Jay Evensen
  • Front Page
  • Opinions
  • Second Thoughts
  • Portfolio
  • Awards
  • About

On Second Thought for June 3, 2013

5/31/2013

0 Comments

 
A lighthearted look at news of the day:

Apparently, Mexico has a new strategy for getting tourists to stay a few extra days. It’s unclear, however, how people are supposed to spend money while they’re locked in jail on false drug charges.
❑ ❑ ❑
Mexican federales arrested 42-year-old Yanira Maldonado, a mother of seven from the Phoenix area, saying she had marijuana under her seat on a bus. Well of course, it was obvious. If you’re a drug peddler, you know the last place they ever look is under your bus seat.
❑ ❑ ❑
Picture
Maldonado’s husband was advised to bribe the judge. Ah, so that’s where the extra tourist spending comes in.
❑ ❑ ❑
Last week the nation was fixated on flopping, or the art of pretending to be injured. But enough about how politicians debate sequestration.
❑ ❑ ❑
You have to hand it to Minnesota Republican congresswoman Michelle Bachman. Not many politicians can announce they are quitting and have both major parties see it as a possible gain for their side.
❑ ❑ ❑
Meanwhile, reports say LeBron James flinched and fell down last week while passing a referee in a hallway.
❑ ❑ ❑
The problem with the Scripps National Spelling Bee is the contestants have no credible way to Tweet about their experiences without misspelling the winning words. Contestants ought to lobby to have no words longer than 140 characters.
❑ ❑ ❑
“Amimia,” “laureation,” “morosoph,” “diplodocus” — these were among the words misspelled in the semifinal round. The winning word was “knaidel,” a German-derived Yiddish word for a matzo ball. Rest assured that your word processor probably puts red lines under each of them.
❑ ❑ ❑
What’s that? Could I use that in a sentence? Sure: “You morosoph, I can hardly expect laureation for my eloquence if I am forced to use amimia, like the leader of some herd of diplodocus, to tell you I would like a knaidel.”
❑ ❑ ❑
Ten public universities and state school systems have contracted with Coursera, a company that offers online college courses for credit. This is the future of higher education. Now all we need is a good computer football simulation to enhance online school spirit.
❑ ❑ ❑
Students in the future won’t be able to say, “My dog ate my homework.” However, they could say, “The cloud was down this morning,” which is an excuse even their hippie grandparents never dreamed of using.
Jay Evensen is the associate editor of the Deseret News editorial page. Follow him on Twitter @jayevensen.

0 Comments

On Second Thought for May 27, 2013

5/24/2013

0 Comments

 
A lighthearted look at issues of the day:

This is graduation season, or the time when years of hard work earns you the reward of sitting in a long, boring meeting and balancing a piece of cardboard on your head.
❑ ❑ ❑
Congratulations! Here’s your diploma. Your first student loan payment is due Friday.
❑ ❑ ❑
Lois Lerner, the director of the IRS division that apparently didn’t like conservative groups, invoked the Fifth Amendment last week to avoid testifying about this before Congress. Thousands of audited taxpayers now have a new strategy.
❑ ❑ ❑
Members of Congress were clearly upset at Lerner’s decision not to testify. For one thing, politicians can’t imagine someone actually not wanting to speak when a camera is present.
❑ ❑ ❑
Lerner told Congress she had done nothing wrong, just before she said she wasn’t going to say anything more. In retrospect, we all would have been better off if Bill Clinton had used this strategy in the Monica Lewinsky matter.
❑ ❑ ❑
Not long after this, the IRS released a statement saying, “We have no knowledge of an employee named Lois Lerner.”
❑ ❑ ❑
Two would-be criminals in Fresno got caught last week because one of them accidentally “pocket dialed” 911 while breaking into a car. Isn’t that always how it goes? You can station lookouts on all sides but forget about who is listening in your pants.
❑ ❑ ❑
Some emergency dispatch centers say about one-third of the calls they field are from phones accidentally dialed from within pockets. It’s a good thing first responders are there to save our rear ends.
❑ ❑ ❑
Authorities rank “pocket dialing” criminals right up there with the ones who brag about their exploits on Facebook or Twitter. It’s enough to make you lose faith in the rising generation of thugs.
❑ ❑ ❑
Apple’s CEO had to explain to Congress last week why his company took pains to avoid paying U.S. taxes. The hearing almost coincided with that of IRS official Lois Lerner, who was asked to explain why the IRS has been abusing its power. Apparently, no one saw the irony.
❑ ❑ ❑
Apple is in trouble because its CEO feels U.S. corporate tax rates are too high and its stockholders are demanding the highest possible returns. When he used the words “thrift” and “profit,” senators had to recess to find a dictionary.
❑ ❑ ❑
Fox is starting a new reality show in which real workers at real companies have to decide which of them should be fired. Apparently, some television networks haven’t caught the vision of how the economy needs companies to create jobs, not destroy them.
Jay Evensen is the associate editor of the Deseret News editorial page. Follow him on Twitter @jayevensen.
0 Comments

