Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

Why we should be optimistic about 2017

12/28/2016

Much of the nation seems to be approaching 2017 warily, even gloomily.

We wonder what side to take in the great transitional Twitter war between the president and the president-elect. We worry what Vladimir Putin may have up his sleeve and whether Washington’s secret retaliation for alleged attacks on our election system will do anything other than backfire. We view China’s leaders with almost as much suspicion

C'mon Obama! We're turning blue here

12/27/2016

Oyez! Oyez! The first (and maybe last) annual court to hand out awards for the most important Utah stories of the year is now in session. All decisions are made by a distinguished panel consisting of me. No appeals are allowed. Quiet down, back there! Here are the results for 2016.

The “We’re turning blue!” award goes to all of us who are waiting with baited breath (especially those of you who aren’t brushing regularly after eating all that holiday food) for President Obama to declare a

Confronting the meaning of Christmas

12/21/2016

“What would you do if you were me?”

That’s the haunting question a young Syrian woman by the name of Taimaa Abazli asks at the end of a video Time Magazine posted on its website, a prelude to a year-long series that follows four refugee mothers and their newborn babies.

Like so many in refugee camps in Greece, Abazli comes from an educated, middle-class world many of us would find familiar. She was a music teacher who envisioned life in a “nice house.” Now she describes her life as “ugly,” telling Time, “I didn’t expect any of the things that are happening to me.”

Looking at her face, the way she and her husband discuss the baby’s name and the tears she sheds as she wonders why she is so unlucky, it’s hard not to feel the contrast with the plenty so many of us will enjoy Christmas Day.

So much for democracy; Trump was elected by 25 %

12/20/2016

Look around you. Only one of every four adults you see voted to make Donald Trump president.

Of course, your mileage will vary depending on where you live, but a quick analysis of popular vote figures compared to newly released Census figures shows Trump received votes from only 25.3 percent of the nation’s eligible voters.

And don’t get too worked up about Hillary Clinton’s popular vote lead. She received votes from only 26.4 percent of eligible voters.

Electoral College protests failed; now can we move on?

12/20/2016

Can we finally leave the 2016 election season behind us, now?

And no, that doesn’t mean starting the race for 2020.

Leaders of various protests aimed at members of the Electoral College this week sounded almost quaint as they claimed their resistance was a demonstration that the president-elect doesn’t represent the will of the people.

How Utah might have had money to give teachers a raise

12/15/2016

Question: How do you make a dry analysis of public education pensions seem interesting to the masses?
Answer: Tell schoolteachers they’re missing out on a 14 percent pay raise.

If you’re paying attention (and it seems few people are), you’ll know that the nation never really recovered from what the so-called “great recession” (just as civil wars are not civil, recessions are not great) did to pensions.

If you work for a private company, you know that

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Criminals, not homeless are the problem in Salt Lake

12/14/2016

Last month, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released a report that argues against everything local leaders and pedestrians eyeballing the homeless situation have been saying for a while now. Things are getting better nationwide, it said.

That’s right, homelessness is declining, and not by a little. Between 2010 and 2016, it fell by 27 percent nationwide. You wouldn’t know this by reading media reports from several major cities. You certainly wouldn’t know it by taking a stroll near

Salt Lake City, a den of sin

12/12/2016

Salt Lake City, that den of sin and vice; a city where anger and hatred is more prevalent than on the mean streets of Chicago; a place where jealously reigns far worse than in New York City; and a place where excesses and vices are worse than in Miami.

Salt Lake Vice? That might not be a ratings bonanza as a new prime-time crime show. But then, the above description might come as a surprise to a vast swath of the nation and to the millions who have visited the city as tourists.

A rogue Electoral College? Let's hope not

12/7/2016

For perhaps as many as nine official presidential electors, Dec. 19 will be the day they hope to party like it’s 1836.

They are part of the last ditch effort, after many earlier ditched efforts, to finally change the outcome of the presidential race. Regardless how we feel about the president-elect, we should hope the party falls flat.

While the nation’s founders argued the Electoral College was a hedge against the public being

Gear up for another Utah prison relocation - in 2050

12/6/2016

Here’s a possible scene from a legislative hearing room at the Utah state capitol, sometime around 2050:

House Speaker: “Ladies and gentlemen, it has become clear to me that we need to move the obsolete state prison from its current site. I’ve invited the head of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development here to explain why.”

Head of GOED: “A number of large corporations

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