When Stubbornness in the Right Is Wrong

Some friends of mine think sticking to one's guns is the essence of great leadership in politics. I disagree.

The Vice President seems to think it is. Cheney told ABC's George Stephanopoulis that the election and public sentiment will not affect the administration's war policy; in other words, stubbornness in the "right". In an interview to be broadcast Sunday on "This Week", the VP said:

"It may not be popular with the public — it doesn't matter in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think is right. And that's exactly what we're doing," Cheney said. "We're not running for office. We're doing what we think is right."

Cheney's headstrong full steam ahead no matter what happens does not exhibit good leadership qualities.

Even God bent to the political will of the people. Remember when the Israelites wanted the hip world of kings instead of judges? Wallah! After a political science lecture by God on why kings were bad, the people's wish was not only granted but also supported. Enter King Saul, who in turn was followed by the heavenly anointed King David.

Of course, the brilliance of our system is that our politicians are set up to be responsive to the American people. God cherishes our freedoms and liberties to choose. But even if it were conceivable that He did not, we'd still want our current system that is of the people, by the people and for the people.

A new congress may have to remind the Vice President how little a presidency can do without Congressional approval. At a minimum, congress has the purse strings and can literally stop the cogs of government from turning. Stubbornness in following what they think is right above what the American people might think ultimately has dire consequences for those in power. It's the beauty of the American system and its check on elitist thinking.

Bushisms

Well, we know this president did not invent the Internet or Google, although he may have invented the word "The Internets" and "The Google".

p.s. The prez doesn't use email either. He doesn't want the liability of a written email record telling him he was supposed to know something. But the rest of this video where he states that has now been pulled from all the sites some 2 months later. Shucks!

Tabernacle Pews Are Casualty of Facelift

I'm a history buff; and this quote about recent rennovations of the Tabernacle just caught my attention.

For Robert Charles Mitchell, a retired newspaper editor from Salt Lake
City who lives in Logan, the fate of the pews and the bank tower hit the “same
vein.” "It’s an issue of values,” he said. “We glorify our pioneers. We talk about their travails and bless their devilishly hard work. We laud them on the one hand and run roughshod over them on the other. We’re dishing up ersatz history and throwing away the real thing.”

The Corpse of Habeas Corpus

"All we have to fear is fear itself." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

The ease in which habeas corpus has been compromised is alarming. As the dear reader knows, habeas corpus is a concept that precedes our system of government by centuries, thanks to the British.

Habeas Corpus looking more like a corpse.

The Geneva Convention seems convened.

And Olbermann waxes poetic on both (Video - 8:42 min).

Christians Conned by GOP

"Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." - Matt 16:6

I don't trust the government to govern religion or to work with it. I want them to be hands off because I think they will just stir up a mess.

Part of my thinking might have to do with my own LDS background in which state governments and the federal government invariably got it wrong when it came to working with their Saint minority. From my viewpoint, they just didn't understand us.

And the fruits of their misunderstandings? Well, Missouri had its Extermination Order against the Saints; Illinois, its lack of civil protection and persecution; and later when the Saints fled to the West, the expanding Federal government was finally moved not to protect but to war against the Saints, enraged by the practice of polygamy and the fear that their new federally appointed civic leaders weren't being paid enough attention to. With religious help like that, who needs friends?

It is interesting to see how manipulative such seemingly religious-minded leaders can actually be -- or so says special assistant to the president David Kuo. Things are not always what they seem at the surface. This administration's faith-based iniatitives have felt and smelt to me like an elite group of political thinkers using religious leaders, who were so willing to be used. Now comes the latest revelations from Bush's #2 man in charge of faith-based initiatives on CBS' 60 Minutes.

Observes Kuo, "He [President Bush] wanted it [faith initiatives] to look good. He cared less about it being good."

Show with no intention of substance. Hmm, where have we heard of this before in the New Testament? It sounds so familiar.

While the administration wrapped themselves up in evangelical clothes and courted their leaders, secretly they were calling evangelical leaders nut-cases. These initiatives were all for show with subtle winks to get the religious voter base out for power -- "wonder working power" -- the evangelical ear-candy equivalent to "Come, Come Ye Saints".

What was it that P.T. Barnum supposedly said? Oh yea. "There's a sucker born every minute."

Nuclear Test in North Korea

North Korea finally tests nuclear bomb Sunday night while U.S. President sleeps

• Developing story at CNN
• Shots fired on Korean border as tensions mount
  

Options?

1. U.S. continues 6 country negotiations, economic sanctions tightened but generally N. Korea continues on as a nuclear power
2. As a result, regional nuclear arms race in the Far East among Japan, China, S. Korea and N. Korea heats up big time and fast! North Korean nuclear technology eventually leak to weapons buyers
   
3. Or China steps in to end current N. Korean regime and establishes a friendlier communist government. In which case they position themselves as the military leader and power broker in Asia
   
4. Or the U.S. steps in militarily in N. Korea with some help from its alliance with other countries - Japan, S. Korea, China, Russia - in order to stop the nuclear arms race in Asia, keep the balance of power and America's leadership position in Asia. (Bogged down in a land war in Iraq, the U.S. implements a draft to meet the needs of a new war?)

Prediction: Watch for a Republican bounce in the polls with the N. Korean threat heating up. Sorry Democrats. Americans will desire stability.

