Planet Jackson Hole March 22, 2018

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BOARDS &BASS

FREE | Saturday, March 31 | THE ROSE | 9 p.m. - 2 a.m.

JACKSON HOLE'S ALTERNATIVE VOICE

VOLUME 16 | ISSUE 10 | MARCH 21-27, 2018

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10 COVER STORY THE FOILIES: IT’S YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW Recognizing the year’s worst in government transparency

Cover and story illustrations by Hugh D’Andrade

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THE NEW WEST

15 CULTURE KLASH 16 DON’T MISS

7

18 EAT IT!

THE BUZZ

22 COSMIC CAFE

8 THE BUZZ 2

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BY METEOROLOGIST JIM WOODMENCEY

The seasonal calendar has now officially flipped to spring, with the Vernal Equinox on Tuesday, March 20, 2018 at 10:15 a.m.

MDT. Wednesday, March 21st is the first full day of Spring 2018. Vernal is the Latin term for Spring. The other Equinox, in the fall, is known as the Autumnal Equinox. Around the Equinoxes, night and day are nearly equal, almost everywhere around the globe.

That is, the sun is up for 12 hours and down for 12 hours.

Average low temperatures this week are in the upper teens. The past week or so, low temps were well below normal, with the exception of a few days with morning lows in the lower 20’s. You could say, this has been a cold March, so far. The record coldest temperature during this third week of March is 27-degrees below zero. That occurred on March 25th, 1965. It will get cold again this weekend, but I will guarantee we aren’t breaking that record this March.

LOWS

The average high temperature this week is 43-degrees. Last week, high temperatures were much cooler than normal. It looks like we might get a day or two this week with high temps at or above normal, before plunging back down below normal this weekend.

The record high temperature this week is 68-degrees, which happened on March 24th, 2004. I can also guarantee, we will not break that record here in Jackson this week.

NORMAL HIGH NORMAL LOW RECORD HIGH IN 2004 RECORD LOW IN 1965

43 18 68 -27

THIS MONTH AVERAGE PRECIPITATION: 1.23 inches RECORD PRECIPITATION: 4.21 inches (1995) AVERAGE SNOWFALL: 11 inches RECORD SNOWFALL: 26.5 inches (1985)

Jim has been forecasting the weather here for more than 20 years. You can find more Jackson Hole Weather information at www.mountainweather.com

MARCH 21, 2018 | 3

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THIS WEEK

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JH ALMANAC HIGHS

MARCH 21-27, 2018

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4 | MARCH 21, 2018

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pring arrived with stormy, unsettled weather as Pacific disturbances have been passing over the Tetons. The snowfall associated with these storms has been added to a mostly stable snowpack. At upper elevations, where temperatures have remained cold, superb skiing can be found.

If the new snow forms into surface slabs, avalanche problems like wind slabs, storm slabs, or wet slabs may be present. Winds slabs form when the wind deposits new snow onto leeward slopes.

Storm slabs form during times of heavy snowfall and cohesion in the new snow results in shooting cracks and faint collapses. Wet slabs occur when water weakens the bonds between snow grains causing a stable snowpack to become very unstable.

Watch for these problems along with fast-moving sluffs, especially in terrain-exposed traps. Although the avalanche hazard is becoming more predictable since we are dealing with surface slabs, it is always important to expect the unexpected when venturing into the mountains. Conditions quickly change and in the spring, it is trickier to find periods of stable temperatures.

Contrary to moving snow, the high sun and warm temperatures have quickly melted surfaces turning good skiing into breakable crusts. Once it stops snowing, the spring hunt is on to find the soft powder before it turns into challenging riding. Enjoy the new season!

I

THE NEW WEST NOAA/NCEI

PET SPACE Pet Space is sponsored

by Alpenhof

Changes in annual temperature between present-day (1986–2016) and the first half of the last century (1901–1960).

Cowboy State Cowards

As science speaks, Wyoming’s politicians run the other way @BigArtNature

to human-induced warming and will very likely be exacerbated as the climate continues to warm. [That’s bad news for Wyoming]. Under higher scenarios, and assuming no change to current water resources management, chronic, long-duration hydrological drought is increasingly possible by the end of this century. Future decreases in surface soil moisture from human activities over most of the U.S. are likely as the climate warms under the higher scenarios. n The world’s oceans are currently absorbing more than a quarter of the CO2 emitted to the atmosphere annually from human activities, making them more acidic with potential detrimental impacts to marine ecosystems. [It’s harming plankton, a key staple for ocean life.] Higher-latitude ocean systems typically have a lower buffering capacity against changing acidity, exhibiting seasonally corrosive conditions sooner than low-latitude systems. The rate of acidification is unparalleled in at least the past 66 million years.

Read more at science2017.globalchange.gov. I suggest you email it to your elected officials, including Gov. Matt Mead, and ask them to respond. Let me know what they tell you. I would like to print it. PJH

To meet Vernal and learn how to adopt him, contact Animal Adoption Center at 739-1881 or stop by 270 E BroadwayCanyon Dr

The Alpenhof Lodge dogs remind you that people will know how big your heart is by the way you treat a dog.

Teton Village, WY | 733-3242 ALPENHOFLODGE.COM

MARCH 21, 2018 | 5

Todd Wilkinson, founder of Mountain Journal (which just published a long piece on climate change in Greater Yellowstone), is also author of Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek about famous Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear 399 featuring 150 photographs by Tom Mangelsen, available only at mangelsen.com/grizzly.

VERNAL

My name is Vernal and I have convinced everyone here that I am a mini-long haired panther but I am really a 4 year old, male, Domestic Long Hair. I was surrendered to the Idaho Falls shelter completely shaved and am working on re-growing my lost fur. I love being held and I give big bear hugs in return! I don’t mind other cats but am a little sassier towards dogs. I am one majestic beast of a cat, although my photo shows the goofier side of me.

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

One would think that Barrasso, in particular, would pay close attention—he being a public health official and a doctor whose profession has been informed by many of the National Academies’ recommendations. So, too, Cheney, as the acolyte/defender of President Donald Trump who has claimed climate is a hoax concocted by the Chinese.

Here, in a nutshell, are just a few of the NAS’s findings, verbatim: n Human activity, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid 20th century. n We are living in the warmest time in the history of modern civilization and it is heating up; some 16 of the warmest years on record globally occurred in the last 17 years. n Since 1980, the cost of extreme weather/climate events for the U.S. has exceeded $1.1 trillion; therefore, better understanding of the frequency and severity of these events in the context of a changing climate is warranted. n Global average sea level has risen 7 to 8 inches since 1900 with half of the rise occurring since 1993 and is greater than any rise going back 2,800 years.

Global average sea levels are expected to continue to rise—by at least several inches in the next 15 years and by 1 to 4 feet by 2100. A rise of as much as 8 feet by 2100 cannot be ruled out. Sea level rise in the future will be higher than the global average on the East and Gulf coasts of the U.S. n Substantial reductions in Western U.S. winter and spring snowpack are projected as the climate warms. Earlier spring melt and reduced snow water equivalent have been formally attributed

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f you are a politician, it is one thing to conveniently feign ignorance in order to get re-elected, or to sprint as fast as you can away from reality, or even to gleefully engage in the spreading of “alternative facts.”

Yet it is another when your constituents expect you to tell them the truth.

Were the three members of Wyoming’s congressional delegation—U.S. Senators John Barrasso (a medical doctor), Mike Enzi (former mayor of Gillette) and Rep. Liz Cheney (former resident of Wilson) courageous enough to hold real town hall meetings with their constituents— instead of glorified, carefully-orchestrated political pep rallies—there is certainty they would face questions about one topic: climate change.

Bobbing and weaving, dodging and deflecting, each of them has offered lame excuses for not holding public gatherings in which they might get grilled en masse by citizens, thus having to deliver honest answers in order to earn their vote.

For years, Wyoming has reeled because of its dependence on coal—a market crushed by the rise of cheap natural gas. Meanwhile, her politicians have refused to accept anything that challenges their worldview.

The climate may be changing, they claim, but there is no evidence that warming is being caused by humans burning fossil fuels —like coal—and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Just a few days ago, the National Academies of Sciences, largely considered the premiere scientific entity in the world, unveiled draft findings of its Fourth National Climate Assessment. The report draws upon thousands of peer-reviewed research articles and hard data.

BY TODD WILKINSON |

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6 | MARCH 21, 2018

GUEST OPINION

A summer of vehicular madness is upon us.

Crosstown Traffic The road less traveled is slated for major disarray and few are talking about it

BY JOAN ANZELMO |

T

here is new traffic hell coming our way. Locals and visitors should plan for another summer of gridlock, this one on steroids. The number of projects and the lengths of delays will test our patience and make us yearn for summer’s sweet finale.

Road construction projects will include Hwy 390, with likely 15-minute delays and possible night work; continued work on the Cattleman’s Bridge replacement over the Gros Ventre River; and the mega round-a-bout at Gros Ventre Junction that will include 15- to 30-minute delays 24 hours a day through the fall. If you are heading to the airport, you will need at least an extra half hour to get through the construction delays or you are likely to miss your flight.

I moved to Jackson in 1995 and have witnessed the unrelenting pace of development and ever- increasing traffic.

Gros Ventre Junction certainly needs a fix and Grand Teton National Park deserves kudos for deciding to improve this busy and increasingly dangerous intersection. But the junction could have been made safer by adding a traffic light, left lanes with left turning signals and a pedestrian/cyclist crossing signal or a tunnel.

Instead, Grand Teton will first construct a temporary intersection and then build the new super-sized round-a-bout, able to accommodate 18 wheel semitrucks. Additionally, the engineers have designed the round-a-bout to include “islands of refuge” because cyclists will

have to dismount from their bikes and walk to the so-called islands in order to cross Hwy 89/191 and the Gros Ventre intersection, as will pedestrians. But how will that work in reality? Does anyone really think area cyclists will dismount and walk their bikes through a round-a-bout and stand patiently on a concrete island before crossing to the other side?

A traffic light would have been a simpler and cost-effective way to improve safety at this intersection with much less physical impact to the land. It could have been accomplished in a shorter timeframe too, with minimal impact compared to the gargantuan project set to begin on April 2 and run through November.

Currently the project is scheduled for weekdays only. Weekend days will be a welcome relief valve for locals and tourists to drive Highway 26/89/291 without coming to a standstill. Everyone should urge Grand Teton to stick to this schedule and not allow weekend work at Gros Ventre Junction.

Over the course of the summer and fall, millions of people will be impacted by the construction phase. Let’s hope the finished Gros Ventre Junction round-a-bout will function as smoothly as promised and be worth both the cost and seven months of disruption we will all have to endure.

