Dear mullentown bloggers:

I could give you 335 reasons why I love my husband. But on this particular day, I love him for his ability to witness a rare moment in nature and to describe it beautifully, and for his interest in keeping this neglected little blog alive. I must say I’m not sure where mullentown is going. I’ve been concentrating nearly full-time on building the City Weekly blog. It’s in its infancy, and like any new baby needs huge attention. I’ve been posting at least once, sometimes twice a day there and am trying to get the rest of the staff to join in regularly, too. Check it out; we’re having great fun.

So … that means in the interest of feeding my blog while I’m crazy-busy with other work, I’ve asked Ted Wilson to share another entry here with you. It’s a lovely piece. The only missing element is photos. And as Ted and Rick explained to me, the scene they witnessed was so far away they could only have seen it through a spotting scope. The average digital camera couldn’t have worked. So you’ll have to rely on Ted’s fine eye for wildlife (he’s been integrally involved in the big outdoors his whole life). Enjoy!

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From Ted Wilson, with help from his friend, Rick Reese:

Yellowstone National Park–Our principal mission last week was the wily Cutthroat trout. But we were sobered while hiking to the Yellowstone River. Suddenly, we found our path dotted with huge fresh grizzly tracks in the mud. It’s the kind of deal that causes you to appreciate the small canister of pepper spray slung on your chest. But, like a soldier hitting the beach, just because you have a weapon your survival is not assured. Most grizzly attacks are so devastatingly swift that putting faith in weaponry is laughable.

We had the “Yellowstone Buzz,” a deep atavistic feeling rattling in your head when you realize you are not at the top of food chain. You know and you fear a creature lurking over the next rise or secluded in a clump of brush whose sheer ferocity and power can heaven-send you like lightning. The Buzz makes Yellowstone even more fascinating and strangely alluring.

So we clattered down the Hellroaring trail on a cloudy October morning yodeling, hooting, and hollering to fend off Old Ephraim. After a nice hike, our fears slid away as we stood alongside the magnificent waterway of the Yellowstone, the longest untamed river in America. The fishing was good and the scenery magnificent, but not the high point of the day.

Exhausted by fishing, we slogged back up the 600 vertical feet to the car and began our drive back to Gardiner, Montana, at Yellowstone’s north gate. I shared the day with old friend Rick Reese, long time Yellowstone expert and former director of the Yellowstone Institute. Rick knows the park as well as his back yard and he encouraged me to pull off the road where several people were already posted with their long-range optical gear.

It was a pretty routine stop. Thousands of people these days take pleasure animal watching in Yellowstone. The grizzly and black bear offer unusual viewing. And the sight of bison, elk, and deer are routine after the 1988 fires that exposed thousands of square miles of wild life forage. The newcomer is the wolf. And, though the animal is wild and elusive, sighting a wolf is now a big time spectator sport that brings many to the LaMar Valley, the Yellowstone River, and other parts of the park.

We didn’t expect more than the usual long range sighting as we approached the watchers. “What have we got?” Rick said in the tone of voice of an expert who has seen hundreds of wildlife sightings over the years. When one guy gushed, “15 wolves and three grizzlies alongside a herd of elk,” Rick’s eyebrows rose in astonishment and skepticism.

But squinting through Rick’s binoculars, we discovered the guy knew his numbers. Exactly three grizzlies and a bunch of wolves were scattered over a sage-covered hillside not more than a half-mile from our passage earlier on the Hellroaring trail near the Yellowstone River.

Even Rick couldn’t mask his excitement and dashed to the car for the spotting scope. A bit stunned, I was thrilled to see my first wolves. As an erstwhile Yellowstone gazer, I’ve spied plenty of bears but wolves had escaped my view in spite of several attempts to spot them.

Rick set up the scope and focused. “You are not going to believe what is going on,” he muttered. Reese is not given to overstatement so my enthusiasm caused me to lean hard against his shoulder to signal my turn squinting through the scope. More people had arrived and leaned over our shoulders to see what was going on.