What Are We Willing To Become To Feel Safe?

Here's a YouTube video of the day on the practice of water boarding. The Wall Street Journal editorial board has declared that what we are watching below isn't even "close to torture." The SS were just deploying "alternative interrogation techniques."

Most of the interrogation techniques are top secret. Waterboarding is one of the few we know about.

Majority of Iraqis Now Approve of Killing Americans

• 6 in 10 Iraqis Approve of Killing Americans
• 7 in 10 Iraqis Want the U.S. Gone From Iraq Within a Year

Source: PIPA / University of Maryland Poll conducted by D3 Systems, Inc. Polling was conducted September 1-4 with a nationwide representative sample of 1,150 Iraqi adults.

Economist: Europeans Were Spectacularly Wrong

"A DECADE ago, Americans began a bold social experiment. In August 1996, Bill Clinton signed into law the bill that introduced “welfare to work”. From that point, poor families could no longer claim welfare indefinitely as an entitlement. Instead, parents had to find a job. The reform, controversial enough in America, was reviled in many parts of Europe. Its opponents said that welfare claimants, most of them single mothers, would be unable to find work. They and their families, it was argued, were being condemned to destitution. Ten years on, such dire warnings have been proved spectacularly wrong. America's welfare rolls have fallen by over half as existing claimants have found work and fewer people have gone on benefit in the first place."

ANALYSIS: Whatever Happens, Iran Wins

“Every obscene statement on the Holocaust, every suggestion that Israel will be eradicated, every assertion of the Natural Right to Nuclear Capability, every jab at the Great Satan, only cements his status as the megastar of restive, miserable, messianic Muslims.” -- Israel's Haaretz Newspaper

Temple Square is still top tourist draw in Utah

It looks like Temple Square is still the top tourist driver for Utah -- and it's not just Mormons coming here. People are genuinely curious about Mormonism.

That doesn't surprise me as much as this very candid comment about Temple Square from Deseret News, the church friendly newspaper owned by a corporation of the Church.

Like visitors to St. Peter's Square in Rome, people touring Temple Square should expect to find a church-sanctioned version of history. Don't come looking for a lengthy discussion of polygamy or a detailed explanation of the "Utah War" of 1857, when Mormon militia and federal troops engaged in a tense standoff.

America's Forgotten Precursor to the Civil War

I've been to various national museums in Utah and Colorado, and even managed to speak with a few curators. They've painted a picture of the 1857-58 Utah war as an attempt to squash rebellion and a pre-cursor to the Civil War. Some might even call it the first battle of the Civil War.

According to one curator I recently spoke with, the territory of Utah, pro-slavery and pro-polygamy, was perceived in open rebellion against the Federal government. One thing new that I learned from the curator was that Utah had quite a few slave owners from the Missouri saints. I had never heard of that before.

With a misreading of the Mormons and the political situation, President Buchanan sent 20% of the total federal force - a huge show of force - to squash the rebellion.

The Deseret News features a neat piece on the Utah War and how it showed how the American nation would deal with perceived rebellion and how an invaded people would react, foreshadowing events of the real Civil War that would follow just four years later.

Dog Days of Summer

I had to take a photo of my dog demonstrating to the rest of us what “the dog days of summer” means when it is heartfelt. It means finding a cool wooden floor around 9am and camping out until it’s time to take a walk around the cool of sunset.

1 Cliff 3:4. And my father dwelt in a tent. 5. And it came to pass that my dog dwelt on the floor.

Unusual Web Server Error

The things and people we take for granted that try to make our life easier. Here's a 404 error page that makes you stop and think about the everyday life of a web server.

Can't Take It With You, But This Comes Close

You might not be able to take a baseball team with you to Heaven, but this comes awfully close. Die-hard baseball fans will soon have a way to be close to their favorite teams in the afterlife. They can now buy a casket with the name of their baseball team to comfort them on their everlasting journey.

Ain't it grand to be American?

SLC is About the Wild West

Here's a deer that allowed me to get close. Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front are in the background.

Proof enough that Salt Lake City is a metropolis in the middle of the Wild West?

This fawn allowed me to get pretty close. For those who live here, they know that we have deer here up the ying-yang.

When one thinks of Salt Lake City, one should think about the Rocky Mountains, wildlife and unbelievable scenery. I mean, you can't see temple square from this point of view, can you? And this point of view welcomes everyone who loves nature and the conveniences of a big city -- plays, art, film, shopping, etc. Salt Lake City -- the broadway, Sundance Film Festival, the New York City of the Rockies.

Salt Lake City, the Wild West

I took this photo yesterday on an afternoon excursion with visiting family. This is a herd of wild buffalo that roam freely, relaxing while watching the skyline of Salt Lake City, the Great Salt Lake and the Wasatch Front on a most beautiful summer day.

I've said it many times before. The nation takes this major metropolis for granted. It's a well kept secret.

The first association that comes to mind with Salt Lake City is usually a picture of Temple Square. But for those of us who live here, we know this is the wild west combined with the convenience of a big city. Want proof? Take a look at the photo. Skyscrapers, snow capped mountains in June, shopping, skiing, boating, a herd of 50 or so wild buffalo in one place, and the rugged Rocky Mountains. It's all here. It's a well kept secret that my out-of-state family are learning to love. (We come from generations of nature lovers.)