On the subject of roads, we also need to ask what Teton County officials were thinking when they chose not to

@JoanAnzelmo

complete paving the remaining portion of Spring Gulch Road. The road was essentially closed for six months and paving was done on the other sections during this time. The County has offered many different reasons that don’t make much sense. We better hope the County either does this last bit of paving with great rapidity or postpones it until 2019.

Otherwise there will be two projects on Spring Gulch that cause delays while the Gros Ventre round-a-bout construction is underway.

County officials have said they want to study methods to slow traffic on busy Spring Gulch Road, which could include raised pavement, a less straight road or other slowing obstacles. Instead, the County should consider 21st century technology—install traffic cameras that capture license plates of speeders and issue tickets in the mail as other municipalities do.

The Spring Gulch Road corridor is a priceless gem in this valley. It preserves ranching history and offers spectacular vistas along a rural road. Don’t mess it up with over-built traffic calming structures. There is also discussion swirling that some in the County want to use Spring Gulch Road to demonstrate that slowing traffic is possible and reassure the Indian Trails community that the proposed Tribal Trails connector could include traffic calming devices. This is bonkers. We’re talking about two different roads and neighborhood environments.

Teton County needs to greatly improve public information. Many locals were unaware of recent meetings on road projects, including the neighborhoods that would be most affected by decisions. The County has not been willing to tell us with specificity why the paving was not completed on Spring Gulch when it would have caused little inconvenience. I have had several direct communications with various County officials over the last six months regarding Spring Gulch Road, including meetings in-person, phone calls and emails.

The story kept changing about why the County didn’t finish the paving. They have had one year and it is one mile of road.

We can all appreciate that planning road improvements and embarking on road construction work is complex and difficult. But our local elected officials and their staff need to be fully transparent about what they are considering.

They also must be responsive to the concerns of citizens and ensure they are taking the steps to include as many residents into the conversation as possible. PJH

Joan Anzelmo served for 35 years in the National Park Service including as park spokesperson for Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. Her last post was superintendent at Colorado National Monument. Upon her retirement, Anzelmo returned to Jackson Hole where she resides today.

THE BUZZ Civil Rights Debate Unfolds Town council moves forward with a non-discrimination ordinance but not without public and political opposition

A

rights are being violated in Jackson, that’s my top budget priority.”

Freedom to Discriminate?

Mu ldoon also took a stab at the religious community, select members of which have opposed the ordinance on the basis of religious freedom. He referenced emails and public comment he has received from people arguing such an ordinance would “prevent certain religious denominations from discriminiating against LGBTQ people.”

One such faith leader was in the room. Reverend David Bott, a pastor at Redeemer Lutheran Church, sat in the crowd and bit his tongue at Muldoon’s remarks. Monday’s afternoon workshop did not allow public comment, but Bott took an opportunity to make a comment at the beginning of the evening council meeting. Religious people are not looking to “discriminate” against LGBTQ people, he said. He’s just against anyone being forced to do anything in a public sphere that goes against their religious conviction.

But the line between discrimination and religious freedom is fine. Right now, the Supreme Court is trying to draw it. A Colorado baker’s refusal to bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding resulted in a lawsuit that has made it all the way to the Capitol Hill. The court is expected to make a decision in June, and the ruling will either thicken or erase the line between religious and artistic freedom, and discrimination.

What’s in a Law?

MARCH 21, 2018 | 7

Laws carry symbolic power, too, Houser and Muldoon agreed. “There’s value in an ordinance that says, ‘We expect you not to do it,” Muldoon said. “It” meaning to discriminate.

Psychologically, laws that protect and give rights to LGBTQ people have been

linked to fewer youth suicide attempts.

A 2017 JAMA Pediatrics study found that high school suicide attempts decreased by seven percent in states that passed same-sex marriage legislation (before the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalized it nationwide). Among LBGTQ high school students, suicide attempts decreased by 14 percent.

“I see the ordinance as being multi-layered,” Houser said. Actual legislative power is one layer. “But even more powerful is the message that it sends to the community.” It tells members of the LGBTQ community that they are cared for, acknowledged and protected, Houser said.

The motion passed 3-1 with Lenz the sole voice of opposition; Councilor Don Frank was absent from Monday’s meeting.

“Ultimately we wish people didn’t discriminate in general, but we know that has happened,” Councilor Hailey MortonLevinson said.

“Nothing I’ve read identified fiscal impacts that seem too much to overcome,” Councilman Jim Stanford said. “A broad swath of the community has come to us and asked for this. To me, that suggests that the problem might be greater than some folks might ascertain.”

“It’s up to you people where you want to spend your money or your time,” Lenz said.

The ordinance still has a long journey ahead of it. There is still language to define, and nuances to work through—Stanford’s amendment to include immigration status as a protected class was voted down in the interest of keeping it simple. The ordinance town staff will draft will include sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression as protected classes.

Monday’s motion was just to draft an ordinance, and revisit it in another workshop. Then the council will have to vote to send the draft to first reading. Then it will have to pass three ordinance readings.

Houser is optimistic about the “momentum” of support he has gained locally. Now, he said, he will keep working “to make the council aware that there’s widespread support of this ordinance.”

“It will only enhance the viability of people seeing Jackson as an affirming place to start a business, live, work, and be their authentic selves.” PJH

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

the Senate,” Houser said.

“The state is moving away from taking on this issue.”

So far, Laramie is the only city in Wyoming to legally protect its LGBTQ residents. Its city council passed an anti-discrimination ordinance in 2015.

Casper just recently passed a non-discrimination resolution. Jackson already has such a resolution, also passed in 2015.

But a resolution is non-binding. It carries no legal weight. It’s more of a proclamation of how people should behave.

An ordinance, meanwhile, is law. Under a non-discrimination ordinance, there would be legal repercussions for discriminating against a person in a public domain—housing, employment, etc.

The problem, Lenz said, is such cases are hard to prove. They often turn into the accuser’s word against the accused. And why fix a problem before understanding its scope?

“The question is how big is the problem?” Lenz said. “I don’t know how big the problem is, but I know that when it comes to paying for it, it’s way beyond the means of our budget.”

Of course, part of the reason no one can know the scope of the problem with certainty is because there are currently no legal, codified ways to document such discrimination. “Without the instrument in place, people are not able to document discrimination that they’ve experienced,” Houser said. The only evidence is anecdotal. An ordinance would offer instrumentation.

And resources will only be stretched, Mayor Pete Muldoon said, if an ordinance brings an influx of discrimination suits— which is just further evidence that there is a problem.

“I doubt this is going to destroy our budget,” Muldoon said. “But even if it does, there are lots of things in the budget that are less important to me than people’s civil rights … If we think people’s civil

@ShannonSollitt

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non-discrimination ordinance that would protect Jackson’s LGBTQ community is one step closer to becoming law, but critics might ask councilors to put a price on civil rights.

Town councilors voted 3-1 to draft the ordinance, and, responding to Councilor Bob Lenz’s opposition, also asked staff to estimate the cost and resources such an ordinance would entail—probably more than the town can afford, Lenz argued.

“It’s admirable, it’s desirable,” Lenz said. “Don’t see where you can afford it, no matter how much you want it. It’s very very time consuming, very very expensive, and very very drawn out.”

“There’s probably a very good reason why the state of Wyoming doesn’t have it in its statute.”

Indeed, sexual orientation and gender identity are still not protected classes under state law. Only 20 states offer such protections. But Wyoming has a particularly ugly history when it comes to protecting its LGBTQ community. The state still wears the scar of Matthew Shepard’s murder, now one of the more famous homophobic hate crimes in history, and scored well below national average on the Human Rights Campaign’s “Municipal Equality Index.” Jackson, often considered the “blue dot in a red sea,” received a score of 18 last year—out of 100. The national average is 59.

Marriage equality in 2015 was a nationwide victory for the LGBTQ community— but it was just the beginning, said PFLAG Jackson coordinator Mark Houser.

“People thought that was the end of the game, when really it’s only the beginning of the journey,” Houser said. And what good is marriage equality if its beneficiaries are still facing discrimination?

“Now, you can be married on Saturday, post pictures to social media on Sunday, and be fired on Monday without any recourse,” Houser said.

And Wyoming is actually getting more regressive about anti-discrimination laws. A statewide ordinance was narrowly defeated in 2015—it overwhelmingly passed in the senate, then died in the house by just seven votes. But similar legislation in 2017 died in the Senate—the same Senate.

“It was a very significant shift, without a corresponding shift in membership of

BY SHANNON SOLLITT |

| OPINION | NEWS | A & E | DINING | WELLNESS |

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

8 | MARCH 21, 2018

JESSICA CHAMBERS

THE BUZZ 2

Critics of an anti-protest bill say it was an attempt to prevent protests like Standing Rock from happening in Wyoming.

Legislature Toys With Citizens’ Rights Wyoming’s legislative session has drawn to a close, but worries linger among social justice advocates

BY ERIKA DAHLBY |

T

wo major anti-social justice bills worked their way through the Wyoming Legislature before its session concluded last week. Governor Matt Mead vetoed one and signed the other into law. “Stand your ground-two,” which became law, is similar to the Florida statute that helped George Zimmerman to claim self-defense for the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old African American.

“Crimes against critical infrastructure,” meanwhile, could have punished protesters engaging in acts similar to, say, the Standing Rock protests in South Dakota. It made it through the legislature after a murky process and re-vote before Mead vetoed it. Both pieces of legislation have alarmed civil rights activists.

‘Reasonable Fear’ for Self-Defense The stand your ground bill expands the Castle Doctrine, which gives the right to homeowners to act in self-defense and use deadly force against intruders. Now people have the right to act in self-defense anywhere they feel threatened: in the Town Square, walking down the sidewalk, in a grocery store.

Fremont County Rep. Jim Allen, a co-sponsor of the bill, said the law would be helpful for attorneys and prosecutors when handling self-defense cases. He said the updated piece of legislation protects people when they’re outside the home and feel threatened.

“Your life is just as important if you’re out somewhere,” he said. “Every human on the planet has a right to self-defense.”

Sen. Dan Dockstader, who represents a portion of Teton County, told Planet Jackson Hole that he supported the bill in

concept and voted for it, though he wasn’t involved in in-depth conversations about it. But “it’s part of what Wyoming stands for,” he said.

The bill was heavily supported by the National Rifle Association, but Allen maintains “it’s not about guns, it’s about self-defense.”

In gun-toting Wyoming, the bill passed its final reading in the Senate with only four nays. In the House, 11 lawmakers opposed the bill. Jackson Rep. Andy Schwartz-D, was among the bill’s opponents. He said he doesn’t have a problem with guns, but that laws are already in place that protect people’s rights to defend themselves.

