Running across the Burnside Street Bridge in Portland last week, I came upon this graffiti message spray-painted in purple, letters a foot high, on the sidewalk bordering the vast Willamette River:

CALL YOUR DEADBEAT DAD. HE STILL LOVES YOU.

It was Father’s Day weekend. My mind started whirling. Did a specific dad write it to a long-lost child? Or was it more universal? A manifesto of sorts for all neglectful kids who haven’t stayed in touch with their dads? And did the suggestion tug hard enough to result in any action?

Couldn’t say. All I knew is this was Portland and the public call to action fit this city perfectly.

Also on the waterfront, scores of names of dead service men and women who died in Iraq were scrawled in chalk. “The Names Project,” said the message chalked on the sidewalk at the start of the long list.

Portlanders seem to live their lives out loud — at least many of those who reside in and around the city limits. I saw two anti-war protests on city sidewalks while there, and people gathering petition signatures downtown for an open space initiative, membership in Greenpeace and lord knows what else. I’ve visited there at least a half-dozen times in 10 years, usually for business, so I seldom get out to the suburbs. I’m pretty sure the Portland suburbs are like anywhere else, though — a gone-to-shit wasteland of chain restaurants and car lots. So I choose to stay in my little comfy urban bubble and it serves me just fine.

A group of City Weekly staff members attended the Association of Alternative Newspapers there. We worked during the day but played hard at night. The second night in, I’d had enough of crowds and loudmouths bragging on their newspapers, so I lit off on my own to Northwest Portland, AKA the Alphabet District. I walked from downtown for about 1 1/2 miles until I ran into a series of great bars, sidewalk cafes, coffee houses and nightlife like I never see in Salt Lake City. The host at the little Italian place where I chose to eat and sip Oregon pinot noir gave me the history of the district: a one-time working class area populated by longshoremen and their families. “It’s got the distinction of being the most densely populated neighborhood between San Francisco and Seattle,” he said, obviously proud of that little tidbit.

It’s easy to dismiss downtown Salt Lake as a decaying, even dead place because of its prehistoric liquor laws and clunky approach to nightlife. But it’s more than that. We cling to a culture here that a thriving nightlife is a little too much, a bit too excessive, showy and inappropriate. You see this even among those restaurant and club owners who are trying here: With the exception of the bigger, successful private clubs, too many bars are dark and dank, buried in basements with little or no light. Dirty.

It’s like going there makes you feel criminal, and I can’t believe city leaders want to put that message across.

And then there are the politics of Portland. I always get the distinct sensation when visiting there that speaking out is a public duty. People have opinions and they don’t shrink at sharing them. It’s a stark contrast to my hometown here, where so many people back into a position, or feign politeness or silence at the risk of offending or alienating someone else.

And of course, I do love the green and the clean air. We live in a high desert here in Salt Lake and I love that for its own exceptional qualities. But clean air? Now that is our challenge. I feel certain the next 10 years and the way we go about working on air quality will make or break Salt Lake as a livable and enticing city. I hope we haven’t started too late.

I’m here, bloggers. I’ve been in Portland, Ore., since last Thursday, attending the annual convention of the Association of Alternative Newspapers. More about that later. I went to a panel discussion led by three behemoth bloggers and/or journalists: Arianna Huffington, Matt Taibbi, and Jane Hamsher.

Of the three, I would highly recommend Taibbi, a political editor for Rolling Stone who made his name with deeply insightful (and hysterically funny) coverage of the 2004 Bush/Kerry presidential race. Not to mention that Taibbi came off with a couple of ounces of humility about himself and his work, which honestly, the other two did not.

Anyway, the topic was how bloggers and other alternative media might bring a little Tabasco to the 2008 presidential election. I asked the three of them a question about Mitt Romney and that Mormon thing. I told the crowd that here in Utah, mainstream reporters have lost all bladder control about Mitt and the possibility that a guy who spent six minutes in our state might become president (yeah, when H-E-double hockey sticks freezes over). I mentioned how his Mormonism crops up in every story, from Newsweek to The Salt Lake Tribune, and did these experts think religion would play a big role in the upcoming race?