Shhh... we gotta keep telling everyone that there is nothing here but Mormons and Temple Square. After all, we don't want it to get too crowded here. The State is already one of the fastest growing in the Union.

Guantanamo Bay

This just in from the BBC:

"The adverse reaction to a claim by a senior US official that the suicides of three Guantanamo Bay detainees was a "good PR move" adds to the growing international pressure for the camp to be closed."

Describing the suicides of the Afghan prisoners as a "good PR move" was a really dumb and insensitive thing for our general to say -- in a string of a lot of bad moves. Our practices at Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay), and utterances by our leaders are really giving the mantel of liberty that we uphold a black eye around the world. DARN THOSE EUROPEAN BLEEDING HEART LIBERALS WHO CAN'T SEE THE MOTE IN THEIR OWN EYE. It's inflaming the Arab world as well.

Holding the prisoners until the end of the terrorist war isn't worth the tarnishing our own values are taking and that we are receiving among our world friends. Our own press didn't pick this up but the BBC knew the quote would be popular among its readership.

On A Clear Day, You Can See Forever

Salt Lake and Utah valleys are basins and tend to trap city pollution but out here in Capital Reef National Park, it's still pristine.

Want proof of Utah having some of the clearest skies in the contiguous 48 states? Here it is.

See those snow capped mountains in the background that look so close? They are 150 miles away.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Los Angeles.

Herd of Mule Deer at Fruita, UT

If you cannot tell by now, I love wildlife and try hard to flock to areas in Utah where I can take photos of such majestic animals.

Here's another shot of the same herd of Mule Deer in Capital Reef National Park.

Deer are everywhere in Utah and can be quite a hazard when driving at night. They can be spooked by lights and dart out in front of cars.

Capital Reef National Park, Utah

Forgot to post this. Here is a photo I took while visiting Capital Reef National Park. A herd of mule deer were feeding amidst an apple tree grove in Fruita, Utah.

This was taken two weeks ago so the apple tree are probably fully budding right now in South Central Utah.

The air is always crystal clear here, where one can see forever. There are no clearer or bluer skies in the West, contrasted by ruddy red rocks.

What's In Back of My House In the City

I decided to take a twenty minute drive up to Brighton to take my dog for a walk. The ski resorts are just beyond the mountain in my backyard so getting there is pretty easy. I just have to go up the canyon to the south of my backyard mountain.

No need to get on the highway -- just the road in front of my house, two intersections away, then up the mountain.

The ski resorts have been getting a lot of snow dumped on them but they are about to close down for the season. Last year one resort ran all the way until July 4. Amazing!

Salt Lake City Is IN the Rockies, Not By It

A view from the parking lot of my local ward in Salt Lake City.

Our backyard view is like a national park. We are visited frequently by deer. I've seen moose. There's a herd of elk that call the mountain home. And there's even a cougar that comes down once in a great while.

From the front of my house one can see the vast expanse of Salt Lake valley, a basin set between two mountain ranges -- the Wasatch and the Oquirh.

Ain't life in the Rockies grand?

As can be seen, Salt Lake is no Denver. It lies right smack dab in the Rockies - ski country. We do not have to travel on a highway for an hour and a half to ski. And, it has the conveniences of a large city -- 1.1 million large.

Winter Still Has It's Grip on Salt Lake City

Global warming? Not here in Salt Lake City. At least not this morning.

This is a backyard photo taken this morning. There's a lot of snow from the night before. It melted fast as the sun came out and the day heated up.

In case you cannot tell, I think my dog must be some weird variety of Himalayan snow dog. Her favorite thing is playing in the snow.

She was a lucky dog today.

Spring and Easter in Salt Lake City

It's Good Friday and Spring is definitely here. Salt Lake Valley has warmed to 71 degrees today. So I felt like breaking the camera out.

New life is budding out from what have looked like dead trees.

It's an interesting coincidence that Passover and hence Easter falls in Spring, not in Summer, Fall or Winter. I suspect there are older themes at work here on the timing of these festivals that predate the exodus and Easter story.

The death of Winter has passed us by. New life springs forth. Some might even say a rebirth. Themes that we will hear in our chapels this weekend.

Mark 16: 6. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.

Time: Utah's Toxic Opportunity in Skull Valley

Time magazine had a feature story on Skull Valley. The federal government has now approved and licensed the reservation to store not just nuclear waste but vast quantities of it.

Last month (February) the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a license for a $3.1 billion project that would make the Skull Valley reservation the nation's biggest nuclear-waste holding site, a temporary parking lot for 44,000 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel now being stored at nuclear power plants nationwide. For utilities, it could solve what has been a vexing problem. For tribal officials, the advantages are tangible: as much as $100 million in fees to be paid over 40 years by a Wisconsin-based consortium of utilities, Private Fuel Storage (PFS)..."People say this will destroy the land," says tribal chairman Leon Bear, who brokered the deal. "But how can you poison what is already poisoned?"

The tribal chairman's point about the land already being poisoned is well taken. I found suspicious dead cattle just a couple of miles from the reservation (see photo). The twenty or so Goshutes that remain in the valley are surrounded by a chemical and biological testing ground to their West. Bombing grounds to their north. A military chemical depot to their east. Somehow, Skull Valley has become a renoun waste land good for nothing except the very worst that the military can throw at it.

