Nation Guide: Report from SLC

Liberals and progressives from all over the nation move to Utah just to ski and snowboard in the fluffy snow of the nearby mountains. At Drinking Liberally we often hear stories of how people were initially reluctant to move here to Salt Lake City, simply because they knew it is one of the most conservative places in the nation (and difficult to get a drink too). Once they've moved here though and found that not everyone here agrees that Bush was the best president we've ever had, it's usually a matter of time before they find other things that make them feel more at home.

Drinking Liberally is a nice way to quickly find friends and talk to them about what the liberals in town like to do. But if you're a frequent traveler or take a lot of vacations in the states, you might not be in town the night Drinking Liberally meets. And that's where "The Nation Guide to the Nation" becomes indispensable. You can read through the book and bookmark all things liberal that you want to see, experience, or do. Then you're fully prepared for your next visit to Salt Lake City, Tulsa, Oklahoma or Boise, Idaho.

In Salt Lake City it has been a fun exercise in discussing what we would choose as our favorite liberal things in town. We participated in our local liberal radio station's call-in show, KRCL 90.9's RadioActive, in a forum sparked by the book, to talk about caller's ideas on what it means to be a liberal in such a red state. Richard Lingeman, senior editor for The Nation magazine and the author of "The Nation Guide to the Nation" even joined on air for the first part of the program. Then the night of our regular Drinking Liberally meet-up, January 27, we invited a local progressive bookseller featured in the book, The King's English, to join us so our members could purchase copies after talking about it and flipping through the free copy that we'd been sent along with recent issues of The Nation.

We sat around talking about some of the cool things mentioned in the book, both in-state and out of state. And the great thing about the book? It had quite a few things in there about Utah that many of us weren't even aware of.

Anyone traveling to another state, especially a red state, should have both a copy of "The Nation Guide to the Nation" and the meeting time and place of the local Drinking Liberally from www.drinkingliberally.org.
--By Jeremiah Roth

Comments (0)