Hamsher pushed her bangs out of her eyes a couple of times and said she isn’t interested in religion in politics and that a person’s faith shouldn’t matter. Huffington encouraged all the altie journalists at the convention to take up that topic in their own papers. Taibbi appeared to want to weigh in, but didn’t get a chance before the next question.

What I found most intriguing, what actually bugged me, was Huffington’s description of a new feature she’ll be offering soon on The Huffington Post. Teaming with New York University journalism professor and blogger Jay Rosen, Huffington will start “Off The Bus” on her site in mid-July. The plan is to round up 100 or so bloggers around the country who can post comments and coverage of the presidential race from a fresh (that is to say non-mainstream media) perspective. “Off The Bus,” as opposed to the official “On The Bus” press corps of the major outlets who get spoonfed everything from campaign operatives, get it?

It’s a great idea, and worthy. And I expect if it’s done well, if the goal is for the “uncovered” story, it will take some interviews and leg work from the bloggers. So here’s the part that bugs me: Huffington was quite clear and proud of the fact that these “citizen bloggers” will get no financial compensation for their efforts. None. See, the way she explained it is it’s a privilege to be part of this big electronic neighborhood and that writers like Jamie Lee Curtis and Nora Ephron, who contribute regularly to The Huffington Post, don’t do it for the money anyway. Well of course not. But if the Off The Bus crew is supposed to be average citizens, doesn’t that mean people like your kid’s third grade teacher, your grocery store checker and the guy who comes to fix your plugged-up sink?

Hey, Arianna! How about walking the walk of the good leftie who talks the need to raise the minimum wage and health care for all and throwing these folks $50 a post? Or $100?

She’s a multi-millionaire, after all, with best-selling books, assorted talk show appearances and a wildly successful blog. Honestly, it just seemed a bit hypocritical to me. If you ask me, it’s downright mainstream newspaper mentality — asking for more but paying less (or in this case, nothing at all).

I’ll post some impressions of the beautiful city of Portland later, including my thoughts — and I hope yours, too — on what Salt Lake City could do to poach a little piece of that grand city to make ours more livable.

OK. Let’s move on.

I plan on ignoring any further ttstark posts, unless they get so over the top as to cause me a migraine (a malady I’m not given to, so I don’t expect he’ll be much of a future problem). Thanks for all your comments on the topic.

Snarky dweebs like ttstark however, are on my mind of late. City Weekly staff writer Stephen Dark is finishing up a cover story about a cyber-squatter-conman who has a criminal record as long as my arm. The guy has a record as a sex offender (a late 1990s federal conviction for on-line possession of kiddie porn). This little transgression landed the guy on the Utah sex offenders database, so he finds it a challenge to find and keep a regular job. He’s limited to where he can live (restrictions on proximity to schools, child care centers, etc.) so he he resides in his sister’s basement in Utah County. He fills his days with harassing people via the Internet and extorting them by demanding money to clear their names (once he’s tried to destroy them). It’s like the guy has a virtual pen and mucho time on his hands to scrawl insults and threats all over one big bathroom wall.

That’s all I can reveal right now. The story is scheduled to run next issue (May 23). It’s sort of a cautionary tale for people who might not know how closely these creeps operate among us.

If you’re one of the many who read this blog and can’t get a paper copy of CW, you can always bookmark our site: http://www.slweekly.com

If you haven’t read my weekly column in this week’s CW, it’s here. We had a good laugh on Tuesday of this week — the day we run around like crazy chickens to get the paper out. This issue reads like the “All Mitt, All the Time” edition. My main point was to get away from the dominant theme among Utahns these days: that poor Mitt is being persecuted for his LDS membership. I’ll give him that, to a small degree. But as a journalist and something of a social/cultural/political critic, I’m not about to give him a hall pass on his waffling and lukewarm positions.

