City Weekly December 22, 2022

The billionaire’s press dominates the media censorship beat in 2022.

BY PAUL ROSENBERG

@SLCWEEKLY

have no contact with an alleged victim, etc.). Unfortunately, those conditions are either ineffective or being misapplied.

Of those released with a financial condition, 40% still miss at least one court hearing. This holds true for 30% of those released with nonfinancial conditions and 34% of people released without any conditions.

release, there may be no way to protect the public other than keeping him or her in jail.

The PSA may be a good starting point, but judges need more information to impose release conditions that work. There also needs to be meaningful consequences for missing court and continuing criminal behavior.

We Are a Changed People

I guess politicians got what they wanted ... change. But politicians never told us they wanted us to change for the worse.

We Suck at Bail

Utah is terrible at deciding who should be kept in jail prior to trial. Over a third of people released will fail to appear in court at least once. Another third will commit an offense while their case is still pending.

The problem comes from tension between legitimate, competing interests—defendants’ due process rights and the public’s right to not be victimized. In striking a balance, courts have a range of options. In limited circumstances, defendants can be held till trial. Short of that, judges release people with conditions.

These conditions can be financial (monetary bail is granted) or nonfinancial (a judge can order someone to wear a GPS monitor,

The numbers regarding crimes committed by those on pretrial release are equally abysmal. Nearly 40% of those released with a financial condition will commit a crime, as will 27% of those released with nonfinancial conditions and 39% of those released with no conditions.

Clearly, we are terrible at determining who should be released and on what terms. Currently, judges are making decisions using a Public Safety Assessment (PSA). The PSA attempts to quantify the risk that a defendant will fail to appear or commit a new crime. It considers nine factors relating to criminal history and prior failures to appear and assigns a score between one and five.

This approach is too simplistic. A homeless defendant may need special considerations to notify him of future hearings. An alcoholic might need continuous alcohol monitoring to prevent drunk driving. And if someone is likely to commit new crimes while on pretrial

It’s clear that the status quo isn’t working. Unfortunately, the current data isn’t granular enough to suggest a solution. We don’t know what types of crime defendants are committing while on pretrial release. We don’t know what factors would better predict continued criminal behavior and failures to appear.

When Utah’s Justice Reinvestment Act (JRI) passed in 2015, it promised evidence-based solutions. But in the years since, we have not gathered data to make this possible.

Instead, we’re still operating based on anecdotes, gut feelings and inaccurate prediction tools. It’s time we put the “investment” in the Justice Reinvestment Act and gather the evidence needed to make better decisions. Maximizing liberty for defendants who have not yet been proven guilty and keeping the community safe from continued crime are too important to leave to chance.

AMY POMEROY Criminal justice policy analyst Libertas Institute

For hundreds of years on this continent, there were three kinds of speech that were prosecuted: false speech, obscene speech and seditious speech. Today—all good.

Average Americans know how to find friends, get their kids up and off to school, call an Uber, boot up a computer and cruise the net, make a video and post it online or drive off in a car to a workplace where they do what they are told all day long. Kudos to us.

Our ancestors kept great books in their homes, read them and used them to teach. They apprenticed children in skilled trades. They learned the law, they farmed the land, started businesses, gave blood by volunteering as police watchmen and militiamen, took a turn running for office, built their own homes and made their own furnishings. They started towns and cities in their spare time.

KIMBALL SHINKOSKEY Woods Cross

Care to sound off on a local concern? Write to comments@cityweekly.net or post your thoughts on our social media. We want to hear from you!

THE WATER COOLER

Fill in the blank: It wouldn’t be Christmas without____

Kelly Boyce

Santa exploiting unpaid elf labor to make toys for minors that he creeps on everyday to see how naughty they’re being.

Bill Frost

A Santa Shooter, which is Five Wives Sinful (cinnamon) and Heavenly (vanilla) vodkas mixed 50/50 in a tall shooter glass. Tastes like Christmas!

Benjamin Wood

This answer is very specific to my individual family but: oyster stew and SpaghettiOs!

Bryan Bale

I don’t know how long it’s been since Christmas felt like anything special to me. I’m content if I just get an extended weekend off from work. (And it’s a good excuse for blasting “Naughty Christmas” by Lacuna Coil.)

Scott Renshaw

... the ongoing bafflement that December seems to get shorter every single year.

Stress.

Carolyn Campbell

Gift cards. They’re the answer to, “I don’t know what I want.”

Paula Saltas

Making baklava for the neighbors

Jerre Wroble

My old pal Geraldine’s pork pies.

Katharine Biele

Quiet-Quitting Twitter

My New Year’s resolution is to tweet better and much less often. I’m increasingly uncomfortable with the site— both its direction as a real-world entity and my personal experience living in its esoteric, digital verse.

It’s difficult to think of a bigger “First World problem” than a Twitter addiction and, thus, to justify how much handwringing surrounds its devolution into an Elon Musk-controlled hellscape. My colleague, John Saltas—founder of this fine newspaper—has written in this very space about his decision to exit, and stalwarts like Salt Lake Tribune cartoonist Pat Bagley have, at minimum, suspended their activity. (Ironically, Bagley did so days before City Weekly readers chose him as the state’s best social media follow. He’s still on Facebook.)

But silly as it all truly is, there’s no understating the tectonic impact of Twitter on American media, nor the role it played in my professional life and the lives of many—if not most—of my journalism peers. As corporate consolidation and dried-up advertising dealt legacy newsrooms a slow death, social media and particularly Twitter gave my generation the means to seize their destinies, establish “brands” separate from their employers and gather information at lightning speeds.

All of that is why, like any doomed addict, I’m scared I can’t live without it.

My Twitter story begins at Utah State University, where wise journalism professors rightly pegged it as the next big thing and urged (read: required) my cohort to create accounts. This was the tail end of the MySpace era—when you still needed an .edu email to access Facebook—and my initial engagement was casual, at best.

Then Osama bin Laden was killed. Being a broke college kid with no cable TV, I sat glued to my laptop for hours, watching the whole world have one giant conversation.

A couple years later, I’m a cub reporter at the Deseret News

BY BENJAMIN WOOD

when the state is jolted by Judge Robert J. Shelby’s ruling in favor of marriage equality. And thanks to one of the greatest legal blunders in state history, no stay was initially requested, so no stay was given, launching a mad dash for same-sex wedding licenses before appeals could hit the brakes.

It was my day off but being a young newshound, I headed straight for the Salt Lake County Clerk’s Office. There, I tweeted photos of the many Equality bumper stickers in the parking lot and of two Pride-flag-neckerchiefed Boy Scouts delivering pizza to the would-be spouses waiting in line.

The latter found its way onto CNN and blew up my phone for literal days—my first taste of virality. It also earned me a stern warning from my DNews editor to tighten things up online. I went in a different direction.

A couple years later, I’m a Tribune government reporter, the actual dream job of my naive youth. A lawmaker with whom I share a more-than-somewhat adversarial relationship steps in it hard with an ill-conceived tweet. I call him out, opening a floodgate of criticism for him and a near-overdose of schadenfreude for me. The lawmaker then phones me, off the record, and asks for my advice (to delete, or not to delete, that is the question).

A non-elected political official tells my wife that “they” maintain a “file” of my tweets. “Nice account Ben’s got,” he says, in essence, “be a shame if something happened to it.” I experience the requisite panic attack, but then I go in a different direction, tweeting with more candor than ever.

I figured if “they” were going to religiously scrutinize my feed, I’d drown them in the data and perspectives they should consider but reflexively don’t.

I have zero doubt that Twitter got me off the stacks of resumes (of which there are many) and through employers’ doors (of which there are vanishingly few). It’s how I’ve done some of my best work, creating a record of obscure events and prewriting articles with live feedback from my readers.

Twitter is also where I’ve acted out my worst impulses. When it hasn’t been my day, my week, my month or even my year, the

app is probably the third most self-destructive thing I could reach for—Top 5 for sure. Add in the recent … let’s say noise , and it feels like self-intervention is warranted.

I don’t plan to go cold turkey. In true millennial fashion, I plan to “quiet quit” my Twitter account, which is really just an angry boomer way of saying “setting healthy and appropriate work-life boundaries.”

Retweeting is my favorite use of Twitter: elevating expert commentary; newsworthy statements from public figures; quality reporting by my state and national peers; and sure, the occasional zinger. When I tweet, I aim to limit myself to promoting City Weekly content and events as well as just-the-facts updates to the SLC Traffic Violence map I maintain online.

I’m sure I’ll slip, probably with a snarky poll here and there. But writing this will help keep me accountable to myself and to my readers. In particular, I have to stop directly antagonizing the Utah Department of Transportation, because I’ve decided to focus on transportation during the upcoming legislative session. I’ve never picked my own beat before.

Generational questions are being asked, and Utah is poised to double-down on the demonstrable mistakes of the 20th century. I could fill a whole column on this topic but to end in brief: Our leadership is asleep at the wheel (pun very much intended) and most Utah media is riding alongside them. Seems there’s plenty of reporters for the WalletHub rankings that clog my inbox—not so many willing to parse the systemic nuances of an upcoming Interstate 15 expansion that will displace west siders and, in all sincere likelihood, worsen congestion downtown.

For all its faults, Twitter taught me to chase my passions. That means being open to a different direction, even one away from Twitter. As 2023 begins, maybe there are new directions our city, our state—even you, dear reader—might consider.

Happy New Year! CW

editor Benjamin Wood is filling in for Private Eye this week. Send comments to bwood@cityweekly.net.

City Weekly news

HITS & MISSES

MISS: Death by 1,000 Cuts

Here we go again with our Republican ideologies hanging on in desperation to the self-defeating delusion that taxes are bad, and the rich will save us. Enter Gov. Spencer Cox’s budget proposal and the manic intent to slash cash for schools while offering them a handout. “We are rich enough as a state that there is no need to raise tax rates. Just don’t be so quick to cut them,” implores The Salt Lake Tribune ’s George Pyle. And, “Putting more money in people’s pockets will increase demand for goods at a time of supply shortages. That will drive up prices and worsen the inflation that the governors claim to be so worried about,” the Brookings Institution says in a Note to Governors. Our Legislature is intent on cutting taxes and assures everyone that a small constitutional set-aside for schools will be good enough. WalletHub ranks Utah 51st for its student-to-teacher ratio and 50th for public school spending per student as we continue to trend down.

