Taps

It seemed like a strange place for an alfalfa field.  Acres and acres of it, for as far as I could see.  The clover was dark green, and dotted carelessly with purple flowers, as tiny bugs scrounged and foraged and bees flew in precise, yet seemingly clumsy loops as they hunted meticulously for sweets to take back to their hive.  Life is active, careless, and humming in this vast expanse.

Across a simple asphalt path, there is another field.  This one teeming with somber humanity, this one rigid in it's organization, as columns of tombstones sprawl across a neatly manicured tarp of grass.  Grass that is likely sprayed regularly to keep pests and weeds away.

At attention are hundreds of police officers, sweating under the hot Utah sun.  Some are in their dress blues, motorcycle helmets fastened to their chins, hands extended above their right eyebrow, as they try, most in vain, to choke back tears.

Organizers had asked the media to station their cameras in the alfalfa field, a request we all accepted in an effort to give the family a respectful distance.  As the coffin gently sailed, towards its plot, with uniformed officers manning each corner of it, honey bees zipped past my ears, and a thousand American flags rubbed and flapped, tossed and pushed by a brisk, hot wind.

Sgt. Derek Johnson, rolled up to a grey Volvo parked awkwardly on quiet, residential Draper, Utah street.  According to investigators, before he could even unbuckle his seat belt, the officer was met with a hail of bullets, his SUV then sped chaotically away, hitting a nearby tree at a high rate of speed.   Johnson died later that night at a hospital.  Troy Walker is accused of shooting Johnson, his girlfriend then turning the gun on himself.  Walker survived, his mugshot shows him, with a crooked frown, and his head and jaw, trapped inside a metal contraption, reminiscent of a Terry Gilliam film.

Funerals for police officers and fallen soldiers have familiar story lines, a plane or helicopter flyover, taps, bagpipes, a 21 gun salute, and the folding of the American flag followed by one of the most difficult moments you will ever see, that flag presented to the fallen officers wife, or husband.

In my career, I would guess I've covered more than 50 funerals, every one of them for strangers whom, I've met only in grainy pictures, pulled from a dusty frame, or carefully plucked off a hallway wall.

When families allow me into their homes to discuss their worst tragedy, they will often also oblige me by allowing me to take pictures of their loved ones.  I've seen hundreds of grieving mothers and fathers thumb through picture albums, glassy eyed, grinning at captured, tender moments at Disney world, a wedding, or in the hospital, after the birth of a child.

I'm pretty good at keeping my emotions in check at funerals, I have trained my mind to understand the gravity of the pain being felt by the families without being consumed by them.

I have only been to three funerals in my life, that involved someone I was intimately associated.
My grandmother and grandfather whom the grand kids called MaMa and PaPa.  It's endearing to think about those nicknames, and to recall grown adults, in their 30's and 40's referring to another adults as MaMa.

The third was my father's, who died two months ago.  By his own design his was a decidedly low key affair.  Bill Jones, would never allow for a bagpipe, a singer, or a slide show at his funeral.  He even paid most of the burial expenses to reduce the "drama," for his kids.

Although he was the greatest man I'd ever known, I didn't cry at his funeral.  Maybe it was because of the utilitarian design of the affair.  Perhaps it was because I was named co-executor of his estate, and I had busied myself with dealing with Dad's apartment, his accounts, and finding a storage facility for his things, that I didn't allow myself to mourn.

As the bagpipes breathed in and out at Sgt. Johnson's funeral, I thought about his family, but, as I stood, in the spongy alfalfa field, across from the cemetery, I thought mostly about my dad.  The bees went about their business, Sgt. Johnson was laid to rest, and for the first time in months, I cried for my father.

I don't know you, but I hate you.

Although the setting sun was to his back, the eyes of the middle aged man were squeezed into narrow, angry slits.  His lip curled at the right edge, and the snarl was powered by some latent hatred, that seemed to radiate from a place, if questioned, even he could not pinpoint.  It was the kind of hatred, that comes from his DNA, perhaps from generations ago, attributable to his wronged and abused forefathers.  The nastiness was palpable.  To punctuate the smoldering animosity, was his right, middle finger raised in a proud, yet profane salute to me.

Photographer Patrick Fitzgibbon and I had just made a right hand turn onto Broadway, out of the 2News parking facility located in the Wells Fargo building in downtown Salt Lake City.  Moments earlier we had just 

Commented on how sharp the news truck looked, after a sign company had recently wrapped the vehicle in sharp, crisp graphics.  "I think it looks pretty cool," I commented as I slapped my satchel in back of the truck, and perched myself proudly in the passenger seat.

