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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:39PM
Two and half years ago, The Salt Lake Tribune launched an excellent online adventure called the Salt Lake Crawler. With courage that still amazes me, a couple top editors at The Trib wanted to test the limits of newspaper sensibilities on the rootin' tootin' frontier of the Internet.
I was given the enviable job of blogging whatever entered my head about Utah's politics, culture, people, fauna and legislative lunacy. The stuff I wrote under The Tribune's online masthead delighted many readers and shocked others, including quite a few old-style journalists. But it was read. In fact, District Attorney and intergalactic party girl ... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:39PM
I've got a day off to enjoy the weather. So try not to do anything bloggable and have a great weekend.
Crawler will return Monday. ... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:40PM
The Deseret News' new chief executive finally has been forced to address the big changes he plans for reinventing the state's 160-year-old newspaper. Unfortunately, Clark Gilbert's statements didn't shed much light on rumors of massive layoffs and moving the DNews out of its downtown digs.
It must be a bummer for the new leadership at Deseret Media to have to answer to the community's fears of dismantling a major news source and an icon of the LDS Church, rather than simply carrying out their plans. As it is, they could be triggering a controversy -- Mormons and anti-Mormons worldwide are following t...
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:40PM
It ain't WalMart. Target, that store of cool TV ads an... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:40PM
I'm taking the day off to recharge the old batteries. Crawler will return tomorrow....
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:40PM
The bridge burning on the LDS side, of course, is in the headlines, including Proposition 8 and an amendment to the Utah Constitution prohibiting same-sex marriages. |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:40PM
Now, a columnist at The Baltimore Sun has unearthed something that Orrin, who faces a tough re-nomination in 2012, would rather ... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:40PM
It couldn't happen here. Lee Davidson at the Deseret News brings a tale of modern-day slavery and human trafficking -- in Milford and Delta, Utah. The U.S. Department of Justice is investigatio... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:40PM
Strayer is curious whether attention, memory and learning are improved by a hiatus from our ubiquitous communication devices. Strayer says the river trip and, of course, formal research could lead to better understanding of a host of brain problems, including attention deficit disorder (ADD), schizophrenia and depression.
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:40PM
Michael Clara, chair of the Utah Republican Hispanic Assembly, says it appears many Utah lawmakers condoned the release of confidential information from state data bases. "It seems like some of our state officials are borderline complicit in this." It hasn't been los... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:41PM
Predatory bees. Utah has poached a $100 million Adobe Systems' expansion from California and the Sacramento Bee is putting out the alert tha... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:42PM
You've got give Sandstrom this, he's got cajones. Go here and here for details on Sandstrom's "not Arizona-like bill" that he introduced as:
Highlights of the press conference: Sandstrom says his bill "is not about race." (Jeers. "Liar!") |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:42PM
FOR UPDATE go here.
Utah's journalism and political communities have been buzzing the last couple weeks with rumors of an impending implosion of the Deseret News. Let me concisely repeat the rumors: |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:42PM
A candidate for the Florida Legislature is getting national attention for reviving an ugly idea first pitched by Jason Chaffetz during his successful campaign for Congress: Tent camps for illegal immigrants.
Marg Baker, who is fighting for the GOP nomination for a Tampa seat, says: "We can ship them out to the middle of the country [would that be Utah?] and put up high walls and leave them there. . .... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:42PM
The National Republican Congressional Committee is attacking Congressman Jim Matheson as a "phantom" representative who takes tainted campaign money.
Matheson's mouthpiece Alyson Heyr... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:42PM
Actress Katherine Heigl and her husband, musician Josh Kelley "fell in love with Utah" and are going to forsake LA for the Beehive. Heigl, a casual Mormon who once said she was too busy to practice her faith, has apparently been drawn to Utah: “It was a dream of Katie's for years. We got married out there and I just fell in love with it. It's amazing and one of my favorite places in the world.”
Buh-bye, Warren. Gov. Gary Herbert is |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 04:42PM
Mayor Ralph Becker says Salt Lake City's new semi-circular cop headquarters (conceptual design above) unveiled yesterday will not be a “fortress” or “police monolith.”
