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Monday Musing
Those Nice Insurance Agents
I have a birthday this week (I’m getting to be an old duffer). I always get cards from my insurance agents around birthday time. One card provides a little hope, quoting Billie Burke: “Age is something that doesn’t matter . . . unless you are a cheese.”
The Week Ahead
The Legislature has a full slate of leadership and interim committee meetings this week. See the legislative calendar for meeting notices, agendas, and committee membership. See all the week’s political events in the Utah Policy.com calendar.
The Monday Profile
Jim Bradley: The Oracle of County Government
By GM Jarrard
Beads of sweat began to form on Salt Lake County Commissioner Jim Bradley’s brow. He took a breath and called his fellow Democrat on the commission, Randy Horiuchi.
“You with me on this? I have your vote, right?”
“I’m in, I’m in,” was the reply.
 “All right, then. We’re going to do it.” Bradley hung up, straightened up his 6’2” frame and proceeded down the road to the Salt Lake County Concert Hall, soon to be christened Abravanel Hall. The chairman of the commission had all the votes he needed -- his and Horiuchi’s.
Reflecting back on those times, Jim Bradley gets a little misty.
“Nowadays, working on the County Council is much more transparent — and slower. Yes, the people have more input; they can watch votes, twist arms and count the yeas and nays. Back then, we could get a lot done a lot faster,” Bradley said.
On that Friday in 1993, Bradley was summoned to a board meeting of the Utah Symphony. The topic: the name of the new concert hall that Maestro Maurice Abravanel had championed for so long. His dream had become a reality. Although the world-renowned musician had retired in 1979, he still was a giant in Utah’s arts community. And the next day was his 90th birthday. Commissioner Bradley had the perfect birthday present: the beautiful, 2,812-seat concert hall. Bradley and Horiuchi had agreed that the hall, the property of the taxpayers of Salt Lake County would bear the name of the man who had championed it. And it would be announced on his birthday. Board members, however, had other ideas. Some of them pushed for naming it after a local patron of the arts who, for a measly $5 million, could put his or her name on the front.
Bradley rose before the 100 or so board members, the city’s movers and shakers, many with more money than they knew what to do with. And, he explained in plain words what would happen the next day.
“I told them that the Maestro’s birthday party would not be turned into a fund-raising event. We would honor the man who had done so much for arts in the city and state and name the hall after him. I simply asked them to show up the next day with ‘gladness in their hearts.’ And then I left. The old gentleman was overjoyed. It was the culmination of his life’s work.”
Maurice Abravanel died that September, and while he had the opportunity to attend concerts in the hall that bore his name, he never did get the chance to conduct a symphony there.
Nevertheless, Bradley made his point and stuck to his guns. (Click here to read full profile.)
Taxpayers Assoc. Newsletter
The Utah Taxpayers Association has posted its May newsletter. This month's edition features articles on congestion pricing and iProvo, as well as a column by Assoc. Pres. Howard Stephenson on the upcoming fight to implement school vouchers.
Regional Politics
Water Wars Ceasefire?
Editorial: "The struggle between the parched Front Range region and the Western Slope that is home to most of Colorado's water has been one of the most bitter issues in state politics for more than half a century. Now, interest is growing in a plan to pipe in water from Wyoming's (and Utah’s) Flaming Gorge Reservoir -- an innovative notion that might bring a cease-fire in our water wars" (Denver Post) (for more on the West's water problems, see Summit Daily News and Las Vegas Sun stories).
Today in Political History
May 14, 1942: The Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps is established by act of Congress.
May 14, 1948: The independent state of Israel is proclaimed as British rule in Palestine comes to an end. (New York Times)
May 14, 1955: In response to the establishment of NATO, the communist countries sign the Warsaw Pact calling for the mutual defense of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. (Source: perspicuity)
Wise Words
“There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place.”
-- Washington Irving (Source: Quote Garden)
Leadership Tip
Facing the Facts
"Another principle for managing a successful program is to resist the natural human inclination to hope things will work out, despite evidence or doubt to the contrary. It is not easy to admit that what you thought was correct did not turn out that way. If conditions require it, one must face the facts and brutally make needed changes despite considerable costs and schedule delays. The man in charge must personally set the example in this area." (Source: Night Scribe)
National Politics
Best Stories From . . .
-- New York Times: "Bill Clinton's connections, and his endless supply of chits, only begin to capture his singular role in his wife's presidential candidacy, advisers and friends of the couple say. He is the master strategist behind the scenes; the consigliere to the head of 'the family,' as some Clinton aides refer to her operation; and a fund-raising machine who is steadily pulling in $100,000 or more at receptions."
-- Newsweek: A core group of Howard Dean's '04 Internet strategists have signed onto the presidential campaigns of John Edwards and Barack Obama in the hope "that smart Web 2.0 tools, stronger candidates and a more-wired electorate will enable their new clients to succeed where Dean failed -- in winning the White House."
-- Wall Street Journal: "As if Republicans don't have enough problems, their Presidential candidates and interest groups seem eager to re-stage a fight over abortion the American public doesn't want to hear. Blame both Rudy Giuliani and his conservative critics, but if the GOP wants to lose in 2008 they should keep this up" (see also related Washington Post story).
-- Los Angeles Times: "Ever since the Vietnam era, Democrats have struggled to overcome a notion the party is not just antiwar but antimilitary. Now, sensing a chance to shed that image, Democrats are wrapping themselves in khaki and embracing the nation's fighting men and women."
Lighter Side
“You’ve got to go out on a limb sometimes because that’s where the fruit is.”
-- Will Rogers |
