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Show A-12 The Park Record Saturday, January 31, 1998 CRIMINALS DON'T TAKE SNOW DAYS. The Saab 9000 CSE is designed for punishing winters. Front-wheel drive. An intelligent chassis. A 200-horse 200-horse turbo. And heat d seats. Maybe that's why the law in Aspen drives Saabs. And has for over 20 years now. Lease a Saab 9000 CSE Per mo.39 mos. Cap. cost reductionDown payment:. .$ 1.499.00 Refundable security deposit: $ 475.00 Acquisition fee $ 450.00 First month's payment: $ 458.58 Amount due at lease inception: $2,882.58 com Ken Garff Saab 543 So. State St., Salt Lake City, Utah 84111 (801)521-6111 www.saabusa.com 1 600 SAAB USA 'Subject to credit approval Delivery must be takn out of dealer inventory by January 31. 1998 Terms apply to a 1998 Saab 9000 CSE w 5-speed manual transmission based on MSHP ol $39,130.00 (including destination charge). Lease payment lor the 9000 CSE is $458.58 lor 39 months totaling $17,884.62. Option to purchase at lease end lor $20 888 90 including purriiase lee) (plus any license and title fees and taxes). The customer is allowed 39,000 miles during the term of this lease. The customer is liable lor a mileage ch-re ol $.15 per mile over 39.000 miles and for excess wear and tear. Taxes, insurance, title and registration fees extra. SEE YOUR PARTICIPATING SAAR r..cfl FOR COMPLETE DETAILS ON THIS AND OTHER LEASE AND FINANCE OPTIONS. 1998 SAAB CARS USA. INC. JAZZ fit i Sr LI J - - . .... (KtS? I He Mflin street Mail fy 665 Mflin btreet Come enjoy the music Sflturdny evenings Free concerts stRrting fit 7:30pm i 1 w i ;.ir:i.."l ... y y-,:p n & Compkte Interior 'Design Service three mysME January 29, 30, 31st J Uiurs., Jri., Sat. Original Oils St) "European Artists You caji select from over 350 framed original oil paintings. Back by popular demand, this special event provides an excellent opportunity opportu-nity to save on fine art to enhance the beauty beau-ty of your home. Representing the finest in traditional hand painted oils on canvas in the style of 16th century to 19th century European and American schools. SAVE 35 3 mys 09Ly! Shop Early For Best Selection i'llli. MB. lw .v.Wi.IJrf.l I, Queen Bed & 2 Nt. Stands $5586 reg., $3629 SALE Saw Through Sat, Jan, 3k Lex! Imagination Sty It Value - S it' www.hou8ley8.com 7213So.900-E.SLC 569-9200 I 15 Open Mon.-Sat. lOam to 5pm , "up to 50 reductions apply to all inventory except oil painting All Sale items Sold "As is". Sales are final. No Returns. Small delivery charge applies. Cash, check, most credit cards accepted. And so it goes... The President's problems By Tom Clyde If there was any doubt that the world has slipped over the brink, all you have to do is listen to the news. Respected journalists, who usually are droning dron-ing on and on about Federal Reserve policy, the latest lat-est violence in the Middle East, or arcane legislative initiatives, are instead discussing exactly which sex acts "count" as adultery and which do not, with no visible smirks. As a result of Bimbo-gate and the Paula Jones lawsuit being in the headlines, I know more of the details of Bill Clinton's sex life than of many of my close friends. The lead-in to nightly news broadcasts may start out with "Iraq launches anthrax attack on Boston, but first, let's see what the FBI found in Monaco's laundry basket." It's all a little lit-tle much, not that I haven't been watching my share of it. But while the nation is spellbound by tales of sex in the White House, there is other news to report that doesn't involve zippers. Hostess has recalled Twinkies. It seems that a bunch of America's favorite snack cake was contaminated with asbestos when the guys in moon suits were removing it from the Twinkie factory. Some of the asbestos dust got into the Twinkies when the workmen stopped for a snack. Several hundred thousand Twinkies have been recalled, and will have to be destroyed like so many Hong Kong chickens. I was surprised by this. I always thought the asbestos was put in the Twinkies deliberately to extend the shelf life. There is no clear agreement on how to destroy tons and tons of contaminated Twinkies. The only known way to destroy a Twinkie is to feed it to a five-year-old kid. If they just haul them to a dump, the Twinkies will still be there a thousand years from now, looking fresh as ever. They are thinking about transporting them to Tooele to be burned in the nerve gas incinerators, but so far, the Army has refused to take them. "We've got problems enough without a train load of asbestos-laced Twinkies," an Army spokesman said. Saddam Hussein is apparently appar-ently interested in buying them. According to news reports, the contaminated