Yeah, that curving design is warm and welcoming, not all fortressy like this: Or this: Or monolithy lik... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:02PM
I attended a press conference yesterday at which a bipartisan group of grass-roots activists and community-media types called for Utah politicians to fess up the details of an obvious deal between GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch and President Barack Obama to install a Republican as U.S. Attorney for Utah.
Apparently, the somewhat pathetic dog-and-pony show held at the sleepy Avenues library branch managed to hit a nerve. Later, The Tribune received the press release (shown above) from Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:02PM
Gov. Gary Herbert challenged everyone in Utah, including state departments, last month to join the Clear the Air Challenge and drive less. I've encouraged my staff in the Governor's Office to participate in the challenge . . . . Now, I am asking all state agencies to create their own teams to compete in the challenge.
Then, Herbert, who is somewhat skeptical of liberal ideas like global warming, promptly blew off the program and didn't change a thing about the way he travels. Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon, who met the challenge by carpooling, now has a smoking gun ... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:02PM
In one of the odder press conferences I've attended, a bipartisan group that includes failed Democratic congressional candidate Claudia Wright, conservative talkjock Mills Crenshaw and gay rights/political activists Jim Debakis and Troy Williams directed a dozen questions at four bored reporters and the cosmos in general.
It actually boiled down to one question: What are details of the "horsetrade" behind the Obama White House favoring a Republican for U.S. Attorney for Utah? Obama's folks apparently snubbed the suggestions for U.S. Attorney of Blue Dog Democrat Rep. Jim Matheson and inste... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:03PM
The Utah Legislature's reactionaries are set launch their grand adventure of securing the nation's borders from Rule of Law-scoffing immigrants through intrusive police powers that will test the Constitution.
Rep. Stephen Sandstrom unveiled his Arizona-style-only-tougher bill Monday to Gov. Gary Herbert (the rest of us will get to see it in about a week). Sandstrom says the governor likes his bill:
In obvious pandering to Utah's fa... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:03PM
After generally positive reviews for its handling of the Red Butte oil spill, Chevron has outraged and alienated victims by attaching a legal waiver releasing the company from all future liability to the reimbursement payments to families evacuated from their homes.
Utah's colorful history. A series of rare color photos taken by the Farm Services Administration during the Great Depression (the other one) have been put online by the Library of Congress. Among them are shots of the construc... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:03PM
Some Utah legislators want to explore privatizing Utah's most successful experiment in socialism: the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. They figure they could sell parts of the state's monopoly on booze for $22 million toward plugging the gaping hole in the budget.
Most of Utah's conservative Legislature is philosophically in tune with privatization, except for one major hitch. Being for the most part Mormons, the Lege likes control. Especially over other peoples' fun. State privatization board chairman Randy Simmons explains:
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:03PM
We hear ad nauseum about Rule of Law from Utah County politicians in connection with enforcing immigration law. But how about statutes (not to mention the state Constitution) outlawing polygamy?
The forces of good in Happy Valley are facing a real test in a new TLC reality television series Sister Wives that follows the exploits polygamous family. As it happens, patriarch Kody and his three wives -- soon to be four -- live in Lehi. The prosecutors office, so far, has no comment on the show. You've got to wonder where Reps. Ken Sumsion and John Dou... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:03PM
From calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush to joining the Kyoto Protocol, leave it to former SLC Mayor Rocky Anderson to blurt out what other people are just thinking.
On a ABC 4 News interview, Rocky told newsman Chris Vanocur that Mayor Ralph Becker's first two years have been a disaster that included clashes with the public over putting a cop headquarters on Library Square and approving an unsightly sky bridge downtown. With very little prodding, Rocky said that if things don't improve fast, voters ought to deny Ralph a second term. |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:03PM
Legislative leaders expect to see an array of bills on immigration in January's Legislature, representing Utah variations on the Arizona law that was gutted by a federal judge. It'll be interesting to see how badly legislators abuse the Constitution. Bad omen: Senator Dennis Stowell, R-Parowan, is proposing a bill to allow state workers to rat out suspected illegal immigrants.
