The Economy Sucks? Seriously?

[Legislator Disconnect] I'm still a bit agog at the way state Senate President Michael Waddoups summed up Utah's so-called life in opening remarks this week at the Legislature:

"I prefer to look on the bright side. Things aren't as gloomy as some would have us believe. Revenues are down a little, but we can still eat, we can have homes, we have health care, we have color TV ... and most still have jobs."

A letter writer to today's Salt Lake Tribune got the same uneasy feeling, and put it in words.

Waddoups, owner of a successful property management company, has no fear of how he'll find his next meal. I wish he could stroll down our little stretch of Main Street, between 200 and 300 South sometime. Bunches of people on the sidewalk outside my City Weekly office window have no health care, color TV or jobs.

Two nights ago, I called the SLPD to intervene when two street people got into a loud scuffle near the TRAX Gallivan Plaza stop. The man and woman were both seriously impaired--weaving around, her screaming at him, him ignoring her. He had taken her black handbag. She was screaming for him to give it back. He kept on walking, crossing into traffic, with her about 20 feet behind. Commuters on the train platform stood and stared. Did anyone pull out a cell phone and call the cops? Nah.

Ten minutes later, Reese the police dispatcher called me back at my desk. Officers had found the man, with the handbag, walking through Gallivan Plaza. But they couldn't find the woman. I couldn't give a great description of her--I had seen her from my second-floor window, but only from behind. She wore a red parka, was about 5-foot-3. She had black hair.

In spite of our Republican lawmakers' glass-half-full world view, there is plenty of pessimism to go around on this little city block. Perhaps Waddoups, as the most powerful man in the state Senate, could help all his cheery prosperity trickle down to these parts. (Holly Mullen)

DNC Protester Profiles: Denver Food Not Bombs

[Democratic National Convention] "It's been a unique experience," says Denver Food Not Bombs organizer Mackenzy Lauren, of the convention in town. "I just hope it never, ever happens again."

Lauren's group normally just distributes simple meals that otherwise would have been thrown away, usually bagels and bananas, twice a week to low-income and homeless in Denver (Salt Lake City has its own Food Not Bombs group, as well). But the Denver FNB chapter has kicked into overdrive since the convention started routing the homeless elsewhere in preparation for the convention--some critics charging they have been swept out of downtown areas.

For Lauren its no allegation. "The homeless have totally been fucked by all of this," she says, of the homeless population's routines and squalid homes destroyed by the city's convention makeover. That's why since the convention started, they've made their operation daily--distributing about 2,000 meals a day since Sunday. "It's really sad that our city has been invaded. I guess its good that the city gets all these tax breaks but its not good for the residents."

Well at least Lauren can relax and know that after the convention quits championing the working class and the poor, Denver's homeless might get back what little normalcy they had before the DNC rolled in. (Eric S. Peterson)

A New Audience for a Salt Lake Librarian

[Film] Happily retired in Torrey, Utah, Chip Ward is turning cartwheels.

Make those figurative cartwheels--but Ward is thrilled, to say the least.

Actor and filmmaker Emilio Estevez recently bought the rights to an essay Ward wrote last year detailing how public libraries have become defacto shelters for the homeless in the two decades that state and federal social service budgets have been slashed. The essay first ran here. Since then, the Los Angeles Times and various library journals have published the piece. Working title of Estevez's film is The Public. Apparently, Estevez will take the bones of Ward's non-fiction piece and build a drama around it by setting the action in a big public library and by tracing lives of the homeless who use the building for shelter, safety and basic human interaction.

Estevez is in pre-production now and plans to begin filming in April. This film industry site details how producer Harvey Weinstein encouraged Estevez to follow up his work in last year's Bobby with something of similar social and cultural significance. (Bobby, which I did not see, generally received lackluster reviews and had a poor run at the box office. But it's hard to quibble with the topic.)

Ward retired last summer from his longtime position as assistant director of the Salt Lake City Main Library. He's a passionate environmentalist with an extensive writing background on issues ranging from water and wetlands conservation, to Southern Utah wilderness to anti-nuclear activism. Ward and his wife Linda, a retired school teacher, realized their dream of living near Capitol Reef National Park when they moved to Torrey last year.

In an e-mail today announcing the Estevez project, Ward merely wrote: "Holy cow. It's actually going to be a movie!"

That's Emilio in the photo at left, and Chip at the right. (Holly Mullen)