Hey guys, we’re hosting a reading at Sam Weller’s (254 S Main St) on Wed., July 7th, at 6:00 PM. Free to all.

Here’s the scoop on the book and author.

Call us at 801-328-2586 for any questions.

Holy Hullabaloos: A Road Trip to the Battlegrounds of the Church/State Wars

Prayer in schools? Animal sacrifices in public? Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn? Jay Wexler has seen it all . . .

What happens when a professor of church/state law decides to get out of his stuffy office and hit the road in search of the places and people responsible for some of the country’s most controversial Supreme Court cases about this hot-button issue?

In Holy Hullabaloos, Jay Wexler visits Amish farmers in Wisconsin who were fined for keeping their kids out of school; drinks at a bar in Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose liquor license was challenged by a nearby Armenian church; and attends a public high school football game in east Texas where students once prayed before kickoff. He stops by Hialeah, Florida, where laws were passed to keep a Santeria church from performing animal sacrifices; visits a publicly funded Muslim school in downtown Cleveland; and checks out the site of a six-foot granite monument of the Ten Commandments erected on the Austin Capitol grounds near the Supreme Court.

With a mix of awe and skepticism as well as large doses of humor, Jay Wexler searches for what really happened in some of our gnarliest disputes about just how high to build the wall between Church and government.

Jay Wexler teaches at the Boston University School of Law. He studied religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School and law at Stanford, and worked as a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He has published numerous academic articles, essays, and reviews, as well as nearly three dozen short stories and humor pieces in outlets such as Spy and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Wexler lives in Boston.

Recently, Jim Matheson put up a website, Keep Utah Safe From Nukes:
“As Republican Senate candidates Lee and Bridgewater cavalierly endorse resumed nuclear testing, let’s be clear: Nuclear testing has left Utah a legacy of lies, betrayal, illness and death. It is both unsafe and unnecessary. Utah has been safe from nuclear testing since 1992, and we’re committed to keeping our air, water, land and families safe. In an age of reduced nuclear arsenals, no Utahn should suffer or die to re-prove the universally accepted fact that nuclear weapons are devastatingly powerful.”
Hard to believe Mathesone said that, let alone stuck it on the Internet over his name. Nice to see him supporting Utah, instead of the Republican Party. Let’s give him some positive reinforcement, before his spine wilts again:

http://keeputahsafefromnukes.org/

Looking for 2009 SLC Santa Pub Crawl Info

Website: http://sites.google.com/site/slcsantapubcrawl/.

Email: (SLCSantaPubCrawl@gmail.com) SLCSantaPubCrawl (at) gmail (dot) com

Twitter: Follow us on twitter, too!

The 2009 Traditional ( Official) Santa Pub Crawl is Friday, December 18.  Traditionally, the Pub Crawl is the last Friday before Christmas.

We will “assemble” at O’Shucks at 7:00 pm. At 7:30 pm the Pub Crawl begins. We head north for Temple Square ( It would not be a Pub Crawl without a visit to the hallowed site of Temple Square!)

1.) O’Shucks

2.) Temple Square

3.) The Beerhive Pub ( 128 South Main)

4.) Murphy’s ( 140 South Main)

5.) Bambara ( 15 West 200 South)

6.) Red Door ( 57 West 200 South)

7.) The Hotel ( 155 West 200 South)

8.) Poplar Street Pub ( 242 South 200 West)

9.) Red Rock ( 254 South 200 West)

10.) Lumpy’s ( 150 West Pierpont)

11.) Sand Bar ( 122 West Pierpont)

12.) Junior’s Tavern ( 30 East 300 South)

13.) Downtown Hookah Lounge ( 268 South Main)

14.) Keys on Main ( 242 South Main) SING A LONG WITH Hundreds of Santas

This Pioneer Day, Drinking Liberally will be celebrating in true Utah style. Our party/fundraiser will feature the hilarious quintessential Utahn Sister Dottie S. Dixon (http://www.sisterdottie.com)!

$15 dollars will get you in the door (or $10 if you bring a casserole for the casserole contest that ‘casserole connoisseur’ Sister Dottie will be judging), which includes potent punch, or if punch isn’t your thing we’ll have other drinks available. And we can’t forget the jello – we’ll have some little cups of jello for you to try.

There will be a haiku contest as well, so start thinking of your Utah-themed haikus. We’ll also have a great view of the fireworks at the baseball stadium.

We highly encourage you to take Trax!

What: Party/fundraiser celebrating Utah in Drinking Liberally style

Who: You and your liberal friends + Sister Dottie S. Dixon

Cost: $15 per person, or $10 per person with a casserole (entrance includes drinks)

When: July 24th at 6pm (We’re trying to beat the crowds for parking since it’s so close to the baseball stadium)

Where: Get onto 1300 South, then turn North onto West Temple. Turn East into parking lot of Associated General Contractors and continue back toward the warehouse.

Parking: Take Trax if possible, but if you’re driving there’s an adult corrections building just north of the warehouse that usually has some parking. The baseball game starts at 7:05, so if you’re driving try to get there early.

If you would like to read the interview transcript, visit PBS.org.

BILL MOYERS: Well, on the basis of the past performance, and on the basis of your own experience in the industry, can we believe them when they say they will do these things voluntarily?

WENDELL POTTER: I don’t think you can. I think that they will implement things that make them more efficient. And that enhance shareholder value. And if what they do contributes to that, maybe so. But now, they do say, they are in favor of an individual mandate. They want us all to be insured.

BILL MOYERS: For the government to require every one of us to have some policy.

WENDELL POTTER: Exactly. And that sounds great. It is an important thing that everyone be enrolled in some kind of a benefit plan. They don’t want a public plan. They want all the uninsured to have to be enrolled in a private insurance plan. They want– they see those 50 million people as potentially 50 million new customers. So they’re in favor of that. They see this as a way to essentially lock them into the system, and ensure their profitability in the future. The strategy is as it was in 1993 and ‘94, to conduct this charm offensive on the surface. But behind the scenes, to use front groups and third-party advocates and ideological allies. And those on Capitol Hill who are aligned with them, philosophically, to do the dirty work. To demean and scare people about a government-run plan, try to make people not even remember that Medicare, their Medicare program, is a government-run plan that has operated a lot more efficiently.

If you want to take an awesome class that will brighten your environmental awareness and sharpen your writing and communications skills, check out this pageflake. You can even take a listen to my podcast!

http://www.pageflakes.com/jessica_cox/