A full pack of wolves was circling, nipping at the heels, and fully stalking a grizzly bear. I gushed, “How often, Rick, does a pack of wolves try to down a grizzly?” His reaction–now remember, I’m asking a Yellowstone expert of more than three decades–was simply, “I have never seen this before and never heard about it from any of the park biologists.”

The wolf is a serious killer. A carnivore, wolves work together in packs and use strategy to down their prey. No animal in Yellowstone is immune from a wolf pack. Except perhaps the grizzly, an animal so large and so amazingly equipped with size, speed, strength, claws, jaws and teeth to command almost any meal in the park. And here we were seeing first-hand that yes, huge bears do get attacked by wolves.

The wolves were serious and continued their harassment of the bear for a full 30 minutes. The bear was dark and appeared very large though at the distance we were viewing we could not be sure. Perhaps it was young or even sick, causing the wolves their interest. But the bear was moving well, at times kicking back his rear legs, and another time breaking into a lope.

I have no doubt the wolves were out to down the bear and share a meal. Rick thought that improbable and brought up the aspect of play. I’ll leave that to experts. The pack dispatched one wolf to continue to drive the bear down the hill while the rest circled to set a trap. When the bear slammed into the circlers, he merely brushed by and carried on his way. No wolf ventured forth to set his teeth into bear fur.

Rick said if the wolves attacked, his money was on the bear. That calculation may have occurred to the wolves, too. They eventually dispersed and allowed the bear a chance to rest.

Off to the side of the main circus, another grizzly hunkered down behind a rise stalking the elk herd. Rick said the main tactic was for the bear to charge the herd to see which elk did not run well because of youth or illness. The unfortunate, slow elk makes a meal for a hungry bear about ready to enter the winter den. The grizzly has been very active feeding recently in the park because of poor forage from a sweltering summer. We saw no charge of the bear.

We packed up our scope and drove back to Gardiner through a spectacular sunset. Today, I feel like I have just watched the classic movie, Jaws. Many years ago, after seeing that film, I felt a creepy little buzz in my shower the next morning. As if the teeth of that massive Jaws shark were going to come up the drain and grab me. This morning, I looked into my back yard and I was sure I saw a grizzly stalking behind the fitzers and the chestnut tree.

My husband, Ted, has plowed straight through Jeffrey Toobin’s new book, The Nine, in the past few days — even waking up before dawn several mornings to read it. He is so impressed with Toobin’s reporting, writing and insight into the inner workings of the current Supreme Court, I asked him to write a review for mullentown. If any of you have read it, please post your own views. And because I ALWAYS do what my husband tells me, I’m going to start reading it tonight. Seriously, I am. — Holly

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The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, by Jeffrey Toobin, Doubleday, 2007.

Jeffrey Toobin covers legal affairs for the New Yorker, a magazine known for terrible titles for its articles yet fascinating reading when you take heart and jump in. In the case of Toobin’s book, the title and the text are equally engaging.

Toobin uses his journalistic skill to reveal the recent history of the Supreme Court. His portraits of the nine justices are certainly judgmental and open to political argument, but by a focus on individual jurists he captures the essence of these few people who are the final word on those matters most important to Americans: abortion, liberty, local government, rights of the accused, and so on.

The Court had until the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist in 2005 and the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor in 2006 enjoyed 13 years of stability. That stability was based on a truly swing court by the political philosophies of the members. Four justices–William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas made up a predictably conservative wing with Kennedy an occasional gadfly, swinging to the left. The liberal wing–John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer balanced this out. This left O’Connor as the continuous decider-in-the-middle.

And Toobin reserves his highest accolades for O’Connor. He documents how the woman from way out west in Phoenix delighted in persuading one side or the other, and how she often controlled the court. Toobin says her greatest talent was understanding deeply how most Americans viewed the issues before the court and used this to make court decisions politically palatable. Toobin puts it simply: O’Connor has become the most powerful woman in American history.

