You may have noticed that America today talks a good freedom game but is really all about money—the money we spend too much of, the money we should let big businesses keep so they can stimulate the economy, the money poor and sick people don’t deserve, and the tax money government takes from you. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that Salt Lake County Councilman Richard Snelgrove ranted his “just say no to bonds” screed. Well, not exactly no bonds, but no bond elections in “off” years. But as Councilman Randy Horiuchi pointed out, the county could miss good interest-rate deals by postponing elections. And hey, if you don’t like it, go vote.
Maybe Rep. John Dougall, R-Highland, is just mad at the media. Our own John Saltas did once call him a chubby unknown Utah County legislator, and then City Weekly pointed out that Dougall flip-flopped on his notion of open-records access when he sponsored the now-infamous House Bill 477. Now, it’s Peg McEntee’s turn. In a recent Salt Lake Tribune column, McEntee said the Utah Legislature made a national fool of itself using “a grab-and-smash ploy to gut our Government Records Access and Management Act.” And then she said it wasn’t the media that drove the repeal effort. Not sure if that’s what set Dougall off, but he posted on Facebook that “the media continue to lie about GRAMA.” No response from the representative yet to the question of what that lie was.
At least for the predominant Utah religion, this can’t be all bad. First, there is the Broadway hit musical The Book of Mormon, which seems to have sent people chuckling to find out more. The Mormons have a Website, you know. Then the Sister Wives family went and filed suit, saying Utah law shouldn’t make polygamy a crime. This gives the LDS Church another chance to clarify its position on polygamy—in heaven only—and that it is not the same as these fundamentalists. But the real opportunity came with Fox News, when Ainsley Earhardt pronounced that Mitt Romney “is obviously not a Christian,” and that Christians just won’t be giving him all the big bucks that Gov. Rick Perry (who, with a 4 percent approval rating, hasn’t even announced his presidential intentions) will get. We know where the big money is: with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What an opportunity.
