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Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Orrin's peace on drugs

Budding lyricist Orrin Hatch — who also likes to present himself as a law-and-order conservative senator — has a well-earned reputation as the drug dealer's pal.

Orrin arranged leniency for his third convicted drug dealer. Hatch is modest about taking credit for his achievements, so here they are:

• Rapper and music producer John Edward Forte of the Fugees — 14-year sentence for smuggling $1.4 million in liquid cocaine commuted by President Bush this week with the encouragement of Hatch.

• Utah resident Cory Stringfellow — busted for selling drugs and then forging a passport to try to escape authorities. At Hatch's urging in 2005, President Clinton commutes Stringfellow's sentence.

• Grammy-winning record producer Dallas Austin is jailed in Dubai on drug charges in 2006. Hatch uses his clout as a U.S. senator to get him released.

The truth is that Orrin is just another groupie. But instead of offering sex to rockers, Hatch gives up his influence. In 2005, Carly Simon, a Forte supporter, serenaded Hatch in the front row of her Washington concert. Simon performed one of the senator's pathetic attempts at songwriting and referred to starry eyed Orrin as "the King of The Hill." It was a groupie's fantasy.

Read the details in Robert Gehrke's excellent story in today's Tribune.

*I left for vacation but this was too good not to blog.

You deserve a respite

No Crawler until Monday.

I'll be in Canyonlands N.P., thanking whatever deity is responsible for the red rock and blue skies.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Look upon us and weep!

Satan's minions.

Brigham Young University Athletic Communications has issued its official take on BYU's loss to the University of Utah last weekend. Here's the first two paragraphs of the the Y's recollection of the game:

SALT LAKE CITY (Nov. 22, 2008) — In the game of the decade on Saturday, favored No. 7 Utah took advantage of mistakes by underdog No. 14 BYU enroute to a 48-24 victory.

Before a crowd of 46,488 at Rice-Eccles Stadium, the second-largest in Ute history, and amidst red-clad MUSS fans with anti-BYU signs mocking Diety, Proposition 8, and themes of fully invested and "quest for perfection," the teams matched field goals, touchdowns, punts, but not interceptions and fumbles.

It's a wonder God didn't smite the Utes then and there.

It gets weirder

Christopher Bigelow, co-founder of the satirical Mormon newspaper The Sugar Beet and the Mormon literary magazine Irreantum, blogs that the recent gay demonstrations are a sign that Salt Lake City is destined to become the capital of wickedness — sort of counterbalancing it's identity as HQ of the LDS church.

It sounds a lot like satire (or, if it wasn't coming from a Mormon, I would say bad acid), but I think Bigelow is being serious and his point of view might resonate with many Mormons. (Evangelicals, of course, believe SLC is already is a seat of evil.)

Salt Lake City proper is already fast moving away from Mormonism and swiftly moving toward the most liberal, progressive "worldly" values and outlooks. I'm not saying those values and outlooks are necessarily or 100% bad, but this process is creating a vacuum in Salt Lake proper as the old Mormon hegemony sloughs off and something else arises to take its place. When the pendulum has been as far right as it historically has been in Salt Lake, it's natural that, once loosened, it would swing way over to the left.

Oh, I get it — it's really the rise of so-called gentiles and Demoncrats in Salt Lake that is driving this horror. Barack Obama's carrying Salt Lake County could only have been a another sign of the apocalypse. Here's Bigelow's predictions (I dare not call it prophecy):

Militant gays will flock to SLC. "It will become the ultimate 'We're here, we're queer' trend to move into the shadow of the Salt Lake Temple and practice their alternative lifestyle."
A gay SLC mayor within a decade."You take our rights, we'll take your city."
Church HQ itself will become, "essentially, a fortress in the midst of it all."

And I thought Orson Scott Card was Mormondom's homophobic fantasy writer. If you can't get enough jibber-jabber about depravity, wickedness and sodomy, go here.

'You gotta be kidding'

Even in a 70's sit-com this would be too ridiculous to fly.

Two golfers chased down a would-be bandit in their golf cart after he tried to rob a pro shop at knife point. The man had a pair of jockey shorts pulled over his head as a mask. Not exactly Zorro.

When the 48-year-old robber entered the pro shop at Golf in the Round and demanded money, the clerk, lacking the proper respect, said:

You gotta be kidding.

To add injury to insult, the bandit's knife blade broke off in a scuffle with the clerk and he fled (no report on whether he had a bucket stuck on one of his feet).

Two intrepid golfers responded to the age-old cry of "Follow that dude with underwear on his head!"

Thanks for nothing, Orrin

Catherine Stevens and the Lion in Winter

Orrin Hatch's testimony in support of disgraced Sen. Ted Stevens' character may actually have helped convict Stevens on federal corruption charges. Colleen Walsh, a juror who has her own blog, says Stevens' frail grandfatherly appearance helped his defense far more than impressive character testimony from the likes of Hatch and former Secretary of State Collin Powell. Walsh told Legal Times:

We really liked Colin Powell, but the facts still said that [Stevens] got gifts and didn’t report them.

The prosecution used Hatch's testimony that Stevens is "a lion of the Senate" to undermine the defense's narrative that the Alaska senator was unaware of what was going on around him. Lions, of course, are the masters of their domain.

It also didn't help leonine Stevens that the jury thought the defense was trying to throw his wife, Catherine, under the bus by saying she was responsible for the family's transactions.

Before you call Hatch an idiot, keep in mind that Stevens re-election defeat moved the Utah senator up to the second most senior Republican senator. Hatch just might be the fox of the Senate.

Battle of titans: Gays vs. LDS

The national press just can't seem to get over the Mormon church's decisive involvement in Proposition 8. Utahns, of course, having lived daily with the church's impact on all facets of life, are well aware of its political clout.

The Washington Post offers an analysis by Stephen Stromberg of The Economist, who wonders that in a situation in which most groups would flaunt their proven political power, even Mormons who wholeheartedly supported Prop 8 are uneasy about the victory.

It's unusual for an institution to shrink from responsibility for a victory at the ballot box. But being Mormon isn't quite like being, say, Southern Baptist. The highly centralized LDS church makes a lot of Americans nervous, and it has done so since Joseph Smith founded the movement, which was driven out of state after state before settling in the Salt Lake Valley. Where some see an efficient religious organization that requires unusual devotion from its members, others see conspiracy, even cult. . . .

If Mitt Romney runs for president again, Americans will address, with renewed passion, the question of whether he would be a puppet of Salt Lake City in the Oval Office.

The National Review Online says gays are exploiting anti-Mormon bigotry:

The wisdom of hate-crimes legislation aside, there is no doubt that a lot of hate is being directed at Mormons as a group. But why single out Mormons? And why now?

There are no websites dedicated to “outing” Catholics who supported Proposition 8, even though Catholic voters heavily outnumber Mormons. . . . So far, no gay-rights activist has had the brass to burn a Qu’ran on the doorstep of a militant mosque where — forget marriage! — imams advocate the stoning of homosexuals.

The Boston Globe reports that on the other side of the continent, the church's call for support of Prop 8 first split the Mormon community, but now is uniting it in the face of anti-Mormon protests.

Julie Berry, a member who opposed the church's involvement in Prop 8, says:

I support the right to protest, but vandalism and damage to church buildings — that hurts . . . and I wish we could see a little more defense of Mormons' right to exist as citizens and vote how they wish to vote. I'm sad to think that some of the social and political good will we've gained in the last 15 years may be set back.

Meanwhile, gays and lesbians are showing they know a thing or two about organizing and using the media. Californian Dan Wentzel writes in a Washington Post op-ed column that gays and lesbians will no longer stand for casual bigotry:

It is no longer acceptable for people to say bigoted and hateful things about gays or anyone else in front of me. This behavior has to stop now.

But I wonder, when a homophobic remark is made in a conversation among straight people, whether anyone is willing to say, "That's not appropriate and I find that offensive." I don't know, but I hope so.

Monday, November 24, 2008

A day late and way too shy

Gov. Jon Huntsman confirmed he was behind — way, way behind — Judge Robert Hilder, who was denied a seat on the Utah Court of Appeals by the Senate. Days after gun-lovers mopped the Senate floor with Hilder's reputation, Huntsman, who had nominated the judge, made some supportive noises to The Tribune.

It's a very strange way to compliment somebody on reaching the pinnacle of success in their career.

You can read more wonderful but belated recommendations from Huntsman here. I like this one:

I heard nothing but uniform praise about Bob Hilder. And I still believe he is one of the best legal minds in our state. And it's a shame that he . . . was voted down.

Unfortunately, Hilder had ruled the wrong way on a guns-on-campus case.

The governor's lack of assertiveness in helping Hilder through the Senate has left us wondering:

a.) Did Huntsman take cover when he realized the gun lovers were swarming against Hilder.
b.) Is this some another example of Huntsman misguidedly pursuing "diplomacy" with the Legislature rather than engaging in a knife fight.

The Lege has never been big on subtlty or separation of powers and the Hilder incident has more than the legal community concerned. Many wonder if any judge who ever hands down a ruling displeasing to the Legislature — think of issues such as school clubs or liquor cases or power plants — can forget about advancement.

LDS rep goes radioactive

As the Prop. 8 collision diminishes in the Mormon church's rear-view mirror, the damage assessment continues. The Tribune offers a package of articles discussing the fallout that has followed the LDS-driven ban on gay marriage in California.

• Was the Mormon support for Proposition 8 a "PR fiasco?" LDS scholar Sarah Barringer Gordon of the University of Pennsylvania, says, yes:

The Olympics had this nice afterglow for Mormons and, boy, is that gone.

• Want to read about suspected vandalism against Mormon institutions following the vote? Juan Becerra, FBI spokesman says it's not a coincidence:

There's been too much that has happened in a short period of time.

