“The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
-Mark Twain

A document leaked from the Department of Interior regarding the possible creation of new national monuments in Utah and several other states has the state’s political leaders upset. Senator Bennett has called the department’s actions “unacceptable.”Senator Orrin Hatch complained that the present administration would prefer to “dictate to us how our lands will be managed.” Governor Gary Herbert will supposedly harangue Interior Secretary Ken Salazar about the list tomorrow.

The story

A Salt Lake family is at odds with the Salt Lake Police Department on whether the police are responsible for cleaning up the house into which they dumped 10 tear gas canisters. 

University of Utah climate scientist Jim Garrett made the national news recently with a new climate model which has disturbing implications for moderates in the global warming debate.

Politicos have been trying to figure out just where the Republican Party plans to get the surge for its resurgence. The Republicans have done their damndest to shed independent and Libertarian voters since 2001, ‘and what do they aim to replace them with?’ I ask you. Do the Neoconservatives represent a large enough voting bloc to give them control of the White House and Congress?

A new DNA test on remains found in a makeshift grave near Comb Ridge has disproved the possibility they belong to a famous young wanderer who vanished in Southern Utah in the thirties, according to a story by Paul Foy of the Associated Press.

The Salt Lake Tribune’s Thomas Burr wrote an informed feature about my very own Sanpete County a couple weeks ago. The gist of it could be paraphrased as a question: “what effect has Washington’s multi-gogillian dollar bailout had on one of Utah’s backest backwaters, and by extension, all the other hick counties throughout the U.S., and the employment rate therein?” Hard to tell, he concludes. There’s evidence the stimulus has helped Sanpete County and there’s the possibility that once the stimulus money runs out, the economy there (here) is going to fall on its face.

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. [more]

Browsing the news stack on the Blanding, Utah artifacts raids, I finally found an editorial in the Deseret News which seemed to address what for me are the central issues. It’s by George Hawkings of Bountiful who references a previous artifacts raid 23 years ago. [more]

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.
[more]

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]