And what is the State's best argument against the federal government's power to place nuclear waste two valleys over from metropolitan Salt Lake City? Can we just say no? Apparently not because it's on Goshute land. The State's best argument to prevent the country's largest nuclear waste deposit in our backyard seems to be to raise concern over the bombing sorties to the north about 50 miles.

The state has filed suit in federal court to void the NRC license on the grounds that the spent fuel would sit dangerously close to an Air Force training path. F-16 fighter jets roar overhead on 7,000 sorties a year. Should one crash into the steel-and-concrete casks, state attorneys argue, cancer-causing radiation could waft over Salt Lake City.

Moving Lips

I love this phrase by movie critic Roger Ebert. Had to post it.

"many movies are aimed at people who move their lips when they think."

Snow Again Today

It's snowing again in Salt Lake Valley. We have a little more in the benches. Here's the view from my backyard this morning.

The ski resorts up the mountain are expecting a foot and a half of new snow. Good skiing. 

Utah Ranks 7th Worst in Air Quality

In a report from the EPA, headed by Utah's past governor Mike Leavitt, Utah ranks 7th worst in air quality. The excuse is that the data is now old for at least Utah Valley since Geneva Steel no longer pollutes so the valley air quality has gone up significantly. Hmmm, now there is a question begging to be asked...

A friend once told me that the inversion we get in Salt Lake Valley is just water evaporating from the lake. In his defense, he did live for a stint some 30 years plus ago as a kid at the west edge of rural Tooele Valley where there is considerable haze from the lake.

Not so for Salt Lake or Utah Valley. Surrounded by mountains, pollution is not able to escape a bubble over the valley, which means that we stew in our own juices for weeks at time during the Winter. When one breathes, the body knows that the air is bad -- eyes itch, throat burns, and breathing is difficult. It may be beautiful clear blue skies above but the sun is blocked out in a brown soup.

Cowboys Alive and Well in Utah

Cowboys aren't gone. They are alive and well in rural Utah. You can even find them here among the sheep.

I caught this moment with my camera outside of Gunnison, Utah. The sheep were rounded up by a combination of two sheepdogs. The herding of the sheep down highway 28 was supervised by this lone cowboy.

Traffic was stopped for a good 15 minutes.

General Conference

It's General Conference time again at the Conference Center.

If you have Windows Media Player, you can click here to listen on lds.org.

Sure 'nuff. Illegals Brandishing Mexican Flags Are A PR Problem

I knew the Mexican flag waving would be a problem. Sure enough. Here it is right from CNN...

"Referring to a wave of demonstrations in recent weeks, Rep. Virgil Goode of Virginia said, 'I say if you are here illegally and want to fly the Mexican flag, go to Mexico and wave the American flag.'"

Civil Disobedience and Mormons

What to do with illegal immigrants is another great debate that divides Americans and the Republican party itself. The Economist reports ($$) this snippet that got me thinking about how a typical LDS member's response would be quite different.

"The Roman Catholic cardinal of Los Angeles said that he would urge his priests and lay Catholics to ignore a ban on aiding illegal immigrants."

Wow! That's foreign to the modern LDS way of looking at things. We don't ignore laws or commit acts of civil disobedience against laws we don't like, whatever they might be. We are people that have been trained in our youth to use the system. In short, we aren't revolutionaries.

LDS Articles of Faith12. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

And yes. I know that Thomas Jefferson thought a revolution was good every 20 years or so, but that isn't us. We will defend our lives if we have to. But at our core, we are organizational men who work within the system, even when a system might have flaws.

And when the system is deaf to our needs -- inflicting or allowing persecution, unjust incarceration or murder by mobs. Civil Disobedience? Revolution? Nope. Not us. History has shown that even in such a dire scenario our LDS propensity is to simply leave and be left alone.

My How The Church Has Grown

This great big building is the mini church office building in front of the humongous church skyscraper in the back. I believe the church outgrew the mini building in front, built at the beginning of the twentieth century. It's now the office of the First Presidency.

The building's grey granite with Greek columns makes it look like a few federal buildings of neo-classic design that I've seen back in Washington D.C.

No?

Manti Temple

It's hard to believe but it was just barely over twenty years ago that my wife and I were married in the Manti Temple. March 25, 1985.

After the marriage ceremony, there was a moment in which the officiator gave advice to my wife and me. And what was that special advice given to build our marriage for time and all eternity?

Never go to bed mad at each other. Talk it over.

Time flies.

Wrong Flag, Wrong Country

Utah understands illegal immigration. After all, our Utah pioneers were illegal immigrants of Mexico in Alta California, escaping religious persecution from the United States.

Nowadays, Utah's 300,000 Hispanics are our fastest growing minority group.

But these photos of so many protestors in Los Angeles, Chicago and other American cities yielding Mexican flags will change the face of the debate. Our melting pot is much more welcoming of immigrants waving the American flag of freedom. Waving the Mexican flag in large American cities is no way to melt into America. Protestors should have carried American flags to show that they are an important part of America's economy.

Bad PR move.

My prediction. The country is going to have a stronger gut reaction on the side of immigration enforcement.

LDS Church Office Building

LDS Church Office Building
Originally uploaded by landoncliff.

I went to Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City, and took a few photos of the church office building. And what should my wandering eyes spot but a statue of Joseph Smith on one corner and Brigham Young on the other.