• Will the LDS church's new political Death Star reputation reflect onto Mormon presidential hopeful Mitt Romney (and Gov. Jon Huntsman, for that matter). Charles Dunn, dean of the School of Government at Pat Robertson's Regent University, opines:

What the LDS Church just did in California and elsewhere, should help [Romney] because it sends a signal to evangelical Protestants that while we differ religiously, politically we are first cousins.

Even the Deseret News' church-owned columnist Lee Benson weighs in, quoting "tithe-paying" Mormon pollster Gary Lawrence, who surveyed attitudes toward the LDS church — before Prop 8. In a nutshell, Lawrence understates:

We're not as popular as we think we are.

Of course, there's the old "any publicity is good publicity" theory, expounded by the same Gary Lawrence to the Tribune:

These protests will help us. It puts a spotlight on us. Which is worse -- antagonism or apathy? I believe apathy is our bigger enemy.

Just a guess here—if you are a religion, and not Paris Hilton, all publicity is not equal.

Second, despite what Dean Dunn over at Regent U. says, evangelicals will always take Mormon cash and volunteers for their joint causes — but they also will always to consider Mormons in the same godless camp as papists, Hare Krishnas and Druids.

By the way, has anybody seen President Thomas Monson?

Deport Hughes?

"Wut the . . .?"

The Tribune's Robert Gehrke, who apparently has no life at all, was listening Saturday to Radio Free Salt Lake County (otherwise known as K-Talk).

On the show Inside Utah Politics, Heavy industry stooge Howard Stephenson and Rep. Greg Hughes were broadcasting hope to the Republican holdouts in the People's Republic of Salt Lake.

To weed out infiltrators who might try call in, the hosts warned they would ask basic questions that any American citizen should know. For instance, Stephenson asks Hughes:

Who was the second President of the United States?

And red, white and blue Greg answers:

Thomas Jefferson.

Unfortunately, the Democrats jammed the podcast before the phones lit up.

Red hot ticket in Utah

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown recently offered some advice to Democrats seeking scarce presidential Inauguration tickets — ask a red-state Republican:

I mean, how many people from Oklahoma think this is the nation's biggest historical moment? My bet is, not many. So lawmakers there will have plenty of tickets to give away.

But Politico says that is not the case, even in Utah's scarlet-red Third District. Congressman-elect Jason Chaffetz is giving a portion of his tickets to his Democratic colleagues:

I would hope that sometime soon, they would do the same for us.

Ha, ha.

But seriously, Chaffetz says, the inauguration of the first African-American president is a historic moment for Republicans too.

We have patriotic Republicans who also want to attend.

We can only assume Sen. Chris Buttars is all over Chaffetz for tickets.

County's DIY solution to crime

In an apparent response to a run on assault rifles at gun stores, the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office has started leaving them on taxpayers' front yards.

After a standoff between the county's SWAT team and a White City man who had been firing shots in the air ended peacefully Saturday, the Sheriff's department left behind an M4 assault rifle on a front lawn in the neighborhood. (So much cooler than the orange leaf bags SLC leaves on my doorstep.)

My first guess was that the weapons distribution was just a part of the gun-lovin' Legislature's new program to encourage Neighborhood Watches to handle their own #%&! domestic problems — saving tax dollars and court time.

So I was surprised to hear Salt Lake County Sheriff's Deputy Levi Hughes explain:

It's a terrible mistake. . . . We're going to take every step possible so that this never happens again.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Plenty more where I came from

I spoke to a group of young journalists today at the University of Utah. The Tribune, Valley Journals, the U, BYU and Weber State annually offer a conference for high school students from around the state. We teach them to misquote, sensationalize and basically be elitists. The conference is always packed.

I taught a session on the rise of blogging as journalism. Because every kid in the room uses Facebook or has a personal blog and several of the high school papers have blogs, we are peers in this online adventure. I asked them as many questions as they asked me.

One thing knocked me out. With all the talk about the demise of newspapers, with all the supposed distrust of and contempt for journalists — many of these kids still want to go into the business. The even have that gleam in their eyes that gives authority figures the heebie-jeebies.

Katherine Paterson, the news editor at the Park City High School Prospector, admits she's a "news junkie." "I actutally read newspapers all the time. Nobody my age reads newspapers."

Elle Dougherty, features editor at P.C.High, plans to major in journalism. (I told her not to.) She wants to work as a journalist on her way to doing serious writing. (I warned her news writing will ruin her.)

Paterson plans to learn Arabic and get embedded with the troops. I laughed, too, until she said:

I'm assuming we'll be in the Middle East forever.

I asked them what they thought of blogs as journalism. Dougherty says blogs allow her to find other people who share her opinions. "I like to know I'm not the only one."

Patherson offered this handy rule of thumb:

You can't trust blogs.

Write it down.

A tinge of blue

Deseret News political editor Bob Bernick came up with some fun facts from pollster Dan Jones' exit polls in the recent election:

• Barack Obama won over most of the independent voters — a good sign for the Democrats that an exceptional candidate can lure Utah independents their way.

• Mormons went overwhelmingly with John McCain for president, even after the GOP denied Utah's beloved Mitt Romney the nomination — in no small part because he is a Mormon.
• Congressman Jim Matheson and Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Carroon, who both won landslides, provide a model for Democratic contenders in a red state.

Guv's wild ride begins

Gov. Jon Huntsman, who won re-election with a humongous landslide, has growing clout not only in Utah, but in Washington, D.C.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer calls Huntsman a GOP "rising star." A Washington Post political blogger says:

[Huntsman] has the looks and resume -- fluent in Chinese, progressive on the environment -- that could make him appealing for a party looking desperately for a different profile.

But the highest accolade may come from Barack Obama. The president-elect's transition team had a "feeling out" conversation with Huntsman about a possible job with the new administration. Obama, who said he would have Republicans in his cabinet, appears to have been serious. So far, Huntsman is playing hard to get:

I think we've already made our feelings known about coming back [to Washington]. We've got the best job in the world for one more term.

Huntsman is already rolling into that last term by taking on Utah's tourist-snubbing liquor laws. After getting some positive signs from the Mormon church, Huntsman is determined to abolish the club membership requirement to get a hard drink. To make his intentions abundantly clear, Huntsman is having his own staff draft the legislation.

Still, Huntsman is being careful in choosing his battles. He nominated district Judge Robert Hilder for the state Court of Appeals. But when he learned Hilder, who had angered gun rights advocates, faced an uphill battle for Senate confirmation, Huntsman went AWOL.

The Senate, which fears the gun lobby more than it does any governor, rejected Hilder. Huntsman's official, and extremely lame, response:

We hope this is not a reflection of a new era of how Senate confirmations are conducted of governor's appointees in the future.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Christians Sexually Assaulted by Homosexual Mob

Before you guys accuse me of yellow journalism, the above headline is right out of Catholic Online.

The Catholic news organ reports that a group of Jesus freaks who regularly roam San Francisco's Castro district to randomly stop and pray for gay souls were accosted by a mob! Says one victim:

We started worshipping, . . . and people are just hanging out with a guitar, worshipping Jesus, just really peaceful. And a man came up after we'd been there for a little while and just began yelling and swearing at us and commanding us to get out of the Castro District, and our leader went up and he said 'why are you here?' and she said 'we're here to worship God and we're here because we love you'."

For obvious reasons folks telling homosexuals that they will burn in hell and taking away their right to marriage because they "love" them, really, really sets off gays off in these post Prop 8 days. Catholic Online reports: "The mere presence of Christians praying in the Castro District was enough to provoke a frenzy of violence."

The allegedly raging gays threw hot coffee on the Christians, grabbed one woman's Bible and hit her on the head with it, blew whistles in their ears (do the citizens of the Castro routinely arm themselves with whistles?) and generally went beserk.

A YouTube journalist quoted an unnamed victim who claimed:

They were touching and grabbing me, and trying to shove things in my butt, and even trying to take off my pants - basically trying to molest me. I used one hand to hold my pants up, while I used the other arm to hold one of the girls. The guys huddled around all the girls, and protected them.

San Francisco KTVU's report is quite a bit less superheated:

Members of the gay community said that almost every Friday night, a Christian group meets at the corner of Castro and 18th Streets. They try to convert gays and lesbians into a straight lifestyle. This Friday night, the message didn't go over well. Some gays and lesbians reacted by trying to chase the group out of the Castro.

Joe Schmitz, a gay rights activist told KTVU:

[The Christians] rights were respected. They got a chance to go ahead and pray on the sidewalk and I had the opportunity to express my freedom of speech which is telling them to get out of my neighborhood.

Check out the raw footage here:

Best of times . . . or worst

Buttars: Exhibit A.

Provo's Daily Herald and Ogden's Standard-Examiner seem diametrically opposed on the condition of Utah government integrity.

The Daily Herald, which could never be mistaken for a journalistic watchdog, thinks things are just hunky dory on the Hill. In an editorial titled: "Beware the Ethics Charade," it opines:

The Utah Legislature must resist being stampeded into phony "ethics reform."

The Provo paper figures if things are so bad, the voters would have thrown the bums out — which they didn't. (OK, maybe one, House Speaker Greg Curtis.) Apparently, the slime and idiocy at the Legislature is just a hoax perpetrated by those mischievous Democrats.

This fall, a panel dismissed eight complaints against Rep. Greg Hughes. All in all, the whole thing looked like an October surprise cooked up for political advantage.

And that's what the ongoing "ethics" drive seems to be.

But way up north in Ogden, the Standard-Examiner quotes a national study of good government and comes to a very different conclusion: "Our government is ailing, and it needs a large dose of integrity":

Utah does have some positives to grow on. . .
However, the negatives remain. You can read about them in your daily newspaper. Just look at the ethical misdeeds and squabbles in our state Legislature. Something's definitely wrong when Republican State Sen. Chris Buttars is considered a contender to chair the Rules Committee. That's ridiculous.

'It smells a little bad'

The next time the docs x-ray Attorney General Mark Shurtleff's bum leg, maybe they should get a shot of his head. Considering the questionable ethical decisions he makes, you've got to wonder if his motorcycle spill didn't scrambled something up there.