HIT: Not So Fast

There is plenty you can say about our not-so-plentiful water in Utah. Still, we fully expect the Legislature to look at the recent snowpack and exclaim that the drought is over, and climate change is a hoax. It’s not. Utahns have been happy to see the focus move to saving the Great Salt Lake and yet, sometimes, our business-centric tenets get in the way. Take the governor’s recent about-face on US Magnesium. The company—admittedly a big deal for the worldwide supply of magnesium—wanted to dredge two canals to pump water from the lake, according to The Salt Lake Tribune . The governor’s Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office was all for it—until the swift and massive public backlash. It now appears to be equivocating as it weighs disaster for the company against disaster for the ecosystem that supports just about every living thing in Utah.

MISS: Morality Police

Sen. Mike Lee fancies himself as a certain Captain Moroni against the scourge of pornography. Well, if you can’t kill it, define it. Lee has proposed legislation to officially define “obscenity,” he said in a press release. It’s not protected by the First Amendment, and Lee notes that the Supreme Court just can’t seem to define it. His bill, among other things, would remove the requirement that obscenity has to abuse, threaten or harass someone before it can be banned. Obscenity is a little different from pornography, although both are constantly on the minds of far-right conservatives—the ones who believe Hillary Clinton killed babies in a pizza parlor. Each of the 50 states has some form of obscenity law on the books, but Lee thinks he can wrangle them all together and make sense of an issue that has been around since the 1800s. Whether he would define obscenity as Trump talking about grabbing women “by the pussy” is still unclear.

Holiday Sights

With the holidays in full swing, no doubt you’ve been inundated with listicles and all-caps headlines of the “Top 10 Things to Do This Christmas!” from pretty much every online outlet imaginable. ‘Tis the season, after all.

I admit, though, I tend to read every one of them, especially if there’s a Salt Lake City bent to the list.

In fact, I am so in love with discovering new things to do around the holidays that I recently solicited responses from people on my Instagram account, @SLSees. And when you call on the internet, the internet always responds.

Most of the answers revolved around pretty well-known activities: visiting the glühwein -free Christkindlesmarkt at This Is the Place Heritage Park, ice skating at the Gallivan Center and—the handsdown favorite—sauntering through Temple Square in awe of all the lights.

However, there were a few surprises mentioned as well.

To be truly wowed by lights, nothing is comparable to Frosty’s Winter Wonderland on 18th Avenue, near Terrace Hills Drive (upper-right image). This over-thetop illumination would make even Clark Griswold proud, and—I imagine—their neighbors a little furious.

For me, though, it’s hard to beat Glen Arbor Street in Sugar House, which temporarily rebrands itself as “Christmas Street” (upper-left image). I know there are better displays in the valley, but something about seeing a neighborhood collectively come together always leaves me feeling warm inside.

Of course, Christmas isn’t the only holiday happening around this time of year. The annual window stroll at the Grand America Hotel at 555 S. Main downtown does a good job of chronicling celebrations from around the world with a series of 14 meticulously crafted displays. My personal favorite was the panel depicting the Hindu festival of Diwali (lower left image) in all its awesome colorfulness.

Also at the Grand America is an homage to seasonal gluttony: an impressive, oversize gingerbread house that took 950 hours and a literal ton of flour and sugar to construct (lower right). If this isn’t what the holidays—any of them!—are about, then I don’t know what is! ◀

With winter comes the annual appearances of “Christmas Street” and Frosty’s Winter Wonderland.

Holiday displays and deocrations are back at Salt Lake City’s glamorous Grand America Hotel.

BRYANT HEATH BRYANT HEATH

Steph Tolev @ Wiseguys

If your stereotype of Canadians is that they’re all demure and unassuming, Toronto native Steph Tolev seems to be on a one-woman quest to undermine it. With her distinctive rasp of a voice and her big stage presence, Tolev takes charge of a room quickly, and lets an audience know that they’re in for some raunchy fun.

She even turns some unexpected aspects of her home country into the stuff of her jokes, like a bit where she discusses the downside of going on a first date to Toronto’s Ripley’s Aquarium. “There’s this fun thing you can do where you get on a scale and weigh yourself, and see how much you’ll be worth as a tuna,” Tolev says. “I’m like, ‘I’m gonna be 100, maybe.’ … So I saunter my European shoulders over to the scale, hop on … $2,000 worth of tuna. No one wants to fuck $2,000 worth of tuna.”

That combination of self-deprecation and brassiness has made Tolev a success over the course of her career, which has included a Juno Award nomination for Best Comedy Album for her 2019 release I’m Not Well, and TV appearances including Bill Burr’s Comedy Central series The Ringers and the Amazon series Please Understand Me. And of course, no comedian of 2022 is without a podcast, and you can find Tolev at her Steph Infection podcast.

You can also find her at Wiseguys Gateway (194 S. 400 West) on Thursday, Dec. 22 at 9 p.m., Tickets are $25; visit wiseguyscomedy.com for tickets and additional event information. (Scott Renshaw)

Tina Burner: I’d Rather Be Naughty Than Nice Drag personality Tina Burner might be best-known to general audiences for her appearance on Season 13 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and perhaps even as 2019’s National Miss Comedy Queen. But the holiday spirit can hit all of us in different ways, and Tina Burner has taken the opportunity of the Christmas season to play a particularly iconic role: Mrs. Santa Claus.

In her Christmas touring production I’d Rather Be Naughty Than Nice, Burner plays Mrs. Claus as having grown frustrated with the requirement to present the image of perfect wife to old Kris Kringle. The narrative introduces audiences to the probably-not-so-well-known story of how Mr. and Mrs. Claus met and became a couple, what life is like as First Lady of the North Pole, and the unique struggles that such a role entails. With growing frustration, Mrs. Claus begins to consider what it might to be like on the “naughty list,” and explores it in a musical presentation that includes interpretations of pop and holiday standards, as well as the original song “I’d Rather Be Naughty Than Nice,” featuring orchestrations by Broadway veteran Blake Allen.

Tina Burner’s I’d Rather Be Naughty Than Nice parks its sleigh at Metro Music Hall (615 W. 100 South) on Thursday, Dec. 22. Doors are 7 p.m., with a 7:30 p.m. meet-and-greet opportunity and 8:30 p.m. showtime. Tickets for the seated show are $20 general admission, $30 including meet-and-greet and reserved seating in the first four rows, and $75 for a booth reservation. Visit metromusichall.com for tickets and additional event information. (SR)

Odyssey Dance’s It’s a Wonderful Life TV broadcast

As company founder Derryl Yeager told City Weekly back in the fall, Odyssey Dance— the organization that made Thriller a Halloween dance tradition—is, at least for now, no more. Yeager has moved on to the next phase of his life after 28 years running Odyssey, including taking an LDS mission with his wife in 2023. But Odyssey is providing us with a going-away Christmas present for the holiday season: a TV broadcast of their long-running Christmas show, It’s a Wonderful Life

The story is familiar to anyone who has seen the beloved 1946 film, about a small-town man named George Bailey who contemplates taking his own life when it appears that he has failed at the things he considers most important. That’s when an apprentice angel takes him on a journey to show George the positive impact he has had on so many others. “This story has been one of my favorite movies of all time, and it was such a joy to be able to re-imagine it through dance,” Yeager said in a press release. “It has the look of a Broadway show, but the story is told through dance and the use of voice-overs very much like the film. … This version of the show was filmed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when all theaters were closed to live audience participation. Under strict COVID guidelines, we were able to film this timeless dance performance version.”

It’s a Wonderful Life will run on KMYU Channel 12 on Dec. 21 and Dec. 28 from 8 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Visit odysseydance.com for additional show information. (SR)

A Midnight Clear(er)

Three years into its development, the Utah-created Christmas musical Star of Wonder continues its evolution.

BY SCOTT RENSHAW scottr@cityweekly.net @scottrenshaw

Three years ago, when James Conlee spoke to City Weekly about his new musical Star of Wonder, the show was about to make its premiere. As it turns out, the premiere was only the beginning.

Conlee’s show was a “jukebox musical” of sorts built around traditional Christmas carols, set during the Christmas festival of a small town circa 1919, where World War I veteran Jack Lewis has returned home. Jack’s character arc revolved around his involvement in the legendary “Christmas truce” of 1914, where German and British forces crossed No Man’s Land to play soccer and sing carols together— or, more specifically, his lack of involvement, and his regret over missing that unique opportunity.

What Conlee discovered was that everyone involved in the show—from Conlee himself to the cast members to the audience—wanted a deepening of Jack’s story. “The heart of the show was always intended to be our soldier, but we started to weave him into it more and more,” Conlee says. “The feeling I had was, ‘That soldier’s story was great; I wish we had more of it.’

“The luxury and the downfall of having a Christmas show is you can only do it at that

time of year. If you don’t fail—and we didn’t— it gives you a year to do some refinements.”

As a result, Conlee worked on re-writing the show, creating new scenes that brought the audience more into Jack’s wartime experience, and particularly his friendship with another soldier. “His friend was the first one across the field,” Conlee says. “[Jack] was filled with more hatred towards the enemy. … He doesn’t want to tell this story, but realized if he did, he could help other people. That became much more impactful in the second year.”

Of course, that second year was 2020, and as was the case for all live theater during that year, there was no guarantee that the show could go on. The West Valley Performing Arts Center (formerly the location of the Hale Center Theater) came forward as a possible venue, and the show was indeed produced, with greatly reduced seating capacity. “And by the grace of whatever, none of our cast members got COVID during the week of the show,” Conlee adds.

He also believes that the circumstances of that COVID year reduced the pressure while tinkering with the structure of Star of Wonder “I’m kind of glad we got to refine ourselves under the curtain of COVID,” he says. “It allowed us a smaller audience, and a more sympathetic audience, to do that; there wasn’t as much on the line.”

Back in 2019, Conlee identified one of his goals for Star of Wonder as expanding it beyond Utah, to become a show that could travel to other places for holiday productions. While he’s grateful for the opportunity provided by the West Valley Performing Arts Center to keep the show going over the past two years, there was one downside to the venue: Its “theaterin-the-round” set-up made it difficult to create a video recording of the show as a “proof of concept” that would capture how it would look in a proscenium space.

“What I’d get from people is, ‘It’s close,’” Conlee says. “If we could perform it in a pro-

scenium stage, that’s one of the things we’ll be able to nail this year. I’m just longing for them to see the finished product of this year’s show. We’re going to be in Utah no matter what. If we can launch from Utah, that’s nice. But what I really want to do is grow the success we have in Utah, then see if it becomes kind of undeniable, that this could go elsewhere.”

That success in Utah has grown, with fans of the show buying large blocs of tickets, and a successful Kickstarter campaign of $10,000 to record the soundtrack. Conlee is grateful for the opportunity to continue developing the show, and says that Utah audiences have been wonderful as an “incubator” for Star of Wonder. As the show continues to evolve, those who catch it in 2022 will see something quite different from what they would have seen in 2019, and be part of that creative evolution. “Last year, Sam Cardon, a composer friend

composed who’s worked with Kurt Bestor, said, ‘It’s five percent away from world-class,’ and that meant everything to me. I do feel like it’s world-class.”

