Access Utah

From lightwoodduo.com:

Recently a group called Our Dream organized a sit-in at the Federal Building in Salt Lake City to, as the group puts it, “pressure our representatives to include protection for DACA recipients in the Omnibus Spending Bill or vote against the Spending Bill should protection not be included. And the World Trade Center Utah recently hosted an immigration roundtable with local leaders from agriculture, business, education, tech, and faith as well as political leaders to show support for immigration reforms. The event marked the launch of the iMarch for Immigration Campaign, a national day of action in all 50 states. The World Trade Center Utah thanked Utah’s Congressional Delegation for their efforts and called on them to push forward with action on a solution for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients--the “DREAMers”—quickly.

GENTRI: The Gentlemen Trio was established in June 2014 and is comprised of three highly trained tenors: Brad Robins, Casey Elliott and Bradley Quinn Lever. Pioneering a signature sound that can only be described as “Cinematic Pop,” the music of GENTRI is transfused with lush, epic orchestrations and rich, dynamic three-part harmonies all composed by the group’s producer Stephen Nelson.

Recently, USU philosophy professors Erica Holberg, Charlie Huenemann, and Harrison Kleiner participated in a panel discussion with the provocative title: “Are Students Snowflakes?” Next time on Access Utah they’ll join Tom Williams to explore the tension between the value we place on free speech on college campuses and how that value can sometimes collide with the desires of students and others to not be exposed to ideas they find offensive.This discussion has obvious parallels to ongoing issues in broader society.

David Schwartz, author of “The Last Man Who Knew Everything,” joins us for Wednesday’s Access Utah.

Announcing the actions in Salt Lake City, President Trump has removed some 2 million acres from the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments and split the two monuments into five. Bears Ears was split into two separate areas: Shash Jaa at 129,980 acres and Indian Creek at 71,896 acres. Together the two comprise 201,876 acres, as compared to the 1.35 million acres that President Barack Obama named last December. Grand Staircase, named by President Bill Clinton in 1996, has been divided into three monuments: Grand Staircase at 209,993 acres, Kaiparowits at 551,034 acres and Escalante Canyon at 242,836 acres. The combined areas covered by monument status in the former Grand Staircase Escalante national monument is just over 1 million acres, down from 1.9 million acres originally designated.

The Broken Country uses a violent incident that took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2012 as a springboard for examining the long-term cultural and psychological effects of the Vietnam War. To make sense of the shocking and baffling incident―in which a young homeless man born in Vietnam stabbed a number of white men purportedly in retribution for the war―Paisley Rekdal draws on a remarkable range of material and fashions it into a compelling account of the dislocations suffered by the Vietnamese and also by American-born veterans over the past decades. She interweaves a narrative about the crime with information collected in interviews, historical examination of the arrival of Vietnamese immigrants in the 1970s, a critique of portrayals of Vietnam in American popular culture, and discussions of the psychological consequences of trauma. This work allows us to better understand transgenerational and cultural trauma and advances our still complicated struggle to comprehend the war.

There are many needs in our communities. And many groups and individuals step up to meet those needs. Periodically on Access Utah we shine a spotlight on non-profits and individuals doing good in our communities.

Heading into the Thanksgiving holiday, when you may have some extra time for books, we’re compiling our latest UPR booklist. I’ve recently jumped headlong into the history of the Civil War. I’ll tell you which books I recommend on that subject. Elaine Thatcher, our usual co-host for these episodes, always has several fascinating books on her nightstand. She’ll share her list with us. We’ll also get recommendations of interesting new books from booksellers in Moab and Ogden. Andy Nettle from Back of Beyond Books in Moab and Kent and Julie Ann Winward from Booked on 25th in Ogden, will join.

Our guest for the hour today is visual artist Sam Vernon. This episode is a part of our ongoing series of programs focusing on Utah State University’s Year of the Arts. Sam Vernon earned her MFA in Painting/Printmaking from Yale University in 2015 and her BFA from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 2009. Her installations combine xeroxed drawings, photographs, paintings and sculptural components in an exploration of personal narrative and identity. She uses installation and performance to honor the past while revising historical memory. Vernon has most recently exhibited with We Buy Gold, Interstitial Gallery, Coney Art Walls curated by Jeffrey Deitch, Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, Fowler Museum at UCLA and Seattle Art Museum. Sam Vernon lives in Oakland, CA and teaches printmaking as an Assistant Professor at California College of the Arts (CCA). She gave a presentation recently at USU as a part of the Communitas Lecture Series in the USU Caine College of the Arts.

