two-for-one 12” pies all day. Dine-in or Carry-out. (LIMIT 6 PIES PER CARRYOUT ORDER, PLEASE.)
CONTINENTAL ALPENHOF
11am - 9:30pm daily 20 W. Broadway 307.201.1472
PizzeriaCaldera.com
1110 MAPLE WAY, SUITE B JACKSON, WY 307.264.2956 picnicjh.com
Serving authentic Swiss cuisine, the Alpenhof features European style breakfast entrées and alpine lunch fare. Dine in the Bistro for a casual meal or join us in the Alpenrose dining room for a relaxed dinner experience. Breakfast 7:30am-10am. Coffee & pastry 10am-11:30am. Lunch 11:30am-3pm. Aprés 3pm-5:30pm. Dinner 6pm-9pm. For reservations at the Bistro or Alpenrose, call 307-733-3242.
THE BLUE LION
®
Large Specialty Pizza ADD: Wings (8 pc)
Medium Pizza (1 topping) Stuffed Cheesy Bread
| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |
26 | JANUARY 18, 2017
ASIAN & CHINESE
$ 13 99
for an extra $5.99/each
(307) 733-0330 520 S. Hwy. 89 • Jackson, WY
THE LOCALS
FAVORITE PIZZA 2012, 2013 & 2014 •••••••••
$7
$4 Well Drink Specials
LUNCH
SPECIAL Slice, salad & soda
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••
TV Sports Packages and 7 Screens
Under the Pink Garter Theatre (307) 734-PINK • www.pinkygs.com
A Jackson Hole favorite for 38 years. Join us in the charming atmosphere of a historic home. Ask a local about our rack of lamb. Serving fresh fish, elk, poultry, steaks, and vegetarian entrées. Live acoustic guitar music most nights. Early Bird Special: 20% off entire bill between 5:306:0pm, Open nightly at 5:30 p.m. Reservations recommended, walk-ins welcome. 160 N. Millward, (307) 733-3912, bluelionrestaurant. com.
CAFE GENEVIEVE
Serving inspired home cooked classics in a historic log cabin. Enjoy brunch daily at 8 a.m., Dinner Tues-Sat 5 p.m. and Happy Hour TuesSat 3-5:30 p.m. featuring $5 glasses of wine, $5 specialty drinks, $3 bottled beer. 135 E. Broadway, (307) 732-1910, genevievejh.com.
ELEANOR’S
Enjoy all the perks of fine dining, minus the dress code at Eleanor’s, serving rich, saucy dishes in a warm and friendly setting. Its bar alone is an attraction, thanks to reasonably priced drinks and a loyal crowd. Come get a belly-full of our two-time gold medal wings. Open at 11 a.m. daily. 832 W. Broadway, (307) 733-7901.
FULL STEAM SUBS
The deli that’ll rock your belly. Jackson’s newest sub shop serves steamed subs, reubens, gyros, delicious all beef hot dogs, soups and salads. We offer Chicago style hot dogs done just the way they do in the windy city. Open daily11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Located just a short block north of the Town Square at 180 N. Center Street, (307) 733-3448.
LOCAL
Local, a modern American steakhouse and bar, is located on Jackson’s historic town square. Our menu features both classic and specialty cuts of locally-ranched meats and wild game alongside fresh seafood, shellfish, house-ground burgers, and seasonally-inspired food. We offer an extensive wine list and an abundance of locallysourced products. Offering a casual and vibrant bar atmosphere with 12 beers on tap as well as a relaxed dining room, Local is the perfect spot to grab a burger for lunch or to have drinks and dinner with friends. Lunch Mon-Sat 11:30am. Dinner Nightly 5:30pm. 55 North Cache, (307) 201-1717, localjh.com.
LOTUS CAFE
Serving organic, freshly-made world cuisine while catering to all eating styles. Endless organic and natural meat, vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free choices. Offering super smoothies, fresh extracted juices, espresso and tea. Full bar and house-infused botanical spirits. Open daily 8am for breakfast lunch and dinner. 140 N. Cache, (307) 734-0882, tetonlotuscafe.com.