“You may see some hiccups, but you also may see something magical and new,” Conlee adds. “For it even to get on stage, so many great things have to happen. That first year was nice, but there’s something there that if we keep chipping away at it, it’s worth chipping away at.” CW

STAR OF WONDER

Rose Wagner Center 138 W. 300 South Dec. 21 – 23 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. nightly $25 arttix.org

Star of Wonder

Part OneProject Censored

By Paul Rosenberg Project Censored senior editor comments@cityweekly.net Graphics by Anson Stevens-Bollen

Since its founding in 1976, Project Censored has been focused on stories—like Watergate, before the 1972 election—that aren’t censored in the authoritarian government sense, but in a broader, expanded sense reflective of what a functioning democracy should be; censorship defined as “the suppression of information, whether purposeful or not, by any method—including bias, omission, underreporting or self-censorship—that prevents the public from fully knowing what is happening in society.”

It is, after all, the reason that journalism enjoys special protection in the First Amendment: Without the free flow of vital information, government based on the consent of the governed is but an illusory dream.

Yet, from the very beginning, as A.J. Liebling put it, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”

In their introduction to Project Censore’s annual State of the Free Press, which contains its top censored stories and much more, Project Censored’s Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth take this condition head-on, under the heading, State of the Free Billionaire, in contrast to the volume’s title, State of the Free Press 2023. Following a swift recap of historic media criticism highlights—Upton Sinclair, the aforementioned Liebling, Ben Bagdikian, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky—they dryly observe, “History shows that consolidated media, controlled by a handful of elite owners, seldom serves the public interest,” and briefly survey the contemporary landscape before narrowing their gaze to the broadest of influencers:

Despite the promise of boundless access to information, Silicon Valley mirrors legacy media in its consolidated ownership and privileging of elite narratives. This new class of billionaire oligarchs owns or controls the most popular media platforms, including the companies often referred to as the FAANGs—Facebook (Meta), Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google (Alphabet). Obviously, this was written before Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, but it’s an apt reminder that his wildly out-of-touch worldview is not just an individual, personal aberration, but also a symptom of wider systemic dysfunction.

“In pursuit of their own interests and investments, media tycoons past and present, again and again, appear to be conveniently oblivious to the main frame through which they filter news—that of class, including class structure and class interests,” Huff and Roth write. “Consequently, they often overlook (or ignore) conflicts of interest that implicate media owners, funders, investors and advertisers, not to mention their business clients on Wall Street and in Big Pharma, Big Tech and the military–industrial complex.”

This observation perfectly frames the majority of stories in Project Censored’s Top 10 list, starting with the first two stories: massive subsidies of the fossil fuel industry and rampant wage theft—concentrated on the most vulnerable workers—that eclipse street crime in the magnitude of losses but is rarely punished, even when offenders are caught dead to rights. It echoes clearly through the stories on Congress members’ investments in the fossil fuel industry, the role of corporate consolidation in driving up inflation in food prices, Bill Gates’ hidden influence on journalism and major media outlets lobbying against regulation of surreptitious online advertising. And it is only at a slight remove from two other stories having to do with dark money and one about the suppression of Environmental Protection Agency reports on dangerous chemicals.

Indeed, only one story out of this year’s top 10 list is somewhat removed from the sphere of corporate corruption concerns: the story of the CIA’s plans to kidnap or kill Julian Assange.

Every year, I note that there are multiple patterns to be found in the list of Project Censored’s stories and that these different patterns have much to tell us about the forces shaping what remains hidden. That’s still true, with three environmental stories (two involving fossil fuels), three involving money in politics (two dark money stories) and two involving illicit surveillance. But the dominance of this one pattern truly is remarkable.

It shows how profoundly the concentration of corporate wealth and power in the hands of so few distorts everything we see—or don’t see—in the world around us every day. Here then, is the first half of this year’s list of Project Censored’s Top 10 censored stories (editor’s note: Next week’s issue will feature the second half of the list):

1. Fossil Fuels Subsidized at Rate of $11 Million per Minute

Globally, the fossil fuel industry receives subsidies of roughly $11 million per minute, primarily from lack of liability for the externalized health costs of deadly air pollution (42%), damages caused by extreme weather events (29%) and costs from traffic collisions and congestion (15%). And two-thirds of those subsidies come from just five countries—the United States, Russia, India, China and Japan.

These are key findings from a study of 191 nations published by the International Monetary Fund, or IMF in September 2021, that were reported in the Guardian and Treehugger the next month, but have been ignored in the corporate media.

No national government currently prices fossil fuels at what the IMF calls their “efficient price”—covering both their supply and environmental costs. “Instead, an estimated 99 percent of coal, 52 percent of road diesel, 47 percent of natural gas and 18 percent of gasoline are priced at less than half their efficient price,” Project Censored noted.

“Efficient fuel pricing in 2025 would reduce global carbon dioxide emissions 36 percent below baseline levels, which is in line with keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees, while raising revenues worth 3.8 percent of global GDP and preventing 0.9 million local air pollution deaths,” the report stated. The G7 nations had previously agreed to scrap fossil fuel subsidies by 2025, but the IMF found that subsidies have increased in recent years and will continue increasing.

“It’s critical that governments stop propping up an industry that is in decline,” Mike Coffin, a senior analyst at Carbon Tracker, told the Guardian . “The much-needed change could start happening now, if not for the government’s entanglement with the fossil fuels industry in so many major economies,” added Maria Pastukhova of E3G, a climate change think tank.

“Eliminating fossil fuel subsidies could lead to higher energy prices and, ultimately, political protests and social unrest,” Project Censored noted. “But, as the Guardian and Treehugger each reported, the IMF recommended a ‘comprehensive strategy’ to protect consumers—especially low-income households—impacted by rising energy costs and workers in displaced industries.”

No corporate news outlets had reported on the IMF as of May 2022, according to Project Censored, though a November 2021 opinion piece did focus on the issue of subsidies, which John Kerry, U.S. special envoy for climate change, called “a definition of insanity.” But that was framed as opinion, and made no mention of the indirect subsidies, which represent 86% of the total.

In contrast, “In January 2022, CNN published an article that all but defended fossil fuel subsidies,” Project Censored noted. “CNN’s coverage emphasized the potential for unrest caused by rollbacks of government subsidies, citing ‘protests that occasionally turned violent.’”

The billionaire’s press dominates the media censorship beat in 2022.

Efficient fuel pricing could help lower emissions.

2. Wage Theft: U.S. Businesses Suffer Few Consequences for

Stealing Millions from Workers

In 2017, the FBI reported the cost of street crime at about $13.8 billion, the same year that the Economic Policy Institute released a study saying that just one form of wage theft—minimum wage violations—costs U.S. workers even more: an estimated $15 billion annually, impacting an estimated 17% of low-wage workers.

One reason it’s so rampant is that companies are seldom punished, as Alexia Fernández Campbell and Joe Yerardi reported for the Center for Public Integrity in May 2021, drawing on 15 years of data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. “The agency fined only about one in four repeat offenders during that period. And it ordered those companies to pay workers cash damages—penalty money in addition to back wages—in just 14 percent of those cases,” they wrote.

In addition, “The division often lets businesses avoid repaying their employees all the money they’re owed. In all, the agency has let more than 16,000 employers get away with not paying $20.3 million in back wages since 2005.”

We’re talking about major companies. Halliburton, G4S Wackenhut and Circle K Stores were among “the worst offenders,” they reported.

That report kicked off the Center For Public Integrity’s “Cheated at Work’’ series, which showed that “U.S. employers that illegally underpaid workers face few repercussions, even when they do so repeatedly. This widespread practice perpetuates income inequality, hitting lowest-paid workers hardest.”

“Wage theft includes a range of illegal practices, such as paying less than minimum wage, withholding tips, not paying overtime or requiring workers to work through breaks or off the clock. It impacts service workers, low-income workers, immigrant and guest workers, and communities of color the most,” Project Censored explained.

Wage theft also includes worker misclassification as independent contractors—long the case with port truckers and, more recently, gig workers. A 2014 study from the National Employment Law Center estimated that “California’s port trucking companies are liable to drivers for violations of wage and hour laws for $65 million to $83 million each month, or $787 million to $998 million each year.”

Lack of resources is largely to blame for the lax enforcement, Project Censored explained: “As of February 2021, the Wage and Hour Division employed only 787 investigators, a proportion of just one investigator per 182,000 workers covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, Campbell and Yerardi noted. For comparison, in 1948, the division employed one investigator

per 22,600 workers, or eight times the current proportion.”

Lax enforcement is “especially problematic” in some 14 states that “lack the capacity to investigate wage theft claims or lack the ability to file lawsuits on behalf of victims,” according to a 2017 Economic Policy Institute report. In contrast, the center’s report “mentioned local successes in Chicago (2013), Philadelphia (2016) and Minneapolis (2019),” Project Censored noted, but “workers’ rights advocates continue to seek federal reforms.”

“Since May 2021, a handful of corporate news outlets, including CBS News, covered or republished the Center for Public Integrity’s report on wage theft,” Project Censored noted, but “Corporate coverage tends to focus on specific instances involving individual employers,” while ignoring the broader subject “as a systemic social problem” as well as ignoring the “anemic federal enforcement.”

That could change, if Congress were to pass the Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act of 2022, which “would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to protect workers from wage theft, according to Ariana Figueroa of the Virginia Mercury,” Project Censored noted, concluding with a quote from Minnesota U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar: “It is clear more DOL [Department of Labor] funding and additional federal reforms are needed in our localities in order to protect our most vulnerable workers.”

3. EPA Withheld Reports on Dangerous Chemicals

In January 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, stopped releasing legally required disclosures about chemicals that present a “substantial risk of injury to health or the environment.” The disclosures had previously been posted in a searchable public database called ChemView.

In November 2021, as part of news website The Intercept’s “EPA Exposed” investigative series, Sharon Lerner reported that EPA had received “at least 1,240 substantial risk reports since January 2019, but only one was publicly available. The suppressed reports documented “the risk of chemicals’ serious harms, including eye corrosion, damage to the brain and nervous system, chronic toxicity to honeybees, and cancer in both people and animals,” Lerner wrote.

“The reports include notifications about highly toxic polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, chemical compounds that are known as ‘forever chemicals’ because they build up in our bodies and never break down in the environment,” Project Censored noted. “The Environmental Working Group explains that ‘very small doses of PFAS have been linked to cancer, reproductive and immune system harm, and other diseases. For decades, chemical com-

panies covered up evidence of PFAS’ health hazards.’” Their spread throughout the world’s oceans, along with microplastics, was Project Censored’s No. 5 suppressed story last year.

