All Categories - Jay Evensen

Read this before charging your Christmas presents

11/23/2022

We all know attitudes change, but sometimes it helps to travel back in time to understand just how much this is true.
Sometimes it is especially helpful to do so with Black Friday deals staring us in the face.
In December of 1969, some grocery stores were just beginning to accept credit cards. A reporter for the Journal Herald of Dayton, Ohio interviewed women at a store to see how they felt about it. I found her report using newspapers.com.
“Never!” one woman told her. “That would be like paying for a dead horse — paying for something already used up.”

How Thanksgiving could save the nation

11/16/2022

Prudent adults know better than to talk about politics during Thanksgiving dinner.
But, as the Washington Post reminded us three years ago, the inverse is not true. The irony of American elections is that those who practice politics seldom talk about thankfulness.
That’s not entirely a bad thing, the Post said. After all, the Founding Fathers included the right to petition government for redress of grievances in the Constitution’s First Amendment. We’re supposed to complain if we see something wrong.

Did you win the Powerball jackpot? I don't think so

11/8/2022

Did you win the powerball jackpot?
If you live in Utah, that’s a stupid question. Utah is one of five states that don’t participate.
If you live in one of the 45 states that do, it’s still a stupid question.
A winner may be announced any minute in a jackpot that on Tuesday hit $2.04 billio n (no winner had been announced at press time). Still, I’m guessing it isn’t you.
You don’t have to be a genius to figure that out. You just need to understand odds. In this case, your odds of picking five winning numbers between 1 and 69 and one additional number between 1 and 26, for the lone red ball in the drawing, is roughly 1 in 292 million. That’s according to the California Lottery’s website.

Forget Russia; Americans are this election's biggest worry

11/4/2022

In 2016, the worry was that Russia and other foreign governments were sticking their fingers in our elections.
Today, we look in the mirror and see that the problem is us.
Well, if you’re in Utah, you can set the mirror aside. It’s likely everyone in all those other states causing trouble, not you.

Is American self-governance in jeopardy?

11/4/2022

No sooner had the hammer of a strange attacker struck the head of Nancy Pelosi’s husband than the misinformation started flying.
As the saying goes, a lie will travel all the way around the world while the truth is still pulling on its boots. In this case, it was the San Francisco police who seemed to be tugging at their laces, going to lengths to explain there was no evidence Paul Pelosi knew his attacker or that he had identified him as a friend during a 911 call.

Why would anyone move to Utah?

10/20/2022

Why do people move from one state to another? And why, in particular, would they choose Utah?
Do they come for a job? Did their current employer move them here? Can they work from home now, making them free to go wherever they want? Or is it the sunshine and the mountains?
Or do they look at tax rates and go wherever the government won’t get so grabby with their wallets?

The one important thing candidates won't talk about

10/20/2022

This year, Election Day and doomsday predictions seem to be on a collision course.
That may be unfortunate for incumbents, but it could be really bad for Americans everywhere.
Perhaps “doomsday” isn’t the appropriate word to describe the likelihood of a coming recession, especially one that many economists say will be short and relatively mild, according to the Wall Street Journal.
And the recession probably won’t begin on Election day. The collision course is more philosophical. But it involves philosophies that desperately need to be front and center in current campaigns for the House and Senate.
Unfortunately, they aren’t.

Enough with the talk of a rigged election

10/11/2022

Richard Nixon may have been one of the most flawed characters of 20th century American politics, but he understood the power a major party’s standard bearer holds over millions of supporters.
Which explains at least one reason why he conceded the presidential election to John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Why do people move to Utah?

10/11/2022

Why do people move from one state to another? And why, in particular, would they choose Utah?
Do they come for a job? Did their current employer move them here? Can they work from home now, making them free to go wherever they want? Or is it the sunshine and the mountains?
Or do they look at tax rates and go wherever the government won’t get so grabby with their wallets?

Here's where you'll find the real American spirit

10/6/2022

Want to find the American spirit — the kind that built the West, innovated its way to new wealth and forged productive lives from what other nations might have considered wretched refuse? Look no further than refugees.
Six young ones who made their way to Utah — some recently and some several years ago — shared a stage at a United Nations Conference at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. When asked what sort of misperceptions they have encountered from Americans whose families have been here for generations, Dona Ibrahim, of Somali descent, born in Saudi Arabia and resettled in Utah at a young age, didn’t hesitate.

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