Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

The real story of 2020 probably hasn't been written yet

12/29/2020

On the last day of 1903, the New York Times published a long editorial that expounded on all the momentous things that had happened during the year.
Under a section titled “Invention and discovery,” the editorial board said the year had been “less distinguished than many” and contained “no announcement of a world-controlling invention.” It then went on for a while about radium and its possible future uses.
Then it made this stunner of an observation: “Transportation has profited little from … the persistent attempts at aerial navigation, in which no useful progress has been made or can be considered in sight.”
No useful progress? Kitty Hawk, anybody?

A Trump pardon with some meaning attached

12/29/2020

The case of Weldon Angelos always seemed to make people uncomfortable.
He was, by any definition, a criminal. He sold marijuana to undercover agents and had drug paraphernalia, evidence of money laundering and firearms in his home when Salt Lake Police officers conducted a search warrant. Most importantly, he was carrying a gun during drug transactions, at least according to an informant, even though he didn’t unholster it or wave it about.
He deserved to go to prison. It was hard to argue against his harsh sentence without appearing soft on crime.

Planets align so that we can see the magic around us

12/22/2020

A social media post I saw somewhere this week seemed to put it best: “Sometimes the planets align so we can better see the magic.”
I’m not sure what my wife, a grown son and I were looking for Monday evening as we drove miles from the Wasatch Front toward the clearer skies and cleaner views of the southwestern sky. But as we pulled off the road near Grantsville, it was clear we were not alone.

Struggle between sports and colleges is nothing new

12/16/2020

As the Bible says, “there is no new thing under the sun,” and that includes the connection between money and college sports.
It was on this month, 98 years ago, that Amherst College President Alexander Meiklejohn called for the superpowers of college football, which at that time were Yale, Harvard and Princeton, to call a conference that would reorganize college athletics by ending the practice of paying coaches.
He lambasted the “system” of college football.

Utah is still on the road to becoming San Francisco

12/15/2020

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about the need to keep the Wasatch Front from turning into San Francisco.
It’s not that I have anything against cable cars, picturesque piers or the ‘49ers. We’ll never get those things in Northern Utah, anyway. It’s the home prices. You don’t have to listen too hard to hear the clang, clang of them chugging relentlessly uphill.
But, to beat the cable car metaphor to death, we’re not keeping up with all the people who want to get onboard. The result of this could be disastrous.

What is Utah doing to prepare for the Big One?

12/9/2020

Want to bring a conversation to a screeching halt? Just ask what people are doing to prepare for the next earthquake.
OK, this might not work in a general conversation with average folks who may have used the 5.7 quake that hit Magna last March as an opportunity to renew 72-hour kits and establish more detailed plans for how their families could reunite or keep contact if separated. As scary as the pandemic has become, those few days in March made us feel helpless in a different sort of way.

Why not let 16 year olds vote in school board races?

12/8/2020

If you’re looking for signs that we are living in unusual times, look no further than the fact that children are protesting because they want to go to school.
In my day, you’d need your head examined for doing something like that. The whole idea was to find ways to get out of going.
But then, my friends and I were never forced to stay home and away from each other because of a pandemic.

Vaccines don't mean our Covid troubles are over

12/2/2020

The oil industry may be a bellwether for the emotions of average Americans in the coming months.
When at least two successful vaccines were announced in November, oil prices jumped. But then they quickly fell again as the everyday realities of the pandemic intruded on the optimism and brought investors back to earth.
Prepare for similar rollercoasters ahead.

Lessons from Utah's mysterious monolith

12/1/2020

I was 9 years old when my Dad took me to see “2001: A Space Odyssey.” I don’t know why he took me. He wasn’t particularly into science fiction, and I was, well, only 9.
Maybe it was one of those bonding moments kids never know about because telling them would ruin it all.
Near the beginning of the film, a bunch of prehistoric apes (“hominids” would probably be a more accurate term) awaken to find a monolith that somehow inspires them to turn bones into weapons to fight off rivals. I was lost, completely and utterly.

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