How appropriate. Here is the legacy of what Joseph Smith started.

Doctrine & Covenants 20:1. The rise of the Church of Christ in these last days, being one thousand eight hundred and thirty years since the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the flesh, it being regularly organized and established agreeable to the laws of our country, by the will and commandments of God, in the fourth month, and on the sixth day of the month which is called April—2 Which commandments were given to Joseph Smith, Jun., who was called of God, and ordained an apostle of Jesus Christ, to be the first elder of this church;

Downtown Salt Lake City

I took this photo of downtown Salt Lake City from my neighborhood while walking my dog just before sunset.

Those are the Oquirh Mountains on the west side of Salt Lake City running to the north. And you can see the Great Salt Lake between the two, looking north west.

My dog liked the view too. She would stop, sit and observe for several minutes at a time. Sometimes she's so human.

Good Leadership Is Being A Good Flip-Flopper

A reader recently commented that it is the mark of an intelligent person to change their mind if they receive information that convinces them otherwise. I've always found it strange that some of my buddies have a sense of great leadership as firmness in the right, and flip-flopping as a sign of bad leadership. How did that become their mantra? That's poor leadership.

God blesses the flip-floppers who do better their second try. Our scriptures are filled with world-class flip-flopping heroes. The Lord's most noble leaders flip-flopped in behavior, given new knowledge.

Abraham was commanded to kill his son, and then on the mount received new revelation not to. Jacob fled from confrontation and danger his whole life until he decided to confront it, wrestling with God first.

What they didn't flip-flop on was being true to the voice within, as God gave them to know. You know, line upon line of truth; here a little, there a little. We receive truth in little squirts and at our own imperfect level. What we think is true one day may be incomplete.

Isaiah 28: 10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: 11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.

I cannot imagine a scenario in which change is more difficult than to tell leaders of a religious group that they need to jump ship. And what mercy and understanding was shown to such leaders who devoted their whole lives to God but were stubborn in not adjusting their beliefs to new knowledge? “Truly I tell you,” Jesus said, “tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.”

The Kingdom of God is built of flip-floppers. If you doubt this, go read about the power of Alma in the Book of Mormon flip-flopping in his life.

I greatly admire Reagan even more for owning up to the Iran-Contra Affair, then changing his cabinet and course.

Becoming celestial is about constantly learning amidst change. Maybe that is why change is built into the process.

Think about this. Our eternal spirits have always been and will always be; however, being a spirit is fine for a time, then it isn't enough. We have to add on a body. We grow from dependent infant, to independence, back to a more dependent old ager. We lose our body and turn back to our spirit form, only to take it back later in its perfect ressurected form.

LDS Lesson Learned in an LSD World:
One thing we know is that in this life and the next, God expects change from every one of us.

Grey Winter Day in Spring

It was another snowy day in Spring today with low hanging snow clouds hiding the tops of the skyscrapers downtown.

Poor old Angel Moroni on his perch atop the Salt Lake Temple had his head in the clouds this afternoon as I drove past.

Another heavy snow warning is predicted this evening.

Snow, snow - I do fear
Come again another year

Speaking of snow, here's a quote from Brigham Young regarding snow and the coming Utah War of '57 that came up when I searched the term "snow" in GospeLink 2001. Federal troops were marching on Utah to depose duly-elected Governor Young and to get the territory to tow the line on the federal government's definition of marriage. This is just a few short years before the war of the states broke out in 1861.

"They say that their army is legal, and I say that such a statement is as false as hell, and that they are as rotten as an old pumpkin that has been frozen seven times and then melted in a harvest sun. Come on with your thousands of illegally-ordered troops, and I will promise you, in the name of Israel's God, that you shall melt away as the snow before a July sun."
(President Brigham Young, remarks in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, September 13, 1857.)

Why Me? Shouldn't It Be Him?

"We will not always have a smooth, ready answer to the question, 'Why me? Why now? Why this?'—for as Moroni observed, "Ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.” – Elder Neal A. Maxwell

There lay a pronghorn right in full view, unharmed and uncaring. It relaxed in front of the LDS church chapel at the gate of Dugway Proving Grounds in Skull Valley, Utah.

I had been shot by accident just a few hours earlier but fortunately not wounded. Yet here lay a big game animal with decent tasting meat free from any bullet. Where is the fairness in that? It was free from any adverse consequences of either hunters or crazy target practice shooters farther north up the highway.

Go figure. I mean why me and how come this pronghorn gets off so easy?

Well, at least I shot the beast with my camera.

LDS Lessons Learned in an LSD World:
The process of life and free agency means that some days you're a bug, some days you're a windshield.

6400 Dead Sheep in Dugway in '68

Psalms 49:14 Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them;

Hmmm, just found this bit of information on the history of dead animals outside of Dugway. In all fairness, I saw only a few deceased cattle, which is nothing compared to thousands of dead sheep there in the '68.

In March 1968, 6,400 sheep were found dead after grazing in south Skull Valley, an area just outside Dugway's boundaries. When examined, the sheep were found to have been poisoned by a deadly nerve agent called VX. The incident, coinciding with the birth of the environmental movement and anti-Vietnam protests, created an uproar in Utah and internationally.

One side note. There's no sheep there now.