On Second Thought for May 20, 2013

5/17/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
On Second Thought is a weekly feature that takes a lighthearted look at current events.

The state announced last week that the Timpanogos Highway again has to face months of more construction work. The road, which originally was supposed to open in May 2011, has had more false starts than a track meet in an earthquake.
❑ ❑ ❑
Thanks to the missed deadlines and traffic snarls, Utahns now have come to dread these 10 words, “We’re from UDOT and we’re here to help your commute.”
❑ ❑ ❑
The Timpanogos Highway ought to qualify for federal stimulus money. After all, few projects seem so perpetually shovel ready.
❑ ❑ ❑
Contrary to public opinion, President Obama did not have the worst of all possible weeks last week. For instance, he didn’t order a drone strike on a litter of cute puppies.
❑ ❑ ❑
It was impressive, however, to see his administration angering State Department employees, conservative groups and then, in a perfect finale, the media. It sort of made his first-term fight with the Catholic Church look like, well … a tea party.
❑ ❑ ❑
I’ll say this, Obama has succeeded in uniting divergent groups. Word is AP reporters soon will be donning tricorn hats.
❑ ❑ ❑
So, the IRS was investigating conservative groups and now the government will be investigating those investigators, while people are urging an investigation into how the Justice Department investigated phone records from the Associated Press. Kids, there is a lesson here. Go to school to become an investigator.
❑ ❑ ❑
Abercombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries says he wants only beautiful, slim people wearing his company’s clothes. So why is it those people seem to be wearing hardly any clothes at all in company advertisements?
❑ ❑ ❑
Maybe the clothes are so exclusive no one qualifies to wear them. What a brilliant marketing plan!
❑ ❑ ❑
Abercrombie & Fitch, meanwhile, has signed an international agreement to make sure garment workers in Bangladesh have safe working conditions. The company says it doesn’t want poor people wearing its clothes, just making them.

Jay Evensen is the associate editor of the Deseret News editorial page. Follow him on Twitter @jayevensen.

0 Comments

On Second Thought for May 13, 2013

5/13/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
On Second Thought is a lighthearted weekly feature examining current events.

Obama administration officials had trouble at congressional hearings last week when they couldn’t quite place the location of Benghazi, Libya. After all, so much time has passed since last September’s attack on the U.S. consulate there.

Gregory Hicks, deputy to murdered U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens, provided stark testimony about the administration’s failure to act during the attack in Libya, to which the administration said, “Wow, isn’t this sequestration awful?”

A State Department official testified that the movie, “Innocence of Muslims” really had nothing to do with the Benghazi attack and was a “non-event” in Libya. Other than calling into question the administration’s original statements blaming the movie, this statement exonerates Libyans from going crazy over perhaps the worst movie in the history of film.

