My Work Made the News! (But not for a good reason)

As some of you may be aware, last weekend in Logan a small canal on a hill-side breached, causing a landslide that destroyed millions of dollars' worth of property and took three lives. You can read all about it on any Utah news website if you are interested in further information. A few days later, some citizens of Utah County contacted KSL expressing their concern about the safety of the unlined, opened Provo Reservoir Canal (aka, the Murdock Canal), which runs from Provo Canyon to the Point of the Mountain. (It is the same canal that runs behind John and Mary's former home in Highland.)

You can read KSL's story and comments on the story here. The main complaint by the residents is that they said they were promised five years ago that the Canal would be enclosed, but nothing has happened since then. I have been intimately involved in the details of the project described in this news story for the past 5 1/2 of my 6 years as an attorney with the U.S. Department of the Interior. It's always nice to see your work reported in the news, but not necessarily under these circumstances and when the story and the comments to the story are negative and/or uninformed. Because of some discrepancies and inaccuracies in KSL's story and especially the reader comments, I thought I'd share the real story. I've written this as a really bad fairy tale in an effort to keep names and events vague because this is an ongoing project. Enjoy.

Once upon a time, a long time ago (as in the 1930s), the Kingdom of the United States bought an opened, unlined canal in one of its northern-central provinces. The Kingdom owned many such canals, and so by law entered into an agreement with a small non-profit provincial organization to take care of the canal. Over the next 60 years, many people died or otherwise suffered serious harm as a consequence of swimming, wading, or diving illegally in the canal. About ten years ago, the provincial organization decided it was time to enclose the canal and bring greater safety to its citizens. However, because the provincial organization did not actually own the canal, the construction costs and taxes that would be assessed to the provincial organization for this project were far more expensive than the provincial organization could afford. Consequently, the provincial organization sought permission from the Kingdom to take title to the canal and further sought financial assistance for the enclosure from four other organizations. Following a year of negotiations the Kingdom agreed to transfer title, and the other 4 organizations agreed to provide the necessary financial assistance to the provincial organization. For the next five years the Kingdom, the provincial organization, and the 4 other organizations met weekly, and oft-times multi-weekly, to negotiate the details of the title transfer and financial arrangements. They were within months of consummating the transfer and financial arrangements when, suddenly, the provincial organization discovered that this transaction would result in a tax upon it of a third of the cost of enclosing the canal. (And if you are confused by now, you have good reason.) Paraphrasing from Beowulf, this was not a good bargain. Following 18 hours of discussion over 3 days, the Kingdom benevolently agreed to retain title to the canal and oversee the enclosure of the canal so that the provincial organization would not be impossibly burdened by the taxes it would have been otherwise assessed. Coincidentally, another major event that occurred at this time was that the local provincial government informed the provincial organization that the local provincial government would be willing to consider paying half the cost of the enclosure so long as the provincial organization could show by mid-August that the enclosure project was ready to go. And so, for the past eight weeks the Kingdom, the provincial organization, and the 4 organizations have been meeting up to three times a week to finalize the agreements for the enclosure of the canal and the financial arrangements. They are just weeks away from the deadline to meet with the local provincial government, and now the provincial organization is arguing that the Kingdom is asserting itself too much into the details of the enclosure of the canal -- which, I must now remind the reader, is still owned and may forever be owned by the Kingdom. The provincial organization is also complaining that if and when it finally takes title to the canal, the costs of owning, operating, and maintaining the canal will be too much for them to bear alone, and the other 4 organizations should therefore be obligated to help pay for those costs (including the provincial organization's taxes) in perpetuity. Given that the other 4 organizations are collectively paying for almost half the cost of the enclosure, these organizations have vehemently disagreed that they should pay the provincial organization's additional costs that are simply incidental to its ownership of the canal. And so, as of this writing, the Kingdom, the provincial organization, and the other 4 organizations may never live happily ever after. The End.

Writer's notes: Contrary to the provincial organization's characterization of the delay in the KSL story, this is clearly not about working out "little details" nor, as some citizens have suggested through their comments, about delays caused by the Kingdom. No, the "little details" causing the delay are none other than the provincial organization's financial problems, including the $50 million tax problem that it should have recognized and resolved 5 years ago and that the Kingdom has now voluntarily agreed to help resolve. Indeed, assuming the provincial organization and the other 4 organizations can cooperate with each other, the Kingdom will accomplish in 2 months what has taken all the organizations 5 years to try to do. But of course, none of this was in the story or the comments. And you wonder why I'm a little frustrated.

Citizens of the World

Just days before Iran’s election, Jason Jones, a correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, traveled to Iran to hang out and do a little reporting on the election and other goings-on in Iran. As an abashed Jon Stewart reminded his viewers each night, the Daily Show producers did not know that Jason would be in Iran during a most exciting but quite dangerous and volatile time in the country’s history. Despite those dangers, this also presented an amazing opportunity for the Daily Show to show a side of Iran that we might have otherwise never seen. You can see the 4 parts of this series using the following links: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; and Part 4. Although this series was rife with the usual sardonic humor, silliness, and other antics you expect from the Daily Show, it was impossible to not feel touched by the beauty of the people of Iran and to realize how much we share in terms of ideas, expectations, desires, dreams, and hopes for a better more peaceful future.

As I continue to think about this series, I am taken back to my travels around the United States and the world: 39 states, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, France, England, Wales, and most recently China. On my last day in China, our family happened to be walking through a very small town during the school recess time. Somewhat to my surprise we passed by a number of games of Chinese jumprope. (I guess I didn't really think that Chinese jumprope was actually a Chinese game.) Watching those kids took me back 20 years to when I was their age playing the exact same game on my playground at recess at Cherry Hill Elementary School in Orem, Utah. I realize that this may seem insignificant to most, but it left such an indelible impression on me – one generation and literally a world apart (over 6000 miles) I found something I could totally relate to with these children.

Positive experiences like these were abundant in China. The one annoyance I felt throughout our two weeks there were all the people who wanted to touch us and take our pictures. As I've thought about this since returning home, I have come to understand that behind this behavior is their enormous desire to connect with the western world, and for a variety of reasons we westerners who visit their country ARE that opportunity – maybe the only opportunity they’ll ever have – for that connection. Many Chinese nationals have never left and probably never will leave China, much less the provinces and areas they’re in, so seeing western culture is almost unheard of unless we come to them. And truthfully, many of us in western society are equally clueless about eastern culture, so making those connections, here or there, is really important for all of us as we come to understand that we are all together sharing this earth. Indeed, while we should acknowledge and celebrate our differences, those differences should never be an impediment to those things that connect us as human beings–the things that bring us happiness, sadness, excitement, serenity, anger, and love. This world is held together by the tapestry of humanity, and one loose or stray thread would eventually cause the whole tapestry to fall apart.

And so, back to Iran, I think it’s fair to say that Jon Stewart, the studio audience, and everyone who has seen this series feels an overwhelming sense of compassion for the Iranian people, and we hope for a swift and peaceful end to the violence that has marred this country in recent weeks, because Iran's success in achieving peace will help to effect more peace around the world.