If it seems more like 1984 every day, you’re not imagining things. Not only is the government spying on citizens as in George Orwell’s novel 1984, but a mid-’80s Kevin Bacon dancing movie is about to play out in Bountiful. For the coming school year, Bountiful High School has banned not just dirty dancing but student protests of the dancing ban. In order to be allowed to attend school functions, students and their parents are required to sign “Dance Participation Regulations” that prohibit “freaking,” “grinding” and any other “vulgar, seductive or inappropriate movements.” Dance clothing is closely prescribed, down to the width of dress straps. Outlawed is any clothing that displays “protest, defiance, [or] dissent.” Other than that (along with “suggestive words and pictures”), have a good time.
You can’t keep a good fish down. Believed extinct 30 years ago, the Bonneville cutthroat trout—Utah’s state fish—has bounced back enough that federal regulators declined recently to place the fish on the endangered species list. When biologist Don Duff rediscovered the fish in the mid-’70s, the Bonneville trout called just five miles of stream home. Today, populations are found in 2,000 miles of stream. It happened through decades of protection given the fish by state wildlife agencies and private landowners. Seeing a Bonneville remains rare, however, and one conservation group is considering suing, noting the fish isn’t out of the woods yet. Among other challenges, Las Vegas wants to pump water from Utah’s west desert Deep Creek mountains where Duff first found the Bonneville in 1974.
A new Utah law intended to keep flavored 3.2-percent malt beverages out of the hands of children will likely end up banishing the products for adults as well. The law moving “flavored malt beverages” like Smirnoff Ice from grocery stores to state liquor outlets goes into effect Oct. 1. But liquor distributors already are warning that beverage makers will likely forgo selling in Utah altogether rather than put up with the new regulations. State liquor stores have neither the space nor refrigeration to handle the products. Additionally, a new Utah law requires manufacturers to design a bottle label just for Utah. The state had hoped to reap millions in new taxes from big liquor-store markups on the beverages.