It wasn’t just the public that was kept in the dark, Lerner reported. “The substantial risk reports have not been uploaded to the databases used most often by risk assessors searching for information about chemicals, according [to] one of the EPA scientists … They have been entered only into an internal database that is difficult to access and search. As a result, little—and perhaps none—of the information about these serious risks to health and the environment has been incorporated into the chemical assessments completed during this period.”

“Basically, they are just going into a black hole,” one whistleblower told Lerner. “We don’t look at them. We don’t evaluate them. And we don’t check to see if they change our understanding of the chemical.”

Apart from The Intercept, “only a handful of niche publications have reported on the matter,” Project Censored noted.

However, in January 2022 Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a lawsuit to compel EPA to disclose the reports, following up on an earlier public records request which, the National Law Review reported, was “built upon information reported in a November 2021 article in The Intercept.”

But just weeks later, EPA announced that it would resume posting the reports in ChemView, Project Censored noted. “Clearly, independent journalism contributed significantly to this outcome,” they said. “Had it not been for the work of investigative journalist Sharon Lerner at The Intercept, EPA whistleblowers would not have had a platform to share concerns that ultimately led the agency to resume these critical public disclosures.”

4. At Least 128 Members

of Congress

Invested

in Fossil Fuels

At least 100 U.S. representatives and 28 U.S. senators have financial interests in the fossil fuel industry—a major impediment to reaching climate change goals that has gone virtually unmentioned by the corporate media, despite detailed reporting in a series of Sludge articles written by David Moore in November and December of 2021.

Moore found that 74 Republicans, 59 Democrats and 1 independent have fossil fuel industry investments, with Republicans outnumbering Democrats in both chambers. The top 10 House investors are all Republicans. But it’s quite different in the Senate, where 2 of the top 3 investors are Democrats, and Democrats’ total investments—$8,604,000—are more than double the Senate Republicans’ total of $3,994,126.

Topping the list is Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, with up to $5.5 million of fossil fuel industry assets, while Sen. John Hickenlooper, DColorado, is third, with up to $1 million. (Most reporting is in ranges.) Many top investors are Texas Republicans, including Rep. Van Taylor, with up to $12.4 million worth of investments.

“Most significantly, many hold key seats on influential energy-related committees,” Project Censored noted. Senators include Manchin, chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee; Tina Smith, D-Minnesota, chair of the Agriculture Subcommittee on Rural Development and Energy; and Tom Carper, D-Delaware, chair of the Committee on the Environment and Public Works. “Manchin cut the Clean Electricity Performance Program, a system that would phase out coal, from President Biden’s climate bill,” they added.

In the House, “nine of the 22 Republican members of the Energy and Commerce Committee are invested in the fossil fuel industry. As

West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin is estimated to own $5.5 million in fossil-fuel assets.

Federal disclosures on harmful chemicals largely vanished from a public database.

Minimum wage violations are estimated to carry a higher societal cost than street crime.

Project Censored detailed in the No. 4 story on the Top 25 list two years ago, these individuals’ personal financial interests as investors often conflict with their obligation as elected legislators to serve the public interest.”

Oil and gas lobbying totaled $119.3 million according to OpenSecrets, while 2020 election spending topped $40 million for congressional candidates—$8.7 million to Democrats and $30.8 million to Republicans. This came as the International Energy Agency warned that no new fossil fuel developments can be approved for the world to have a 50/50 chance to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, Moore reported.

And yet, “production of oil and gas is projected to grow 50 percent by 2030 without congressional action,” Project Censored noted. “The fact that so many lawmakers have invested considerable sums in the fossil fuel industry makes it extremely unlikely that Congress will do much to rein in oil and gas production.”

As of May 21, 2022, Sludge’s reporting had gotten no corporate coverage, repeating the whiteout of a similar report in 2020. “Corporate news outlets have only reported on the fact that clean energy proposals are stalled in Congress, not the financial conflicts of interest that are the likely cause of this lack of progress,” Project Censored concluded.

5. Dark Money Interference in U.S. Politics Undermines Democracy

The same conservative dark money organizations that opposed President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nomination—Judicial Crisis Network, The 85 Fund and affiliated groups—also funded entities that played a role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to a report by the watchdog group Accountable.US. The organizations are closely linked to Leonard Leo, co-chair of the Federalist Society, with money from Donors Trust (a dark-money group backed by the Koch network) and the Bradley Foundation.

“These dark money groups not only funded Leo’s network of organizations to the sum of over $52 million in 2020, but also funded entities in 2020 that played a role in the insurrection to the sum of over $37 million,” Accountable.US reported.

While there has been coverage of dark money spending on Supreme Court nominations, Igor Derysh at Salon was alone in reporting this: the related involvement in Jan. 6.

Just one group, Judicial Crisis Network, spent $2.5 million “before Biden even named his nominee” Ketanji Brown Jackson, Derysh reported, “accusing Biden of caving in to leftists by promising a ‘Supreme Court nominee who will be a liberal activist.’” On the other hand, “JCN spent

tens of millions helping to confirm justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, according to Open Secrets, and launched a $25 million effort to confirm Justice Amy Coney Barrett just weeks before the 2020 election,” he reported.

More disturbingly, “Donors Trust has funneled more than $28 million to groups that pushed election lies or in some way funded the rally ahead of the Capitol riot,” while “Members of the Federalist Society played key roles in Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the election,” including attorney John Eastman, architect of Trump’s plan to get Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election, senators Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who led objections to the certification of Trump’s loss after the riot, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who filed a lawsuit to throw out election results in key states, effectively overturning Biden’s victory. In addition, 13 of the 17 other Republican attorneys general who joined Paxton’s suit were also Federalist Society members.

“It should worry us all that the groups leading the fight against Biden’s historic nomination of Judge Jackson to the Supreme Court are tied to the Jan. 6 insurrection and efforts to undermine confidence in the 2020 election,” Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, told Salon.

“The influence of dark money—political spending by organizations that are not required to disclose their donors—presents a major challenge to the swift functioning of the judicial nomination and confirmation process, and the U.S. government as a whole,” Project Censored noted. “[D]ark money deeply influences political decisions in favor of select individuals’ or groups’ agendas rather than in support of the public’s best interests.”

Right-wing dark money’s role in fighting Justice Jackson’s nomination and confirmation process was highlighted by Business Insider in February 2022, along with op-eds in both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post that covered the discussion of dark money during Justice Jackson’s confirmation hearings, and a March 2022 Mother Jones report. “However,”

Project Censored noted, “none of the articles featured in the corporate press covered dark money supporting Trump’s Big Lie, the impact such funding had on promoting and reinforcing anti-democratic ideology or the ramifications of how such dark money spending erodes public trust in government and the election process.”

Paul Rosenberg is a Los Angeles, Californiabased writer, senior editor for Random Lengths News, and a columnist for Salon and Al Jazeera English. Pick up next week’s issue of City Weekly for Part 2 of Project Censored’s annual list.

Happy Hall-idays

The food hall concept continues to evolve with Woodbine Food Hall

BY ALEX SPRINGER comments@cityweekly.net @captainspringer

Whenever I check in on the Granary District, it seems like there’s always something new—and unabashedly cool—to explore. While the lightning-fast development of this area means I could be talking about any number of destinations, today I am talking about Woodbine Food Hall (545 W. 700 South, 801-669-9192, woodbineslc.com), a collection of small cool places within the confines of one large—and very cool—space. Currently, Woodbine is home to seven local restaurants and a bar that features a dope rooftop patio offering diners a front-row seat to this rapidly evolving neighborhood.

Those familiar with the area will know that Woodbine’s digs are already saturated with local foodie power. This is the space that once housed Rico Foods’ bean and tortilla plant until a few years ago. Earlier this year, owners Zachary Howa, Ryan Reich and Max Coreth oversaw the renovation and inclusion of its original roster of eateries, with a few others that have joined up since the grand opening—most recently the California-based Vuture Food, which is known for its plant-based takes on fried chicken and mozzarella sticks.

Having visited most of our local food halls, it’s clear that Woodbine had a solid plan for its particular food hall concept. Not only have they selected eateries that provide diversity and quality, but they’ve made a successful grab at each of the major dining arcana—

breakfast, lunch, dinner and a bar space for the night owls. This savvy combination of concepts coupled with a rustic space that features awesome patio dining for warmer weather has turned Woodbine Food Hall into a foundational social hub for the Granary District as it develops.

In order to hit this particular sweet spot, you’ve got to start things off with a solid coffee shop for the morning commuters and remote freelancers. Enter 3 Cups (3cups.coffee), an established local brand that has been elevating Utah’s coffee game for years. At 3 Cups, diners can indulge in all manner of artisanal caffeination, along with some sugary pastries as needed. In the early hours, Woodbine is a cozy place to hang out—especially now that they have decked the food hall with boughs of holly—and doing so with a hot cup of fresh-brewed coffee is a great way to kick off the day.

The lunchtime hours are when the bulk of Woodbine wakes up to feed the wandering clusters of urban professionals getting a bite in while they synergize and shit. Everything is a safe bet at Woodbine—their diversity is one of the food hall’s greatest strengths. You’ve got personal, freshly-fired pizzas from Mozz Artisan Pizza (mozzartisanpizza.com), where the serrano and honey pizza ($15.50) will dazzle your tongue with sweet heat. Then there’s the toasty, stacked sandwiches from Deadpan Sandwich right next to Taco Lady (tacolady.net) who will take care of all your street taco needs. Toward the north side you’ve got Taste of Louisiana (tasteoflouisiana.com) in all its Southern comfort food glory, and Yakuza Ramen whipping up traditional ramen recipes.

With a lineup like that, it can be hard to decide where to hitch your gastronomic anchor. It’s best to go when you’re hungry so you can try two or maybe three different spots—

this seems a bit taboo for the business lunch crowd, but I give you permission to go forth and gorge thyself. It’s tough for me to pick a favorite, but I have to say the Oh Schintzel! ($14) was the most surprising dish I tried. Dig if you will, a schnitzel, flattened and fried to a crisp. The dill of the ranch-kraut covers the sandwich—can you my darling, can you picture this? Ah—sorry. You ever try something so good that you must express your thoughts to the tune of Prince’s “When Doves Cry.” No? Huh. Moving on, then.

The seafood gumbo ($21 for regular, $26 for large) from Taste of Louisiana is a nice way to warm up your rattling bones in this cold weather. They make a point to turn the spicy level down in consideration of our dainty Utah tastebuds, but if you’re into spicy food just let them know, and they’ll ramp up the heat level pronto. Regardless of the heat level, this gumbo has just about everything you’d want in a gumbo, including shrimp, andouille sausage, chicken, scallops, crawfish and rice. This is also going to be a nice spot for breakfast soon when their menu starts to feature chicken and red velvet waffles.

