POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Is it time to give up on honesty in politics? Call me Pollyanna, but I think not, and I’m going out on a limb and say James Evans will prove it. The District 1 Senator-elect’s victory in the last election was tainted, some believe, by a last-minute...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - The songwriting career of Sen. Orrin Hatch will not likely land him a spot on American Idol anytime soon. But that’s OK, because demand for his CDs is growing—at least among lobbyists with whom he has done business. On Aug. 15, The Wall Street...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - This will be my first July 24 in Utah, and folks hereabouts say it’s a pretty big deal. I’m told it commemorates that near-mythic moment, when Brigham Young, with his weary band, stood on that hillside, looked out over the valley, shrugged...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - With so many large families, and so much church-owned property off the tax rolls, it’s almost inevitable that Utah schools will rank last in per-pupil spending. But the blame for that situation ultimately stops not at the Temple door but at the...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - I didn’t mean to do it. I must have tried that one on my parents a hundred times. Didn’t work then, doesn’t even work now—and when it comes to public officials, it should never work. Salt Lake County Council members Joe Hatch...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - In celebration of 227 years of declared independence, America’s split political personality has chosen to play itself out in Utah this Fourth of July weekend. With the Rainbow Family frolicking (do “hippies” still frolic?) in the Uintas,...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - One of the most acrimonious labor disputes in Utah history may be about to end. A union source who asked for anonymity confirmed to City Weekly that Kennecott Utah Copper and its parent company Rio Tinto have come to a tentative agreement on a new contract...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Experienced politicians always have one eye peeled for the Law of Unintended Consequences. Like good courtroom lawyers, they don’t ask questions they don’t know the answers to in advance, and they don’t take shots at their opponents...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - It may come as a surprise to those cynical about the newspaper business to learn that we who buy ink by the barrel have no interest in stories that are later proven to be full of holes—or cut from whole cloth. Credibility, like virginity, is hard...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - There were two industries in the small Southern California town I grew up in: oil and citrus. In those days, the “Mexicans,” as all Hispanics were called, picked fruit. They moved through the trees in the heat, covered in heavy clothing to...