In the latest mess, Shurtleff appears to have written an over-the-top endorsement of a technology company in exchange for a $10,000 campaign contribution. What lawyers like to call quid pro quo.

Whoa! Before you run off thinking the wrong thing, Mark explains in his adorable big-lug way, it's just a coincidence:

It's not, 'Hey, give me a contribution and I'll write you a letter.' It doesn't happen that way.

Here are some of Mark's other amazing coincidences:

His office awarded a contract for legal help to the law firm Siegfried & Jensen, which not only has given Shurtleff close to $60,000, but hired his daughter.
Shurtleff is a big supporter of the payday lending industry, which has forked over tens of thousands of dollars to his campaigns.

Andrew McCullough, who has run against Shurtleff in the past, doesn't think Mark is crooked:

Not that I really think he's up to anything …. It just looks a little bad, it smells a little bad, and he doesn't seem to notice. It makes you wonder what kind of Pollyanna he really is.

The hit on Hilder

Barack Obama may have been elected president and the nation's government as a whole may be tacking back toward the political center, but guns freaks still call the shots in Utah.

The Utah Senate refused to confirm Third District Judge Robert Hilder — who is held in high esteem by the legal community — to the Utah Court of Appeals. The Utah Senate voted Hilder down by 16 to 12. The vote was also a slap to Gov. Jon Huntsman who nominated Hilder.

In the minds of many senators, Hilder's main failing was that he ruled five years ago to allow the University of Utah to ban guns on campus. Actually, Hilder's mistake was that he thwarted Utah's gun groups. Before the special senate confirmation session, gun rights supporters fired volley after volley of form letters and e-mails at lawmakers, saying the judge is anti-gun.

Sen. Mike Waddoups, the so-called "Father" of Utah's liberalized gun laws — who will soon be Senate president, threw up a smokescreen, telling senators that Hilder had been uppity (Waddoups accused the judge of having an "aggressive nature") when he came before the Senate Judicial Confirmation Committee.

It made me very uncomfortable. He has a temper he has not learned to control.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The bombs among us

The Center for American Progress, a leftist think tank, has issued a report listing the 101 most dangerous chemical facilities in the nation. One of them is on the Wasatch Front and puts 1.3 million people at risk:

Central Valley Water Reclamation Facility, South Salt Lake. The facility uses chlorine gas (and anhydrous sulfur dioxide) to treat wastewater. A better solution, according to the center, would be to Treat wastewater with ultraviolet light, use liquid bleach in place of chlorine gas, and sodium bisulfite in place of anhydrous sulfur dioxide gas.

The report puts three other Wasatch Front facilities in the top 202 dangerous chemical facilities:

Woods Cross Refinery-Holly Refining & Marketing Company in Woods Cross uses hydrofluoric acid in turning crude oil into gasoline. Residents at risk: 200,000.

Thatcher Chemical Company, west of Salt Lake City, repackages bulk chlorine gas to produce liquid bleach and repackages bulk anhydrous sulfur dioxide to produce sodium bisulfite. Residents at risk: 900,000.

ChevronTexaco's refinery, Davis County, uses hydrofluoric acid in the process of refining crude into gasoline. Residents at risk: 680,000.

The American Progress thinkers say these plants are not only a safety hazard to the communities around them, but that terrorists could sabotage the facilities to create massive improvised chemical bombs:

Most of the nation’s 101 most dangerous chemical facilities could become less attrac- tive terrorist targets by converting to alternative chemicals or processes. Doing so would improve the safety and security of more than 80 million Americans living within range of a worst-case toxic gas release from one of these facilities.

Photo of Woods Cross refinery by tephdra.

Now we'll never get the Dems to shut up

Obama greets Utahns near Kimball Junction.

Updated election results reveal that Barack Obama carried the People's Republic of Salt Lake County over John McCain — the first time in decades that a Democratic presidential candidate won in the state's capital county. McCain, of course, handily carried the rest of Utah.

The final result gave Obama a 296-vote victory, and as the Tribune points out:

The race was so close that if McCain wanted a recount in Salt Lake County, he could get one. But no one really expects that to happen.

What would Hinckley do?

The rage the Mormon church stirred up nationwide when it waded into the political fight to ban gay marriage in California shows no sign of abating and the damage to the Church's image may last years.

Jan Shipps, the respected Mormon scholar (who is not a Mormon) says the controversy could hurt the church's growth:

The backlash is going on all over the country. There are people who had a lot of respect for the Mormons who now say, 'Well, they're just like the Christian right.'

Melissa Proctor, who teaches at Harvard Divinity School says the controversy is a setback to the church's attempts to gain the respect of mainstream America:

It's disconcerting to Latter-day Saints that Mormonism is still the religious tradition that everybody loves to hate.

Mormon pollster Gary Lawrence says the Mormon church needs a PR makeover after a recent national poll shows Mormons have high negatives.

The LDS First Presidency, which has tried to keep a low profile after calling for member support of Prop 8, was forced to release a statement denouncing the protests, boycotts and vandalism of Mormon churches:

These are not actions that are worthy of the democratic ideals of our nation. The end of a free and fair election should not be the beginning of a hostile response in America.

Joel Engardio in a Washington Post op-ed, says the issue is about the separation of church and state in American democracy:

We are not a Mormon nation, as much as we are not a Baptist or Pentecostal nation. So it is painful when any religion forces all of us to live their way by altering the Constitution upon which all our laws are based.

The Sundance Film Festival, already reeling from the economic downturn, has been threatened with a boycott simply because it is in Utah. Now Sundance has an additional problem — Gay rights advocates are demanding the festival pull its films from a Park City's Cinemark Theaters. The theater's chief executive Alan Stock, contributed $9,999 to the Yes on Prop. 8 campaign. An exasperated Sundance spokeswoman says:

It is our hope that people will embrace the festival for its commitment to diversity, not avoid it.

The BBC's Justin Webb says gay people ultimately will triumph:

The Mormon church itself - let us be blunt - did not do much for monogamous marriage in the early years of its existence; Mormons did not think much of black people until God told them (in 1978!) to change their ways. In the long term, He will be back...

I have to wonder if the late LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley, who was a master of public relations, would have approached Prop 8 in the same way.

Mitt: Tough love for Detroit

Salt Lake Olympic savior Mitt Romney, a Michigan native whose father ran American Motors, says a bailout of the U.S. auto industry is a bankrupt idea:

If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

Mitt says in a New York Times op-ed piece that drastic changes are needed in Detroit labor agreements and management for the industry to survive.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Tastes like beef

The Washington Post reports that Madeleine Pickens, wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, is offering to adopt 30,000 feral horses and burros that are in federal holding pens. Many of the horses — about 3,000 are in Utah – faced euthanasia because the federal government can no longer afford to feed them.

The Pickens horse lovers led the fight a few years ago to close the last U.S. horse slaughterhouse. Now, Madeleine Pickens is looking for land in the West that would be an appropriate home for the horses and working with the BLM, says Henri Bisson, the bureau's deputy director:

We are very hopeful that euthanasia won't be necessary this year.

Madeleine Pickens is really sweet, but the U.S. Ag Department reports that nearly 700,000 children went hungry in America during 2007. One in eight Americans were having trouble feeding themselves before the economy cratered.

OK, I'll ask the question: Should we move from feeding these non-native species to eating them?

Change for Dems, too

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., is fighting for his chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., wants to take over the committee. Dingell, who represents Detroit's auto industry — making him an SUV in the new Prius world of energy — is opposed by environmentalists who don't think MoTown congressman's does enough for energy conservation.

Utah's blue-dog Dem Rep. Jim Matheson, whose track record on land/energy issues hasn't exactly charmed environmentalists either, is working hard to defend Dingell. The tight rope Matheson walks between his conservative Utah district and a Congress that has turned sharply left is going to become a high-wire act worthy of Barnum and Bailey.

Signs of a GOP apocalypse?

After a shellacking in the national elections Republicans are frantically huddling to come up with a new direction to reach out to young and minority voters without driving the far-right Christian wingnuts to form their own party. But that new direction, driven by the likes of Gov. Jon Huntsman and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, may have to wait until a few scores are settled — which could take eight years.

• Squirrel-eatin', geetar-playin' Mike Huckabee trashes presidential rival Mitt Romney in his new book. Huckabee writes that Mitt was . . .

. . . anything but conservative until he changed the light bulbs in his chandelier in time to run for president.

• Soon to be ex-congressman and regular slob Chris Cannon is snubbing his replacement Jason Chaffetz who whupped Cannon in a primary. Jason laments:

I have not met with Mr. Cannon. I've reached out at least a dozen times. So far, no luck.

(I love that passive-aggressive cheap shot: "Mr. Cannon.")

• Incomprehensibly, former Gov. Mike Leavitt, who is George Bush's secretary of Health and Human Services, is in the running for chairman of the Republican National Committee. But is a proven Bush hack what a GOP of "new ideas" needs to lead the overhaul? The Republicans would be better off cutting Leavitt loose to sink into obscurity, selling insurance in Cedar City while he teaches politics parttime at Southern Utah University.

Nothing changes

The Legislature seems to be coming up to speed for the next session with a new leaders who allegedly have new ideas. But, of course, early signs indicate that the circus will continue.

• Sen. Chris Buttars, who narrowly won re-election, and newly elected Senate President-elect Mike Waddoups lit into a Bar Association-recommended judge seeking appointment to the Utah Court of Appeals because the judge ruled that the University of Utah could ban guns on campus. Judge Robert Hilder, right, also offended gun freaks by not installing weapons lockers outside his courtroom for concealed-weapon permit holders to check their gats.

• Many lawyers are even more concerned that the judicial appointment committee discussed whether Hilder is an active Mormon and the circumstances of his divorce before narrowly approving him.

• In the House, Rep. Greg Hughes, smarting from a pre-election investigation of his ethics and wrist slapping, is still angling to become chairman of the powerful Rules Committee.

• Buttars, by the way, is campaigning for the chairmanship of the Senate's Rules Committee, which is really scary because the Senate Rules Committee proceedings are not open to the public.

