Saintless

Tonight I was on KRCL’s RadioActive program with Curtis Haring and Glen Brown. I’m hoping to post about that soon, but I’ve only got one more blog in me tonight before I give out. One of the topics that came up was the compromise reached at the legislature, where it was agreed that sponsors of all pro-LGBT and all anti-LGBT legislation would back off for the year.

This was a surprising move, because I expected that we would have a fighting chance (and possibly the LDS Church endorsement again) for LGBT Housing Protections, like we had in Salt Lake City. Of course, there were plenty of other bills that would be coming up, too. But, this was one that I really thought needed to happen this year – it’s the perfect time for it, and also the most likely.

I hadn’t seen this video when I was on the air earlier, but I wish that I had. Rep. Christine Johnson explains why the truce was called for this year, including backstory that we may have only guessed at without her telling us.

Now, what I argued on the air was that I thought that this would allow for both sides to work together and possibly come to a compromise, and hopefully that the Republicans might gain more understanding for LGBT issues. I said that I thought it was a good idea.

What I didn’t say was that I was really conflicted, too. I can see the other side – I can see people wondering why we didn’t go for the housing bill while we had the best chance, and thinking we’d given in to the other side.

I didn’t say that because, although I can understand it, my gut instinct says it was the right thing to do. And that was before watching Rep. Johnson’s explanation.

One more thing I want to add – more of our Senators and Representatives need to do this. Hearing directly from her on this issue really calmed any doubts that I had. So, thank you, Rep. Johnson. I hope others follow your lead.

(h/t to Eric at PrideInUtah for the video)

Ok, people. You know you want to sign the Fair Boundaries petition, but you just haven’t gotten around to it, right? Well, go sign Fair Boundaries right now!

As of now, you can sign this petition online – thanks to new Utah laws! This just went up, and I’m so proud to see it happening! Seriously, whatever you’re doing, drop it (quit reading this blog!) and go sign! Then get all your friends and family to, as well!

Do you know why you should? Because I’ve heard lots of you bitch that your vote doesn’t count. And you know what – when your legislators pick you, instead of you picking them – you’re right. But, it’s up to you to fix that. Sign this petition, let’s get it on the ballot, and let everyone in Utah vote on the issue. And then we can go back to voting for our legislators, instead of the other way around.

Also, in case you’re still reading, instead of signing, do you realize what a great thing this is? Fair Boundaries is the first legal online initiative that you can sign your name to, and have it count. This is going to pave the way to make our voices heard in a way they’ve never been before. Remember how much energy and money went into getting the voucher bill defeated through an initiative and then the ballot a few years ago? Not anymore.

Your voice just got louder.

Tags: Fair Boundaries

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to call into the KVNU For the People show and talk about Peter Corroon’s entry into the Gubernatorial race.

Disclaimer: I don’t, and never have, worked for the Corroon campaign. I’m just an activist that wanted to see him run, and plan to volunteer as much as I can to make this happen.

Anyway, my comments on KNVU made it into the Cache Valley Daily.

“It was kind of funny that the day the news started breaking that he was going to announce, one of the papers called me to get my input on it,” Fowler says. “I said, ‘you know the difference between Peter Corroon and Gary Herbert is that Gary Herbert is out there pushing this water deal through where nobody wants it.’

“It’s not needed. Even if it should have gone through it definitely shouldn’t just be rushed through. That’s not something Peter Corroon ever in a million years would do.”

Well, that was fine and dandy. But, what really made my evening was the first comment:

5:38 PM TJ Anderson wrote …

Why is the Daily reporting on what Misty Fowler thinks? She’s so far out there, not even the Democrats listen to her. Compared to her, Joseph Stalin is moderate. That said, I do support Corroon’s bid. Maybe Herbert can regain some traction with me, but as it stands, I think it’s time for a change.

I think this guy would be surprised to learn a few things about me: I like guns. A lot. I eat meat sometimes and very much dislike PETA. I drive a Jeep and not a hybrid or a bicycle. And almost every online test I take to determine what my “real” political affiliation is tells me I’m actually a Libertarian (although I can’t stand Ron Paul enough to ever call myself that). But, it’s always nice to know what other people think!

