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Show A-14 The Park Record Saturday, January 26, 2002 More dogs on Main Street The Churches and Faith Communities of Park City wish to extend their congratualtions to Pastor Scott Fine and the members of Mountain Life Evangelical Free Church on the successful completion of their new church facility! 7375 North Silver Creek Road (just North of the I-80Htvy 40 intersection) First Sunday in Their New Location Tomorrow - Sunday, January 27th 9:00 AM Continental Breakfast and Tour 1 0:00 AM Worship Service (Jar? cum anu airsA rmtsM HER ffits er- oid aiuD drop arum - as cnmnin) sep Q53 ttm zmm inuumb (t& chop (attirmin OTffim aim (sainnro rrr Qnnnnc- Saw God Bless You in the Coming Years! SCARPA Liser the backcountry source iV . Fritschi Diamir a ''-n't : BP Arc AngfK 2092 East 3900 South Salt Lake City, UT 84124 801-278-0233 Black Diamond 101 uses for a dead Kmart If I remember right, it was Sally Elliott, then a member of the City Council, who said, "We are not Kmart people." That was in response to the county's approval of the Kmart store at Kimball Junction. At the time, that was a pristine meadow, with nothing else around it (except an extraordinarily extraordinar-ily ugly gas stationjunkyard right at the corner). The idea"" of despoiling such a place for anything was repugnant, but to sacrifice such a beautiful spot for a Kmart store, well, that was unspeakable. But the county had zoned the property for that use, and there was no way out of it. They approved Kmart in the meadow. Todd Gubler chained himself to a backhoe one morning to protest the construction. It was a great symbolic act, the kind of thing this community probably prob-ably could have used a little more of back then. Supporters of Todd's peaceful demonstration brought him coffee by the gallon and muffins by the dozen. The net effect was that it was a rather short protest, but he got the point across. "We are not Kmart people" I go in there every December to buy a Chia Pet for Christmas, and the place is empty. I have to assume it is on the list but then I'm always looking for the silver lining in things. " Tom Clyde became a sort of battle bat-tle cry for about a month. Then in short order, Kmart in the meadow was joined by Smith's, the post office,- a couple of strip malls, fast-food joints, and on and on. The latest desecration dese-cration of the mead- "" ow is not another strip mall. It's a "lifestyle center." What brings all of this ancient history to mind is that Kmart has gone bankrupt. Not just the Kimball Junction store, but the whole kit and caboodle. They can't pay their bills, so it was blue lights. There have been no official announcements about the Kimball Junction store, but they have announced that 350 stores will be closing nationally. This one can't be making money. I go in there every December to buy a Chia Pet for Christmas, and the place is empty. I have to assume it is on the list, but then I'm always looking for the silver lining in things. Of course, the classic signal of a failed strip mall is a karate studio. Anytime you see a former retail space converted into a karate studio, you know the mall is going down the tubes. It's not that there is anything bad about karate studios. It's just that they are not noted for paying the highest rents around. If the best a landlord can scare up is a karate studio, well, things are grim. Aerobics is a close second. If we could get a combined karate and aerobics studio to take over the dead Kmart space, we would really have accomplished something in terms of growth control around here. The benefits of an acre or so of big commercial space sitting there empty, or teaching martial arts to 12-year olds, are enormous. It might convince bankers and developers that there really is too much commercial space urr here already. If every time somebody wanted to finance a new strip mall, the banker said, "well, but what about that empty Kmart store? Isn't there a karate studio in there now?" we might not have new commercial stuff sprouting at every intersection. In the bankers handbook, it says not to make loans for new commercial space when there are karate studios operating out of abandoned Kmart stores next door. If we are so lucky as to have our local Kmart pull the plug, we need to start thinking about what could fit in that building. There must be 101 uses for a dead Kmart that don't include turning it into a Shopko or karate studio. Among the big-box retailers, the only ones we don't already have are Petsmart and Target. I haven't shopped at Target much, but it is reportedly reported-ly a sort of high-style version of the KmartWal-Mart model. You can still buy underwear and snow blowers blow-ers at the same time, but they are color coordinated at Target. Petsmart is a giant warehouse of dog food, cat food, and high-tech dog houses. We certainly have a lot of dogs in town, but as long as there are dumpsters in Swede Alley, I'm not sure we have need of a Petsmart. Our dogs are dining on gourmet fare from the best restaurants in the state. There's not much chance they will go back to Dog Chow. But maybe the Kmart store doesn't does-n't need to be retail. How about putting an ice "' sheet in there? The City and County Rec. District convinced us to vote for a bond issue to pay for an ice rink, without knowing what an ice rink costs. Now they are coming up short. Well, maybe they can save come cash by refrigerating the floor of Kmart. When somebody scores a goal playing play-ing hockey in the former Martha Stewart Linen Department, the blue light is already there to flash over the net. The building may have some structural limitations limita-tions as a skating rink. There is a problem with all those columns coming down in the middle of the floor. The county should have anticipated this and required clear-span construction, but that's too late. But if it wont work for hockey, we might be able to get a short track speed skating oval threaded around the columns. Or a great indoor go-cart race track, doing slalom turns around the pillars. Indoor BMX, or an all-weather skate board park. The school district is always looking for another school building. Kmart could be divided into classrooms class-rooms easily enough. That's a lot cheaper than building build-ing another new school. The flickering, buzzing flo-rescent flo-rescent lighting is already there to put students to sleep during geography classes. The savings could be huge. The demise of Kmart presents some real opportunities. opportu-nities. You might even say it is a blue-light special when it comes to recreation facilities. Tom Clyde is a former city attorney and author of "More Dogs on Main Street. " He has been a columnist for The Park Record for more than a decade. 