So far, it seems to be an apocalypse-free summer. We’ve had a few shark-bite stories to chew on. Some mosquitos in New York City and far-flung Nebraska apparently have West Nile virus. Birds have been dropping dead all over the Midwest from avian flu, leading to sharp increases in egg prices.

But none of these has yet to become a full-blown media sensation. There are no measles outbreaks at Disneyland. No one has been forced to bring reason to the debate by comparing the 57,000 people who 

Fellow potential jurors in Provo on Tuesday must have done a double take when Gov. Gary Herbert came through the door.

He, like many of you through the years, had gotten the letter in the mail telling him he had to report on a certain day, setting aside whatever else it was he had intended to do.

Like you, he probably had other plans.

For many Americans — most, perhaps — jury duty is like catching a cold. It never comes at a good time, and you can’t get over it fast enough.

But at least we know for sure now that the summonses truly are passed out at random.


We also should know something else. Jury service holds a key to raising dismal voter turnout rates, not only in Utah, but everywhere.

One thing that gets state Rep. Fred Cox “ticked” is the notion that the Utah State Prison can’t be rebuilt in Draper, where it currently sits.

“Whether it should remain in Draper is something smart people can disagree about, but I don’t understand how smart people can disagree that it can be rebuilt there,” he told me by phone. “Anyone looking at an aerial photo can immediately see there is ample room to do that.”

A few years ago, Terry Mattingly, nationally syndicated columnist, wrote about a conversation he had with famed ABC news anchor Peter Jennings.

Jennings described the typical story involving survivors of some sort of disaster. A reporter will ask, “How did you get through this terrible experience?”

The survivor often answers, “I don’t know. I just 

Unmistakable irony surrounds the saga of the Salt Lake City Police Department.

The man accused of sexually harassing three female subordinates, Deputy Chief Rick Findlay, has full retirement, at $53,000 a year, after six months of full-salaried administrative leave.

Chief Chris Burbank, who no one has accused of sexual harassment, now is unemployed, forced to resign over a minor point in a personnel struggle 

You don’t have to peruse news sites too long to wonder why the White House isn’t declaring a war on hackers and calling for the best and brightest minds to heed the call and help the good guys gain an upper hand. As it is, the bad guys are winning, with seemingly little resistance.

The past few weeks has seen acknowledgments from the IRS that someone, probably criminals based in Russia, accessed and stole tax and personal data from more than 100,000 taxpayers. Then a few days later the government revealed that other hackers, probably based in China, stole the personal information of at least 4 million federal employees.

This comes on the heels of several private-sector breaches, in which thieves stole credit card information belonging to tens of millions of shoppers at Target, Neiman-Marcus, Michaels and others.

Brad Smith, Utah’s controversial new state superintendent of public instruction, describes the barriers that stand in the way of coming to grips with the state's education challenges.

 “You can watch the body language shift as soon as someone says ‘51st in the nation,’” he told the combined KSL and Deseret News editorial boards this week. “You can see the arms fold, the lips purse. You can see the defenses go up, the minds shutting, no discussion.”

So now what do we do with Ed Snowden?

The irony of the USA Freedom Act, strongly supported by Utah Sen. Mike Lee and signed into law Tuesday by President Barack Obama, is that it vindicates virtually everything Snowden did when, as a contract worker for the National Security Agency, he revealed secrets about how the government went about collecting information on Americans.

For this, Snowden remains exiled in Russia, 

If you want to get under Scott Howell’s skin, question the motives behind the Pioneer Park Coalition, the nonprofit group he is associated with that is pushing for changes to the way homeless services are provided in Salt Lake City and, perhaps, to where those services are provided.

“We’re talking about human souls,” he said during a recent meeting with the Deseret News Editorial Board, after I had confronted him with the accusations of his critics, who say he is driven by