I promise, I’m trying to get back into regular posting. I can blame my slovenly writing pattern on jet lag, but that only goes so far, right? Or how about this excuse: With fair skies yesterday and only a bit of blustery March wind, Ted, Rick Reese and I rode our bikes up Salt Lake City’s Emigration Canyon. This is a routine “stay in shape” ride for devoted SLC road cyclists and typically not difficult at all.

Nevertheless, I absolutely bonked about two-thirds of the way up, begging off and turning around just short of The Sun and Moon Cafe. My legs felt heavier than two redwood tree trunks and my breath came in hard gasps (Ted later told me I’m recovering from more than two weeks at low-altitude life in India, but I’m skeptical of the science behind that. My Calvinist/Mormon upbringing would tell me I was just being lazy).

So I rode home — fast — against a nasty headwind. That was my day’s exercise challenge.

Anyway, my point is I’m finding all kinds of creative excuses for not posting regularly on Mullentown, not the least of which is spring fever. I’ll try to fight through it.

This brings me to one of the features I love most about floating around the blogosphere: Contributions from readers. You see them routinely in the form of posted comments. And sometimes I get e-mails that flesh out a certain topic even more, or provide a glimpse into a fellow blogger’s life.

One of those people is Larry O. Miller. Regular visitors to Mullentown will recognize Larry’s name. We’ve never met, though Larry and I go way back. See, he’s a “Mullenista,” which is the nickname one of the first fans of my former Salt Lake Tribune column bestowed on loyal readers. When I left the paper three months ago and started this blog, I e-mailed all Mullenistas and encouraged them to visit here. So when you see the names Larry O. Miller, Chardonnay and Oregon Pinot Noir you now know they are faithful electronic FOH (friends of Holly)!

Larry first e-mailed me years ago. He signed his name exactly like this: “Larry O. Miller (no, not THAT Larry Miller).” I’ve loved him ever since. He lives in Ventura County, California and loves to ski at Powder Mountain. He and his family are building an environmentally green home in the Ogden Valley about 70 miles from Salt Lake City.

Larry is an unabashed liberal. He joined his brother Paul, a Korean War veteran, last month at the March on the Pentagon to protest George W. Bush and his war policies. With Larry’s permission, I include a news story on the event, in which he and his brother play prominently. (Way to go with the 15 minutes of fame thing, Larry-O!)

Here is a photo Larry sent me, as well. He wondered if blog readers might be offended and gave me permission to decide. I told him I didn’t think so, but then, I’m a First Amendment purist. I appreciate anyone’s sensibilities, but if you don’t like this photo then feel free to sign out and turn the page.

To see Larry and a new friend, go here.

Finally, please go here for a thoughtful essay by my friend Chip Ward, recently retired assistant director of the downtown Salt Lake City Library. The same essay appears in the Los Angeles Times opinion section today.I saw Chip last week at a staff dinner of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), where he serves on the board of directors with my husband, Ted. One of Chip’s greatest concerns has been the plight of the urban homeless. His essay cuts right to the heart of the matter.

Man. You leave the country for a couple of weeks in India (BTW, a nation that happens to be the world’s largest democracy) and suddenly the center no longer holds!

I’m referring to the whole dust-up at Brigham Young University and beyond over the school’s invitation to Vice Prez Dick Cheney to keynote spring commencement. While it took a few days to track back the genesis of the invitation, it finally turns out that the White House started the ball rolling by offering Cheney’s services to BYU. The school, via the LDS Church First Presidency, then issued a formal invitation.

First observation: Things are either alarmingly slow at the veep’s D.C. communications office (What? Harvard and Stanford were already booked?), or Cheney is showing the Bush Administration’s growing desperation with its plummeting popularity and needs the biggest fawning audience available to shore him up.

Uh, I think it’s more likely the latter, don’t you?

Main observation: It appears the march-in-lockstep image of BYU is crumbling just the tiniest bit. The College Democrats chapter is planning at least one protest of Cheney’s appearance. A handful of progressive faculty members has stepped up to publicly challenge the invitation. One professor pointed out the Y’s longstanding history of inviting conservative speakers to the exclusion of liberals — an obvious effort to prevent the clashing of ideas and free speech that most universities welcome and nurture.

