“Give us more money” could be the motto of any government agency or task force, especially at a time when dollars along the Potomac seem to flow from a tap.
The public may have some conclusions of its own.
Perhaps no one should be surprised that the recently released government report on UFOs reached few firm conclusions, other than to suggest that the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force that wrote it might do better if it had more money for “research and development.”
“Give us more money” could be the motto of any government agency or task force, especially at a time when dollars along the Potomac seem to flow from a tap. The public may have some conclusions of its own.
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“A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece.” — former German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard
A few cake cutters held a reunion of sorts this week in Utah. If you believe, as I do, that miracles sometimes happen in unusual places, you may have watched with a slack jaw six years ago as conservative Utah politicians, religious leaders, including those of both The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the local Catholic Church, and leaders of the LGBTQ community came together to create state laws that protect both religious liberties and LGBTQ rights. Last summer, I asked (with a hint of frustration) where my totally self-driving car was. After all, it was 2020, and I had accumulated a slew of statements from years past that promised millions of them would be on the road by then.
Now, we’re well into 2021, and I’m starting to get discouraged. I had the brilliant idea of getting my wife a bicycle for her birthday. Nothing fancy, mind you, just a comfortable touring bike. I had visions of us leisurely cycling to a nearby lake on a warm summer day, with sandwiches neatly stored in a picnic basket and Vivaldi’s Summer, from the Four Seasons, playing mysteriously, yet relaxingly, in the background.
Until I walked into a neighborhood bicycle shop, that is, and came face-to-face with the reality of 2021’s semi-post covid economy (semi, because the pandemic really isn’t over, yet). In a normal rain year, allowing people to set off fireworks in the middle of a Utah summer is, to put it charitably, asking for trouble.
If I were to put it in less charitable terms, I could quote former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert. Nine years ago, as the state struggled against several human-caused fires in the middle of another dry summer, he said, “We can meet together and pass law after law after law. But you can't pass a law that outlaws stupid." The summer of thirst has begun.
Maybe you won’t find yourself short of drinking water — we can hope so, anyway — but everything around you won’t be so lucky. Your lawn, your dirty car and the little things you like to keep nice and shiny will start blending into the brown, dusty landscape of the raw and parched desert in which we live. “We are a special kind of stupid,” was how California congressman Tom McClintock described Westerners, and perhaps the federal government, at a recent webinar of the Republican members of the House Committee on Natural Resources. |
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The author
Jay Evensen is the Opinion Editor of the Deseret News. He has more than 40 years experience as a reporter, editor and editorial writer in Oklahoma, New York City, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He also has been an adjunct journalism professor at Brigham Young and Weber State universities. Archives
September 2024
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