| 
The Week Ahead
The Legislature’s Equalization Task Force meets Tuesday (2 p.m., W125) to consider ways to equalize the cost of building new schools as big school districts are divided into smaller ones. See agenda. The task force will discuss creating a State School Building Authority and statewide equalization proposals. See the legislative calendar for other meetings. For other political events this week, see the UtahPolicy.com calendar.
Monday Musing
Brush With Winter
Heavy rain pounded our truck last Friday night as we drove through Morgan County, up Echo Canyon, past Evanston and on to our place off Highway 150 in the foothills of the Uintas north slope. By the time we were unpacked and settled in, the rain turned sleety and then, as if someone flipped a switch, soft, gigantic snowflakes began drifting silently through the yellow porch light. Our first snow of the season.
Saturday morning, we awakened to a winter fairyland, snow lining fence rails, capping the posts, weighing down the pine boughs, and adorning sagebrush, pasture, and yellow-leaved aspens with a light, white frosting.
All day Saturday, billowing clouds played cat-and-mouse with the sun, framed against a bright blue sky, alternately hiding and revealing the snow-capped peaks of the high Uintas. During sunny periods, chipmunks scurried around the woodpile, making little trails in the snow between sun-bathing posts. Flocks of mountain chickadees flitted about, foraging for seeds on the dried-out stalks of summer wildflowers springing out of the melting snow.
By mid-afternoon the clouds grew darker and more threatening. Snow returned in the evening, driven almost horizontal by swirling winds that sent yellow aspen leaves fluttering to the ground.
Old Man Winter is clearly trying to get an icy grip on the high country. Soon we’ll be cross-country skiing through the aspens and across the pasture. But we yet have some nice fall days ahead. The cattle grazing in the pasture were still finding green grass under the snow.
It’s a beautiful world we live in. Take time to catch one of Mother Nature’s best shows: the changing of the seasons. Take a walk up a canyon or on one of the nature trails in Farmington Bay. Kick through a carpet of crunchy leaves. Take an autumn desert hike. Get some fresh air and fresh perspective on life.
Washington Watch
Bennett Hails Economic Milestone
Sen. Bob Bennett say of a U.S. economic report announcing a record-setting 49 months of consecutive job growth and an unemployment rate of 4.7 percent: "The unprecedented news [Friday] of 49 months of consecutive growth indicates the strength and resiliency of our American economy. This is not to say we do not have some challenges on the economic front, but our economy remains sound as business continues to create jobs. Congress must act responsibly in the months and year ahead and restrain any notion to increase taxes on American families" (see press release).
John Quincy Adams and the Mormons
In 1844, Adams, then a former president and a congressman, met with two apostles sent by Joseph Smith, Elders Orson Pratt and John E. Page. Adams wrote that the Saints were “a new fanatical religious sect, who have occasioned great troubles and suffered great persecutions in the State of Missouri.” (From Mike Winder’s Presidents and Prophets: The Story of America’s Presidents and the LDS Church)
Today in Political History
October 8, 1871: At least 1,200 people die in a fire that levels parts of Michigan and Wisconsin, including the cities of Peshtigo, Holland, Manistee, and Port Huron. The same night, Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicks over a kerosene lamp in her barn, igniting a fire that spreads across Chicago, killing 250 and leaving 98,500 homeless. (NationalJournal.com political calendar)
October 8, 1967: Che Guevara is killed by U.S. trained security forces in eastern Bolivia while trying, unsuccessfully, to spark a Cuban-style uprising.
October 8, 1970: Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn is named winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.
October 8, 1998: U.S. House votes to hold impeachment inquiry of President Bill Clinton. (Source: Perspicuity)
Wise Words
“It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.”
-- Buddha (Source: Quote Garden)
Leadership Tip
Inspire a Shared Vision
To enlist people in a vision, leaders must know their constituents and speak their language. People must believe that leaders understand their needs and have their interests at heart. Leadership is a dialogue, not a monologue. To enlist support, leaders must have intimate knowledge of people’s dreams, hopes, aspirations, visions and values… Leaders cannot command commitment, only inspire it. (Source: The Leadership Challenge 3rd Edition: Kouzes and Posner pg 15)
National Politics
Best Stories From …
-- National Review Online: John McCain's presidential bid is endorsed in op-ed written by George P. Shultz, Henry A. Kissinger, Alexander M. Haig Jr., Lawrence S. Eagleburger, James R. Schlesinger, John F. Lehman Jr., R. James Woolsey Jr., and Robert C. McFarlane.
-- Washington Times: "Presidential aspirant Rudolph W. Giuliani [Saturday] blamed Republican lawmakers for losing control of Congress in last year's election, saying their excessive spending of taxpayer dollars was shameful. 'We lost Congress because, ultimately, our party in Congress became just like the Democrats as far as spending money is concerned. Shame on us! Shame on us!' the former New York City mayor said."
-- ABC News: "In a scathing attack, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards went after front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Friday, calling her a 'corporate Democrat,' comparing top Clinton campaign strategist Mark Penn to former Bush aide Karl Rove and assailing Penn's ties to Blackwater USA, the embattled private firm of military contractors accused by the Iraqi government of firing upon and killing 11 unarmed Iraqi civilians last month."
-- The Hill: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that Congress cannot end the war in Iraq without President Bush's approval. ... That is a difference in tone from the defiant stand she took when campaigning for Congress and when she took over as speaker."
Lighter Side
Conan O’Brien reporting on a meeting President Bush had some time ago with Russian President Vladimir Putin: “The meeting had two translators, and they still had a rough time. Mainly trying to figure out the translation for ‘okie dokie’”. |
