Red state

Most often I abhor the politics of where I'm living.

Like this morning, when I can't see across Wapiti valley because of the fog and the mountain top is forced to hide behind white-out mists.

It's cold this morning, freezing, though the days are expected to become warmer as the week progresses.

In Wapiti, Wyoming, where I'm living now, I read the Sunday paper Monday morning. This way I can digest news that has already happened in a mature, reasonable manner, though a good deal of it is still quite depressing.

Who voted 'No' for the first African American Attorney General tells me too much about where I'm living, in northwest Wyoming at the moment. Wyoming is the first state, I remind myself, to give women the vote, though not for the reasons I first thought or that you might think.

One of the questions that could be considered in the current flurry of official and demonstrable racism--Ferguson, Baltimore--is, 'would black people be better oppressors than white people'? By better, I mean kinder, more observant of personal dignity and civil rights.

I think I know the answer.

And so I put the Sunday paper, 'The Billings Gazette', in the trash and pick up Berryman's Dream Songs.