Private Eye | Bullet Points 

A couple of years ago, somebody wrote a nice letter to the editor of City Weekly saying all kinds of truthful things about this column—Saltas can’t write, Saltas is an idiot, Saltas is a fat-ass Greek, Saltas should move, Saltas is a drunk, Saltas never makes sense and so on. I wasn’t bothered too much as I’m a particular fan of the truth. However, a second letter writer sent in a missive responding to the first letter writer and offered not only a stinging retort to him but also a bit of writing advice that, until now, I’ve rejected. What the second letter writer suggested is that, instead of taking meandering segues between two points, I should just begin each new thought with a bullet point. Well, okey-dokey, then.

Background Shimmy Jive BS
• You can all thank Bill Lines for these bullets.
• I don’t like Power Point presentations, generally. Neither will you after this one.

Unreal McCoy
• State Sen. Scott McCoy has smoke in his eyes. Or something. I like McCoy—or at least I think I do. Or did. McCoy, one of the few Democrats in the Utah Legislature, is sponsoring a piece of 1984 Big Brother legislation aimed at taking one more arrow from the quiver of individual rights. His bill would make it a secondary crime to smoke in a vehicle if there is a child inside. That means the cops won’t be on the lookout for you, but if you commit another crime—like speeding or knocking off a bank—while smoking with your kid in the back seat, you can be ticketed.

Most everyone understands that smoking is bad and that smoking in an enclosed area is worse. And woe be unto to the children caught in a vehicular smoky trap set by dumb parents. Luckily, McCoy is there for those kids. He’s there for them in the exact same way that former myopic Utah legislators were there “for the kids” when children were among the bargaining chips in any number of gay legislation bills ranging from gay adoption to gay unions to gay partner insurance plans ostensibly because kids are innocent victims of an immoral lifestyle. You remember the opposite argument, don’t you? That the government has no right to legislate what goes on in one’s home or bedroom? Well, cars don’t count now. And parents don’t, either.

Both sides always claim for less government, but both sides always use the government when it comes to imposing their own views on the rest of us. Each year they pass a new dumb liquor law, for example. As a drinker, Democrat or liberal, you might understand that, but substitute wilderness designation, and you know how a conservative rancher feels.

Don’t start. I love children. I get it. But, another law? And from McCoy? His bill protects children under 6. Next year, they’ll raise the age to 16. Then 18. Then it will include back yards. Then smoke from backyard grills. Then back to where it started, in cars, when they will finally ban smoky sex in autos—moving or parked behind the wardhouse. Will someone please ban these people from the rest of us?

Double Passage
• LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley passed away Sunday. I’m not LDS, but I thought he was the best thing to come along for that church in, oh, say, nearly 200 years. He was a good person, a faithful person. It’s a crying shame that so many of the people he led in his faith never paid attention to him. If they had, Utah would be a far better place to live—his messages about loving thy neighbor fell on especially deaf ears in these parts. He sure did try, though.

• At very nearly the same time that President Hinckley died, Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens died as well. As leader of Greece’s 10 million Orthodox faithful, he was equally loved and was no small potatoes, either—the flocks of both men were about equal in size. At least, the living flocks. My family is naturally torn—comprised of both Mormons and Greek Orthodox as we are—uhh, considering it’s been hard to find any news locally about the guy with the long, gray beard and funky black hat.

Obama! Obama!
• Only the most cynical and hardened of modern liberals remain in the disingenuous but embracing vortex of Hillary and Bill Clinton. The rest of us know we’ve been had by the most expert Wag the Dog tandem in American history. It’s hard for liberals or Democrats to become un-Velcroed from Billary, but they should. More and more, it looks like the vast right-wing conspiracy was no such thing, that Hillary and Bill were safely nested within the game rules of dirty political play all along. Because it’s difficult to pin a rose on the pig’s ear of Hillary’s say-anything-to-appease-anyone-at-any-time Senate term (including Iraq war funding), they currently claim the summation of their 40-year quest for the presidency is “experience.” Pshaw!

• I prefer hope. I prefer the gathering of dreams and fulfillment of objectives derived of honest leadership. I want a leader. If I wanted a follower—as in following polls, data and caucus calculations—I’d buy me a slobbering boxer.

• Doesn’t it strike those liberals as odd that the only people mentioning race and gender in this contest are the Clintons? Yes, let’s keep America divided!

• Option A: Vote for Hillary to prove your point. Option B: Vote for Obama to put an exclamation point on America.

• I will vote for Obama on Feb. 5.

Staffbox