LDS lessons learned in an LSD World:

• Dead animals are a bad sign but dead people are a worse one.

Samuel Clemens Opines About Skull Valley

It seems that Mr. Samuel Longhorne Clemens opined about the harshness of Skull Valley. Local broadcast journalist Ken Verdoia continues his interview with historian Dennis Defa over the history of the Goshute Indians in the harsh environment of Skull Valley.

Verdoia: By the early 1860s when a young writer by the name of Samuel Clemens transits the [Skull Valley] area, he comments that he has seen the most miserable form of human existence. You reference it in your chapter. His view of the Goshute people from, I would assume, the Overland Stage route, is one of a horrific existence on a horrific landscape. Is that one of the consequences of this conflict between Goshute and increasing white settlement?

Defa: It is. It's a direct result. To go across the desert in a stage, and especially someone like Samuel Clemens who comes from Missouri, where it is so green and it is so lush that for many of these people, as you read their journals, their descriptions would, would make one think that they had arrived on the backside of the moon, they just could not appreciate, nor could they understand, that kind of a landscape. It provided them with no references in terms of what their experiences had been. It was an area to get through as fast as possible.

LDS lesson learned in an LSD World:

• Samuel Clemens was smart
  

Skull Valley's Goshutes: Most Adapted to Desert Living

Here's an interesting interview of historian Dennis Defa, who has had a life long fascination with Skull Valley and its Goshute Indians. From what I can see, there aren't many living in the valley today. The Goshutes, a very small community of the Shoshone tribe, had long ago adjusted themselves to living in Death Valley and later Utah's Skull Valley. Mr. Defa observes about these 100 or so Native Americans:

"The [Skull Valley] Goshute represent, I think, the best example of what's been called the desert culture in modern terms than any of the other groups in the Great Basin. There were never many of them, but there have always been people out there. And for white Americans or the casual observer, it's a desert. It's a harsh desert. It's not even a pleasant desert like the deserts in Arizona, the Sonora Deserts. But yet the Goshutes have always viewed it as their home. They have an intimate understanding of everything that desert provides."

"...Water is the common denominator out there. Without water you don't survive. With water you can survive fairly well. As whites moved into the West Desert, they had to have the same thing. They had to have water. They had to have grass for their livestock. And as they moved into those more favorable areas, Indians were forced out. By depriving them of the water and the resources that went along with the water, the Indians suffered horrifically. They lost food sources. They lost places of shelter. They lost access to pinion pines for pine nuts and they came in direct competition with the white settlers. Horses didn't mean anything to the Goshute, these are not buffalo hunting Indians. Horses were direct competition. They ate the grass that provided the seeds for the Goshute. When the Pony Express and the Overland Stage went through, water is the common denominator. And when you're using animals like horses, you have to have water and you have to have feed. Those were the same places that the Goshute used to gather."

Water in Skull Valley

HORSESHOE SPRING
A reader commented about a spring of water close to the colony of Iosepa. Although the valley only recieves an inch and a half of water a year, there is an underground spring of Horseshoe Spring several miles north of Iosepa. The spring feeds a few small ponds, with water temperature staying 72 degrees during the winter.

The Hawaiians raised carp in those ponds.

It's a strange place. The desert goes straight into the blue and green pond, with no trees or shrubs. So summers must be really harsh here. A local guy told me that the trench that feeds the spring water into the ponds largely dries up during the summer months.

In the past few decades, the spring was made into a national protection area in order to block the transportation of used plutonium for storage in the Indian reservation.

DEAD CATTLE WARNING
There was an occasional bloated cattle carcass about 100 yards off the road. Such death just outside Dugway's biological and nerve gas testing area was rather nerve racking. I realize that a reason the cattle are dead by the side of the road is because they were hit on the road by vehicles during the night. But you can see from the photo I took, there aren't any signs of being hit by a car -- no blood, broken bones, bruises, indentations or other signs of trauma.

This cattle and others I saw looked in good shape, considering they were dead. Whatever killed them, killed them quickly.

Was I trodding around in a land hiding nerve gas or atomic radiation? But radiation poisoning should emaciate cattle. Bovine hair should be falling off in clumps. Having not seen a bald cow, I was comforted with that thought. But after looking at that tumescent carcass, a feeling of unease returned.

LDS lessons learned in an LSD World:

1. Despite the hot spring, Skull Valley is still very dry
2. Be wary of the federal government, especially when it works in secrecy
   
3. Dead cows in a biological testing ground tell me it's time to drive home immediately
   

Shot in the Stomach

I had the wildest thing happen to me today. I was shot but I have no wound.

After writing so much last week on the colony of Iosepa, I went out this afternoon to get another impression of Skull Valley. This Sunday afternoon there were hunters and people target practicing all over the valley. Lots of gun fire, which certainly made me nervous. I should have left the area then and there but I'm afraid I didn’t.

I went up to the top of Lone Mountain (pictured above from a photo I took on the way up), away from the gun fire and began talking with a driver of another car. He was on the inside of his car and I was on the outside talking in. Faster than I could react, I heard a zip followed by a "kersplat" on my stomach. There wasn't much pain. Even better, I didn't see a hole through my yellow jacket and there was no red blood oozing out. No mushrooming holes or even straight little holes, only a small scratch on the side of my stomach. Frankly, how my skin was scratched with no hole or scratch on my clothes remains a mystery to me.