MANGY MOOSE
Mangy Moose Restaurant, with locally sourced, seasonally fresh food at reasonable prices, is a always a fun place to go with family or friends for a unique dining experience. The personable staff will make you feel right at home and the funky western decor will keep you entertained throughout your entire visit. Teton Village, (307) 733-4913, mangymoose.com.
MILLION DOLLAR COWBOY STEAKHOUSE
Jackson’s first Speakeasy Steakhouse. The Million Dollar Cowboy Steakhouse is a hidden gem located below the world famous Million Dollar Cowboy Bar. Our menu offers guests the best in American steakhouse cuisine. Top quality chops and steaks sourced from local farms, imported Japanese Wagyu beef, and house-cured meats and sausages. Accentuated with a variety of thoughtful side dishes, innovative appetizers, creative vegetarian items, and decadent desserts, a meal at this landmark location is sure to be a memorable one. Reservations are highly recommended.
SNAKE RIVER BREWERY & RESTAURANT
America’s most award-winning microbrewery is serving lunch and dinner. Take in the atmosphere while enjoying wood-fired pizzas, pastas, burgers, sandwiches, soups, salads and desserts. $9 lunch menu. Happy hour 4 to 6 p.m., including tasty hot wings. The freshest beer in the valley, right from the source! Free WiFi. Open 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. 265 S. Millward. (307) 739-2337, snakeriverbrewing. com.
TRIO
Owned and operated by Chefs with a passion for good food, Trio is located right off the Town square in downtown Jackson. Featuring a variety of cuisines in a relaxed atmosphere, Trio is famous for its wood-oven pizzas, specialty cocktails and
waffle fries with bleu cheese fondue. Dinner nightly at 5:30 p.m. Reservations. (307) 7348038 or bistrotrio.com.
ITALIAN CALICO
LOCAL & DOMESTIC STEAKS SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK @ 5:30 TILL 10 JHCOWBOYSTEAKHOUSE.COM 307-733-4790
A Jackson Hole favorite since 1965, the Calico continues to be one of the most popular restaurants in the Valley. The Calico offers the right combination of really good food, (much of which is grown in our own gardens in the summer), friendly staff; a reasonably priced menu and a large selection of wine. Our bar scene is eclectic with a welcoming vibe. Open nightly at 5 p.m. 2560 Moose Wilson Rd., (307) 733-2460.
MEXICAN EL ABUELITO
Serving authentic Mexican cuisine and appetizers in a unique Mexican atmosphere. Home of the original Jumbo Margarita. Featuring a full bar with a large selection of authentic Mexican beers. Lunch served weekdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nightly dinner specials. Open seven days, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. 385 W. Broadway, (307) 733-1207.
Mangy Moose Restaurant, with locally sourced, seasonally FRESH FOOD at reasonable prices, is a always a FUN PLACE to go with family or friends for a unique dining experience. The personable staff will make you feel RIGHT AT HOME and the funky western decor will keep you entertained throughout your entire visit. Reservations at (307) 733-4913 3295 Village Drive • Teton Village, WY
www.mangymoose.com
PIZZA DOMINO’S PIZZA
Hot and delicious delivered to your door. Hand-tossed, deep dish, crunchy thin, Brooklyn style and artisan pizzas; bread bowl pastas, and oven baked sandwiches; chicken wings, cheesy breads and desserts. Delivery. 520 S. Hwy. 89 in Kmart Plaza, (307) 733-0330.
PINKY G’S
The locals favorite! Voted Best Pizza in Jackson Hole 2012, 2013 and 2014. Seek out this hidden gem under the Pink Garter Theatre for NY pizza by the slice, salads, stromboli’s, calzones and many appetizers to choose from. Try the $7 ‘Triple S’ lunch special.Happy hours 10 p.m. - 12 a.m. Sun.- Thu. Text PINK to 71441 for discounts. Delivery and take-out. Open daily 11a.m. to 2 a.m. 50 W. Broadway, (307) 734-PINK.