Patrick was building his argument for how he thinks the show, Breaking Bad, of which we are both fans, will end in a few episodes, when I saw the salute, and the hateful face that eventually morphed into a gleeful grin the moment the saluter was certain that I had seen his insult.  

His satisfaction was an oozing, slippery smile that crept onto his face like that of a movie villain, when he blows up a building, or triggers a trap door that sends the hero into a cavernous dungeon filled with cobwebs and Gila Monsters.

I lost connection with Patrick's theories for several minutes as I pondered the anonymous insult, hurled at me for likely no other reason than, I worked in media.  "I'm just shocked," I crooked my head and shut my eyes, searching for the logic, "that a perfect stranger thinks it's ok to insult us for no other reason than he sees us in this truck."  

The man appeared to be a functioning member of our society and by that I mean, he wasn't a wild haired maniac kicking around the streets of Salt Lake City, wearing a pair of ski pants for the third month in a row and screaming randomly at passersby about flying saucers.  

He seemed to be someone who understands social cues and norms.  He was dressed smartly in a green, pressed button up shirt and a pair of creased khakis.  He likely says "yes sir," and "No sir," has a firm handshake, and opens the door for his wife. He could have been on his way to a business meeting, or to pay his mortgage at the bank branch located in the building in which I work.  Oddly, the sight this gaudy news van, made him go "caveman."  His docile, casual thoughts about his next vacation, how he would pay his kids tuition, or what he might eat for dinner, were interrupted kinetically, by a visceral, prehistoric tool box, from which he pulled out "the bird" to insult some anonymous stranger, who was passing the time of a 20 minutes ride to Centerville, Utah, by chatting about a program on basic cable.

Sadly this kind of thing happens pretty regularly.  Several months ago, as I stood outside a downtown tattoo parlor, as police swarmed a neighborhood, looking for a man who had recently fired a gun at two people, a pleasant fellow sat calmly on the crumbling stairs outside an aging, brick apartment building sipping a Pabst Blue Ribbon and taking short drags off of quickly shrinking cigarette butt.  He nodded his head, and smiled enthusiastically at me as I waited for a public information officer from the Salt Lake City Police to round up reporters and give us an update on the search.  I looked at the man, smiled broadly and chimed, "hey, how's it going?"  To which he cocked his head, grinned and said with sugary venom, "why don't you go f*#k yourself."  I just stood there, stunned, as he geared up for a frothing diatribe, "go get a real job!" he groused, "stop perpetrating hatred, do something productive with your life you jackel."  To which I said, "you mean productive like you, guzzling cheap booze on the steps at three in the afternoon."  Admittedly, the prudent choice would have been to say nothing, and I realized that as he thrust his filter less cigarette towards the pavement and barreled, headlong at me before being intercepted by a nearby officer, who seemed unaffected by the man's rolling rant.  The guy circled back to his PBR and his concrete step with the parting salutation, "f*#k you!"

I suppose you get used to it.  Check that, you don't get used to it, you accept that you are a simply an empty vessel in which people deposit all their frustration about what politicians call, the "lamestream media."

Before my dad passed away he used to call me up and complain about something he'd read in the Wall Street Journal, or something he'd seen on the CBS Evening News, "why do you guys do that," he would demand.  "I don't know dad, " I would joke, "I'll chat with the president of CBS News when I get to work."

I suppose when people, "flip me off," tell me to 'go to hell,' or call me names, it's less about me, and more about the vast, billowing media world that angers them, from Mylie Cyrus, to the New York Times, to Fox News, to Twitter, to Facebook, to layoffs, to Syria you name it.

I guess, that polite man in the clean shirt, on his way to a lunch meeting is just sick of it all, and I suppose I'm the guy in the news van, who gets to hear about.  I don't accept it, but I suppose, I get it.

  

   

The Hard Way

My dad, who passed away in July, used to say, "you're just like me, you have to do everything the hard way."  Bill Jones was right, again, about himself, and about his third son.  During his life, the old man, cycled from wild success to miserable failure during his 89 year adventure ride, in which he quit his secure job at age 27, and went into business for himself, never working for another person as long as he lived.