Some students and profs are even trying for petition drives on campus (which requires official permission) to block Cheney’s visit.

Wow. It feels something like a pro wrestling match breaking out in heaven.

Now I certainly know a few truths. BYU is a private, religious institution. It accepts no taxpayers’ money and thus can do anything it likes. And as history shows — think periodic purges of free-thinking faculty members — it generally does exactly as it wants. Also, it’s absurd to think that the students, faculty, alumni and community members who oppose Cheney’s speech are even close to critical mass. (Interviews with students on the issue revealed the response typical of BYU’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers world: “We should welcome him,” said one male student. “He’s a great leader.”)

And yet, you’ve gotta admire Diane Bailey, president of the College Demos. She’s smart, articulate, and on point. Cheney, she has explained, with his war-mongering ways and endorsement of torture, is no role model for thousands of young graduates about to make their mark on the world.

One last thought: I’ve spent some time in Utah County in the past few years, and it’s a mistake to paint the place as completely right-wing. In fact, the political spirit of the minority party is loud and lively. The Democrats there work like honeybees to stay involved in the process. They have to yell like hell to be heard. This is just the latest example of their activism.

And ain’t the First Amendment grand?

We are home. Since 1 a.m. Monday. I’m sliding past jet lag, and battling “Delhi belly” (interestingly, I had no trouble until I got home to America’s ever-so-safe food and water supply).

I can provide you with a simple travel diary of 18 days in India — places visited, train schedules, a day at Parliament when members of the the ruling party rushed the well (speaker’s podium) and nearly led a brawl over a move to increase funds to a university they opposed. Oh, and there is my all-time favorite Indian meal, which I found myself eating in some form at every restaurant and home: dal (cooked black or yellow lentils delightfully spiced; a staple of the Indian table) and nan (bread). I like the combination at Indian restaurants in the U.S. but nothing, no way, can match the Indians’ preparation: utterly simple, yet complex enough in its spices to taste slightly different every time.

I’ll save some of that. Better today, as an introduction, I give you the eyes of Kotwara.

Two boys, dressed for their U. of U. guests:

A mother waits for medical attention from volunteers:

School children welcome their visitors with song:

Tyler wows the kids with digital:

Kotwara sits some 250 miles southeast of New Delhi, approachable either by astoundingly terrible Indian roads or by Northern Railway, which was our choice. Even then, after an all-night train ride from Delhi to Shajahanpur (named for the 17th-century mogul Shajahan, who built the Taj Mahal), it’s a two-hour bus ride to Kotwara.

The village sits among vast fields of sugar cane and wheat. The final approach is along a road bordered by dense forest, populated with small herds of spotted deer. The bus then rattles through the gate to the home of filmmaker, artist, and Sufi poet Muzaffar Ali,and his gifted wife, Meera, a fashion and textile designer and keen business woman.

Magnificent Muzaffar:

Lovely Meera:

Kotwara, a Muslim village, is Muzaffar’s ancestral home. His father, a prince, once reigned over the place. The government of India eventually came along, sliced up the land and left the Ali family 16 acres. On that land stands the Ali’s lovely home, lush gardens filled with rose bushes, cosmos and lavender, and towering mango trees. The village is 50 yards away.

In rural Mexico, Muzaffar would be known as the patron. In Kotwara, he employs dozens of villagers on his property and oversees an ongoing effort to educate their children at a small but sturdy stucco school, built over eight years time by University of Utah students as a service project over their school breaks.

We spent four days in Kotwara, and the stop couldn’t have been timed better. Our 21 students had been on a shopping frenzy, bartering with merchants in New Delhi’s colorful open air markets. It was grand, picking through silk scarves and jewel-toned saris, running our hands through stacks of Kashmiri pashminas and sampling masalas and mo mos from food booths. But a point comes when the noise, the infinite traffic jams, the bad air, the kitsch hawkers swarming the tourist havens take their toll. We needed a break. Most importantly, we needed to stop the take-take and start giving something to others.

That day came when the U. students walked into the village with scissors, water colors and paintbrushes, books describing flags of the world and the solar system, and even a lesson that included simulated snow. They taught wide-eyed children simple lessons. They led them in games of hokey-pokey and musical chairs (to the sounds of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” on an iPod with a speaker attached).

