How Stupid Is The Utah Legislature?

One of Utah's greatest assets is political cartoonist Pat Bagley, who has perfected the fine art of skewering Utah's idiotic legislature as the orgy of mutant dinguses that it is. One cartoon from earlier this year is proving particularly prescient:

Right on cue, a passel of wrong-headed and hideous time-wasters are cropping up. Let's take a brief tour of how our lawmakers spend their time, shall we?

First on the docket is Sen Aaron Osmond (R - South Jordan) and his mysterious, sneaky "file," which is apparently the first step on the journey to legislating human life as originating at conception (actually earlier than conception if they decide to Go Full Mormon and swing for the fences).

Osmond has yet to touch match to gasoline, but according to the Salt Lake Tribune:

[Osmond] hasn't decided if he will need a constitutional amendment to define when life begins. But he has opened a file for a resolution, which could simply state the sense of the Legislature or it could be the first step to amend the Constitution..."That's where we're headed. There's no doubt we're trying to define when life begins, when a person becomes a person," Osmond said.

On the "burn the Earth, lease the ashes to Rio Tinto" front, Representative Ken Sumsion (R - American Fork) has hand-crafted an impressively idiotic waste of taxpayer time and money in the form of an esoteric court argument based on an 1894 law that will attempt to seize federal lands:

[Sumsion] has introduced a bill that would direct the attorney general to file for declaratory judgement in U.S. District Court on grounds that Congress promised in the 1894 Utah Enabling Act that it would dispose of its lands in the state and give Utah schools 5 percent of the proceeds...Sumsion's claims -- that there was a contract or, especially, that there's any legal remedy -- are disputed by constitutional scholars, who expect the state to make no headway in court.

Time well spent, Representative Sumsion!

Our last example of mean-spirited, time-wasting "message" legislating is brought to us by the city of Bountiful, where I spent most of my confused youth. Representative Jim Nielson (R - Bountiful) would like to make it harder for consenting adults with better things to do with their time to get divorced:

Before a married person with children can even file for divorce, they would need to complete a free state "divorce orientation" course, under a bill that cleared its first legislative hurdle Wednesday. The measure also would reinstate a 90-day "cooling off period" between when someone files for divorce and when it may be finalized.

"Cooling-off periods" and classes and other onerous state requirements are just like mandatory ultrasounds before abortions or any number of clumsy, horrible state actions that serve one purpose and one purpose only: to wag the Finger of the State in disapproval of an adult's free and individual choice.

Even setting aside squandered time and money, the government has no business officially moralizing in this way. Of course that has never even slowed our legislature down, let alone stopped them.

#OccupySLC And #OccupyProvo : "Hibernate No More!"

As Utah plays the perennial Lucy to my Charlie Brown, proffering a balmy football helpfully labeled "SPRING" by the Great Editorial Cartoonist in the Sky, only to cruelly yank it away at the last moment, the season's new life *is* creeping into #Occupy.

Not that #Occupy has been asleep at the switch - only yesterday, #OccupyOakland attracted enough attention from the police to earn the now-traditional "Greetings Citizen, We've Noticed You" gift basket of non-lethal gadgetry. No, sir, #Occupy have been busy little bees; it is I who have been remiss in reporting on domestic protest movements. It's an unforgivable lapse, really, but I've been busy traveling to L.A. and evangelizing about potatoes, while going to class part-time/online and tumbling head over heels down a rabbit hole of deepening interest in the occult. Anyhow.

As always, #OccupySLC's hub page can be found  here  . Facebook discussion forum complete with 6,000% of your RDA of abstract discussions of property rights and the Fed  here  . National hub  here  . Twitter round-ups  here  and  here  .

Tonight, the evening of Monday, 1/30/12, is our weekly Monday Night Workshop. The Downtown Library is unfortunately unable to accommodate #OccupySLC tonight - #OSLC is currently talking to Peaceful Uprising about using their space near 13th South and Main. I'll update this post as the time/place is confirmed for this evening. [UPDATE: Tonight's Workshop will be held at One World Cafe, 41 S 300 E] 

Friday, 2/3/12, is the next Salt Lake City General Assembly, starting at 7 PM at the #OccupySLC Gallivan Dome (head to Gallivan Plaza - you can't miss it). Come make your voice heard! If you have not attended a GA during #Occupy so far, I strongly recommend that you do so at least once.