It was a boom or bust existence, I recall one Christmas with a towering, 9 foot tall Spruce, a flood of presents, bicycles, and hockey sticks, surrounded by gaudy decorations, and soaked in catered food. That year a Mariachi band atop a flatbed truck was waiting to haul our family around our streets to sing carols to our weary and confused neighbors standing in there bathrobes, pink slippers, with coffee in hand.  They would wipe the sand from their eyes wondering, "why the hell is their a Mariachi band playing at this hour?  Strike that, "why is there a Mariachi band playing at ANY hour?"

I also recall a Christmas with a tree no taller than a fern, and 2 small, wrapped presents, one for me, and one for my sister, placed gently on a white towel, hastily snatched from the bathroom on Christmas Eve.

My dad ultimately sweat and bled his way to financial stability, founding a chain of discount dry cleaners, that eventually added up to about 200 stores, but he, as he had mentioned to me ad nausium, " "had done it the hard way."

While thumbing through his meticulous files in the days after he died, I came across a letter he had written to a friend and investor 30 years ago.  It read:  "Fred, as you know I have recently filed for bankruptcy, and I promise you will soon be paid the $5000 I owe you, but in the meantime, I want to tell you about a great opportunity in which I think you might want to invest."  He was always working, and always raising money, sometimes in the hardest ways possible.

He did pay back Fred with interest, and Fred, my uncle, did invest with my dad again.  Even though he was as he would say "busted." my dad never stopped working or hustling, he had to, because he did everything the hard way.

As I sat in our news van, perched outside the home of Cheri Walker, the mother of a man believed to have gunned down a Draper, Utah police officer last week.  I was thinking about my dad.

Just two days earlier, Sgt. Derek Johnson coasted up next to a grey, late model Volvo parked awkwardly on Fort Street in Draper.  The tires on the squad car of the decorated officer likely didn't even stop turning, when police think Walker open fire, hitting and killing Johnson.  Walker is then thought to have turned the gun on his long time girlfriend, Traci Vaillancourt, shooting her in the back before rotating the pistol into his mouth, and squeezing the trigger.  Miraculously both survived, and, as is so often the case, that's where I come in.

Outside the home of Cheri Walker, I was pondering some of my dad's old sayings and watching as a woman pulled up next to three reporters from competing stations.  "Do you want to go see what she is saying?"  photographer Patrick Fitzgibbon asked as I propped my feet on the dash, and adjusted my sunglasses, "Nah," I said, with a nervous pit in my stomach, "I hate globbing onto other reporters work."
After 15 minutes, the woman sauntered off, and, my pride wouldn't allow me to chase her down to see what she had told my competitors .

After more than an hour of waiting for the return of Troy Walker's mother, I decided we needed to do SOMETHING, so I Googled and searched and eventually stumbled upon an address that Vaillancourt had lived at years ago in Murray, Utah.  "No, I don't know her," chimed the sing-song voiced mom, who had just purchased the home a week ago, "The name sounds familiar, but I don't know her," she said eagerly, bouncing a small toddler in her arms, as he munched down a soggy fist full of Cheerios.

It was 7 PM, and for television news, that is the bewitching hour.  If you haven't nailed down your story by then, you are in jeopardy of not making the 10 PM news cast.

"Ok, ok, ok," I sighed heavily as I vigorously ran my hand across the top of my head  as if, the friction would make my brain conjure a brilliant idea, "I have one more address," I bleated with discouragement, "but she hasn't lived in this place for years."

"Who is it?!"  a woman shrieked from inside the non-descript suburban rambler.  "I'm Chris Jones, from Channel 2."  The metal, brown door swept open, "I know why you are here."  

The middle aged woman with smiling eyes, had purchased the home from Vaillancourt's parents several years ago, but knew everything about the family.  She knew Vaillancourt and her boyfriend had a child, that Vaillancourt had a rare blood disorder, and that Walker had guns, but she was unwilling to share any of it on camera, which, of course in the TV business, is what it is all about.  "I'm so sorry," she would shake her head with real sympathy, like a mom, forced by an overbearing husband to carry out a overly-strict punishment on a teenager.

As I peer at my watch, 7:30, I begin to accept the defeat that is looming in the air, "You guys have a nice day," she says pluckily as I turn the door knob, "I wonder if Traci's sister could help you, I know where she lives," she says nonchalantly, burying the lead.

"Yes Traci is my sister," says Vicki King, teeth clinched, brow furrowed,  "In fact she was here the day before the shooting," she announced, eager to tell the story of how her sister went from beauty queen to a woman living in a car and addicted to pain pills.

As I flip on the mic, I am satisfied that we will be the only station to tell this part of the story, until I see two reporters, with their photographers in tow, approaching the front stoop and prepping their camera's for the interview.