PIZZERIA CALDERA
Jackson Hole’s only dedicated stone-hearth oven pizzeria, serving Napolitana-style pies
SWEETS FAMILY FRIENDLY ENVIRONMENT PIZZAS, PASTAS & MORE FRESH, LOCALLY SOURCED OFFERINGS TAKE OUT AVAILABLE Dining room and bar open nightly at 5:00pm (307) 733-2460 • 2560 Moose Wilson Road • Wilson, WY
A Jackson Hole favorite since 1965
MEETEETSE CHOCOLATIER
Meeteetse Chocolatier brings their unique blend of European style chocolates paired with “Wyomingesque” flavors. Prickly Pear Cactus Fruit, Sage, Huckleberry and Sarsaparilla lead off a decadent collection of truffles, Belgian chocolates and hand made caramel. Sample Single Origin and Organic chocolates at our Tasting Station. Open Weekends, 265 W. Broadway. 307-413-8296. meeteetsechocolatier.com
JANUARY 18, 2017 | 27
HOUSEMADE BREAD & DESSERTS
| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |
using the freshest ingredients in traditional and creative combinations. Five local microbrews on tap, a great selection of red and white wines by the glass and bottle, and one of the best views of the Town Square from our upstairs deck. Daily lunch special includes slice, salad or soup, any two for $8. Happy hour: half off drinks by the glass from 4 - 6 daily. Dine in or carry out. Or order online at PizzeriaCaldera.com, or download our app for iOS or Android. Open from 11am - 9:30pm daily at 20 West Broadway. 307-201-1472.
| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |
28 | JANUARY 18, 2017
WELLNESS COMMUNITY
SUDOKU
Complete the grid so that each row, column, diagonal and 3x3 square contain all of the numbers 1 to 9. No math is involved. The grid has numbers, but nothing has to add up to anything else. Solve the puzzle with reasoning and logic. Solving time is typically 10 to 30 minutes, depending on your skill and experience.
WITH A ONE YEAR COMMITMENT: • 1 SQUARE = $15 cash OR $30 trade per week PLUS you’ll receive a free Budget web ad (300 x 120)
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L.A.TIMES “DROPPING IN” By Matt Mckinley
SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, 2017
ACROSS 1 7 11 14 19 20
Harder to see Heavenly bear East Lansing sch. Vice __ “Seinfeld” role Groups on its covers included ’N Sync and Hanson 22 Alternate strategy 23 Knowing one makes the best moonshine? 25 “I Am the Walrus” was one 26 Fair instrument 27 Many a stray 28 Land of the banshee 29 Songwriter Sands 30 Pressing concern? 36 Energy pricing unit 39 Submerged ridge 40 “Friendly Skies” co. 41 Quicken product 42 Vessel for the corporate lake outing? 48 Put (on) hastily 49 Metallic hybrids 50 Stand __ 51 Green shelter 53 Destroys totally 55 Hitting 57 Moist 58 Canonized ones: Abbr. 59 Sticky stuff 60 Cook with high heat 62 Ominous ending 64 Where geese learn the ABCs of Vs? 68 Vote for 71 Côtes du __: wine region 72 “Clickbait” was added to it in Sep. 2016 73 Not letting things slide, briefly 76 Influence 77 Some Jutland natives 79 Stood
82 84 85 87
Excavate anew ’70s-’80s Pakistani president NFL’s Oilers, since 1999 “__ Land”: 2016 Stone/Gosling film 88 Passable publicity? 91 How prancing is done 92 Emmy-winning scientist 93 Wear 94 Liquor from currants 95 Close examination of past and present English? 101 Ado 102 Not do, maybe 103 Canberra school 104 Classic Cadillac 108 Mini successors 110 Priest’s fashion consultant? 114 Cries from sties 115 Sweet-talked 116 Like the pre-Easter season 117 Candidate’s handout 118 Canon offering, briefly 119 Bros, say 120 Driving force
DOWN
