Thursday is For Linking.

If you want to see why I read blogs, please check out commentor Catherine's 10:35a.m. post at Roger L. Simon.

I was pelted by monkey scat in both the Philippines and Thailand way back in the mid-eighties. Now I know why the mere sight of Tony McAullife revolts me. I guess when you don't have anything else to throw...

Thanks, Catherine.

Back to the present: Once again, I spent the day in Salt Lake City at the Utah Leaugue of Cities and Towns convention. I have never spoken to so many councilmen, mayors, and managers in one day and likely won't get the chance to do it again. It's quite an education to find out that a mayor of a town of fifty thousand people has many of the same concerns and needs of one of five hundred; growth, water, and citizen involvement were recurring favorites. ALL of the people I spoke to were interested in ways to encourage citizen participation, feedback, and turnout. I listened to a luncheon address by DanJones, who is the most prominent pollster in the state.

I didn't know he was a Democrat until today. Not that that's a baaaaad thing - he's THE authority on political races, business trends, and public opinion here and has been since long before I arrived here in 1992. He's got a real thing going about the 2000 election. Don't mention "Sandra Day O'Connor" within his hearing -trust me on this. He doesn't like the electoral college. I may email him and ask how he figures having nine coastal cities elect the president will be better? No thanks, Dan.

He closed with the results of a poll he had conducted - the eight issues most important to Utahns. I didn't have a notepad (some blogger, eh?) but the top two were security and economy, the bottom three were taxes (mechanisms, not burden - our property tax/fees/sales/income mix SUCKS), the need for honesty (transparency and access, not just ethical action) in governance, and last at number eight was the desire of the people to see a return to civility in partisan politics. Remember that Utah is 80% Republican - there's still enough vitriol here for civility to come up as a response in a random answer poll.

What do I want to see, come this November? No close elections. Please. Let there be winners, losers, and an absence of lawyers.

Is that too much to ask?

UPDATE: Michael Moore is coming to town next month. I'll go out on a limb here - I don't think there will be any standing O's. UVSC is five minutes from here.