As the reporters step back to their vehicles, "how did you find her?" I ask with amazement, "oh," says one of them, "remember that woman we were talking to outside the Walker home?  She told us where Vicku lived."

As I searched my briefcase for my glasses, I could only think of my father, and his words, that rang more true on this day, than they had in sometime, "you always have to do things the hard way."

So Much Information, So Little Information.

The ghastly tale of Susan and Josh Powell, reads like a dense murder-mystery at times, and at others, like a long grocery list.  As you peruse the 30,000 investigation documents released by the West Valley City Police Department, it feels like you're watching a television crime thriller, and conversely like you are glancing at a digital clock as it blinks from 3:31 AM to 3:32 AM.

Many of the pages released are redacted, leaving the reader to scan through reams of black pages, and scores of whitewashed names, but the text is rich with information, some of it engrossing, some of it uncomfortably close, some of it banal.

In a section tabbed photos, you see hundreds, if not thousands of evidence photos, snapped by crime scene investigators.  Many of the images you would expect a cop to take.  Like the out of focus photo of a large bar-b-que tool.  "Could this be a murder weapon?"  A crime scene tech might ask as he or she opens the aperture of the camera and searches for clues in Susan's disappearance.  Or the plastic bag police found hidden in the floor boards of Josh's nondescript Town and Country Mini-van.  The van in which he took his kids on a midnight run, to the frozen desert, the night his wife disappeared.   Inside the white, 13 gallon garbage bag is a two foot by 1 foot section of burnt dry wall.  The frightening possibilities are only outnumbered by the likely, humdrum explanations.

The truth is most of the photos are mundane, a shot of plastic jars of vitamins and supplements from inside the Powell's kitchen cabinets.   A snap shot of a can or concentrated orange juice, a photo of a tin of Altoids.  The tedious documentation by police that shows just how intricately they investigated the frustrating disappearance 

As I flicker through the dearth of images, I remember feeling uncomfortable, as if  I am forced to peer  inside the home of an unsuspecting neighbor as she prepare dinner, or carelessly watch television on her sofa.

There are photos, of Susan's grass stained running shoes and her jewelry.  There are pictures inside her most personal spaces, of her unmade bed, of her toiletries strewn carelessly across her bathroom vanity.  These are places that only Susan had been, things only Susan has worn, and now things and places, at which a dozen police officers, and additionally a dozen reporters are now leering.

Also tucked away inside the puzzle of information stored on a 24 Gig hard drive, are all the crevices in which police have peeked during their search.  Officers, it appears, spent some time tracking down a tip from an unnamed prison inmate, who, looking for reduced jail time, suggested that Josh had had some sort of relationship with a woman, who may have been a stripper and who could potentially have information about Susan's whereabouts   One of the documents includes a list of exotic dancers, their names (redacted) including their stage alias (redacted) and the club at which they danced (redacted).  If I'm correct, it looks like that inmate, acting as a confidential informant for police, called one of his associates on a recorded line, looking for the "real," name of "that b**ch."  His words, not mine.

That inmate makes references to Josh being involved, "with the wrong people," there is also a letter from someone referring to a potential contract taken out on Josh's life.  None of the tips appear to have led to any solid leads, but they are indications of how police walked down every proverbial alley in the labyrinthine tale of Susan Cox Powell.

A transcript of a police interview with one of Susan's co-workers, shows the delicate dance officers did as they attempted to reveal everything about Susan's personality.  The officer asks the male co-worker if knew that Susan had told friends she had had dreams about him, and if the man had ever had a "physical" relationship with the missing woman, "me, no, no."  He responds with surprise.

As you scroll through all the pages, it appears that police have uncovered just about everything regarding Susan and Josh, from the shoes they fastened to their feet, to the vitamins that they put in their mouths.  Everything that is, except the answer to that single, simple, and sadly, it turns out, impossible question.



 

The Ghastly Ghost

Even after his sickening murder-suicide, Josh Powell, continues to thrust himself, zombie-like, into our lives.  Like a reoccurring rash or chronic back pain, Powell's repugnant visage seems to make a return every 6 months or so.

Most recently, he infected the sleepy community of Salem, Oregon.  After a tip from the father of Susan Cox-Powell, the West Valley City Police, packed their bags and made the 13 hours trip to the Pacific Northwest, to root through another open field, poke their heads into more deep, dark craggy holes, and jam their glove covered hands into thistle, thorny rose bushes, and spiky weeds.