On the right, a tiny fringe of lunatics called "Birthers" (conspiracy theorists who think that Barack Obama is not an American citizen, and therefore not eligible for the presidency) keep convening "citizens' grand juries" and the like at the municipal level to officially tell the President that he is not actually President (time well spent!). If you have no idea what I'm talking about, see  this  or  this. I bring this up to emphasize that #Occupy's General Assemblies are not like that.

#Occupy GAs do not claim to represent any authority greater than the unified consensus opinion of the participants - it's an innovative, frustrating, and revolutionary way to conduct one's business and I find it endlessly fascinating.

Finally, Saturday, 2/4/12, is the day of a counter-NDAA* and EEA** Protest hosted by the good citizens and fellow workers of #OccupyProvo. In solidarity, I'm carpooling down to Provo on Saturday with a handful of other #OccupySLC fellows to help swell the ranks and show support - the event should kick off around noon, so if you plan to drive out from Salt City, give yourself some time.

I have nothing but respect for OccupyProvo - I've met several people from their group at various meetings/activities, and let me tell you: it is not easy to devote your time and energy to activism in Salt Lake City. It is ten thousand time harder and (in my opinion) more noble to devote your time and energy to activism in Utah County. Those folks have enormous hearts and souls that are unbreakable, pure and shining.

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

Maybe spring isn't quite here yet, but life is kicking into high gear. It's the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twelve - wriggle free of those winter blues, sleepyhead, and get your ass out there in the street! You can attend a local workshop or GA. You can do as I plan to and dust off your Guy Fawkes mask and take a carload of activists to Provo. You can break out your guitar or ukulele, ride a bike, go to a hearing, or sign up for a community gardening space. Why, you can do anything you put your mind to!

* National Defense Authorization Act for the fiscal year 2012. The controversy surrounding this ordinarily meat-and-military-industrial-potatoes bill regards sections 1021 and 1022 of this Act, which codify the indefinite detention and military (not civilian) trial of American citizens, among others, suspected - SUSPECTED, mind you, not proven guilty - of terrorism or various forms of collusion with organizations deemed "terrorists" by the government. It is some seriously awful, scary, black-bag-in-the-middle-of-the-night $h!t, and you can read as I freak the f%#k out about it here  if you like.

** Enemy Expatriation Act , which is every bit as creepy as it sounds. Someone dropped the ball naming this one - usually the most awful legislation imaginable sails by with a name fit for a fabric softener or a non-binding bill celebrating the lifetime achievements of a beloved teacher of the blind or whatever. The EEA gives the government the power to strip suspected terrorists/terrorist sympathizers of their status as American citizens. No, I'm not making that up.

Dreams Of Gunshot Wounds

I don't often (ever) write about it, but at times I have a pretty spectacular dream life. I like to think it's my subconscious' way of making up for drab, everyday life - except that about one in three dreams I have are so incredibly disturbing and vivid that they linger like diesel fumes or the stench of pesticide.

Carl Jung wrote that "In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order." Some people dream of loved ones, some dream of monsters - I usually dream of places. I call them "limbic spaces," because they are defined by my memories of various atmospheres in which I have lived, worked, loved, etc. and because they are transitory - not quite Salt Lake City, a few pieces of Arkansas, a recurring dream-space that appears to be a vast, dank and endless public men's room that I call the lavatoryinth.

Carl Jung

Last night, for reasons I have long learned not to look into too closely, I had a particularly vivid and intense dream, the type I have maybe once a year. In my dream, a group of friends and I were drunkenly carousing at an out-of-the-way cabin located in what I can only take to be my mind's version of Hawaii by way of Idaho. What was extraordinary about this dream was how quickly it shifted tones on me.

One moment, carousing, the next, gunfire. I know that William S. Burroughs shared both my fascination with and love of guns and a crackpot, hallucinatory inner life - he often wrote vignettes about pistols. Of course, Burroughs accidentally blew off his wife's head and had to spend many years on the run afterwards and this probably contributed to his fixation, while I suspect my interest is much more pedestrian.