As I point out in the piece, Americans appreciate flexibility in their president AFTER the election, not BEFORE. A presidential campaign is all about drama. What we want from our candidates during the campaign is guarantee of a spine. And Romney shows nearly every day that he’s in search of his. If he’s found his backbone yet, he really ought to let the voters know.

… That is the way I’ve come to think of “ttstark,” the person who posts flames on this blog that have zero to do with either the topic under consideration or the general tone of mullentown.

I’m probably insulting wolves by saying that. Wolves are known for their strict social order and for being good parents to their young. “ttstark” simply comes across as a boor with a poor upbringing. Also, I have the distinct feeling he’s drunk when he writes these posts. And a bitter drunk at that.

I hadn’t even checked in this weekend, mostly because I took a dream bicycle ride halfway to Big Mountain (at the Salt Lake/Morgan County line) on Saturday and truly enjoyed Mother’s Day on Sunday. My family gave me time — the best gift of all. I planted my tomatoes and then sat on the porch drinking pinot grigio from a box while reading Barbara Kingsolver’s new book. I’ve always been a fan of Kingsolver, and this new non-fiction work is a cross between her fabulous essays and a journalistic foray into how we get the food we eat.

So, I called up mullentown this a.m. and found yet another flame by this character (See “Girl and Fire,” May 9 post). I saw all your kind efforts to defend me. I’ve also received a couple of e-mails from readers encouraging me to somehow shut off his access to the site. I guess that decision is partially up to all of you. What do you think?

I’m naturally anti-censorship. But as my brilliant Webmaster Joey pointed out to me a few minutes ago, I’m paying for this site and I should have some power over who uses it. He compares it to owning a restaurant. My blog is open to the public and it benefits from varied opinions. But I wouldn’t sit by and allow someone to come into the restaurant, throw trash all over and scream insults at me, the proprietor, or at the patrons. Joey suggests if ttstark has a problem with me kicking him off the blog, maybe he should pay to keep the domain name — and all the others costs associated with the site.

Of course, shunning him the way many of you already have might work. I tried ignoring him, but that didn’t work. If you would like to take up this topic on mullentown, go ahead. Right now, I’m inclined to kick him off, but I can be swayed the other way with a good argument.

Peace out.

No, I can’t take credit for that headline. It’s the work of Bill Frost, a City Weekly staff writer whose writing always makes me laugh out loud. He gets all the credit.

Go here for Bill’s blog post on the silly, overhyped debate between Hannity and Anderson. It’s the best review I’ve read anywhere of last Friday’s event, and believe me, I read more criticism than than my gut could take.

A lot of you have posted on my previous blog entry about the Hannity-Anderson thing. I’m all but finished with writing/talking/thinking about it now, as the story is going on four days old and has just about grown fur at this point. I did, however, hear an amusing take on the whole drama while listening to KSL radio’s Doug Wright on the car radio this morning.

(My husband always asks why I listen to Wright’s talk show, and I always tell him it’s my best yardstick for measuring the way our garden-variety Utahn who marches in lockstep with authority thinks. For me, the show is a cultural magnifying glass. Today’s show did not disappoint.)

You’ll recall that KSL has been blowing every gasket since it learned the debate was a go. They went all wacky with promotion, including billing it as a “smackdown.” Those who watched it either live or on TV know it was anything but. Anyway, this morning Wright was doing his usual “woe unto us” hangdog analysis of our wretched, values-crossed society. The horribly insensitive audience, he said, was the real loser.

Wright simply couldn’t believe how rude, uncouth, how positively barbaric the crowd was. What with their heckling, interruptions and catcalls, why, the two narcissists on stage could barely get a word in edgewise. How, he asked, does an audience get off on behaving this way? What possible excuse could those people have?

Naturally it never dawned on Doug that his very own Sean Hannity has built a whole industry on interrupting callers he disagrees with, on name-calling and heckling and on pushing public discourse lower than an earthworm’s abdomen. You reap what you sow, Doug, and KSL has cultivated quite a garden of idiocy and social intolerance by choosing to syndicate Hannity year after year. Even though many of the outbursts came from pro-Rocky forces, we have a whole society that feels it’s perfectly fine to belittle others and cut them to their quick in a disagreement. I’d have to say both sides have learned the technique from the master: Hannity.