Officers didn't find anything, so they slung their backpacks onto another uncomfortable bed, in another nameless motel, and stuffed it carelessly with dob kits, hiking boots and undershirts, then made the 800 mile drive back home to West Valley.  

You likely know the excruciating tale of Susan, Josh, Chuck, Steven and the boys.  Missing woman, suspected husband, brave dad, perverted father, murdered children and fiery suicide.

The last time Josh made an unwelcome appearance was Super Bowl Sunday.  My girlfriend Amanda, who is now my wife and I where prepping snacks for a party when my boss, Jen Dahl called, "Josh Powell killed his children and himself by burning down his house, can you go to Washington?"   After I shook my head, and closed my mouth, I packed a bag for Sea-Tac.

In the airport, as I waited for my plane to depart, I caught a glimpse of  a nondescript play run by the New England Patriots, before hoisting my briefcase onto my shoulder and bouncing around in a line as people scanned their smart phones, talked about Tom Brady, and whispered with hands over mouths about Powell, "he killed his kids too?!"

Before that it was his father's arrest on voyeurism charges, then his dad's weird obsession with Susan, and the interviews,  and the child custody hearings.  

Every 6 months, the chinless Powell, with his spotty goatee and pouting, moist eyes, would saunter into our proverbial eye sight, like an unwelcome house guest, bowling into the living room in nothing but a terry cloth robe, eating the last piece of pizza.

The response to a Powell resurrection is always, exasperatedly, methodically the same.  I have about 10 names in my phone's contact list, under the heading "Powell."  When Josh makes news, the first call is always to Chuck Cox, Susan's father, then to Josh's sister, then the police department.  If you can't get any answers there, your last resort is Cox family attorney Anne Bremner.    Whenever a new Powell revelation pops up, reporters rush down the same worn, and tired path, and usually find the exact same worn and tired answers.  

The Salem lead didn't unveil Susan's whereabouts, so Josh, and the tale of the awfulness he brought to the world is put to bed.  Eventually, we will hear from him again.  I don't know for what or why, but when we do, everyone: reporters, police, Susan's family, will pull themselves out of bed, drag themselves off the sofa, dig their thumbs into their clinched eyes, take a deep breath, and start the tired task of digging in a wheat field or calling Chuck Cox for comment.  

I'm the step-fatherer!

It was about 5:15 when he stumbles up behind the horde of cameras and reporters, his tall Pompadour
balanced on the top of his head, and wiggling back and forth atop his noggin, like a sleepy cowboy, after a long horse back ride.  His hair would waggle, whenever he would emphasis each drunken syllable.  "I was the step-fatherer." He stammers as we interview an animated neighbor who is passionately complaining about all the traffic, and cars speeding down her street. "There's kids here 24-7!"  she shouts, with her fist raised up to her face, drawing tiny circles in the air with them, like an old-timey pugilist.

At about 4 PM, three girls, ages 9,11, and 14 where walking to a nearby swimming pool when a man who police say was texting on his phone hit all three of them.  The girls were all taken to the hospital, but are, as of today, in stable condition.

While Dianna tries, rather incompletely,  to paint the picture of a terrible accident that crashes nearly into her front yard, the Pompadour, inserts his slurry cocktail of disconnected words into the interview, "He weers Texting, when he hut them kidzzz, oh, he's dead!"  Dianna, stammers and stutters a bit, taken aback by the interruption then like a lawnmower with a fresh gallon of gas, she begins revving up her tale again.  The Pompadour, I guess certain that he should be the one in the dim television spotlight, announces loudly, "I'm was the step fatherer in the one of the kidzzz!"

That may have been true, but all the reporters silently and collectively decide that interviewing a dangerously intoxicated man would do little to help advance the sad story, so we simply ignored him.  Which doesn't go over well, "Well F*$k you!"  He spits, "F**k you!"  Dianna, slipping into neighborhood mom mode, figuratively slaps his hand, "you watch your mouth young man!" she blurts, "I'm the step sister...uh...fatherer, of Stacy...so....F**k you!" Dianna, folds her arm, and glares, "what did you say young man," (as an aside, I think it's important to note, that the general consensus among reporters is that Dianna might have been a tad tipsy as well) "I'm the dad, step dader...and F**k you B**tch!"

