It rained a few nights ago, and in the morning, after the storm had blown away, the sky looked as if it had been scoured and burnished. As I walked across the platform toward the light-rail train that was waiting to take me to work, I stopped and looked to the west. The slumped and rounded contours of the Oquirrh Mountains stood out clearly in the sparkling air, as if they were only yards away instead of miles, and all the houses and trees that blanket the valley floor were crisply defined as well. In the northwest corner of the valley, out over the Great Salt Lake, I could see a mass of leftover clouds piled up in a tall, gray heap that was shockingly dark compared to everything around it, and beautiful for the contrast it provided. The world looked clean and refreshed, and it suddenly struck me, as it occasionally does, that I really, really love living in this place where the mountains are so near and the sky so far above.

Unfortunately, the downsides of living in Utah often make an equally strong impression.

For example, I read in the Tribune recently that Channel 9, the local educational channel that shows mostly college telecourses associated with my alma mater, the University of Utah, is being investigated by the FCC on charges of indecency. It seems that some delicate flower was watching a film history course and got his or her knickers in a knot after seeing brief, uncensored clips from Platoon and The Graduate that included profanity and an extremely brief glimpse of a boobie, respectively.

Let me go over that again so we’re absolutely clear about this: the uncensored clips (if indeed they were uncensored; there is apparently some dispute over this) from two movies that are acknowledged almost universally as important works of art-with-a-capital-A were shown on an obscure TV station as part of a university course intended for adult viewers. I’ve seen this course myself from time to time; it airs fairly late at night as I recall, usually after 10 PM, and it’s not terribly entertaining unless you’re (a) a student or (b) a hardcore film buff like myself who enjoys discussing the historical and cultural significance of decades-old movies. It’s not the sort of thing that an impressionable child is likely to stumble across, and, if they do, they’re not likely to stick around for long. So what, precisely, is the problem?

The problem is that Channel 9 airs in frakkin’ Utah, a place where the spirit of Thomas Bowdler positively thrives. This is, after all, the state that gave birth to CleanFlicks, the notorious video chain that edited and rented its own “sanitized” versions of Hollywood blockbusters until a lawsuit forced it out of business, and that CleanFlicks mentality — the notion that everything should be “family friendly” regardless of context — is prevalent. The idea that you can simply change the channel when something comes on that you don’t like is not. Which is why a small-time television station that probably has a very tiny viewership is very possibly — maybe even very likely — going to have to pay a fine for showing film clips that any freshman college student in the country would likely see in a classroom setting.

And if that’s not ridiculous enough to set the blood to boiling, how about the item that came out a few days later, about the guy who is being forced to change his personalized license plate — which read “MERLOT” — after having it for 10 years because someone finally figured out that merlot is a type of wine and complained about it. Utah’s dippy laws forbid the names of intoxicants from appearing on license plates. Never mind that “merlot” can also refer to a color (the car owner’s vehicle is a dark red color) or a place. I would imagine that “champagne” and “burgundy” are both out as well, despite their multiple meanings.

This sort of thing happens with depressing regularity around here, and it drives me positively bats. I am so very, very tired of finger-waving scolds, moralists, and prudes having a conniption fit over things that wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in other parts of the country. I’m tired of the embarassment of the rest of the country thinking that everyone in Utah is like these folks that make so much trouble and end up in the “news of the weird” columns. More importantly, I’m tired of the prudes having such an outsized amount of influence over the culture in these parts. They don’t really stop any of the things they consider “bad” from happening, they just make it damned inconvenient for those of us who enjoy those things to pursue them. And when the rebellious sorts like me complain about the situation or try to have a rational debate about it, the stock response is to tell us to go somewhere else.

Well, I don’t want to go anywhere else, because I love scenes like the one I described at the start of this entry, and because my family is here, and my roots.

There used to be a local talk-radio personality named Tom Barberi — he’s still around, but I don’t believe he’s on the air anymore — whose personal slogan was, “Legalize adulthood in Utah.” I’ve always liked that saying, but it seems to presume that we could actually find some evidence of adulthood in this state. There are times when I don’t think that’s possible…