Dear mullentown bloggers:

I could give you 335 reasons why I love my husband. But on this particular day, I love him for his ability to witness a rare moment in nature and to describe it beautifully, and for his interest in keeping this neglected little blog alive. I must say I’m not sure where mullentown is going. I’ve been concentrating nearly full-time on building the City Weekly blog. It’s in its infancy, and like any new baby needs huge attention. I’ve been posting at least once, sometimes twice a day there and am trying to get the rest of the staff to join in regularly, too. Check it out; we’re having great fun.

So … that means in the interest of feeding my blog while I’m crazy-busy with other work, I’ve asked Ted Wilson to share another entry here with you. It’s a lovely piece. The only missing element is photos. And as Ted and Rick explained to me, the scene they witnessed was so far away they could only have seen it through a spotting scope. The average digital camera couldn’t have worked. So you’ll have to rely on Ted’s fine eye for wildlife (he’s been integrally involved in the big outdoors his whole life). Enjoy!

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From Ted Wilson, with help from his friend, Rick Reese:

Yellowstone National Park–Our principal mission last week was the wily Cutthroat trout. But we were sobered while hiking to the Yellowstone River. Suddenly, we found our path dotted with huge fresh grizzly tracks in the mud. It’s the kind of deal that causes you to appreciate the small canister of pepper spray slung on your chest. But, like a soldier hitting the beach, just because you have a weapon your survival is not assured. Most grizzly attacks are so devastatingly swift that putting faith in weaponry is laughable.

We had the “Yellowstone Buzz,” a deep atavistic feeling rattling in your head when you realize you are not at the top of food chain. You know and you fear a creature lurking over the next rise or secluded in a clump of brush whose sheer ferocity and power can heaven-send you like lightning. The Buzz makes Yellowstone even more fascinating and strangely alluring.

So we clattered down the Hellroaring trail on a cloudy October morning yodeling, hooting, and hollering to fend off Old Ephraim. After a nice hike, our fears slid away as we stood alongside the magnificent waterway of the Yellowstone, the longest untamed river in America. The fishing was good and the scenery magnificent, but not the high point of the day.

Exhausted by fishing, we slogged back up the 600 vertical feet to the car and began our drive back to Gardiner, Montana, at Yellowstone’s north gate. I shared the day with old friend Rick Reese, long time Yellowstone expert and former director of the Yellowstone Institute. Rick knows the park as well as his back yard and he encouraged me to pull off the road where several people were already posted with their long-range optical gear.

It was a pretty routine stop. Thousands of people these days take pleasure animal watching in Yellowstone. The grizzly and black bear offer unusual viewing. And the sight of bison, elk, and deer are routine after the 1988 fires that exposed thousands of square miles of wild life forage. The newcomer is the wolf. And, though the animal is wild and elusive, sighting a wolf is now a big time spectator sport that brings many to the LaMar Valley, the Yellowstone River, and other parts of the park.

We didn’t expect more than the usual long range sighting as we approached the watchers. “What have we got?” Rick said in the tone of voice of an expert who has seen hundreds of wildlife sightings over the years. When one guy gushed, “15 wolves and three grizzlies alongside a herd of elk,” Rick’s eyebrows rose in astonishment and skepticism.

But squinting through Rick’s binoculars, we discovered the guy knew his numbers. Exactly three grizzlies and a bunch of wolves were scattered over a sage-covered hillside not more than a half-mile from our passage earlier on the Hellroaring trail near the Yellowstone River.

Even Rick couldn’t mask his excitement and dashed to the car for the spotting scope. A bit stunned, I was thrilled to see my first wolves. As an erstwhile Yellowstone gazer, I’ve spied plenty of bears but wolves had escaped my view in spite of several attempts to spot them.

Rick set up the scope and focused. “You are not going to believe what is going on,” he muttered. Reese is not given to overstatement so my enthusiasm caused me to lean hard against his shoulder to signal my turn squinting through the scope. More people had arrived and leaned over our shoulders to see what was going on.

A full pack of wolves was circling, nipping at the heels, and fully stalking a grizzly bear. I gushed, “How often, Rick, does a pack of wolves try to down a grizzly?” His reaction–now remember, I’m asking a Yellowstone expert of more than three decades–was simply, “I have never seen this before and never heard about it from any of the park biologists.”

