Welcome to Southern Utah

'Natural family' stand stirs Kanab

Today, the southern Utah city (Kanab) is making headlines again - this time by becoming the first town to approve a nonbinding "natural-family resolution," which envisions women "growing into wives, homemakers and mothers" but says nothing about any roles outside the home.

Apparently, the city of Kanab felt so strongly that women should stay in their place that they had to pass a resolution. I'm glad it's nonbinding. Doesn't the city council have better things to do? I'm not against a woman being a wife, mother, or homemaker, but that is her private choice, her personal business that doesn't need to be politicized. This is so typical of these small southern Utah towns.

This resolution doesn't surprise me at all; nothing at all surprises me after living here for a few years. What would surprise me would be the city council passing a resolution saying women are free to choose and be whatever they want to be. Right now, this is almost as embarrassing as being from Kansas. *sigh* I'll find a rock to crawl under as soon as possible.

And now for something completely different

Malaysia creates team to track 'Bigfoot'

You know, I was just waiting for a story like this. After wiretappings, Katrina failings, Alito hearings, Chavez meetings with crazy Americans, and who knows what else, I'm always happy to hear that Bigfoot is alive and well.

More on education.

A few days ago, I blogged about the lack of decent education in the U.S. It was sort of cryptic, as I simply asked people to read John Stossel's great article, "Stupid in America." I didn't editorialize, I just had a quote up from the Texas Declaration of Independence.

My feeling on education in America is that states should be in charge of their schools. The federal government should not be in the business of education at all. I don't think their involvement has been for the better; clearly, schools are not as great as they could be. If states were in charge, I believe that their education curriculum and their schools would be an asset to their commerce, in that businesses and other people would move to states where the schools were better, and people would have a choice as to what kind of education their children received. This would be the better solution to below-average schools. There would be no top-down mandates or federal funds. States that did not have good schools would be the losers in this, as no one would want to live there that had children. In the long run, they would have to improve their schools to get competitive in the commercial marketplace. That would be a win-win situation for children as well as business interests.

Look--the government-run VA hospitals are not the place I'd go for a major surgery. Would you really allow your most precious asset, your children, to be educated in a public school that is sort of controlled by the federal government? I sure wouldn't. I think a federal Department of Education is sort of creepy in a free-thinking society, actually.

Disturbing.

ABC News: Documents Show Katrina Warnings Ignored

On Aug. 27, two days before the storm made landfall, FEMA had prepared a slide presentation for White House officials. The FEMA slides said a Category 4 storm surge "could greatly overtop levees and protective systems." It's unclear who at the White House received this briefing or how its contents were distributed afterward.

Hours before the storm made landfall, the White House Situation Room received a report prepared by the Department of Homeland Security in which experts predicted flooding "could leave the New Orleans metro area submerged for weeks or months." The report also said that hurricane damage could cost $10 billion to $14 billion.

At a hearing today, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said the White House has maintained a "refusal to answer" stance regarding questions and document requests by congressional investigators looking at the federal government's response to Katrina.

"Almost every question our staff has asked federal agency witnesses regarding conversations with or involvement of the White House has been met with a response that they could not answer on direction of the White House," Lieberman said.

After the storm hit, every official told us they couldn't know it would be so bad. I am not trying to be flippant, but I saw a documentary on Discovery Channel two years ago that outlined the dangers of a major storm hitting New Orleans, and a scenario that was presented included levee breaches. Even I knew that that could happen. The response to Katrina could have been better, and now there's no question that people at FEMA, Homeland Security and the White House knew what might happen, so why wasn't it better?

Brown was advised by agency lawyers not to answer specific questions about whether he'd spoken to President Bush and Vice President Cheney in the days leading up to the storm.

As a voter and a taxpayer, I want Mr. Brown to answer these questions. So do people living in tents and trailers on the Gulf Coast.

Americans are stupid? Noooo...

It has failed to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources, (the public domain,) and although it is an axiom in political science, that unless a people are educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity for self government.

