One Utah

A group of coworkers and I were mocking George W. Bush.  Another coworker tried to defend him saying “Things are better than under Clinton!  He’s doing better than Clinton.”  Let’s just say that there was a level of jeering I haven’t heard for a long time. 
People started shouting out a list of things that were worse under [...]

The Crandall Canyon disaster hearings are doing what they’re designed to do: get to the truth behind failures of federally-regulated industries and projects. But the mining company, federal government and our own senior U.S. senator are coal-walling them. After Day One, mine owner Robert Murray and MSHA chief Richard Stickler are trapped in their own [...]

Larry Craig has resigned - and been sent to the official politicians purgatory of the late night comic. I imagine the phrase “wide stance” will garner laughs for months. In reflecting on his career, on the rumors about his sexuality since he entered public life, it occurs to me that the end of his political [...]

Why are we blaming Nature for the totally HUMAN-caused suffering and death at the Crandall Canyon mine? First Robert Murray. Now, Orrin “Sticking my Foot in My” Hatch refers to the botched mop-up-turned-rescue-turned-chaos-and-death operation as a “natural disaster.”
It wasn’t an earthquake. The “bumps” and shifting were caused by the mining of the mountain, [...]

Karl Rove is leaving the White House. 
This means nothing.  Rove will continue to be on Bush’s speed dial.  Moving him out of the White House means nothing - he will still set policy for this White House - now it just won’t be official.  I’ve long maintained the Rove is the exemplar of a Utah [...]

Let me begin by saying I apologize. I’ve been gone promoting my new movie, hob-nobbing with Hollywood bigshots and lowlifes, and basking in the human-induced tanning machine that is southern California for a while (note driving with the top down and AC off to prevent damage to ozone-layer but lack of hands-free cell headset to [...]

When Rep. Waxman released his report detailing the shortcomings of abstinence only sex education, conservatives did everything in their power to discredit the report.  They failed.  So, Sens Santorum and Coburn commissioned their own report attacking comprehensive sexuality education.  To help, they even hired two groups that promote abstinence only to prepare the report.
Predictably, the report [...]

Just a few years ago, America was revered for it’s constitution. The Republicans and weak Democrats have served to prove that we were overly prideful of our heritage. If the checks and balances we have been bragging about for hundreds of years could be weakened by the greedy in just a couple of decades and [...]

By almost any measure of social pathology, the biggest problems are among the strongly Republican and culturally conservative states.
A recent Commonwealth report found that found that southern States dominate the bottom of the rankings in terms of health care - Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, West Virginia, Kentucky, Louisianna, Nevada, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma are [...]

George Lakoff explores “the nation as family” metaphor in his books, especially Moral Politics.  Lakoff focuses on the strict father nurturant parent dichotomy.  But, the metaphor isn’t limited to that model.
Over a Republic of T, Terrance has been exploring the Myth of a Bush Recovery; in Part three he writes
George W. Bush may well have been [...]