I still find myself considering the pros and cons of the food hall trend, but my experiences at Woodbine have me feeling grateful. I’m glad some local talent has been assembled into one place that will inevitably become more populous and popular within the Downtown area, and any good neighborhood needs good places to hang out and eat. Based on my experiences, Woodbine Food Hall has the potential to be the backbone of the Granary District. CW AT

A GLANCE

Open: Tues.-Wed., 7 a.m.-8 p.m., Thurs.-Sat., 7 a.m.-9 p.m. Best

2 Row Brewing

6856 S. 300 West, Midvale

2RowBrewing.com

Avenues Proper 376 8th Ave, SLC

avenuesproper.com

On Tap: Proper Beer - English Golden Ale

Bewilder Brewing 445 S. 400 West, SLC

BewilderBrewing.com

On Tap: Gluten Reduced Kolsch

Bohemian Brewery 94 E. Fort Union Blvd, Midvale BohemianBrewery.com

Bonneville Brewery 1641 N. Main, Tooele

BonnevilleBrewery.com

On Tap: Peaches and Cream Ale

Craft by Proper 1053 E. 2100 So., SLC craftbyproper.com

On Tap: Salted Caramel Porter

Desert Edge Brewery 273 Trolley Square, SLC DesertEdgeBrewery.com

On Tap: Pomegranate Sour

Epic Brewing Co. 825 S. State, SLC

EpicBrewing.com

On Tap: Orange Stick Imperial Stout

Fisher Brewing Co. 320 W. 800 South, SLC FisherBeer.com

On Tap: Fisher Beer

Grid City Beer Works 333 W. 2100 South, SLC

GridCityBeerWorks.com

On Tap: Extra Pale Ale

Hopkins Brewing Co. 1048 E. 2100 South, SLC

HopkinsBrewingCompany.com

On Tap: Winter Ale

Kiitos Brewing 608 W. 700 South, SLC

KiitosBrewing.com

Level Crossing Brewing Co. 2496 S. West Temple, South Salt Lake

LevelCrossingBrewing.com

On Tap: Vienna-Style Lager, it’s back!

Bingo: Tuesdays at 7pm!

Moab Brewing 686 S. Main, Moab TheMoabBrewery.com

On Tap: Squeaky Bike Nut Brown

Mountain West Cider 425 N. 400 West, SLC MountainWestCider.com

On Tap: Wet Hopped Cider

Offset Bier Co 1755 Bonanza Dr Unit C, Park City offsetbier.com/ On Tap: DOPO IPA

Ogden River Brewing 358 Park Blvd, Ogden OgdenRiverBrewing.com On Tap: Injector Hazy IPA

Policy Kings Brewery 223 N. 100 West, Cedar City PolicyKingsBrewery.com

Prodigy Brewing 25 W Center St. Logan prodigy-brewing.com/

Proper Brewing 857 S. Main, SLC

ProperBrewingCo.com

On Tap: Hop Blooded - Belgianstyle Hoppy Red Ale

Red Rock Brewing 254 So. 200 West RedRockBrewing.com

On Tap: Gypsy Scratch

Red Rock Fashion Place 6227 So. State Redrockbrewing.com

On Tap: Munich Dunkel

Red Rock Kimball Junction Redrockbrewing.com 1640 Redstone Center

On Tap: Bamberg Rauch Bier

RoHa Brewing Project

30 Kensington Ave, SLC

RoHaBrewing.com

On Tap: Everything Nice Holiday Spice

Roosters Brewing

Multiple Locations

RoostersBrewingCo.com

On Tap: Cosmic Autumn Rebellion

SaltFire Brewing 2199 S. West Temple, South Salt Lake

SaltFireBrewing.com

On Tap: Grievance: Scotch Ale aged a year in Laird’s Apple Brandy Barrels

Salt Flats Brewing 2020 Industrial Circle, SLC

SaltFlatsBeer.com

On Tap: 2 Hop 2 FuriousDouble Hopped Belgian Pale

Scion Cider Bar 916 Jefferson St W, SLC Scionciderbar.com

On Tap: Eden Imperial 11 Degree Rosé - 11% ABV

Shades Brewing 154 W. Utopia Ave, South Salt Lake ShadesBrewing.beer

On Tap: Prickly Pear Sour Ale

Silver Reef 4391 S. Enterprise Drive, St. George StGeorgeBev.com

Squatters 147 W. Broadway, SLC Squatters.com

Strap Tank Brewery

Multiple Locations

StrapTankBrewery.com

Springville On Tap: PB Rider, Peanut Butter Stout

Lehi On Tap: 2-Stroke, Vanilla Mocha Porter

Stratford Proper 1588 Stratford Ave., SLC stratfordproper.com

On Tap: Lake Effect Gose

TF Brewing 936 S. 300 West, SLC TFBrewing.com

On Tap: Edel Pils

Talisman Brewing Co. 1258 Gibson Ave, Ogden TalismanBrewingCo.com

On Tap: Udder ChaosChocolate Milk Stout on Nitro

Uinta Brewing 1722 S. Fremont Drive, SLC UintaBrewing.com

On Tap: Was Angeles Craft Beer

UTOG 2331 Grant Ave, Ogden UTOGBrewing.com

On Tap: Lovely Lady Nitro Stout

Vernal Brewing 55 S. 500 East, Vernal VernalBrewing.com

Wasatch 2110 S. Highland Drive, SLC WasatchBeers.com

Zion Brewery 95 Zion Park Blvd, Springdale ZionBrewery.com

Zolupez 205 W. 29th Street #2, Ogden Zolupez.com

OPENING SOON!

Helper Beer 159 N Main Street Helper, UT 84526

Apex Brewing 2285 S Main Street Salt Lake City, UT 84115

The Solstice With the Mostest

Lighting up the darkest day

BY MIKE RIEDEL comments@cityweekly.net @utahbeer

Roosters - Gingerbread Latte White Stout : What the hell is “white stout?”

Well, it’s basically a stunning golden ale that attempts to replicate the tastes and aromas of a classic stout. Instead of dark roasted malts, this beer style is made by incorporating cold-steeped coffee, vanilla beans and cacao nibs. It is all about the flavors, without any darker visual appeal.

This beer takes on those elements and adds a bit of gingerbread spices, which produces a nice golden color with a bright white head. There is also a nice amount of lacing to this brew; it sticks to the side of the glass well. The smell is rich gingerbread spices, then you pick up on coffee and roasted grains and malts. Between the look and smell, this is one inviting brew.

Now for the taste: It is bold with flavors. You first pick up on ginger and spices, then smooth coffee along with roasted grains and malts. The ginger initially comes across a ginger root and less gingerbread, which imparts some freshness; the spices you pick up on are cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. There is a lot going on in this gingerbread ale, and I really like how smooth this brew goes down. There is nothing overpowering about it, thanks to a super-nice balance. The body is a solid light, and it would work nicely on a wintery day. The mouthfeel of was a bit thin, due to style and under-carbonation.

Verdict : I would definitely look this brew up again given the opportunity. Rooster has a nice one here that I think would benefit

from a stronger enhancement all around, from alcohol to malt profile.

Templin Family - Low Earth Orbit : There are no official “West Coast style” lagers out there—not yet anyway. This is an experiment to merge new hop and malt combinations to produce something new in the lager-verse. Hell, this is so unique, I’d call it a “mountain lager.”

It pours a clear, pale golden-yellow color, topped off with one finger of soapy, foamy white head that recedes within two or three minutes’ time. A modest swath of lace is left in its wake, in addition to a thin, filmy cap and collar; it looks like your average craft lager to me, but the aroma suggests that better things are coming. It smells clean, fresh and a little fruity. There are some gritty, grainy pale malts, as well as hints of lime, passion fruit, apricot and grassy hay.

Its flavors emerge along the same lines: grainy pale malts and light doughy sweetness, backed by light, fruity hop characteristics of lemon-lime citrus, apricot and passion fruit. Hints of grassy hay and floral hop bitterness crop up at the back end of the sip, with a very clean finish followed by a relatively dry aftertaste. The body is light, with zippy carbonation that prickles and prods the palate enthusiastically with each sip; the crisp, refreshing mouthfeel encourages you to keep sipping. Maybe I’ve become too accustomed to tallboys, but one can of this just doesn’t seem like enough—not even close.

Verdict : This lager has got just the right mix of simplicity, drinkability and hoppiness, almost as if it were tailor-made for me. I’d consider it a definite must-try if you enjoy craft lagers. I’ll be picking it up again, that’s for sure.

You’ll only find Gingerbread Latte White Stout on draft, including at all Rooster locations, including their new craft beer pub, the Coop, in Layton. I understand it can also be found at some Slackwater locations. TF’s Low Earth Orbit can be found at the brewery in 16-ounce cans. As always, cheers! CW

BY ALEX SPRINGER | @captainspringer

Big O Donuts Announces Closure

It’s getting painful to write about the rash of local bakery closures that has now added Big O Doughnuts (248 W. 900 South) throwing in the towel. This one has a sting all its own, since it was arguably the best spot for plant-based doughnuts, and the only place that I knew of where you could support women’s reproductive rights by buying doughnuts with icing vaginas on them. Big O announced that they will close their doors toward the end of January, so there’s still time to pop in and snag a dozen or so of their classic doughnuts before they leave us for good.

Crossroads Urban Center Food Giveaway

On Dec. 23, Crossroads Urban Center (crossroadsurbancenter.com) will be hosting a food giveaway to provide holiday meals for those in need. The giveaway includes a turkey along with some sides that will be loaded up for everyone who shows up as long as supplies last. The event lasts from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and will take place at Rowland Hall School (843 S. Lincoln Street); walk-up options are available for those who arrive by bus. Those interested in volunteer opportunities can visit Crossroads Urban Center online for ways to help out during the holidays. Call 801-364-7765 for more info.

Santo Taco Opens Downtown Location

The little taqueria that could just opened its fifth location in downtown SLC (380 S. State Street). Ever since Santo Taco set up shop in Rose Park (910 N. 900 West), it’s slowly but surely expanded its street taco empire. I think a nice taqueria suits the area, and Santo Taco has the track record to bring consistently good eats to the neighborhood. Though Santo Taco has brought its unique flavors and style to neighborhoods all over the Wasatch Front, popping up Downtown is a great way to get those city-dwellers a taste of some delightful street tacos and overstuffed burritos.