When education major Tracy Healey offered the grand finale — making polyethelyne “snow” with water mixed in a bucket — the kids went wild. They squealed, they stampeded. One kid even ate a mouthful.

Two days later Dr. Tom Byrne, a family practice physician from Nashua, New Hampshire, led the distribution of $2500 worth of vitamins to the children. Tom’s daughter, Elizabeth, is a U. of U. freshman. The two of them have made trips together on medical missions to Nicaragua. When Liz mentioned the trip to Tom, he signed on right away.

Dr. Tom Byrne, left, with Ted Wilson waiting in New Delhi for the train to Shajahanpur:

While discussing types of aid we might deliver, Tom suggested vitamins would make the greatest difference over a year in the children’s lives. The villagers’ diet consists mostly of rice, nan and lentils. Sorely lacking in protein, especially, the kids have in common stunted growth and chronic malnutrition. So each child took a 365-day supply home, with instructions in Hindi from Meera, our translator.

We had our worries. First, would the vitamins even make it home? Would the parents, busy scratching out a life each day and maybe suspicious of these Americans’ motives, even follow through with the regimen? Would the vitamins end up on the black market, fetching precious income for families subsisting a few rupees a day?

Ted, who has led seven trips to this region and oversaw the construction of the school with his former wife, Kathy, put the anxieties to rest.

“We do what we can,” he said. “We hope for the best.”

Ted and I leave tomorrow for 18 days in India. I’ve never been there. I’m thrilled.

Tonight I’m finishing up packing little Ziploc bags with travel-sized toiletries to carry on the plane. Bleepin’ TSA! Bleepin’ would-be terrorists!

We’re flying to New Delhi by way of Los Angeles and Kuala Lampur. With two layovers in both cities totaling 16 hours, our flying time on arrival at Indira Ghandi International will be something like 39 hours. Oh. Ted just muttered from his place beside me on the living room couch: “Could be even longer.”

What’s the old adage? That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger? All I know is we leave Salt Lake City on Thursday afternoon and arrive in New Delhi late Saturday night.

Good thing we’re going as leaders for 22 University of Utah students as part of the school’s International Travel Center. I’m counting on seeing the country in large part through their youthful perspectives. We’ll add three more students to our ranks once we get there. They are working as university interns in India this semester.

Here is a brief itinerary: Delhi, four days. Then to Agra (home of the Taj Mahal), two days. Then to Kotwara, 200 miles southeast of New Delhi, five days. We’ll visit a nature preserve on that leg of the trip. Then Varanasi, holy city of the Ganges, three days. Then back to New Delhi for two days.

Yes, the typical tourist stuff awaits us. The Taj, the Red Fort, a camel ride. But more. In Kotwara, the students will work with a village of young children who attend a school earlier groups of U. of U. students built over several years time. We’ll spend a day touring a slum and with the help of Winnie Singh, a longtime friend of Ted’s who is well-connected with various social and political reform movements in India, we may take a trip into New Delhi’s sex trade district. Winnie has also been active in recent years with HIV-AIDS education and prevention in the country; I’m anxious to pick her brain and perhaps accompany her in some of her work if time permits.

I’m hoping to visit a New Delhi newsroom and chat with journalists. Indians love their newspapers. There are dozens of them in New Delhi alone. I’m very excited about it.

But again, much of this personal agenda in flux. I’m going with the flow, people, believe me, and my first job will be to assist with the students.

We have met with the students three times in the past few months. Much of the pre-trip discussion has focused on handling the predictable culture shock when a group of middle and upper-middle class college kids (several blonds in the bunch!) meet crushing poverty; an exploding population; strange food; that first visit to an Indian commode; streetwise survivors of polio, leprosy and serious birth defects; and plenty of dirt.

And yet, we are all expecting a grand adventure and to return home as changed beings. How could we not be?

I am leaving my laptop at home, but will try to file some posts from the bigger cities. Photos, too.

Namaste! Back March 26!

Too much going on today to merely land on one topic.

I’m calling this post “Friday Hash” because it contains bits of the most appetizing stuff I can round up. Hope it goes down easy for you.

First, a big high-five for sheer chutzpah goes to the Honorable Rocky Anderson, globetrotting Salt Lake City mayor. Anderson yesterday called for the impeachment of President George W. Bush before a state senate committee in Olympia, Washington. Yeah, that’s right — the state, not the D.C.

