Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

How America rebounds from that debate debacle

9/30/2020

Want some perspective on Tuesday night’s so-called presidential debate? Try watching the first Nixon-Kennedy debate from approximately the same date in 1960.
You need only watch a few minutes. I’ll give you a taste.
John F. Kennedy, speaking uninterrupted by his opponent, says in his opening statement, “We can no longer afford to be second best. I want people all over the world to look to the United States again, to feel that we're on the move, to feel that our high noon is in the future.”
A few minutes later, Richard Nixon responds, again uninterrupted, “The things that Senator Kennedy has said, many of us can agree with.”

We need more basement rental units

9/29/2020

I have relatives who recently built a house along the Wasatch Front, in a city known for lenient ordinances about basement rentals. Their builder fashioned a nice basement unit with a separate entrance off the driveway.
In spite of this, they have run into nit-picking city planners with rulers and yardsticks who are making the permitting process difficult.

Here's why politicians may have the wrong covid strategies

9/23/2020

In Utah, Gov. Gary Herbert seemed determined this week to preserve the principle of localism, as well as the state’s lowest-in-the-nation unemployment rate, in the face of a dramatic resurgence of COVID-19.
His decision to reimpose “orange” level restrictions on Provo and Orem alone — tempting defiant young adults there to simply move their parties to nearby Lindon or Springville — was bound to generate criticism from those who believe not enough is being done.
But Utah County’s decision, only hours later, to finally impose a countywide mandate was filled with political risk, as well. As a group of angry people made clear during a crowded county commission meeting several weeks ago, the thought of wearing a mask gives delicate political belles down there a case of the vapors.

Why porta potties should remind us of the next earthquake

9/22/2020

Imagine rows of porta-potties in your neighborhood. Now, imagine having to run out to one in your nightgown or pajamas in the middle of the night when the need arises, maybe with your children in tow and perhaps needing to wait behind other neighbors — for months on end.
If people in the Salt Lake area wonder what the difference is between the 5.7 magnitude earthquake they lived through last March and the 7.0 “big one” that has been predicted, they need to keep that image in mind.
Oh, and one other thing. Remember the number 140,000. That’s an estimate of how many structures — homes and businesses — are built of unreinforced masonry in the Salt Lake Valley. If Mother Nature strikes with the force of a 7.0 quake, she will use these as weapons against anyone inside.

Don't let Amendment G take you by surprise

9/16/2020

When voters get their ballots in the mail next month, they will face, among many other things, Amendment G, which asks whether to change Utah’s constitution to expand the use of income and intangible property taxes “to include supporting children and supporting people with a disability.”
The phrasing is important because the word “education,” is nowhere to be found.
For that matter, neither are the words “tax reform.”
And yet, Amendment G is all about both those things.

An Eiffel Tower in Draper? Why not think big?

9/15/2020

Would you pay for something like an Eiffel Tower or a Space Needle in Draper?
What if it were planned in such a way that it became an international tourist attraction and still didn’t clog the freeway near the Point of the Mountain?
I know, I know — and what if pigs could fly, right? Well, maybe not pigs, but how about cars?
Whatever you may think about members of the Point of the Mountain Development Commission, who are trying to steer the fate of the Utah State Prison site once that facility closes in 2022, you cannot accuse them of not thinking big.
In fact, as they told the Deseret News/KSL editorial board last week, their big worry is they won’t think big enough.

This is why the pandemic hasn't permanently changed spending habits

9/9/2020

In 1965, journalist Edward Mowery lamented how credit card debt was bankrupting Americans.
“It’s fashionable today to owe for the TV set, oil burner, car, mink coat and trips around the world,” he wrote in a syndicated newspaper op-ed. “And the ‘live-it-up’ atmosphere saturates the nation.”
This 55-year-old statement is not just a curious oddity from a bygone era when Americans, still overwhelmingly using cash for most purchases, had no idea what was coming. No, it illustrates how long American culture has been, bit by bit, learning to rely on plastic for the movement of goods and services.

Why are we stupid? The answer is blowing in the wind

9/8/2020

Nearly 60 years ago, Bob Dylan had a hit song that told us “the answer … is blowing in the wind.”
Anyone contemplating those lyrics Tuesday along the Wasatch Front, with trees and limbs flying through the air, power outages and school closures, might have wondered what the question was, and who could we punish for asking it?

Want Sundays off? Here's why you might be told no

9/8/2020

I was 15 when I landed my first job bagging groceries at a supermarket in my hometown of Phoenix. The year was 1974, and soon after the first day, I told my supervisor I would need to have Sundays off, for religious reasons.
He clearly wasn’t happy. He mumbled some words that, at my age, movie theaters weren’t allowed to let me hear, but he complied.
I didn’t know it then, but if the supervisor had refused, I could have taken the company to court under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which Congress had passed only two years before. It required bosses to accommodate religious practices, such as Sabbath observance, unless doing so would provide “undue hardship.”

Here's why governments weren't prepared for pandemic

9/1/2020

I rarely get the chance to say I told you so, but it feels distinctly unfulfilling this time.
Exactly two years ago this week, I wondered in this column why the United States was so unprepared for a pandemic. I wasn’t trying to foretell the future, although I did note that pandemics are a relevant fact of life that had, at that point, skipped a few generations. No, I was prompted by the 100th anniversary of the Spanish Flu epidemic, which also started in September.

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