Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

We remain hopeless optimists about new years

12/29/2022

This week, you could read countless stories about the ills of 2022, from the war in Ukraine to mass shootings to sky-high inflation and another messy election.
Nothing seems more worthy of scorn than a year on its way out. From the perspective of New Year’s Eve, it seems all the optimism everyone felt a year ago, when the clock turned midnight on the last New Year’s Eve, was for naught.
But that doesn’t keep anyone from feeling giddy about the one just over the horizon. Many of us will be there again Saturday at midnight, happily cheering in 2023, as if it will be just the thing we need to set everything right. Times Square in New York City will be jumping. Smiles will abound.

Congress, not courts, should solve immigration problems

12/29/2022

For too long, Congress has fallen in love with the idea of kicking difficult issues to the White House or the courts. It’s easier to demonize the other party or blame judges for a problem than it is to craft a solution – especially when the subject is immigration.
So it was refreshing this week to have a conservative Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch, state the obvious.
“We are a court of law, not policymakers of last resort,” he said, dissenting to a narrow majority of fellow conservative justices who decided to let Title 42 stay in place temporarily while several Republican-led states mount a challenge to keep it as a permanent fixture.

Utah should take earthquake preparedness seriously

12/20/2022

Early Tuesday morning, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck Northern California, near the small town of Ferndale.
Every time something like this happens, people along Utah’s Wasatch Front need to look around and imagine what their world would be like after a similar thing. More specifically, state lawmakers should do this.
If it’s not looking better every time they pause, they need to do better.

A cashless society ultimately hurts the poor the most

12/16/2022

Pop quiz: In which year did the following appear in a news report?
“At the moment, the last bastions of cash seem to be parking meters, five-and-dime stores and supermarkets. And even the supermarkets are adjusting to a cashless society.”
You’re probably smart enough to realize I wouldn’t be asking this if it appeared yesterday, although it sounds almost as fresh as this morning’s emailed news alert (maybe the supermarket part sounds a little stale, five-and-dimes have become dollar stores, although they often charge more, and many parking meters today require an app to use). But you might be surprised to find out it was published June 24, 1960.

Acts of kindness and generosity influence copycats

12/14/2022

Sometimes, people battle crime and violence unwittingly.
Take the folks in Union Grove, Wisconsin. In October, someone there paid the bill for the next customer at a McDonald’s drive-thru, starting a chain that lasted through 25 cars. It was, Newsweek reported, the largest such chain at that restaurant, where such things appear to happen regularly.
Or take the folks in tiny Otsego County, Michigan. A customer at a barber shop there paid for the person in the chair next to him earlier this month. That set off a chain that lasted through the week.

Are Utah drivers really the worst in the nation?

12/12/2022

Some days, I wonder whether the Cannonball Run — the unofficial and illegal road races from coast to coast using regular freeways and byways — have made Utah their new training grounds.
Pick any freeway or major highway along the Wasatch Front. Drive the speed limit. Then look in the rearview mirror. You’ll see them coming on all sides — cars and trucks going at least 20 mph faster than you are.
It reminds me of the old joke about the man who told police he was just trying to keep up with traffic. “But there is no traffic,” the officer said. To which the driver replies, “That shows just how far behind I am.”

Forget voter fraud; this is what threatens democracy

12/2/2022

Too many people are focused on allegations of voter fraud. That’s a needless distraction.
If you want to know what really can make your vote less powerful, look at redistricting. And if you want to see how hot the battle over this has become, watch the Supreme Court, which will begin hearing a case this Wednesday that has the potential to turn maps, and perhaps many laws related to voting, into super weapons.

Will drills and nuclear reactors save the Great Salt Lake?

12/1/2022

State lawmakers are beginning to propose ideas that, under normal circumstances, or even slightly abnormal circumstances, would sound, shall we say, unusual.
But when your state is on the precipice of an ecological disaster — in this case, the disappearance of the Great Salt Lake — you don’t have any choice other than to consider all alternatives. And, who knows? What sounds outlandish today could end up saving us all, even if it involves portable nuclear reactors.
After all, we’re close to the edge of a cliff.

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