William S. Burroughs

Pretty quickly, last night's splendid tropical/rural dreamscape burst into bloody chaos. Usually, when a gun is featured in a dream, it is featured in a highly symbolic fashion. Phallic symbol, symbol of power, etc. - well, in my dream the guns were very real and the results of firing them horrifyingly so as well.

I shot someone on the stairs. A random dream pedestrian was shredded partially in half by shotgun blasts. People were gunned down in quivering heaps throughout the large cabin my subconscious cooked up for my little nocturnal Tarantino-fest. The ground was slippery with gore, and even though I was dreaming I could smell the hot, explosive burned-meat smells of the carnage.

As the dream closed, I was riding high in the back of a Jeep away from the aftermath, driven by some unseen entity. We slowly tooled past a shadowy figure who was hobbling along the path, and as we pased him I tossed him the revolver I had been firing.

"Thank you," the man said quite distinctly, "But I already know how the West was won." Without a pause, the man then shot me in the head.

In my dream, I fell heavily to the road. I could feel my jaw working spasmodically and my vision went dark; sound dwindled to a low-end buzz and then ceased. I had dreamed of dying.

I woke up already feeling a little ill.

I Love L.A.

I flew from Salt Lake City into LAX for a conference yesterday. I am currently ensconced in a hotel near enough to the airport that I can hear jets taking off and landing pretty much constantly. Like the monkey house at the zoo I found this offensive to my senses at first but have now adapted.

The interesting thing about my flight yesterday was its timing. Due to Sundance , and the fact that it was a Monday morning flight from SLI to LAX, the plane was stuffed to the gills with (apparently) Hollywood types.

Despite this, the closest I came to a brush with fame on the plane was to bumble past a person who I am 99% sure was Octavia Spencer, from the Help. Many seemed to be media industry cogs of one kind or another. It's worth noting that I have never been in a better-dressed coach section of a flight in my life.

I cracked open Grant Morrison's Supergods to while away the brief flight (about 90 minutes). My aisle-mates were quiet and mellow - pretty much the perfect travel companion strangers - but across the aisle from me sat two men and one woman who together constituted the highest concentration of @ssholedom that I have ever experienced.

As soon as they were seated, the Three Douches (as I began to think of them) starting yakking it up. The guy on the left was some sort of producer - the guy on the right an agent. The woman seated between them was an @sshole by pure coincidence because she is actually in sports medicine and works in Toronto. Why do I know all this? Because the Three Douches bleated their bona fides to the rafters and bragged as loudly as possible the entire way to LA.

The agent chatted up the woman by demonstrating his thorough knowledge of professional tennis and what so-and-so and such-and-such could do to improve their game. The producer mainly stuck to shop talk, "talk" being code for "name-dropping."

Finally we arrived at LAX, deplaned, and once we were past the boarding gates, I witnessed literally a dozen chauffeurs, all dressed in black and standing so stock-still that they might have been wax figures or cardboard cutouts (each held a sign with their client's name on it). When the baggage arrived, I witnessed a kid - probably younger than 23 or 24 - literally throw a huge, heavy bag off of the carousel directly at his hapless driver, who received it with a grunt and quietly began to haul it to the car.

LA, baby! Or, to be charitable to the vast majority of Angelinos, Hollywood, baby!

Israel, Iran, And Ron Paul Supporters

Since I was a child, Iran has been a regular (and rich) subject of discussion in my household. There's a simple reason for this - on my father's side of the family (the Bernards), the last two generations of Bernards have lived and worked in Iran pretty extensively.

My grandfather was actually "knighted" by the last Shah before the Iranian Revolution for his contribution to oil and gas projects in the region. My father went to high school at the American School in Tehran, then later returned to work there as my grandfather had. My dad and my aunt still speak a little Farsi.

This is kind of cool: I'm named after my paternal grandfather Charles G. Bernard, AKA Chuck Bernard, AKA whatever the hell this sign (which used to be his) says in Farsi:

Due partially to the subject of Iran, I got into a lengthy dust-up in the Facebook discussion group for #OccupySLC, where the ideological demographics can be roughly divided up into one part anarchists/radicals (hello, friends!), progressives and libertarians. The libertarian contributions to the discussion usually revolve around why the Fed is literally at fault for every bad thing in the world, and why Ron Paul is awesome.