“Basically, I don’t believe that the answer to the problem of violence in society is more people carrying guns,” Schwartz said.

Stand your ground also makes it more complicated for law enforcement, Schwartz said. If a cop shows up to a bar fight gone wrong and a person shoots and kills someone, the law could protect that person in the name of self-defense.

“They can say, ‘You can’t arrest me, I have immunity,’” Schwartz said. “How is that officer supposed to know what actually happened?”

Schwartz said he thought the phrasing in the bill, which stated someone was justified if he or she felt reasonably threatened, set a “really low bar.”

Wyoming was the last state in the West to expand the Castle Doctrine outside of the home. Other Western states including Montana, Idaho and Utah have had either statute or case law that allows people to shoot first and not retreat if they feel

@errrkad

their lives are threatened. Florida was the first state to explicitly expand the Castle Doctrine in 2005.

Stifling Free Speech The controversial bill that critics dubbed “the protest bill” aimed to criminalize individuals and organizations protesting on or near critical infrastructure.

Supporters of the bill said they wanted to protect oil and gas infrastructure, but the wording of the bill includes a broad swath of infrastructure including cell towers, train cars and dams.

Sen. Leland Christensen-R, Alta, sponsored the bill, which handily passed through the Senate. Wyoming policy watchdogs became worried when the bill was seemingly mishandled and passed in the House. The House Mineral Committee initially killed the bill with a 4-4 vote, but committee chairman Mike Greear-R, Worland, did not sign the bill by its deadline. This created a hold-up.

A re-vote was called the next day and committee members swapped their votes.

During the re-vote, the bill won a majority and went to the governor’s desk.

The move caught the attention of Phoebe Stoner of the Equality State Policy Center. The re-vote, she said, made it apparent that oil and gas lobbyists had convinced lawmakers to have a change of heart. “That was really not transparent,” she said. “It opens huge holes for corruption to happen.”

Christensen did not return phone calls for comment.

Nathan Martin, director of Better Wyoming, a communications hub for progressive politics, said the bill seemed to have a few different influences, including

law enforcement, but the clear one was a push from the Wyoming gas and oil industry.

Schwartz, who voted against the bill, agreed. He said supporters won’t admit that the bill was “about the Keystone Pipeline,” referencing the Standing Rock protests.

Oil and gas industry lobbyists were prevalent at the legislative session and seemed to be dominating state politics and culture, which Martin said “prevent Wyoming from moving forward” and diversifying.

“It’s emblematic of Wyoming’s longstanding, unquestioning dependence on oil and gas production,” he said. “There is a very strong current in the Legislature that will roll over and do whatever the gas and oil industry will do.”

Lawmakers amended the bill more than a dozen times, altering penalties and broadly defining critical infrastructure. “By the time it was finished people weren’t even sure what was in it,” Martin said. “It got really, really messy and these things are supposed to be going into law.”

Schwartz said it was poorly written and badly defined. It included language about defacing property, which could be something as minor as kids spray painting a train car, he said.

In the governor’s veto letter, Mead acknowledged the bill was flawed and “imprecisely crafted.”

But Martin said this won’t be the end.

He expects a different iteration of the bill to find its way back into the legislature, maybe as an interim topic. “It has really hit a nerve,” he said. “It’s not going to go away.” PJH

The Weirdo-American Community

NEWS OF THE

WEIRD

A co-ed dormitory at Hunter College in New York City has become the site of a dispute between the college and 32-year-old Lisa S. Palmer, who won’t vacate her dorm room despite having discontinued her classes in 2016. Palmer, who works for an architecture firm, has “racked up a staggering $94,000 in unpaid residence hall charges,” a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court noted. The New York Post reported on Feb. 28 that in June 2016 and fall 2017, she received eviction notices, but she won’t budge. Palmer admitted that dorm life is “really lonely. I feel very isolated.” Palmer was moved into a wing of the dorm that’s occupied only by a middle-aged nurse, whom the college is also trying to evict.

In fact, Hunter is working on removing nine nurses, who were given rooms in the building when it was owned by Bellevue Hospital.

Only in Texas

Oops

Kenny Bachman, 21, had a rude awakening when he racked up a $1,636 Uber fare on Feb. 23 following a night of partying with high school friends in Morgantown, West Virginia. The Charlotte Observer reported that Bachman and the friend he planned on staying with stopped at a convenience store during the evening. The friend told Bachman to wait outside as he went into the store, but Bachman was gone when the friend emerged. He had summoned an Uber to take him home—to Gloucester County, New Jersey. Bachman was passed out for most of the nearly 300-mile trip, which was subject to surge pricing, doubling the fare. Bachman challenged the charge but ended up paying the full fare; “I feel like there’s very little I could have done to reverse it,” he said.

Least Competent Criminals

Awesome!

Name recognition won’t be a problem for the Libertarian Party challenger for eastern Arkansas’ 1st Congressional District seat: Elvis D. Presley. The Associated Press reported that the King impersonator from Star City, Arkansas, who legally changed his name to match the rock ‘n’ roll icon’s (although the “real” Elvis’ middle initial was A), filed campaign paperwork on Feb. 26. Presley works as an auto refinish technician at Camp’s Custom Paint in Star City, but his political ambitions aren’t new: He’s also run for governor, land commissioner and state legislature.

If It Ain’t Broke ...

Republican State Sen. John Ruckelshaus of Indianapolis is the proud sponsor of a new measure in Indiana that bans eyeball tattooing. According to the proposed law, passed by both the Senate and the House, tattooists would be prohibited from coloring the whites of a customer’s eyes, with a fine of up to $10,000 per violation. The Associated Press reported that Sen. Ruckelshaus admitted he’s not aware of any problems with eyeball-tattooing in Indiana.

The legislation was on Gov. Eric Holcomb’s desk for his signature on March 1.

Unclear on the Concept

Even before it opened last year, Apple’s spaceship building in Cupertino, California, presented a transparency problem: Its glass walls couldn’t be distinguished from its glass doors, and since moving in on Jan. 2, several workers have been injured after walking into them. The San Francisco Chronicle reported three people suffered head injuries severe enough to summon emergency responders. Apple’s vice president of real estate and development, Dan Whisenhunt, told the local Rotary Club in January there hadn’t been any problems with birds flying into the glass. “Now the humans on the inside, that’s a different story,” he said. “That’s a problem we are working on right now.” Architects have added black rectangular stickers to the glass panes, which seem to be helping.

Last Chapter

Houston detectives were finally able to close a case in January that had been vexing them for 30 months. Mary Stewart Cerruti, 61, the last holdout in a neighborhood being bought up for redevelopment, was reported missing in August 2015 by a friend, who described her as shy and frail, the Houston Chronicle detailed. However, police had no leads, and her home was foreclosed on after payments stopped. Eventually, the home was cleaned out and sold, and new renters moved in. On March 4, 2017, a 911 call reported a human skeleton “between two of the walls” in the home. When police arrived, they found a hole in the attic floorboards and down below were the bones, clothing and shoes that had been discovered’ an investigation found no evidence of foul play. On Jan. 23, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences confirmed the remains were those of Cerruti.

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MARCH 21, 2018 | 9

Caught red-handed: Leahman G.R. Potter, 48, neglected to conceal the evidence after he stole a pot of meatballs from a neighbor’s garage in Hazle Township in Pennsylvania. The meatball owner returned home Feb. 26 to find Potter outside his garage, covered in red sauce, and his meatball pot missing, according to United Press International. When Pennsylvania State Police arrived shortly afterward, they found the pot in the street and Potter at his home, where he was charged with burglary,

n KTAR News in Phoenix reported that Peoria Police Department officers were called to a gas station Feb. 23 in response to a shoplifting. When they arrived, suspects Marwan Al Ebadi, 28, and Salma Hourieh, 29, set off on foot before hopping over a fence—directly into a secured parking lot of the Peoria Police Department. Hourieh tried to hide beneath a bench outside the station, while Al Ebadi jumped back over the fence and was stopped in the street. Both were arrested and charged with shoplifting. “You should never run from the police,” said police spokesman Brandon Sheffert, “and if you do, do not run into a secure parking lot of a police station.”

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

n Miami resident Luce Rameau didn’t know what hit her on Feb. 28 as she lay in bed, talking on the phone. She thought a bomb had gone off as wood and debris fell on her bed. “I kept screaming, ‘What happened? What happened?’” Rameau told the Miami Herald. It wasn’t a bomb; an 80-pound inflatable raft had crashed through her roof after becoming untethered from a Royal Canadian Air Force search-and-rescue helicopter that had been conducting an offshore training exercise nearby. David Lavallee, a spokesman for the RCAF, said the accident is being investigated and the air force intends to help “the resident with accommodations and other support.”

Rameau suffered only minor injuries.

trespass and theft.

| WELLNESS | DINING | A & E | NEWS | OPINION |

Ana Lisa Garza, a Starr County district judge in south Texas, is running for a state House seat in District 31.

Garza has received almost $90,000 in contributions to her campaign, but more than $50,000 of that has been in a most unusual currency: deer semen. Deer breeder Fred Gonzalez, treasurer of the Texas Deer Association, said breeders often donate semen “straws” instead of money: “Semen is a very common way for us to donate. One collection on a buck could lead to 60 straws sometimes.

If you have a desirable animal, it’s a way to bring value without breaking the bank.” A campaign finance report valued each straw donated at $1,000. Gonzalez told the Dallas Morning News that the semen donated for Garza’s campaign went into a tank sold in one lot, the proceeds of which will go to the campaign.

BY THE EDITORS AT ANDREWS MCMEEL

| OPINION | NEWS | A & E | DINING | WELLNESS |

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

10 | MARCH 21, 2018

by ions e t a r t d Illus h D’Andra Hug

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ic ctron n e l E e io

By Th Foundat ter Fron

The

: s e i l i o

F

Know o t ight t R r wors u o ’s r Y a e y s e y It’ renc a p s ng th n i tra gniz Reco vernment in go

G

overnment transparency laws like the Freedom of Information Act exist to enforce the public’s right to inspect records so we can all figure out what the heck is being done in our name and with our tax dollars.

But when a public agency ignores, breaks or twists the law, your recourse varies by jurisdiction. In some states, when an official improperly responds to your public records request, you can appeal to a higher bureaucratic authority or seek help from an ombudsperson. In most states, you can take the dispute to court.

Public shaming and sarcasm, however, are tactics that can be applied anywhere.

The California-based news organization Reveal tweets photos of chickpeas or coffee beans to represent each day a FOIA response is overdue, and asks followers to guess how many there are. The alt-weekly DigBoston has sent multiple birthday cakes and edible arrangements to local agencies on the one-year anniversary of delayed public records requests. And here, at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, we give out The Foilies during Sunshine Week, an annual celebration of open-government advocacy that fell on March 11 to 17.