I just love that he said I make Joseph Stalin look moderate. I wonder how much he really knows about Stalin? Anyway, this was too funny to pass up. Thanks to Tyler and Jason for having me on!

It’s official. Mayor Peter Corroon will be making an important announcement this Tuesday at 9:30 am at the South City Campus.

According to my information, there was a press release already sent out that stated it would be Monday. However, shortly after that, the Mayor decided to change it to Tuesday. I will post the press release here as soon as I get it. I hope that we can make the crowd of supporters as big as possible! Please join us!

Tags: Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon

The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting that Mayor Peter Corroon is prepared to announce his candidacy for Governor of Utah this coming Tuesday. While I have no insider information on that, and until the Mayor comes out and says anything, I won’t be counting on Tuesday, I do have high hopes that he will be announcing soon.

Jeremiah Stettler, who contributed to that article, called me yesterday. Most of our conversation didn’t make it in the article, but he asked me why I think that Peter Corroon would be a good Governor for Utah. What I told him was that I think Corroon is a very reasoned individual. For example, he was pressured to increase taxes last spring, and he said absolutely not. Instead, he went about trying to cut costs and save the County money in every way he could. When that was done, and it was apparent that a tax increase was actually needed, he went ahead with it. Raising taxes will never be popular. But sometimes, it is needed. And I trust Peter Corroon to make the best and most reasoned decisions for what’s best for all Utahns as Governorr.

If you are as excited as I am about this, you can join the “Draft Peter Corroon for Utah Governor” group on Facebook. You can also donate to the “Corroon Leadership PAC” through ActBlue.

Watch for more information coming soon – as soon as I know anything that I can share, I’ll post here! Also, if you have comments about why you think Peter Corroon should run, please post them here – I’d love to hear from you, and I’ll do my best to share those comments with him.

Update: New post: He’s in!

Tags: Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon

You may be familiar with Curtis Haring from his blog, Blue in Red Zion and other activism. Curtis has been a friend of mine for a while now, and I was very excited when he told me he was accepting the position as Executive Director of Fair Boundaries.

I know that part of his duties will include fundraising, and so I will be making my first donation to the Fair Boundaries Initiative today, in order to support the idea of hiring Curtis as the ED. I think this was a great move for the organization, and I think Curtis will be just the person they need in this position.

If you’re not familiar with Fair Boundaries, the general idea is to prevent gerrymandering in Utah. A longer explanation, from their site:

• Establishes an eleven-member independent commission
• Allows no more four members from the same political party, three unaffiliated
• Sets anti-gerrymandering standards
• Keeps more local communities intact
• Defines an honorable, open and transparent process
• Excludes individuals with obvious conflicts of interest from the commission
• Opens the process to citizen applicants

I would suggest that you check out the articles, such as this one from the Deseret News, and read the text of the petition. I think almost everyone (not currently in office who is only there because the boundaries are screwy) would agree that this is something Utah really needs.

If you’re interested, the full text of the press release about hiring Curtis Haring as the new Executive Director for Fair Boundaries is available for download. I’ll leave you with this interesting little tidbit, from the document:

To date, Fair Boundaries has in distribution enough petitions to significantly exceed its goal of 95,000 signatures from across the state. The initiative itself is seeing strong support from all sides of the political spectrum, with nearly 50 percent of signers being independents and 30 percent being Republican, numbers similar to statewide averages.

Tags: Fair Boundaries

Here is the email I got from Rep. Jason Chaffetz:

Dear Misty,

In response to the increased public interest in town hall meetings, I have changed the location of my Salt Lake County and Fillmore meetings to a larger venue. The August 26 meeting in will now be held at Elk Ridge Middle School (3659 W 9800 S) in South Jordan. The September 2 meeting will be held at the Old Territorial Statehouse (50 W. Capitol) in Fillmore. The time for both events will remain the same: 7:00 PM and 5:00 PM respectively.

Also, I have pasted the complete list of town hall meetings below, with the updates highlighted in yellow.

