Democracy for Utah | Democracy Begins With You Update: There are now 3 watch parties planned in the Salt Lake area. Several D4U members will be attending the watch party at the home of Aaron Thompson in West Jordan. Just in case any of my relatives in Utah might feel disposed to attend a Disarray of the Grunion speech-watching event. And if not, there’s always the Drinking Liberally event in Salt Lake tomorrow: We meet every friday at 6:30 p.m. in the loft of the Desert Edge Brewery in Trolley Square.

They’re not Sudanese refugees trying to make a new start. They’re blond, blue-eyed superfluous males from communities that are run more like a pride of lions or a troop of baboons than a town. Shurtleff helps revive ‘lost boys’ bill Legislation billed as a way to help youths evicted from polygamous homes – known as the “lost boys” – died in a Senate logjam last year. On Wednesday, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff told the Judiciary Interim Committee the bill, which would allow a judge to emancipate a minor at age 16, is among his top priorities. Shurtleff said hundreds…

Religious bias cost job, says teacher In Sevier County, everyone noticed she was a coffee drinker. Co-workers looking for the sacred garments worn by church members never saw her wearing them. Erin Jensen says those clues revealed she was not a practicing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and led to even more talk about her beliefs. “There were rumors around the community that I was a witch,” the former South Sevier High School teacher testified Wednesday. The end of the hallway where she and another non-LDS teacher had classrooms was referred to by students as…

Under the Banner of Heaven : A Story of Violent Faith This book, like a lot of others in the “expose'” genre, attempts to explain the background of a small, intense, and very insular subset of the dominant faith of Utah. Actually, it attempts to explain the connections and rivalries between several similar but different subsets of same, and how they all disavow each other and the “mainline” faith. Oh, and how certain kinds of unethical, criminal, and horrific acts of violence and mayhem can somehow be justified by said faith(s). I grew up in Utah, so some of the…

A couple of Utah news stories that caught my eye… deseretnews.com | Ex-Utahn, convict husband captured Okay, this first one is actually the “Wife springs convict husband from custody, kills deputy” story that’s been reported on the national news. The couple was recaptured in Ohio because they felt the net closing in, abandoned their car, and took a cab over the state line from some place in Kentucky to a cheap hotel on the Ohio side. Turns out there’s a Utah connection, because the woman was from West Jordan. She met her current husband after moving back to Tennessee, becoming…

Hey, family members that live in Utah! Here’s three reasons to vote for Pete Ashdown for U.S. Senate: He started XMission, the first ISP in Utah He reads BoingBoing. He’s not Orrin Hatch. BONUS: He’s a living, breathing Democrat. Weird, huh? So come on, family! Look him over and see what you think. Even though he does look a little… oddly computer-generated. Note the carefully worded biography statement, which doesn’t actually say that he attends church, although it alludes to his pioneer-and-emigrant roots. This probably means that he’s some kind of three-headed atheist, but he looks like a nice guy…

Freak season lets Utah skiers go 4th – Yahoo! News Okay, I heard this on WXRT on the way in, and now it’s front page in the Chicago Trib. The people of Chicago are might envious of this thing you call “snow.” Today’s temp is supposed to get up to 95 or higher. No rain in sight, it was a dry spring, and there are watering restrictions out here in Burbclavia. I expect later in the summer there’ll be an outright ban. And then the other day, there was a massive hailstorm in Colorado Springs, and right now there’s flooding…