Quote of the Week: “Doughnuts are not just food, they’re an institution.” –Anthony Bourdain

Stingin’ in the Rain

Babylon takes an outrageous, audacious swipe at the possible ugliness behind classic Hollywood.

BY SCOTT RENSHAW scottr@cityweekly.net @scottrenshaw

If ever a movie seemed like it was genetically engineered to be something I’d despise, Damien Chazelle’s Babylon would be it. That’s not so much because of anything related to Chazelle himself, whose filmography of Whiplash , La La Land and First Man has consisted of nothing but solid winners in my book. No, it’s more related to the sheer audacity of taking my favorite film of all time— Singin’ in the Rain —and deciding that what it really needed was a gritty reboot. “What a glorious feeling, I’m a drug-addled narcissist again!”

That summary, as it turns out, is somewhat reductive, in that Babylon isn’t just Chazelle’s reduction of Singin’ in the Rain to a world of debauchery and self-destructiveness; it’s also, quite specifically, his application of the structure of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights to that concept. The result is audacious, chaotic, borderline egomaniacal—and in spite of everything that should make it absolutely doomed, it actually kind of works.

Chazelle wastes no time announcing his intentions with an opening act set in 1926 at an outrageous party at a Hollywood studio boss’s Bel Air mansion. There he gathers the principal characters that he’ll follow over the course of a decade or so: Manny Torres (Diego Calva), a hired hand for the party; Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), a determined would-be starlet whom Manny helps gain access to the party; Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), a leading man

who goes through women almost as fast as he goes through booze and cigarettes; Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li), a writer of silent film intertitles with some creative side gigs.

One of the earliest scenes involves the attempt to transport an elephant up the steep unpaved hill to that same party, ending with said elephant unloading explosive feces on both the camera and an unfortunate associate of Manny’s. The film’s detractors have already attempted to turn that moment into a metaphor for Babylon as a whole, but it feels like a different kind of announcement from Chazelle about some of its subtext. Because to a large extent, this is a bit of an apologia for the notion of cinema as low entertainment for the masses, articulated later in argument between Pitt’s Conrad and one of his many romantic partners (Katherine Waterston). From the swirling sex-drugs-and-jazz outrageousness of the opening party through several slapstick comedic scenes that rank among the years funniest, Chazelle shows himself not above trying anything to satisfy an audience.

That desire to please (and be pleased) feeds

into the other big idea of movies as a kind of sausage where we generally remain blissfully unaware of how the sausage is made. Whether we’re talking about psychotic money-men convinced they have the greatest movie ideas in the world (Tobey Maguire, going full nutjob), or sets with dangerous working conditions, or the way people are discarded from the industry for every possible reason including sexual orientation, Babylon revels in the idea that much of the art we’ve loved over the years came at a human cost. Even the twist it gives to the central premise of Singin’ in the Rain —regarding silent film stars unable to make the transition to talkies—is played as grim tragedy rather than for laughs. In the wake of the Weinstein revelations and many other stories of industry abuses, here’s a story that keeps asking right up until its late montage of snippets from a century of classic films: Was it all worth it?

It could be either a feature or a bug of Babylon that Chazelle doesn’t seem to want to answer that question—and if it is a bug, it’s far from the only one. He seems to be much more

interested in his characters as types than as fully fleshed-out people, including the way he zips through a subplot about a Black trumpeter (Jovan Adepo) confronting industry racism. And he absolutely whiffs on a couple of his big swings, including a sequence involving Manny’s encounter with Maguire’s crazy loan shark that’s clearly an attempt to one-up Boogie Nights ’ legendary Alfred Molina/“Sister Christian” scene. Yet despite all of that, and despite explicitly bringing Singin’ in the Rain into the equation with a 1952-set epilogue, Babylon turns into a weirdly compelling defense of all of its excesses. Chazelle knows how much we’re willing to overlook, or just don’t want to know, for the occasions when cinema gives us a small, perfect moment.

CW

BABYLON BBB

Brad Pitt Margot Robbie Diego Calva Rated R Available Dec. 23 in theaters

Margot Robbie and Diego Calva in Babylon

MUSIC

Breaking the Losing Streak

Sean Baker rediscovers himself as a musician

BY EMILEE ATKINSON eatkinson@cityweekly.net @emileelovesvinyl

Sometimes all you need is to start over. A change in scenery, a new job, a new project—all can be a great way to shake life up, especially if you’re in a rut.

That’s exactly what happened for Sean Baker and his latest project, Sean Baker’s Recycled Stardust. Baker detailed how his new project is a fresh start for him, and how he believes his debut EP The Purple House is a change from a life-long losing streak of releasing music.

Baker isn’t a Utah native, but has lived here long enough that he happily calls it home. A past relationship brought him here, and he has no plans of leaving. “The relationship didn’t work, but the move definitely did,” he said. “I’ve built my own home here in the desert mountains.” He’s also got years of experience as a singer and songwriter. As soon as he could play guitar and drive himself to open mics, that’s where you could find him each weekend. He’s been playing and creating music for about 20 years, but Baker said he’s never released anything that he’s truly proud of.

That’s where Sean Baker’s Recycled Stardust comes in. “Scientists believe that every single atom that every single thing is made of has gone through the center of long extinguished stars, and we’re all stardust, and so the idea that I am recycled stardust, and this stardust will get recycled again just felt very appropriate for my content,” Baker said. “And it’s a really big, long, obnoxious name, Sean Baker’s Recycled Stardust. I’m a very wordy guy. If you listen to either of the EPs, it’s very word- and lyric-driven and heavy.”

As was true for much work by other cre -

atives, The Purple House primarily came together during the pandemic. “I started in January 2020 recording this,” Baker said. “I didn’t think it was going to take this long, but life and COVID and a whole bunch of other factors kept pushing it along down the road.” The debut EP is also lovingly named after Baker’s home, which was a safe space for Baker after a tumultuous breakup left him in a dark place. “I didn’t have anything that I was working on or working towards,” he said.

“I was going to work, and I was keeping that together at the very least, but I didn’t really have anything. And I wasn’t writing any music. Music’s been a big part of my life since I was a little kid.”

“I realized that when I get into these relationships, I give all that up so that I can give 100% of myself to the relationship,” he added. “But then if you give 100% of yourself to a relationship, what does that leave you? Zero percent. Then you’re zero percent of yourself.”

The purple house was the first place Baker lived on his own, and where he started writing music again after a hiatus. “I hardly picked

up my guitar, and I don’t go out and play like I used to,” he said. “I started writing songs again, and all five of the songs that are on the two EPs are songs that I wrote in this living room, in this house, as I’ve moved into a new phase of who I am, what I am.”

Listening to Baker’s debut EP, this sense of change and finding one’s self shines through. It’s obvious he put his heart and soul into the songs. Baker promoted the EP before its release, but also surprised listeners with a Bside of stripped-down versions of the tracks the day the EP dropped. Both EPs are an excellent journey to depart on, as Baker was obviously passionate in creating this project. He plays with ferocity and sings like his life depends on it. He’s high energy one moment, then he’s scaling it back and pulling at your heartstrings.

Before the album was released, Baker hadn’t released music he was truly proud to show off. “There’s been a lot of attempts and nothing that I’ve ever been like, ‘Hey, do you want to check out some of my music? Here it is,’ and be happy about the outcome or being

excited about the opinion or review,” he said. A key component to feeling proud of the work is being brutally human and brutally honest, as Baker put it. “It feels natural. In all of my songs, vulnerability is a pretty regular overarching theme, vulnerability and humanness and authenticity,” he explains. “I don’t write songs because I need people to hear them, I don’t write songs because I want to play them and show off anything, I write the song originally because I have a thought or a feeling or a memory or an experience or a combination of all the above. And getting it out of me, getting it out of my head feels natural and it feels good and it feels human.”

Sean Baker’s Recycled Stardust is streaming everywhere now, and this isn’t the last you’ll be seeing of Baker going by this moniker. “I got a lot more coming down the pipeline,” he said. “I’m really excited to show what else I have to work with. I don’t think any of those five songs are my best songs. I’ve written some of my best work since I started that project.” It’ll be exciting to see more recycled stardust from Baker in the future. CW

Sean Baker

By Emilee Atkinson

Blindlove, Leetham @ Kilby Court 12/21

SLC natives Blindlove have been making a splash in the local music scene since their 2020 release “I Wanna Be Okay.” Earlier in October, they gave listeners more with their latest song “Anthem for Broken People.” This new track starts with an epic bassline and crystalclear vocals. It boasts a perfect structure to sing along with, especially in the chorus; it is an anthem, after all. Listeners will want to shout along with the chorus, as it almost has a chanting element to it. It’s relatable and leaves you wanting more, a great song to add to your favorite playlist right now. Backing Blindlove is another SLC native, Leetham, who has had a busy and exciting year. Their self-titled debut album was released this year in September, and the local scene has been giving it love since. Leetham has played epic shows since the release, entertaining their dedicated fanbase. One of his most popular tracks “Patience” is a car song, they told City Weekly back in June. Leetham was pondering life stuck at a dead stop while on I-15, as we all do. The track started out literal, but turned into a deeper look at patience needed on a daily basis in life. “Patience” features fellow SLC pop artist, Peytn, who adds an enjoyable flair to the already addicting track. These acts will be a treat to see on Wednesday, Dec 21 at 7 p.m. Tickets for the all-ages show are $10 and can be found at kilbycourt.com. (Emilee Atkinson)

Leetham

By

Although “holiday fun for the whole family,” is a frequent advertising tactic, it seems rare to find an activity that actually fits that framework. This year, in lieu of taking the frost-bitten sleigh ride or blister-inducing ice-skating excursion, why not gather up your kids, grandpas, second cousins and great aunts for an evening of music that is actually fit for everyone? Underneath the baton of Conner Gray Convington, the Utah Symphony will perform Danny Elfman’s incredible original score for The Nightmare Before Christmas live as the quintessential Halloween/ Christmas crossover film plays on a big-screen backdrop. Both enthusiastic fans and newcomers to the realm of classical composition will find comfort in Elfman’s signature style, a combination of enchanting orchestral inflections mixed with hints of haunting chord progressions. Elfman’s background as the lead singer and songwriter for the complexly camp ‘80s band Oingo Boingo invigorates his later scores with an unabashed and sometimes wistful energy, which the accomplished Utah Symphony will embody with ease. The class-A sound offered by Abravanel Hall’s acoustics and a full, expertly trained orchestra paired with Tim Burton’s artfully off-putting claymation characters promises a show that will put a smile on even the most bah-humbug of faces. Early arrivers have the chance to craft a creepy ornament, snag a photo op by the exquisitely decorated Halloween tree, and make a donation to support the Utah Symphony. Tickets for the all-ages event range in price depending on seating and can be found at utahsymphony.org. (Sophie Caligiuri)