The gentleman with whom I had a disagreement is a big-time Ron Paul supporter, and also a committed supporter of the #Occupy movement. This, to me, seemed like major cognitive dissonance - after all, Ron Paul's economic policies to a one are regressive and favor the interests of capital and wealthy capitalists over any and everyone else.

However, over a little bit of discussion, some common ground emerged (unfortunately not between myself and my original debate partner, "Orwellian Bob") regarding Ron Paul, #Occupy, and foreign policy.

For those of us just joining in, a quick and dirty summary. Ron Paul, unlike President Obama, is a hard-core isolationist who would like not only to withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan completely, but also pull our troops out of America's little hidey-holes across the world (including Europe!).

The current President, on the other hand, has adopted a pretty astonishingly aggressive foreign policy for a man who ran as a progressive Democrat. One of the primary reasons I voted for Obama in 2008 was his promise to end the Bush Doctrine years of American adventures abroad* - he would close GITMO, eliminate extraordinary rendition, etc. Unfortunately, Obama has done none of these things.

So here we are. This is the year we pull the lever, and our choice seems to be between a relatively pro-war, pro-Israel, aggressive incumbent president and a veritable buffet of lunatics on the Republican side of the ledger. Under such circumstances, I suppose - and bear with me here - that I can understand some of Ron Paul's appeal.

Civil libertarian Glenn Greenwald recently caught two barrels of hot, juicy internet hate when he wrote a column that didn't exactly endorse Ron Paul, but explained some of his appeal. At the time I found it infuriating - but the more evidence that piles up (and there is a grundle) that we are currently on a "war footing" with Iran, the more foreign policy matters, and there is currently no good choice other than Paul on foreign policy. Does that mean I support Ron Paul? My goodness, no. His economic policies (and positions on issues like the Civil Rights Act of 1964) are more than horrible enough to outweigh his foreign policy.

That said, the choices available to voters this year are awful** - maybe the worst I've ever seen. If that's the situation it took for Ron Paul to "shine," well, good for him, I suppose: the situation is not so good for the rest of us, unfortunately.

*: I bring up Israel regarding the Bush Doctrine because of this extraordinary story from Foreign Policy:

Buried deep in the archives of America's intelligence services are a series of memos, written during the last years of President George W. Bush's administration, that describe how Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as American agents...the Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting US passports, posed as CIA officers and in recruiting Jundallah operatives...Jundallah, according to the US government and published reports, is responsible for assassinating Iranian government officials and killing Iranian women and children.

This is astonishing. Any country in the world that acted so arrogantly in defiance of international diplomacy and rule of law would probably catch hell from the U.S. for such a move - with Israel, we sweep it under the rug, whistle casually and pretend nothing happened. Meanwhile, any discussion in American politics about Israel seems to boil down to a competition to see who loves Israel the most.

**: I am aware that there are choices other than Paul, Romney, or Obama. The first one that comes to mind is former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson's candidacy, which I am researching and will write about either this week or next.

It's A Beautiful Day To Fight The Prison-Industrial Complex (And Get Your Dance On!)

Here in the United States of America, we like to "privatize" things.

The short definition of this phenomenon is that services usually provided by the State - public roads, public schools, and, unfortunately, prisons - are increasingly being farmed out to for-profit corporations, who "can do the job more efficiently."

Whether this is actually true is up for debate, but in at least some cases - perhaps most notably schools and prisons, those great institutional workhouses of ideology - "efficient" generally means "worse for human beings."

Two companies in particular, the amusingly sinister-sounding (and genuinely terrifying) Corrections Corporation of America ...

...and the more placidly named GEO Group, are the heavy hitters in the incarceration game.

The investors in these cutting edge experiments in human degradation and the commodification of suffering include Wells Fargo, Fidelity, General Electric, the usual gang.

A sizable coalition has emerged to encourage these investors to divest from - that is, remove their financial backing from - these companies, who in no uncertain terms profit directly from the poor treatment and dehumanization of incarcerated persons, including many immigrants and other political prisoners.

Here in Salt Lake City, we hate injustice, but gosh darn it, we love a party.

Tonight, Rock the Jailhouse is going down! What is Rock the Jailhouse, you ask?

