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This week has been an exceptionally busy one for religious persons of all stripes, with celebrations spanning the globe. And, of course, people would be busy, what with worldwide observances of Passover, Easter and Ramadan intersecting last weekend. Even the non-religious celebrated, especially here in Utah, where so many of our fellow Utahns make their annual religious pilgrimage to Little Sahara to experience very loud noises and really crappy camping. It's what we do.

Meanwhile, Orthodox Christians have yet to celebrate Easter. For them, Palm Sunday was observed last weekend, and this coming Sunday, April 24, is Orthodox Easter. Some years, the gap between the two Easters is wider, and on rare years, they fall on the same date. But that's actually more confusing since so many marry outside their home-born culture these days. That creates confusion when deciding whether to serve piles of lamb or piles of ham for dinner. Add in the rage toward vegan preferences, and you have the perfect trifecta for dinnertime fireworks.

To each his own, I say. Drink and eat what you want and pray that we can one day agree to adopt the Mayan calendar for holiday scheduling. I hear it's pretty good.

You may know that many people give up something (not as drastic as the Mayans did) during the Lenten period. I gave up eating meat, fish, dairy products and reading The Salt Lake Tribune. The first three were hard, the last one, easy. I mean, why read a paper that even the publisher craps on?

So, I've taken to reading the Deseret News. I gotta say, I'm pleasantly surprised. Quietly, the Deseret News introduced of a new publication that is miles from their traditional wheelhouse—Deseret Magazine. The paper itself is refreshingly upfront on topics that were formerly taboo, such as questioning Utah's handling of COVID, lending widened support of equality issues (even labeling Utah's rotten transgender bill as "political folly") and broadsiding Sen. Mike Lee after his email expose in attempting to find a path for Donald Trump to negate the 2020 presidential election.

The downside to reading the Deseret News is that I opened the door to the Pandora's Box of online commentary I've ignored for a long time—the comment boards. We shut off City Weekly's commenting years ago, as we felt it was a trash heap of nonsense populated mostly by the mean spirited. I seldom read comments in the Tribune since they've become echoes inside of echoes inside an echo chamber. But at the Deseret News, the bloodletting still thrives—even though anyone with any sense knows there's no real money to be had in the clicks generated by anonymous persons being assholes to each other.

I've done the reading for you, so you don't have to, and I'm providing a sample of those comments—the mild ones—that followed the story of pious Mike Lee being sneaky about overturning our government. I'm off now to hide and spend the next several days trying to figure out what bunnies and eggs have to do with Easter. And on Sunday, I may just eat some meat. But maybe not. Vegan hasn't been so bad, after all.

From imsmarterthanyou (but who isn't)
Excellent! This just shows that Senator Lee is and has been doing everything those who voted for him expect. He's doing his best to protect the people of Utah and those who voted for him from the evil that is the Democrat agenda. The corruption of the Democrats will be the death of America if allowed to continue. Thank you to Senator Lee for standing up to that corruption.

From Uteology (one who saw through the nonsense)
On this Easter, a message from Caption Moroni that Lee tried to get back into power by spitting on the Constitution, the other is from Brandon.

"Happy Easter to all including the Radical Left Maniacs who are trying everything to destroy our country. May they not succeed, but let them, nevertheless, be happy, healthy, wealthy and well!"

"As we reflect today on Christ's Resurrection, we are reminded that with faith, hope, and love—even death can be defeated. From our family to yours, we wish you hope, health, joy and the peace of God, which passes all understanding. Happy Easter and may God bless and keep you."

From Light & Liberty (uh, no)
Because we have so many that don't understand, nor want to, the difference between a republic and democracy, we get Marxism as an alternative. Of course, that is the tip of the iceberg for those who mistake gulags, Maoism, communism and, alas, Marxism as a way to heal a nation from the "clutches" of liberty and freedom enshrined in our Constitution. Sad, sad state of affairs, all because a few million deluded followers mistook a few tweets as a phantom monster. They ran toward the Democrats and Biden as the savior of our country because he isn't even smart enough to tweet or has any courage but to worship at the feet of the lowest human aspirations and conduct. Irony abounds.

And from Worf (who gets it all wrong)
Standing up for America! Thank you, Mike Lee.

When you have a government creating a national debt equal to $900,000 for every second of a year, taking citizen earnings to pay off another person's debt, closing our oil pipelines then increase import of Russian oil, allow incoming immigrants in the past year and half greater than the population of 11 states, it becomes difficult trusting our political representatives.

Election results should not go by without questioning! Mike Lee is the man!

That Worf is such a kidder! Ha.
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Send comments to john@cityweekly.net.