Picto Diary - 12 to 19 February 2022 - Grass Roots Politics

Above: Carson Jorgensen, Party Chair, Republican Party, UT. Lincoln Day Dinner, Summit County Ledges Event Center, 12 February 2022.

A year or so ago, a friend, KCB, persuaded me to become a delegate to the Utah Pub Party from my Park City neighborhood. I had never been involved in grass roots politics, but, with the country trending in a direction of economic and cultural decline, I thought that becoming a delegate could serve as a platform to have influence on at least slowing the country's ongoing free fall.

Utah has been reliably Republican in recent years, but too much on the RINO side of the ledger for me. State office holders such as Blake Moore, Pierre Delecto, and erstwhile congressman, Mia Love have been vocal in their dislike of former president Donald Trump. Trump, I believe did more to stop America's free fall economic and cultural decline, than any president in memory, including Ronald Reagan. He did this by making America energy independent, tax cuts, deregulation, appointing a bevy of strict, contstructionist judges, strengthening military, confronting China on unfair trade, border control, middle east peace agreements and halting North Korean and Iranian adventurism.

As it happened, I did not do anything as a delegate. I had some excuse (contrived?) to avoid attending the 2020 state convention. That was the convention where a large number of delegates booed Delecto when he spoke and where Carson Jorgensen, a young MAGA supporting rancher, was elected as head of the Utah Republican Party. I viewed Delecto's being booed and Jorgensen's election to head the local party as positive developments in heretofore milquetoast state Republican Party politics. Note: Delecto and Mwah (sic) overlapped in Paris, France on LDS missions and at Harvard Business School. We have not remained in contact.

After the 2020 convention, I was no longer a delegate, but I remained on the party email list. When I received the invite to the Summit County Lincoln Day Luncheon today, I took it as an opportunity to follow through on that earlier impulse I had to experience local politics, particularly in view of the party's seeming turn to a more principled conservative stance to confront the US decline problem.

I did not expect to meet my friend KCB at the luncheon, but she was there. She arranged for me to sit next to my new US Congressman (at least if he is reelected in November), John Curtis. Currently, my congressman is Blake Moore (District 1), but redistricting will move me (and all of Summit County south of I-80), to Utah District 3, which position is currently held by Curtis. I didn't have much time to talk to Curtis as guest speakers began remarks right as we sat down to eat. I asked him to speak to our ROMEO group, LSDM. He seemed pleased with the speaking invitation. I told him I'd work through his staff to book a date.

LSDM has had a number of Utah state level politicians as speakers... Blake Moore, Jon Huntsman, John (frugal) Dougall, Mia Love and going back a few years, Jake Garn, come immediately to mind. On the Democrat side, congressional candidate Donna McAleer and former State Senator, Jim Dabakis have been LSDM speakers. Curtis is being "primaried" by four candidates. The primary is in June of this year. Now that I have met Curtis, and that he is the incumbent in my new congressional district, it will be interesting to bet a better bead on that race, starting by, hopefully, hearing Curtis himself speak to LSDM.

While I'm a newbie to Utah grass roots politics, I haven't been totally inactive on national issues. On 26 January of this year, I attended a fundraising event for Wyoming congressional candidate Harriett Hageman, primary challenger to Liz Cheney, at the home of author/investor Peter Thiel in Miami Beach Florida. A few weeks prior, Harriett Hageman had spoken to LSDM. While I was in Miami, I was able to join a luncheon with congressman Gary Palmer (Alabama 6), a member of the Republican Congressional Leadership Caucus. After the luncheon, I was introduced to Jim Jordan, Ohio Congressman and pretender to the Speaker of the House position should the Republicans retake the House in 2022.

Back to today's Lincoln luncheon in Coalville. I was very impressed with the young Carson Jorgensen. He noted that he never had an intention to get into politics, but, thinking of his children and future grandchildren he could not abide the United States ongoing trending to globalist, socialist mediocrity. His speech was short, pointed and sincere... not like a typical pol trying to please everyone.

I don't know what the next step would be in getting involved in grass roots Republican politics, but, I'm no quitter, I finally quit living on dreams. I'm hungry for laughter, and here ever after, I'm after whatever the other life brings.

PS. Because of an extended, lengthy presentation by Utah Attorney General, Sean Reyes, I was unable to stay at the Lincoln luncheon beyond the designated end time for the meeting to hear other candidates speak. One notable remark from Reyes, was his amusing, self-deprecating comparison of his own $15 el cheapo cowboy hat to the $1500 beaver hat being worn by Jorgensen. Whether the comparison between the two Utah political leaders' cowboy hats extends to other dimensions of their personas and capabilities, I cannot say.

Above: Skiers lined up for Silver Lake Express Lift. Deer Valley, UT. 13 February 2022

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Queue waiting for Silver Lake lift pre start at 8:40 AM. Not the greatest image, but, the line goes way back there.

Epic day. 2x 'Gazer, Orion, Magnet, Reward, J'elle.

Super Bowl day. Pepsi billed it as the greatest 12 minutes in music the world has ever seen.(Poop dog, Mary Obliged, Doctor Dregs, Ken drink Le Bar, Junior Mint and 4 Bits.)

