Jay Evensen - Opinions

Airport security: Can we ever get it right?

6/12/2019

After dropping my wife and one of our sons at the airport Wednesday for a trip to see relatives, watching from afar as they went through the familiar TSA dance, I was struck by the concept of faith.

At airports, people line up the way I remember my classmates lining up for vaccinations in elementary school back in the ‘60s, with grim-faced resignation and a vague hope that the pain the school nurse was inflicting somehow would be worth the collective good it would cause.

Is Utah soft compared to hard-working states?

6/11/2019

I confess, I’m eating lunch at my desk as I write this.

That makes me very American, but not so much a Utahn, apparently.

Wallethub came out with a ranking this week of the best states in which to live. Utah finished ninth, which is a good thing. But one of the reasons Utah scored so high is that it finished first as the state with the lowest hours worked per week.

That’s right. No matter how hard you think you’re working, people in other states are working harder.

The internet and its snap judgments

6/5/2019

The internet giveth, and the internet taketh away.

What it gives can, at times, be an instant sense of justice.

A few days ago, the world was shown a smartphone video of a manager at a Salt Lake fast food restaurant angrily telling a worker she had been fired. The son of the worker, an Hispanic woman with limited English skills, said he was trying to help his mother ask for a promised raise — one she was too shy to ask for herself.

Would 'microtransit' get you out of your car and on a train?

6/4/2019

Would you ride mass transit if someone out there offered you a cheap way to get from your neighborhood to the nearest station or bus stop? Is that what’s stopping you?

And if that someone was a tax-subsidized van you could summon with a smartphone app, would that be fair to the private companies that are trying to help you get there right now but that have to charge a higher price to stay in business?

Security breaches: Just how vulnerable are we?

5/29/2019

Internet security is kind of like your sewage system. You hardly think about it until something goes wrong, and then you can’t think of much else.

But it’s more important than that, of course. Unless you have a smart toilet (it’s a thing; look it up), your bathroom may be one of the few places left untouched by the internet.

Would you vote to do away with the income tax?

5/28/2019

With spring rains apparently beginning to dissipate, and with summer beaming on the horizon, it’s time to lie in the grass and ponder some recent developments.

Be bold: Utah lawmakers are hinting they want to consider “big, bold ideas” when it comes to tax reform. These, according to Senate Majority Whip Dan Hemmert, might even include the “crazy idea” of drop-kicking the income tax entirely. That would put Utah on a par with neighboring Nevada and Wyoming.

That’s bold, all right. The million-dollar (or much more, actually) question, is whether you, the average Utahn, would vote to make this happen.

When you click "agree," you probably don't know what that means

5/22/2019

Here’s a shocker. Most Americans click the “I have read the terms and agree” button on newly acquired software, online services and apps, even though they really haven’t read them and have no idea about the terms to which they are agreeing.

Are you kidding me?

Deciding how we vote isn't as important as keeping enemies away

5/21/2019

Utah lawmakers have been fretting over what might happen if someone wins a primary election with less than 50 percent, plus one, of the vote.

It’s an interesting debate and all. Americans, in general, don’t like it when someone gets sworn into an office of authority after earning less than that threshold, even though it happens all the time in the race for president and has happened countless times in various elections in the nation’s history.

But, with all that is swirling around us these days, the debate sounds a bit like arguing over which shrubs to plant in the front yard while someone is shooting at the house with a machine gun.

If we followed this Bible story, would the next recession be different?

5/15/2019

Here’s an Old Testament story you probably never heard in Sunday School.

Pharaoh has a troubling dream, so he eventually pulls Joseph out of prison to interpret it. Joseph tells him the dream means Egypt is about to have seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine.

But, he adds, he has a plan. If Pharaoh cuts taxes, greatly increases the national debt and gets people to max out their credit cards on useless consumer items, he says, Egypt might be able to keep the good times rolling for awhile — at least until Pharaoh and the other political leaders of the day no longer are in office. After all, let the young leaders of tomorrow take the blame for the famine!

Don't fear the urban transportation revolution

5/14/2019

During a recent trip to China, I marveled at the flow of traffic in Beijing. Bicycles, scooters, electric motorcycles and strange little motorized contraptions flowed at various speeds along the lanes closest to the sidewalks. Traditional cars, buses and trucks sped along the center lanes.

Red lights seemed more like suggestions than authoritative traffic regulators. My wife and I gazed with wonder at a woman on a motorized bike with several children hanging on in load-equalizing symmetry.

This seemingly chaotic scene was described to us as a type of inward harmony, with drivers anticipating each other’s moves and measuring them against their own wishes.

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