Of Rehnquist, Toobin portrays the late chief as a well-liked conciliator fixed on the flow of work in the court, fair in distribution of opinion writing to the members, and willing to accept liberal stare decisis (legal precedent) even on stormy issues like Roe v. Wade on abortion. Rehnquist was a frustration to the conservative political movement focused on the appointments of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush to reverse Roe, expand executive power, end racial preferences, speed executions, and welcome religion into the American sphere. Rehnquist was content to be the conductor of the symphony but not to write one.

Toobin is particularly tough on Anonin Scalia. He paints Scalia as a brilliant but obnoxious juror who dominates Court questioning of contending counsel. Scalia also enjoys berating his colleagues on the Court in written opinions and once called some “idiots” in a speech to an outside group. Scalia’s impractical but insistent campaign for “originalism,” or strict interpretation of the Constitution was nonsensical to his mates. And worst of all to conservatives, he helped drive O’Connor and Kennedy to more liberal positions.

Anthony Kennedy makes his mark by his love of flowery language in opinions and international travel. Kennedy traveled frequently through the world meeting with governments and foreign jurists. He brought these thoughts back to the Court and applied international influences in his opinions and votes. As such he became a frequent swing voter to the liberal side.

John Paul Stevens, now senior on the court, is portrayed as a statesman who stabilized the Court. Though appointed by President Gerald Ford as a conservative, he long ago drifted to the liberal side on most issues.

David Souter was also the appointment of a conservative president, George H.W. Bush. Once a great hope for the conservative agenda, Souter’s simplistic and isolated life in New Hampshire led him to eschew politics and vote liberal on many issues. Souter demonstrates how Supreme Court members often move to the opposite side of the political spectrum after appointment.

Clarence Thomas cannot dispel the anger of his contentious appointment in 1991 when Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment. Though he used continuous affirmative action to move up to the court, he believes it now to be patronizing and displays an 18th-century judicial philosophy by being the most consistently conservative member of the Court.

One myth Toobin breaks is the common perception among Court watchers that Thomas and Scalia are joined at the hip. Thomas deeply resents that description.

Bill Clinton appointee Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a reliable liberal and dedicated to feminist leanings. Her presence on the court had an influence on Sandra Day O’Connor’s liberalism in feminine manners but Ginsburg is identified as a weak member of the court who has limited influence, like Thomas, on opinions.

Stephen Breyer, also appointed by Clinton, is a brilliant if often elite and patrician member of the Court. He’s a wine expert and is even known on occasion to break into a British-like accent in his speech. Breyer can be relied on to influence opinions and writes his own in reliably clear and thoughtful ways. Not known generally was his close friendship on the court with Sandra Day O’Connor and his influence in moving her to the left. Conversely, O’Connor was a very close friend of Scalia’s but Scalia had the opposite impact on Breyer.

After the death of Rehnquist and the resignation of O’Connor, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, Jr. have been appointed. Roberts is a star. Good looking, well-spoken, a fair and thoughtful colleague as Chief, and deeply knowledgeable of the law and Court traditions, Roberts is now in charge of the “Roberts Court.” When asked in his confirmation hearings about his writings about how Roe v. Wade should be reversed, he responded he wrote that as counsel and not as personal opinion. In a clever finesse on abortion questions, he refused to tell the Senate committee where he would stand should the decision be revisited.

Samuel Alito, Jr. is clearly a down the line conservative. Hence the new court arithmetic is 5-4 for the conservatives, with Kennedy often reliably a sixth conservative vote.

Where the Roberts Court will now go is subject to political interpretation. Will Roberts lead the Court to the long-predicted conservative agenda centered mainly on abortion? He, by background of the Court’s members, appears to have the votes.

Toobin reserves energy to point out the Court’s involvement in politics, despite its members’ constant work to present themselves as neutral political beings. He calls the politics of the Court a continuous element- -ably demonstrated in Bush v. Gore, the case that settled the disputed presidential election of 2000. And he really puts that decision under the microscope.