Today we talk with scientific researcher and historian Gregory Prince, who earned his graduate degrees in dentistry (DDS) and pathology (PhD) at UCLA. He pursued a four-decade career in pediatric infectious disease research. His love of history led him to write three books: “Power on High: The Development of Mormon Priesthood,” “David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism,” co-authored with William Robert Wright, and “Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History.” Gregory Prince is winner of the 2017 Evans Biography Award for this latest book. The Evans Biography Award is administered by Utah State University’s Mountain West Center for Regional Studies, a program and research area in USU’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

The extraordinary story of the Russian slave girl Roxelana, who rose from concubine to become the only queen of the Ottoman empire

From tedgenoways.com: For forty years, Rick Hammond has raised cattle and crops on his wife’s fifth-generation farm. But as he prepares to hand off the operation to his daughter Meghan and her husband Kyle, their entire way of life is under siege. Confronted by rising corporate ownership, encroaching pipelines, groundwater depletion, climate change, and shifting trade policies, small farmers are often caught in the middle and fighting just to preserve their way of life. Following the Hammonds from harvest to harvest, This Blessed Earth is both a history of American agriculture and a portrait of one family’s struggle to hold on to their legacy.

A.J. Jacobs, author of the new book: “It’s All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World’s Family Tree,” joins us for the hour on Monday’s Access Utah.

Martin Luther's posting of the 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on 31 October 1517 is one of the most famous events of Western history. It inaugurated the Protestant Reformation, and has for centuries been a powerful and enduring symbol of religious freedom of conscience, and of righteous protest against the abuse of power.

Today's discussion is on the importance of science communication. We are joined by the Director of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University Laura Lindenfeld, Improv Program Leader of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science Valeri Lantz-Gefroh, Phd candidate and UPR Science Reporter Daniel Kinka, and Aimee Tallian and Director Nancy Huntly of the USU Ecology Center.

Jeff Meldrum is Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology at Idaho State University. He is author of “Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.” He is a leading expert on Bigfoot or Sasquatch, or the term he prefers: “Relict Hominoid.” He says “...[I]t is one matter to address the theoretical possibility of a relict species of hominoid in North America, and the obligate shift in paradigm to accommodate it, but there must also be something substantial to place within that revised framework. There must be essential evidence to lend weight to the hypotheses, and counter the critics’ various aspersions. I was once confronted by a colleague, who declared, ‘After all, these are just stories.’ My response: ‘Stories that apparently leave tracks, shed hair, void scat, vocalize, are observed and described by reliable experienced witnesses. Hardly just stories.’”

From Torrey House: Pursued by a hired killer after they protested at a mining site gate, Luna Waxwing and Hip Hop Hopi seek refuge in the remote Southwest village of Stony Mesa where they start over as micro-farming restaurateurs with a dangerous secret. With their rodeo princess partner Kayla and a colorful cast of unlikely allies, they struggle to find common ground between coyote-killing cowboys and bird-watching retirees.

Tom Paxton says folk music is lumber with the bark still on. His legendary career spans six decades of traditional music and topical songs. He says today's political climate presents an embarrassment of riches to the song writer. He hasn't penned a Trump song yet, but that will come.

Both George Orwell and Winston Churchill came close to death in the mid-1930's—Orwell shot in the neck in a trench line in the Spanish Civil War, and Churchill struck by a car in New York City. If they'd died then, history would scarcely remember them. At the time, Churchill was a politician on the outs, his loyalty to his class and party suspect. Orwell was a mildly successful novelist, to put it generously. No one would have predicted that by the end of the 20th century they would be considered two of the most important people in British history for having the vision and courage to campaign tirelessly, in words and in deeds, against the totalitarian threat from both the left and the right. Thomas Ricks writes in his new book “Churchill & Orwell: The Fight for Freedom” that In a crucial moment, they responded first by seeking the facts of the matter, seeing through the lies and obfuscations, and then they acted on their beliefs. Together, to an extent not sufficiently appreciated, they kept the West's co