The wolf is a serious killer. A carnivore, wolves work together in packs and use strategy to down their prey. No animal in Yellowstone is immune from a wolf pack. Except perhaps the grizzly, an animal so large and so amazingly equipped with size, speed, strength, claws, jaws and teeth to command almost any meal in the park. And here we were seeing first-hand that yes, huge bears do get attacked by wolves.

The wolves were serious and continued their harassment of the bear for a full 30 minutes. The bear was dark and appeared very large though at the distance we were viewing we could not be sure. Perhaps it was young or even sick, causing the wolves their interest. But the bear was moving well, at times kicking back his rear legs, and another time breaking into a lope.

I have no doubt the wolves were out to down the bear and share a meal. Rick thought that improbable and brought up the aspect of play. I’ll leave that to experts. The pack dispatched one wolf to continue to drive the bear down the hill while the rest circled to set a trap. When the bear slammed into the circlers, he merely brushed by and carried on his way. No wolf ventured forth to set his teeth into bear fur.

Rick said if the wolves attacked, his money was on the bear. That calculation may have occurred to the wolves, too. They eventually dispersed and allowed the bear a chance to rest.

Off to the side of the main circus, another grizzly hunkered down behind a rise stalking the elk herd. Rick said the main tactic was for the bear to charge the herd to see which elk did not run well because of youth or illness. The unfortunate, slow elk makes a meal for a hungry bear about ready to enter the winter den. The grizzly has been very active feeding recently in the park because of poor forage from a sweltering summer. We saw no charge of the bear.

We packed up our scope and drove back to Gardiner through a spectacular sunset. Today, I feel like I have just watched the classic movie, Jaws. Many years ago, after seeing that film, I felt a creepy little buzz in my shower the next morning. As if the teeth of that massive Jaws shark were going to come up the drain and grab me. This morning, I looked into my back yard and I was sure I saw a grizzly stalking behind the fitzers and the chestnut tree.

OK, all you Mullentown regulars and vagrants who only happen to squat here every few days, tell me — again, and with your best descriptive power — why not Hillary Clinton for president?

It isn’t a loaded or rhetorical question. I want a good answer. I wrote here a couple of weeks back that I was about an inch away from supporting Clinton. I’m getting closer.

Well sure, who wouldn’t love to see Al Gore jump in? But as of today, candidates have three weeks in which to register for the New Hampshire primary. I just can’t see Gore doing this. And I’m thinking the more that people float around and sign petitions to convince him he should run, well, the more ridiculous and divided Democrats look at a pivotal point in their taking back this country and helping to mold its precarious future.

Clinton has a plan to offer a “baby bond” to help finance a college education for every child born in the U.S. She’s back on the health care for all proposal, though she’s backed off from her original, doomed blueprint from 1993-94. I’m sensing hope in this woman’s campaign, and she has chutzpah. We’ve had so little of both for so many years.

And did I mention Clinton has money? A lot of liberals sniff at the notion that she’s awash in campaign money — as if that quality on its own is some kind of moral flaw. But just what does it take to win right now in this country, darlings?

Money. More money than God. Mitt Romney has it, and don’t think that he or Rudy won’t use up every cent of what they’ve raised in trying to beat Clinton if she gets the nomination. The more cash she stockpiles the better.

And finally, I’d be disingenuous if not straight-out remiss, by not claiming it’s way past time we had a female president. The fact that she’s eminently qualified, bright, articulate, ambitious and can throw it right back at the stodgy white male power structure that fuels this country is a terrific bonus. I’ll tell you what: I saw so much sexism — subtle and not even at all subtle sexism — in my stepdaughter’s run for Salt Lake City mayor that I’ve become all about supporting women in politics. Call it my new religion. Women, more women in politics. Everywhere, more women please.

I’d almost say after the negativity I saw directed at Jenny Wilson from the public, the media and her opponents’ camps that gender alone is reason enough to support Hillary. But then you would all paint me as shallow.

This isn’t just any woman. This is Hillary Clinton. Find me any other Democrat parading on the campaign runway right now who can match her for experience and real-world politik. Betcha can’t.

Let me know, bloggers. I only have one caveat: You cannot respond to my challenge by writing “I like Hillary, too. But she’s unelectable.” That won’t fly here. Tell me why she isn’t, and then defend it. Or, you can always look at the world a bit optimistically, and tell us why she SHOULD be elected president, and how you’ll help see that it happens.

The phones are open, friends. Ready, get set, POST!