In its fourth year, The Foilies recognizes the worst responses to records requests, outrageous efforts to stymie transparency and the most absurd redactions. These tongue-in-cheek pseudo-awards are hand-chosen by EFF’s team based on nominations from fellow transparency advocates, participants in #FOIAFriday on Twitter, and, in some cases, our own personal experience.

The San Francisco-based EFF is a nonprofit that works on the local, national and global level to defend and advance civil liberties as technology develops. As part of this work, we file scores of public records requests and take agencies like the U.S. Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Los Angeles Police Department to court to liberate information that belongs to the public.

Because shining a spotlight is sometimes the best litigation strategy, we are pleased to announce the 2018 winners of The Foilies.

The Mulligan Award: President Donald J. Trump

Since assuming the presidency, Donald Trump has skipped town more than 55 days to visit his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to NBC and sites like trumpgolfcount.com. He calls it his “Winter White House,” where he wines and dines and openly strategizes how to respond to North Korean ballistic missile tests with the Japanese prime minister for all his paid guests to see and post on Facebook. The fact that Trump’s properties have become secondary offices and remain a source of income for his family raises significant questions about transparency, particularly if club membership comes with special access to the president. To hold the administration accountable, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a FOIA request for the visitor logs, but received little in response.

CREW sued and, after taking another look, the Secret Service provided details about the Japanese leader’s entourage. As Politico and other outlets reported, the Secret Service ultimately admitted it is not actually keeping track. The same can’t be said about Trump’s golf score.

Best Set Design in a Transparency Theater Production: Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed

In the increasingly digital age, more and more routine office communication is occurring over mobile devices. With that in mind, transparency activist Phil Mocek filed a request for text messages (and other app communications) sent or received by now-former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and many of his aides. The good news is the city at least partially complied. The weird news is that rather than seek the help of an IT professional to export the text messages, some staff simply plopped a cell phone onto a photocopier. Mocek tells EFF he’s frustrated that the mayor’s office refused to search their personal devices for relevant text messages.

They argued that city policy forbids using personal phones for city business—and of course, no one would violate those rules. However, we’ll concede that thwarting transparency is probably the least of the allegations against Murray, who resigned in September 2017 amid a child sex-abuse scandal.

Thirty years ago, the hair-rock band Winger released “Seventeen”—a song about young love that really hasn’t withstood the test of time. Similarly, the FBI’s claim that it would take 17 years to produce a series of records about civil rights-era surveillance also didn’t withstand the judicial test of time.

As Politico reported, George Washington University professor and documentary filmmaker Nina Seavey asked for records about how the FBI spied on antiwar and civil rights activists in the 1960s and 1970s. The FBI claimed it would only process 500 pages a month, which would mean the full set of 110,000 pages wouldn’t be complete until 2034.

Just as Winger’s girlfriend’s dad disapproved in the song, so did a federal judge, writing in her opinion: “The agency’s desire for administrative convenience is simply not a valid justification for telling Professor Seavey that she must wait decades for the documents she needs to complete her work.”

The Prime Example Award: Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority

When Amazon announced last year it was seeking a home for its second headquarters, municipalities around the country rushed to put together proposals to lure the tech giant to their region. Knowing that in Seattle, Amazon left a substantial footprint on the community (particularly around housing), transparency organizations like MuckRock and the Lucy Parsons Labs followed up with records requests for these cities’ sales pitches.

More than 20 cities, such as Chula Vista, California, and Toledo, Ohio, produced the records—but other agencies, including Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Jacksonville,

Florida, refused to turn over the documents.

The excuses varied, but perhaps the worst response came from Maine’s Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority. The agency did provide the records, but claimed that by opening an email containing 37 pages of documents, MuckRock had automatically agreed to pay an exorbitant $750 in “administrative and legal fees.” Remind us to disable oneclick ordering.

El Premio del Desayuno Más Redactado: CIA

BuzzFeed reporter Jason Leopold has filed thousands of records requests over his career, but one redaction has become his alltime favorite. Leopold was curious whether CIA staff is assailed by the same stream of office announcements as every other workplace. So, he filed a FOIA request—and holy Hillenkoetter, do they. Deep in the document set was an announcement that “the breakfast burritos are back by popular demand,” with a gigantic redaction covering half the page citing a personal privacy exemption. What are they hiding? Is Anthony Bourdain secretly a covert agent? Did David Petraeus demand extra guac? This could be the CIA’s greatest Latin American mystery since Nicaraguan Contra drug-trafficking.

The Courthouse Bully Award: Every Agency Suing a Requester

As director of the privacy advocacy group We See You Watching Lexington, Michael Maharrey filed a public records request to find out how his city was spending money on surveillance cameras. After the Lexington Police Department denied the request, he appealed to the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office—and won.

MARCH 21, 2018 | 11

“Transparency theater” is the term we use to describe an empty gesture meant to look like an agency is embracing open government, when really it’s meant to obfuscate. For example, an agency might dump an overwhelming number of documents and put them on display for cameras. But because there are so many records, the practice actually subverts transparency by making it extremely difficult to find the most relevant records in the haystack.

Such was the case with Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who released 1.476 million documents about a corruption probe to show his office was supporting public accountability.

Special Achievement for Analog Conversion: Former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray

The Winger Award for FOIA Feet Dragging: FBI

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

Sexual assault in prison is notoriously difficult to measure due to stigma, intimidation and apathetic bureaucracy. Nevertheless, MuckRock reporter Nathanael King made a valiant effort to find out whatever he could about these investigations in Texas, a state once described by the Dallas Voice as the “Prison Rape Capital of the U.S.” However, the numbers that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice came back with weren’t quite what he was expecting. TDCJ demanded he fork over a whopping $1,132,024.30 before the agency would release 260,000 pages of records that it said would take 61,000 hours of staff time to process. That in itself might be an indicator of the scope of the problem. However, to the agency’s credit, they pointed the reporter in the direction of other statistical records compiled to comply with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, which TDCJ provided for free.

“The documents filled hundreds of white cardboard boxes, many stacked up waisthigh against walls and spread out over rows of tables in the cavernous old City Council chamber,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Leon Stafford wrote. “Reed used some of the boxes as the backdrop for his remarks, creating a six-foot wall behind him.”

Journalists began to dig through the documents and quickly discovered that many were blank pages or fully redacted, and in some cases the type was too small for anyone to read. AJC reporter J. Scott Trubey’s hands became covered in papercut gore.

Ultimately, the whole spectacle was a waste of trees: The records already existed in a digital format. It’s just that a couple of hard drives on a desk don’t make for a great photo op.

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FOIA Fee of the Year: Texas Department of Criminal Justice

| OPINION | NEWS | A & E | DINING | WELLNESS |

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

12 | MARCH 21, 2018

Rather than listen to the state’s top law enforcement official, Lexington Police hauled Maharrey into court.

As the Associated Press reported last year, lawsuits like these are reaching epidemic proportions. The Louisiana Department of Education sued a retired educator who was seeking school enrollment data for his blog. Portland Public Schools in Oregon sued a parent who was curious about employees paid while on leave for alleged misconduct. Michigan State University sued ESPN after it requested police reports on football players allegedly involved in a sexual assault. Meanwhile, the University of Kentucky and Western Kentucky University have each sued their own student newspapers whose reporters were investigating sexual misconduct by school staff.

These lawsuits are despicable. At their most charitable, they expose huge gaps in public records laws that put requesters on the hook for defending lawsuits they never anticipated. At their worst, they are part of a systematic effort to discourage reporters and concerned citizens from even thinking of filing a public records request in the first place.

The Lawless Agency Award: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

In the chaos of President Trump’s immigration ban in early 2017, the actions of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and higherups verged on unlawful. And if CBP officials already had their mind set on violating all sorts of laws and the Constitution, flouting FOIA seems like small potatoes.

Yet that’s precisely what CBP did when the ACLU filed a series of FOIA requests to understand local CBP agents’ actions as they implemented Trump’s immigration order. ACLU affiliates throughout the country filed 18 sep-

arate FOIA requests with CBP, each of which targeted records documenting how specific field offices, often located at airports or at physical border crossings, were managing and implementing the ban. The requests made clear that they were not seeking agency-wide documents but rather wanted information about each specific location’s activities.

CBP ignored the requests and, when several ACLU affiliates filed 13 different lawsuits, CBP sought to further delay responding by asking a federal court panel to consolidate all the cases into a single lawsuit. To use this procedure—which is usually reserved for class actions or other complex national cases—CBP essentially misled courts about each of the FOIA requests and claimed each was seeking the exact same set of records.

The court panel saw through CBP’s shenanigans and refused to consolidate the cases. But CBP basically ignored the panel’s decision, acting as though it had won.

First, it behaved as though all the requests came from a single lawsuit by processing and batching all the documents from the various requests into a single production given to the ACLU. Second, it selectively released records to particular ACLU attorneys, even when those records weren’t related to their lawsuits about activities at local CBP offices.

Laughably, CBP blames the ACLU for its self-created mess, calling their requests and lawsuits “haphazard” and arguing that the ACLU and other FOIA requesters have strained the agency’s resources in seeking records about the immigration ban. None of that would be a problem if CBP had responded to the FOIA requests in the first place. Of course, the whole mess could also have been avoided if CBP never implemented an unconstitutional immigration order.

The Franz Kafka Award for Most Secrets About Secretive Secrecy: CIA

The CIA’s aversion to FOIA is legendary, but this year the agency doubled down on its mission of thwarting transparency.

As MuckRock’s Emma Best detailed, the intelligence agency had compiled a 20-page report that laid out at least 126 reasons why it could deny FOIA requests that officials believed would disclose the agency’s “sources and methods.”

But that report? Yeah, it’s totally classified. So not only do you not get to know what the CIA’s up to, but its reasons for rejecting your FOIA request are also a state secret.

Special Recognition for Congressional Overreach: U.S. House of Representatives

Because Congress wrote the Freedom of Information Act, it had the awesome and not-at-all-a-conflict-of-interest power to determine which parts of the federal government must obey it. That’s why it might not shock you that since passing FOIA more than 50 years ago, Congress has never made itself subject to the law.

So far, requesters have been able to fill in the gaps by requesting records from federal agencies that correspond with Congress.

For example, maybe a lawmaker writes to the U.S. Department of Puppies asking for statistics on labradoodles. That adorable email chain wouldn’t be available through Congress, but you could get it from the Puppies Department’s FOIA office. (Just to be clear: This isn’t a real federal agency. We just wish it were.)