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:05PM
The Economist, no less, argues Utah -- not Arizona -- may be "a model for the rest of America" in immigration reform, with innovations that include Attorney General Mark Shurtleff's “Golden Spike Initiative” guest-worker program that harks back to the Chinese and Irish immigrants who built the Transcontinental Railroad. Says The Economist:
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:05PM
We know what calf and lamb lovers think of wolves returning to Utah. But where will dog lovers, a powerful special-interest group, come down on the wolf issue now that the rubber has met the road, so to speak?
The state Ag Department reports that a wolf attacked two working sheep dogs near the Wyoming border -- killing one and mauling the other. A 100-pound Great Pyrenees is apparently not much threat to its wild cousin, though the sheep herder says the wolf limped away from the confrontation. And no, I don't think a wolf park in Pioneer Park is a solution. ... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:05PM
California's Proposition 8, bankrolled in large part LDS Church members, has been overturned by a federal judge. The battle over gay marriage will, of course, continue on up to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Utah gays celebrated an important victory in the heart of Mormondom last night (the Jam bar offered karaoke and $1 draft beer).
Tribune photog Steve Griffin captured the moment in a panorarmic and eye-popping photograph that, for gay-rights advocates, must rank with Joe Rosenthal's "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima." If t... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:05PM
Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes says Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's efforts to increase bike commuting is "converting Denver into a United Nations community."
Reluctant hero. One of the women accused of distributing The... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:05PM
Voters like politicians who bring home the pork, right?
Wrong, says Steve Ellis of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. Voters have tossed six congressional incumbents so far this season -- four of whom held seats on the Senate or House Appropriations committees that serve as troughs overflowing with taxpayer money. Here's other Appropriations incumbents who got tossed:
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:05PM
Utah Rep. Stephen Sandstrom says a tough new immigration bill he is writing will be so different from Arizona's controversial law on which it is modeled that it should be called simply the "Utah immigration enforcement bill."
Sandstrom is chopping out provisions that a federal judge knocked down in the Arizona law. Changes in Sandstroms still-secret bill:
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:05PM
Congressman Jim Matheson is among 45 members of congress who can't seem to bring themselves to return tainted cash from ethics-challenged New York Rep. Charles Rangel. Matheson's holding on to $10,000 in grimy Rangel-dollars. Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, says keeping the money is another example of why Congress has lousy approval rating with the American people. "It's a case where greed trumps co...
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:05PM
The 2012 presidential election's wandering in the wilderness has begun in earnest and Utah has two potential candidates in high weeds wrestling with a special challenge -- they're Mormons. But Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman Jr. are taking different approaches to downplay their long, proud Mormon heritages.
According to the Deseret News, Mitt Romney, who was slammed by conservative Christians despite his openness in explaining his religious beliefs, is going to duck the question and h... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:05PM
Jon Davidson, Legal Director of Lambda Legal, a nationwide gay civil rights group, says that a cadre of Republican senators, including Utah's Orrin Hatch are opposing Supreme Court candidate Elena Kagan because of her support of gay rights.
Hatch and the others say they are troubled that Kagan, as dean of the Harvard Law School would not let recruiters on campus because she sees the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy as discriminatory. Writes Davidson: In other words, to gain their votes, these Senators insist that a... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:07PM
Kearns High school has won a variation of a golden fleece award for its $1 million program to arm 1,600 students with IPods. The program is supposed to "enhance" the students' education.
But Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John McCain of Arizona say the program, which uses stimulus money, is wasteful. The Kearns program is No. 74 on their list of 100 wasteful programs, with the quip: "There's an App for that: Stimulus Funds for iPods." |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:07PM
The LDS Church has launched television advertising campaigns in various parts of the country that take up enough air time to trigger press coverage (which is the point, of course). Ron Wilson, the marketing manager of mormon.org told Channel 4 in Jacksonville, Fla. "People that do not know a Mormon might think they're polygamists, sexists and bigots. When reversed, with people who do know a Mormon, they don't believe any of those myths." |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:07PM
Utah, world renown for issuing concealed-gun permits, without requiring people to set foot in the state or actually hit a target, has triggered a parallel boom in long-distance gun safety instructors.
The problem is that the state Bureau of Criminal Identification can't afford to regulate out of state instructors. Fly a BCI agent into Nashville or even Kalispell to sit in on a class? Not in this economy. Consequently, the 1 percent of instructors who lost their... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:07PM
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:07PM
Former Utah First Lady Mary Kaye Huntsman has published an attack in Chinese media on cigarette advertising. About a quarter of China's population is addicted to cigarettes already, and the tobacco industry has targeted women with ads.
