Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

One former congressman's plan for unity -- prayer

6/28/2016

Former congressman Tony Hall, left, wants to make hunger a focus of presidential election.

WASHINGTON – When it comes to the nasty tone of American politics these days, Tony Hall has a unique solution. Pray together.

Hall, whose name may not be a household word in America, none the less has had a large effect on the world around him, and on the plight of starving people in the Third World and in his home town of Dayton, Ohio.

He is in many ways an anomaly at a time when partisan identity and ideological purity are

Forgiveness can make American great again

6/22/2016

The political season may not be when people want to hear this. The same could be said about the immediate aftermath of the Orlando massacre. But we all could benefit from being more forgiving.

In fact, this may be the exact time when we need this message the most. Few things destroy health quicker than stress, and the world seems engulfed in stress right now. Having a forgiving heart would wipe that out.

Can Jason Chaffetz fix the U.S. Postal Service?

6/21/2016

If any government task resembles that of the mythological Greek king Sisyphus, constantly rolling a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down again, it is postal reform. That’s why it was surprising this week to hear that Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz is taking it on, and that he is optimistic.

Chaffetz is chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is working on a solution, at least the House’s version of it.

Getting that rock over the hill is important. The

Utah's lieutenant governor goes viral, in a good way

6/17/2016

It’s amazing what happens when a politician goes off-script, so to speak, and says something noble and from the heart. You can almost hear the sighs of relief from coast to coast.

The speech Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox gave Monday at a Salt Lake memorial for the victims of the Orlando massacre has gone viral, most likely because of its obvious sincerity and because what he said is not something America expects to hear from a straight, white Republican from Utah.

If you haven’t read a transcript of the speech, a copy of it is here (or watch the video after the "read more" break): http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865656262/Ut-Lt-Gov-We-must-learn-to-truly-love-one-another.html

Cox apologized for being unkind to gay people in his youth and told about how his heart had changed. Then he asked members of the straight community

Here is why states should resist assisted suicide

6/16/2016

My father’s final days did not fit any textbook definition of a quality life. He suffered from the advanced stages of dementia. He didn’t know who I was. In a rare moment when he seemed somewhat lucid, I asked him if he was scared. The look in his eyes as he nodded still brings tears to my eyes.

And yet he and I shared some of our most tender times together during those days. My stepmother at times would ask me to come to Arizona and stay

In Orlando, as in Salt Lake, answers to killings hard to find

6/15/2016

The only difference between what Omar Mateen did last Sunday and what Sulejman Talović did at Trolley Square nine years ago lies in the magnitude of casualties.
Mateen killed 49, Talović killed five.

The same may be said for Sergei Babarin, who

Civility in presidential campaigns now seems quaint

6/8/2016

Sometimes, a look into the distant past can be startling. That’s true if you’re looking at photos of a younger, thinner you. It’s even more so when you look at the way presidential politics was waged.
The nation has gotten fat and cranky.

Recently, I came across a Youtube video of Edward R. Murrow’s news program, “See it now.” The episode, filmed in June of 1952, featured Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who at the time was hoping to win the GOP nomination (that wasn’t settled until that year’s convention in Chicago).

Murrow asked Eisenhower why he had said he wouldn’t campaign on “personalities,” which would translate today into attacks on his opponents’ character.

“First of all, I believe nothing is gained by dealing in personalities,” Eisenhower said. “Moreover, when you deal in personalities, you create hurt feelings, and they are very difficult ever to heal.

That time Muhammad Ali turned Salt Lake upside down

6/7/2016

When I came to Utah in the mid-1980s, friends in Las Vegas, where I had worked as a reporter, warned me things would be dull here by comparison. But then I must have slipped through some sort of looking glass at the state border, because suddenly I thought I saw Muhammad Ali walking the streets of Salt Lake City campaigning for the re-election of Sen. Orrin Hatch.

It was the summer of 1988, and Hatch was running against Brian Moss, the son of three-term Senator Frank Moss, who Hatch had unseated in 1976. It might have been as dull a race as my friends had predicted, except for the former heavyweight champ holding court with the media, saying things like, “This Brian Moss, he’s no match, for a great statesman like Orrin Hatch,” or, as he told Hatch at a press conference, “Tell Moss you’re the boss.”

Vegas never was like this. Down there, the mud flew fairly thick during election season. But it was a

Can politicians get out of the way of self-driving cars?

6/1/2016

If people today share a common belief about what life will be like in the future, it is that we won’t be driving our own cars.

Mine may be the first generation that actually looks forward to the many doctor visits that accompany old age, simply because my car will take me to the door, go park itself, and then return, all air conditioned or heated, when I again summon it.

But if politicians and government regulators don’t get out of the way, the future may take a lot longer

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