I glanced for Dick Cheney, thinking he must be in the area, . He wasn't, which was a good thing. It meant I would not have to apologize on national television for the inconvenience of putting the VP through so much anguish over shooting me. My luck was improving with every tick of the clock.

I drove down to the direction that the projectile came from -- a cove at the base of the mountain, where I found a Dad and his young kids innocently target practicing.

"Are you shooting pellets?", I asked.

"Nope", replied the Dad. "I have a .357 and my kids have been shooting with .22s."

That was definitely not the answer I wanted. It meant that I had been hit by an actual bullet -- not a pellet or a BB that I had conveniently convinced myself of on the short drive down the hillside.

Since there was no direct line from the bottom cove to the top of the mountain, the best I can figure is that the bullet must have ricocheted off the cliff of the mountain or a rock before it hit me. That's why the bullet didn't go through me -- that and my lucky angel looking over my shoulder.

LDS lessons learned today in an LSD World?

1. Don't play with guns, and never fire them in a direction where there might be people. They might fire back.
   
2. Skull Valley, Utah is a hostile place in more ways than its harsh climate. Its filled with crazy Quick Draw Utah McGraws on Sunday afternoons; oh, and their little Baba Looeys have guns too.
   
3. One can't even get lost in the middle of nowhere without fear of being shot.
   
4. And remember. Guns don't kill people. Bullets do.
   

Location of Iosepa, Skull Valley, UT

Just found this map of Skull Valley, where the old colony of Iosepa can be found (the red rectangle). The ground has been deemed most appropriate by the federal government to use for bombing ranges, nuclear processing and chemical demolition.

The Hawaiian City of Joseph in Utah

DESOLATION
Looking at Skull Valley, I see some harsh ground for Utah. It's just southeast of the Bonneville Salt Flats and next to the top secret Dugway Proving Grounds -- a part of Utah that is sparsely populated to say the least. The little water in the area seems to be frozen in the mountains or under ground. Wikipedia describes the valley this way, “Considered an unsuccessful attempt at colonization, Iosepa was an extremely inhospitable location for any group of people.”

But the Hawaiians wanted to be next to the Salt Lake Temple, so I guess Skull Valley, 75 miles out, was reasonably close. I suspect there were other reasons. After all, at the time there was a temple in St. George, a much warmer area but which already had a colony. There was another in Logan and one in Manti, Utah.

I suspect that it wasn’t being close to just any temple but rather the Hawaiian saints wanted to be by Elder Smith, Elder Cannon and other senior authorities at the Church office in SLC.

A BAD NAME TOO
The colony was named after the Apostle Joseph F. Smith, who served his mission in the Hawaiian islands. They supposedly gave it the Hawaiian name for Joseph -- Iosepa.

Iosepa?? What’s that? The Hawaiian language doesn't have an "s" in its alphabet. "Iokepa" would be the appropriate transliteration of Joseph's name into a Hawaiian pronunciation. "IoSepa" sounds like a bunch of haoles (white guys) slurring the name back to English, sort of a second generation transliteration. e.g. Joseph > Iokepa > Iosepa > And even this distortion is further distorted by being given an Anglo pronunciation, Yo-seh-pa. Matthew Kester of BYU-Hawaii states that Hawaiians were more literate than their Caucasian counterparts at the time. They certainly knew how to read and write their language. Their church leaders also preached in Hawaiian. In other words, the Hawaiians of "Iosepa" knew how to write their language in 1889 just like we know that Lisa is not spelled "3-I-S-A." It's a real indication that the feedback mechanisms to civic leadership were not fully working.

The fact that the Hawaiian saints let the spelling stand meant that they understood the ignorance of the surrounding culture and their civic leaders but went along out of respect for authority. I can't come up with another conclusion than that. For the record, Iokepah is pronounced EE-OO-KE-PAH. The wrong name and pronounciation is but another tangible evidence of Utah haoles trying to make sense and to nurture what they didn't understand. The results of everyone’s efforts are the graves on the ghost town of Iosepa in the desolate Skull Valley.

HAWAIIANS FAILED BECAUSE NOT INDUSTRIOUS?

There are some here that think their brown brothers failed because they simply could not work as hard as the other colonists throughout Utah. One web site author writes,

“The Kanakas were not used to the hard labor necessary to create a colony which was to survive on its own. Although they managed to get by most of time, much of their food was imported from Salt Lake City.”

Historian Arrington seems to anticipate this stereotype and responds:

“Even more serious from the standpoint of the production record of the colony, however, were the frequent outbreaks of milder forms of illness among the natives. Accustomed to island conditions, the constitutions of the Hawaiians, despite a fierce faith, did not adjust readily to the rigors of the burning heat of the summer sun and the driving winds and zero temperatures of the Skull Valley winters. The high rate of mortality is indicated by the large number of markers in the village cemetery…It is probable that the disastrous depression of the 1890's, with its long period of declining farm prices, was responsible for most of the financial problems of the colony and the need for Church help. Other Church colonies required similar assistance. Certainly, the Hawaiian Saints did not lack the qualities of industry and frugality.” (Improvement Era, 1954, May, 1954)

People tend to work pretty hard when the natural alternative is death. President Smith saw this first hand. He particularly saw how his beloved Hawaiian saints were faithful in tribulation, even to death. It may have been seeing that level of tribulation first hand at the Hawaiian colony that had now President Smith receptive to build the first temple outside of Utah -- in Laie, Oahu.