1 Genealogy abbr. 2 Utah ski resort 3 Complain 4 Game that sells consoles, say 5 Pep up 6 Shrink back 7 __ Reader 8 Flag thrower 9 Cinque e uno 10 “Wait, there’s more ... ” 11 Diner host’s stack 12 “__ bleu!” 13 Colorado native 14 Bush and Gore: Abbr. 15 Architect Saarinen 16 Circle lines 17 Dik Browne dog
18 Monk’s home 21 Immobilize at sea, in a way 24 Expose in verse? 30 Bedlam 31 One of the Gilmore girls 32 St. Louis bridge architect 33 Marketing target 34 Short-lived Egypt-Syr. alliance 35 Goya’s “Duchess of __” 36 Outplays 37 Give in shares 38 Comedy club reactions 39 One and only 42 Flower 43 Some kind of nerve 44 Statistician’s aid 45 Information for a waiter 46 Biblical brother 47 Garage services 49 Couldn’t get enough of 52 White alternative 54 They may clash in debates 55 Supreme 56 Carved poles 60 IMDb.com entries 61 Director Howard 63 Shameful fictional symbol 64 __ acid 65 Golf great, to his “army” 66 What an unproductive worker might get 67 Herman’s Hermits frontman Peter 68 Hosp. administration 69 Tinged 70 Quaint store adjective 73 Massenet opera 74 Symphonic strings 75 Occasions for cake, briefly
78 Nahuatl speaker 79 Detailed analysis 80 Container weight 81 Senior’s memento 83 Hereditary code carrier 85 Spelling on TV 86 Has the stage 89 Finger Lakes locale: Abbr. 90 Dress size 91 Appliance with a pilot 94 Get snuggly 95 Beaucoup, with “a” 96 User’s service 97 Fool 98 Fuel 99 Oscar-winning actress Mercedes __ 100 Indy 500 family name 101 St. with a panhandle 104 LAX postings 105 Piedmont wine region 106 “Paula’s Home Cooking” host 107 Normandy department 109 Abbr. on old Eurasian maps 110 Bug and Golf 111 ER VIPs 112 Yalie 113 Lincoln’s place: Abbr.
WELLNESS COMMUNITY
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No physician referral required. (307) 733-5577•1090 S Hwy 89
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JANUARY 18, 2017 | 29
TO ADVERTISE IN THE WELLNESS DIRECTORY, CONTACT JEN AT PLANET JACKSON HOLE AT 307-732-0299 OR SALES@PLANETJH.COM.
| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |
Professional and Individualized Treatments • Sports/Ortho Rehab • Neck and Back Rehab • Rehabilitative Pilates • Incontinence Training • Pelvic Pain Rehab • Lymphedema Treatments Norene Christensen PT, DSc, OCS, CLT Rebekah Donley PT, DPT, CPI Mark Schultheis PT, CSCS Kim Armington PTA, CPI
| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |
30 | JANUARY 18, 2017
REDNECK PERSPECTIVE SATIRE
The Emperor’s New Truck BY CLYDE THORNHILL
P
oliticians and others eager to attach themselves to the new Hog Island mayor, Ndogo Uume, attended his inauguration. The spokesman for the “National Society of Earth is Supported on the Back of a Mongoose” says the occasion was joyous for organizations seeking legitimacy. “America is moving beyond objective facts into an era of subjectivity freedom. It’s an exciting time to be an American!” The Hoback Junction is Cool Association, the 2+2=22 Organization for Mathematical Freedom, representatives from the Hog Islanders Latté Sippers, as well as Barry Sanders supporters hope to gain validity under the new administration. (Disclosure: This reporter attended as a member of #IWillSpellAndPunctuateAsIDamnWell Please movement.) As part of the inauguration festivities Uume showed off his new Chevy Silverado 3500 HD. Tragically, the car dealer told him the new Silverado looked exactly like a 1987 Yugo GV. Uume had several of his cabinet appointees push the car, err I mean, new Chevy Silverado 3500 HD into the middle of the trailer park for the inauguration ceremony.
