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Sunday, March 13, 2005
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UD REVISITS UTAH [for earlier visits, type "Utah" up there in Search] Utah! With its focus on family, Utah! Helps each child to succeed. People care how they live. Each has so much to give. This is the place! Utah! Getting bigger and better. Utah! Always leading the way. New technology's here... Growing faster each year. This is the place! Gevalt. Redsters are pretty much like you and me, but the reddest redsters are like black holes - distant, mysterious, scary… Utahans, for instance, used to have an okay state song. I don’t say it was great, but it it was okay. It was a hymn, known as “The State Hymn”: Land of the mountains high, Utah, we love thee, Land of the sunny sky, Utah, we love thee! Far in the glorious west, throned on the mountain's crest, In robes of statehood dressed, Utah, we love thee! Columbia's brightest star, Utah, we love thee, Thy luster shines afar, Utah, we love thee! Bright in our banner's blue, among her sisters true She proudly comes to view, Utah, we love thee! Land of the pioneers, Utah, we love thee, Grow with the coming years, Utah, we love thee! With wealth and peace in store, to fame and glory soar, God guarded, evermore, Utah, we love thee! A mite redundant, but short, simple, and even in places sweet. In 2003, the state legislature suddenly threw we love thee away and replaced it with the spanking new hymn you see soaring above it at the beginning of this post: “Utah, This is the Place.” (“This is the Place” has a bunch of other verses. It ends “UTAH! UTAH! UTAH! THIS IS THE PLACE!”) (Give a listen here.) UD is bewildered. A line like “New technology’s here,” for instance, seems to her patently less inspiring than “Land of the mountains high.” And the new song seems not merely an obvious decline from the old, but essentially different in its orientation. The State Hymn intends to be sung by people who are already Utahans. It reminds them why they feel happy and lucky to be in Utah. The new song seems aimed at corporations considering relocation opportunities. But okay, fine, if the point of the new state song is to advertise Utah’s unique advantages to people and businesses thinking about moving there, UD proposes a short additional verse. The new state song, for all its galloping hooves and clashing cymbals, overlooks Utah’s most noteworthy current distinction. The state of Utah is one of the only places in America which invites students to bring guns to its college campuses. Millions of Americans - especially younger Americans - like to have guns on them wherever they go, and at the state universities of Utah not only is no one going to bother you about this, but the people of the state will thank you. Virtually every other state’s colleges and universities ban concealed weapons. In Utah you can walk into libraries and classrooms and dining halls and laboratories and dormitories with the glow you get from knowing that you’ve got the power to kill everybody in the room. UD, who long ago worked in Chicago as an advertising copywriter, sees a television commercial for the state of Utah in which a roomful of smiling university students suddenly as one pull their guns from their vests as they sing Utah! We got macs and tecs. Utah! Snug revolvers, oozies. We got ‘em, gauge no problem, Calicos, AKs, 357s. This is the place! Utah! I gave my lady a 380, A 22, a two five, Bitch went crazy Poppin’ forever, One for all And all for one! Utah! This is the place! |