Access Utah

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Utah Rural Summit on Friday's Access Utah Aug 09, 2013

Show notes

For two days each year in August, county, municipal and state leaders and other stake holders gather in Cedar City for the Utah Rural Summit. They come from throughout Utah to explore issues that impact rural life, to hear from experts the latest information pertaining to rural life, and to discuss policies necessary to maintain and expand the political, cultural and economic relevance of rural communities. UPR's Southern Utah Correspondent Chris Holmes reports from the summit on its second day.

A Farm Daughter's Lament on Wednesday's Access Utah Aug 06, 2013

Show notes

Thomas Jefferson called farmers “the chosen people of God” and claimed that they were inherently virtuous, the best citizens for the new republic. Evelyn Funda, author of “Weeds: A Farm Daughter’s Lament,” says that “the American imagination has endowed farming with profound and enduring symbolic significance. ...no other occupation —with perhaps the exception of motherhood—so fully spans the imaginative range of human experience or is so profoundly invested with symbolic significance in our culture, even by those who have never worked or lived on a farm.” In Jefferson’s day, 90 percent of the population worked on family farms. Today, in a world dominated by agribusiness, less than 1 percent of Americans claim farm-related occupations. What was lost along the way is something that Funda experienced firsthand when, in 2001, her parents sold the last parcel of the farm they had worked since they married in 1957.

Reduce Your Risk of Alzheimer's on Tuesday's Access Utah Aug 05, 2013

Show notes

Has Alzheimer’s Disease has touched your family? There are 50,000 Utahns affected by Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and Utah has the nation’s highest growth rate of AD (127%). There are more than 5 million cases of AD in the US today and by 2050, that number is expected to nearly triple to 13.8 million and care costs will reach over $1.2 trillion. There is no known cure and the impact on afflicted individuals and their families is devastating. The AD process may begin decades before diagnosis. But Maria Norton, USU Associate Professor of Family Consumer and Human Development, says that while there are some factors we are born with (e.g. genes) that can't be modified, there are a host of factors that have been shown to affect our risk for Alzheimer’s that ARE modifiable, and if we can encourage individuals, families and communities to adopt healthy lifestyle habits, we may be able to make a "course correction" to avoid or at least delay AD as individuals, and as a society.

Sugar, History & Obesity on Thursday's Access Utah Jul 31, 2013

Show notes

Rich Cohen writes in National Geographic magazine's August cover story titled “Sugar Love (a not so sweet story)” that sugar was the oil of its day. The more you tasted, the more you wanted. In 1700 the average Englishman consumed 4 pounds a year. By 1900 he was up to 100 pounds a year. Today the average American consumes 77 pounds of added sugar annually, or more than 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day. As lands with oil and gas are greatly sought after today so it was with lands for sugarcane that needed tropical, rain-drenched fields to flourish. In school they call it the age of exploration, the search for territories and islands that would send Europeans all around the world. In reality, it was a hunt for fields where sugarcane would prosper.

Trekking for Continental Wildways on Wednesday's Access Utah Jul 30, 2013

Show notes

Chip Ward writes in The Nation: “At this very moment, [TrekWest adventurer John] Davis is walking, biking, paddling and horseback riding 6,000 miles through a chain of mountain ranges that stretches like a spine across North America from the Sierra Madres of Mexico through the Rockies of the American West up into Canada. He started this winter in the Sonoran desert we share with our southern neighbor and has been heading northward for months. He will cross many of our most treasured national parks like Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, the ones that tourists love, but his trek is no sightseeing adventure. Davis and his Trek West partners along the route are advocating for what they call 'landscape connectivity' on a continental scale.”

Himalayan Cataract Project on Tuesday's Access Utah Jul 29, 2013

Show notes

Ophthalmologists Dr. Geoffrey Tabin (based in Salt Lake City) and Dr. Sanduk Ruit have dedicated their lives to restoring sight to blind people in some of the most isolated, impoverished reaches of developing countries in the Himalayas and Sub-Saharan Africa. Drs. Ruit and Tabin founded the Himalayan Cataract Project (HCP) in 1995. Geoffrey Tabin was a high-achieving Harvard Medical School student from the suburbs of Chicago who was also an accomplished mountain climber; he was the fourth person to reach the famed Seven Summits, the tallest peak on each continent. It was through high-altitude climbing that he first came to witness the dramatic effects of cataract surgery on blind villagers. Dr. Tabin joins Tom Williams for the hour on Tuesday’s Access Utah.

Sheldon Harnick on Monday's Access Utah Jul 27, 2013

Show notes

Legendary lyricist Sheldon Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me, Fiorello!) is in Logan for events with the Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theater. He is Tom Williams' guest for the hour on Access Utah. Monday 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.

Part Wild on Thursday's Access Utah Jul 24, 2013

Show notes

Ceiridwen Terrill writes about how, at a particularly sad and frightening time in her life, a wolf dog was the kind of companion she was searching for. In her book, "Part Wild: Caught Between the Worlds of Wolves and Dogs," she talks about an animal whose heart is divided between the woman she loves, and the desire to roam free. In the end, Terrill realizes she must confront the reality of taming a half-wild animal. We revisit a conversation from December 2012.

The Life of Brigham Young on Wednesday's Access Utah Jul 23, 2013

Show notes

Brigham Young was a rough-hewn craftsman from New York whose impoverished and obscure life was electrified by the Mormon faith. He trudged around the U.S. and England to gain converts for Mormonism, spoke in spiritual tongues, married more than 50 women, and eventually transformed a barren desert into his vision of the Kingdom of God.

Utah's "Ag Gag" Law on Tuesday's Access Utah Jul 22, 2013

Show notes

Animal welfare activists filed a lawsuit Monday, challenging Utah’s “Ag Gag” law. We'll revisit a debate from May when, in the first test in the nation of an “Ag Gag” law, a Utah woman was charged for using her cell phone to film a slaughterhouse. Charges against Amy Meyer were subsequently dropped. Under Utah’s law (H.B. 187) passed in 2012, it is illegal to film an agricultural operation while trespassing or entering the premises on false pretenses. What do you think? Do surreptitious whistle blowers at farms and slaughterhouses provide a needed service or are they public nuisances? Do you think Utah’s “Ag Gag” law is a necessary protection or an infringement on citizens’ rights?

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