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Editor s Note: As more and more print media scale back or even cease their print editions, a burning question remains: Which publication left standing can proficiently cover the ever-expanding cannabis universe? After years of trying to enlighten and save the lives of Utah s close-minded, anti-science rubes, John Saltas founder of
City Weekly and author of the Private Eye column that usually appears in this space, admits to being driven back to bong. And beginning April 1, he intends to focus on happy things . like weed, a middle ground where even rubes can join in. To launch the initiative, we ve sought the expertise of friends in high places in this case, Jennifer Fumiko Cahill of the
Ready for some fun?
The Salt Lake Tribune recently published a readers quiz called Think You Know Utah? asking questions such as: Why did Mark Hofmann ruin reporter Peggy Stack s first day at the
Tribune? ; and What does A.G. Sean Reyes do under his desk every morning? Well, it got the staff here at Smart Bomb to thinking that maybe we, too, should have a quiz. We ll call it, Do You Get Zion?
1. Where did the Utah Democratic Party get those Klingon cloaking devices?
2. Why did Rep. Burgess Owens bet his COVID Relief $$ that Nancy Pelosi is a lesbian?
Blaine Lafreniere
Outbreaks Create Isolation
When living in Chicago years ago, I was involved on a philanthropic mission with the historical leper colony at Kalaupapa on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. What started out to be a single mission to support the final 90 leprosy patients in a community that for 150 years had been home to thousands of patients became a 15-year endeavor.
The community is still occupied by a final few residents, even though now there is a cure for the disease and the mandatory quarantine at the isolated location at Kalaupapa was lifted in 1969.
The extensive publicity and exposure of our efforts brought alarming phone calls even death threats. At the time, there was an awful leprosy racism, and after our visits, we were targeted by individuals and groups. Some made a point to avoid me in stores and gatherings because, to them, I was a heathen spreading a disease.
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There are many things special about being a native Utahn. We were not only born here, but we stay here despite all the reasons a good number of other Utahns give us to leave. Many of us, myself included, have Utah roots that date to the earliest pioneers. Despite the fact that too many of those, myself excluded, have forgotten that they were not the first inhabitants here, nor the first to settle, we remain. And why not? We are surrounded by beauty, albeit the villages in which we mostly live are not so beautiful. The weather is nearly perfect a third of the time, but never on four consecutive days. While our neighbors can be hit or miss, they are, by and large, friendly during zucchini-share season and especially so during fruit cake-share season. Utahns have a pretty decent life expectancy, even though we consume grand amounts of beef fat and sweet sodas.