Daily Herald: Eagle Mountain Councilman blogs the good, bad and ugly

Friday, 12 December
Eagle Mountain Councilman blogs the good, bad and ugly
Caleb Warnock - DAILY HERALD
CRAIG DILGER/Daily Herald Eagle Mountain blogger and city council member David Lifferth - Friday, December 12, 2008.

Looking for the good, the bad, and the ugly in Eagle Mountain? One councilman here has a blog for you. Over the past three years, DavidLifferth.com, owned by the city's namesake councilman, has drawn nearly 300,000 page views from 84 countries by tracking all things Eagle Mountain.

Lifferth is hoping more elected officials will follow his lead into cyberspace.

"People just like someone who is going to be open about government," he said. "If I was not on the council, I would want someone who was in the know to blog and talk about things."

"This blogging that I have done consistently for four years now has forced me to read, understand, and explain the good, the bad, and the ugly here in Eagle Mountain," Lifferth wrote in a recent e-mail to his fans. "I have been praised for my openness and candor while at the same time I have been threatened with a half dozen lawsuits for my openness. This openness and candor caused the readership of my blog to been massive."

Lifferth said his site "has frequently been the most read Web site in all of Eagle Mountain and surrounding areas. My Web site frequently had more page views than Eagle Mountain City's site, the local newspapers sites covering Eagle Mountain, blog and forum sites, and any of the developers' sites."

All this attention is one of the best things that could happen to city government, he said.

"The quote from Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis comes to mind: 'Sunlight is the best disinfectant.'"

Lifferth said one of the highest compliments paid his site came from a friend who said "the bad guys fear your Web site."

Lifferth is not exactly a cyber newbie, so to speak. He runs about 30 online sites, earning money from advertising on most, if not all, though he does not make money from his site dedicated to city politics, he said.

To draw readers, he makes sure his posts are enticing. Take this recent example: "Reagan Caused Global Warming," a post which documents why, in Lifferth's view, a significant cause of the statistical increase in average global temperature has been the reduction in temperature reporting stations in the former Soviet Union" and Reagan's role in that.

Getting 500 hits a day, Lifferth's most lucrative site is surprisingly -- not political at all -- it is a James Bond fan site, 007BondMovies.ning.com. He also runs JunkScience.ning.com and PonyExpress.ning.com, to name a few.

Lifferth said he tries to have fun with his sites. During his interview with the Daily Herald, he surprised this reporter by bringing up a photo on his Web site of this reporter perusing a competitor's weekly newspaper during a slow moment in an Eagle Mountain City Council meeting. Lifferth said he took the photo from the council dais during the meeting using his cellphone. This reporter never even knew the photo existed.

"You've taken some jabs at me and once in a while I want to take some jabs back," he said with a laugh. "... I do think I have fun with my site. I have a playful attitude."

Jokes aside, every elected official should consider blogging as a way to give information directly to the public, he said. At least several Web sites allow anyone to set up their own blog for free, so getting started is easy.

"I think elected officials should talk about what the issues are, and why things are happening," he said, noting some elected officials in Utah Valley are starting to follow suit, including council members from Payson and Saratoga Springs.

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/292207/17/

Dave Lifferth on ESPN2

ESPN2: Dave Lifferth on ESPN2

Many people know me as a Rabid Soccer fan, but few have ever documented this on video. This is a frame from the 10/09/08 broadcast. I was an enthusiastic spectator and came home hoarse from enthusiastically supporting my team.

Last night was the Inaugural Game for Real Salt Lake at the new Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy. ESPN2 covered the game in a nation-wide broadcast.

One of the first video sequences of the new stadium was of me, David Lifferth, yelling and clapping with enthusiasm. Shortly after this video was shown, I had 4 members of my family text me on my cell phone telling me that they had just seen me on ESPN2.

The new Rio Tinto stadium is an amazing athletic venue. It remindes me of the world-class facilities that I have been to in Spain and England. It is every bit the outdoor equivalent of the Delta Center is polished state of the art facility. The "Jumbo Tron" is crisp in high resolution and very close to the fans.

The game ended in a disappointing tie, RSL 1-NY Red Bulls 1. Real needs at least one more win to ensure that they are in the playoffs.