Governor Matt Mead, on hand for the truck unveiling, stared incredulously at Uume’s Yugo, err I mean, truck, gritted his teeth and visibly struggled to align his core values with political reality. “That’s a huge truck,” he told Uume, who smiled and called Mead, “a great American, terrific, incredible, amazing person.” When asked why someone who grew up on a Wyoming ranch would consider a Yugo a truck, Mead explained, “The word ‘truck’ means different things to different people. Uume has received support from angry voters that want their Honda Accords and Subarus to be considered trucks and it’s time their voices were heard.” State Rep. Marti Halverson was in attendance and said politicians have always engaged in “verbiage designed to rally voters,” thereby clarifying for the ignorant masses that lies told by politicians do not cross the threshold of violating the ninth commandment. “Truck, car, what does it matter,” she said. “The important thing is winning!” When shown the mayor’s new… truck, she exclaimed, “Oh my!! That is big!” Uume smiled and called Halverson, “a great American, terrific, incredible, amazing person.” Congressperson Liz Cheney was also on hand. “Liberals are trying to tell us what is or isn’t a truck,” she sneered. “Well, under the Uume administration we are applying common sense truth. A Yugo can be a truck and I can be a Wyoming native.” She glanced at her watch and muttered, “Can’t wait for my flight back to Virginia.” When Cheney saw the mayors new… truck, she exclaimed, “My that’s yuge!” while winking at Uume,
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apparently forgetting the mayor’s taste in blonds is the young model type. Uume cringed in response but called Cheney, “a great American, terrific, incredible, amazing person.” Everything was fine until a mechanic named Dave, knowable of cars and indifferent to political correctness said, “But it’s a Yugo!” The crowd exploded, Uume’s face turned red in rage and the mechanic was arrested, held down and sushiboarded until he yelled, “OK, it’s a huge truck!” Uume smiled and called the mechanic, “a great American, terrific, incredible, amazing person.” PJH
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
BY ROB BREZSNY
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Some guy I don’t know keeps sending me emails about great job opportunities he thinks I’d like to apply for: a technical writer for a solar energy company, for example, and a social media intern for a business that offers travel programs. His messages are not spam. The gigs are legitimate. And yet I’m not in the least interested. I already have several jobs I enjoy, like writing these horoscopes. I suspect that you, too, may receive worthy but ultimately irrelevant invitations in the coming days, Capricorn. My advice: If you remain faithful to your true needs and desires, more apropos offers will eventually flow your way. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) The word “naysayer” describes a person who’s addicted to expressing negativity. A “yeasayer,” on the other hand, is a person who is prone to expressing optimism. According to my assessment of the astrological omens, you can and should be a creative yeasayer in the coming days—both for the sake of your own well-being and that of everyone whose life you touch. For inspiration, study Upton Sinclair’s passage about Beethoven: He was “the defier of fate, the great yea-sayer.” His music is “like the wind running over a meadow of flowers, superlative happiness infinitely multiplied.” PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) If I’m feeling prosaic, I might refer to a group of flamingos as a flock. But one of the more colorful and equally correct terms is a “flamboyance” of flamingos. Similarly, a bunch of pretty insects with clubbed antennae and big fluttery wings may be called a kaleidoscope of butterflies. The collective noun for zebras can be a dazzle, for pheasants a bouquet, for larks an exaltation, and for finches a charm. In accordance with current astrological omens, I’m borrowing these nouns to describe members of your tribe. A flamboyance or kaleidoscope of Pisceans? Yes! A dazzle or bouquet or exaltation or charm of Pisceans? Yes! All of the above. ARIES (March 21-April 19) Are you more attracted to honing group dynamics or liberating group dynamics? Do you have more aptitude as a director who organizes people or as a sparkplug who inspires people? Would you rather be a Chief Executive officer or a Chief Imagination Officer? Questions like these will be fertile for you to meditate on in the coming weeks. The astrological omens suggest it’s time to explore and activate more of your potential as a leader or catalyst.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) What exactly would a bolt of lightning taste like? I mean, if you could somehow manage to roll it around in your mouth without having to endure the white-hot shock. There’s a booze manufacturer that claims to provide this sensation. The company known as Oddka has created “Electricity Vodka,” hard liquor with an extra fizzy jolt. But if any sign of the zodiac could safely approximate eating a streak of lightning without the help of Electricity Vodka, it would be you Leos. These days you have a special talent for absorbing and enjoying and integrating fiery inspiration.