In 2017 it’s become increasingly clear that some members of Congress believe that FOIA can never reach anything they do, even when they or their staffs share documents

or correspond with federal agencies. The House Committee on Financial Services sent a threatening letter to the Treasury Department telling them to not comply with FOIA. After the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Management and Budget released records that came from the House Ways and Means Committee, the House intervened in litigation to argue that their records cannot be obtained under FOIA. In many cases, congressional correspondence with agencies is automatically covered

by FOIA, and the fact that a document originated with Congress isn’t by itself enough to shield it from disclosure. The Constitution says Congress gets to write laws; it’s just too bad it doesn’t require Congress to actually read them.

The Data Disappearance Award: Trump Administration

Last year, we gave the “Make America Opaque Again Award” award to newly inaugurated President Trump for failing to follow tradition and release his tax returns during the campaign. His talent for refusing to make information available to the public has snowballed into an administration that deletes public records from government websites. From the National Park Service’s climate action plans, to the USDA animal welfare datasets, to nonpartisan research on the corporate income tax, the Trump administration has decided to make facts that don’t support its positions disappear.

The best example of this vanishing game is the Environmental Protection Agency’s removal of the climate change website in April 2017, which only went back online after being scrubbed of climate change references, studies and information to educate the public.

The Business Protection Agency Award: The Food and Drug Administration

The Exhausted Mailman Award: Bureau of Indian Affairs

Requesting information that has already been made public should be quick and fairly simple—but not when you’re dealing with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. A nomination sent into EFF requested all logs of previously released FOIA information by the BIA. The requester even stated that he’d prefer links to the information, which agencies typically provide for records they have already put on their website. Instead, BIA printed 1,390 pages of those logs, stuffed them into 10 separate envelopes, and sent them via registered mail for a grand total cost to taxpayers of $179.

Crime & Punishment Award: Martin County Commissioners, Florida

Generally, The Foilies skew cynical, because in many states, open records laws are toothless and treated as recommendations rather than mandates. One major exception to the rule is Florida, where violations of its “Sunshine Law” can result in criminal prosecution.

That brings us to Martin County Commissioners Ed Fielding and Sarah Heard and former Commissioner Anne Scott, each of whom were booked into jail in November on multiple charges related to violations of the

state’s public records law. As Jose Lambiet of GossipExtra and the Miami Herald reported, the case emerges from a dispute between the county and a mining company that already resulted in taxpayers footing a $500,000 settlement in a public records lawsuit. Among the allegations, the officials were accused of destroying, delaying and altering records.

The cases are set to go to trial in December 2018, Lambiet told EFF. Of course, people are innocent until proven guilty, but that doesn’t make public officials immune to The Foilies.

The Square Footage Award: Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office

When a government mistake results in a death, it’s important for the community to get all the facts. In the case of 63-yearold Blane Land, who was fatally hit by a Jacksonville Sheriff patrol car, those facts include dozens of internal investigations against the officer behind the wheel. The officer, Tim James, has since been arrested on allegations that he beat a handcuffed youth, raising the question of why he was still on duty after the vehicular fatality.

Land’s family hired an attorney, and the attorney filed a request for records. Rather than having a complete airing of the cop’s alleged misdeeds, the sheriff came back with a demand for $314,687.91 to produce the records, almost all of which was for processing and searching by the internal affairs division. Amid public outcry over the prohibitive fee, the sheriff took to social media to complain about how much work it would take to go through all the records in the 1,600-foot cubic storage room filled with old-school filing cabinets.

The family is not responsible for the sheriff’s filing system or feng shui, nor is it the family’s fault that the sheriff kept an

officer on the force as the complaints—and the accompanying disciplinary records— stacked up.

These Aren’t the Records You’re Looking For Award: San Diego City Councilmember Chris Cate

Shortly after last year’s San Diego ComicCon and shortly before the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the city of San Diego held a ceremony to name a street after former resident and actor Mark Hamill.

A private citizen (whose day job involves writing The Foilies) wanted to know: How does a Hollywood star get his own roadway?

The city produced hundreds of pages related to his request that showed how an effort to change the name of Chargers Boulevard after the football team abandoned the city led to the creation of Mark Hamill Drive. The document set even included Twitter direct messages between City Councilmember Chris Cate and the actor.

However, Cate used an ineffective black marker to redact, accidentally releasing Hamill’s cell phone number and other personal contact details.

As tempting as it was to put Luke Skywalker (and the voice of the Joker) on speed dial, the requester did not want to be responsible for doxxing one of the world’s most beloved actors. He alerted Cate’s office of the error, which then re-uploaded properly redacted documents. P J H The Foilies were compiled by Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Investigative Researcher Dave Maass, Staff Attorney Aaron Mackey, and Frank Stanton Fellow Camille Fischer. For more, visit eff.org.

MARCH 21, 2018 | 13

The FDA’s mission is to protect the public from harmful pharmaceuticals, but it has recently fallen into the habit of protecting powerful drug companies rather than informing people about potential drug risks.

This past year, Charles Seife at the Scientific American requested documents about the drug approval process for a controversial drug to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). The agency cited business exemptions and obscured

listed side effects as well as testing methodology for the drug, despite claims that the drug company manipulated results during product trials and pressured the FDA to push an ineffective drug onto the market. The agency even redacted portions of a Bloomberg Businessweek article about the drug because the story provided names and pictures of teenagers living with DMD.

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

When reporters researching the Dakota Access Pipeline on contested tribal lands asked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ environmental impact statement, they were told nope, you can’t have it. Officials cited public safety concerns as reason to deny the request: “The referenced document contains information related to sensitive infrastructure that if misused could endanger peoples’ lives and property.”

Funny thing is, the Army Corps had already published the same document on its website a year earlier. What changed in that year?

Politics. The Standing Rock Sioux, other tribal leaders and “Water Protector” allies had since staged a multi-month peaceful protest and sit-in to halt construction of the pipeline.

The need for public scrutiny of the document became clear in June when a U.S. federal judge found that the environmental impact statement omitted key considerations, such as the impact of an oil spill on the Standing Rock Sioux’s hunting and fishing rights as well as the impact on environmental justice.

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R D L L I M A H K R A M

| WELLNESS | DINING | A & E | NEWS | OPINION |

The Danger in the Dark Award: The Army Corps of Engineers

1138

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| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

14 | MARCH 21, 2018

THIS WEEK: MARCH 21-27, 2018

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21

Come celebrate everything that makes Jackson Hole so good, it’s...

OF THIS

Get your tickets now! annual BOJH party

Thursday, April 5 7-10 p.m. at Lotus Cafe get your tickets at bestof jh.com

n Toddler Gym 10 a.m. Teton Recreation Center, n Story Time 10 a.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Baby Time - Youth Auditorium 10:05 a.m. Teton County Library, n Special JIM - Housing Rules Discussion 2 p.m. n Read to Rover 3 p.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n VITA 2018 Free Tax Prep 3 p.m. Teton County Library, n After School at the Library 3:30 p.m. Teton County Library, Free, n Great Reads for Girls Victor 6 p.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Ruff Readers 6 p.m. Teton County Library, n Youth Mental Health First Aid 6 p.m. EIRMC Cancer Center, n Open Gym - Adult Basketball 6:30 p.m. Teton Recreation Center, n Turkuaz at Pink Garter Theatre 9 p.m. Pink Garter Theatre, n Steele River 9 p.m. Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, Free, 307-733-2207 n Galactic Knotty Pine,

THURSDAY, MARCH 22

n Books & Babies Story Time 10 a.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Storytime - Youth Auditorium 10:30 a.m. Teton County Library, n Story Time, Victor 10:30 a.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Andy Frasco & the U.N. 3 p.m. The Trap Bar & Grill, n After School at the Library 3:30 p.m. Teton County Library, Free, n REFIT® 5:15 p.m. First Baptist Church, Free, 307-690-6539 n Open Build 5:30 p.m. Valley of the Tetons Library,

n Papa Chan and Johnny C Note 6 p.m. Teton Pines Country Club, Free, 307 733 1005 n Open Gym - Adult Soccer 6:30 p.m. Teton Recreation Center, n App Time - Computer Lab 7 p.m. Teton County Library, n Pat Chadwick Trio 7:30 p.m. Silver Dollar Showroom, Free, 307-732-3939 n Salsa Night 9:30 p.m. Pink Garter Theatre, Free, n Brown Bag Fly Tying 11:30 p.m. JD High Country Outfitters,

FRIDAY, MARCH 23

n Spring Intensive Healing Retreat 7 a.m. Medicine Wheel Wellness, n American Dream Investing Experience 9 a.m. Stevens-Henager College, n All Ages Story Time 11 a.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Fun Friday - Youth Auditorium 3:30 p.m. Teton County Library, n Film Friday Victor 3:30 p.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Game Night 4 p.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n FREE Public Stargazing 7:30 p.m. Center for the Arts, n Dirt Road Band 7:30 p.m. Silver Dollar Showroom, Free, 307-732-3939 n Speakeasy at the JHPH 8 p.m. Jackson Hole Playhouse, n Kitchen Dwellers + Rumpke Mountain Boys 8 p.m. Mangy Moose,

SATURDAY, MARCH 24

n 43rd Annual Karen Oatey Pole Pedal Paddle 7 a.m. Jackson Hole Mountain Resort to Astoria Hot Springs, $65.00 - $100.00, 3077336433 n March For Our Lives 10 a.m. Home Ranch Parking, Free, n Library Saturdays - Youth Auditorium 10:15 a.m. Teton County Library, n The People’s Market, A Winter Farmers Market

FOR COMPLETE EVENT DETAILS VISIT PJHCALENDAR.COM.

2 p.m. Teton County Fairgrounds Building, Free, 206-715-9039 n Chanman - SOLO 4 p.m. Teton Mountain Lodge, Free, 307 201 6066

SUNDAY, MARCH 25

n Open Gym - Adult Volleyball 4 p.m. Teton Recreation Center, n Jazz Foundation of Jackson Hole 7 p.m. Silver Dollar Showroom, Free, 307-732-3939 n Jazz Foundation Big Band 7 p.m. Wort Hotel, Free,

MONDAY, MARCH 26

n Foreign Policy Lunchtime: Global Health: Progress and Challenges - Auditorium B 12 p.m. Teton County Library, n Maker 3 p.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Montucky Mondays in March!