Twinkies were distributed mostly in the Midwest, and it is unlikely that we would see one here. It's unthinkable that we would see one in Deer Valley, but on the outside chance that you pick up a package pack-age of Twinkies at the local convenience store, the expiration date on the asbestos-laced Twinkies starts with the number "57." In think that may be shorthand for 2057, confirming the approximate 60-year 60-year shelf life of Twinkies. And, just to be on the safe side, and not get dragged into one of those "food libel" lawsuits like Oprah is in with the cattle ranchers in Texas, the reckless and uninformed opinions expressed here about Twinkies, and whether they should be regulated regu-lated as food products, weapons of mass destruction, or count as adultery if fed to a White House intern, are purely those of Oprah Winfry, who is solely responsible for them. In other news that might have escaped your notice because of Bimbo-gate, the Japanese have a strange problem on their hands. A Japanese city has been besieged by a gang of monkeys. I didn't get the full story on this .one., but according to what I saw on the news, a gang of a cipzen or so wild monkeys has become aggressive and violent, and attacking the peaceful residents of this Japanese city. The monkeys mon-keys are running amok, breaking into homes, stealing steal-ing food and electronic devices, biting children and attacking the elderly at bus stops. So far, the monkeys are unarmed, but the monkey mon-key ambassador was recently seen in Iraq talking to Saddam about purchasing chemical weapons. The leader of the money gang said that if local officials would just turn Charlton Heston over to them, they would go back into the woods and behave like monkeys mon-keys normally behave (which is surprisingly similar to the behavior of White House interns and the President). Japanese officials are trying to figure out how to address the problem, but thty think they can get the monkeys under control by feeding them asbestos-laced Twinkies. Olympic organizers at Nagano are on the alert for terrorist monkeys disguised dis-guised as figure skaters. Speaking of monkeys running amok, the state legislature is in session. Usually next to Sundance, the Legislature can be counted on as one of the best performances possible in the theater of the absurd. The moral crusaders can always be counted on to introduce legislation making it a crime to explain sex to a minor (including parents talking to their children they might get "ideas"), or to watch the news if the President is the lead story. This year, they have fallen off their game, and there apparently apparent-ly are no really goody bills on the docket. Well, there is that "English as the exclusive language lan-guage of government" bill. That's pretty wacky. Let's only publish the drivers license and traffic regulations reg-ulations in English so recent immigrants can't read them. Make sure they don't know the traffic laws. That'll make them better drivers for sure. And then there is the issue of whether English is widely spoken spo-ken in Utah in the first place. If there is an official language, it is "Wewuzics" rather than standard English. I don't think the sponsors of the legislation really intend to force the majority of the state's population pop-ulation to start speaking in what, for many, is a foreign for-eign language. The news from Washington, at least the news that doesn't involve zippers, is that the federal highway-funding highway-funding program is in a shambles, and nobody has figured it out yet. So the 80 percent federal match that is supposed to be paying for 1-15 isn't approved. That ought to be causing the contractor some heartburn, heart-burn, because Utah doesn't have the cash to complete com-plete the project on its own. The Utah congressional delegation told the legislature legis-lature that the federal money ought to be coming soon, though nobody knows exactly when. Of course, the cranky, thrifty folks among us, those of Scottish descent, might have suggested that it would be a good idea to have the financing package figured out before nuking the core of the state's transportation transporta-tion system. But the legislature seems willing to throw themselves at the mercy of the feds, pleading for the cash, and waving the Olympic banner in front of them. But the legislative season is still young, and there may be time for something really absurd to work its way to the top. I wonder if they, have interns at the legislature. ' ',' "," Writers on the Range By Tom Reed Human tolerance tested by wolves A decade ago, a friend and I entered a store in a small southwestern New Mexico town that has become my spiritual home, though Wyoming is