My Page: Christian Probasco
Manic depressive Brian Cardall died shortly after being tased by a Hurricane, Utah police officer on June 9. Cardall was reported by his wife, Anna, who told a dispatcher he had “full blown lost it” and had taken off his clothing and was interacting with moving traffic on State Road 59 while screaming incoherently. She said she was afraid for his safety and worried about bystanders who had stopped to help. Anna, who is six months pregnant with the couple’s second child, had locked her 2-year old daughter in their car.
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A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) crowing about its victory with the Omnibus lands bill.
“Future generations,” read the e-mail, “will be grateful as they splash through narrows in Doc’s Pass, watch a desert tortoise in Beaver Dam Wash or gaze open-mouthed at the view from Canaan Mountain.”
No false modesty here: SUWA takes credit for a narrows in the earth, a life form and a spectacular view. And they presume to speak for future generations, most of whom, I’m convinced, if SUWA had its way, would not be allowed anywhere near the narrows, the pass, the wash, the turtle or the mountain.
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Jim Stiles, editor of southern Utah’s esteemed Canyon Country Zephyr, arrived at some of the same conclusions about the future of southern Utah as I have, albeit from a different direction. Mainly, we’ve both noted, and written about, and grown tired of the economic model of billionaires and corporations with their myriad earth-unfriendly agendas paying their dues to Washington D.C.-based corporate environmental organizations and then getting a greenwash pass to wreak environmental havoc. [more]
Those of us to who enjoy speculating on where the young Californian Everett Ruess may have disappeared to back in 1934 may have to find another hobby. According to articles in the Salt Lake Tribune and National Geographic Adventure an unmarked grave near Comb Ridge is the adventurer’s last resting place. [more]
When a monster like the omnibus lands bill gets shoved through Congress, the first question we outsiders ask is: ‘does it affect us?’ i.e. our state, our county, our city, etc. In this case it’s no, and yes. No rivers in Sanpete County were federalized and no actual wilderness was converted into official “wilderness.” However, Utah’s punishment for not helping elect Barack Obama, in terms of the lands bill, was the closure of several tens of thousands of acres of land down in Dixie to motorized traffic and economic development. [more]
I carried a quarter-sized kidney stone inside me for about a year because the trucking company I was driving for only offered pretend insurance. When I learned how much it was going to cost me to have the stone zapped with sound waves and how little of the expense my company would pay, I put the operation off. Then a study came out showing a lithotripsy could damage the pancreas and help precipitate diabetes. I already suffer from boughts of reactive hypoglycemia and have been told by doctors my condition is “pre-diabetic.” I wasn’t interested in further damaging my pancreas, and I delayed the operation even longer. [more]
I wrote an article in November about my efforts to prepare for winter. Now my preparations have run up against the juggernaut of winter weather reality.
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Utah has had a surfeit of eco-news in the past couple of weeks. First, of course, there’s Tim DeChristopher, the “bogus BLM bidder.” DeChristopher put his paddle up on December 19th to disrupt a BLM sale of mineral rights in Utah. He is now awaiting charges from the BLM, which seems completely flummoxed. They are purportedly not planning on holding another auction. [more]
A few things make this story timely. First, I just filled my gas tank for $1.33/gallon. Also, Flying J, the big truck stop chain I once worked for and from whom I bought my fuel while I was driving over the road, filed for bankruptcy on Monday, Dec. 22. [more]
The BLM’s auction of mineral and oil leases in Salt Lake City took a turn for the weird last week, beginning with Utah’s best loved/most reviled celebrity, ole Bob Redford’s endorsement of a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Earthjustice to halt the sale. [more]