3 p.m. The Trap Bar & Grill, n Foreign Policy Discussion Series 6 p.m. Teton County Library, n Foreign Policy: Global Health: Progress and Challenges 6 p.m. Teton County Library, n Sound Bath 6:45 p.m. Teton Yoga Shala, $10.00, 307-690-3054 n Grant Farm The Trap Bar & Grill,

TUESDAY, MARCH 27

n Tech Time 1 p.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Read to Rover, Driggs 3 p.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n App Time - Study Room 4 3 p.m. Teton County Library, Free, n After school at the library 3:30 p.m. Teton County Library, Free, n Aaron Davis 4 p.m. Ascent Lounge at Four Seasons, Free, n Bluegrass Tuesdays with One Ton Pig 7:30 p.m. Silver Dollar Showroom, Free, 307-732-3939

This Week at The Wort THURSDAY, MARCH 15 THE COPPER CHILDREN FRIDAY, MARCH 16 THE CRAIC SATURDAY, MARCH 17 ST. PATRICKS DAY PARTY WITH SLIP ‘N THE JIGS SUNDAY, MARCH 18 FEW MILES SOUTH TUESDAY, MARCH 20 ONE TON PIG

Gary Cooper takes in the neon lights of NYC.

Full music schedule at worthotel.com 50 N. Glenwood St. • 307-732-3939

Big Apple Saddles In his new series, artist Borbay paints Western cowboys into New York neon @errrkad

A Horse Walks into a Bar...

The creative spark ignited at the Knotty Pine Supper Club in Victor, Idaho.

The bartender was telling Borbay about a cowboy who brought his horse into the bar. The cowboy wanted to give the horse Maker’s Mark, the bartender told him.

The horse, meanwhile, stood right in front a neon sign near the entrance—exactly where Borbay pictured him.

It probably helped that, at the time, Borbay was spending hours watching Western films. He told his wife, Erin, “I’m going to put Gary Cooper in front of the Seinfeld diner.” He didn’t write it down or talk about it much, but the idea never went away.

Now, after finishing the first piece, Borbay is already exploring the series’ vast possibilities. He wants to paint about seven cowboy juxtapositions, and has already started on number two: “The Good, The Bad, and The Fanellis.” Think Clint Eastwood with a fat cigar, and a couple of horses in front of SoHo’s Fanelli Cafe.

“I’ve probably, in the last week, watched The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly about 10 times,” he said. “There are some good characters in there, but there’s something about Clint Eastwood.”

While watching the films, Borbay takes close to 100 screen grabs, searching for the right composition and character. Then he matches his top five subject images with neon backdrops from New York. Just creating the composition takes two days, which doesn’t include viewing films like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly 10 times. PJH Borbay paints from 3 to 6 p.m. Friday at the Ascent Lounge in the Four Seasons.

MARCH 21, 2018 | 15

Cooper, the strong silent type?” Borbay said, emulating a thick New Jersey accent.

“I wanted to take a piece of me from Manhattan and a piece of my new life from living in the mountains and merge them together,” he said.

During Borbay’s two years of Teton living, he’s become known for his neon paintings. From Jackson motels like the Antler, Rawhide and 4 Winds to the glow of the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, the Western neon was the first thing Borbay connected with when he moved out West.

But unlike his new series, his nighttime paintings have always been empty.

They’re stark and devoid of people.

The focus is on the art of the sign itself.

“They’re not apocalyptic or dystopian, just empty in a way that when you see it, it’s a very intimate experience between the viewer and the space.”

Borbay was thinking of ways to change that, he wanted to include a figurative aspect to the neon, and to connect more with his new home. But he couldn’t just abandon his New York roots. He had grown an extensive neon photograph collection from the city and expanded it west.

“There are so many people who paint horses beautifully and cowboys beautifully and landscapes beautifully and put them all together,” he said. “It’s something I don’t feel is part of my language or I’m the kind of person who should be telling those stories visually.”

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

eton Valley artist Jason Borbet, a.k.a. Borbay, is a New Yorker to the core. He spent his childhood on Long Island and a decade in Manhattan attempting various jobs in the Big Apple.

He tried stand-up comedy, a job at the Trump Organization working on legal documents circa 2004, creative recruiter, businessman and finally full-time artist.

(The latter apparently fit. In 2010, Time Out New York readers voted him Most Creative New Yorker.)

He spouts off cross-streets and locales from the city like he never left. Best burger?

Molly’s Pub in Gramercy. Favorite spot for a cocktail? Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle where there’s live piano music, too. Mets or Yankees? He is a “long suffering Mets, Jets and Islanders fan” who happened to sub for Anthony Weiner, pre-scandal, playing pick-up hockey at Chelsea Piers.

It’s no wonder, then, that Borbay’s move to Victor, Idaho, two years ago would cause a slight creative (identity) crisis. “I really didn’t want to come and just appropriate Western art,” he said. “I figured if I moved from New York and started doing these pastoral cowboy scenes right off the bat, people were going to run me out of town.”

But Borbay has handled it gracefully in his new East meets West series. The first piece, “When Gary met Jerry” depicts stoic Gary Cooper circa The Westerner sitting atop his horse in front of the Seinfeld diner, (Tom’s Restaurant) neon lights ablaze. The juxtaposition works.

Cooper had always been on the front of Borbay’s mind thanks to Tony from The Sopranos. “What ever happened to Gary

BY ERIKA DAHLBY |

| WELLNESS | DINING | A & E | NEWS | OPINION |

T

CULTURE KLASH

| OPINION | NEWS | A & E | DINING | WELLNESS |

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

16 | MARCH 21, 2018

PETER LOBOZZO

THE QUIET FORCE

DON’T MISS

During a time of uncertainty, young Latino skiiers are finding a way to connect with their peers.

Storytelling for Change The Quiet Force, a film capturing the hushed experiences of Latinos in ski towns, holds a fundraiser next week

D

onald Trump’s jarring words during his 2016 presidential campaign: “We will build a great wall along the Southern border” set the scene for the trailer of The Quiet Force.

You hear the words without any visual aid or context. Then, chants of “Build the wall! Build the wall!” play against an image of snow falling on an American flag. The President’s immigration policies have dehumanized the plight of immigrants and left many unanswered questions. For their upcoming film, Hilary Byrne and Sophie Danison have set out to find answers as they document the experience of Latino residents in mountain communities.

Building Bridges, Missing Bricks Byrne and Danison live and ski in Jackson. Twenty-five-year-old Danison teaches skiing at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and works as assistant editor at Teton Gravity Research. Byrne, 29, is TGR’s TV editor. Largely absent from the skiing community, they noticed, are Latino/a participants. But Latinos make up 33 percent of Teton County’s population, and, in a tourist economy, are “the backbone of our workforce,” Byrne said.

The duo gleaned inspiration for The Quiet Force from a 2016 Powder magazine article of the same name. Economically, Latino immigrants and workers “punch above numbers,” local economist and Charture Institute founder Jonathan Schechter told Powder. In other words, they contribute a lot. “Our tourism and household-services economies would grind to a halt without our Latino

BY SHANNON SOLLITT |

population,” he said.

But culturally, socially, and politically, they are still largely invisible. They are a “quiet” force.

“A lot of people in this town don’t realize there’s this huge population that is the backbone of our workforce,” Byrne said. And even if you see it, “cognitive dissonance is still a thing.” People conveniently ignore and disregard the impact and sheer size of the Latino community. Community members self-segregate beginning from a young age.

But there are spaces where integration is starting to happen, and it’s primarily among young people. Sports, for example, bring students from all ethnic, racial and socio-economic backgrounds together on one team. Soccer is perhaps the most unifying sport, Byrne said. And thanks to the Doug Coombs Foundation, which offers ski lessons and equipment to those who can’t otherwise afford it, skiing is slowly becoming another equalizer.

Danison recalled the words of kids they have interviewed: “Skiing makes me feel alive, feel free, feel happy, feel like I can talk to my classmates. I have something to do on the weekend.”

Indeed, skiing is the cultural epicenter of Jackson. Access to it is a form of cultural capital. But cost alone denies access to many of Jackson’s working-class residents.

Skiing with the Doug Coombs Foundation allows Latino kids to find another level of connection with their classmates, Byrne said. “It lets them relate to each other.

We’re seeing them integrate in ways they wouldn’t be able to otherwise.”

“We’d be lying to ourselves to say

@shannonsollitt

that this is changing everyone’s lives,” Danison added. “But a handful of lives will change in the long run.”

Personal Not Political Though the film’s trailer opens with Trump’s voice, a stark contrast to images of Latino workers just doing their jobs, it is not meant to be political, Danison said.

“We’re not trying to take a stance, we’re just trying to tell the truth.”

While The Quiet Force doesn’t intentionally have a political agenda, it’s hard to ignore the political climate in which it is being produced, Byrne said. A few of the film’s subjects are undocumented, or from mixed-status families. And immigration-related arrests have increased during Trump’s presidency.

“They’re seeing their friends and family getting pulled out of this community,” Byrne said of her subjects. Some have become more hesitant to share their stories in the first place, for fear of exposure.

Yes, crossing the border illegally or overstaying a visa is illegal, Byrne and Danison both recognize. “But they would be here documented if they could be,” Danison said. “There’s a lot in their way.”

Whether they are welcome, Latino residents in ski towns have become an essential part of the workforce, and of the community. They can no longer be ignored. “I don’t think [Latino community members] have the platform right now,” Danison said.

She and Byrne hope to use their platform to elevate otherwise quiet voices, and humanize their stories.

“We both got into filmmaking because

we believe that storytelling can change the world,” Byrne said. “It can make an incredible social impact.”

Byrne and Danison both worked on Pretty Faces, Lynsey Dyer’s all-female ski film released in 2014. When it comes to genuine representation of women in the snow sports industry, the film was a landmark effort. And it placed the duo on a path to do more.

Kind of by coincidence, and then kind of by design, Danison and Byrne are heading a predominantly female crew for The Quiet Force.

“That’s a big thing in the film industry,” Byrne said.

Indeed, women are only just beginning to receive recognition for their accomplishments in film, compelling some to carve their own spaces.

Lights, Camera, Party

Byrne and Danison hope to release the film this fall. But first, they need to raise more money to finish production. An Indiegogo campaign amassed $15,000, and individual support is huge, but there’s a lot of production left. So the duo is throwing a party at the Stagecoach 5 p.m.

Wednesday, March 28. Streetfood is serving up tacos, chips, and salsa for $15 donations, and the Coach will donate a portion of beer sales to the film. Local band Rude Noodle will rock the stage and a salsa DJ will close the night. Proceeds from a raffle and silent auction will go back into film production—Byrne and Danison haven’t paid themselves a dime, they said, but they do have a crew to support. PJH

PLANET PICKS

What to do, where to go.

WEDNESDAY Turkuaz Pink Garter Theatre

Turkuaz

Miranda Brandon embeds environmental messages and social critiques into her fabric work.

Pattern Prey

THURSDAY

Teton Artlab artist-in-residence protests human-caused catastrophe

FRIDAY

@kelsey_dayton

that a photograph doesn’t,” she said. “I just got to a point where photography wasn’t serving my ideas well enough.”

