Brian isn’t diabetic. Now he has to undergo further testing.
Yesterday was the annual awards program at the school where I teach, City Academy. This program recognizes achievements and accomplishments of students and staff throughout the year in our school. I’ve mentioned before here that City Academy is a First Amendment School.
I was surprised to receive the annual Kaleidoscope Award, given to a teacher and a student each year. Here is a description of the award:
Each time you look in a kaleidoscope it is with anticipation of seeing something new and beautiful; of feeling newly inspired. The Kaleidoscope Award goes to a teacher and a stduent who continually bring that type of inspiration and energy to our school.
You are receiving the Kaleidoscope Award because you live the spirit of our “First Amendment School” and our civic orientation to education. You are an example to all of us this year of being a proactive citizen in our school community. You have done admirable work this year to build our school community and bring us all together in working toward and enjoying the common good.”
It was decided this year to get the Award to two teachers (instead of one), according to our director, because of the passion explained in the nominations given. So our geography teacher and me received the teacher award and a student who has given a tremendous amount of contributions to our school community received the student award.
All I can say is that I love City Academy, the staff and students. I feel truly blessed to have found a school where First Amendment Rights, Priveleges, and Responsiblities are not only taught but lived.
The Western Shoshone Defense Project’s 14th Annual Gathering is occuring today through Sunday May 21st – a gathering “to protect the land, the people, and future generations”. People are asked to attend in support of the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley and the Sogobia.
I have wanted to attend this each year I’ve known about it, but it seems like there is something always preventing me from doing so. This year my efforts have been focused on stopping the Divine Strake Test. Two weekends in a row away from my spring gardening would be detrimental to my winter food supply, so I had to decide to forgo attending this gathering for yet another year.
However, others can attend! Read the details on the gathering and consider attending.
Yesterday the five candidates from the Desert Greens issues a press release denouncing the Divine Strake Test. It was published on the Green Party of the United States website.
When I did a google news search for Divine Strake our press release came up first this morning.
I had a lengthy discussion with a writer on Honolulu yesterday who called me when she found out about the test. She is outraged and has all sorts of connections to people like Dr. Helen Caldecott, renowned anti-nuclear activist physician and some others in the medical, activist, and noted activist actors arena. I urged her to use her contacts to get the word out to realize her vision of getting the media actively involved in this and to organize actions all around the country.
I have received similar phone calls from others in places all over the country. This has been, so far, an inspiring experience for me.
The Salt Lake Tribune has a piece on liberal voting trends between 2000 – 2004 along Utah’s Wasatch Front. The article includes graphs and maps of statistical information on percentages of liberal and conservative voting records.
There are some surprises resulting from the study. Not surprisingly, Salt Lake City has more liberal than conservative voters, but Murray, a suburb south of SLC has about an even amount of both. In fact, a significant portion of the area depicts 50-59% of voters leaning liberal.
The map in this article is such that when you roll your mouse over each city you get information on the stats for that city.
My city, West Jordan, is the 6th most conservative in the area, with a 60-69% conservative voting trend.
Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. is expected to announce the call today for Utah Legislators to convene a special session beginning May 24. The special session will begin by greeting Mexican President Vicente Fox to Utah.
At this point, it is predicted that Utah lawmakers will focus mainly on taxes:
The governor wants tax reform, in the form of a “flatter, fairer” system of income tax that would provide long-term stability and predictability. But some lawmakers would be satisfied just to lower rates to get a $70 million tax cut before November’s election.
Against Utah lawmakers wishes, the governor is considering putting the medicaid issue on the agenda. Advocates for the poor are urging the legislature to fund another year’s worth of dental and vision care for more than 60,000 adults on Medicaid – at a cost of $4.6 million.
Newly released state Health Department data show between 2003 and 2005 – the last time dental coverage was pulled – the state and federal government spent $725,166 on hospital emergency room visits for Medicaid clients with oral health complications.
I will be following this special session as best as I can and posting news items here.
May 19
1850Four thousand Mexican miners gather in Sonora, California, to protest the Foreign Miners’ Tax, which was enacted to drive them from gold fields.
1881
Clara Barton founded the Red Cross
1920
The Battle of Matewan (W.Va.).
1932
U.S. Congressman Claude Fuller introduces a resolution requiring all Civil Service employees to “sing, write or recite the words to the ‘Star-Spangled Banner'” by memory.
1934
10,000 participate in “No More War” march, New York City.
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Trucks transporting spent fuel rods to the pending Private Fueld Storage (PFS) Site in Utah would take up 2/3 of the road leading to it, making two-way traffic impossible, according to Utah officials quoted in an article published in today’s Deseret News.
The Utah Attorney General’s office spokesperson, Denise Chancellor, briefed the Utah Legislature’s Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Interim Committee on the issue stating that The route, U-196, is in “sad shape.” Varying from 20 to 22 feet across, often without a shoulder, it is a main thoroughfare to Dugway Proving Ground. It is also an escape route that would be used if an accident happened at the Army’s chemical weapons incinerator, located near Stockton, Tooele County.
The transport trucks would weigh 225 tons and would haul casks of highly radioactive fuel to the PFS site, with much of the weight being the “protective” casing around the rods. The D-News has a diagram and map in today’s article.
Nuke Waste will also be transported by rail through Salt Lake City en route to Tooele County, according to Chancellor. About 697,000 Utahns live within five miles of the route.
You can find out how close you and people around the country for that matter live to a proposed rail line for shipping this waste at Citizen Alert, NukeWasteMap, and NukeWaste states.
In related news, a U.S. House panelOK’d option of private nuclear waste facility.
I wonder how close the people on that panel live to transportation routes?
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged environment, goshutes, nuclear issues, private fuel storage, Utah
The U.S. Senatehas approved the building of a 370 mile border fence.
Utah Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett both voted in favor of the plan to build the fence. But they also voted in favor of an amendment that would have removed the provision giving illegal immigrants an eventual chance at citizenship. The amendment was defeated on a 66-33 Senate vote. In all, 41 Democrats joined with 24 Republicans and one independent to turn back the proposal.
The amnesty proposal would grant illegal immigrants legal status as long as they have worked in the U.S. for five years, learn english and pay back fines and taxes.
The Deseret Morning News published this table in today’s news:
May 18
1652
Rhode Island becomes the first colony to abolish slavery.
1872
Birthday of Sir Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician, essayist, and social critic, a leading figure in his country’s anti-nuclear movement. In 1954 he delivered his famous “Man’s Peril” broadcast on the BBC, condemning the Bikini H-bomb tests, and warning of the threat to humanity from the development of nuclear weapons. A year later, together with Albert Einstein, he released the Russell-Einstein Manifesto calling for the curtailment of nuclear weapons.
He became the founding president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958 resigning, however, in 1960 to form the more militant Committee of 100 with the overt aim of inciting mass civil disobedience. He, along with Lady Russell led mass sit-ins in 1961 that brought them a two-month prison sentence.
Bertrand Russell
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 
