Paul Simon wrote a lyric in tribute to American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, with basa nova chords, lauding Wright's lasting impact on American architecture. Bidding him a fond farewell: "I never laughed so long/so long/" Then, in a final double-meaning goodbye: "So long!"
However, Ding, Dong the Wicked Witch is Dead!
Let there be no double-meaning here. We say "so long" to Rocky. And our jubilant jam hits high riff. Munchkins are liberated from the Wicked Witch of the West. And Rocky Andersen leaves power as the most Leftist, radical and power-hungry, agenda-driven bureaucrat in memory.
Salt Lake Tribune writer, Derek Jensen, heaps on alliterative superlatives, in his eulogistic piece praising the pedantic Mayor's burly baritone and "muscular mind to match." Jensen leaves you breathless! But equally bloated in alliterative blow-hard bluster will be this offering.
So on to the argument! Ah, yes, it was to Rocky Anderson that we owe so much Olympic notice from the world! Wasn't it his plan that the TV network scrap the LDS Temple as the visual backdrop, and replace it with his beloved City and County Building? But the national network told him: Nuts!
So, Rocky came along, and "jolted the local landscape!" But if Salt Lake is so blue in its political persuasion, how could it have been jolted? Oh. It was the Mormons who were jolted! I just thought Mormons were tired of his using his "non-political" mayor's office as a pulpit for his personal prejudice, and to re-make this valley into the People's Republic of Rocky's Mountain.
And then, in the Jensen article, we hear that oft repeated accusation of Utah's being "parochial." Thank you, to the grandfather of regional literature, Wallace Stegner, for that word, which Salt Lake Lefties love to chant. But the title of Stegner's article was (and make sure you get the gist of the title): "At Home in the Fields of the Lord" - you got the "at home" part? (Read: A Great and Peculiar Beauty: A Utah Reader, Thomas Lyons & Terry Tempest Williams, editors.)
While I'm sure Mormons were a tad closed to begin with. Who wouldn't be with an extermination order hanging over their heads! However, over the past 150 years - roughly the same time as from Pilgrims to the Framers of the Constitution, mind you, (Stegner's claim)they've come into their own, with young men and women serving in foreign lands and bringing back those cultures and sensitivities to poor "parochial," backward and red Utah. But then...Rocky came along to save us from our narrow-minded selves!
His mayoral leadership has been called "overwhelmingly positive." Yeah, as positive as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is "positive" in his persecution of minority political parties, his shutting down of opposition newspapers and jailing "jingoistic" journalists (which Derek, you can be as a Leftist, too). So, how so with Rocky, you ask?
Salt Lake Tribune writer, Derek Jensen, heaps on alliterative superlatives, in his eulogistic piece praising the pedantic Mayor's burly baritone and "muscular mind to match." Jensen leaves you breathless! But equally bloated in alliterative blow-hard bluster will be this offering.
So on to the argument! Ah, yes, it was to Rocky Anderson that we owe so much Olympic notice from the world! Wasn't it his plan that the TV network scrap the LDS Temple as the visual backdrop, and replace it with his beloved City and County Building? But the national network told him: Nuts!
So, Rocky came along, and "jolted the local landscape!" But if Salt Lake is so blue in its political persuasion, how could it have been jolted? Oh. It was the Mormons who were jolted! I just thought Mormons were tired of his using his "non-political" mayor's office as a pulpit for his personal prejudice, and to re-make this valley into the People's Republic of Rocky's Mountain.
And then, in the Jensen article, we hear that oft repeated accusation of Utah's being "parochial." Thank you, to the grandfather of regional literature, Wallace Stegner, for that word, which Salt Lake Lefties love to chant. But the title of Stegner's article was (and make sure you get the gist of the title): "At Home in the Fields of the Lord" - you got the "at home" part? (Read: A Great and Peculiar Beauty: A Utah Reader, Thomas Lyons & Terry Tempest Williams, editors.)
While I'm sure Mormons were a tad closed to begin with. Who wouldn't be with an extermination order hanging over their heads! However, over the past 150 years - roughly the same time as from Pilgrims to the Framers of the Constitution, mind you, (Stegner's claim)they've come into their own, with young men and women serving in foreign lands and bringing back those cultures and sensitivities to poor "parochial," backward and red Utah. But then...Rocky came along to save us from our narrow-minded selves!