About a year ago she shifted mediums during an art fellowship in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was the perfect time for her to experiment and find out what she wanted to do next.

She spent months creating dead-end projects. She didn’t worry if an idea failed to turn out as she hoped. “The beautiful thing was that each failure led to me asking the question about why it didn’t work and it led to the next thing,” she said.

Brandon started creating small strange sculptural pieces and thinking about consumerism and patterns. “I started thinking about the home space and how we furnish the spaces and those things that we see on an everyday basis,” she said.

She created a throw pillow with coyotes bounding across the fabric. A closer look shows its surrounded by guns and traps.

Now she wants to do more work on items like bed spreads, scarves and shower curtains. “I like the idea of taking a familiar form, something we are so used to, like a pillow or a T-shirt, but using it to access something different,” Brandon said. PJH Brandon is using her time in Jackson to work, but also to collect inspiration. She will talk about her work and offer a tour of her studio 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 21 at the Teton Artlab.

Bo Elledge Anvil Hotel

Bo Elledge

SATURDAY

Winter People’s Market 350 W. Snow King

SUNDAY

Teton Surf Classic Grand Targhee Resort Teton Surf Classic

MONDAY

Foreign Policy Discussion Series Teton County Library

TUESDAY

Aaron Davis Ascent Lounge at Four Seasons

MARCH 21, 2018 | 17

Minneapolis College of Art and Design and later completed an MFA at the University of Minnesota. During graduate school, a friend told her about seabirds that were dying after ingesting plastic in the ocean. “That was just so unsettling to me—the mental image it conjured and knowing we’re the reason there’s that garbage in the ocean.”

The notion compelled Brandon to volunteer at a wildlife rehab center where she helped in the avian nursery working with birds that sustained injuries from flying into windows.

Her volunteer work inspired the 2013 “Impact” series that she created in graduate school. In the series, she photographs dead birds on glass, the way they would look when hitting a window, but enlarges the prints to show the impact. (Brandon worked with Audubon Minnesota and turned over birds collected for the project to the Bell Museum of Natural History; it is illegal under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 for most people to possess birds, feather or nests.)

For a few years, her work was very “bird-centric,” but eventually Brandon began thinking about other types of animals, interconnectivity and ecosystems. She created the DIY Animal Populator, where she made cutouts of animals that she placed and then photographed and encouraged others to participate.

But eventually she grew bored with photography. “I wanted to make something that interrupts a space in a way

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

iranda Brandon saw the guy observing her shirt. He complimented her before he really processed the design—the spilled oil, the men cleaning it up and the duck coated in it.

Brandon, Teton Artlab’s artist-in-residence for March, uses fabric to create art with a message. She employs bright colors and a whimsical design to make the work seem approachable, playful and even childish.

“But the content is quite serious,” Brandon said. “The hope is, I draw people in, but when you get a little closer, you are like, ‘Oh, wait a moment.’”

The fabric work is the latest evolution of Brandon’s art.

The Minneapolis-based artist started as a photographer. In high school in Oklahoma, Brandon stumbled across an old Pentax K1000 that belonged to her older sister. She took an after-school photography class and stuck with it even when the other kids lost interest and she became the only student in class. Sometimes the teacher would just leave her a note with a photo assignment and Brandon would happily work alone.

Even then she wasn’t interested in conventional portraiture. She doesn’t know what drove her to do it, but she was trying to find small ways to manipulate the environment or juxtapose an object in an interesting space. “I was already exploring a crude version of constructed imagery,” she said.

Brandon earned a BFA from the

BY KELSEY DAYTON |

Tough Towner registration party Hole Bowl

| WELLNESS | DINING | A & E | NEWS | OPINION |

M

CREATIVE PEAKS

FAVORITE PIZZA 2012-2016 •••••••••

$7

$5 Shot & Tall Boy

LUNCH

SPECIAL Slice, salad & soda

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••

TV Sports Packages and 7 Screens

HELEN GOELET

Under the Pink Garter Theatre (307) 734-PINK • www.pinkygs.com

Order the Taiwanese eight-spice beef noodle soup with a poached egg and Sichuan chili oil.

Rise of the Phoenix and Dragon Four Seasons alumni are cooking up Asian comfort food in Whole Grocer

BY HELEN GOELET

W

| OPINION | NEWS | A & E | DINING | WELLNESS |

hen deciding on a date for the opening of their new Chinese eatery, Eric and Zarina Sakai consulted with Eric’s uncle who follows the Chinese lunar calendar. “He was like, ‘Duh, Chinese New Year. It’s a day of luck,’” Zarina recalled.

The couple dutifully obliged. The Phoenix and the Dragon opened on February 16 and within the first week, diners were forming a regular lunch line at its humble counter inside Jackson Whole Grocer. Specials such as Mongolian lamb rib soup were selling out in the first hour and a half.

It all started at the Culinary Institute of America in New York City, where Eric and Zarina met. Together, they went on to work in various award-winning restaurants including The French Laundry in Yountville, California, and Rubicon in San Francisco.

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

18 | MARCH 21, 2018

EAT IT!

THE LOCALS

LOCAL & DOMESTIC STEAKS SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK @ 5:30 TILL 10 JHCOWBOYSTEAKHOUSE.COM 307-733-4790

Open nightly 5:30pm

733-3912 160 N. Millward • Reservations recommended Reserve online at bluelionrestaurant.com

In 2010 they found themselves in Jackson working at the Four Seasons before shipping off again, this time to Seattle to open a restaurant of their own.

The restaurant compelled them to new levels of creativity. “We were designing menus for people as they came in,” Eric said, “it could be an eight-course menu, or it could be 18.”

It was at their 12-table, modern French tasting-menu restaurant that Eric was named Food & Wine’s People’s Best New Chef of the Northwest and Pacific.

But the fast-pace and long hours were all-consuming. Soon, it became too much and the Sakais closed up shop and headed for the beach. After a brief stint living in San Diego and missing their former life and friends in Jackson, they returned last September.

“We came back with no plan,” Zarina said, “we wanted to take it easy.”

Jackson Hole had other plans for them.

The couple worked a Chinese “Around the World” dinner at Streetfood at the Stagecoach with their old Four Seasons pals/Streetfood owners Marcos Hernandez and Amelia Hatchard. One of the guests happened to be owner of Jackson Whole Grocer Jeff Rice. He was so impressed with the food, he offered them a spot at his store.

The couple may have traded fine dining for a cove in a grocery store, but they employ the same dedication they did at their French restaurant.

“We make everything on the one burner we have,” Zarina said, “every broth and sauce takes the normal six to eight hours of investment. What you see when you walk up to the window

Featuring dining destinations from breweries to bakeries, and continental fare to foreign flavor, this is a sampling of our dining critic’s local favorites.

ASIAN

HELEN GOELET

TETON THAI

The chicken and shrimp ‘lion’s head’ meatball noodle soup is delicious comfort in a bowl.

®

Medium Pizza (1 topping) Stuffed Cheesy Bread

$ 13 99

for an extra $5.99/each

(307) 733-0330 520 S. Hwy. 89 • Jackson, WY

CONTINENTAL ALPENHOF

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 7:30 a.m.-10 a.m. Coffee & pastry 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m.

Lunch 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Aprés 3 p.m.-5:30 p.m. Dinner 6 p.m.-9 p.m. For reservations at the Bistro or Alpenrose, call (307) 733-3242.

THE BLUE LION A Jackson Hole favorite for 39 years. Join us in the charming atmosphere of a historic home. Serving fresh fish, elk, poultry, steaks, and vegetarian entrées. Ask a local about our rack of lamb. Live acoustic guitar music most nights. Open nightly at 5:30 p.m. Reservations recommended, walk-ins welcome. 160 N. Millward, (307) 733-3912, bluelionrestaurant.com

PICNIC Our mission is simple: offer good food, made fresh, all day, every day. We know everyone’s busy, so we cater to on-the-go lifestyles with quick, tasty options for breakfast and lunch, including pastries and treats from our sister restaurant Persephone. Also offering coffee and espresso drinks plus wine and cocktails. Open 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 7 a.m.-3 p.m. on weekends. Located at 1110 Maple Way in West Jackson, (307) 264-2956, picnicjh.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.

LOTUS ORGANIC RESTAURANT 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. Serving breakfast, lunch & dinner starting at 8am daily. Located at 140 N. Cache, (307) 734-0882, theorganiclotus.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.

MOE’S BBQ Opened in Jackson Hole by Tom Fay and David Fogg, Moe’s Original Bar B Que features a Southern Soul Food Revival through its award-winning Alabama-style pulled pork, ribs, wings, turkey and chicken smoked over hardwood served with two unique sauces in addition to Catfish and a Shrimp MoeBoy sandwich. A daily rotation of traditional Southern sides and tasty desserts are served fresh daily. Moe’s BBQ stays open late and features a menu for any budget. While the setting is family-friendly, a full premium bar offers a lively scene with HDTVs for sports fans, music, shuffle board and other games upstairs. Large party takeout orders and full service catering with delivery is also available.

VIRGINIAN SALOON

Come down to the historic Virginian Saloon and check out our grill menu! Everything from 1/2 pound burgers to wings at a great price! The grill is open in the Saloon from 4 p.m.-10p.m. daily. Located at 750 West Broadway, (307) 739-9891.

MARCH 21, 2018 | 19

Large Specialty Pizza ADD: Wings (8 pc)

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. View our tap list at thaijh.com/brews. Open daily for dinner at 5 p.m. Located downtown at 75 East Pearl Street, (307) 733-0005, melvinbrewing.com.

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 seasonallyinspired food. We offer an extensive wine list and an abundance of locally-sourced 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 MonSat 11:30am. Dinner Nightly 5:30pm. 55 North Cache, (307) 201-1717, localjh.com.

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

dish has a dynamic flavor profile.

Try the chicken and shrimp “lion’s head” meatball noodle soup. It’s light and full of clean textures and tastes.

The moist meatballs are made with equal parts ground chicken and chopped shrimp.

The No. 2, a cold noodle salad with fresh shredded vegetables and a housemade peanut sauce is refreshing and light. It also happens to be available in the JWG’s prepackaged to-go section.

Everything on the menu warrants a sample, so if you feel indecisive, let them choose for you. (But be sure to grab their Sichuan chili sauce.) “We’ve already got regulars,” Eric said. “It’s great, they come to the window and say, ‘You pick for me today.’”

The dining culture in Jackson is indeed shifting towards more adventurous flavors. And regulars will be happy to know the couple has big plans once they perfect their operation at JWG. “A brick and mortar is our hope for the future,” Zarina said. PJH

THAI ME UP

LOCAL

| WELLNESS | DINING | A & E | NEWS | OPINION |

is what we have; there’s no secret prep space.”