He writes: “The struggle following the election of 2000 to 36 days, and the Court was directly involved for 21 of them. Yet over this brief period, the justices displayed all of their worst traits–among them vanity, overconfidence, impatience, arrogance, and simple political partisanship. These three weeks taint an otherwise largely admirable legacy. The justices did almost everything wrong. They embarrassed themselves and the Supreme Court.”

Toobin’s final conclusions: The court will always be political as long as human beings serve as justices. Don’t rely on political appearances before membership on the Court to hold up politically. And, to quote Toobin, “… one factor only will determine the future of the Supreme Court: the outcomes of presidential elections.”

OK, all you Mullentown regulars and vagrants who only happen to squat here every few days, tell me — again, and with your best descriptive power — why not Hillary Clinton for president?

It isn’t a loaded or rhetorical question. I want a good answer. I wrote here a couple of weeks back that I was about an inch away from supporting Clinton. I’m getting closer.

Well sure, who wouldn’t love to see Al Gore jump in? But as of today, candidates have three weeks in which to register for the New Hampshire primary. I just can’t see Gore doing this. And I’m thinking the more that people float around and sign petitions to convince him he should run, well, the more ridiculous and divided Democrats look at a pivotal point in their taking back this country and helping to mold its precarious future.

Clinton has a plan to offer a “baby bond” to help finance a college education for every child born in the U.S. She’s back on the health care for all proposal, though she’s backed off from her original, doomed blueprint from 1993-94. I’m sensing hope in this woman’s campaign, and she has chutzpah. We’ve had so little of both for so many years.

And did I mention Clinton has money? A lot of liberals sniff at the notion that she’s awash in campaign money — as if that quality on its own is some kind of moral flaw. But just what does it take to win right now in this country, darlings?

Money. More money than God. Mitt Romney has it, and don’t think that he or Rudy won’t use up every cent of what they’ve raised in trying to beat Clinton if she gets the nomination. The more cash she stockpiles the better.

And finally, I’d be disingenuous if not straight-out remiss, by not claiming it’s way past time we had a female president. The fact that she’s eminently qualified, bright, articulate, ambitious and can throw it right back at the stodgy white male power structure that fuels this country is a terrific bonus. I’ll tell you what: I saw so much sexism — subtle and not even at all subtle sexism — in my stepdaughter’s run for Salt Lake City mayor that I’ve become all about supporting women in politics. Call it my new religion. Women, more women in politics. Everywhere, more women please.

I’d almost say after the negativity I saw directed at Jenny Wilson from the public, the media and her opponents’ camps that gender alone is reason enough to support Hillary. But then you would all paint me as shallow.

This isn’t just any woman. This is Hillary Clinton. Find me any other Democrat parading on the campaign runway right now who can match her for experience and real-world politik. Betcha can’t.

Let me know, bloggers. I only have one caveat: You cannot respond to my challenge by writing “I like Hillary, too. But she’s unelectable.” That won’t fly here. Tell me why she isn’t, and then defend it. Or, you can always look at the world a bit optimistically, and tell us why she SHOULD be elected president, and how you’ll help see that it happens.

The phones are open, friends. Ready, get set, POST!

Consider, the 2007 Nobel Prize Trifecta:

(According to me, anyway)

Peace: The real U.S. president of 2000, Al Gore (with the United Nations).

Literature: Amazing British author Doris Lessing, whose writing changed my life (for the better).

Science/Medicine: University of Utah’s Mario Capecci (shared with Oliver Smithies, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Sir Martin Evans, of Cardiff University in Wales.

I consider it the best list in ages. And I’m still wagering Gore will not run for president. But what do you all think?

Check it
out:

Don’t get me wrong. It’s lousy that someone did this. But what I like is that the photographer landed right there, right then.

And that our Web master at City Weekly, Bill Frost, picked up on the subtle grammar challenge at hand.