Mormons! The musical

Singing and dancing have always been beloved in the Mormon culture, but a Broadway show in production may change that.

The Mormon church's image, reeling from the Prop 8 controversy, could careen into the sublimely ridiculous when the creators of the satirical animation South Park launch the Mormon Musical.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone angered Mormons with their infamous South Park episode "All About the Mormons" that lampoons Mormon history and theology. Now, with a script in hand, they reportedly are working on an LDS-themed musical for Broadway.

Openly gay Broadway actor Cheyenne Jackson has signed up as the star of Mormon Musical:

It's hilarious - very acerbic and biting. It offends everybody but does what 'South Park' does best, which is by the end it comes around and has something great to say.

I play the main missionary, Elder something.

The show (if this isn't all an elaborate hoax) starts rehearsals in December. I wonder if gay rights supporters will boycott it?

Monday, November 17, 2008

Unholy radio deal

Would you trust her for $1.3 million?

When Park City's Community Wireless accepted $2.4 million from Salt Lake Valley listeners to sever KCPW-FM from its sibling NPR affiliate in Park City, the final piece of the complicated deal was to sell KCPW's AM band to a California Catholic group, Immaculate Heart Radio. It would have concluded the Greek tragedy of "Blair Feulner: Radio Wunderkind."

That $1.3 million deal appears to have fallen through, leaving Park City's KPCW stuck with a vintage AM band in Salt Lake Valley that was part of former manager Feulner's grandiose scheme to broadcast statewide. Community Wireless spokesman Joe Wrona told the Park City Record that after nine months or negotiations, IHR obviously has no intention of completing the purchase:

The current board of Community Wireless would unanimously agree that the decision by the organization several years ago to purchase the 1010 AM station for several million dollars was a very poor business decision in hindsight.

The sad part of this debacle is that now three Utah community radio stations are struggling financially — SLC's KCPW's last pledge drive fell short of expectations, KRCL in Salt Lake radically changed its format in desperate attempt to boost listenership, and, now, Park City's KPCW has an AM albatross dangling from its neck.

Classy films only

Former Mormon filmmaker (still a filmmaker but no longer a Mormon) Richard Dutcher (Brigham City, God's Army) says the Utah Film Commission's denial of tax incentives to productions that contain ''inappropriate content or content that portrays Utah or Utahns in a negative way," is economic censorship.

Vans Stevenson, a lobbyist with the Motion Picture Association of America, goes a step farther, saying the state's demand to read scripts before awarding financial incentives may violate filmmakers' First Amendment right.

Of 35 films or TV programs that applied for state incentives, only three failed to get approval because the contained ''excessive nudity and violence.

Films with dead cats in ice chests are presumably still OK.

Seeing stars

This month's National Geographic magazine includes two breathtaking, for very different reasons, photos from Utah.

In an article on light pollution, "The End of Night," that investigates why few urban Americans see the stars anymore, National Geo captures the nightime splendor of the sky in Utah's Natural B

ridges National Monument.

As a counterpoint, the magazine offers a shot of the blazing LDS Temple in Bountiful.

Hang up and experience

The National Parks face yet another environmental threat, the L.A. Times reports: cellphones.

A disturbing trend in Yellowstone National could be repeated in southern Utah's wild gems. Cellular towers have sprouted near Old Faithful and on one of the park's prominent peaks.

Perhaps worse, visitors hoping to commune with Yellowstone's grandeur can't escape insipid cell conversations. Tim Stevens of the National Parks Conservation Association complains:

When people come to Yellowstone, it's one of the most special times in their lives. One of the things that makes it that is the ability to hear the splash of a geyser . . . and not having that sound drowned out by somebody having a conversation with their family back in New Jersey.

Polyblogger takes on DNews

Polygamous blogger Moroni Jessop (his name, alone, is a road map of western polygamy) fires back at the Mormon church-owned Deseret News after its TV critic Scott Pierce slammed a documentary of Jessop's family.

Pierce says Forbidden Love on TLC is not only "laughably bad" television, but reporter Dawn Porter "is apparently incapable of spending 30 seconds doing research on the Internet."

Porter is also incapable of understanding that Mormons do not practice polygamy. That it was abandoned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1896.

What Porter says in the film that Pierce finds ridiculous is this:

Polygamy means one husband and lots of wives. It's a basic tenet of the Mormon Church. Now it's outlawed, but many fundamentalist Mormons hide out in the middle of nowhere in Utah and the states around it.

The issue here, of course, is who gets to define what "true" Mormonism is, the church headquartered in Salt Lake City, or the so-called fundamentalists like Jessop who are scattered throughout the West?

Jessop, who says he has "two wives and many happy children," (above) critiques the critic, calling Pierce a "Mormon Twit/Journalist," and his review of Forbidden Love simply LDS church propaganda:

. . . Maybe Dawn called us Mormons, because WE call ourselves Mormons. Arguably, we have more right to call ourselves “Mormons” than the ever-morphing LDS Church. We claim and teach all the old foundational teachings of the early founders of the Mormon church whereas the LDS Church has compromised their tenets to appear more mainstream and palatable to society.

The two articles are a point-counterpoint package that you might find more entertaining than the original film.

Can't beat 'em? Join 'em

Gay activists nationally are calling for a boycott of all things Utah because the Mormon church successfully supported California's Prop 8 that outlaws same-sex marriages. Aside from the unfairness of hurting the livelihoods thousands of Utahns who did not support the amendment in a distant state—many of whom are not even Mormon — we would never be able to measure the boycott's impact.

Utah's tourism business may well crater in the next year. But will it be due to a gay boycott or a world-wide economic recession?

Many Utah gays, including State Sen. Scott McCoy, argue that a boycott would be counterproductive:

I would rather have folks from all over the country stand in solidarity with us rather than just write you off, rather than build a wall around Utah and say to hell with anyone inside because you are all suspect. . . .

People coming here bring outside ideas and diversity and help to broaden peoples' minds which is exactly what we need.

I'll suggest a more effective strategy: Gays and lesbians should mass convert to Mormonism. They could soon take over everything from planning ward wedding receptions to running the Boy Scout troops.

At the very least, priesthood meetings would be a lot more interesting.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Got AKs?

One of my favorite newspapers in Utah is the Tooele Transcript. The name alone describes the journalistic aggressiveness of the voice of Utah's "Gateway to Chemical* and Biological Weapons Research."

The newspaper covered the jump in sales of so-called assault weapons following Barack Obama's election. The fear is that Obama and Nancy Pelosi will reinstate the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. The long and the short: No semiautomatic assault weapons or bottomless ammunition clips sold to Joe Sixpack.

The Transcript article included the gun merchants' usual "they're flying off the shelves" sales pitch to the suckers:

I have been getting phone calls from all over the state for the kind of guns that may become harder to get. We are trying to get some of them in before the ban, but not many people have them in stock.

What was different from the other stories on the gun run is that the Transcript did not include one dissenting, or even skeptical, voice.

It did include an illogical quote from a volunteer Grantsville hunter safety teacher:

As part of a hunter safety group, you can’t help but be worried that people might not be able to purchase certain guns, and that the price of ammunition will become more expensive too.

If I'm following his thinking — access to assault weapons and cheap ammo increases gun safety? Would a math wiz care to run the probabilities on that?

*The poison gas has been almost entirely incinerated, sigh.

Life transliterated

Utah's tourism industry is in a slide and panicked marketing experts say they will tweak the state's promotion campaign. They are going to emphasis the "high value" of Utah vacations — as in car trips and other low-rent fun.

Here's an idea: Dump the stupid "Life Elevated" motto and campaign. Besides the raft of double-meaning jokes mocking Utah's fertility rates and polygamy — "Life Erected" is a woefully lame creation.

The tourism board has released $50,000 to translate Utah travel brochures into Japanese, Chinese and Korean. We can only imagine how "Life Elevated" translates into those languages.

Prop 8 gets personal

After a week of stories about massive protests — the latest a march of thousands of gay rights activists to the LDS temple in New York — and boycotts against the Mormon Church's support of Prop 8, tales of individual personal tragedies of the vote are emerging on the Web.

• Scott Eckern, the artistic director of the California Musical Theater in Sacramento, resigned in the face of growing outrage over his support for the ballot measure. A check of campaign donations uncovered Eckern had contributed $1,000 to Prop 8. Eckern, a Mormon, said he is:

. . . deeply saddened that my personal beliefs and convictions have offended others.

• Jodi Mardesich, an inactive Mormon, formally demanded she be taken off the church rolls:

The day after the election, I wrote my letter of resignation. I sent it to the membership office of the church, telling them that I am no longer One of Them. They have to take me off their rolls. I can’t stomach being counted as One of Them. I despise what they have done in Hawaii, in California, in Arizona, in Florida. They are actively working to strip gay people of their rights.

• At the famous El Coyote Cafe in Los Angeles, which employs and gets much of its business from gays, manager and daughter of the cafe's owner Marjorie Christoffersen, so emotionally overcome that she could barely stand, was confronted at a community meeting about why she gave $100 to support Prop 8.

I am sick at heart that I have offended anyone in the gay community...you are treasured to me...I've been a member of the Mormon Church all my life and I responded to their request. . . .

I don't know of another place on earth where such diversity exists in harmony, joy and mutual respect. I know boycotts are planned. . . .It saddens me that my faith will keep you away from the Coyote. I cannot and I will not, no matter what, change my love and respect for you and your views.

• Jewish News Weekly in California addressed Prop 8 in an aside to an editorial demanding the LDS church cease postumous baptism of Holocaust victims:

Unlike some critics, we do not view the church’s action as a violation of its tax-exempt status nor a blurring of the line between church and state. . . .
However, actions do have consequences. If the church wants to put up millions of dollars to pass an odious and bigoted ballot measure, it had better be prepared for blowback.

That’s why we support Prop. 8 opponents’ calls for boycotts and other legitimate forms of punitive response. It’s a free country, and citizens have the right to strike back with their pocketbooks.