HALF OFF BLAST OFF!
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Eighteenth-century painter Joshua Reynolds said that a “disposition to abstractions, to generalizing and classification, is the great glory of the human mind.” To that lofty sentiment, his fellow artist William Blake responded, “To generalize is to be an idiot; to particularize is the alone distinction of merit.” So I may be an idiot when I make the following generalization, but I think I’m right: In the coming weeks, it will be in your best interests to rely on crafty generalizations to guide your decisions. Getting bogged down in details at the expense of the big picture—missing the forest for the trees—is a potential pitfall that you can and should avoid. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal penned the novel Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age. It consists of one sentence. But it’s a long, rambling sentence—117 pages’ worth. It streams from the mouth of the narrator, who is an older man bent on telling all the big stories of his life. If there were ever to come a time when you, too, would have cosmic permission and a poetic license to deliver a one-sentence, 117-page soliloquy, Libra, it would be in the coming weeks. Reveal your truths! Break through your inhibitions! Celebrate your epic tales! (P.S.: Show this horoscope to the people you’d like as your listeners.) SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) When Pluto was discovered in 1930, astronomers called it the ninth planet. But 76 years later, they changed their mind. In accordance with shifting definitions, they demoted Pluto to the status of a mere “dwarf planet.” But in recent years, two renowned astronomers at Caltech have found convincing evidence for a new ninth planet. Konstantin Batygin and Michael E. Brown are tracking an object that is much larger than Earth. Its orbit is so far beyond Neptune’s that it takes 15,000 years to circle the sun. As yet it doesn’t have an official name, but Batygin and Brown informally refer to it as “Phattie.” I bring this to your attention, Scorpio, because I suspect that you, too, are on the verge of locating a monumental new addition to your universe. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) The tomato and potato are both nightshades, a family of flowering plants. Taking advantage of this commonality, botanists have used the technique of grafting to produce a pomato plant. Its roots yield potatoes, while its vines grow cherry tomatoes. Now would be a good time for you to experiment with a metaphorically similar creation, Sagittarius. Can you think of how you might generate two useful influences from a single source?
Go to RealAstrology.com for Rob Brezsny’s expanded weekly audio horoscopes and daily text-message horoscopes. Audio horoscopes also available by phone at 877-873-4888 or 900-950-7700.
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GEMINI (May 21-June 20) The weather may be inclement where you live, so you may be resistant to my counsel. But I must tell you the meanings of the planetary omens as I understand them, and not fret about whether you’ll act on them. Here’s my prescription, lifted from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden: “We need the tonic of wildness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.” And why does Thoreau say we need such
CANCER (June 21-July 22) Welcome to the most deliciously enigmatic, sensually mysterious phase of your astrological cycle. To provide you with the proper non-rational guidance, I have stolen scraps of dusky advice from the poet Dansk Javlarna (danskjavlarna.tumblr.com). Please read between the lines: 1. Navigate the ocean that roars within the seashell. 2. Carry the key, even if the lock has been temporarily lost. 3. Search through the deepest shadows for the bright light that cast them. 4. Delve into the unfathomable in wordless awe of the inexplicable.
| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |
TAURUS (April 20-May 20) An eccentric Frenchman named Laurent Aigon grew up near an airport, and always daydreamed of becoming a commercial pilot. Sadly, he didn’t do well enough in school to fulfill his wish. Yet he was smart and ambitious enough to accomplish the next best thing: assembling a realistic version of a Boeing 737 cockpit in his home. With the help of Google, he gathered the information he needed, and ordered most of the necessary parts over the Internet. The resulting masterpiece has enabled him to replicate the experiences of being a pilot. It’s such a convincing copy that he has been sought as a consultant by organizations that specialize in aircraft maintenance. I suggest you attempt a comparable feat, Taurus: creating a simulated version of what you want. I bet it will eventually lead you to the real thing.
experiences? “We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, to witness our own limits transgressed.”
32 | JANUARY 18, 2017
| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |