The GOP - the party of yesterday....

I recommend you take a second to read this article. It is very true on many levels. This kind of focuses on the social aspects of the GOP losing ground and merit in our country - thank goodness...but it also agrees with another article I read recently talking demographically and statistically how the Republican Party has painted themselves into a corner. They associate themselves with suburban, white conservatives - a dying breed. As our country becomes more urban and more diverse the Republican Party, according to this article, is losing 1% of voting population every year. Every presidential election that is 4%, folks, - remember how close the last few elections have been.

Anyway here is the op-ed article in question.
The GOP - the party of yesterday

Here is a small taste:

Two years ago, a list of the nation’s brainiest cities was put together from Census Bureau reports — that is, cities with the highest percentage of college graduates, which is not the same as smart, of course.

These are vibrant, prosperous places where a knowledge economy and cool things to do after hours attract people from all over the country. Among the top 10, only two of those metro areas — Raleigh, N.C., and Lexington, Ky. — voted Republican in the 2004 presidential election.

This year, all 10 are likely to go Democratic. What’s more, with Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia now trending blue, Republicans stand to lose the nation’s 10 best-educated states as well.

Sounds good to me...

Just in case you missed it...

Yes, that is the real Sarah Palin.

Joe the Plumber is an idiot...

Okay another political rant...

So if you watched the debate last night you are certainly familiar with Joe the Plumber. Everyone seems to be fascinated with this guy and McCain was excited to use him as a political pawn in his talking points. Well I did a little extra research that I guarantee most people won't do and let's think about this for a minute.

By the way if you have six minutes you should watch the original exchange between the two. I was very impressed with how Obama responded to him - despite the fact this guy instantly seems quite confrontational.

Okay now to business...

1. Joe the Plumber is not a licensed Plumber - he feels he "doesn't need one"
2. Joe the Plumber does not currently earn over $250,000, "not even close" as he put it, despite this being what he told Obama which apparently was a hypothetical.


3. In Obama's plan, a business making over $250,000 would be in a higher bracket - but lets think about this business for a minute - this would be a company that takes in $250,000 in profit AFTER paying all his employee's, his health care for his employees, his operating expenses, and everything else - INCLUDING A NICE SALARY FOR HIMSELF AS THE CEO. So after all that if there is still a $250,000 profit for the company yes he would be paying 39% taxes as opposed to 36%.

I would be pretty darn happy if I owned a company that paid me a nice $249,999 in salary and was able to pay and provide a decent living for my employees and then still take in over $250,000 - especially if it were an un-licensed plumbing company - so much so that I doubt 36-39 percent would be a problem.

Joe...come on...we know you are a McCainy - I hope people realize how stupid this whole thing is and Joe the Plumber doesn't create cause for a McCain re-surge...

Brandon in a nutshell

Open letter to my extended family...

Dear family,

After seeing an article in the paper indicating the mobilization of support by the LDS church to help pass Proposition 8 in California, which would ban the currently legal gay marriage, I feel it would be dishonest and irresponsible of me not to extend my thoughts on the matter. I realize many of you may not share the opinions of the LDS church on this matter, but I feel strongly that I should speak.

I'm sure you all are aware of my politics and my views on our government and social issues. I haven't been shy about them in the past. But this issue moves much beyond politics. This is personal.

I am sure you are also aware that I am one of these "gays" that the church talks about in the abstract, one of these "gays" that the politicians talk about in the abstract. But I'm also the kid and the adult you have always known. I hope that as you are pressured to view things or pressured to participate in things, such as this, you put a face to these nameless people that are treated as second-class citizens without equal rights in this country.

I know you hold your beliefs dear and I don't want to put into question your devotion to your church and religion. What I am asking you to do is to reflect on what is being asked to be done and what reason you are doing it. I realize the reason publicly made is that the LDS church, as many churches, believes in the "sanctity of marriage and that it should remain solely between a man and a woman." While I disagree with that sentiment to its very core and rank it down with past transgressions on racial divisions, gender division, and others that have plagued our society for centuries - I will not argue with you on this point.

What I want to propose is that you can maintain your beliefs in your spiritual realm and if you want to exclude me and my partner of almost nine years from your temples and your ceremonies that is fine. That is your right. But can we not agree to live independently together in this country with differing views and differing lives? I have been together monogamously, happily, and securely with my partner for almost a decade. How many of you or your children have been with their partners for less than that and yet were instantly given recognition by society and given a gambit of instantly recognized rights simply for them being married. What is being denied to me and my partner is a secure life together, keeping to ourselves, with the same securities and support that you have. A life that allows me to know that if he gets sick I will be able to visit him in the hospital - without question. Knowing that if something were to happen to either of us we don't have to have a litany of documents which secure what a marriage would do automatically. More than that we are denied legitimacy as human beings in our society. How many of you have experienced that before?

The way my partner and I are living is as if we are married. If this law in California is defeated then my partner and I will continue to live as we have been and we will continue to be very happy. If the law is California is upheld then my partner and I will continue to live as we have been except with the promise of more security - with more support - with more recognition that we are human beings with rights. I think the fundamental issue here is for you to each take a moment of reflection and contemplate beyond the rhetoric, beyond the politics, and beyond the gut level reactions and think logically. How has my life, with my partner, affected yours? Don't think in hypotheticals or "what if's" but think logically. How really has my life affected yours?

I've done the same multiple times. I would say that knowing each and every one of you and all your uniqueness has been a value in my life I could never ignore or appreciate too much. As much as I might disagree with your religion on this issue I most certainly would not support a law to suppress your views on the matter - or a law that would suppress your right to practice your religion. But when your religion, views, or practices actively support an attempt to do the same to me I must admit it makes me question all the goodness I know to come from the LDS church.

The reality is you probably feel like you have heard versions of all this before. You probably aren't hearing anything new from me. But I would hope that somehow this is different because it is from me. What I would hope you would do is try and personalize this issue and put a human face to your cause. I did not choose to be gay. I went through years of torment and confusion in which tested the very core of my being. In church, growing up, I often heard the story of Joseph Smith so disgruntled with the choices of religion and seeking truth himself. He sought that truth through very difficult circumstances and the faith he founded continued to seek its own truth through persecution and misunderstanding even after he was gone.

I'm not going to devalue the life of Joseph Smith by saying I suffered like him, but I would suggest that we all seek our own truth throughout our lives - just as he did. For some of us it is easy and it is clear. For some of us it if very difficult. For me, it was the latter. Finding my truth was the hardest thing I have ever done. For finding that truth, in which I am living, I have never been so rewarded. I like to think the harder it is to find our truth the larger the reward will be in the end.

I have to be honest here and assume that what you find to be truth might conflict with what I found to be my own truth. With that all I would then argue is that truth might just be relative to each individual that seeks it. If we can agree on that statement then I would ask why does one's truth deserve to get legal, constitutional, or even spiritual rights over another when they can sufficiently live separately and equally within the same realm? Again, what has my family done to affect your family? I'd have to imagine nothing. Why would then, your family, have the right to affect mine?

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. Please think of me and the so many others out there like me in your efforts this November.

North Salt Lake - the city between here and there...

For one of my classes this year I had to reflect on my childhood hometown - which I chose to be North Salt Lake City. We were to evaluate it based on many things like how we felt about our childhood hometown, memories we have, mobility, feelings of safety, what icons and image the city had. We were to look at whether or not the city had a sense of place, or a sense of entry and arrival. Finally we were to look at any importance in city planning in embracing the community identity that we could identify or suggest. This is the result. Since most of you that read this are my family which joined me in NSL - I'd love to hear your thoughts on the same matter...

Most of my childhood was spent in North Salt Lake City where I lived from fourth grade to graduation from High School with only a couple disruptions as my family moved around a lot. North Salt Lake is a community of about 13,000 people sitting just North of Salt Lake City, Utah. I have a lot of special feelings and memories about growing up in my hometown, however I am not sure they have a lot to do with the area, or the city, but more of just the circumstances of my youth.

I really don’t think I had a lot of conscience thoughts about my hometown while growing up. I felt it to be a safe and quiet community. It was very neighborhood based and very much based on LDS wards to differentiate social groups. As a child I was not active LDS and therefore felt quite a bit of isolation. Being a very suburban-bedroom community there was not a lot of social and public space and activity outside of the dominant religious institution. The city didn’t find it necessary to push for more multi-cultural facilities because so much of the community was already served by the dominant social coordinator – the LDS church.

There was no real business core or places for kids to “hang out.” In fact it could be argued creating kid-friendly hang out places was essentially discouraged worrying that it would bring more trouble than good. The main intersection of the community was two gas stations and the city hall, one gas station was tied to a strip mall with a smattering of businesses such as tax assistance and dry cleaning. Another intersection one block away which was tied to another strip mall that was constantly changing it’s make-up of stores with the exception of a locally owned drug store. There was a large park that was used for little league and soccer, but as I got older a dispute between the leagues and the concession eliminated its use for those purposes and it has sat practically empty since then.

I do have memories of walking to the local grocery store and getting together with friends in neighboring cities, but never in my own city. It is odd how empty my hometown feels the more I reflect on it for the purposes of this paper. Concerning mobility in the community if you didn’t have a bike when younger, or a car as you got older there was nowhere to go. The city was mostly perched on the hillside and it made it difficult for walking, biking, skateboarding, or those kinds of mobility devices. I remember times when I moved away from home to other states and came back without a car. I felt so trapped at my parents’ home unable to leave anywhere because an outing by walking would be a multi-hour trip anywhere worth going.

There are no real icons for the community in fact most people respond to “North Salt Lake” as “the place with the refineries?” While that icon is nothing to be positive about the city scrambled for years to find something else to give it identity. Their solution, I believe, was a large golf course at the top of the hillside surrounded by nice homes. The golf course has yet to make money as far as I know and it is most certainly not used by a large number of community members who don’t golf. I think the most use it gets is a 4th of July celebration every year on the 3rd of July. It suffers from being a city stuck between Salt Lake City, the largest city in the State, and Bountiful the 14th most populous city in the State. Being the 44th largest it can’t quite compete with what the neighboring communities can offer and has always suffered with an identity crisis.

Concerning a sense of entry with my hometown, the ironic thing is that is one of the things that have changed the most from what I can remember. They have placed and replaced a sign saying when you enter the city over and over. They have changed the sign and the logo and even toyed with giving the city a new name to try and give it more identity. They created a needless round-a-bout with an electronic welcoming sign in the middle to make the entry more clear and beautified. They placed it on the entry to the residential area instead of Highway 89, the major road in the city, to give it more of a pleasant bedroom community identity rather than the often sporadic corrugated metal pre-built and/or strip mall business community on Highway 89. They also have the sign sitting way back further than the actual beginning of the city. When traveling North you apparently now travel through the nether regions between Salt Lake City and North Salt Lake City that is the refinery land and gravel pit land. I think a large piece of it is technically North Salt Lake City but they have set the sign back far enough to let people think it is not the city with the refineries.

I think planning and community identity would be extremely important in a place like North Salt Lake or anywhere. Since the organic construction of the town has done more harm than good I am sure the city could benefit from the creation or the embodiment of its identity through some central planning. The city has long been associated with orchards that used to be throughout the area. Many things are named after those orchards like Orchard Drive and Orchard elementary but those Orchards are a thing of the past which has not been reused to create identity for the area. The city has suffered economically and so many who have been brave enough to try and open a locally owned business in any of these small strip malls have gone under. No chains come into the area, not because they aren’t wanted, but because they are smart enough to know there is no viability for it. Community identity would be so essential in city planning of North Salt Lake because it would essentially CREATE the community identity.

I think a recommendation I would give to North Salt Lake City to give it some identity is to redevelop a section of the city, ideally centrally located, in the heart of the town. Make a downtown that the community can be proud of. There are two obvious intersections that would suffice. Center Street and Orchard or Center Street and Highway 89. Orchard would be more ideal in that it is a calmer street and is close to the elementary school and some business community already established, including the bowling alley and the locally owned icon of Orchard Drug. I think developing this area into a dense walkable community would give a strong sense of “downtown North Salt Lake.” It would make a draw that would help bolster the businesses that struggle there already. It would give a space for the community to come together that isn’t a golf course or an empty park sitting by I-15. The city is lucky in that it is so close to downtown Salt Lake City and should take advantage of that fact. It is far enough away that it can be the quiet community that many seek, but close enough that it can take advantage of its culture and arts. A public transportation system of sorts would also benefit the area as there is no public transportation that goes East and West. It only runs North and South which is the smallest area of the city. A trolley or bus that went up the hill at good intervals would bring people to the downtown core and bring that area and community to life. Unfortunately I guess that depends on whether or not you can sell such a major redevelopment to the community. One that seems to be perfectly happy being stuck between Salt Lake and Bountiful with no identity to speak of.

What does this say about Utah?

Compare this Pat Oliphant Editorial Cartoon with this article...what does it say about Utah? Too much, I'm afraid.


U.S. didn't hate Palin's performance; Utah loved her

Even though Barry Bonds won't admit it...

I'm on steroids.

This is a non-picture update so you don't have to look at my rash.

I went back into the Dr. today and she has me on a nice dose of steroids.

Unfortunately for my physique it isn't the Barry Bonds kind of steroids it is one to calm my skin down. It actually suppresses my immune system which will undoubtedly make me sick - that is the current way of my life.

She questions it being poison oak because of its sporadic placement ALL over my body. I still think that is what it is. The alternatives, frankly, scare me worse. Maybe something I caught in a dirty hotel room bed?

Well here are the side effects of this steroid so you can know what I'm going through - it is called steroid euphoria...I will be hungry...I will be nauseous...I will be anxious...now I have learned the reason I'm hungry is because it keeps me from being nauseous which already seems pretty consistent. No signs of anxiety...yet - although I'm getting worried that is going to be bad. ;-)

Anywho - let's see how this fixes me up.

Remember the debate tonight. I am excited to watch it.

Back to the Dr........without insurance.

Okay I know you all love looking at my sexy legs...but I do it to prove a point. I'm going back to the doctor tomorrow to have her look at my rash - which despite its benign appearance last time on my face it has moved all over my body and onto my legs, my stomach, my arms, and my neck. This has just been so much fun...10 days later the rash still seems to be spreading. The most irritating point is it has crept down below my belt line - not that it is intruding on the unmentionables but that it is right where my pants, boxers, and belt cling to my body. Lets just say it isn't comfortable.

First of all this picture does not do the rash justice. Especially because you can't see the puss pods, as I call them, and you can't see the gigantor rash that is on the back of both my knees. You also can't see the general redness which pervades the whole thing and the fact that it itches like a mo fo. What you CAN see, however, is the enormous size in which my right knee (on your left) has exploded to without the use of saline injection (not sure why one would do this). It has added probably a couple of inches in diameter to my poor wittle knee and is so swollen I can't totally bend my leg. Not to mention I am feeling nauseous a lot of the time now.

Needless to say I am hating life right now as the election season is really heating up and I'm having a meeting every day plus my classes. Thankfully I'm not teaching. In so many ways.

So off to the doctor tomorrow to check things out and hopefully find some magic injection and/or pill which will make this whole thing better. Actually I'm concerned about the size of my knee - and the fact that it has continued to spread.

So anywho...I will try not to show you another part of my body with rash talk again on this blog unless I die - of which Brandon will be writing my last entry - or unless I have to have my leg amputated. Rest assured, if I do I will put the procedure on the blog.

Peace out...