Dennis Lifferth quoted in Newsweek/Washington Post

Dennis Lifferth quoted in Newsweek/Washington Post

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2008/09/the_churchs_silence_on_the_eco.html
Church Silence on the Economy
I've been waiting for a week for at least one major Christian denomination to help us gain some spiritual or even scriptural insight into Wall Street's moral failings, first brought to our attention by Brother Alan Greenspan in 2002.
"An infectious greed seemed to grip much of our business community," the then-Fed chairman told Congress. "It is not that humans have become any more greedy than in generations past. It is that the avenues to express greed had grown so enormously."
Since Wall Street began melting down last week, the only avenue of greed the major Christian denominations have felt called upon to inspect this has been the one that leads to their church pensions. Good news, clergy and lay employees of the United Methodist and Episcopal churches. Your pensions are safe. No word on how your parishioners are doing during the current housing/credit/debt crisis, and not a hint of rebuke for the free enterprise faithful who caused all of this grief, but your billions of investment dollars are being looked after.
"The greatest challenge is assuring participants that we have a disciplined process, that we're adhering to that process and that they should ignore short-term fluctuations in stock prices," said David Zellner, chief investment officer for the United Methodist Board of Pension and Health Benefits, which claims to be the largest faith-based investor in the U.S.
"In light of the recent market volatility, the Board and staff of the Church Pension Fund want to reassure participants in the Clergy Pension Plan that the Fund's financial condition remains very strong, with assets well in excess of liabilities," the Episcopal Clergy Pension Board reported.
Last time I checked, assets and liabilities were not how the church measured its work or worth. Greed is still one of the seven deadly sins. Covetousness hasn't been amended out of the Ten Commandments. Depending on your interpretation of scripture, Christianity either strongly cautions against or forbids charging interest and accumulating wealth and debt, not to mention gambling.
So why aren't the leaders of our major Christians denominations saying anything about the economy? They've had plenty to say during the past week about other pressing moral issues. Catholic bishops remain focused on abortion. Southern Baptist leaders continue to condemn abortion and defend Sarah Palin, and National Baptist Convention leaders fretting about aging congregations and applauded Michelle Obama. Presbyterian leaders expressed concern about gun violence, Assemblies of God about hurricane victims, Lutherans about poverty, United Church of Christ leaders about peace. None of them said anything about Wall Street.
Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did express some concern about how the economic crisis might be affecting the welfare of others, but only to remind LDS about the church's own welfare program "based on the principle of self-reliance."
"If you build self-reliance in people," Dennis Lifferth, managing director of the LDS welfare program, explained on the site, "everybody grows; it is the essence of the welfare plan. Lives can be changed by personal interest and attention."
Self-reliance. Personal interest. Everybody grows. Sounds like capitalism to me, but at least LDS is acknowledging the situation, and offering some guidance.
I'm not saying our religious leaders should threaten to withhold communion from the greedy sinners responsible for the economy's going to hell in a financial basket, because that might include just about all of us. I know I've taken advantage of lower interest rates, mortgage refinancing, home equity growth (remember that?), stock options and other little 'trickle-down' perks we get during the bubbles.
I'm not even saying our religious leaders should withhold endorsements from candidates whose policies, votes or views encourage the sort of risky business that blows parts of our economy into bubbles that burst all over us. Those are people we've all voted for.
I am saying that the best moral analysis of these financial failures shouldn't come from Alan Greenspan, who arguably is as responsible as anyone for our growing indebtedness.
Jesus said nothing about abortion, homosexuality or pension plans (although he did say not to worry about tomorrow). He had plenty to say about money and moneychangers, greed and wealth, and the root of all evil. He had good news for the poor, not for investors.
As "On Faith" panelist and nondenominational leader Jim Wallis wrote, "The behavior of too many on Wall Street is a violation of biblical ethics . . . It's time for the pulpit to speak -- for the religious community to bring the Word of God to bear on the moral issues of the American economy. The Bible speaks of such things from beginning to end, so why not our pastors and preachers?"
Why not?

Lifferth-Dorius Runs NCAA Regional Qualifying Time In 3,000 Steeplechase

• Senior Stacie Lifferth-Dorius ran an NCAA regional qualifying time with a 10:21.11 in finishing third in the 3,000 meter steeplechase at the Oregon Twilight meet Friday. Lifferth-Dorius improved her WAC-leading time by over three seconds.