COURTESY PHOTO

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas Performed by The Utah Symphony @ Abravanel Hall 12/21-23

Casio Ghost, Milne, Mischief Night @ Urban Lounge 12/22

Even though the cold weather is creeping in and the holidays are approaching, there are still tons of rad shows to head out to, especially this one at Urban Lounge. SLC favorites Casio Ghost headline this exciting show, bringing their psych-surf vibes and good energy. “Their sound combines the fast pace and energy of modern surf/garage rock with the psychedelic sounds of yesteryear,” according to their Bandcamp profile. Casio Ghost unveiled their self-titled debut EP in 2021 and have released two singles so far in 2022. Their most recent release, “The Stranger,” is an epic psychedelic ride that has tinges of the surf rock the group loves to incorporate. The earthworm-y guitar solos and riffs are perfectly reverb-soaked, while leading listeners on a mysterious journey with the lyrics. Joining the psychsurf rockers is new group Milne who according to their Instagram, this will be their second ever show. With only one track out so far, this group shows promise. Released in September, “I Told You” is an epic electronic bop recorded independently, as also showcased on their Instagram. It’ll be exciting to hear this track live, along with any others Milne have up their sleeves. Rounding out the show is SLC trio Mischief Night. This group can be found playing their version of boisterous rock heavy on the bass, not light on the fun. This lineup of SLC locals promises a fun night at Urban Lounge on Thursday, Dec 22 at 7 p.m. Tickets for the 21+ show are $5 and can be found at urbanloungeslc.com. (EA)

The Elevator Jazz Shop: Jazz Jam @ The International 12/22

Adam Michael Terry has a huge affection for jazz, as well the jazz mindset. The Elevator Jazz Shop: Jazz Jam, his weekly residency at The International, proves that improvisation is his secret weapon. Known around Salt Lake City as an accomplished DJ, music maker and founder of the label FOUNTAINavm, Terry has an excellent ear. His enthusiasm about all things creative compels listeners to check out his latest endeavors, whether pressed on vinyl or in a live setting. His band Quiet Pillage will join in the fun. playing the first half and then inviting musicians to sit in. Terry describes Quiet Pillage’s sound as “as an evolving approach to find unique accents that are inspired by the open land vastnesses, bizarre landscape formations, cultural heritage, and socio-political situations of our region.” They play “improvised soundscapes that channel the jazz ether, and the hallmark instruments that are slide guitar and vibraharp,” Terry described. The sit-in portion of the night is aimed to inspire musicians, with hopes of integrating various cultural music forms from around the globe. It doesn’t always take the surprising route to where it’s going, but the turns never obscure the destination, only clarify it. It’s great for the local community to have a public space with like-minded people to go and try out new hard things. Sometimes you gotta shake out the loose bits. Unconventional instruments (as far as the traditional jazz form is considered) are encouraged and appreciated. Doors open for this free 21+ event at 8 p.m. Find more information at internationalbarslc.com. (Mark Dago)

Lounge 12/28

In 2020, a group of friends sought out to try something new. The trio had roots in black metal and death metal, but wanted to expand and try out elements of doom/stoner metal that they could add their own flair to, according to their website. They continued to hone their sound while bringing in female vocals, and thus Moon Wizard was born. Their debut album The Night Harvest was released in 2020, and the group has been steadily working on a new EP, hopefully to be revealed soon. Listening through the album, listeners definitely get a taste of the doom/ stoner vibes the group was set out to create in their music. The subject matter is all about journeys we go on in our mind, escapism and drifting away. This aesthetic is paired with heavy, but not over-the-top instrumental tracks, with ethereal vocals that lend a hand going on the epic journey. “Escape into the fantasy / The pleasure there consuming me / Daydreamer drifting far away / I’m losing my humanity,” they sing on the opening track “Ukiyo.” Offering support for this show is a new, but also not new group called Simian. Formerly known as Rakshasi, Simian has a new lineup and a new vibe for fans of heavy metal in SLC. The group made this announcement on Instagram back in November stating, “Our current lineup has felt that we could improve the name of the heavy-ass music we have the pleasure of creating. The previous version of ourselves, known as Rakshasi, has been outgrown, and we are excited to announce that the entity carrying our heavy music forward will now be called SIMIAN!” Catch this epic and heavy show on Thursday, Dec 28 at 7 p.m. Tickets for the 21+ show are $12 and can be found at theurbanloungeslc.com. (EA)

Moon Wizard, Simian, TACT, Mighty Liars @ Urban

Casio Ghost Adam Michael Terry

By Emilee Atkinson

free will ASTROLOGY

BY ROB BREZSNY

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

Aries author Eric G. Wilson has written a book that I might typically recommend to 40 percent of the Aries tribe. But in 2023, I will raise that to 80 percent of you. The title is How to Be Weird: An Off-Kilter Guide to Living a One-of-a-Kind Life According to my analysis of the astrological omens, it will make sense for you to stop making sense on a semi-regular basis. Cheerfully rebelling against the status quo should be one of your most rewarding hobbies. The best way to educate and entertain yourself will be to ask yourself, “What is the most original and imaginative thing I can do right now?

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

One of your potential superpowers is cultivating links between the spiritual and physical worlds. If you develop this talent, you illuminate the ways that eternity permeates the everyday routine. You weave together the sacred and the mundane so they synergize each other. You understand how practical matters may be infused with archetypal energies and epic themes. I hope you will be doing a lot of this playful work in 2023, Taurus. Many of us non-Bulls would love you to teach us more about these mysteries.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)

Here are fun and useful projects for you to cultivate in 2023: 1. Initiate interesting trends. Don’t follow mediocre trends. 2. Exert buoyant leadership in the groups you are part of. 3. Practice the art of enhancing your concentration by relaxing. 4. Every Sunday at noon, renew your vow to not deceive or lie to yourself during the coming week. 5. Make it your goal to be a fabulous communicator, not just an average one. 6. Cultivate your ability to discern what people are hiding or pretending about.

CANCER (June 21-July 22)

In 2023, I hope you will refine and deepen your relationship with your gut instinct. I will be ecstatic if you learn more about the differences between your lucid intuition and the worry mongering that your pesky demons rustle up. If you attend to these matters—and life will conspire to help you if you do—your rhythm will become dramatically more secure and stable. Your guidance system will serve you better than it ever has. A caveat: Seeking perfection in honing these skills is not necessary. Just do the best you can.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)

Psychiatrist and author Irvin Yalom wrote, “The question of meaning in life is, as the Buddha thought, not edifying. One must immerse oneself into the river of life and let the question drift away.” But Holocaust survivor and philosopher Viktor Frankl had a radically different view. He said that a sense of meaning is the single most important thing. That’s what sustains and nourishes us through the years: the feeling that our life has a meaning and that any particular experience has a meaning. I share Frankl’s perspective, and I advise you to adopt his approach throughout 2023. You will have unprecedented opportunities to see and know the overarching plan of your destiny, which has been only partially visible to you in the past. You will be regularly blessed with insights about your purpose here on earth.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

As a young woman, Virgo-born Ingeborg Rapoport (1912–2017) studied medicine at the University of Hamburg in Germany. But in 1938, the Nazis refused to let her defend her Ph.D. thesis and get her medical degree because of her Jewish ancestry. Seventy-seven years later, she was finally given a chance to finish what she had started. Success! The dean of the school said, “She was absolutely brilliant. Her specific knowledge about the latest developments in medicine was unbelievable.” I expect comparable developments for you in 2023, Virgo. You will receive defining opportunities or invitations that have not been possible before. Postponed breakthroughs and resolutions will become achievable.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Of the 2,200+ humans quoted in a 21st-century edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations , 164 are women—a mere 7%! At least that’s more than the four females represented in 1855’s first edition. Let’s take this atrocious injustice as our provocation for your horoscope. In accordance with astrological omens, one of your assignments in 2023 will be to make personal efforts to equalize power among the genders. Your well-being will thrive as you work to create a misogyny-free future. Here are possible actions: If you’re a woman or nonbinary person, be extra bold and brave as you say what you genuinely think and feel and mean. If you’re a man, foster your skills at listening to women and nonbinary people. Give them abundant space and welcome to speak their truths. It will be in your ultimate interest to do so!

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

To prepare you for 2023, I’m offering you wisdom from mythologist Michael Meade. Of all the signs in the zodiac, you Scorpios will be most likely to extract riches from it. Meade writes: “Becoming a genuine individual requires learning the oppositions within oneself. Those who fail or refuse to face the oppositions within have no choice but to find enemies to project upon. ‘Enemy’ simply means ‘not-friend’; unless a person deals with the not-friend within, they require enemies around them.”

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

“I will always be as difficult as necessary to achieve the best,” declared Sagittarian opera singer Maria Callas (1923–1977). Many critics say she was indeed one of the 20th century’s best. The consensus is that she was also a temperamental prima donna. Impresario Rudolf Bing said she was a trial to work with “because she was so much more intelligent. Other artists, you could get around. But Callas you could not get around. She knew exactly what she wanted and why she wanted it.” In accordance with astrological omens, Sagittarius, I authorize you, in your quest for success in 2023, to be as “difficult” as Callas was, in the sense of knowing exactly what you want. But please—so as to not undermine your success—don’t lapse into diva-like behavior.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

To inspire your self-inquiry in 2023, I have chosen a passage from Hermann Hesse’s fairy tale, “A Dream Sequence.” It will provide guidance as you dive further than ever before into the precious mysteries in your inner depths. Hesse addressed his “good ardent darkness, the warm cradle of the soul and lost homeland.” He asked them to open up for him. He wanted them to be fully available to his conscious mind. Hesse said this to his soul: “Just feel your way, soul, just wander about, burrow into the full bath of innocent twilight drives!”

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Cardiovascular surgeon Michael DeBakey lived till age 99. He almost died at 97, but was able to capitalize on an invention that he himself had created years before: a polymer resin that could repair or replace aging blood vessels. Surgeons used his technology to return him to health. I am predicting that in 2023, you, too, will derive a number of benefits from your actions in the past. Things you made, projects you nurtured and ideas you initiated will prove valuable to you as you encounter the challenges and opportunities of the future.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)

I decided to divine the state of your financial karma. To begin, I swirled a $10 bill through the flame rising from a green candle. Then I sought cosmic auguries in the burn patterns on the bill. The oracle provided bad news and good news. The bad news is that you live on a planet where one-fifth of the population owns much more than four-fifths of the wealth. The good news is that in 2023, you will be in decent shape to move closer to the elite one-fifth. Amazingly, the oracle also suggests that your ability to get richer quicker will increase in direct proportion to your integrity and generosity.