Utah County

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

7:00 PM

51 South University Ave.

Third Floor Ballroom

Provo, UT 84601

Salt Lake County

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

7:00 PM

Elkridge Middle School

3649 W. 9800 S.

South Jordan, UT 84095-3260

Sanpete County

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

1:00 PM

Greenwood Student Center

250 E. College Ave.

Fillmore

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

5:00 PM

Old Territorial Statehouse

50 W. Capitol

Fillmore, UT 84631

Delta

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

7:00 PM

Delta City Office

76 N. 200 W.

Delta, UT 84624

Thanks,

–

Jason Chaffetz

Member of Congress

I’ll be attending the Salt Lake County one.

My company chose Hogle Zoo for our Annual Family Breakfast this year. We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast at the American Express Event Pavillion with coworkers before heading out into the zoo. Our friends met us there, so we had quite the group – 9 of us in all!

I’d like to shout out to @Hogle_Zoo for some tips on things to do at the zoo, including the Meet The Keepers events.

The one thing I really, really hoped for at the zoo was to pet a snake. I didn’t think that was going to happen, but we got lucky! After we left the Madagascar exhibit, there were two guys with a boa constrictor talking about it, and they let us touch it’s back. I adore snakes, and will probably add one to my own zoo eventually.

The other thrill for me was the Elephant Encounter. I knew that Christie was pregnant, and due soon, so when they brought her out I was pretty happy. I get my love of elephants from my grandmother, who also loves them. And I have fond memories of being scared to death as I rode the elephant at Dickerson Park Zoo in Missouri as a child.

Speaking of elephants, a while back I discovered a site selling paintings by elephants. You read that right – paintings by elephants (not just of them)! There is even video explaining how they do it, and why. The whole thing was very fascinating!

So, while we were at the Elephant Encounter, I discovered that Christie the elephant also paints, and they had pieces of her paintings for sale in the gift shop. Preston, my 9 year old son, really wanted one. We didn’t get one while we were there this time, but I’m hoping to go back soon and purchase one. I wish that Hogle Zoo would put out a video of the elephants painting! I bet that would greatly increase the demand for a “Christie Original” painting!

I asked my sons to write about the visit to the zoo, so I could post it here. First up is Preston’s:

What I like about the zoo are the two babies, the Madagascar exhibit, the conservation carousel, the train ride, the beastro, wild zootique, the big marble, flavor burst cone, Christie, the animals, and the elephant’s paintings. Because of the two babies were so cute. The big marble wouldn’t stop. The flavor burst cone has lots of flavor in it and tastes good. And the elephant’s paintings are cool.

For the uninitiated, the big marble is a giant round marble floating on water, and the kids get to go spin it and get very wet!

And here’s what Drake, my 11 year old, had to say:

When we went to the zoo we got some T-shirts from my mom’s work and tickets for the zoo. We ate breakfast at the zoo because my mom’s work gave breakfast too. After we ate breakfast we waited for my mom’s friends. We went to the new Madagascar and saw cool turtles and when we went out to go to the primate forest we saw two people holding a snake not venomous thank the lord we got to touch it and it was slimy and scaly. We went to the primate forest and got to see the same species as Dexter from the Night at the Museum and we saw a new born monkey that was born May 1st 2009. then we saw kangaroos jumping on each other it was funny. Then we went to the small animal room and it had reptiles in there to. Then we went to the primate building and then we ate lunch at the Bear Grotto. The great apes building then we went to the conservation carousel. Then we saw Giraffes. Then the last thing the zoofari express. It was fun till we had to leave.

I should also mention that right next to the kangaroos jumping on each other were two turtles, mating rather loudly:

Here’s Preston petting the snake:

Oh, and this little guy, which I think was the Brown Tufted Capuchin Monkey, was pretty fun! He crawled down and made some pretty creepy faces at us!

Tags: Hogle Zoo

A few days ago, Clarity Sanderson and I started the “Draft Peter Corroon for Governor in 2010” group on Facebook. The group has already grown to over 300 people!

