Citing Brewvies a Grand Embarrassment
The decision made by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to cite Brewvies Cinema Pub for serving alcohol to customers who were viewing the sexually explicit film Deadpool is completely outrageous and without merit ["Dead Porn," Private Eye, April 21, City Weekly].
In a state where politicians regularly decry the federal government's intrusion into our affairs, this kind of draconian, moralistic action is incredible. It seems antithetical to the notion of keeping "big government" from micromanaging our existence. Last time I checked, Utah had not become an extension of North Korea or the former Soviet Union. This is the United States of America, and as such, we have certain rights under the First Amendment. This decision flies in the face of those rights.
Frankly, this whole situation is nothing but a grand embarrassment. Once again, Utah's a laughingstock to the outside world. If that isn't something to be concerned about, I don't know what is.
Ryan D. Curtis
Salt Lake City
Honor Code Demeans Women
Recent revelations regarding the insertion of BYU Honor Code inquiries into investigations of rapes and assaults on female students is a violation of the due process of law.
The LDS-controlled school, whether private institution or not,has stepped over the line involving personal rights and the need, sans any outside interference, to respond to such horrific acts on women that too often are hidden or minimized by colleges all over the country.
Women are being demeaned and subjected to the insidious obstructionism by holier-than-thou religious fanatics. No female should ever be put through that type of inappropriate inquisition and threatened with suspension of their right to attend classes which they paid for in advance.
This is a form of doctrinal demagoguery too often practiced by the LDS.
Jim Oshust
Salt Lake City
Suppport Revenue-Neutral Carbon Fees
Newsweek, in its January 1970 special issue "The Ravaged Environment," cautioned readers about the threat of global warming. Yet even after 20 million Americans participated in the first Earth Day in 1970, we've continued to burn coal. If we had stopped burning coal that year, we would have all been able to burn as much gas and oil as we could get our greedy hands on, and we'd still not have over 350 ppm of carbon dioxide in our thin atmosphere.
We didn't stop burning coal, and we've got over 400 ppm now. But the world is finally transitioning to cleaner energies. There is understandable fear that we can drive our economy without burning the fuels that got us through world wars and to the quality of life that we have now.
Putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions is the most effective and efficient solution, according to scores of leading economists, climate activists, politicians and even the Pope.
In the United States, Citizens' Climate Lobby is a rapidly growing group of volunteers from modest beginnings in 2007 to over 35,000 activists today. We are actively working to build the political will for a revenue-neutral carbon fee and dividend that will put a modest, but steadily increasing fee on fossil fuels at mines, wellheads and ports-of-entry to provide a consistent predictable market signal toward cleaner and more efficient homes, vehicles and businesses.
Revenue neutrality is important so that the fee wouldn't fill government and/or big business coffers. Thus, we want all of the collected fees to be returned evenly to every adult American to help them afford to purchase net-zero homes and solar panels to charge their electric cars or, if they ride bikes, they could spend it on beer.
Kevin Leecaster
Salt Lake City
