Sen. Hatch may become senior Republican in Congress – Salt Lake Tribune WASHINGTON – The Senate’s most senior Republican was recently convicted of a felony corruption and may be forced out. The second most senior Republican could land a Cabinet spot under President Obama. Waiting in the wings of GOP seniority: Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican first elected in 1976.
-
-
Provo police on alert for peeping Toms – Salt Lake Tribune Apparently BYU, the college of the Utah faithful, suffers a plague of pervos every fall when students return, move into housing or apartments, and don’t know enough to close the curtains. Peeping toms are a perennial problem in prissy Provo. Best comment from the Trib website: “Abstinence makes the church grow fondlers.”
-
Here’s a way to get yourself noticed: strip and jump in front of cars. In remote eastern Utah. On a Sunday. Honk! Scenic view included nude man, police say – Salt Lake Tribune Police in eastern Utah arrested a naked man they say was jumping in front of cars on a highway. About 11:50 p.m. Sunday, Uintah County Sheriffs deputies and a Vernal officer found the naked 24-year-old from Austin, Colo., at a scenic viewing spot along U.S. Highway 40. Sheriffs Lt. John Laursen said motorists reported the man was jumping in front of their vehicles and as deputies arrived…
-
The Salt Lake Trib’s letters to the editor often contain some interesting insights into life in Utah; I haven’t lived there for more than 30 years, and I feel I know the place because I can read the opinions of the cranks and the apologists and the activists and the completely whacked-out religious nutcases. This time, it’s a teenage girl’s perspective on the Texas FLDS polygamy case. She starts well, but I don’t think she can really imagine what it’s like to be raised in that society – no “modern girl” could, because essentially these are girls who are living…
-
Catholic bishops told to withhold parish information from Mormons – Salt Lake Tribune The Vatican letter calls LDS baptisms for the dead a “detrimental practice” and directs each Catholic diocesan bishop “not to cooperate with the erroneous practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” CNS reported. It annoys me that in 150 years, someone will baptise me according to the LDS doctrine of baptism for the dead, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it, other than mark the heavenly post “refused due to erroneous practice.”
-
Buttars wins GOP nomination – Salt Lake Tribune Utah State Senator Chris Buttars just barely makes it past the GOP nominating convention – avoiding a runoff primary by one (spoiled) ballot. Ew.
-
Say what you like about the religion, it’s not natural for women’s faces to be this lean. Even for nursing mothers, these women look like they’re not getting enough to eat. The one in the middle is becoming famous on Flickr for that monobrow, by the way. Their body language is weirdly out of synch with modern life, too. It’s as if they’ve adopted some kind of backwards-engineered emulation of the way women hold their bodies in old, old photographs from the pioneer days. They also remind me of the faces of hardscrabble farmers’ wives from the 30’s Dustbowl photographs…
-
One thing to remember: the FLDS compounds are as self-sufficient as possible. Medical care is handled “inhouse.” State mandated reporter laws for suspected abuse cases and records keeping: forget about it. More Clarity About Abuse, Intermarriage, Child Breeders, and the Fundamentalist Church of Later Day Saints | PEEK | AlterNet
-
The Lead notes that Presiding Bishop Katharine has been getting a lot of press lately; just about every where she goes, she gets local ink. Even in Utah.
-
I had to comment on the Salt Lake Trib’s forums on the following column: Guy: Overcoming the bigotry inside myself Two teenagers, a 16-year-old female and an 18-year-old male, vandalized a local church, causing $1 million in damage. They broke in and ran amok, destroying things with a baseball bat, spray-painting epithets and sacrilegious symbols on the walls, and, finally, lighting the building on fire. The members of this church, which has seen more than its share of persecution, were shaken and heartbroken. For 16 months the congregation relied on the hospitality of another church that rearranged its schedule to…