Indeed, it’s on their one-range stove where the magic of their Chinese menu happens. Inspired by regional Chinese cuisine, the Sakais mission is to serve a more accurate representation of Chinese food.

“I look at China like I would Italy,” Eric said, “there are so many different regions and variances, we wanted to take people away from ChineseAmerican cuisine and give them the real deal.”

Certain dishes come more readily to Eric, whose mother is from Hong Kong.

When his mother was a child, she and Eric’s grandparents moved to Hawaii and opened a small Chinese restaurant where Eric first learned to cook. Today, Eric’s mother tastes his food and says she is reminded of home, Zarina said.

Also driving the flavors is Eric’s own palate. “I love vinegars, acidity. There are so many different kinds that add a pop to dishes.” That “pop” means each

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. Located at 7432 Granite Loop Road in Teton Village, (307) 733-0022 and in Driggs, (208) 787-8424, tetonthai.com.

HOUSEMADE BREAD & DESSERTS 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

ITALIAN CALICO

A Jackson Hole favorite since 1965

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. Located at 2560 Moose Wilson Rd., (307) 733-2460.

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.

UF

F, MAD

Lunch 11:30am Monday-Saturday Dinner 5:30pm Nightly

E

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.

Located at 385 W. Broadway, (307) 733-1207.

D

DA

MEXICAN

AY

ESH

G OOD

ST

FR

| OPINION | NEWS | A & E | DINING | WELLNESS |

PIZZAS, PASTAS & MORE

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| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

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 runs from 4 - 6 p.m., including tasty hot wings. The freshest beer in the valley, right from the source! Free WiFi. Open 11 a.m. - 11 p.m. Loacted at 265 S. Millward. (307) 7392337, snakeriverbrewing.com.

FAMILY FRIENDLY ENVIRONMENT

AL

20 | MARCH 21, 2018

SNAKE RIVER BREWERY & RESTAURANT

Y, E V E R Y

HAPPY HOUR Daily 4-6:00pm 1110 MAPLE WAY JACKSON, WY 307.264.2956 picnicjh.com Free Coffee with Pastry Purchase Every Day from 3 to 5pm

307.201.1717 | LOCALJH.COM ON THE TOWN SQUARE

Come celebrate everything that makes Jackson Hole so good, it’s...

OF THIS

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.

ELY U Q I N U PEAN EURO

T

AT TH

AT THE

307.733.3242

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.

The locals favorite! Voted Best Pizza in Jackson Hole 2012-2016. Seek out this hidden gem under the Pink Garter Theatre for NY pizza by the slice, salads, strombolis, 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. - 2 a.m. Located at 50 W. Broadway, (307) 734-PINK.

www.mangymoose.com

R DINNEAGE I H LUNCTETON VILL I T S IN FA BREAKE ALPENHOF

DOMINO’S PIZZA

PINKY G’S

Reservations at (307) 733-4913 3295 Village Drive • Teton Village, WY

F O H ‘ E H

PIZZA

PIZZERIA CALDERA

Jackson Hole’s only dedicated stone-hearth oven pizzeria, serving Napolitana-style pies

Get your tickets now!

Thursday, April 5 7-10 p.m. at Lotus Cafe

annual BOJH party get your tickets at bestof jh.com

using the freshest ingredients in traditional and creative combinations. Five local micro-brews 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 p.m. daily. Dine in or carry out. Or order online at PizzeriaCaldera. com, or download our app for iOS or Android.

Open from 11 a.m. - 9:30 p.m. daily at 20 West Broadway. (307) 201-1472.

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.

“WORD FOR WORDS” BY C.C. BURNIKEL

SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 2018

77 Like some celestial paths 78 Isn’t being used 81 Dust jacket ID 85 City bus path: Abbr.

86 Expose 88 Where __ 89 Green Day drummer __ Cool 90 Seminar on Hughes’ poetry?

94 “Amen to that!”

97 Inseparable 98 Utterly lost 99 Hockey contract negotiator?

100 Solo performance 103 Actor Cumming 105 Lat. and Ukr., formerly 106 SpaceX CEO Musk 107 Put a damper on 110 Memorize things, maybe 112 Part of U.S. 115 Association of gamblers?

117 Injury treatment for a top pitcher?

119 Not worth __ 120 Resort rental 121 Apple Watch assistant 122 Exposed 123 Body imperfection 124 Dover souls 125 Warmhearted 126 Plot spoilers?

DOWN

Tampa NFLers Apple since 1998 Nepal Airlines headquarters First-responder letters Call the shots Hand, to Jorge Uncle Henry’s wife Wading spot Corn holder Cap-__: from head to toe Jacobs of fashion Jungle crusher Genesis father of twins

83 __ Mawr College 84 In order 87 “Madam Secretary” star 91 Almond Joy ingredient 92 Cat-__-tails 93 Close 95 “Hold your horses” 96 Cabinet dept.

99 Apprentice 100 Creator of tasty cups 101 John of rock 102 Ugly marketing battle 104 Computer acronym 108 Home run pace 109 Scrapes (out) 111 eBay competitor 113 Like fine cheese 114 Doc’s orders 115 Unenviable 116 Doing the job, briefly 117 “Don’t __ me!”

118 Deserving

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 1785-’90 U.S. capital 15 Ferocious Flea foe 16 Like hardcovers 17 Ancient neighbor of Lydia 18 Big bang producer 24 Come before 26 Dance in a line 29 Beauty mark 32 And so on: Abbr.

34 Language of Andorra 36 “It’ll be fun!”

37 Striker’s bane 38 Habit 39 Flying start?

41 Little devils 42 Daring exploit 45 Reject with contempt 46 Forearm-related 47 Slangy rejection 48 Like critters counted at night 49 City in southern France 52 One of the Van Halens 56 2005 horror sequel 58 “If __”: “So be it” 60 Hamlet, for one 61 Alfalfa sprouts concern 63 USMC rank 65 West Yorkshire’s largest city 66 Show contempt 67 Sacher dessert 68 Receded 69 Risotto relative 70 Show with numbers 71 Shiny, in adspeak 74 January birthstone 76 Home to the Congressional Country Club 78 Variety 79 “__ of My Soul”: Isabel Allende novel 80 Not of the cloth 82 Took a course under duress?

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1 Did a triathlon leg 6 Pepper spray alternative 10 At full speed 15 Slightly 19 Taste enhanced by shrimp paste 20 Otherworldly glow 21 Multi-colored spring bloomer 22 Bugs or Porky 23 Pet Airways security device?

25 Narrative from novelist Levin?

27 MIT, for one 28 Govt. investment 29 Grand Mosque locale 30 Luxury hotel chain 31 Essence 33 Pyrex sister brand 35 It precedes Flames’ home games 37 The Yankees during the Babe Ruth era?

40 True 43 Chicago Blackhawks’ broadcaster 44 Give 45 Wine glass-making component?

50 “Your point being?”

51 Betel nut tree 53 Church reading 54 Memorable Louis 55 A/C measures 57 Agenda 59 Dress policy at some fancy restaurants 62 Enzyme ending 64 Shot at a bar 65 Big name in anti-itch cream 66 Slow-cooked dishes 69 Alley designation?

72 “The Highwayman” poet 73 “Don’t sweat it” 75 “Of course!”

76 __ Paese cheese

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COSMIC CAFE

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Visual Truths and Inspiration Cosmic selections to challenge your mind and open your heart

BY CAROL MANN

P

For all MEETING AGENDAS AND MINUTES WEEKLY CALENDAR JOB OPENINGS SOLICITATIONS FOR BIDS PUBLIC NOTICES AND OTHER VALUABLE INFORMATION

Visit out our website website Visit

tetoncountywy.gov 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.

eople often ask me how and where I gather information on the many diverse topics I explore in this column. Mine is a life-long exploration of the frontiers of consciousness where science and mysticism meet. I gather and synthesize information from books, cutting edge research, global travel, interviews with experts, national and international conferences, personal spiritual experiences and the gift of being clairvoyant. I offer all that I share with the optimism that we will choose to take a quantum leap and step into the full potential of our humanity. Here is a Cosmic Café selection of television series and documentaries to expand your heart and open your mind to who we are and what’s possible.

Television

Ancient Aliens This long-running television series explores the theory that extraterrestrials have visited Earth for millions of years.

From the age of the dinosaurs to ancient Egypt, from early cave drawings to continued mass sightings in the U.S., each episode of this series gives historic depth to the questions, speculations, and discoveries. The entire archive can be viewed at History.com’s website.

Supernatural - The Unseen Powers of Animals (six-part series) This landmark series explores the outer limits of recent scientific discoveries and encounters, like sharks that can perceive human electric auras and dolphins that use ultrasound to see

human embryos in the womb. There are frogs that have mastered cryogenics and can literally freeze themselves out of life for six months. The producers declare: “A close encounter with the hidden powers of animals can be one of the most supernatural experiences on earth.”

Documentaries Free Energy: The Race to Zero Point “Electric power is everywhere present in unlimited quantities. It can drive the world’s machinery without the need of coal, oil, gas, or any other fuels ... This new power ... would be derived from the energy which operates the Universe ... the cosmic energy.” – Nikola Tesla Tesla was a 20th century genius who discovered free energy and so much more about the workings of the cosmos.

His intention was to share his discoveries for the greater good of both humanity and the Earth.

Sensitive: The Untold Story A groundbreaking documentary about the temperament trait of high sensitivity found in 20 percent of the population in both men and women.

Based on the findings of bestselling author-psychologist Dr. Elaine Aron (The Highly Sensitive Person), who discovered the brains of sensitive people work in different ways than the minds of the rest of the populace.

A Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space “The earth is a very small stage in a

vast cosmic arena. Our posturing, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in this universe are challenged by this point of pale light.” – Carl Sagan This film is written and directed by Sagan, an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and other natural sciences.

The Boy with the Incredible Brain A documentary about Daniel Tammet, a 20-something with extraordinary mental abilities. Tammet is one of the world’s few savants. He can do calculations to 100 decimal places in his head and learn a language in one week. This extraordinary person begs the question—can we all access these abilities?

The Emotional World of Farm Animals One man’s captivating video journey exploring the complex emotional lives of farm animals whom we often eat, but seldom meet.

The Healing Field This video explores breakthroughs in the fields of energy medicine, quantum physics, DNA and genetics, the biochemistry of emotions and the power of the heart, mind and intentions. The Healing Field explores how this quantum shift in understanding is affecting our health, our society, and our future.

PJH

Carol Mann is a longtime Jackson resident, radio personality, former Grand Targhee Resort owner, author, and clairvoyant.

Got a Cosmic Question? Email carol@yourcosmiccafe.com

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