Category: - Jay Evensen

Spreading better health will make the world safer

11/18/2015

Over the course of 150 years, profound statements can morph into clichés that lose their punch. So it is with this poetic line by William Ross Wallace, penned in 1865: "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."

Jackson Ndegwa, a child health and development expert in Nairobi, Kenya, might have you look at it a little differently. A nation whose mothers rock the cradles of children who die before the age of 5 from preventable diseases, or who suffer the long-term affects those diseases have on development, won’t

Refugees are not a threat to the United States

11/17/2015

My wife and I used to frequent a certain Chinese restaurant, in part because of a particular server.

He was a pleasant man with a quick smile and helpful menu suggestions. Also, he was a refugee from Cambodia, and his story was so compelling that, the first time we heard it, we stayed long after our meal was done to listen to him.

He told of escaping through the jungle. He described the leaky boat he and his family used to

Why computers alone won't help schools

9/16/2015

If you were to guess which public school systems perform best, the ones that provide computers or tablets for their students and spend a lot of time online — like Australia, Denmark or Sweden — or the ones that use technology modestly, such as Singapore or South Korea, what would be your answer?

Anyone following debates at the Utah Legislature the last couple of years might chose the high-tech schools. That would be wrong.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and

A summer free of health scares is no reason to relax

6/30/2015

So far, it seems to be an apocalypse-free summer. We’ve had a few shark-bite stories to chew on. Some mosquitos in New York City and far-flung Nebraska apparently have West Nile virus. Birds have been dropping dead all over the Midwest from avian flu, leading to sharp increases in egg prices.

But none of these has yet to become a full-blown media sensation. There are no measles outbreaks at Disneyland. No one has been forced to bring reason to the debate by comparing the 57,000 people who

Obama administration should emphasize religious liberty

1/21/2015

President Obama gave an obligatory sentence or two to religious freedom during his State of the Union address Tuesday. It wasn’t nearly enough.

He deplored the “anti-Semitism that has resurfaced in certain parts of the world.” He criticized the “offensive stereotypes of Muslims — the vast majority of whom share our commitment to peace.” And he quoted the Pope, although in a context that had less to do with religious freedom than with diplomacy.

Altogether, these took two paragraphs in a long speech, and they were capped by the first-ever condemnation of transgender discrimination in a State of the Union, which grabbed all the media attention.

Also, it was all wrapped in the unconvincing message that things are going well in foreign arenas.

In truth, religious intolerance and persecution is an

Despite support of Charlie Hebdo, we are hypocrites

1/13/2015

While we wave our Je suis Charlie banners in support of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, we might want to consider our own level of commitment to the bedrock principles of free press and expression. Even in Utah, there is much room for improvement.

A better banner might be Je suis un hypocrite.

It is entirely appropriate that much of the world has rallied around the newspaper and those principles in defiance of the attackers. Like many, I don’t

Forget 'peak oil,' let's worry about 'peak chocolate'

11/18/2014

For years, people have argued over “peak oil,” the point at which the planet’s reserves of that energy source will reach the maximum potential to provide for our demands. But now it’s time to forget all that. It’s peak chocolate we should be worried about.

You’re eating more than farmers can produce. The Washington Post says we haven’t seen such a string of consecutive chocolate deficits in a half century. How bad is it? Last year, the world ate about 70,000 metric tons more chocolate than was grown.

A century after WWI, have we learned anything?

7/31/2014

The author's mother (second from right) and siblings in Norway, 1938.

Among the accumulation of stuff I have at home are photos and correspondence from a century or more of my family’s history.

These possess a sort of magic. People I knew briefly in my childhood as old and stooped blossom to life as young people full of energy and hope for the future. There are postcards from Utah, sent back to my grandmother in Norway, dated slightly more than 100 years ago. They urge her to come to the United States and enjoy the fun they were experiencing.

Children at the border present problems not easily solved

7/25/2014

We’re talking about children.

That makes all the difference in the latest border war to the south. It colors how we react, and it sets a high bar for anyone trying to argue for sending the kids back.

It also makes its easy to call Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, heartless and cruel for proposing a bill that would, in some cases, expedite their deportation — a thing of which he is aware.

Lack of U.S. ambassador for religious freedom says a lot

6/18/2014

Even a nation as cynical as ours shouldn’t be too shocked to learn that a financial contribution of the correct amount can earn you an ambassadorship to some cushy country — Norway, for instance.

We would like to believe otherwise. I’ve listened to my share of politicians and their donors through the years insisting that the money that changes hands during campaign season is a mere token of support, not a payment attached to any sort of expectation. But they over-estimate my gullibility, let alone that of many Americans.

We know what it means to slip the maître d a little extra for a nice table. Why should politics be different? Besides, what harm could it do to put an ambassadorship to a peaceful and mostly quiet ally up for sale?

Well … listen to the snippets NPR recently broadcast of the confirmation hearing last January of George Tsunis, nominated

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