When I watch the video of the exchange later that night, I catch a glimpse of my face in the corner of the camera's lens.  It is a combination of shock, amusement, and a certain, gleeful curiosity about "where is this going next!"  When the Pompadour, begins slamming his two fists against the aging, rusty, chain link fence,  screaming, "I just wanna, needa, F**king ride, the hosssspitable!" I should have been concerned that this thing might have turn violent, but rather, I was somewhat taken in by the wiggly shelf of hair, bouncing and bobbing on top of his head.  One of the other reporters had had enough, and as I was hypnotized by the follicle ballet, Alex Cabrero from Ch. 5 chimes, in, "hey, what's your problem?"  Things might have gotten ugly if Lt. Justin Hoyal, of the Unified Police Department hadn't intervened and escorted the guy away.

At some point during the melee I had received a call from the station, I click the answer button but don't say anything, as I watch the human house fire burning in front of me.  After Hoyal escorts the man up the street,  I quickly answered the phone, "oh hello, I forgot you were there." On the other end of the line was the producer of the 10 PM news cast, "are you ok?  Do we need to send help?  Did you make someone mad?"  "Oh don't worry about me," I said, "He was just yelling at everyone."

Google It.

As three dozen people rattle into the gymnasium at Lakeview Elementary in Provo, they are buzzing with questions.  "When will I get free Internet?" "Will you provide telephone service ?"  "Do I have to pay for installation?"  And peppered among the heavy coated Provo residents, curious about what channels they will get, are blazer wearing Google engineers, public relations experts and image consultants.  They are pleasant, knowledgeable, and patient...to a point.

Last week Provo city announced Google would swoop in and take over the city's troubled fiber network.  An aging infrastructure, that the city built 10 years ago with much fan-fair, but the thing never made any money, and with a 20-30 million dollar bond hanging around the city's neck, the Fiber is now strangling Provo.

Google will pay $1 for the system and the city will still have to pay for the bond, but the internet colossus will upgrade the system and offer free internet to all Provo residents for at least 7 years.  Google will also offer a gig of internet service for $70.  A gig, is about 1000 times faster than regular internet.

Google is a company unlike any the world has ever seen, and when people think about "big business," they don't couple Google in with those meanies at  Exxon, or Goldman Sachs.  Google is "one of the good guys," Google helps me book my flights, order boots on line, and tells me how old Tony Romo is.  We've all heard about the ping pong tables and massages at Google headquarters, their mission statement says, "don't be evil."  I mean, how could you not love these guys.

The head of Community Affairs for Google, Matt Dunne represents all of that, he is affable, funny, and smart.  He has the polished exterior of a Vermont politician, because, well, that's what he is.  Dunne served 4 terms in the Vermont House of Representatives, and ran for governor in 2010, after his loss, he became a Googler, that's what Google employees call themselves.

When I interview Dunne after the meeting, he folds his hands in front of his waist, and stares with uncomfortable confidence into my eyes.  His answers are precise, practiced, and as you might imagine, always "on message," as they say in the public relations game.

During the question and answer period, the day before the city council is to vote on handing the fiber over to Google, the public relations team, including Dunne, is pleasant, happy and congenial, when they get to talk about the company and all the great options for the residents.  When the questions get a little tougher, like: "What if Google decided to abandon the system?" or "Why is this company with bottomless pockets only paying a dollar for a 20 million dollar network?"  The are not so pleasant.  "That's just, just the way it is," says Dunne,coolly, forcefully, yet politely.

Google is well on their way to becoming the most powerful company in the history of the world.  They own just about everything on the web including your Gmail, Youtube, and the website Blogger, which publishes this blog.   Google now wants to own the infrastructure that delivers the internet, hence, the purchase of Provo's system.

The company archives ever website on the web, and if you have Gmail, they scan each message you send and receive, for personal data, the company says to create relevant text ads for each user.  The company was recently fined when it was discovered their Google mapping cars where collecting data about users as they take pictures of your street.

In the meeting, Mayor John Curtis, seems absolutely giddy as he praises the company in front of the crowd of about 50 people, as Dunne and the other Googlers, smile humbly.    Mayor John Curtis, wasn't in charge when the system was established, and he may have found the very best way to untangle the city, at least partly, from the constricting fiber line.

Dunne receives another slightly uncomfortable question from a plain but pleasant mom, she says she likes the service the city is providing, and she doesn't want to pay extra for a gig she says she won't use.  Dunne, squeezes his lips tightly together, and blinks impatiently, "well," he says, as he shakes his head, "there are, of course, other internet providers out there," he smiles as he points to another hand raised in the audience.  "I'm not saying that, I mean," she stammers, eager to be back in Google's good graces.  It's as if she realizes, she may be a resident of Provo, but she lives in Google's world.