Lifferth-Dorius Runs NCAA Regional Qualifying Time In 3,000 Steeplechase Friday At Oregon Twilight

Senior Runs Fastest Time In WAC This Season, Second-Fastest In USU History Behind Her Own School Record
May 9, 2008

EUGENE, Ore. - Utah State track athlete Stacie Lifferth-Dorius was the only Aggie competing at the Oregon Twilight meet Friday evening at Oregon's Historic Hayward Field at Eugene, Ore., but she made it a solid performance in the 3,000 meter steeplechase, finishing third with an NCAA regional qualifying time of 10:21.11.

Lifferth-Dorius, a senior from Layton, Utah (Northridge HS), was the top collegiate runner, finishing behind winner Carrie Vickers of Asics (9:51.08) and second-place Lesley Higgins of NYAC (10:12.18). She bettered her previous season-best and Western Athletic Conference-leading time by over three seconds. Lifferth-Dorius' prior best time this year was a 10:24.56 on April 25 at the same track, but due to an improper set up of the steeplechase barriers, her time did not count as an official NCAA regional qualifier.

Friday's time for Lifferth-Dorius is the second-fastest in USU history as well as her personal second-fastest time behind her school record clocking of 10:10.89 run last year.

Lifferth-Dorius is the two-time defending WAC champion in the 3,000 meter steeplechase and she will defend her title at the WAC Championships next Wednesday-Saturday, May 14-17 at Boise, Idaho and hosted by Boise State. The women's steeplechase is scheduled to open the running events on Friday at 2 p.m. (MT).

For more information on next week's WAC Championships, including ticket information, go to www.wacsports.com.
-USU-

http://utahstateaggies.cstv.com/sports/c-track/spec-rel/051008aaa.html

SS George Washington

I put some of this information together for last years (2007) German Dinner. The details of the ship that EE and Gretchen Lifferth immigrated on in 1921 to the U.S.A. has a fascinating history.

This is the history of the SS George Washington ship from EllisIsland.org. Click here to go to the SS George Washington page on EllisIsland.org:

Built by A/G Vulcan Shipyard, Stettin, Germany, 1909. 25,570 gross tons;
723 (bp) feet long; 72 feet wide. Steam quadruple expansion engines, twin
screw. Service speed 18 1/2 knots. 2,679 passengers (568 first class, 433
second class, 1,678 third class).Two funnels and four masts, reduced to one
funnel 1943.

Built for North German Lloyd, German flag, in 1909 and named George
Washington. Bremerhaven-New York service. Interned at New York at the
start of World War I in 1914. Seized by United States Government, American flag,
in 1917 and renamed USS George Washington. Also Bremerhaven-New
York service. Transferred to U.S. Shipping Board, in 1920 and renamed George
Washington. New York Plymouth Cherbourg Bremen service. Chartered to United
States Mail Lines. Laid up U.S. Shipping Board, in 1932. Laid up at Patuxent
River, Maryland until WWII. Transferred to United States Navy, American
flag, in 1940 and renamed Caitlin. British transport but returned due to malfunctioning boilers. Transferred to U.S. authorities, in 1941 and reverted to George Washington. Panama and New York, then US Army transport service. Completely destroyed by a fire at Baltimore; wreckage scrapped in 1951.

Size Comparisons

To get a comparison of sizes between the SS George Washington, I put several landmarks of interest together.

• 882 feet - Titanic


• 723 feet - SS George Washington


• 305 feet (including base) - Statue of Liberty


• 1,472 feet - Empire State Building

Here are several photos that I have found of the SS George Washington, also known as the USS George Washington and the Caitlin.

Lifferth Soccer Obsession

This is a fun video that I put together at few years ago. Our lives pretty much revolve around the sport of soccer.

Lifferth Family Photo collection from Lisa (Lifferth) Brown

Photobucket Album

Click on the photo to open the photo album.