Hey, it’s always worked for him. So why not a crowd of heckling hayseeds at Kingsbury Hall as well?

… is the theme of the annual Women’s Conference at the College of Eastern Utah in Price. And that is where Ted and I are headed in 30 minutes. Journalism professor Susan Polster asked me several months back to give a keynote address at the conference. I had some sway as a daily newspaper columnist back then. When I mentioned to Susan I had quit the Tribune, she was kind enough to keep the invitation in play. So I’m on the road.

I’ll be talking about all the shoes women have worn through recent history. From house slippers to spike heels, and everything in between. That in between includes running shoes, climbing boots, bike shoes, steel-toed work boots and more. At least in my own case. The point I hope to get across: We can, as women, trace our evolution as a species to a certain degree through the shoes we have worn (and wear).

If the shoe fits. Get it? I thought so. (And a big thank you to Ted Wilson, my speechwriter)

Meanwhile, I’m still shaking my head at the puffball questions our own Sen. Orrin Hatch pitched yesterday at that obfuscating AG Alberto Gonzales. Our senior senator clearly established with his hard-line interrogation that Gonzales has a busy job. A hard job (just like our president). I mean, more than 100,000 employees to supervise. It must be impossible to keep an eye on what all the underlings are doing. Go here for Tribune reporter Robert Gehrke’s, dare I say “acerbic” reporting on the Hatch embarrassment. (Very well-done, Robert. Insightful. I’m surprised your mangers let you get away with such brilliant little digs in the news section!)

I fear Utah will have Hatch in place for life. (At least the rest of his life, anyway) He’s our own homegrown version of Strom Thurmond, but without tangerine-colored hair. Now is the time for the Utah Democrats to start seriously planning for his replacement. 2012 has got to be the year they once and for all bring down Orrin. Has the all-out grooming of Rep. Jim Matheson begun yet? Or Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon?

Namaste. And be sure to pick comfortable shoes today.

First, I thank all of you delightful posters for your kind comments yesterday (post titled: “When Work Got In the Way”). On reading it again this a.m., it struck me as unbelievably whiny. So you are all wonderful and get (virtual) gold stars for buoying me up when I was tired. I’ll keep writing here, though maybe in an altered form. All of your suggestions are worthwhile.

At this very moment I have 31 minutes until my deadline for my weekly editorial/column in the front section of City Weekly. But like the rest of America today, I’m numb. Numb from the unspeakable violence that overtook Virginia Tech yesterday, and scrambling to find all I can about the student who went on that rampage. I feel I must write something in CW, but because it’s a weekly, whatever I manage to get on the page will feel old, dusty and probably insignificant as this multi-layered story plays out in the next several days.

What do you do? Visit the old tired arguments again about gun control or not? About safety on college campuses? Something is tweaking me right now, telling me there’s much more to focus on about anger in this society — how we simmer and boil over something, then shut ourselves down without truly resolving the problem we started with. This is especially true of boys and men, who seem to get bonus points in our world for toughening up against anger (or for exhibiting it in the most troubling ways: ultimate fighting, NFL football, movie sequels to “Die Hard.”)

And you know what they say: Unresolved anger leads to depression and depression is just anger turned inward. So if the shooter was simply mentally ill, how much of that had to do with never learning to express himself properly, to work through his anger, to put it somewhere constructive?

Oh, we are all Monday morning QBs today, aren’t we? Numb, but filled with post-game analysis nevertheless.

God save us all.

You know those moments when some item in the news, a fabulous quote or some whammo-concept stops you long enough to make you actually think? Your mind starts racing and before you know it, you are pondering this idea taking root in your world.

This has been going on for me all week. It started with this announcement of a new Utah advocacy group. You also can read about Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment by linking to Doug Fabrizio’s live KUER-FM90 interview here.