Rock the Jailhouse is a benefit concert for the Salt Lake City Prison Divestment Campaign. Featuring live bands including Know Ur Roots, playing a reggae tribute to Bob Marley, Los Cafres (from Argentina), Gondwana (from Chile), Wasnatch, and Enemy Octopus! Bring a donation between $5 and $15 - the event will feature a vegan bake sale, drinks, a raffle, and more!

Rock the Jailhouse starts at 7:30 PM tonight at Centro Civico Mexicano, located at 155 South 600 West in Salt Lake City. Come and bring a friend!

I'll Bet You A Dollar That A Few Old Tires And A Bit Of Smarts Will Net You 20 Pounds Of Potatoes

Note: much (but not all) of the source material for this was taken from Path to Freedom Urban Homestead and Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen's invaluable The Urban Homestead. 

Are you bored? Of course you are! Boredom is the bedbug infestation of our collective psyche, a will-sapping, seemingly insurmountable foe that gnaws and gnaws.

Good news: if you're bored, I have a fun project for you!

You might live with your parents. You might rent a house. Like me, you may live in a small box with no porch, window planters to speak of, or any other luxuries that would make growing an edible foodstuff easier. It doesn't matter.

If you can find a corner of a lot (vacant or otherwise), a patch of Mom's backyard, whatever, you can grow some organic, kick-ass food. Let's start simple.

Observe:

Not pretty, is it? North America is awash in used tires. No, this doesn't mean that you can get some fresh radials for a steal down at Crazy Vinnie's - it means that we should be thinking post haste about how to repurpose this monstrous glut.

An easy step? Tater tires!

Beautiful tater tires courtesy of Bonzai Aphrodite

It's as easy as can be.

Get some used tires - hopefully the same size for stacking purposes. Used car tires are *everywhere.* If you can't find some on the street, ask a friend or consult a local waste professional.

The tricky thing about tater tires is the construction, but don't worry - it's easy once you get your hands dirty. You want to do a little basic reading on soil - what makes it tick, what it likes, the proper ratios for mixing, etc. Once you've used those book smarts, cut the sidewalls out of your tires using a jigsaw and stack those suckers up.

"Listen to this man. The eyes of the spuds are watching."

Pick a sunny spot. If you have hard-packed ground under your foundational tire, give it a few zesty pokes with a pitchfork, or a knife, whatever you have handy (loosen it up a bit is the point).

Use loose soil and a healthy dose of compost ( give this a quick perusal or ask your local mom-and-pop nursery) for the soil inside your tire tower. The tricky thing about getting a big yield of potatoes is picking the right seed potatoes. Potatoes are not grown from "seed" seeds, they are grown from seed potatoes that are best ordered online (try  here  or  here  ).

You can cut your seed potatoes (as long as each chunk has an eye or two) but let them dry before you plant. You want to plant your seed potatoes in warm soil - say, 60 to 70 degrees. Hotter than that and they will stop flourishing.

Here's where things get tricky.

Lay down one tire, and fill it loosely with soil. Plant three seed potato chunks, dry (remember!) with their eyes facing upwards. Lightly cover them with soil. Soon, you will see potato sprouts. They are green, high-falutin' fellas:

As soon as those rise above your little tire garden, add another tire to the stack and fill it with soil, covering most of the shoots, but leaving at least the top leaves free. As you continue to water and nurture, the plant will re-grow longer shoots, at which point you repeat the process: add a tire to the stack, add more loose soil, leaving only the top leaves free.

By "shocking" the plant this way, you produce a heapin' helpin' of potatoes. From The Urban Homesteader:

After the [end of season] flowering is over and the vines turn yellow or die back, the potatoes are ready for harvest. Stop watering and let them sit for a week or so, then you can harvest. You can do this by removing the topmost tire and harvest the taters at that level, leaving the rest for later. They store best in the dark, dry soil, so they will be very happy waiting for you in their tires. Or, punk rock style, you can just kick the whole stack over, revealing the entire tater treasure within. That method has its merits too. Harvest amounts will vary but 20 lbs. per stack are common.

IMPORTANT HEALTH NOTE: Do not wash your potatoes when you harvest them; they will rot. Do not expose them to sunlight: they will turn green and, yes, green potatoes can kill you. Taters do best "curing" (i.e. resting) in a cool dark place for two weeks before you snack on them.

More culinary tidbits to follow (along with six to nine times your daily recommended dosage of political surreality). Stay tuned!