• Meanwhile, Mormon Bill Marriott says, Hey, don't boycott me! Neither Marriott, nor his hotel chain, contributed to the campaign to pass Prop. 8.

• A "March for Equality" in Salt Lake will begin Saturday at 11:30 at the Salt Lake City and County Building.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Cold dead fingers, etc.

The Tribune's editorial page tore into Utah's concealed weapon permit system again with the news that the Bureau of Criminal Identification finally has caught up with the revocation of "hundreds" permits carried by citizens who no longer deserve the right to pack heat because they violated the law.

They were illegally armed for weeks, months, maybe longer, with the full knowledge of the state Bureau of Criminal Identification, while the agency focused its efforts on processing concealed weapon permit applications.

That's right. Incredibly, revocation and suspension proceedings, which should have been launched when disqualifying crimes were uncovered during daily checks of court records, were delayed so the short-handed bureau could concentrate on putting even more guns on our streets.

Anonymous editorial writer, please breath slowly in and out of a paper bag.

Yes, it does sound like a classic case of Utah getting priorities mixed up. But at the risk of sounding like an in-bred hillbilly trip-wire constitutionalist, I gotta ask: Did violent crime skyrocket while this veritable army was on the loose with invalid permits?

And just because they had their permits, a piece of wallet-sized plastic, revoked, is there any reason to believe they still aren't walking around with a pistol down their pants?

Finally, now that their permits have been taken away — presumably a state trooper went to each of their homes and cut up their ID card — has violent crime in Utah plummeted?

I'm just asking.

Chill, if not heal

Voices in the gay rights community are beginning to speak out against some of the recent demonstrations against the Mormon church, the worst being vandalism at ward houses. Ryan Davis at Huffington Post says he's "a little scared of the anti-Mormon fervor" building up to a protest at the LDS Temple in New York:

Seriously guys, cut it out. I know you're angry. I know you need some way to express that anger, but the Mormon Temple in NYC makes no more sense than your grandparents' retirement community in Sacramento or The Apollo Theater in Harlem. Can't we be better than this?

The angry — and belated — demonstrations are only bringing negative press, Davis says:

We were out-organized and out-fundraised in California. That's why we lost. It's great to see all these voices speaking out about Prop. 8 now that it's too late to do anything about it. Where were these people weeks ago when the Equality Groups were on their knees begging for money?

Then there were two

The respected blog Politico says Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is emerging as a possible 2012 presidential contender. That should send a chill down Mitt Romney's spine. Who would command all that Mormon money?

Of course, any chance for Huntsman, who politically falls to the left of Utah's Democratic Congressman Jim Matheson, would depend on the moderate and pragmatic arm of the GOP taking control. Huntsman told reporters at the Republican Governors Association in Miami:

We as Republicans can’t shy away from speaking the word environment and we shouldn’t shy away from speaking the words climate change. When you’ve got a body of science that already is rendering certain judgements about what is happening in our world, for us to shy away, say it doesn’t matter as an issue, I think is foolhardy, it’s short-sighted and it’s bound to do us damage in the longer-term.

I can't imagine that coming out of Sarah Palin's mouth — or even the mouth of the current incarnation of Mitt for that matter.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The straight truth

A University of Utah psychologist is tearing into a national group that claims homosexuality can be "cured" for twisting her research to their own ends.

Lisa Diamond has done sexual-identity research that suggests a degree of "fluidity" in the sexual preferences of women. But she told The Salt Lake Tribune that NARTH, the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, used her studies to argue that being gay is a choice that can be treated. Diamond recently taped an Internet video criticizing NARTH:

I bent over backward to make it difficult for my work to be misused, and to no avail. When people are motivated to twist something for political purposes, they'll find a way to do it.

In the past, such "treatment" to cure homosexuality included aversion therapy such as, electric shocks, inducing nausea and exposing patients to endless tapes of the Donny and Marie Osmond show. (The last therapy was discontinued when LDS scientist discovered it increased gayness.)

NARTH maintains an office in the same downtown Salt Lake City building as Evergreen International, a Mormon faith-based group that encourages gays to abandon same-sex attraction. NARTH's sole paid staffer is Evergreen's executive director, David Pruden.

In the video, Diamond makes it crystal clear:

The [NARTH] therapists are saying, 'We can change your orientation,' when all of the data - all of the data - suggest that is not the case. They say same-sex attractions can disappear. They don't.

Magnificent Seven

Once again Utah makes national news for off-the-beaten-path religious beliefs.

Only this time it's not the polygamists. And no, it's not the mainline Mormons and their Prop 8 controversy, either.

It's Salt Lake City's pyramidal Summum church, which went to court to put its the Seven Aphorisms in Pleasant Grove's city park to keep the Ten Commandments company.

Pleasant Grove, with Utah County's usual unsure grip on the separation of church and state and the First Amendment, said, of course, no way.

The Summumists filed suit and a federal appeals court ruled that the First Amendment required the city let the Seven Aphorisms be displayed. The Supreme Court will hear the case, that, according to The New York Times, "could produce the most important free speech decision of the term."

The justices will consider whether a public park that has accepted a donated monument must accept any similar donated monuments as well — following the same rules as it does for other speech. Ron Temu, a Summum counselor, argues:

They’ve put a basically Judeo-Christian religious text in the park, which we think is great, because people should be exposed to it. But our principles should be exposed as well.

Sounds fair to me. I especially like the Third Aphorism:

Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.

Words to live by.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Let my people go

The LDS church just doesn't seem to get it.

Jews really, really don't want their Holocaust victims baptized by proxy into the Mormon religion. The Jews, of course, think the whole concept of baptism of dead people is ridiculous, but it still bugs them that the Mormons won't stop doing it.

Ernie Michel, a long-time crusader against the Mormon practice, was appalled to find out his parents, who were murdered at Auschwitz, had been claimed by the LDS church:

My mother and father were killed in the Holocaust for no other reason than they were Jews. How can the Mormons victimize them a second time and falsely claim their souls for eternity?

Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Mormon, explained to Michel that this baptizing of the dead was "done out of love for Jewish people."

Apparently, Mormons love Jews so much they want to erase their Jewishness in the hereafter.

Holocaust survivors are asking the Mormons, again, to cut it out. Says Michel:

We do not ask for, or want your love. We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone, they suffered enough.

In Lawyers We Trust

An Ogden Standard-Examiner reader points out that Utah's one-party control of the Legislature is dangerous for democracy, but it pales before the abuses of domination of government by a single profession.

Chuck Eddy argues that both houses are dominated by lawyers, who make it difficult for people from other walks of life to serve:

Most of us know that a one-party system is not in the best interests of the claimed democracy. . . . If we start counting the lawyers in the Legislature, we will see another domination. Not a one-political party, but certainly a one-profession legislative and judicial system.

We don't need a one-party political system, and we certainly don't need a one-profession government.

You owe us, Mitt!

Like clockwork, we saw the trial balloons go up after the election.

Mitt Romney was firing up his disciplined and battle-hardened team to go for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.

Besides the familiar threat of Mike Huckabee, only Sarah Palin stands in his way. So Mitt's minions tried to cut her off at her beauty queen knees. Spreading rumors that she is so mentally deficient that she doesn't know fourth-grade geography. Worse, they whispered, she's an uppidity dame (the worst slander of the right, short of "feminist").

Then, we learn that the Republican base really, really loves Sarah. We already knew the so-called GOP base (read: evangelical wingnuts and hillbillies) hates Mitt. A Rasmussen poll of likely Republican voters finds:

Palin:
Very Favorable: 65 percent.
Somewhat Favorable: 26 percent
Romney:

Very Favorable: 45 percent
Somewhat Favorable: 36 percent

Now we hear Romney is not going to run. Says Mitt's pal Charley Manning:

I'd be surprised if Mitt ever ran again for president. I sure don't think it was the best experience of his life.

Mitt, after all the money and energy and, dare I say it, hope, that Utah has invested in you — do you think you can bail? You are running in 2012, buddy. So buck up.

A little bit of Utah in Hollywood

With all the falderol about Utah being turned into the world's radioactive waste dump, it's fun to learn that tons of Utah N-waste was exported to Hollywood.

Most Utahns know the story of the 1954 John Wayne movie The Conquerer (though few, mercifully, have seen the stinker). This epic cinematic bomb was filmed in southern Utah during of a series of atomic bomb tests at Yucca Flats, Nevada. Legend has it that a statistically suspicious number of the cast and crew, including the Duke and Susan Hayward, later died of cancer.

Protest artist Nobuho Nagasawa created a whimsical work to commemorate the events, called Cloud of Mushroom Soup. She writes in her notes:

The Hollywood aspect of the tragedy continued when 60 tons of radioactive earth from Utah was transported to a Culver City studio by RKO Pictures, in order to recreate a desert set for additional filming. After the filming was completed, the dirt was distributed over the Hollywood area. To this day, parts of Hollywood may still be radioactive, since the half-life of plutonium is estimated at 24,000 years.

Sacrifices on the altar of Prop 8

Equality Utah, a gay rights group, is calling the LDS church's bluff.

Mormon leaders defended their support for Proposition 8 saying the church is not antigay and accepts legal protections already in California law. Now, Equality Utah wants those California protections extended to gays and lesbians in family values fortress Utah. Stephanie Pappas, Equality Utah’s chairwoman, says:

We are taking the L.D.S. Church at its word.

The g

roup has the support of several Utah lawmakers who will sponsor a five-pack of gay rights bills addressing hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, probate rights and civil unions or domestic partnerships.

This initiative will be interesting, if short lived — the Utah Legislature's power structure is shaping up to be at least as conservative as in past years. Homophobic Sen. Chris Buttars, right, will be back with what he considers to be a mandate to protect traditional values. A campaign to make Utah more like California will be quickly crushed. The purpose of Prop 8, after all, was to accomplish the reverse.

