This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Skip Carlsen, a Farmington martial-arts instructor who won a Daytime Emmy for best stunt coordination, is also an expert in CPR.
At least on chickens.
Carlsen had adopted, by default, a young rooster that "just came out of nowhere" one day, he said, and kept hanging around. The rooster had a bad hip, so Carlsen nursed it back to health and named it "Hennie."
He came to enjoy the daily wake-up calls from the rooster, which quickly became a valued family member.
One day, when he took his eye off the bird "for a little too long," Carlsen found it by the barn in a puddle of water with his pet dachshund standing over it in triumph.
The dog had gotten the bird by the neck. By the time Carlsen got there, Hennie appeared lifeless, not breathing, on the ground.
So Carlsen, who owns Dragon's Eye Freestyle Karate, applied CPR. He pumped the bird's chest and even did mouth-to-beak resuscitation. Suddenly, Hennie came alive and has been cock-a-doodle-dooing ever since.
—
Excuses, excuses • When Utah Republican Party Chairman James Evans held a rare Sunday news conference to announce a GOP-commissioned poll showing most Utahns don't like the Count My Vote compromise passed by the Legislature last year, he acted as though the party was not part of the loop when the bill was being discussed.
It all just hit them blindly, it seems.
But here is what was left unsaid at the news conference.
During the Count My Vote negotiations in the middle of the 2014 legislative session, SB54's sponsor, Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, and the House sponsor, Rep. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, traveled to Provo on a Saturday and spent two hours explaining the measure and its ramifications to the state GOP's Central Committee, the party's governing body.
After that meeting, the bill easily cleared both houses of the Republican-dominated Legislature.
That move effectively ended the petition drive the Count My Vote supporters had initiated to put on the ballot a proposal changing the caucus/convention system of nominating candidates to a direct primary.
Now, Republican Party leaders are saying they didn't go along with the bill and want it repealed. Of course, by having the bill pass last year, the ballot threat went away.
Sounds like a bait and switch.
—
More doublespeak • GOP leaders say SB54's requirements — which compel them to change the party bylaws to increase the threshold of winning a nomination at convention to 65 percent and to allow delegates to vote absentee — are too cumbersome. They don't have enough time to make those changes which, in effect, would force them to enter their candidates on the ballot as unaffiliated, without the magic "R" by their names.
But the party knew as early as fall 2013 that changes were being discussed at the Legislature to address the Count My Vote concerns. And there is a precedent for party central committees to call emergency meetings to make changes, which then could be ratified by convention delegates.