Check it
out:

Don’t get me wrong. It’s lousy that someone did this. But what I like is that the photographer landed right there, right then.

And that our Web master at City Weekly, Bill Frost, picked up on the subtle grammar challenge at hand.

Life in the City.

Oh great.

That inch-deep acting talent Lindsay Lohan has announced, fresh from her stint in pricey drug rehab at The Cirque Lodge in Sundance, her decision to put down roots in Utah.

The slow pace and wholesome environment here will apparently help Lindsay — who apologizes to her fans, “especially the younger fans” for making some bad choices in the past few years.

No indication in the published stories where she’ll be living. Park City? Too much nose candy temptation. Utah County? Plenty of modest formal gowns to choose from for the next Academy Awards, but with Oxycontin and Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Xanax and Lexapro (did I leave one out?) flowing freely to obsessive and overtaxed Mormon moms, it’s not exactly a safe haven for your standard spoiled Hollywood drug addict is it?

Maybe she can be a tour guide at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

I wish she’d just move on.

Hmm. Not to get too caught up in this growing “Al Gore in 2008″cyclone here on mullentown, but none other than Christopher Hitchens is making a thoughtful pitch for His Globalness as a serious Democratic presidential candidate here.

For all the reasons I wrote yesterday that Gore shouldn’t or won’t run, Hitchens suggests he should. Hitchens also predicts Gore will win the Nobel Peace Prize next month in Oslo. (Can’t wait to hear the right-wing retort to that if it happens: What does trumpeting a warning about global warming have to with peace for hell’s sake?)

Anyway, it’s a good read. It’ll get your brain cells scurrying around, if nothing else.

We got word about an hour ago that our dear friend and political and professional mentor, J.D. Williams, died last night at his home in Holladay, Utah. He had been fighting cancer for more than a year.

J.D.’s lovely wife and lifelong love, Bea, called Ted to deliver the news. J.D. was 81 and died peacefully with family nearby.

It’s the end of an era, for sure.

I took an introductory political science class from J.D. (everyone called John Daniel Williams by his initials) in 1979. P.S. 110 was held in a huge classroom, with desks arranged row upon row of semi-circles. He had a seating chart, but knew our names in less than a week.

I’m having trouble writing this. Ted and I knew J.D.’s life was coming to a close, we had spoken to him just a few weeks ago. But knowing what is coming never makes the end any easier.

J.D. inspired thousands of college students at the University of Utah (and Stanford and Harvard, too) to plant their feet in democracy. His was a roll up your sleeves approach to living in this great country. He taught practical politics with an emphasis on ethics. He once said of his former student, Karl Rove, that Karl got the politics education right, but he had missed out on the ethics.

On the personal side, J.D. and Bea took Ted and I to dinner on the eve of our wedding three years ago. It was a lovely June evening in Millcreek Canyon and we dined at Log Haven. They kept telling us what a treat it was seeing the two of us together. J.D.’s blue eyes sparkled. He loved sweets; especially rich desserts. That night we four shared creme brulee and dense chocolate cake.

In days to come people will be eulogizing J.D. in much more refined ways than I can. I’ve lost a committed teacher and friend. The country has lost a true patriot. This nearly one-party state has lost a liberal firebrand who helped keep it honest.

I’m deeply saddened by this loss but grateful beyond words for the time I had with this man. I love J.D. Williams.

OK. OK. I’ve been swamped. Been ignoring this blog again. And some of the most loyal posters on this blog have spoken. They want to discuss the mess surrounding Larry Craig, the U.S. Republican senator from our neighbor to the north and the growing sex scandal enveloping him.

I can’t say I’m surprised. The Idaho Statesman has been chasing down a story about Craig and his long-rumored latent homosexuality for nearly a year. The story has been referred to often in the past couple of days, but in case you missed it, go here. I think the Statesman story nails the issue (so to speak), and it’s a good example of how news outlets frequently have the germ of a story for a long time before an event like Craig’s attempt at a public restroom tryst with a Minneapolis undercover cop breaks and allows them to publish. The Statesman got the goods; good on them. Sometimes the gods of breaking news just smile down on your newspaper and grant you an opportunity to finally tell the full story. So it was with Craig, and news that pretty much proves the gay orientation he has been denying for so long — even as late as yesterday.