Environmental groups, even organizations as button-down as the American Lung Association, have been warning about the danger of auto emissions and unfettered coal burning power plants for decades. When strides are made, like the federal Clean Air Act (34 years ago!), we’re all jumping up and down. Then a few more steps forward. Then nothing. Or worse, the clock gets turned back under presidential administrations and congresses that can’t say no to auto makers and big energy interests.

But ah, what about doctors? What about those men and women wrapped in white coats, with stethoscopes hanging from their necks and offering that thoughtful nod as they listen to your list of symptoms? Credible folks, those docs. And smart. And in the eyes of our state lawmakers, the docs have no political axes to grind. When the guys in the white coats begin beating the drum for air quality along the Wasatch Front, someone in power might really listen.

Dr. Brian Moench, a Salt Lake anesthesiologist and leader of the physicians’ group, has written several opinion pieces for Salt Lake City newspapers on the topic. He’s got current research about increased afflictions related to minute particulates in the air that link directly to asthma (rates are skyrocketing in children everywhere–especially in urban areas), cancers (more than 80 percent of them are environmentally caused) and generally shortened life spans.

Among other ideas, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment are advocating for fewer vehicles on the road. To help accomplish that, they’re pushing for free mass transit. Whoa. Now that’s an idea with some heft. Can you picture a Utah state budget that for once defers to better transit options — and maybe even free — over more and more highway construction?

It’s so radical the thought makes me shiver.

My stepdaughter, Jenny Wilson, had the same stop-in-your-tracks feeling I did last week, apparently. Jenny is running for mayor of Salt Lake City this year, and according to one privately commissioned poll by a prominent local business, is far ahead of the 10-candidate pack for the race, at 21 percent name recognition and favorable image.

Jenny and her husband, Trell Rohovit, are parents of two little boys, ages four and one. Zach and Max are healthy and adorable. But they will take over this planet someday, and their parents and grandparents are starting to worry about its future. A lot.

Currently a Salt Lake County Council member-at-large, Jenny last week spoke in favor of a Salt Lake County Council of Governments proposal for a commission to study Utah’s endangered air quality and ways to improve it.

I know, I know. You read the words “commission” or “task force” and have to stifle a yawn. But it’s like this: If the county (and Salt Lake City, which I hope will be under Jenny’s charge after the November election) gets a jump on this issue — working in tandem with these progressive physicians and other advocates for clean air — we have more ammunition for the state Legislature and Utah’s congressional delegation to do something meaningful.

I haven’t been this charged about an issue since Roe vs. Wade.

Maybe it’s time our Utah newspapers start writing about whether Santa Claus is the only true elf. Does the jolly old guy really exist? Is he magic? Can he and those reindeer really fly? What powers allow him to deliver all those gifts in one night?

I’m just wondering. Because if I see one more story giving coverage to accused child rapist Warren Jeffs and his prophet (or not) status, I’m going to start pulling out my short, chemically colored hair. In a manner of speaking, in the way that most of us understand people to be insane, Jeffs is one big nut job. But the guy is crazy like a fox. The skinny little coward wants out of jail. It isn’t exactly a celestial kind of place, after all. The food sucks and I doubt the company is all that warm, either. Warren wants to go home.

And now we have to keep reading/hearing about whether he’s a true prophet or not. Wha??? Is Santa Claus real? What about Tooth Fairy while we’re at it?

Jeffs, polygamist leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is melting down before the courtroom’s eyes during his pre-trial hearings in state district court in St. George. Jeffs’ eyes keep glazing over; he’s a little shaky. He keeps wanting to pass notes to the judge in charge. Yesterday, reporters were all atwitter about a half-page letter Jeffs asked Judge James L. Shumate to accept. The judge said no, of course.

The Deseret Morning News actually PAID a handwriting expert and for digital enhancement to determine the contents of the letter: “I have not been a prophet and am not a prophet.”

Oh. Ya think?!

This all makes my head spin. Yes, the press is just covering the story but it’s veering off into crazy town. Jeffs is a bully, a con artist, a federal fugitive and — I don’t really need a jury to tell me this — a pedophile.

