Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

Will your candidate body slam a reporter?

5/31/2017

Would you like to know before you cast your ballot whether your favorite candidate is the kind who would body slam a reporter?

Careful — I’m not asking whether you support or oppose body slamming reporters, just whether you would like to know this before voting. (But please, let me put on a bike helmet and strap a pillow to my back first, if you don’t mind.)

Montana’s recent special election kerfuffle, in which a last-minute bit of bad behavior may have been negated by ballots already in the mail, has made even ardent vote-by-mail advocates swallow hard.

Staying awake while your car does the driving

5/30/2017

When it comes to self-driving cars, we’re in that awkward in-between stage.

Fancy new cars lull us to sleep as they keep themselves centered in the lane and adjust their speeds to traffic, leaving us free to stare at the countryside or do whatever.

But “whatever” won’t hold up as an excuse in court.
Get into an accident and watch how quickly the manufacturer argues it was your fault for not grabbing the wheel or braking soon enough.

Do libraries need to change with the times?

5/24/2017

The folks running the Salt Lake City Library system face a tough sell. They want the city to raise taxes for its library system at a time when libraries, like so many other things in the modern world, are being redefined by the age of the Internet and mobile devices.

They may get their wish. The city council, not voters, will decide whether to raise the share of property taxes that go toward the library by the requested 21 percent, or perhaps by some smaller amount. The public will get to share its opinions at a hearing.

But underlying this request is a much larger question. Is it ethically proper for governments to raise taxes to build new facilities without also, at the same time, covering the cost of operating and maintaining them?

In recent years, the city opened two new library braches —Glendale and Marmalade — without any budget for maintenance.

Will new political party energize the radical center?

5/24/2017

Question: How do you stop moderates from rioting?

Answer: You don’t. Moderates, like Canadians and Scandinavians, do not riot.

And therein lies the challenge.

Richard Davis — a personal friend who writes a political column for the Deseret News — wants to rally the moderates. Donald Trump’s America may provide him a rare historical moment when moderates are, indeed, exercised. Then again, how could we tell?

Davis and Jim Bennett, the son of late former Republican Sen. Bob Bennett and also a Deseret

Survey shows Utahns are among the least stressed

5/22/2017

If you live in Utah, you are less stressed than you would be in 46 other states. Your mileage may vary, of course, depending on how many assignments you may have with a volunteer organization, such as a church, or how many little ones you may be chasing around the house while trying to do other things.

It also, apparently, depends on how you feel about

Let's get the nerd patrol to save the 21st century from ruin

5/19/2017

Marcus Hutchins is a true 21st century hero.

After all, it’s only right that, in a century too strange for any of us to logically explain to our great grandparents if we were miraculously given an hour to converse with the dead, a lifesaving hero should be a thin young guy in Britain with curly hair and little formal schooling who types away in a room with a half-dozen computer screens.

Is Utah trending toward San Francisco-style rents?

5/15/2017

If you earn a six-figure salary in San Francisco and have a family of four, you could qualify for Section 8 housing. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has released its 2017 low-income guidelines for each county in the U.S., and in San Francisco a yearly income of $105,350 now is considered low-income, which is defined as 80 percent of the median.

Sounds outrageous, doesn’t it? You may be surprised to hear the Salt Lake area is on the same trend line, which will continue unless leaders make

Would people riot at airports if they were better dressed?

5/10/2017

Maybe some of the violence on airplanes and in airports lately has less to do with the annoyance of flying and more to do with what people decided to wear that morning.

Shorts, flip-flops and ratty T-shirts — my parents’ generation wouldn’t have gone to the grocery store like that, let alone fly across the country. Those things don’t exactly scream that the wearers are

Are charter schools good for Utah?

5/9/2017

Imagine Utah without Karl G. Maeser Preparatory Academy.

That’s probably easy for the vast majority of you, who likely never heard of the place. The same could be said for the Salt Lake Center for Science Education, Academy for Math Engineering and Science and Intech Collegiate High School.

All four are charter high schools, and all ranked in the top 10 of best performing high schools in the state by U.S. News and World Report.

Is Puerto Rico a sign of Washington's own future?

5/8/2017

Take a close look at Puerto Rico. Is this the future of the United States?

The island commonwealth, a U.S. territory, is bankrupt. It has borrowed and borrowed to pay its debts until it can’t borrow any more. Now, a judge will have to sort things out while life on the island gets worse and worse.

Unemployment is about 12 percent, as of last fall.

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