So. The man is 62, an ultra-conservative in an ultra-conservative state who has built a Senate career largely on morals crusading. Never seen this plot line before, have we? I’m not sure what I could add. That the Craig scandal is deeply creepy? That, as Mitt Romney, whom Craig was working for in Idaho, says, it’s “disappointing?”

Hmm. I’d say it’s more than disappointing. “Disappointing” is when you’re 12-year-old breaks the neighbor’s window with an errant baseball and lies to you about it. “Disappointing” is when your husband forgets your wedding anniversary.

What is it then? Honestly, it’s crushingly sad. I could get all high and mighty the way so many Repubs did (including our own Utah congressional delegation) when Bill Clinton got caught “not having sex with that woman.” Most mortals who slip up now and again would admit to a bit of glee when a man like Craig gets snared in his own trap of humiliating hypocrisy.

The deeply sad part is the shame Craig must have lived with for god knows how many years. It’s almost a full-time job, I’d imagine, running on a “family values” platform every six years, and headlining conferences with speeches against the “gay agenda.” I can only imagine the self-hatred it must require to try to bring home the bacon from D.C. for your home state while simultaneously making quick side trips to public bathrooms, looking for a blow job from some anonymous male.

One gay activist quoted in a news story earlier this week talked about the way closeted people like Craig live in steady denial about their homosexuality by claiming they only have occasional “urges” for gay sex. Ergo, they aren’t gay, couldn’t possibly be gay, and why would anyone think for a minute they might be gay? An “urge” is just something that happens. You can’t control them.

So I have to think of the old saw: If it acts like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be … a GAY man by the name of Sen. Larry Craig.

Man, if we could simply be true to ourselves, knowing that society would accept us for who and what we are. Sorry if I sound like a Care Bear or Mr. Rogers. But really. Think of the pain and suffering living his truth might have saved Craig’s wife, his family and everyone else caught in his fallout. But mostly himself.

What do you all think?

Ted and I hopped on the motorcycle last Sunday and rode the nearly three hours to Price, Utah, for a fundraiser for the six miners still trapped in the Crandall Canyon Mine and for the families of the three men killed trying to rescue them.

We have always felt welcome and completely at home in Carbon and Emery counties–largely because we share the same politics with most of the people living there. I’ve given many speeches there to community and church groups, and people still swarm Ted when we visit, sharing all these cool memories of when he ran for U.S. Senate and Utah governor. Invariably, someone asks him when he plans to run again!

So I came home from that bittersweet event and wrote my weekly column for City Weekly about it.

Then, two days later, I saw an interesting letter on the Aug. 23 Salt Lake Tribune editorial page. Letter writer Mary O’Brien, who lives in Coal Country, pretty much sees the topic of miners’ hardscrabble personalities through the same prism as I do.

I am taking some heart, however, in recent news stories that have begun to show the families’ anger and resentment toward mine owner Bob Murray and his toadie for big mining business, MSHA’s Richard Stickler. It’s a powerful thing to hear them speak up against Murray’s one-sided version of the past 18 days. I hope they keep the heat on.

Thought-provoking view today on the latest tragic chapter of the Crandall Canyon Mine catastrophe.

While we in Utah keep waiting for the latest updates to last night’s “bump” inside the mine that killed three rescue miners and injured six others, outside experts are all over the story with their analysis.

I’m actually in this guy’s camp for the most part, how about the rest of you? At the very lest, Congress needs to hold hearings for oversight of mining safety at the first reasonable opportunity.

Mine owner Robert Murray’s insistence on dangerous practices like retreat mining has likely turned that place into a permanent death trap. Wretched.

My regular column this week for City Weekly explains the back story of The Salt Lake Tribune’s endorsement on August 12 of Keith Christensen for Salt Lake City mayor.

Some may see my opinion as classic sour grapes because the editorial board did not endorse my stepdaughter/mayoral candidate Jenny Wilson. I hope not. As I pointed out in the column, I firmly believe the Tribune can endorse anyone it chooses. I simply expect the board to come by the decision honestly, and not by some sham interview process. I’d bet the voters would see it this way, too. This editorial came down almost exactly as the Tribune’s puzzling endorsement of George W. Bush for president in 2004 — amounting to an “order up” from publisher Dean “Dinky” Singleton, who spends most of his time in Denver and never even takes part in the candidate interviews.

Newspaper owners and editors are always wringing their hands over why they are losing readers and failing to gain enough new ones. Could it be in part because of the cynical way they make editorial decisions?