His mayoral leadership has been called "overwhelmingly positive." Yeah, as positive as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is "positive" in his persecution of minority political parties, his shutting down of opposition newspapers and jailing "jingoistic" journalists (which Derek, you can be as a Leftist, too). So, how so with Rocky, you ask?
O, where to begin? First, his attempt to sell the Mormon Church a bull for stud service (the land), only to find that the bull didn't have the equipment they thought they were getting (the easement). Lucky for all of us, Rocky finally found in himself, what the bull was lacking, and made it right.
Also, he has laid the foundations of further persecution of Mormons, in his collusion in establishing the Leftist enclave The Leonardo Center - a repository of pejorative stories about people who have been wronged by Mormons. It's a given - the stories are what they are: other people's voices telling how a religious group, who professes to be Christian, can fall so very short of their mark - to be like Christ.
Be that as it may, the editorial trajectory of the Missing Stories, brought about by Les Kelen is what is most disturbing. In his self-proclaimed effort "to fight institutionalized racism," he paints Mormons with broad stereotypical brushes, into a monolith of misconception. On reading those stories, one would think that "all Mormons are racist bast**ds." The Leonardo would make Spencer W. Kimball into a "Bull" Connors, if all they relied on were Kelen's stories. And thus he perpetuates myth!
Rocky belongs to the aforementioned opinion group. And so, with the Mayor's help, The Leonardo was slipped past voters amid a barrage of soccer fields and play parks. The voters just thought they were getting another venue of learning. The question you have to ask yourself is: Whose learning are you getting? And where are they going with it?
Also, he has laid the foundations of further persecution of Mormons, in his collusion in establishing the Leftist enclave The Leonardo Center - a repository of pejorative stories about people who have been wronged by Mormons. It's a given - the stories are what they are: other people's voices telling how a religious group, who professes to be Christian, can fall so very short of their mark - to be like Christ.
Be that as it may, the editorial trajectory of the Missing Stories, brought about by Les Kelen is what is most disturbing. In his self-proclaimed effort "to fight institutionalized racism," he paints Mormons with broad stereotypical brushes, into a monolith of misconception. On reading those stories, one would think that "all Mormons are racist bast**ds." The Leonardo would make Spencer W. Kimball into a "Bull" Connors, if all they relied on were Kelen's stories. And thus he perpetuates myth!
Rocky belongs to the aforementioned opinion group. And so, with the Mayor's help, The Leonardo was slipped past voters amid a barrage of soccer fields and play parks. The voters just thought they were getting another venue of learning. The question you have to ask yourself is: Whose learning are you getting? And where are they going with it?
Look to the Southern Poverty Law Center for a direction. (I admire the Center's films and have used them in my classes. But one should realize their political bent. The ends of the Civil Rights Movement were absolutely needed; but the non-Constitutional means were questionable. And our celebration of Marxist methods of social change at the expense of Constitutional processes still fans the embers of more social unrest and riot to come. I see it in my inner-city students.)
Additionally, there are volumes of stories missing from the Missing Stories, of people outside the Church - people who are of different races, and who have been blessed in their associations with Mormons. But that is a group of people that Kelen doesn't believe exists (and for that fact, neither does Rocky).
Additionally, there are volumes of stories missing from the Missing Stories, of people outside the Church - people who are of different races, and who have been blessed in their associations with Mormons. But that is a group of people that Kelen doesn't believe exists (and for that fact, neither does Rocky).
According to Kelen, all people, so blessed, would have had to leave their own cultures, and join the Mormon Church, in order to receive any benefit or friendship. Thus, Rocky and Kelen and others of their ilk, with the establishment of The Leonardo Center have institutionalized their nonsense. In addition, they are asking for more money to preserve this repository of their prejudice.
As I represent the Lollipop Guild, I'm glad that Rocky Anderson, the left-wing demagogue is gone. Now, we just have to learn how to build bridges to unite us, and not walls that separate us.
As I represent the Lollipop Guild, I'm glad that Rocky Anderson, the left-wing demagogue is gone. Now, we just have to learn how to build bridges to unite us, and not walls that separate us.
But then, as a member of the ACLU, Rocky has been all about walls. So long....so long....so long!