Go to realastrology.com for Rob Brezsny’s expanded weekly audio horoscopes and daily text-message horoscopes. Audio horoscopes also available by phone at 877-873-4888 or 900-950-7700.

Ketamine Treatments In Utah

Byline: Mindy

Madeo BSPharm, MCST – Salt

Psychedelic-assisted therapy is booming in Utah and as a result ketamine clinics are popping up all over the state.

What is ketamine and how do ketamine treatments feel?

Ketamine is a schedule 3 controlled substance classified as a dissociative anesthetic (producing feelings of detachment from your environment and/or self). A side effect is that it can produce a psychedelic state under certain conditions (producing a mystical experience and expansion of consciousness).

History – Ketamine was first synthesized in the 1960s and is FDA approved for general anesthesia. It is listed on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines and has been commonly used in healthcare since 1970. Twenty years ago, it was discovered that ketamine (under the proper conditions) can relieve symptoms of depression. Many of the reasons we use ketamine today are considered off-label uses and not officially approved by the FDA.

Baked

City

Staff Writer

Ketamine is considered a controlled substance and must be prescribed to be used legally. It also found a street name of “K” or “Special K” when used illegally in the party/rave culture.

Ketamine is used for anesthesia, acute and chronic pain, treatmentresistant depression, and can relieve suicidal ideation. It is also being used for anxiety, addiction, PTSD, OCD, migraines, and eating disorders. Because all psychedelics (and ketamine specifically) act as a catalyst in the mind, they should be partnered with psychotherapy when used for mental health disorders. A trained psychedelic therapist or integration coach can harness the power of psychedelics to effectively reduce rumination (repetitive thoughts) and increase learning. This allows a patient to replace old dysfunctional patterns of thought and behaviors, with new and healthy ones.

How It Works – Ketamine has many possible mechanisms of action and we likely don’t entirely understand them all. We know it is a NMDA receptor blocker that increases glutamate production.

The increase in glutamate affects many complex pathways. It allows regrowth of brain connections and formation of new neural connections. This neuroplasticity has exciting potential for all psychedelic medications.

Ketamine also seems to increase something called Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF). They are proteins important for neurons in our brain and research has discovered that lower BDNF levels are associated with depression.

Scan the QR code to continue reading this Salt Baked City article…

ACROSS

1.When Juliet drinks the potion 6. “Hello! I’m ...” badge

11.Norm: Abbr. 14.Cranberry ____ 15.Moniker after a lifestyle change 16.Water tester 17.Sidewalk sighting evoked by the image at the bottom center of this grid 19.Fido’s response 20.Ab ____ (from the start)

21.“Just watch me!”

23.Top point value of a Scrabble tile

24.Sign meant to prevent what’s seen by the ends of 61- and 63-Across and starts of 62and 64-Across

28.Cut, as a cake

29.First words in Genesis

32.Afgh. neighbor

33.They usually involve a lot of extras

37.Dept. of Labor division

38.Adrift, say 40.Suffix with switch

41.Bill ____, the Science Guy

42.Quiz response: Abbr. 43.Mil. rank

45.Okla. campus with a Prayer Tower 46.Dis

48.Banjo sounds

50.Gets no answers wrong on a test

51.Actor Davis who eulogized Malcolm X

52.2013 Spike Jonze love story

53.Suffix meaning “approximately”

54.Ferris’ girlfriend in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”

57.Name on many a hospital

61.“Goody, goody gumdrops!”

62.Like most canned tomatoes 63.Indian bread?

64.Jury members

DOWN

1.Comparable to a fiddle

Cider House Rules” Oscar winner

Winter Olympics host

Complete the grid so that each row, column, diagonal and 3x3 square contain all of the numbers

to 9. No math is involved. The grid has numbers, but nothing has to add up to anything else. Solve the puzzle with reasoning and logic. Solving time is typically 10 to 30 minutes, depending on your skill and experience.

Santa’s Mixed Bag

Holiday season here in Utah brings a mix of good and bad news. You may have missed it, but the Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation donated $5 million to the nonprofit Utah Housing Preservation Fund to find, purchase and renovate aging rental units. The Clark and Christine Ivory Foundation started this fund with Intermountain Healthcare, Zions Bank and the Workers’ Compensation Fund, along with money from the Legislature in 2020.

In the past few years, the fund has preserved over 600 aged homes located along the Wasatch Front from Park City to Tooele, including in Sandy, Midvale, West Valley City and Salt Lake City.

Why create such a program? It basically is a smart way to deal with rising housing costs and gentrification that pushes out renters and fixed-income folks. It’s cheaper and faster than building some new six-story, market-rate box of apartments.

The $5 million is thought to be able to save an additional 100 affordable homes, duplexes and apartment complexes across the state.

The National Association of Realtors reported in its Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers that first-time buyers made up only 26% of all buyers, which is down from 34% in 2021 and a peak of 50% in 2010. Interest rates have had a lot to do with buyers entering or leaving the market to purchase homes. Right now, rates are below 7% for a 30-year mortgage, but predictors are saying rates could be 11% by next December.

The Fed raised its key rate last week to the highest level in 14 years—the seventh rate hike in 2022. The average age of a first-time homebuyer is now 36 years old, and it’s believed that buyers are waiting longer in order to save more money for a down payment and loan closing costs.

Yet, as the market softens, sellers are starting to offer to pay buyers’ closing costs, which is attractive when the average sale price is $529,000 as of November, prompting sales with a 2-to-1 buydown to an interest rate of 5% the first year, 6% for the second year and 7% for the 27 remaining years.

Closing costs can be 3% of the sales price, and a seller concession over $15,000 helps a lot to get a loan these days. Still, the Census Bureau reports that 3 in 4 households can’t afford the average home here.

We end the year still in extreme drought in the state, with insanely cheap water and electricity rates. Utah has the third lowest residential electricity rate in the U.S., as Sofi.com reports that the average utility costs in the state (per month) are: water—$38, gas—$52, and electricity—$80.

The governor and public and private groups have virtually begged citizens to save water and, in some areas, it’s working, with programs to buy back water rights or help homeowners to flip their landscaping strips. Personally, I think if my water bill were doubled or tripled, I’d pay it but would try even harder than I am now to save water. CW

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The Entrepreneurial Spirit

RayLee Holladay and her husband, Bubba, live in Lascassas, Tennessee, where they raise cows. About six years ago, WKRN-TV reported, RayLee had been seeking a venture of her own to bring in money on the farm when she discovered Rent the Chicken, a business founded by Phil and Jenn Tompkins of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Today, RayLee’s Rent the Chicken franchise is thriving. Customers can either rent egg-laying chickens for about six months, or hatching chicks, which can be returned about two weeks after they hatch. “It’s great for teaching kids a little responsibility,” RayLee said. “And this is a trial. It’s not like getting a puppy for Christmas.” Chickens can be rented by families or by schools, day cares and senior living facilities. If renters grow attached, they can adopt the fowl for an added fee. Since its beginning 10 years ago, Rent the Chicken has expanded into 24 states, the District of Columbia and into Canada.

Least Competent Criminal

The Rockdale County (Georgia) Sheriff’s Department posted a list of its Top 10 most wanted fugitives on Facebook on Nov. 28, Fox News reported. One local criminal evidently felt left out, though: Christopher Spaulding, an area man with two warrants for his arrest, commented, “How about me?” The sheriff’s department responded, “We are on the way” and on Dec. 1 arrested Spaulding. Later, they commented, “We appreciate you for your assistance in your capture!” Spaulding’s warrants were for felony violation of probation.

Questionable Judgments

A 72-year-old woman was arrested on Nov. 29 in Berlin after she allegedly turned off her hospital roommate’s ventilator—twice!—because the sound of it was annoying her, The Washington Post reported. After the first incident, police said, the woman was told the machine was necessary to keep the roommate alive, but she switched it off again later in the evening. The other patient had to be revived, although she is expected to recover. The suspect was charged with suspicion of attempted manslaughter.

Making a Statement

Mindy Janette Stephens, 46, was arrested on Dec. 1 and charged with illegal dumping after an incident that took place on Nov. 10 in Electra, Texas. According to KXAN-TV, Stephens, seen on security footage wearing a white hazmat suit and a yellow mask, deposited three 5-gallon buckets of human excrement at the front door of the Electra police department, then got in her SUV and drove away. Stephens told another media outlet that she had been renting an apartment to a man who had not paid rent or utilities for a year, and after she evicted him, she found the buckets of waste. “He’d been pooping in the buckets,” she said. She said she called the police department to ask what she should do with them, but

officers weren’t helpful—so she took the buckets to the station. City wastewater officials removed them, and Stephens bonded out of jail.

Harsh

An Olive Garden restaurant manager in Overland Park, Kansas, is out of a job after they sent a ranting message to team members about excessive time off, KCTV5 reported. “We are no longer tolerating any excuse for calling off. ... If your dog died, you need to bring him in and prove it to us. ... If you only want morning shifts, too bad, go work at a bank. ... Do you think I want to be here until midnight on Friday and Saturday? No. I’d much rather be at home with my husband and dog,” the message said. An Olive Garden representative said the message was “not aligned with our company’s values. We can confirm we have parted ways with this manager.”

Bad Behavior

Five-year Chicago police veteran Henry Capouch, 30, was arrested for battery and disorderly conduct on Dec. 5 in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he was vacationing, The Smoking Gun reported. According to officers, Capouch was discovered around 12:30 a.m. by an employee of Jimmy B’s Beach Bar as he was “(urinating) on the ice in the machine.” The worker told Capouch to stop, but instead he shoved both him and a security guard. Police said Capouch actively resisted and did not obey commands while being arrested. They said he showed an “indication of alcohol influence.”

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

On Nov. 28 at around 1:45 a.m., an unnamed 27-year-old man visited the Apple store on Fifth Avenue in New York City and made a huge purchase: 300 iPhone 13s. (The store is open 24 hours.) He bought the phones to resell through his small business. But, the Daily Star reported, he didn’t get very far with them: As he walked to his car, another car pulled up and two men jumped out, demanding his three bags. The customer defended himself, but the thieves made off with one of the bags, which contained about 125 phones, worth approximately $95,000. The New York Police Department is reportedly investigating.

Anger Management

Mark Curtis Wells, 51, of Biloxi, Mississippi, and another golfer got into an altercation on Nov. 28 at Hollywood Casino, WXXV-TV reported. They had played earlier in the day at Bridges Golf Course, where the argument allegedly began, police said. When officers arrived at the casino parking lot, they found one of the men suffering a facial injury: His nose had been bitten off. Wells took off from the scene in a Tesla but turned himself in on Nov. 30 and was charged with mayhem. The nose was not found.

Send your weird news items to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com

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