After the hearing, a bystander urged Anderson to run for president. Of the whole bleepin’ United States! Anderson told Salt Lake Tribune reporter Heather May, who flew to Olympia to cover the big event, he frequently hears that request in his forays around the country.

Here’s the best quote of the day, from Heather’s story:

“I’m not really inclined to do it right now,” [Anderson] said of a presidential bid. Instead of being flattered, he said it is “disturbing to me [that] there’s so little leadership.”

Oh dear. Why am I feeling we may have another ego-crazed Dennis Kucinich on our hands?

For more on Rocky “Ferris” Anderson’s Day Off, go here.

Next, Howard Kurtz, media writer for The Washington Post, writes today about a memo that top Post editors distributed to the staff calling for shorter stories.

It’s quite a document. The edict came with specific story lengths and the categories to which the lengths should apply. Kurtz didn’t include any threats of punishment managers may mete out to violators of the new guidelines. So, if the Post runs like most American newsrooms, the memo should carry about as much punch as George W. Bush’s squeaky “I am the decider” pronouncement.

These memos come around about every two years in the average newsroom. The staff gets huffy, backs go all up, and people start challenging their editors’ urges to stomp all over their creative spirit.

(I know this because I’ve held more news writing jobs and editing posts than I can reasonably fit anymore on a resume. Which is rather stunning when I think about it, but true.)

Anyway, the point here — as Kurtz illustrates with quotes from other journalists — is that most writing in newspapers IS too long. It’s boring, too. I used to think everything I composed was platinum, until I became a newspaper columnist and was restricted to 600 words. On a good day, when I thought I could sneak one past my editor, I might creep up to 650 words. A better day was under 550. I could frequently include at least three sources, make a fairly salient point, and wrap the sucker up in 600 words.

No reporter wants to admit that. In rare cases, thousands of words must tell a story. Not often. Apparently, even the venerable Post knows this.

Finally , I gotta cheer and turn a cartwheel for the state of Virginia, whose governor just signed legislation mandating all sixth-grade girls receive the vaccination against HPV, the highly contagious, sexually transmitted virus that causes genital warts, a precursor of cervical cancer.

Now Gov. Timothy M. Kaine joins Texas Gov. Rick Perry as the latest state leader to see the light on this vital medical development in saving women’s lives. Kaine is a Democrat; Perry is a Republican. Both represent southern states that can’t be considered remotely progressive. But there they stand, firm in their decisions to do right by millions of young women in this country.

Just like the few political leaders in our own beloved Utah who tried to raise the HPV vaccine issue at the 2007 Legislature, these two men have been knocked about by reactionary, anti-science, anti-intellectual forces who argue that requiring the shots is a license for pubescent promiscuity.

The science on this drug is clear, and for greatest benefit it must be administered BEFORE a woman becomes sexually active. Marketed under the trade name Gardasil, the vaccine is nearly 100 percent effective in preventing human papillomavirus-caused genital warts that can eventually lead to cancer.

In Utah, the Legislature nearly killed a bill sponsored by Democratic Rep. Karen Morgan to fund a public information campaign about HPV, cervical cancer and the vaccine through the state Health Department. In the end, lawmakers doled out $25,000 for the initiative. And they amended Morgan’s bill to include the finger-wagging gesture that always accompanies sex ed legislation: The campaign must include the admonition that abstinence before marriage and sexual fidelity during marriage are the surest ways to prevent the spread of STDs.

Um, OK. Gotcha. No argument there. Now can we go on?

Thank the stars above for any politicians — of any political stripe — who side with the science of saving lives.

Right about now, the deep-pocketed Republicans lunching at the Salt Lake City home of Simmons Media boss David Simmons must be cutting into their lightly sauced salmon (or whatever might be the latest trend in fund raising menus).

GOP presidential candidate John McCain is the guest of honor. He’ll be stumping in Utah today and part of tomorrow, scurrying for money. McCain certainly can’t beat rival Mitt Romney’s credentials as a card-carrying member of the [LDS] tribe, but at least I expect he won’t be flipping on every hot-button issue as Mitt has (see abortion, gun control, gay rights).

