UTAH: Home to unique people, unique landmarks, and unique executions

June 10, 2010

Reading Time: 2 minutes From Goya’s The Third of May to the ubiquitous blindfold and cigarette depicted in so many cartoons, the images associated with execution by firing squad are a highly recognizable idiom in today’s intricate language of signs and symbols. However, it turns out that the firing squad is not nearly as common in the American penal […]

St. John White of The Desert

February 8, 2010

Reading Time: 5 minutes The Desert Fathers sounds like it would be a pretty good band name, but the phrase actually refers to Christianity’s first hermits, ascetics and monks, who, in the third century, retreated to the outskirts of the Scetes Desert in Egypt. Men like Abba Antonius, Pachiomus of Thebes, and St. Paul the First Hermit eschewed the […]

F Stop Cafe

November 23, 2009

Reading Time: 3 minutes Is owning a coffee shop in a place like Provo something of a quixotic endeavor? Perhaps. This is an area whose largest demographic is a group of people who believe with all their hearts that a cup of joe will keep them on the wrong side of the Pearly Gates. More power to them, but […]

A little too basic

October 5, 2009

Reading Time: 3 minutes When asked to describe his political philosophy, mayoral candidate, Steve Clark keeps it pretty basic. “I’m a conservative Republican. I stand for strong family values, traditional values. I have a great desire to help Provo.” A little too basic. Asking a Republican candidate if he stands for traditional family values is like asking Dracula if […]

Utah refugees need volunteers to gain better ground

September 28, 2009

Reading Time: 3 minutes Utah refugees need volunteers to gain better groundAccording to estimates, roughly one percent of the refugees in the entire world are taken out of camps and brought to America by the U.S. Government. It sounds like a small number. But here in Utah alone there are 25,000 refugees. 25,000 people who have fled natural disaster, […]

Mayoral Candidate John Curtis: The lesser of two republicans

September 28, 2009

Reading Time: 3 minutes John Curtis is probably the most typical Provo candidate — a conservative BYU graduate with a business degree who married his high-school sweetheart after serving an LDS mission. In a race against fellow G.O.P. Candidate Steve Clark, some of the more liberal-minded students might question the point of even filling out a ballot. However, Curtis […]