Washington Watch
Utahns Arrange Meeting With Bush
Rep. Chris Cannon and U of U professor emeritus James Mayfield arranged a Tuesday meeting between visiting Iraqi leaders and
Pres. Bush, reports
USINFO.
The visit was part of an Iraqi study of US state and local governments.
Help for Backlogged BLM
Sen. Orrin Hatch used some political muscle during energy bill negotiations to get help for Vernal’s BLM
field office, which has been flooded with permit requests to drill for
oil and gas on federal land. A Hatch
press release says the office has seen a 238 percent increase in permit applications over the last five years. Despite approving a record number of permits, the office has a severe backlog.
Matheson Targets Porn Peddlers
Rep. Jim Matheson is
introducing legislation aimed at making the Internet safer for children.
"The porn industry has infiltrated our homes and it compromises what can
be an excellent learning tool for our children,” says a Matheson
press release.
Campaign Watch
Why Romney Should Seek Re-Election
In an
on-line
column, National Journal’s Chuck Todd argues that Mitt Romney should seek re-election as Massachusetts governor in ‘06 to set himself up to run for president. “Political gamblers win the presidency,” he said:
“Just like Pataki, Romney's in a position where he starts off as a slight underdog -- not a bad place to be in a business that consistently rewards those who beat expectations. If Romney sets up his re-election as a referendum on his conservative credentials, then losing might be an honorable thing to conservative activists in Iowa and New Hampshire. And if he wins re-election while also keeping his new-found social conservative identity front and center with Massachusetts voters, then he instantly gains more credibility on the issue of electability. Plus, are we really going to elect someone who has won just one four-year term to the office of the president? Maybe that's why Romney looks up to
Dwight Eisenhower, the only president in recent history with less electoral experience than he has.”
Blog Watch
Phil Windley’s UtahPolitics.org is sponsoring a new blog,
Planet Utah, that aggregates Utah political blogs using RSS feeds. It’s an easy way to do a quick review of what the bloggers are saying.
UPD reader and PR guru Jeri
Cartwright recommends
Church
of the Consumer, a customer-oriented blog that gives consumers a voice about products they purchase. For those tired of bad news, Cartwright also noted
www.happynews.com, a site whose motto is: “We believe virtue, goodwill and heroism are hot news.”
Now You Know
23,956: Total number of instructional staff in public elementary and secondary schools (2002).
72.8%: Percentage of female teachers.
27.2%: Percentage of male teachers.
(Source: National Education Association)
Reader Response
A couple of eagle-eyed readers pointed out an error in Wednesday’s
“Now You Know” item on the Utah city of Monticello.
Gordon Jones: You'll no doubt get a dozen emails about this, but
"monticello" means "little mountain" in Italian, not "city of views." I know you are only quoting the League
of Cities and Towns, but they really should know better. Italians pronounce "monticello" with a hard c, as ch.
Utahns pronounce "Monticello" with a soft c, as s. The most famous Monticello is
Thomas Jefferson's Virginia
estate, and I have always assumed Jefferson pronounced it in the Italian manner, being an educated bloke, but
recently I heard that he actually had a Utah accent.
Raymond T. Swenson:
The official web page of Monticello, Thomas
Jefferson's estate, discusses the history of the name and states that "Monticello means 'hillock' or 'little
mountain' in Italian. . . .Because Jefferson knew Italian and himself named Monticello, it seems apparent that
he would have used the Italian pronunciation. The name has been used elsewhere in the United States and
Americanized into 'Montisello,' but there is no contemporary evidence to support this pronunciation.
We do not have anything in Jefferson's writing that tells us how he pronounced the word, but we have other
written records that indicate the Italian pronunciation. That is, with the "c" pronounced as a "ch."
|
Utah
Policy Daily is a service