Jay Evensen
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Salt Lake City, a den of sin

12/12/2016

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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.
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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.

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What do we tell children about the clowns?

10/11/2016

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It’s hard to write about the current clown scare without resorting to cheap jokes about presidential politics. Yes, the race might be a squeaker, with one or the other winning by a plastic red nose — but enough about that. It’s time to get serious for a moment about the bozos wandering the streets, scaring our children.
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Bad clowns, often as illusive as Big Foot sightings, are out in force, apparently, and that includes in Utah. 

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Crime is down; trust the facts, not politicians

8/15/2016

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The crime rate is down. Violent crimes are off 45 percent nationally since 1995 and 34 percent in Utah. Property crimes are off 43 percent nationally and 50 percent in Utah during the same period.
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Those are cold, hard FBI crime statistics. And yes, Utah’s homicide rate is up a bit in recent years, but in real numbers there aren’t many murders in the Beehive State. The homicide rate here remains lower than at any time in the 1990s. The Utah Foundation laid this all out in a recently published paper.

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Even in Utah, slavery is alive and thriving

8/2/2016

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Examine the news stories nationwide about human trafficking — plenty of them exist and new ones pop up each day — and you soon detect a theme. The journalists who write these stories feel obligated to let people know the problem is real, and that it happens in their readers’ neighborhoods.

They think you are inclined to disbelief, and you are.

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Here is why states should resist assisted suicide

6/16/2016

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My father’s final days did not fit any textbook definition of a quality life. He suffered from the advanced stages of dementia. He didn’t know who I was. In a rare moment when he seemed somewhat lucid, I asked him if he was scared. The look in his eyes as he nodded still brings tears to my eyes.

And yet he and I shared some of our most tender times together during those days. My stepmother at times would ask me to come to Arizona and stay 

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In Orlando, as in Salt Lake, answers to killings hard to find

6/15/2016

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The only difference between what Omar Mateen did last Sunday and what Sulejman Talović did at Trolley Square nine years ago lies in the magnitude of casualties.
Mateen killed 49, Talović killed five.

The same may be said for Sergei Babarin, who 

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Apple's stand honors freedom over security

2/17/2016

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The @FBI is creating a world where citizens rely on #Apple to defend their rights, rather than the other way around. – Ed Snowden on Twitter.
 
Apple, like any other business or a politician, responds to the wishes of the people.
And at the moment, tough privacy protection is popular.
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That may or may not matter as the largest privacy showdown in modern history begins to unfold in the courts. Not long ago, however, things would have been quite different.

A year ago, The Atlantic calculated that if Apple were a country, it would be the 55th richest one in the world. If any company has the power to stand firm against the FBI’s demands, this is it.

But circumstances surrounding the company’s popular stand against that agency say a lot about 

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Drones likely to fill the skies with promise and terror

2/18/2015

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The day may come when the feisty folks of Deer Trail, Colo., look like the most far-sighted people of their generation.

I’m talking about the ones who wanted to issue hunting licenses to shoot drones out of the sky. The idea was defeated in a referendum last year — the final gasp of resistance to a technology that surely soon will wash over us.


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Line between pop culture and violent threats is getting thin

12/4/2014

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Separating real threats from mere amusements becomes difficult the more society frolics in the mire.

On Monday, there was no mistaking intent as a student at Fremont High in Weber County noticed a classmate with a gun in the waistband of his pants. The weapon clearly was in the wrong place and in the wrong hands. Given the strange recurring Columbine nightmare of the nation’s youth, the student who saw the gun wasted little time in telling authorities.


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Forest Service seems bent on controlling the message

9/30/2014

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Forest Service officials are acting all surprised, like they can’t imagine why in the world the media and the public would jump to such awful conclusions.

Those conclusions, outlined in news stories earlier this month, were that anyone who wanted to take a photo in a federal wilderness area — even with a cell phone — would need a permit first if a proposed set of rules was put into effect. If caught without a permit, they would have to pay $1,000.



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    The author

    Jay Evensen is the Senior Editorial Columnist of the Deseret News. He has nearly 40 years experience as a reporter, editor and editorial writer in Oklahoma, New York City, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He also has been an adjunct journalism professor at Brigham Young and Weber State universities.

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