Category: - Jay Evensen

On Second Thought for May 19, 2014

5/16/2014

A lighthearted look at news of the day:

Americans are being mesmerized by a giant monster capable of stomping cities into dust and that is impervious to weapons. But enough about the Miami Heat.

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No, if Godzilla were in the NBA, he would fit best as a Raptor.

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No question, Godzilla has become a timeless classic. I wouldn’t be surprised to see NBC doing it soon as a live studio production, although Carrie Underwood probably doesn’t look good in a reptile suit.

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NBC announced that “The Sound of Music” was such a hit it plans to do more live productions in prime time, including “The Music Man.” It’s about time network execs starting using the “think method” for programming.

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Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg turned 30 last week. That means he’s officially too old to be hired by a high-tech startup.

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Seriously, the world owes Zuckerberg a lot of thanks. Without him, hardly anyone would have known about the cat that chased off the dog attacking a little boy.

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Without Zuckerberg, we could still like people and have it really mean something. “You’ve got a friend,” still would bring comfort. But on the other hand, we wouldn’t know what our old high school friends were eating for breakfast.

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Zuckerberg is worth $26.6 billion. Maybe now he can spring for a suit and tie.

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Mitt Romney says he thinks it’s time to raise the minimum wage. In reality, he’s just trying to improve his situation with his new night job at the convenience store.

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Romney insists he’s not running for president in 2016. That’s a relief to the nameless, faceless person who currently is the Republican front-runner.

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Scientists now say eating dark chocolate and drinking red wine isn’t good for you, after all. They say the best way to a healthy life is to do something that works up a sweat. For many people, just going without chocolate for a while will do that.

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A new study says 1 in 10 Americans no longer carry cash. If this trend continues, panhandlers will have to begin accepting credit cards.

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A tough new law aimed at ending distracted driving took effect in Utah last week. When I read about it I almost drove off the road.

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Some day, smart cars may be pulled over for trying to multi-task.

On Second Thought for Jan. 28, 2013

1/25/2013

"On Second Thought" is a weekly series of brief and lighthearted observations of current events.

So far, President Obama has filled up his second-term cabinet mostly with white men. He would pick some women, but they’re all still in Mitt Romney’s binders.

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Meanwhile, during last week’s inaugural address, someone apparently accidentally loaded the president’s teleprompter with an old campaign speech given in Ohio.

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President Obama’s speech echoed the inaugurations of great past presidents, with only slight variations. “With malice toward none,” for instance, became, “With malice toward none except those who want to cut entitlements.”

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President Kennedy’s words were modified to, “Ask not what your country can do for you. If you’re rich, here’s what you can do for your country.”

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Later, controversy erupted when critics accused the president of having lip-synced his speech.

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Last week, the government announced it was lifting the ban on women soldiers serving in combat roles. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton celebrated by lobbing grenades at Republicans in Congress.

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When asked by Congress to explain her role in the tragic attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, Mrs. Clinton explained in detail that she had never heard of the place.

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Utahns everywhere are marking an annual event filled with drama, suspense and frequent comedic relief. No, not the Sundance Film Festival. I’m talking about the annual session of the state Legislature.

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State lawmakers are licking their chops at the chance to pass bills that send a message to those scoundrels in Washington. Back in Washington, meanwhile, some low-level bureaucrat is preparing room for these messages in a warehouse near the Postal Service’s dead letter collection.

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In an interview with Katie Couric last week, Notre Dame football star Manti Te’o assured Americans that from now on he will date only real girls, as approved by his 6-foot rabbit friend, Harvey.

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Northern Utahns learned last week that nature has a sense of humor. Why else would people look forward to relief from a relentless choking fog and then get hit with freezing rain?

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I don’t know whether Utah will ever host another Olympics, but during Thursday’s storm I saw a sedan do a triple Salchow on the freeway.

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

"On Second Thought" for Nov. 11, 2012

11/13/2012

For many months, politicians held off on the big decisions, saying voters would decide the nation’s direction on Election Day. What they didn’t count on was voters deciding to keep things as they are. Apparently, hope is stronger than change.
Billions of dollars were spent on campaigns that basically didn’t change a thing. That’s like spending a fortune on a college education, only to be handed your high school diploma again at the end.
Election officials in Florida, otherwise known as camera hogs, must have been disappointed when the presidential race was decided without them.
Ballots in Florida contained 11 proposed constitutional amendments, one of which was about 700 words long. By Friday it still wasn’t clear which candidate won, possibly because people were still standing in line to vote. Rumor has it officials were hoping to combine films from 2012 and 2000 to create a pilot for a new reality TV show.
Chef Gordon Ramsay could star as the Florida secretary of state. As the weekly episodes progress, he would eliminate both incompetent election judges and spoiled ballots. At the end of the season, viewers finally would learn which candidates gets Florida’s electoral votes — in the 2000 election.
If only Franz Kafka still were alive, student’s one day would have to read “The Castle,” “The Trial” and “The Florida Voting Booth.”
Election Day always ends with a ray of hope, as one candidate concedes and offers to support the other and the winner graciously thanks the loser. If only talk radio hosts could adopt a similar tradition.
President Obama’s victory speech was so touching that it took almost 24 hours for him and Republican leaders to again dig in their heels over the looming “fiscal cliff.”
It says something about the nation’s lack of confidence in the future when it voted to keep the same people in power and two states decided to also make marijuana legal.
If negative advertising is really so effective, why don’t companies make commercials that scream at viewers for being idiots if they buy something else?
A driver in Kaysville last week got angry at another driver, forced her to stop, got out and looked ready to do violence. That’s when the other driver, who happened to be a police officer in an unmarked car, turned on the hidden police lights. This is what is known as a fantasy come true.