Broadcast media chatter throughout the morning fell to speculation — again — over why Utah’s leading political father and son duo, Jon Huntsman Sr. and Jr., have split their allegiances between Romney and McCain, respectively. Said speculation began last fall, when the two Jons made their decisions public. Pundits were predictably scandalized when Junior fell short of endorsing fellow Mormon, fellow son of another famous business icon, and fellow square-jawed Republican Romney.

Mike Mower, spokesman for Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., said back then that Junior made his own decision, free and separate of his powerful dad. It had nothing to do with the guv nursing a grudge because Romney got the job the guv coveted some six years ago — savior of the scandal-torn 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics.

Mower told reporters last year that the Huntsman men’s divergent views were all about political diversity, which is the bedrock of our electoral system and democracy.

I hadn’t given the father-son schism much thought until the blabber surrounding McCain’s Utah visit started up again. But recently, a source very close to the Romney campaign told me what might be the most fascinating explanation yet for Jon Jr.’s decision to forgo Mitt for John: Bad telephone etiquette.

This source said that early in his exploratory campaign, Romney (or at the very least, a designated hitter) failed to return several of Jon Jr.’s phone calls from Utah. Some e-mails were ignored, as well.

That’s it? Surely it had to do with greater issues, like maybe, Romney refusing Junior a future cabinet seat?

Nope. Romney’s people, the source told me, either didn’t know the weight of the Huntsman name and reputation or simply didn’t care. At any rate, the phone calls weren’t returned and Junior got more than a bit torqued. That brings us to today, with Junior and McCain sharing white grape juice spritzers and lively conversation at the Simmons home.

The lesson here: Listen to those voice mails and return them promptly!

The Deseret Morning News is reporting this morning on Chris Cannon’s latest bout with diarrhea of the mouth.

Oh, what thoughtful constituents would give for a new version of that chalky old stomach soother Kaopectate — one that would apply directly to our senior GOP congressman’s pie hole.

For Third District Rep. Cannon to make any claim that Trolley Square gunman Sulejman Talovic was shouting “Allah Akbar” as he shot his way through the mall on February 12 goes beyond any humanity or reason. First, Cannon has not a whit of proof for his claim — beyond FOX News reports and hate speech by a few talk radio hosts. Salt Lake Police investigators, based on testimony by cops and firefighters at the scene that night, have been unanimous in their reports that Talovic shouted nothing of a religious or terroristic nature during his murderous rampage.

Unless you count the F-word, I suppose. Talovic reportedly used it freely that night. But if that counts as terroristic speech, we’d have to come down pretty hard on Utah Jazz Coach Jerry Sloan after every foul he contests now wouldn’t we?

Cannon has retracted his comments, made during a free-wheeling interview with KSL radio talk show host Doug Wright yesterday. (I listened to much of it while driving, but turned it off when Cannon started going all bongo-bongo about his colleagues who won’t back Prez Bush’s troop “surge.”)

Why should we let him have a mulligan? It isn’t the first time his brain and mouth have short-circuited.

Readers with a good memory will recall Cannon’s crazed comments last year as the Mark Foley scandal unfolded in Congress. Foley got caught sending creepy, sexual e-mails to underage male pages. Cannon blamed parents and the teens themselves for much of the problem. Said that moms and dads ought to monitor their kids better. Sort of a new take on the old argument that a female rape victim somehow invites an attack.

A bit of hell broke out back then. And now this. While this city is healing, while Trolley shooting victims have barely been buried, while Talovic’s grieving parents must live with never knowing what set off their son, Cannon lets his big mouth run wild with zero proof of the boy’s political or social background.

One thing we do know right now: As my friend and new Salt Lake Tribune metro columnist Rebecca Walsh wrote least week, Talovic is a cypher.
He went to work each day, he grunted a few words to his dad in the hallway the morning of the attack. He had few friends. Other than that, the 18-year-old, so far is a mystery.

Except that he and his family are Muslim. And you know what that means to people intent on spending every minute on earth in fear and suspicion: Instant terrorist.

This is what happens when a politician lives in a totally safe district. Democrat or Republican. See, I’m an equal opportunity critic of politicians who live so safely and smugly they never have to watch their regularly re-elected backsides. This holds true for Cannon, who can besmirch a whole segment of the population (parents, Muslims) and never have to answer when Election Day rolls around.