Meanwhile, the independent-film community is desperately trying to avoid a boycott of Utah's Sundance Film Festival. The annual Park City event is as much a showcase of liberal issues as it is an art and commerce event. As filmmmaker Allison Anders (Mi Vida Loca and Gas, Food Lodging) argues, a boycott would hurt exactly the wrong people:

To boycott the festival which has been the home for all diverse voices to be presented on the screen is dangerously backward thinking.

New York Post film critic Lou Lumenick offers:

The highly inclusive Sundance Film Festival has played a key role in nuturing the Queer Cinema movement for two decades and showcases several gay-themed movies every year. So this would seem to me to be a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Finally, Sundance director of programming John Cooper, who is gay and married his partner earlier this month in California, says:

There were times in my 20 years here when I felt like Sundance was one of the only places these voices were heard. Our location in Utah puts us in the heart of America which makes our mission just that much more important. Through the last 25 years this irony has not been lost on me.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Mitt's Palin problem

After a week of leaks from the McCain campaign that painted Sarah Palin as an tantrum-throwing, towel-wearing, in-bred hillbilly idiot, Mitt Romney is denying his supporters are behind the smear campaign.

Some blogs have linked Romney loyalists to the nasty revelations that Palin, for instance, thinks Africa is a country, not a continent. The motive, the bloggers say, is to scuttle Palin to ensure Mitt's 2012 presidential run.

Mitt's closest advisors deny any involvement, but his former campaign spokesman Kevin Madden sharply critcized the selection of Palin, telling CNN:

When you put out an unknown and you give them 70 days with which to go through a vetting process, both by voters and the national press corps, ugly things can tend to happen.

Romney knows better than anyone Ronald Reagan's "11th Commandment": Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican. The commandment, of course, has been regularly ignored during this campaign. But if Mitt hopes to ride in and rebuild the GOP, he doesn't want to be seen as a backstabbing opportunist — especially when two-thirds of the Republican base says it wants their adored Palin as the 2012 standard bearer.

Stop, baby, stop

Barack Obama already has taken a direct interest in Utah. His staff is trying to figure out a way to reverse a Bush Administration push to hand out leases on backcountry near some of the state's iconic national parks, including Arches and Canyonlands.

John Podesta, co-chairman of Obama's transition team, says the president-elect is exploring ways overturn the sale of Bureau of Land Management parcels in Utah. Podesta decries the lame-duck administration's effort to begin:

. . . oil and gas drilling in some of the most sensitive, fragile lands in Utah that they're going to try to do right as they are walking out the door. That's a mistake.

But it's unclear whether a reversal is possible this late in the process — the leases will be sold a month before Obama is sworn in.

Open wound

Mormon church leaders have called for healing between its faithful and the gay community following its successful support of California's Proposition 8 that bans same-sex marriages.

But the gay community doesn't seem ready to get over it. Activists and supporters of gay rights have demonstrated against the LDS church in cities throughout the West, including Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego and at the LDS headquarters in Salt Lake City.

Now, many gay rights activists are calling for a national boycott of the church, or at least what is seen as church subsidiaries: Utah skiing and tourism, the Osmonds, American Idol star David Archuleta, the pop band The Killers (the lead singer is from Nephi) and, presumably, our beloved sea monkeys. Says a Prop 8 opponent:

At a fundamental level, the Utah Mormons crossed the line on this one. They just took marriage away from 20,000 couples and made their children bastards. You don't do that and get away with it.

• Gay rights activists have also mounted a campaign to strip the Mormon church of its tax status as a religious organization because of its involvement in the political process.

• Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is calling on the California Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8.

• And a famous Utah business marriage, that of WordPerfect's Bruce Bastian and Alan Ashton, has gone to Splitsville.

With friends like that . . .

Mary Kay and Asha Huntsman.

Gov. Jon Huntsman won re-election in a resounding landslide. Part of that overwhelming approval came from Utah's Indian community. Huntsman who loves all things Indian, from his adopted daughter Asha to the spicy pickles that he says sustained him through the campaign, celebrates Diwali, or the festival of lights, at the Governor's Mansion every year.

This year, amid the religious chanting and political chatter, Huntsman learned that the Indian Community might love him a little too much for his ambition's sake.

A speaker at the dinner heaped praise on Huntsman, finally concluding by reminding the Indian community it should rejoice that Huntsman's hard work to get John McCain elected president had come to nothing.

Gov. Huntsman would have been offered an appointment that we know he would not have refused. And we want to keep him here in Utah.

High praise indeed.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Anger in the heart of Zion

From the gay rights demonstration . . .

I'm astounded by the turnout at the park just across from the LDS church's headquarters building. I can't get up high enough to estimate the crowd except to say it is hundreds and hundreds, and groups of a dozen or more are still arriving. (the police put the number at between 2,000 to 5,000).

The protesters of the LDS Church's support for California's Prop 8 are energized by the massive turnout. People are hugging each other with excitement. Over and over, I hear, "I can't believe this many people turned out — in Utah."

A speaker shouting into a bullhorn says:

We are the children of Zion. We have gathered tonight to change the world. . . .

Mr. Monson, the LDS church is on notice. We will no longer be silent. We are politically organized and we are angry.

The crowd at one point chants:

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!

A small group of about 35 counterprotestors gathers across the street chanting:

The people voted. You are intolerant. . . . You want validation.

The protesters, are excited and angry, but peaceful. They shout back: "We love you!"

A gay man waves a sign at the counterprotesters, written in silver glitter, that reads:

STRAIGHT, GAY AND LESBIAN — GOD LOVES US ALL

A fellow demonstrator kids him, "Your sign is so straight."

Prop 8 demonstration in SLC

Protesters at the LDS Temple in Los Angeles.

Utah gay rights supporters will stage a demonstration protesting the Mormon Church's involvement in pass Prop 8 at 6 p.m. today outside the LDS headquarters building at the corner of State and North Temple.

Proposition 8 bans same-sex marriages in California, but was heavily supported by the Utah-based LDS church.

One Salt Lake City activist emails:

Twenty-one years ago, (1977), Barack Obama would not have been able to hold the priesthood in the Mormon Church - because of the color of his skin.

I bring this up, because that was wrong. The LDS Church was wrong in 1977 on civil rights, and they are wrong today.

Proposition 8 is not just a gay and lesbian issue. It is a CIVIL RIGHTS issue.

Interestingly, African-American voters showed little support for the same-sex marriage issue in the election.

Missing Mitt

As American rejoiced in wonder at the huge voter turnout nationwide — Utah's numbers declined. An expected 80 percent turnout became just 68 percent.

Officials offered various explanations:

• A snowstorm that hit during the prime after-work voting hours. (Sherri Swensen)
". . . at 5 o'clock, it pretty much started to die. And that was pretty much when the worst part of the storm hit. And it started to get dark."

• The ballot generally lacked hotly contested local races. (Mark Thomas with the Lieutenant Governor's Office)
"There are people who feel that this is a Republican state and my vote won't make a difference."

• Mitt Romney, Utah's favorite son who doesn't live here, wasn't on the ballot. (Joe Demma, Lt. Guv's chief of staff)

A race against time

The New York Times laments that millions of acres of Utah backcountry and National Parks have been put in danger of energy exploitation in the waning days of the Dick "Drill now, drill everywhere" Cheney and George Bush administration.

This sort of pillage would be hard to justify even if Utah’s reserves were large enough to make a difference, which they are not. The Energy Information Administration says that Utah has 2.5 percent of the country’s known natural gas reserves and less than 1 percent of its known oil reserves. And even if those reserves were worth going after, it would still be essential to protect areas of special cultural, scenic and recreational value.

The Obama administration will have to move quickly to limit the damage.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Git your guns!

Inspired gun salesmen in the area have managed to trigger a run on what #%&! liberals like to call "assault weapons." (We hillbillies prefer the term "fun machines.")

Barack Obama, they are shrieking, is going to ban these popular military-type weapons or at least outlaw large "family sized" magazines.

Detroit should hire gun runner James Bunten to sell SUVs, he'd have Chrysler out of bankruptcy in no time:

For customers out there thinking about getting one of these guns, don't think. At least put money down on it now to get a place in very long line.

All the noise is because Obama's campaign website slanders our manly munitions:

Such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.

Hey, Hope Guy and Pelosi — leave the collectors, fondlers and shooters of SKSs, AKs and other pieces of "living history*" alone. There's already so many in circulation banning is futile. Just stay focused on fixing health insurance and the economy.

To you guys who have been losing your water saying, "The Democrats'll take our guns" — I say relax. The true threat to your personal arsenals was Bush, Cheney and Orrin and their hysterical "homeland security" laws. And, unless you start running around in the street with your weapons, those bozos won't have an excuse to declare martial law and stay in office.

*Amazing isn't it how much business right-wingers give Red Chinese Army's Norinco Industries:

Get us out of the U.N.!

I guess it was too much to ask that once elected, Jason Chaffetz would cease playing to Utah County right-wing nutjobs and become a rational human being.

Right out of the box, the soon-to-be freshman congressman is spouting horse apples:

As [Barack Obama] tries to bring us closer to socialism, I will be a strong voice in opposition.

If Chaffetz (who doesn't even live in his district) really wants to play the fear card in Happy Valley, he can denounce — a la Joe McCarthy — Obama's secret plot to nationalize the scrapbooking and diet-supplement industries.

And you thought the last member of the John Birch Society cut the earthly cord in the state hospital in Provo in the 1970s.

Who re-elected Buttars?

Tribune columnist Rebecca Walsh went to South Jordan to find some people who actually voted for Sen. Chris Buttars. It wasn't hard:

Cindy Schmidt couldn't really explain her vote for the controversial Republican - except to offer that she took advice from "family." In spite of scrupulous reporting of every Buttars bumble - "dat," "the gay," the "black baby" thing, bullying a judge for a developer friend - Schmidt brushed each off as so much fluff.

"I think a lot of it's political. I don't put a lot of weight on it," she said.

Even an African-American she cornered at a polling place said he had forgiven Buttars.