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Updated on Aug 2, 2010 09:39AM
Small states tend to keep their senators in power longer than larger states and that longevity combined with the Senate's seniority system allows them to ship a disproportionately high amount of federal bucks back home.
At least that's the conclusion of political scientist Sean Theriault at the University of Texas, who found that representatives from small states can make a personal connection with voters, buck "anti-incumbent fever and stay in office longer.
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:07PM
A Navajo who personified the complicated relationship between the Mormon Church and American Indians, has died, excommunicated more than decade from the church he loved.
George P. Lee, who was one of the first Navajo children in the LDS Church’s Indian Placement Program, rose to the position of LDS general authority and many Mormons thought he might reach even more powerful positions in the worldwide church. But any hope of further achievement ended in 1989 when he was excommunicated for "heresy" and attempted child abuse. Armand Mauss, an LDS sociologist, says Lee was "created... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:07PM
How much clout does Orrin Hatch have in the Utah GOP, you ask?
Orrin has so much clout in the UTGOP that its chairman, Dave Hansen, is on his payroll to the tune of $60,000 a year. It's something that has driven Congressman Jason Chaffetz, who by the way has Hatch's Senate seat in his crosshairs for 2012, into violating, all over the place, Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican:
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:07PM
Thanks to Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, the people who released The List of 1,300 purported illegal immigrants may go from the status of folk heroes of the far right to successful martyrs for the cause. The Attorney General's Office intends to look into prosecuting some of the people on The List for identity theft.
Shurtleff is the same guy who initially compared the The List to round-up lists used in Nazi Germany. If one goes with Shurtleff's ... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:07PM
Young Latinos were joined by gay-rights groups and even progressive Mormons at the Capitol to protest rumblings that Utah will follow Arizona in passing a tough immigration law. Says Melodia Gutierrez of the Brown Berets: “It is time we rage against this system because silence only allows for the continuation of a flawed system.”
On the one hand. . . The Tribune reports that the UofU Utes have a solid reputation as they go into the PAC-10 in 20... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:07PM
Attorney General Mark Shurtleff shared details of his family's struggles with substance abuse at mental health awareness event. Shurtleff withdrew last November from a bid for U.S. Senate to spend more time with his daughter Danielle who was going through treatment.
The battle has continued and just this past week Shurtleff says he was hunting for Danielle on the streets of Sandy. ... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:07PM
Congressman Jim Matheson broke his silence on the Obama Administration's mysterious chucking of his nominee for U.S. Attorney for Utah. Instead, the White House may choose Republican Scott Burns, a fav of Sen. Orrin Hatch. (Teabaggers note: Obama and Hatch = hand and glove.)
Here's what Matheson told the Trib: He has no idea why the White House rejected his hand-picked candidate, David Schwendiman, for U.S. Attorney for Utah.
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:09PM
It was inevitable that Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz would step on some powerful toes when he took his courageous stand against the custom of honoring sports teams and jocks with congressional resolutions. Chaffetz's argument seemed straight-forward enough: Congress has more important business to attend to than bloviating about local sports heroes.
But then Jason took on the Gamecocks, and honked off South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a fellow Republican. Graham believes it is fittin... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:09PM
Lawyers for former state Senate majority leader Sheldon Killpack argued before a judge that evidence from a traffic stop that proved he was legally drunk should be tossed because the state trooper did not have legal cause to pull him over in the first place. Killpack pushed for some of the DUI laws that he is now trying to dodge.
Back in the game. Mitt Romney, savior of Utah's 2002 Olympic games, appears to be in better position than Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee or any other Republican to defeat President Barack Obama in 2012. Mitt trails the president by... |
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Updated on Aug 25, 2011 05:09PM
Gov. Gary Herbert's decisive handling of "The List" incident, a straightforward response that could become a case study in a PR textbook, is seen as a cowardly failure in some parts of Utah.
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The Tribune, always quick with a records request, got a look at the emails that flooded the Herbert's office after state officials quickly tracked down the culprits who gathered hundreds of names of purported illegal immigrants from confidential state records and released them to the media and law enforcement. The |
