Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

We should ban all booze sales on airline flights

9/29/2021

“There are quite a few people who can go without a drink for the duration of any domestic flight. I commend them to you.” — F.N.E. Halaby, administrator, Federal Aviation Administration, 1961.

Should the age of prohibition come back for airports and airlines?
Perhaps I should find a better way to word that. Even 90 years later, prohibition has a bad connotation. No one wants Al Capone running the friendly skies.
How about this: Should we initiate an age of common sense in air travel?
Sixty years ago, flight attendants (then referred to as stewardesses) complained mostly about male passengers making lewd comments or trying to ask them on dates, at least according to news accounts from the time. Mask mandates hadn’t been a thing since the flu pandemic, which was before commercial air travel blossomed.

Six months later, Utah's pandemic 'endgame' looks foolish

9/23/2021

Six months ago, as the Utah Legislature ended its annual session, I predicted one group was going to look foolish eventually — either lawmakers who decided arbitrarily to end the state’s mask mandate on April 10, or the health professionals who were warning of a possible new wave of COVID-19.
You can decide the outcome, after considering some evidence.
The bill that prompted that column, HB294, was referred to as the “endgame bill.” It was to be a roadmap, of sorts, for how Utah would emerge from the pandemic and return to normal life — a hedge against health officials deciding to keep restrictions going endlessly, or until cases hit zero

Soaking the rich won't solve nation's fiscal problem

9/21/2021

The art of taxation, according to the 18th century French economist and statesman Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, is to pluck the hen without making it cry out.
But when the hen is the wealthiest of all hens, no one seems to care. In fact, deliberately making her cry is a catchy political slogan.
Which brings me to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y. She was spotted at the Met Gala, an event for the wealthiest of the wealthy, wearing a white dress emblazoned with the message, “Tax the Rich” in bright red.
Catchy phrase. It’s been used many times in history, dating at least to Franklin Roosevelt’s Revenue Act of 1935, which taxed the wealthiest Americans up to 75%. But it’s meaningless when it comes to solving today’s enormous federal budget problems.
You want to balance the budget by taxing the rich?

California shows why Utah should avoid allowing recalls

9/15/2021

You really want a recall provision in Utah.
How do I know? Last March, the Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics asked you about it in a poll conducted by independent pollster Scott Rasmussen. The result: 75% were at least somewhat in favor of it, with 44% saying they were strongly in support. The error margin was 3.1% either way.
It’s the kind of question that touches raw political emotion. A percentage of the population typically is unhappy being led by someone it didn’t vote for. In this case, the question was asked during a pandemic, with a lot of people feely surly about a host of issues tied to restrictions, or the lack of them.

We need to talk about the coming population bust

9/15/2021

Latvia’s current population bust may not provide a perfect glimpse into how the United States eventually shrinks and declines. For one thing, that country’s unique history of Soviet occupation has made it so suspicious of the one thing that could save it — a more generous immigration policy — that it seems to be committing demographic suicide.
And yet, Latvia’s empty smaller towns, with, as the Wall Street Journal described it this week, sagging roofs over empty houses and a lack of restaurants where people can sit to eat, may indeed describe the United States one day for the children or grandchildren of today’s adults.
That may not be the topic at a lot of dinner parties right now, assuming people still hold such things. Bring up the subject of population and the average person probably still sees the problem as one of too many people.

20 years after 9/11, we're hurting ourselves more than any enemy could

9/8/2021

Want a keen sense of the trivial? Look at newspapers from the day before a history altering event.
On Dec. 6, 1941, New Yorkers had a prurient interest in Tommy Manville — famous socialite and heir to the Johns-Manville asbestos fortune — and his latest wife, 22-year-old showgirl Bonita Edwards. The Daily News said they were parting ways after only 17 days of matrimony, not unexpected for Manville, who was married 13 times to 11 different women.
A day later, the nation was thrust into its biggest existential struggle of the 20th century with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. People no longer had time for trivial things.

A conservative argument against the death penalty

9/8/2021

The last time I wrote about the death penalty, I defined it as a political “third rail” in Utah.
A third rail is the electrified piece that powers subway trains. Touch it and you die — or your political career dies, to continue the metaphor. Utah lawmakers stay healthy by leaving capital punishment untouched.
Or so I thought.
I’m no longer so sure.

Why you should worry about Social Security

9/8/2021

Three years ago, when Social Security Trust Fund administrators said the fund responsible for retiree and survivor benefits would be depleted in 2034, I labeled most politicians in Washington fiscal alcoholics.
They didn’t know for sure which bottle, or, rather, which expenditure, would hurl them over the edge toward rock bottom, but they were having too much fun to stop.

Why have opinions changed on refugees since Vietnam?

9/2/2021

Azim Kakaie is now a Utahn.
An air traffic controller at the main Kabul airport until a few days ago, he became the first Afghan refugee since the pullout of U.S. forces to come to Utah on Wednesday, according to the Dese ret News.
He looked a little overwhelmed in a photo provided by Catholic Community Services, holding a bouquet of flowers while standing in the terminal

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