But he isn’t mentally ill, and he isn’t all that weak and frail. If he succeeds in coming off as mentally unfit before all this ends it will be the greatest scam since the Easter Bunny.

Try keeping a secret in this town. Salt Lake City may be growing, and changing, and adding a big-ass mall downtown that promises to be life-changing. Still, you can’t keep something about a little job change quiet for long.

Today marks the official start of my new job. Yes, I am the new editor of City Weekly, a 60,000-plus circulation alternative newspaper in Salt Lake City. John Saltas founded the paper 22 years ago. Back then it went by the name Private Eye, which remains the title of Saltas’ regular column at the front of the paper.

We had hoped to break the news on our own deadline, which happens to be today, but so it goes. When Salt Lake Tribune business writer Dawn House called yesterday, I had just finished meeting with my new staff at CW’s very cool Main Street office. (More to come on the cool factor of the CW office) I was sitting in Saltas’ office when Dawn called. It was a hoot. Saltas told her he wasn’t ready to announce my appointment until Wednesday. House, like any decent reporter, refused to give up and demanded the story on her own timetable. I would have demanded the same thing were I in her place.

You go, Dawn.

Not that this is an earth-rattling story. We’re still fighting a miserable and losing war in Iraq, aren’t we? And didn’t the U.S. Supremes just bitch-slap George W. Bush for his administration’s hands-off approach to auto emissions and unbridled greenhouse gases in the environment?

Naturally, most of what I told House ended up on her cutting room floor. She spent an unbelievable amount of newsprint today trying to prove what I think she cosiders a conspiracy behind my predecessor, Ben Fulton, taking a leave of absence. BTW, if Ben chooses to return to CW in some other capacity in four months, I plan on keeping options open for him. But House didn’t ask me about that.

Oh well. I’m not sure she came close to capturing why I want to edit CW, but then most trad news people have never taken such a risk. Working at an altie paper is a total gas, I promise. Much more fun than sitting in press row behind a glass partition, a daily newspaper ID badge dangling from your neck and watching the state Legislature all day.

Here is what I’m looking forward to:

First, I’m back in my ‘hood, right where I belong and love to be. I’ve been a newspaper journalist for 26 years, and spent six of those as a reporter at the Twin Cities Reader in Minneapolis and the Dallas Observer.

Without hesitation, I tell you those were the finest and most productive years of my professional life. I had unlimited freedom. I received careful and creative editing. I developed an actual “voice.” And our staffs had high morale — a welcome change from the snarky, grousing comments and insecurity that punctuate life in most traditional newsrooms.

Second, as House mentioned in her story today, readership of alternative newspapers has been growing, while readership at dailies is either stagnant or declining. I like the idea of heading up a newspaper that, instead of constantly ruminating and stressing over how to gain readers in the elusive 18-34 age category, tries to attract them with basic, good journalism. What a concept.

Now. Does that mean CW is doing good journalism? Mostly, but certainly not enough of it. I told the staff we’re going to “own” certain stories in and around Salt Lake City. This is the purpose of “alternative journalism.” We’ll use traditional reporting and editing tools to get our stories. We’ll run all the traps. No one will accuse us of taking short cuts or lacking reporting or writing quality. The fact is, dozens of stories fly well under the daily newspapers’ and local TV news programs’ radar. Guess whose shoulders it falls on to dig them out and make them interesting and worth reading?

You got it. Your friendly neighborhood altie paper.

Do I sound crazy-excited? I am. I’m going to keep this blog going as well as contribute regularly to CW’s own site. If you haven’t access to the print version, please visit http://www.slweekly.com when you can.

Tomorrow’s issue is the annual “Best of Utah” — a record-setting 208 pages, publisher Jim Rizzi tells me. Can’t wait to read it. BTW, I’ll be pimping the “Best Of” in a guest appearance on FOX-13 early morning news tomorrow (that’s Thursday, April 5). Tune in between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m. if you can. I’ll be the one wearing the least amount of pancake make-up and with middle-aged woman bags under my eyes.