Amanda's Article in July 2000 Friend

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=21bc9fbee98db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=f29494859a4bb010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1

Friend » 2000 » July
Trying to Be Like Jesus Christ

“Trying to Be Like Jesus Christ,” Friend, Jul 2000, 48–inside back cover
An Unusual Birthday
By Amanda Lifferth, age 9Cedar Pass WardLehi Utah South Stake
And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God (Mosiah 2:17).
Amanda Lifferth, “An Unusual Birthday,” Friend, July 2000, 48–inside back cover
I wanted my ninth birthday to be special. I love learning about the colonial times in America, so I decided that I wanted to have a colonial-theme birthday party with my friends. I planned everything for the party, but I wanted to have some kind of an activity that colonial girls would have had. My mother and I thought about it for a while. Then my mother told me that our ward was collecting quilts for the Church’s Humanitarian Center. She suggested that my friends and I tie a baby quilt to contribute with our ward’s other quilts. She explained to me that the quilts are sent to those in need throughout the world. I thought of a baby or small child somewhere who may not have anything to keep him or her warm during the cold winter months. I became excited about making this quilt.
My mother took me to the store, and I picked out the fabric that we would use for the quilt. I wanted to find the perfect fabric for this gift of love I was making for my birthday. I found some that was soft and warm. There was light-blue striped fabric for one side and light-blue floral for the other. I imagined a baby somewhere snuggling into the soft warmth of my quilt. A sister in our ward let me use her quilting supplies and offered some words of advice for putting the quilt together.
Finally the day of the party arrived. We did normal party things for the first hour, and then our attention was turned to the quilt that was set up, ready to be tied. Since my mother was concerned that my friends might not stay interested in the quilt long enough to finish it, she explained what it was for. My friends caught the vision and became excited to provide a quilt for a small child somewhere.
After my mother showed us how to tie the quilt, we had a great time working on it together. When it was time for the party to end, no one wanted to go home! My friends called their parents to see if they could stay longer and finish the quilt. We were all so excited and thought that we would even like to make more if we could. We stayed another couple of hours working on the quilt. When we finished tying it, my mother bound the edges.
The following Sunday, my mother took the quilt to Relief Society so that the sisters in our ward could see it. My friends and I feel good when we think about the service we gave. We know that when we serve those around us, we are serving Jesus and following His example. I will always remember my ninth birthday as one of the most special of all.
[photo] From left to right: Kelsey Bradshaw, Mary Nott, Amanda Lifferth, Anna Nott (in front of Amanda), Krystal Bailey, Erika Lindsay.

Margaret S. Lifferth's LDS General Conference Address

Margaret S. Lifferth General Conference Address in October 2006.


Click here to read her talk: http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-646-27,00.html

Photos from 2008 German Dinner

Photobucket Album

Let it Snow at the Ampitheater in Eagle Mountain

This has been a big snow year in Utah. This is a video that I made of a day of playing in the snow at the Eagle Mountain ampatheater.

WorldVitalRecords.com company video with Lifferth photos

This is the recent company video that we did at WorldVitalRecords.com. It contains several Lifferth family photos. Can you identify which ones are my family's photos?

Aunt Yvonne's Sausage Dance

In an annual Aunt Yvonne Moore embarasses herself in front of the extended family. Here is the latest event from the 2008 German Dinner .

Oaklie's first photos

Last Sunday, February 18, 2008, I was able to bless my grand daughter Oaklie at church. We are in the Mt. Airey ward and Bishop Barney was accomodating enough to let us bless Oaklie on a Sunday other than Fast Sunday. We had my parents in town for the German Dinner and it worked out well.

The original plan was to have Doug, Oaklie's other grandfather, bless Oaklie. However, it was determined that since we were blessing her in my ward that it would be best if I did.

Here are photos that we took after the blessing.

[Great Grand Parents and Oaklie. I think that is a yawn and not a scream.]

[Same hair style, same furrowed brow.]

[Charley, Cassie, Oaklie]

[Group Photo]

Here is the video compilation that I did of Oaklie's birth and first photos.

Karl Harwood's video on Gotha Germany

Below are the 3 parts of Karl Harwoods video on Gotha Germany including his interview with Wolfgang Lifferth. I had to break the video up into 3 pieces becuase YouTube will only support 10 minute video clips. This is the video that was shown during the Lifferth Family German Dinner program in 2008.