Unless, of course, voters in Utah County actually believe his absurd claims. That’s the fright of it all, now isn’t it?

Warning all! This is a cliche alert:

I’m sorry, but I can’t resist using this hackneyed, overused image. GOP Republican presidential candidate and Utah hero Mitt Romney is the “Where’s Waldo” of the 2008 election.

(I’ve never fallen back on this particular cliche in any of my writing, so I’m allowing myself to use it this once.)

Seriously, Romney keeps popping up here, then there. You turn the page and there he is again, trying to hide among the masses he once played to on social issues like abortion, gay rights, and gun control. But in just the last six months Romney’s philosophies and positions have shifted so wildly you just don’t know where the guy will turn up next. Flip the page, and you’ll see him tap dancing for fundamental Christians, whose support he badly needs if he’s to come out of the 2008 pack alive.

Let’s see. Of late, Romney has turned solidly anti-abortion, even though he catered to moderates and liberals in both parties in getting elected as Massachusets governor in 2002. Back then, he invoked his own mother’s position on female autonomy in family planning. Women have a right to choose, he said. Now he’s changed his mind. Romney says he arrived at his new pro-life position after learning more about the moral implications of cloning. That process has shown him the value of all human life, which means he can no longer honor a pro-choice position.

And now, we have the latest flip-flop: Gun rights. Romney has recently been ga-ga about guns, but had to acknowledge on Sunday he only joined the National Rife Association last August. Twelve years ago, when running for he U.S. Senate against Ted Kennedy, Romney advocated gun control, including a five-day waiting period for weapons sales and a ban on certain assault rifles.

Oops! There he is again, trying to find a place to fit in.

You can read more on the record of Mitt/Waldo here. The Massachusetts media has been tougher on Romney than their Utah counterparts. Part of that is due to big, metro media markets. Politics, and by extension, political coverage, are no games for wimps. There’s no call to be nice and understanding as you often see in Utah press coverage. Basically, it’s like this: If you want to run with the wolves, you can’t pee with the puppies.

And speaking of being nice about Romney, and tolerant of his Mormonism, his battle with the unbendable right-wing evangelical Christian movement in this country is just beginning. Most people in Utah don’t seem to understand this. On radio talk shows, in opinion pieces and letters on newspaper editorial pages, the population here keeps scratching its head wondering why the anti-Romney, anti-Mormon forces can’t just tolerate his differences. You know, live and let live.

If you are part of that camp (and don’t most people like to think of themselves as tolerant of others’ views?), I highly recommend you read this new book: “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” by Chris Hedges.

Hedges earned a degree from Harvard Divinity School and was a foreign correspondent for The New York Times for two decades.

Hedges’ thesis: That “Christian fascists” are determined to fulfill a widely stated goal of 25 years ago to use mainstream religious denominations, the media and the U.S. government to build a global Christian empire.

In their simple view, Mormons are not Christian. Mormons have not been “saved” by accepting Jesus as their lord, nor do Mormons see this very public act as a required tenet of their faith. Mormons, indeed, have “testimonies” of Christ and share their faith-promoting stories regularly with fellow believers. It’s similar to the “witnessing” of evangelicals, but not nearly the same. Having lived in Southern Baptist-saturated Texas for six years, I can attest to this fact: No amount of spinning and changing and evolving by Romney will budge the fundamental Christians on this issue.

Hedges’ research on this topic is fascinating. There are now, he writes, at least 70 million evangelicals in the U.S., which is about one-quarter of the population. They attend more tha 200,000 evangelical churches. Hedges’ particular focus is on a branch of evangelism knows as “dominionism,” which “seeks to redefine traditional democratic and Christian terms and concepts to fit an ideology that calls on the radical church to take political power.”

Dominionists (they take their name from the Book of Genesis reference in which God gives man “dominion” over all creation) are relatively small in number but growing in power. They control at least six national TV networks, Hedges writes, and nearly all of the country’s 2,000 religious radio stations. They also have taken over the Southern Baptist Convention.

Read the book. It’s downright chilling. If you embrace the historic pluralism of this nation, if you see value in accepting others regardless of their beliefs, if you are downright confused as to why born-again Christians can’t tolerate Romney, this book is for you.