We are asking supporters to invite 4 more friends to the group, and to write an endorsement of Mayor Corroon. When we have 1,000 members, we will present these endorsements to Mayor Corroon, and ask how he feels about running.

We have a hint already, though. Clarity posted this button to the group:

Mayor Corroon made a comment on the image, saying it was very patriotic looking. So, hopefully, we can take that as a sign that he’s at least open to the idea!

Here is the endorsement that I posted to the group:

I feel that Mayor Peter Corroon should run for Utah Governor in 2010 because he’s made intelligent decisions for the county as Mayor, and that his dependable and trustworthy temperament would make him a very popular Governor across the entire state of Utah.

Tags: Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon

Before I get into this endorsement, I would like to say that I have the utmost respect for current Utah State Democratic Party Chair Wayne Holland. I loved working with him over the past couple of years, and I believe he is a great person, and has done some good things for the Utah State Democratic Party.

However, I feel compelled to endorse JM (Jeff) Bell for Utah State Democratic Party Chair. One of the biggest reasons is that I believe Bell has a fundamental understanding of technology and how to harness it. The current party leadership has missed the mark on this issue, and we absolutely cannot let that continue.

I’ve seen recent improvements in the area of technology with the UT Democrats, however, I think it’s too little, too late.

Vote for Jeff Bell for Utah State Democratic Party Chair

I also believe the the current party leadership has a fundamental belief that most races in this state can only be won by either a conservative, or someone who compromises on basic Democratic Party ideals to become more like a conservative. I understand that there’s no “perfect Democrat”, nor should anyone running under the Democratic banner be forced, or even try, to be a complete liberal on every issue. However, we need better candidates who don’t compromise with the conservatives to try to win against them. It’s just silly to think that people in this state will vote for that type of candidate.

We need energized Democratic candidates who stick to their own values, and who have support from the State Democratic Party.

During the last election, I also felt that the State Party was more interested in supporting a “higher visibility” candidate for Governor, who was obviously going to lose, than they were in supporting other candidates who had a true shot at winning, but for a lower office. Or maybe it was because they weren’t able to harness the huge amounts of grassroots volunteer energy, because they hadn’t seen such a thing in recent history.

I think I could even sum it up this way: Buttars won the last election. I don’t think that would have happened if Jeff was Chair. Not that I blame the current Chair for this in any sort of direct way. However, I think Jeff Bell will take the Utah State Democratic Party in the direction we need, not just to elect more Democrats, but to elect the right Democrats, and send the right message about our party to the people of Utah. I also believe that Bell will be far more in touch with the average Utahn, and get them involved.

As Bell himself says:

It is time for the Party to educate Utah voters about who we are, what we stand for, and deliver the message that Democrats are more than a watered down alternative to the empty, harmful policies of the Utah GOP – We are the best choice for Utah voters.

As your Party Chair I will work to bring that message to the people of Utah, and in doing so will help us return to a position of strength where, defining ourselves once more as Democrats, we can bring real, progressive leadership to the great state of Utah

Read the rest of his Letter to Utah Democrats, and see if you don’t agree with me.

And on a personal note, Jeff Bell was already a well known Utah blogger and all around political guru when I came on the scene a few years ago. I think we’ve probably disagreed on a few things, but overall, Jeff and his blog have been a huge inspiration for my own blog. In addition, while I was Chair of the Utah for Obama group, Jeff was an amazing mentor, even though I was a political nobody. I had jumped into the middle of this political arena that I knew little about, but felt determined to get Utah to vote for Obama, and become aware of him. I didn’t know any of the elected officials, party officials, or really anyone else when I started. Jeff has always answered my silly questions without making (too much) fun of me for them. He’s good natured, well informed, and believes that we all need to be involved. The Utah State Democratic Party isn’t about one or two people making decisions for the rest of us. Jeff understands that, and I think with him as Chair of the Party that the entire process will be far more open, far more effective, and far more Democratic.

So, please vote for Jeff Bell this June 20 at the Utah State Democratic Convention. Stop by and talk with him at his booth if you’re attending the Salt Lake County Democratic Convention this Saturday, April 18.

Tags: JM Bell, Utah State Democratic Party