--from the Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico

Ponder the words from 1836, think on them for a moment. Now, go and read this article about public education in the United States:
ABC News: Stupid in America

Polygamy is not even "weirdly" normal

HBO series on Utah polygamy makes it seem 'weirdly normal' - Salt Lake Tribune

Polygamy should not be glamorized; HBO is doing so simply by airing a show like this. I wonder if this new series will show how wives are "promised" away at age 11 to their creepy neighbor or uncle. Probably not, since it portrays all adults agreeing to this lifestyle:

Vicky Prunty of Tapestry Against Polygamy said she reviewed an early script and fears the show will "lead people into thinking there are greener pastures on the other side of monogamy. From what we've seen, it doesn't deal with abuse issues."

The creator of the show, Mark V. Olsen, said:

"We decry the same abuses that they decry but we do see a slightly larger canvas of polygamy than I sense that they see."

Too bad he doesn't understand that most people who decry abuses from polygamy came from polygamous families and have lived through the horrors themselves. How he can say that he sees a "slightly larger canvas of polygamy," I'll never know. What a creep.

Plural marriage was sanctioned and revealed to LDS believers by Joseph Smith. In that sense, polygamists are TRUE Mormons, with the mainstream church being false. That's what the fundamentalist Mormons think, anyway. Since people that don't live in Utah don't know very much about polygamy, I recommend reading Jon Krakauer's excellent book, "Under the Banner of Heaven." It explains a lot, and examines the fundamentalist Mormon doctrines that support polygamy. The book also covers some basic Mormon church history.

As a libertarian, I don't care what consenting adults do. They aren't hurting me. But when children are involved, I draw the line.

Home again.

We are finally back home after almost a month of traveling. The last little jaunt was back home to Kansas City, where I saw family and friends, and worked a booth at a sports show. We thought it would be a good idea to get in a visit AND work the show. That was a huge mistake. We almost had no time to really hang out with folks. If you are planning to travel and mix business with pleasure, that doesn't necessarily work very well when family is involved.

In any case we're back to the grind, and into making some fairly serious life-changing decisions. Of course, we are moving. What that means for us beyond that, we're not sure. Now that we have owned our own business for five years, we're not anxious to become anyone's employee again. We would like to start another business because we had a great time starting this one. I know my marriage is one in a million after what we've done as a team. I hope the next adventure in business is just as fun and successful as this one has been. I suppose I could be somebody's employee again, but I would have some demands for the workplace now that I've owned my own business.

If I had to go job searching, I wouldn't approach a job interview or a future employer in the same ways that I did. For one thing, I would make very clear that I would not come in or answer the phone from Friday at 5 until Monday at 8. And as far as phones go, I probably would not carry a cell phone (on this last visit my whole family was tricked out with cell phones. My younger sister would arbitrarily get on the phone and talk instead of talking to visiting relatives--rude.). If I HAD to carry a cell phone, I would demand that the employer pay for it. I would also negotiate for a Blackberry if I had to be THAT connected. I would also tell a future employer that I would work at home sometimes and not at work, and the internet allows for that these days (technology really is a good thing when it allows for good things to happen--like working at home). I would need at least two home-work days a month. Maybe three.

My demands may be a bit high-maintenance in today's work-til-you-drop world, but I would make concessions to these demands, like taking less money. Or opting out of a 401K. I would have to value my worth in comparison to cost of living where I would be employed, of course. But I would be conscientious and hard working, and I would demand the same of my co-workers. And the boss had better run a tight ship; I would not suffer business waffling or arbitrary-change-of-goals-due-to-giant-egos. In short, I am typing the whispy outline of some fantasy world that does not exist in corporate America. I realize, that like most relationships, the employee/employer relationship is not perfect; in fact, it is usually dysfunctional. Honestly, I will probably not be looking for a job. If one finds me that would be worth considering, I would have to make a list and do some soul-searching, especially if I had to move back to a city. It would have to be a really unusual, interesting, too-weird-to-be-true kind of job to move back to a city.