It may help explain why Romney can play all the Waldo he wants, but with this particular — and deeply misguided — religious minority, he’s going nowhere.

No one yet in the media has offered the possibility that Trolley Square shooter Sulejman Talovic might have suffered a schizophrenic outburst of some sort on Monday night.

I’m not trying to be flip or funny. I mean it.

It’s possible that Talovic’s loner personality and brooding countenance could have everything to do with a serious mental illness taking hold in his mind and body. Schizophrenia, for instance, often shows up in victims in their late teens or early 20s. Parents who have known this cruel disease in their children will often say they had no outward signs until the first real behavorial meltdown occurred.

If the Trolley Square massacre doesn’t scream out “mental meltdown,” I don’t know what qualifies.

I’m not any abnormal psychology expert. But I’ve certainly battled depression and anxiety with the help of a doctor’s care, talk therapy, plenty of exercise, and prescription meds. My mother’s side of the family is plumb-full of chronic depression. Some of them have had the good sense to get help; others, well, I’ll just say they’re still struggling.

We will never know what demons spoke to Talovic the night he sprayed Trolley Square with buckshot and took out five good people in the process. I’m just thinking the psychotic epidsode or complete breakdown explanation makes as much sense as any. For me anyway, it seems to explain the random nature of it all, the cold and determined brutality.

It’s also possible that Talovic’s parents — with limited income and with their own challenges as Bosnian refugees of adapting to a whole new culture, finding work, helping their four kids adjust — simply did not see or understand warning signs of mental illness in their oldest child.

My thoughts are just that: Mine. Any mental condition this killer suffered will never fully explain or excuse what happened. But it does give pause. And it does make me think how limited we are in recognizing, understanding, and accepting mental illness.

Observing the Utah Legislature can feel like you’re standing in one big locker room with a bunch of boys snapping towels at each other’s behinds.

Case in point: Check out Pleasant Grove Republican Rep. Craig Frank’s blog under a February 4 post titled “Who’s Packin’ on the Hill?” (A tip of the hat to LaVarr Webb and his Utah Policy Daily subscription newsletter for sending me to this site.)

What’s wrong with this picture(s)?

For one thing, the legislators are not identified. But then, the anonymity is part of the little-boy charm of conceal and carry. You don’t want anyone to actually KNOW you have a gun in your waistband. That would spoil the element of surprise. You remember the game of cops and robbers, dontcha? You wouldn’t want the bad guys (Democrats?) to find you out.

What’s worse is the element of poor taste and total insensitivity while this city, this state, is still reeling from the massacre three days ago at Trolley Square. Five innocent people shot dead by a lone teen gunman. Four remain hospitalized with serious to critical injuries. Survivors of the dead are holding press conferences to describe their grief and to sketch the lives of their loved ones to the public. They stand before the cameras, run their hands through their hair, and sob.

Meanwhile, the dead gunman’s family tries to explain to the world how being Bosnian and Muslim had nothing to do with Sulejman Talovic’s rampage, and to please refrain from acting out survivors’ rage against their immigrant community in Salt Lake City.

But ha-ha-ha, we’ve got our locker room lawmakers yucking it up with their on-line poster for packin’ heat.

Check out the posted comments, too, where our gun-toting pols are lauded as heroes and brand names of handguns are bandied about and compared like so many flavors of beer (or perhaps more befitting of our Legislature — ice cream.)

These people are pathetic.

I’m not writing this to engage in another fruitless debate with gun freaks about their Second Amendment rights. And I am certainly not interested at this moment in dissecting whether more people should or should not be carrying weapons as a result of this tragedy. That discussion has already begun for many. But for me, it’s far too soon to get my arms around those topics. I remain numb, sick in the gut over this whole horrid event.

And to anyone who wants to argue that Frank and his friends can’t be criticized because he posted the item a full week before the shootings occurred, OK. I’ll give him that. He couldn’t have known, of course. But then ask yourself this: Wouldn’t a person with a half-ounce of sense and a smidgen of decorum remove the item from his blog in the wake of Trolley Square?

It’s worth asking. It’s also worth wondering why we keep electing to the Legislature a bunch of latent adolescents who would rather measure each others’ guns than effect positive change in a deeply troubled society.