my physical one. Behind the counter, a red-faced man with a broad-brimmed hat thought he recognized recog-nized kindred spirits, men of the same mold. We were dusty and red-faced and wore broad-brimmed hats as well. For the past week, we had been scrambling and sweating up steep canyons and down shaded draws in search of Coues whitetailed deer and Mearns quail. The store was a re-supply, a brief touch with civilization before our return to granite, oak and cactus. cac-tus. "Here, you folks need to sign this to stop them from bringing back the wolf," he said, shoving a clipboard clip-board across the counter at us. My friend, a soft-spoken, gray-haired retired game warden gently, firmly, pushed the petition back. Unsigned. "You're probably proba-bly looking at a couple of fellas who would like to see the wolf back." Spluttering, amazed. "Why, them damn wolves will eat 15 pounds of red meat in a day! They want to spend 10 million dollars of our money to bring them back. They'll wipe us out!" I thought back to a sheltered draw that I had worked only a day before. Hoping to flush out a beautiful whitetail buck, I bumped a Brahma steer out of its bed. It crashed through the brush stupidly, then stopped to stare at me before trotting on, waving wav-ing goodbye with its manure-smeared rump. There's some red meat that I'd gladly give a wolf, I thought. If he'd eat it. We paid for our supplies and left the man to stew and fret about his cows. Tolerance doesn't come easy. In 1942, a wolf family was found on Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona. The family was bothering no one, for there were no livestock on the military installation. Whitetail deer, the most common prey of the Mexican gray wolf, were abundant. But the wolves could not be tolerated. A trapper with the Predatory Animal and Rodent Control Service was brought in. He trapped the male and found the den of young pups which he dispatched efficiently. The female, though, escaped, probably into Mexico where she likely met a similar fate. In the mid-1970s, tracks of a lone wolf were discovered dis-covered west of Sulphur Springs Valley in southeastern southeast-ern Arizona. The wolf, an apparent wandering male from Mexico, was dubbed the Aravaipa wolf and subsequently exterminated. The ultimate predator man had proven his prowess once again. The history books read the same in every state in the West, from Wyoming to New Mexico, Montana to Colorado. Save for a few remnant pockets, the wolf has been wiped out everywhere. Wolves, indeed, will never wipe us out. We don't have a thing to fear from wolves. It's the other way around. In the West, no one can remember what it was like living when wolves posed an actual, true threat to the livelihoods of ranchers. One hundred years ago, the wolf was on its way out. In this century, the wolf in the West has been a casual migrant. Never in the past 100 years has the wolf threatened the very survival of man, any man. The sad fact is that we seldom sel-dom have made an attempt to get along with wolves. By and large, wolves have been taboo, especially in the West. We poisoned and trapped them when they no longer posed a threat to our economy. We shot and exterminated the last few until there were no more. One hundred years ago, the wolf was staggering stag-gering toward extinction. Gone was its prey base of buffalo, antelope, deer and elk. New, slower, weaker animals had entered the wolf's territory. Naturally, wolves turned to cattle and sheep to stay alive. Naturally, Nat-urally, men turned against wolves to save their stock. Today, the antelope are back, the deer are flourishing, flourish-ing, the elk are abundant and even the bison have returned in some places. People are also flourishing. But livestock numbers have been trimmed from the masses of animals that pulverized and overgrazed the West at the turn of the century. Reality, it seems, is the final judge of what the range can support. The wolf, though, is generally still missing from the big picture. In Yellowstone, we're battling the wolf once again. More correctly, battling over the wolf. Judges and courts will decide if the wolf stays, not guns and traps. In the desert Southwest, we're poised to bring back another "experimental" population of wolves. Will we learn from our mistakes of the distant and not-distant past? We have proven that we can live without the wolf. Now it's time to prove that we can live with him. Intolerance is easy. It's tolerance that's a challenge. Tom Reed lives in Lander, Wyoming and is a contributor con-tributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News. Don't miss Jack Fuell's 'Tales of Old Park City' every Wednesday in The Park Record. POOR COPY |