He used poor judgment of a joke. He's one of those people who think they're funny but they're not.

Guv: GOP MIA

Huntsman and What'isface.

Gov. Jon Huntsman offered a stinging critique of the national Republican Party and, along with other GOP leaders across the nation, called for an overhaul of the party:

Was there anything that went right for us over the last several years?

Huntsman says the GOP's international agenda has been "flawed," and "squandered" U.S. prestige. The party also has failed to address issues at home, he said.

Domestically we have been totally tone-deaf in terms of recognizing the environment and where most Americans are in terms of having a healthy environment. We have been missing in action in terms of any semblance of fiscal responsibility, [and] we have put forward nothing meaningful in terms of health care reform that has any traction.

The Tribune calls on Huntsman to begin the cleanup with the Utah GOP over which he has direct control.

. . .While Huntsman governs from and for the center, the Republican majorities in the House and Senate stand far to the right of the governor, and the electorate as a whole.

Prop 8 battle, Part II

Gay rights supporters have filed three lawsuits asking the California Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8. They argue the gay-marriage ban is an illegal constitutional revision.

Supporters of Prop 8, which includes the Mormon church, say the suits are a blatant attempt to subvert the will of the people. Frank Schubert, co-chairman of the Proposition 8 campaign says the gay rights activists should bring an initiative themselves:

But they don't. They go behind the people's back to the courts and try and force an agenda on the rest of society.

Hundreds of gay rights supporters in Los Angeles clashed with police during a protest of the passage of Prop 8, which they compare to long-overturned laws that banned marriage between races.

And this just in: Mid-level Mormon Church leader L. Whitney Clayton (what is it about LDS leaders and initial initials?) is calling for healing and for both sides to treat the other "with civility, with respect and with love."

For gay rights activists, this is, of course, the equivalent of passing miscegenation laws then telling mixed-race couples to chill.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

About last night . . .

From the Hinckley Institute at the UofU . . .

A trio of political wonks have gathered to try to make sense of what happened yesterday.

They agree that, with the exception of Utah County, the two-party system seems to be returning to the state. Hinckley institute director Kirk Jowers says Utah Dems have matured and are running more successfully as "Western Democrats" — a sort of plain-spoken cowpuncher whom voters can't distinguish from a moderate Republican:

Their approach used to be a mouse flipping off the eagle sort of thing and it wasn't very successful.

Dan Jones, Utah's polling czar, applauded the Democrats' efforts in Salt Lake County. Besides taking over the County Council, Jones pointed out that the Democrats surprised him in other ways:

Mr. Obama came within two points in Salt Lake County of Mr. McCain. That is really an interesting statistic.

And while no Utah resident voted on California's Proposition 8 to ban gay marriage, it was the most controversial political issue in the Beehive because of the Mormon church's heavy involvement in pushing it through. Jones says:

I got more calls in regards to Prop 8 than I did about any issue in Utah. I did.
The religious part of politics is going to remain with us for a long, long time.

Jowers says that although the LDS church thought it was joining a religious coalition, it became the highest profile backer of Prop 8 — angering gay rights supporters across the nation:

For the LDS church, it's been a real intense ride. The LDS church played a huge role in passing Proposition 8. Now there will need to be some healing.

Quin Monson, assistant director of BYU's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy and Other Good Stuff, says the LDS church has built bridges with the Christian right through the Prop 8 alliance (I doubt it). And the hard-fought success in banning gay marriage proved one thing beyond a doubt:

The LDS is pretty formidable as a political force.

But it came at a cost to the Mormon church, which had been trying to show more compassion to its gay members, Monson says:

It's a difficult time to be a Mormon in California.

You can listen to a repeat of the discussion tonight at 7 on KUER.

Dems go all Spartacus on us

For a while there, it looked like the Democratic uprising in Salt Lake County was going to be breathtakingly successful. Sen. Chris Buttars, House Speaker Greg Curtis and Rep. Greg Hughes were all on the ropes.

But by this morning, homophobic Buttars, famous for his "black baby" statement, and Hughes, who recently survived an ethics probe, had eked out narrow victories.

Say what you will about October surprises and Machiavellian maneuvering, you've got to hand it to the once-moribund Democrats for not only scaring the poop out of Republicans throughout the state — but actually deposing Speaker Curtis, he of the soccer stadium and countless other backroom deals.

Democrat Trish Beck also blocked former Rep. LaVar Christensen from regaining his House seat — which must have honked off God, who, says LaVar, encouraged him to run.

For professional reasons, I'm sorry about Speaker Curtis. In a state house overflowing with mealy mouthed, unctuous personalities, the Speaker would give it to a reporter straight (that's not the same as true — but at least it was a quote you could use).

A couple years ago, I was treated to the Speaker's extensive vocabulary in front of several stunned lawmakers. The Tribune had printed an editorial accusing Curtis of using his position as speaker to benefit one of his company's real estate clients.

Curtis was enraged and he drafted me as a stand in for the Trib's editorial board. His dexterity with earthy language would have inspired awe in a Hell's Angel. He dismissed my suggestion he write a letter to the editor with an apt Merchant Marine proverb about having sexual intercourse with one's neighbor's cocker spaniel.

I'll miss him.

S. Jordan fails IQ test

This photo is good for another five years!

Despite the editorial blasts of The Salt Lake Tribune and the pleas of gays and people of color everywhere, Sen. Chris Buttars has been re-elected.

Score another win for the Eagle Forum.

The desperate opposition to his re-election and his narrow victory, of course, have only have made Buttars meaner.

I'll continue to defend all there is to do with traditional values. There's a war against that.

Saturday Voyeur's writers and stand-up comedians everywhere will be delighted to hear that. We can only wonder what further mischief and misadventures the old crank — who now thinks he has a mandate from God* — will dream up.

*Or the next best thing: Gayle Ruzicka.

Heee's baaack . . .

Who's that guy on the right?

Tucker Carlson has the glad tidings for Utah Mitt Romney fans who woke up ponering what might have been.

James Carville once said running for president was like having sex: It’s not something you're apt to try just once; there’s a high recidivism rate. This is good news if you enjoyed Mitt Romney the first time. You're almost certain to see him again in 2012.

David Bernstein, the Boston Phoenix writer who has followed Mitt Romney's quest for the presidency as close as anyone*, agrees: The presidential campaign is not over, but has just begun again.

So don't think of today as the end of obsessive political Presidential coverage, but part of a natural, endless cycle.

*Bernstein debunked Mitt's story about his father marching with Martin Luther King Jr.on the eve of voting in Iowa and New Hampshire. Ouch.

At Mo's it's about change

Mo's Grill . . .

This is where the Libertarian Party is supposed to be toasting their tragic heros. I'm hoping to see SUPERDELL Schanze, their whacked out candidate for governor who ran on the platform that he was the "only Christian" in the race and Jon Huntsman is an anti-Christ.

A small band is playing for about a dozen patrons. I ask a couple guys if they've seen the Libertarians. They have no idea what I'm talking about.

"The Libertarians are supposed to be here for a post election party," I explain.

Chris Griffis, a wisenheimer, says:

Libertarians? This is mostly a straight bar.

I tell him it's the best quote I've gotten all night and ask what he's celebrating. He lifts his beer and says:

Regime change.

At GOP party HQ, a dirge

Grand America . . .

Loneliest girl in town.

The GOP's victory celebration is, in the words of state House majority leader Dave Clark, "somber":

You always take a lead from the head of the ticket.

A couple is picking out a sad song on a piano and no one is smiling. Utah is still red, red, but you wouldn't know it from this crowd. McCain concedes and it's definitely a Mudville mood. Even Jon Huntsman can't lift the blue haze:

Come on, there's a lot to be grateful for. . . .

Amazingly, the Republicans, who are dressed in Sunday best, have a fully stocked bar. Not so amazingly, unlike the casually dressed mob at the Democratic celebration, no one is bellying up to it. (Fun fact: A drink costs $9—twice what the Dems are charging.)

"Not much business," lonely bartender Ozlem Kislali says sadly. I buy a shot of Jack Daniels and give her a tip. Kislali's a Muslim from Turkey. She says she couldn't vote, of course, but she was pulling for Obama. I lift the drink: "To Barack Hussein Obama."

Democratic party HQ, Euphoria

Downtown Radisson. . .

I made the rounds of the victory celebrations to gauge the reaction to a historic election.

First-time voter Rosalind Keys, left.

The first thing you notice squeezing your way through the crowded hotel staircases and halls is that these are not only happy Democrats, but they are young.

And they are here for Barack Obama. It doesn't matter to them that Utah is going overwhelmingly to McCain, that Jon Huntsman, Jason Chaffetz, Rob Bishop and Attorney General Mark Shurtleff have trounced their Democratic opponents. This is a celebration, and the energy is pulsating.

Misty Fowler, 31, chair of Utah's Obama machine, is wandering around in a daze. Almost two years ago, she read Obama's autobiography and dived into organizing the nation's reddest state. The turning point came when she and a few dozen Obama supporters got Obama to make a "brief" stop in Kimball Junction the summer of '07.

The few dozen turned into several hundred on the hillside below the Olympic ski jump and Obama's stop stretched into more than an hour — most of it just to shake hands. Fowler is still more amazed than anyone with what followed:

When I got into this 22 months ago, I was in it for the right person — not the person I though was going to win. Now, it looks.... it looks like we are going to win.

A few minutes later, I hear cheering and Rosalind Keys placidly tells me, "Obama has won." She is a 50-year-old African-American from Ogden. This is the first time in her life she has voted:

I voted for Obama. Before, it was just so much feuding.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

A last roll in the mud

John Rendall, Democratic challenger for Chris Buttars senate seat, claims:

Chris Buttars has told lobbyists that I'm gay and that I have $100,000 of gay money.

Not that there's anything wrong with gays, but Rendell's wife Becky is so angry that she recorded robocalls to defend her husband from Buttars' "false and shameful" and "outrageous" allegations.