Part I



Part II


Part III



I loved the Johnny Cash soundtrack to the video. I grew up in Tennessee and heard a lot of Johnny Cash music. I know that Karl is a Cash fan and the sound track of the video worked well.

At first I thought that Karl had found some music by a German singer that did a good Johnny Cash impression thathad translated the lyrics in to German.
Part I

I googled and found out that Johnny Cash had served in the US Air Force in Germany in the 1950's as a Morse Code Decoder on Russian Army transmissions. One of his claims to fame is that he was the first American to discover that Joseph Stalin had died. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Cash

Folio's "Information Democracy" Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX9lfnyZD9E


I worked at Folio Corporation from 1990-1994, just a few months shy of 5 years. I started work there while I was still going to BYU. Much of my professional career has been influenced by my work at Folio Corp.
We had the slightly audacious slogan "we don't want to change your oil, we want to change the world." This was a play on the Jiffy Lube campaign, at that time, that said the opposite: "We don't want to change the world, we just want to change your oil."
Folio, in the late 1980's and 1990's created information sharing technology that has never been equaled. At that time their products were DOS, Windows, Mac, local network, CD, and floppy disk based. When the internet began to attract its first significant use base, Folio released a very weak attempt to migrate their technology to the web. Folio has been bought and sold several times and has lost all of the passion and spirit that many of us had in the 1990's.
The internet has exceeded Folio's reach and made information readily available to almost anyone world wide. However, there are still significant features that Folio had pioneered ten to twenty years ago that you still can't do and probably never will be able to do on the internet.
The following video was prepared for the 1993 Folio Industry Conference. We would hold these annual events in the early days at Snowbird, Little America, and later at the San Diego Convention center to hold the thousands of participants.
James Earl Jones, the famous African-American actor, narrated the video. He filmed this for us when he was in Utah filming the movie "Sand Lot." Many people know him as the voice of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. He played a significant role in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and is one of my favorite actors. I think that I first saw him as a child in "Roots" the epic African-American genealogy mini-series written by Alex Haley.
At Folio, I shared an office with Kevin Wade. He and Mark Allen where the primary developers of this "Information Democracy" video. It demonstrates the urgency and passion that we all had about making information available to the world.
As the video describes, information tore down the "iron curtain." Information overthrew dictators. Information is the strongest liberating weapon for oppressed people.
This video is 14 years old and yet it still brings tears to my eyes every time I see it.
I had family members who were oppressed and lived behind the iron curtain. When the Berlin Wall was torn down as documented in the video, my relatives came to visit us in America. They thanked us, the US, for our role in freeing and democratizing Eastern Europe.
The video was recently released to former employees at a Folio employee reunion held at Thanksgiving point a couple of years ago. I was thrilled to get a DVD of the video.
I hope that you enjoy the video as much as I do.

I thought of this video as I recently saw the video that Karl Harwood made of Gotha Germany and the interview that he did with Wolfgang Lifferth. Wolfgang described what it was like living in East Germany and behind the "Iron Curtain." He also described the events surrounding the time that the Berlin Wall came down. That event is documented in the "Information Democracy" video.

Repay the previous generation by contrinbuting to the next

I heard a parable by Dr. Laura Schlessinger's show about 10 years ago that has stuck with me. It was how you repay your parents or relatives from previous generations by passing the favor on to your children or younger relatives.

I was happy to be able to pass along some appliances to a younger cousin and his wife and children. The appliances were used but in good condition. They seemed very grateful for the gifts. I saw the gratitude in their eyes and it reminded me of the gratitute that I hve experienced from the generosity of older relatives.

Mary and I receive so much help when we were starting our family by Richard, Karl, Wes and others. I was amazed at how generous they were. They were not weathly (well maybe Karl) but they wanted to help out in so many ways.

It sure feels good to "pay it foward."

Lifferth Family German Dinner 2008

I wanted to give a report of the 2008 Lifferth Family German Dinner.

This was our largest German Dinner in the 33 year history. This year Ernest (Ernie) Lifferth and his family were the organizers and did a wonderful job. There was a shirt design contest and the winning design is being modeled by Daren Lifferth:

I uploaded my photo album to photo bucket:

http://s257.photobucket.com/albums/hh204/dlifferth/Lifferth%20German%20Dinner%202008/