41. V f' ' r S". " """" . r . c 1 'sfW' " MSI .Fritschi Diamir a wvmBIackDiamondEquipment.comstore Don't get me started By Gary Weiss Still fighting after all these years ., . V" ' I Ve preservation of life seems rather a slogan J. than a genuine goal of anti-abortion forces; what they want is control. Control over behavior power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement move-ment want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities. " Ursula Le Guin. Although that period we now call "the '60s was, perhaps, freer in many ways than life is today, and certainly more fun, few would say it was a responsible responsi-ble time. This was especially true of those, like myself, whose hormones had begun racing as fast as older standards of behavior were falling away. We were young, sexually active, and many of us were irresponsible. AIDS hadnt happened yet and, largely because of advances in medical technology, the burden of birth control had shifted to women. One result of all that was my participation in a pregnancy sometime around 1967. Which is also when I participated -minimally -- in an abortion. It was not a big deal to me at the time. The woman and I barely knew each other and marriage wasn't part of any equation. I remember, though, that sometime later I ran into her on a city street. It was 35 years ago, but I can still feel x the hatred shedirect- ed my way. I confess all this hhhhmmhimhbhm now, because Jan. 22 was the 29th anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark abortion ruling in Roe v. Wade. While most Americans couldnt name Supreme Court decisions deci-sions that affect their own daily lives, virtually everyone every-one is familiar with Roe v. Wade. When this happened hap-pened back in 1973, it would have been inconceivable inconceiv-able to me that abortion would remain the most divisive divi-sive issue of the century. But it has. At its very heart, is a question many believe is none of the government's business, because its nature is essentially religious. When, exactly, does "life" begin? This was so important because the Constitution regards "life" as a fundamental right, requiring the strictest protection under the law. "Jane Roe," was a pseudonym for a pregnant Texas woman who wanted an abortion. State law wouldn't allow her one. She sued the state and, after a truckload of litigation, the case wound up in the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Harry Blackmun waded into this complicated thicket, and his solution remains the law of the land to this day. He quickly disposed of that fundamental question: ques-tion: : "Texas urges that... life begins at conception... therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting pro-tecting that life... We need not resolve the question of when life begins. When those trained in... medicine, medi-cine, philosophy and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary... is not in a position to speculate as to the answer." Blackmun was acutely aware of both how sensitive sensi-tive this case was, and also its importance. Along with increasing sexual freedom, the nation was experiencing expe-riencing a broad wave of female empowerment. He understood that abortion was a primary feminist issue. But he didnt underestimate the depth and power of the anti-choice forces aligned against any form of legal abortion. He went to great lengths dealing with the historical histori-cal context of abortion, and the concept of "person-hood:" "person-hood:" "...that throughout the major portion of the 19th century, prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word 'person,' as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn." This case was also among the first to explore a "right to privacy." "This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action... or... in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad While most Americans couldn't name Supreme Court decisions that affect their own daily lives, virtually everyone is familiar with Roe v. Wade." Gary Weiss enough to encom pass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." But he found that this right was not unqualified. In private pri-vate practice, he'd represented the mhhmmhh Mayo Clinic for many years, and that association prompted him to take a medical approach to abortion. The key for him was focusing on "viability;" the theoretical point at which a fetus could survive outside the womb. From there, he worked backwards; virtually forbidding for-bidding abortions in the final trimester. Relying on a physician's expertise, terminations in the middle trimester were substantially regulated, requiring they be supported by a doctor's medical judgment. Whereas during the first three months, a woman's choice to abort was virtually unfettered. To say this decision remains controversial is one of the great understatements of our age. Time and again, states have tried to legislatively curtail abortions, abor-tions, and certainly Utah has been in the forefront. Despite this, and a substantially more conservative Supreme Court, Roe has yet to be overturned. But the controversy's not going away. Blackmun's approach will become harder to sustain as technology technolo-gy allows "viability" at ever earlier points in fetal development. I agree with the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who's pointed out the irony of the anti-choice position. That these people are passionately interested in "persons" for the first nine months of their lives, but once they're born, couldnt give a damn about them. Meanwhile, Roe survives another year. Gary Weiss b the former owner of Dolly 's Bookstore and has served on the Summit County Planning Commission. |