Iosepa lasted as a community until 1917 at which time the residents returned to Hawaii where an LDS Temple was under construction. The LDS Church paid the travel expenses for those who could not afford to pay themselves.

Utah's plumeria tree died that year, despite all the efforts of all its gardners. As for me, to this day I never understood why my beloved plumeria in my yard did not make it.

The Ghost Town can be seen on southbound 196 off of I-80.
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Other resources:

Check the audio recording from the Savvy Traveler's experiences at this ghost town in May.

Iosepa, the place, inspires new BYU-Hawaii archivist. BYU-Hawaii

Iosepa, a Hawaiian Plumeria in the Utah Desert

Ah, the Plumeria Tree, a tree right from the heart of paradise. My grandmother used to pick its white and yellow flowers in her Hawaiian backyard to make leis for me when I visited after a long absence. They grew almost like weeds there. I wanted such a symbol of Eden in my front yard on the Mainland. Despite putting porous rock underneath it and watering sparingly, the tree, alien to Southern California, just didn’t grow much the first couple of years. It wanted to grow, I could tell, but the forces of nature conspired against it and one winter day it finally died, a victim of my ignorance.

The Hawaiian colony of Iosepa in Utah is like that Plumeria tree of mine – a breath of paradise in a hostile land, having well intentioned gardeners, but with a superficial knowledge of its nature. That partial knowledge is no better symbolized than in Iosepa’s very name. But I am getting ahead of myself. First of all, what is the colony of Iosepa and what’s it doing here? This is how Utah’s government describes the history of this colony.

Iosepa, (pronounced Yo-SEH-pa) the Hawaiian word for Joseph, was founded in August 1889 under the direction of then Mormon apostle Joseph F. Smith. The town's colonizers were devout converts to the Mormon faith who came to Utah in order to build Zion and worship in the soon to be completed Salt Lake Temple. Certainly these tropical Polynesians were out of their element in the bone-dry desert of Utah and battled to adapt to the new climate, new language, and new foods, but in time they prospered and even made Skull Valley appear hospitable…More important to the pious colonists, however, were their 77-mile treks to Salt Lake City. They made the pilgrimage as often as possible to worship in the temple, which remained their primary motivation for staying in Utah…The Polynesian settlers were not accustomed to the harsh Utah climate; they baked in the dry desert summers and shivered in the cold white winters. Such challenges took their toll, and at times it seemed that the cemetery grew faster than the town.

The deadness of the ghost town indicates that all is not what it seemed in Iosepa. It was a showcase of faith that hid away secrets. The first was its bogus prosperity. There were also unmentionables such as the West’s prejudice against a brown skinned people that was cut out. And there were gross misperceptions. The surrounding community couldn’t even get the Hawaiian name right.

Information about Iosepa typically reads like propaganda. For example, Utah historian J. Cecil Alter wrote in 1911:

"Iosepa is perhaps the most successful individual colonization proposition that has been attempted by the Mormon people in the United States…There are 1,120 acres practically all in use and half as much more is being brought under the magic wand of the Hawaiian irrigator."

It may have looked successful, prosperous and self-sufficient but it wasn’t. According to historian Leonard Arrington, “The extent of Church aid, of course, was not known”. The colony was losing money but the LDS church quietly put in more to support the Hawaiians.

There are mysteries here. Why were they assigned such a hostile place to colonize? And for a small colony of saints ranging from 50 to 230, how come there are so many graves from just 25 years of settlement? Moreover, Hawaiians were a highly literate people as were the Caucasian church leaders who oversaw the colony. So how come the graveyard has so many unknown adults? A group of faithful Hawaiian saints moved from the islands to Salt Lake City to be close to and help build the SL temple. Church history is silent from here to the point in which a colony is appointed for them in Skull Valley a few years later. The question I had is if they wanted to be as close as possible to the temple of God, why were they moved from SLC to 75 miles away in the middle of some of the harshest country in Utah?

PREJUDICE & MISUNDERSTANDING
One historian says that Salt Lake City residents had problems "socializing" with the Hawaiians in the decade or so that they lived there. “Socializing”, eh? Yeah, we know what that means.

This misunderstanding did not just apply to the Hawaiians. A New Zealand record of a Maori saint, Hirini Whaanga Christy, who was not connected with the Hawaiian colony, described the situation.

“In 1894 he and other relatives went to Utah, where his grandparents worked in the Salt Lake Temple recording and affirming iwi genealogies. After arriving in Salt Lake City, the whanau was mistakenly thought to be a polygamous family. Since polygamy was no longer practiced, this proved to be an embarrassment to those who were unaware of the extended family of the Maori. They were moved to Kanab, southern Utah, where misplaced trust and misguided speculation saw them lose most of their funds.”

I cannot help but wonder if the outbreak of leprosy in the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1860 and 70s made Utahans suspicious of most Hawaiians for disease.So, when you are a church leader and see part of your flock not wanted by the general population, what do you do? I suppose you preach against it but in Utah there was also an option to have groups form their own independent communities. The church, with the leadership of Joseph F. Smith who had close ties to Hawaiians from his mission in Hawaii, called them to colonize a part of Utah.