Rendell acknowledges he received some money from a gay activist — but only $2,000 out of the $64,000 he has raised. What is gay money? Did it come only in currency with pictures of gay presidents — all $5 bills for instance?

Expect the the nastiest smear to come later today, when Buttars starts calling Rendell a "dat."*

*In mocking the theory of evolution, Buttars famously quipped: "I've heard of dogs and I've heard of cats. But I've never heard of a dat."

New motto? 'Kick Me State'

What is stand-up comedy going to do for material when Utah finally secedes from the Union?

Last night for instance, Comedy Central's coverage of the election skewered the Beehive State three (3) times for cheap laughs. In a report on the Mormon church's $25 million in financial support for California's Prop 8, Jon Steward quipped:

If there is one value that the Mormon church has always held dear it is that marriage should be between one man . . . (long pause for laughs).

Then he rolled into a gratuitous aside:

Quick Mormon fun fact — their church had to found its own state because America refused to tolerate how they got married. Anyway, that's how America got stuck with Utah.

Colbert couldn't let it alone either. When Stewart called on all Americans to vote because it was the Olympics for out-of-shape people and had no doping tests:

Colbert topped his punchline:

Just to be safe, I hired a Mormon to pee in a cup for me.

Achtung! Blogging can be upsetting

KSL-TV offers some "eek-a-mouse" journalism with its latest Internet horror story.

With the catch phrase, "post at your own peril," anchorette Deanie Wimmer (Yes, Nadine is going by "Deanie." And you though she had topped out on perkiness) shares a story of a blogger who was shocked to discover that a picture of one her children had been Photoshopped to add a Hitler moustache and posted on a white supremacist website. (How did she come across it?)

Another momperson who puts up a virtual scrapbook says she received dozens of insults on her blog from some nutcase out in Web World (it turned out to be a close relative). But here's the tragedy, Wimmer says, no laws are on the books to throw such Internet hooligans in the slammer.

I get the feeling we'll see some blogging sanitation laws introduced in the Utah Legislature, including putting trolls in the sex offender registry. So straighten up, Anonymous.

Steve Young's wife problem

Is Steve Young's wife trying to sack his political future?

I can only assume the legendary NFL quarterback and BYU deity is trying to follow the Mitt Romney strategy for running for public office — emphasize your leadership fame and build on the rock-solid base of the Mormon voting bloc.

But this California Proposition 8 thing complicates Young's ambition (and undermines his ranking of coolest Bay Area sports figure). Being aligned with the LDS church, which is

bankrolling the drive to outlaw gay marriage, puts him crosswise with about half the California electorate (His jersey number was 8!). Under heavy pressure, Young appears to be trying to walk the line between the two groups by not taking a public stand on the issue.

Then his wife Barbara takes the snap and rolls out — very publically donating $50,000 to the effort to stop Prop 8, sticking pro-gay marriage lawn signs in front of their house and spouting off crazy stuff like:

Steve is completely supportive of me and my work for equality.

She makes her hall-of-famer husband like a wimp, which he exacerbates by telling KSL:

For Barb, who has a remarkable and enviable compassion for others, those political activities are far more public than mine. Those who know me know I chose long ago not to be publicly active in the political process.

Here's the solution Steve: Move back to Utah and run for the senate or governor. The LDS bloc will forgive you after the ladies in the ward scrub Barbara of her "passion for human rights." You'll win in a walk.

How bad is it?

As the Los Angeles Times puts it, in this economy even sex doesn't sell. Brothels in Nevada are seeing their business fall off precipitously.

. . . 180 miles west of Salt Lake City, near the junction of Interstate 80 and Highway 93, Donna's Ranch has seen its business plummet nearly 20%. More than three-quarters of its customers are long-haul truckers, and high fuel and food prices have drained them of "play money," owner Geoff Arnold says. That cuts into pay for his 10-member staff and the "working girls." . . .

Signs of the economic free fall have cropped up in many of Nevada's 25 or so legal brothels. The Mustang Ranch, for example, has a steady stream of customers, but the number of women vying for work has soared. Even a 74-year-old applied.

Saddle up, Mitt

An American News Project documentary on Barack Obama supporters in Utah explores the spread of purple in the nation's fire-engine red state.

With some oversimplification, the video suggests the biggest reason the Beehive is swinging toward the Democratic candidate is Utah's dominant Mormon culture and its heroic action figure Mitt Romney. In a nutshell:

Mormons won't soon forget the way Mitt and their religion was insulted by McCain and the GOP's evangelicals during the primaries.
Many Mormons accept the so-called "White Horse prophecy" that predicts a Mormon will ride into save the country in a time of crisis.

The White Horse lore, which has some foundation in historic statements by LDS leaders, bubbles to the surface every time a Mormon runs for national office. The rumors made the rounds when Orrin Hatch, and George Romney before him, ran for president.

Obviously, with endless war, recession, fossil fuels running out, global warming and Salt Lake's demographic shift to a non-Mormon majority upon us, the last days are here. A righteous dude on white stallion (or Harley) seems overdue. It follows that Obama is just part of the plan to put Mitt in the White House 2012.

If that's the case, any blue tint in Utah is only temporary. One Obama supporter in the video admits:

Not for the next thousand years will Utah go blue.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Ultimate liquor shopping

From the spectacular DABC booze sale. . .

A queue of pathetic winos, including bargain hunting moms, some of Salt Lake City's best chefs and me line up in front of the state wine store.

The reason, of course, is the socialist government-controlled liquor distribution network's monthly booze sale. It's a sacred ritual of Utah's drinking culture.

Discontinued liquor products are cleared out at heart-stopping markdowns the first Monday of every month. The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control doesn't advertise the sales — that would smack of capitalism, or worse, promote consumption. But among us lumpenproletariat, emails are exchanged listing the best buys and even the prices. Apparently, there's a mole or two inside the state liquor ministry.

The chefs are forced to participate because a good score once a month will allow them to offer some great bottles of wine at a reasonable markup and perhaps stay in business.

When the doors swing open, we pour in. (This time, at least, no one is trampled.) Everyone, except me, seems to know exactly where they are going. Some struggle with shopping carts piled head-high with full cases. Others lug boxes, filling them as they dart down the crowded aisles.

I dive into what looks like a rugby scrum and emerge on the other side with a box containing loose bottles. Without even checking the price, I head for the cash register. Back out in the daylight, I realize I paid $40 for seven bottles of something Spanish and bubbly.

Tomorrow night, I'll watch the election returns and find out if I got a deal.

Steve Young's wife says 'No!'

Barbara Young, the wife of former 49ers quarterback and Brigham Young University star Steve Young has signs stuck in the couple's Palo Alto yard calling on voters to support families by defeating Proposition 8, which would ban same-sex unions.

Barbara Young, who apparently wears the pants in the Young family, has donated about $50,000 to defeat Prop 8, and says in a statement that the family does not believe in discrimination and "therefore our family will vote against Prop. 8."

Barbara Young makes it clear about her commitment to defeating Prop 8:

I am very passionate about this issue and Steve is completely supportive of me and my work for equality. We both love our Church and are grateful that our Church encourages us to vote our conscience. Steve prefers not to get involved politically on any issue no matter what the cause and therefore makes no endorsement.

I guess Steve doesn't want to jeopardize any speaking engagements. Now there's a role model we can look up to.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times calls for a no vote on Prop 8, saying its supporters, which includes the Mormon church are "practice the art of misdirection."

Look at anything except what Proposition 8 is actually about: a group of people who are trying to impose on the state their belief that homosexuality is immoral and that gays and lesbians are not entitled to be treated equally under the law.

That truth would never sell in tolerant, live-and-let-live California, and so it has been hidden behind a series of misleading half-truths. Once the sleight of hand is revealed, though, the campaign's illusions fall away.

Drop the curtain

Howard Stephenson, chief lobbyist for the Utah Taxpayers Association, an industry group, and sometime state senator, argues against government support of a Broadway-style theater — whether it goes in Sandy or Salt Lake City.

Without once using the terms "socialism" or "bread and circuses," Stephenson says subsidizing entertainment activities — from soccer stadiums to theaters — does little to boost the economy. He figures a Broadway like theater will only give people who enjoy theater more options — but won't generate more ticket sales:

. . . perhaps some Utahns would see “The Lion King” instead of a soccer game, a movie or a basketball game. However, subsidizing a theater, even a Broadway-style theater, does not increase how much people spend on leisure activities. It just rearranges who gets what.

The problems with taxpayer subsidies of this theater are no different from problems with public funding of soccer stadiums. First, why should taxpayers pay for a Broadway theater, but not a shooting range? Every Utahn would like taxpayers to pay for a portion of their favorite leisure activity, but taxpayers don’t, nor should they.

Kiss the wineries goodbye

A pull-out-the-stops, desperation, unfair (not to mention very funny) television ad warns Californians that if Proposition 8 passes, the Mormon church will turn their state into — there's no other way to put this — Utah.

Cannon goes out with a snicker

Discarded Utah Third District Congressman Chris Cannon is entangled in a plot to smear Barack Obama in the final days of the presidential campaign.

Cannon and his brother-in law, Robert Fox, tried to get an Oxford, England, expert to prove that Obama's autobiography Dreams from My Father was actually ghostwritten by former terrorist William Ayers.

Fox, a first-class true believer, explains their motivation wasn't dirty politics, but patriotism*:

This is no last-minute smear. I'd say it's a desperate attempt to save the republic [from Obama].

Unfortunately, no other GOP nutjobs were willing cough up the $10,000 for the computer analysis of Obama and Ayers' writing styles.

Professor Peter Millican at Oxford's Hertford College, by the way, did a quick analysis of the two books for free and found Cannon and Fox's allegation "implausible."

So what's true believer to do? Blame the messenger, of course. Cannon told the Tribune's Matt Canham and Tommy Burr that Millican, miffed because the $10,000 deal never went through, drew inaccurate conclusions.

*Presumably, they would have kept the revelation in the family and leaked the story to brother Joe Cannon editor of the Deseret News.

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