Access Utah

What’s the best way to involve people in the political process? Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney is in favor of the Count My Vote initiative, which would mandate a change to direct primaries to determine party nominees. He says that the current caucus and convention system excludes many people and rarely reflects how rank-and-file party members feel.

It’s a tradition that every year about this time “Evening in Brazil” presents a concert or two in northern Utah. And each year, we gather group members in UPR’s studio C to enjoy some great Bossa Nova and Samba on Access Utah. Linda Ferreira Linford, Christopher Neale, Eric Nelson and Mike Christiansen will join us with their music on Tuesday. We hope you will too, beginning at 9:00 a.m.

We’re putting more and more of our lives in the cloud. More and more our transactions are electronic. Which is convenient and fast. But is it safe? How secure is all that stuff in the cloud or moving around electronically, like your credit card information or your bank records?

Today on the program author Teresa Small from the Shoshone-Bannock tribe in Southeastern Idaho joins us to talk about her book "How To Love An Addict." It is a detailed personal account of her experience coping with a meth addicted son. Rather than write another tragic story, she says she chose to instead write her story as a "how to manual" for anyone wanting to change the situation they are in with an addict.

After two years of marriage, a gnawing feeling leads Belinda "Pecan" Morrow to suspect that getting married before the conclusion of her senior year in high school and after her father's sudden death--was a huge mistake. She packs up her few belongings and her baby girl and attempts to leave her husband, Ricky Morrow, an up-and-coming boxing sensation from Mississippi.

Moab is debating whether city tap water should be used for oil and gas drilling. Jon Kovash recently reported on this issue for UPR: “Moab has seen a drilling boom in the last two years, and many more wells are planned.

Author Ed Kociela has a knack for taking his readers behind closed doors and now walks you backstage to hang out with some of the biggest stars in rock 'n' roll history in "It Rocked! (Recollections of a reclusive rock critic).

Monday on Access Utah we feature an encore presentation of a program first aired in July 2013:

One of the most talked about species in Utah these days is the Greater Sage Grouse. This native, chicken-like bird, is at the forefront of controversy due to its unique mating ritual and its dwindling numbers in the west. As a result of its disappearance, the federal government is considering listing it is an endangered species, the state of Utah would like to avoid this and protect the bird on its own terms. Today on the program Sheri Quinn talks to USU Sage Grouse expert Dr. Terry Mesmer about the plight of this controversial bird.

Scott Hammond and his golden retriever, Dusty, are volunteer search and rescue workers with Rocky Mountain Rescue Dogs. In his new book, “Lessons of the Lost: Finding Hope and Resilience in Work, Life, and the Wilderness,” Hammond says that wilderness can be unforgiving and dangerous, yet fill our souls with awe and wonder and that the wilderness is a classroom where we learn to survive, thrive and sometimes die.

Tamar Haspel, writing for the Washington Post, vividly describes the debate over Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs,) “It’s not just genetic modification. We’re arguing about organics, honeybees, factory livestock, fishery depletion, aquaculture, yields, antibiotics, monocrops and chemicals. Some of these can be as polarizing as the most difficult social issues; there’s as deep a schism in the food community as there is in Congress.

The Utah Health Policy Project has been presenting “Health Care 101” events to show how the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is being implementing in Utah. Utah residents have until March 31st to enroll in new private insurance on healthcare.gov.

Gary Paul Nabhan is a nature writer, food and farming activist, and proponent of conserving the links between biodiversity and cultural diversity. He has been honored as a pioneer in the local food movement and seed saving community by Utne Reader, Mother Earth News, New York Times, Bioneers and Time magazine. As the W.K. Kellogg Endowed Chair in Sustainable Food Systems at the University of Arizona Southwest Center, he works with students, faculty and non-profits to build a more just, nutritious, sustainable and climate-resilient foodshed spanning the U.S./Mexico border.

In his book, “The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society,” Notre Dame History Professor Brad Gregory shows how the unsolved doctrinal disagreements and religious and political conflicts of 16th- and 17th-century Europe continue to influence American political, social, intellectual, and economic life today. He asks what propelled the West into a trajectory of pluralism, polarization and consumerism, and finds answers deep in our medieval Christian past. Brad Gregory, a USU alumnus, returns to Logan to give a presentation in the Tanner Talks series from the USU College of Humanities and Social Sciences. The talk is Friday at noon in USU Library room 101.

On today's Encore presentation of Access Utah, Sheri Quinn meets with Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, a group of over 300 medical doctors, last year declared an air-pollution public health emergency on Capitol Hill. The problem has been so bad that it drew a crowd of about 5,000 citizens to the State Capitol in late January, now regarded as the largest air-pollution-specific protest in U.S. history. Today, Dr. Roger Coulombe, professor of Toxicology at Utah State University, talks to Sheri Quinn about the side effects of bad in Cache Valley.

Political satirist and “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” panelist, P.J. O’Rourke, trains his eye on his own generation in his new book, “THE BABY BOOM: How It Got That Way…And It Wasn’t My Fault…And I’ll Never Do It Again.” O’Rourke writes, “Yes, we’re spoiled rotten. We’re self-absorbed. And it seems like we’ll never shut up. But the boomers made a better world for everyone else. You’re welcome.” P.J. O'Rourke’s books include “Don’t Vote,” “Parliament of Whores,” “Give War a Chance,” “Eat the Rich,” “The CEO of the Sofa,” “Peace Kills” and “On the Wealth of Nation.”

U. S. House Republican Leaders recently outlined principles they believe should be followed in any overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws. This has raised hopes that immigration reform might move forward in Congress. What you think: Path to citizenship? Increased border security? What’s needed most? Or should this issue not be a priority? Do you have a personal experience or concern regarding immigration? We’ll be talking to members of the group: Bibles Badges and Business for Immigration Reform, Pastor of Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church Steve Klemz and Immigration Attorney Timothy Wheelwright.

This is an encore presentation of Access Utah, originally broadcast in May 2013.

Dr. Vernon L. Smith was teaching at Purdue in 1955 when he decided to test out an approach he hoped would help his students better understand how the marketplace functions. He conducted a classroom experiment that had half his students selling fictitious goods to the other students who were acting as buyers. That led to his research in experimental economics which eventually won him the Nobel Prize in 2002.

For the first fourteen years of their marriage, Utah residents Curtis and Pauline Hansen had it all--laughter, babies, vacations, and ball games--but the nine years that follow define their future, and it all begins with a dream. Curtis believes his dream to be direct revelation that they will receive a very large sum of money, but to receive it, they must play and win what is revealed to Curtis as The Game, a test to prove their faithfulness to each other.