Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

Are you optimistic about the digital future?

4/25/2018

One thing is certain about technology: It has no reverse gear.

Invent something and it won’t be un-invented. We can’t rid the planet of cars, nuclear weapons or computers. All we can do is either engineer them differently or decide on the best ways to use them.
In other words, complain all you want about modern technology, but it will be of no use. The real key the future lies in society’s collective sense of morality and ethics.

That’s an admittedly discomforting thought in an age of rapid technological change.

Upset at gas prices? Want to raise them by 10 more cents?

4/24/2018

So, how’s that proposed 10-cent hike in the gas tax looking to you now?

Are you ready to check the “yes” box on a non-binding (but in reality pretty darned binding) measure this fall to add that amount the your weekly fill-up, based on another nonbinding promise that state lawmakers will put that money through a contorted process that ends up in public schools?

Or are you already discussing how to shorten your summer road trips to conserve costs?

Grand philosophical matters often turn on such personal concerns.

Two months ago, when the Utah Legislature debated this tax hike as a way to diffuse a proposed ballot initiative that would have raised income and sales taxes for education, gas was hovering at an

Should the county override your 'no' vote on transit tax?

4/18/2018

At the end of a recent talk, I agreed to answer questions from the audience. One has had me pondering ever since.

It went something like this: “Do you think leaders in Salt Lake and Utah counties will impose a tax increase for transit even though voters rejected it three years ago?”

It’s an important question, given that the state Legislature has made it easy, and quite tempting, for those counties to do so.

Put differently, however, the question could be stated this way: What is the value of a public vote, which is a form of direct democracy, in a republic?

America's 'social capital' divide

4/17/2018

Thirty-five years ago, on my first day as a sports reporter at the tiny Clinton Daily News in Oklahoma, publisher and owner Charles Engleman made it clear that the terms of my employment required me to join a service club.

I didn’t have a choice. I was to be a Jaycee; end of discussion.

We had four full-time employees in our tiny newsroom. Each one belonged, by assignment, to something — Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions. For a town of just under 10,000, Clinton had thriving chapters of each, and the paper’s owner had a big hand in that. He believed deeply in the need to voluntarily make the town a better place.

He understood, in other words, that wealth could be measured in things other than dollars; that people who were part of a large social network, and that included church membership, were rich, in a real sense, as were places where residents learned to take pride in their surroundings and responsibility for each other.

Where's that postcard we were suppose to use for taxes?

4/11/2018

What happened to that postcard we were supposed to use to file our income tax returns?

A lot of us might be missing it this weekend — so much that we might want to send all those promises of simplified returns a postcard of our own. Having a nice time filling out these forms, wish you were here.

President Trump promised the card again recently, telling a group in West Virginia, “this will be the

'Overwhelming' support for a tax increase?

4/10/2018

It’s springtime, and a young man’s fancy turns to tax hikes, disappearing farmland, vaping and other things.

OK, so I’m not a young man and I’m not terribly fancy, either. But here are my thoughts as spring begins.

A transit authority by any other name would be screwy

4/4/2018

When the founders of Google first developed a search engine in 1996, they named it “backrub.”

The idea was that the program looked at “back links” to understand and rate a website’s importance, according to Businessinsider.com.

A year later, they rebranded as Google. It was supposed to be Googol, after the large number that includes a 1 followed by 100 zeroes, but one of the

If Sinclair has evidence of 'fake news,' let's hear it

4/3/2018

Viewers of the nearly 200 television stations owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, including Channel 2 in the Salt Lake market, probably didn’t think much recently when they saw news anchors in promotional spots saying something like, “…we’re concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country.”

But if they were paying attention, they may have heard echoes from the White House when the anchors went on to say, “More alarming, some media outlets publish these same fake stories… stories that just aren’t true, without checking facts first.”

“Fake stories.” There’s that phrase that has become virtually meaningless in public discourse today, other than to identify something someone didn’t like to hear — all while, like a silent, freedom-eating bacteria, eroding faith in almost everything people hear.

The promo didn’t get specific about the identities

What principles would you sacrifice for politics?

4/3/2018

“It’s not just about whether a politician is lying or not. It’s whether he’s lying on my behalf.” – Monika McDermott, professor of political science at Fordham University.

Perhaps the most misleading notion pervading political discourse today is that politicians should be judged harshly for violating certain key principles of honesty — marital fidelity, the proper use of campaign funds, etc. — only if they have

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