Above: Bishop and Golf. Mountaineer Lift, Deer Valley, UT. 15 February 2022

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On Mountaineer Lift with Golf. 52-year friend and I agreed that we each had a lot to be grateful for.

Occasionally, usually while reflecting, sitting alone on a ski lift chair, I think of the growing coarseness of people interacting with one another as seen in America today. This AM, while scrolling through my Facebook feed, I noted a WaPo story about a man of a certain age in a movie theater who was bothered by the illuminated smart phone being used by a young man in the seat in front of him. The man of a certain age purportedly asked the younger man to turn off his phone so he could watch the movie without distraction. Words were exchanged and the young man threw his popcorn at the older man. The older man pulled out a pistol and shot the younger man in the chest. The younger man perished.

In no way would I affirm that the older man was justified in shooting the younger man. Still, the younger man was rude to be using his illuminated phone in a setting where others were trying to watch a movie. This sets me to thinking... what should be the response of an individual witnessing a rude act. Should he just shrug and let it go? Should he politely, or even otherwise, call the rude person to account?

A week ago, I was standing in the singles line at Carpenter Lift, Deer Valley, at 8:45 AM. The lift usually starts at 8:55 AM, so I had ten minutes to wait. There were three skiers ahead of me and a dozen behind me. The adjacent three lines, with parties of two to four skiers, were backed up to eight or ten parties in each line. Do the math... interpolate... sixty or so skiers were waiting for the four-person chair lift to start up.

Deer Valley employs a "maze manager" at Carpenter Lift to ensure that all the seats on the chair are filled, particularly when there are a lot of skiers waiting to mount the lift. The maze manager, for example, will match a party of three with a single, or a party of two with two singles. This process ensures that skiers get up the hill in the fastest possible way, or, put another way, that there are no empty seats on the chair lift.

A couple of minutes after the lift opened, I was standing at the head of the singles line waiting for the lift maze manager to instruct me to join the next two party or three-party group. I noted a two-party group approaching, but, the maze manager, a woman of a certain age, did not beckon me, or the single behind me to join them. They were followed by a party of four. I figured that the maze manager must have been distracted, so I shuffled out, intending to ski around the passing foursome, to join the twosome just ahead, two fifty-something women. At that point, the maze manager did become alert. She said, "that's a foursome, you can't go with them." I pointed at the twosome just ahead of them and skied around the foursome to join the two women. After the three of us passed through the RFID ticket gate, we proceeded towards the waiting spot to mount the next passing chair. I was on the left, the two women to my right. The woman immediately to my right abruptly, and rudely, skied in front of me to block me from joining her and her friend on the next chair. I quickly moved to the middle and shuffled up between the two skiers. "I gather you want me to be seated in the middle?", I said? One of the women said, "we want to go up, just the two of us, alone." I said, "well OK, I'll take the next lift chair, you guys can do what you want." So, five empty seats on two lift chairs ascended the mountain with a pretty good crowd of people still waiting for the lift behind.

Unwritten skier protocol more or less says that when there are only a few people, say ten or less, waiting for the lift, that going up as a single, or a twosome, is no big deal. In fact, the maze manager generally stands aside under those circumstances and lets the skiers sort themselves out. But, when there are a lot of skiers waiting at the lift, the imperative of filling all the seats takes hold. That's why the resort has a maze manager in the first place... to fill all of the lift chair seats.

The twosome who didn't want me on the chair must have "conspired" with the maze manager... eg. told her to the effect that they wanted to ride up alone together... two people on a four-seat chair. Otherwise, they would have been indifferent to my presence next to them as we mounted the chair. After all, everyone knows that on a crowded lift, filling all of the chair seats is the default procedure. So, I surmised, the reason that the maze manager didn't beckon me, and the single following me, to join the two women skiers was not because she was distracted, but, because she was "in on it."

All of the people to whom I have relayed this seeming "first world" incident have agreed with me that the two women seeking to have a four-person chair to themselves were rude showing little empathy to the fifty or sixty skiers behind who would have to wait, admittedly, a tiny bit longer to mount the lift. Notwithstanding, my interlocutors said, "It's a little thing, you probably should have let it go... you should have just waited for the maze manager to instruct you when to go. There are always rude people, but, fortunately, most people are nice and follow the rules."

There is a strong argument for the "let it go" approach made by my feedback group. Alternatively, at what point should rude people be held to account? If society is coarsening, as I believe it is, maybe some push back - short of shooting someone in the chest - is in order lest rudeness, frog in the pot style, become the norm. Just sayin'.

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Deer Valley, UT. 16 February 2022.

Above Over the Counter Cafe. Salt Lake City, UT. 16 February 2022

Honoring NH Cousin #1.

Above: Fun with Granny. Peurto Vallarta, Mexico. 16 February 2022.

Image by Kessler (nice shot!).

Above: First Tracks Kaffe. Stein Eriksen Lodge. Deer Valley, UT. 17 February 2022.

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Addendum:

One of our Big Dogs took Jimmy's school, used Jimmy's bike for a test. Guy showed Jimmy a thing or two until Jimmy took it away. Kind of funny, guy (Ron from San Diego) could ride a heavyweight GS up a tree, then back it down. Not all talent has to be on a race course.

Dr. G,
Denver, CO