Life in the City.

Oh great.

That inch-deep acting talent Lindsay Lohan has announced, fresh from her stint in pricey drug rehab at The Cirque Lodge in Sundance, her decision to put down roots in Utah.

The slow pace and wholesome environment here will apparently help Lindsay — who apologizes to her fans, “especially the younger fans” for making some bad choices in the past few years.

No indication in the published stories where she’ll be living. Park City? Too much nose candy temptation. Utah County? Plenty of modest formal gowns to choose from for the next Academy Awards, but with Oxycontin and Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Xanax and Lexapro (did I leave one out?) flowing freely to obsessive and overtaxed Mormon moms, it’s not exactly a safe haven for your standard spoiled Hollywood drug addict is it?

Maybe she can be a tour guide at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

I wish she’d just move on.

Our regular poster, twowheelfish, has goaded me out of my silence. Way to go, twowheel! Since you’re an avid fisherman, you know I have to take the bait.

But mostly, I’ll toss this post off to you faithful visitors to mullentown. What can we liberals, who see nothing particularly wrong with moving toward national health insurance (you know, that gol-durned socialized medicine) in the first place, do about this piece of plywood who occupies the White House for 15 more months?

I know the answer to that question: We gotta be patient and wait for our turn. I guess I was simply offering a rhetorical scream in the wilderness.

And what about the Democrats, who now control both houses of Congress? Where is their power — their will, really — to muster up necessary votes to override George W. Bush’s veto of SCHIP (state children’s health insurance plan) reauthorization?

I’m absolutely floored, totally undone, by this man’s complete lack of courage, compassion and lack of political will when it counts. One reckless decision of his seems to bleed right into another, day after day after day. One longtime conservative and very active Republican in Salt Lake City who has given piles of money to his party mentioned the other day that he sees Bush as absolutely having destroyed the Republican Party, especially since the election last November.

Even Bush’s once-blindly loyal followers here in Utah are losing faith.

What does it take to find even the slightest serving of compassion in this country anymore?

(I’m drawn to this thought because I’m back to the Jean Smith biography, FDR. I let Ted borrow it and he read the 900-page monster in about two weeks. Now there was a president who knew compassion. The fact that he could blend it with political instincts and timing made all the difference at a moment when this country was seriously deteriorating.)

Where do Americans go from here? Will we ever get an insurance plan that addresses the needs of the population? If we can’t even extend coverage to children and increase their benefits when necessary, I don’t know where we as a society can go from here.

Canada, maybe? I don’t think they’ll have us!

Hmm. Not to get too caught up in this growing “Al Gore in 2008″cyclone here on mullentown, but none other than Christopher Hitchens is making a thoughtful pitch for His Globalness as a serious Democratic presidential candidate here.

For all the reasons I wrote yesterday that Gore shouldn’t or won’t run, Hitchens suggests he should. Hitchens also predicts Gore will win the Nobel Peace Prize next month in Oslo. (Can’t wait to hear the right-wing retort to that if it happens: What does trumpeting a warning about global warming have to with peace for hell’s sake?)

Anyway, it’s a good read. It’ll get your brain cells scurrying around, if nothing else.

Well, a few people took the plunge and started posting last Friday about their early hopes for 2008 prez.

Some of my favorite California bloggers (Chardonnay, Debi to name a couple) are gunning for Gore. I must say, I love that man.

I can’t see him running, though. People will try to enlist him, but he won’t do it.

Why would he? He’s got more influence and power over pressing world issues now than he ever had as veep, as a presidential candidate in 2000 and even as president-elect in 2008. At last, he can say what he means and mean what he says. With the wild success of An Inconvenient Truth, he now has sway in the film world. And that’s just as an artist-producer. He’s a sure bet now; can easily raise money for more documentaries, write books, be a gadfly on the talk show circuit.

