Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

No voting method is completely foolproof

1/25/2024

Americans never will find a perfect way to vote.
Kenneth Arrow, a Nobel Prize winning 20th century economist, proved this with his impossibility theorem, at least when there are three or more candidates in a race.
But that’s probably a bit too technical for this column. Suffice it to say that, in the 21st century, at least, there is no voting system that won’t lead to suspicions by those who have no trust in institutions.
Which may help us understand why so many Utah lawmakers are on the warpath to change the state’s vote-by-mail system, despite no evidence that it has failed.
Maybe it’s human nature.

Would $100,000 cause teachers to stay in Utah?

1/18/2024

The idea of merit pay for teachers could be a hot item in this legislative session. Whether teachers unions go along remains to be seen.
Traditionally, they have resisted the idea, going back a couple of decades.
Back then, the Utah Education Association even rallied enough support to overturn a voucher bill through a referendum vote in 2007.
But that was then.

Getting rid of the state income tax wouldn't be easy

1/12/2024

As the late Illinois Sen. Everett Dirksen is often attributed saying, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
I don’t know if a little more than $6 billion a year is considered real money in Washington, but it is in Utah. That’s how much personal income tax the state collects from its residents every year (plus another $800 million in corporate income taxes).
And that would be a heck of a lot to try to find somewhere else.
But Utah lawmakers may soon be giving it a try.

Why a part-time citizen Legislature is the best

1/11/2024

Do you think Utah’s Legislature should meet longer than the current 45 working days required by the state constitution?
I’ll wait a moment while you pick yourself off the floor. After you have recovered sufficiently, consider this one: Do you think Utah’s elected lawmakers should serve full-time, rather than be part-time lawmakers who also have full-time jobs elsewhere?
Last year, Utah lawmakers considered 929 bills and passed 575 of them. When I tell people this, they generally say they can’t think of 575 ways state government needed to interact differently with its residents last year, let alone 929 of them.

Is this just how life is in the 21st century?

1/8/2024

A long-retired former editor sent me a friend request the other day on Facebook. I couldn’t remember if we already were “friends,” so I accepted.
It didn’t take long to figure out it was an imposter trying to steal my money.
This morning, I received two emails claiming to be from friends asking me to look at photos. Someone with an email address that begins “info6Yt81ih…” and continues for about a dozen more letters and numbers, wrote to tell me I need to update my payment method because my Netflix account “is on hold.” And someone else informed me that my account had been locked at, oddly, a credit union where I have no account.

Will AI influence U.S. elections in 2024?

1/8/2024

In October, voters in Slovakia were surprised to hear a recording on Facebook of an interview between a journalist and Michal Šimečka, one of the leading political party officials involved in an election less than two days away.
Wired.com reports that on the recording, which seemed to clearly feature the voices of the people involved, Šimečka discussed ways he intended to rig the election.
Šimečka and the journalist said the interview never happened. It was faked audio made possible by artificial intelligence.

It's 2024. Where is my self-driving car?

1/2/2024

If you think the idea of a driverless car is a product of the 21st century, you haven’t heard of Francis P. Houdina.
Actually, it’s likely even his mother hadn’t heard of that name, because he had made it up, a fact that eventually led to an altercation with the better-known escape artist Harry Houdini, but that’s beside the point.
On July 27, 1925, Houdina staged an exhibition in Manhattan to demonstrate his wireless car. The New York Times said the car had a “loose housing around the shaft to the steering wheel,” and police advised him to postpone the stunt, but he forged ahead, anyway.
The newspaper described how the wobbly car, with a remote driver in a car that followed it closely, forced a milk wagon and two trucks onto nearby curbs for safety. It smashed into the fender of a car filled with men who were grinding movie cameras, trying to film the event for posterity. It continued up the road, nearly colliding with a fire engine.

Are we the people our parents warned us about?

1/1/2024

Years ago, I watched a car disappear into the gloom of a winter inversion with a bumper sticker that said, “We are the people our parents warned us about."
It faded into the gray as I read it, but it has lingered in my mind ever since. Is that really who we have become?
More to the point, is that who we want to be going into 2024? And, what the heck did the owner of that car mean by that, anyway?
I don’t mean to sound a dour note on the verge of what typically is the most hopeful holiday of the year. Americans are optimistic people, and that is on full display every New Year’s Eve.
Often there is a logical disconnect to our celebrations. We tend to harp on all the bad things that happened in the year that is passing, with a collective desire to throw it out and start anew. And yet, we pass beyond midnight united in the belief that the next year will be better, even though nothing has changed except the number on the calendar.
And yet, that optimism is important.

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