The Internet is now 20 years old. Just think, in the mid-90s you wouldn’t think of tweeting in public, and a worldwide web would have taken an enterprising spider an incredible effort. If you got a virus, you actually went to a doctor, not some kid fresh out of college. Progress is great, isn’t it?

The owner of Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson, said last week he was ready to build passenger spaceships to carry people through sub orbit. The only problem would be figuring out how many G-forces the average person could absorb safely. Well, that and how they would pour peanuts from those bags into their hands in zero gravity.

Ogden’s police department wants to use drones to help keep the peace. I suppose drones sound like a natural fit for the beehive state.

Opponents, however, argue the world has no use for a drone, which also has a familiar ring to it.

Three climbers and their sherpas apparently got into a fist fight on Mount Everest recently. Well, that’s one way to stay warm.

I’m no climbing expert, but it would seem unwise to anger the locals you have hired to show you the way up a steep and treacherous mountain.

Whether it’s 2013 or 1993, the dawn of the Internet Age, no one wants to be downloaded from Mount Everest.


0 Comments

On Second Thought for May 6, 2013

5/3/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
On Second Thought is a weekly feature that takes a lighthearted look at current events.

President Obama has once again vowed to close the prison for terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, if only he could find the darned key.
❑ ❑ ❑
Rumor has it he asked the former president for it during the opening of Bush library, but W. said he thought Dick Cheney still had the keys.
❑ ❑ ❑
Congress and the president have decided not to furlough air traffic controllers after all. Instead, they just won’t pay them.
❑ ❑ ❑
Five years after the Great Recession, home prices finally are spiking upward again. That means Congress can once again take the money it spent helping people avoid foreclosure and divert it to helping poor people get homes they can’t afford.
❑ ❑ ❑
Boeing officials say the company is working on a plane that would have the longest range of any passenger jet. The trick is designing a galley large enough to hold the amount of peanuts and pretzels needed to keep people alive from London to Honolulu.
❑ ❑ ❑
The Defense Department announced last week it won’t permit any religious proselytizing in the military. In other words, it may be true there aren’t any atheists in foxholes, but anyone trying to press the issue could get court martialed.
❑ ❑ ❑
Americans were infused with hope last week that strong leadership would emerge to vanquish the stubborn ideologues in Washington and save the nation’s long-term economy from ruin. But then they learned Iron Man is fictional.
❑ ❑ ❑
If Washington wrote its own superhero movie, the House version would have Austerity Man battling the evil forces of Sequestration and the Deficit Hog. The Senate version would have Robin Hood taking from the rich and giving to … the Deficit Hog.
❑ ❑ ❑
Social media is filled with sophisticated, modern, Information-Age consumers who know they can trust crowd sourcing more than the mainstream media. That’s why, not long after the Boston Marathon bombings, the Czech embassy had to release a statement instructing Twitter and Facebook users that, contrary to what many people were posting, the Czech Republic is not the same as Chechnya.

Jay Evensen is the associate editor of the Deseret News editorial page. Follow him on Twitter @jayevensen.

0 Comments

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    RSS Feed

    Ha! Ha! Ha!

    Everyone likes to laugh. Some of us even like to groan occasionally. Well, you've come to the right place. "On second thought" is a weekly feature I  produce for the Deseret News, available on Mondays. But here you can read them as I think of them.
      Oh yes, and if you've got something even funnier, post it in the comments. If I like it, I may use it.

    Archives

    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All
    Anthony Weiner
    Barack Obama
    Bcs
    Belarus
    Congress
    Donald Trump
    Fast And Furious
    Mitt Romney
    Nasa
    North Korea
    North Korea
    Olympics
    Politics
    Ron Paul
    Tea Party
    Utah
    Utah Legislature
    Venus


Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from Gwydion M. Williams, PetroleumJelliffe, mike.benedetti, ScrippsBee, Images_of_Money