Inland port: So now opponents of Utah’s new port seem to be hanging their hopes on an obscure line in the state constitution that says the state can’t give municipal powers to any special commission.
Sometimes, the best way to spend a warm summer afternoon is to lie on the grass and contemplate the passing scene. The second best way is to do it from an office chair. Here’s what I see as August begins.
Inland port: So now opponents of Utah’s new port seem to be hanging their hopes on an obscure line in the state constitution that says the state can’t give municipal powers to any special commission.
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If he were still alive, how would Herbert Hoover advise President Trump on trade?
That’s a tough question. At 144 years old, he might have accumulated more wisdom than the rest of us. Whether he would be able to articulate it is another matter. Robert Litan, a senior fellow in economic studies for the Brookings Institute, has an idea what Hoover, the king of misguided protectionism, would say. In a recent paper titled, “History won’t be kind to politicians who stay silent on Trump’s trade war,” he wrote, “having recognized his huge mistake of pushing similar policies that stirred the trade war in the 1930s and then deepened what would become the Great Depression, he (Hoover) surely would tell the administration to stop this madness.” The president may not have a grasp on the extent to which Russian and other outside forces are trying to meddle in U.S. elections, but the people in charge of running elections in each of the 50 states certainly do.
They met this week in Philadelphia for a convention of the National Association of Secretaries of State. Utah is one of only three states without someone with the title of secretary of state, an office that typically oversees elections. But Utah’s Elections Director Justin Lee, who answers to Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, attended. I spoke to him by phone as he was waiting to board his flight home. MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google’s sprawling campus fills the landscape like some sort of indigenous ground cover, almost fading into the background of a surrounding community in which it has a mammoth presence.
As I learned during a visit to see my son, who is interning here for the summer, the low-rise buildings belie a mighty force of thousands of workers — mostly young and from far-flung places — who seem happy to ride the company’s free and colorful bicycles between buildings. Of all the things that may be said about the dramatic rescue of a soccer team trapped in a cave in Thailand, one may have escaped attention. It was a compelling and ultimately satisfying event to cheer, pray for and watch with rapt attention here in the United States in part because every aspect of it was beyond the grasp of partisan politics.
Didn’t that feel nice for a change? I was on my customary late-evening bike ride Monday when a bottle rocket went airborne on a lawn a few feet away.
In retrospect, I probably should have noticed the warning signs — the giggling sounds of adult voices, the people running for safety after successfully lighting the fuse. Nothing bad happened, other than I was given a momentary scare as I felt the heat and heard the whooshing sound. They didn’t intend to scare me. Even at my customary slow pace, I had surprised them as much as they surprised me. |
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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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