It puts me in a mind of Jimmy Carter (who I always liked and valued as a president), who finally has achieved international hero status as a peacemaker, human rights watchdog, humanitarian and author (though his Revolutionary War novel wasn’t very good). Once the guy is free from the bounds of the presidency and the pressures of campaigning and putzing around with Congress and special iterests, he’s everywhere. His freedom to speak the truth is boundless.

I’m liking that in Bill Clinton these days, too. Did you see him last week on The Daily Show promoting his new book? He said sleep deprivation may have more to do with the actions (or inactions) of our do-nothing Congress than anything else. Wow. Just wacky enough to make some sense.

I see Al Gore in the same role in the future: A brilliant and chunky elder statesman; a political truth teller. Sure, I’d love to see him as prez. But why would he do something so foolish?

… take only photos. Isn’t that how the old admonition goes when traveling?

Well, no worries there! No sweat at all for the Mullen-Wilson dyad. We got all the way to Pa’ia, Maui and realized Ted had forgotten to insert the battery in his camera! We found a Costco just outside the Kahului Airport, but since the store is obviously on Hang-Loose Hawaii Time, its operating hours were from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. When we finally found the store open, we saw plenty of digital cameras on display, but no accessories. And no one to help us find a battery.

I saw a lot of t-shirts, too, that said “RELAX. THIS AIN’T THE MAINLAND.” Well, they got that right. So we did. Relax, I mean. We never bought a battery. And this is the long way of explaining why you’ll not see any photos on this blog of Maui’s North Shore or points between, beyond and next door.

I’m not complaining. We had eight luxurious days in a sweet little sugar cane plantation cottage, fully restored with wood floors, original wainscoting, big porch, squeaky ceiling fans. I felt like a female antagonist in a Hemingway novel (only a lot nicer to my husband than Pappy’s fictional harpies).

I’d been to Maui several years ago, but spent the entire three weeks on the isolated Hana (east) side of the island. This time was more about beaches, my first turn at snorkeling (amazing) and hiking deep into Halakalea’s crater–which was absolutely stunning. I only wish we had done it at sunrise. Next time.

As for the lack of photos, Ted kept telling me at least we would always have memories. Well, true enough. A friend who fancied himself a Buddhist — though I think he was more creepy New Age than anything — once told me that photos are for people who live in the past. I can see that to a point. I’m fine, at least, without a permanent image of how I looked in a swimsuit after a week of glutenous eating and drinking.

Meanwhile, and completely off-topic, go here to see that my little blog is ranked 19th among the 20 most-read political blogs in Utah. I was shocked. I’ve floated a good bit in the past few months as I’ve gotten busier and more involved with my full-time job at City Weekly. But then, I’m ranked below the Salt Lake Tribune’s political blog, which hardly stays very timely. And I’m also below the dreadfully bland Utah State Senate Site. So I ought to get my ass in gear, eh? I could maybe go up a couple of notches.

I’ve actually taken a lot of passes on political commentary on the Salt Lake City mayor’s race, given my stepmother relationship to Jenny Wilson. One day back to reality on the mainland, and several people have already asked me if I’ll start writing about the final election between Ralph Becker and Dave Buhler. I’m not inclined to get involved in it. For one thing, anything critical I might write would only be construed as sour grapes. And it would only harm whatever credibility I might have at CW. I’ve learned that much from the primary.

For another reason, the race promises to be a snore fest. Some have said the city is ready for a dull race/dull mayor given the eight years we’ve suffered under our current psychopath. I can’t think of my hometown in any way as dull though–so I hope we get a little huff ‘n puff in this election cycle.

But hey, this doesn’t mean you can’t all post away to your heart’s content about the mayor’s race, the 2008 presidential election, or any other political thought you are generating. I’m a millimeter away from supporting Hillary, BTW. I’ve got a whole blog entry planned for that as soon as I get my thoughts well in order. So think and write away. Besides, your participation might help keep mullentown.com in the VIB (very important blogs) listings. I’d hate to fade into total obscurity, and I’d like to get my ranking above that awful Senate Site.