June 2014

The Arabic word, Laziz, means tasty, enjoyable, and lighthearted. Derek Kitchen and Moudi Sbeity couldn’t have chosen a better word to label their brand of Middle Eastern spreads. I first became aware of these guys in December when Utah’s ban on marria …

There is a phrase I learned as a wildland firefighter, “hydrate or die.” We said it to each other mostly in jest, though in the back of our minds we must have known that, in our line of work, it carried literal truth. Some of the men I worked with carr …

At the time of writing, the ibogaine had seemed to work. Guion’s story reported eight months of post-treatment sobriety. Her daughter had even begun making plans to travel and teach. But tempering the good news, Guion confronted the fact that addiction …

The Saturday night downpour at this year’s Building Man Festival was heavy enough to deal a fatal blow to any DJ’s laptop on the nearby Solar Saucer (that solar-powered spaceship-looking contraption often seen around town at farmer’s markets, Gallery S …

Shane Stott and his Zen Float is a prime example of local innovation starting from a spirit of curiosity and learning. Stott built his first floatation tank in his own house using instructions he found online. After altering and perfecting his tank, St …

In 1973, then-National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger said, “Who control the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls the money can control the world.” On Saturday, May 25, 2013, over two mil …

In a way, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling has done us all a favor when it comes to recruiting individual enrollment in the democratic process: Bring up campaign finance reform at a dinner party and you’re liable to be met by a room …

The city counted on creating an overwhelming environment to get what they wanted. We warned them. We told them that we would fight every step of the way,” an impassioned Jeff Salt told me during a recent phone interview. The topic of our conversation w …

It may look to the casual passerby like an urban sacrifice zone—the area encompassing foundaries, factories and warehouses that have seen better, more purposeful days. Along with the concrete silos, abandoned scrap iron recycling yard and an auto body …

In October 2012, Interior Secre­tary Ken Salazar signed a record of decision creating a program for utility-scale solar energy on public lands in Arizona, Cali­for­nia, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. This sounds like a positive step in the righ …

One congregation here in Utah is already providing a model for what we may see as more and diverse people of faith organizing to protect the environment. The First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City, located at 569 South and 1300 East, has already embr …

I used to hate my allergies. What’s to like about them? When I get a good snootful of pollen, it feels like my brain is trying to evacuate itself through my sinuses. Sometimes I start to teeter into asthmatic territory. I lose my ability to think prope …

Flukes, also called trematodes, are a type of parasitic flatworm that infests everything from ants to elephants. Ranging in size from 0.2 to 4 inches, they resemble leaves or pieces of ribbon with big, leech-like suckers; have no respiratory or sense o …

Through the third chakra we begin to access the astral planes —more subtle frequencies of energy than are experienced through our five senses alone. This center is receptive to the impulses that inform our “gut instinct,” that way of knowing without kn …

If you ask the average person for an opinion about snakes, the result will range from unbridled excitement to utter revulsion. As a confirmed, self-diagnosed snake addict, I fall into the first category. I have loved snakes since I was a kid, and the k …