"On Second Thought" for Oct. 28, 2012

10/29/2012

With the presidential election now tied in many opinion polls, this is the time when Mitt Romney could really use the 1 percent.

In the third presidential debate, Barack Obama jumped on Mitt Romney for saying the Navy needs more ships. "[W]e also have fewer horses and bayonets," he said. He failed to mention that this comes despite federal bailouts to livery stables and bayonet manufacturers.

What about all those jobs being lost in bayonet factories? Those people have families, too.

The debate focused on foreign policy questions. There are no real differences between the parties on foreign policy. That's why Mitt Romney spent the evening saying he would do the same things Obama did, only better.

Word has it that a lot of undecided voters missed the debate because they couldn't decide whether to watch it or the baseball game.

Some undecideds seem to think voting is like paying income taxes. If they're not ready by Election Day, they intend to ask for an extension.

For the first time, scientists have been able to use computers to play sound recorded on a tinfoil plate in 1878 — the earliest known playback of a human voice. Oddly, the voice seems to be a politician urging more horses and bayonets for the military.

Records show the device that recorded the sound was sold by the Edison Co., for $95.50 in April of 1878. It never caught on — not because of the price, but because kids had a hard time cranking it while walking around all day with it in their backpacks.

Still, it was a huge breakthrough. Until then, the only way kids could ignore their parents was to sing to each other.

Seriously, it's a good thing the recording industry evolved slowly. If someone had used Thomas Edison's first recording device to capture "Gangnam Style," Edison might have given up and gone back to being a telegraph operator.

Time magazine came out with a list of the top Halloween costumes this year. Big Bird didn't make it, probably because most parents can't afford the costume without some government funding.

In Utah, paramedics are working hard to help congressional candidates in districts 1 to 3 keep breathing. Seems that Mia Love and Jim Matheson are using up all the oxygen.

"On Second Thought" for Sept. 3, 2012

8/28/2012

The Republican National Convention got off to a rocky start when delegates drew lots to see who would break it to Ron Paul that he was not the nominee.
It suddenly dawned on Paul's supporters that this is why they hadn't heard his name in the media in several months.
As the convention approved a rule requiring delegates to support the candidate who won their state's preference poll or primary, Ron Paul supporters vowed to stay home rather than vote for Mitt Romney. No word yet on whether they will join the Democrats, a party that would never nominate Romney.
Paul Ryan, the Republican candidate for vice president, voted in favor of the TARP bailout at the start of the recession. Somewhere, former Utah Sen. Bob Bennett is still looking for the license plate number of the truck that hit him in 2010.
The makers of "World of Warcraft" say players from Iran are being blocked out because of U.S. sanctions. I thought it was because Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was starting to take the game too seriously.
More than 400 earthquakes have been reported in Imperial County, California since Aug. 25. In the city of Brawley, the only people walking a straight line are the drunks.
Ronald Reagan had it wrong, the most terrifying words in the English language really are, "I'm from Hollywood and I'm here to help with your acceptance speech."
Note to future Republican presidential nominee: Beware of any movie star who says, "What your family friendly campaign needs is for me to get on stage and pretend the president is saying vulgar and obscene things."
As an opening act Thursday night, Clint Eastwood did for the Republican Party what Michael Jordan did for baseball, or what Greece has done to austerity.
At least it gave new meaning to the term, "Yielding to the chair."

"On Second Thought" for Aug. 27, 2012

8/20/2012

Last week, Mitt Romney denied his campaign would like to gut Medicare. President Barack Obama then denied charges his campaign would gut welfare reform. That’s the problem with candidates today: No guts.
Augusta National Golf Club made huge strides this week. The previously all-male club decided to admit any woman, so long as she either has been a U.S. secretary of state or is a prominent financier.
The restriction is understandable. You can’t let just anybody hit a little white ball with a stick.
Intel has hired a team of computer hackers to protect modern automobiles from computer viruses. So far, the team recommends that if your car starts acting funny, you should stop, turn off the engine, get out, get back in and turn it on again.
Do we really want Internet cars? Won’t it be frustrating to have your dashboard tell you to pull to curb while it downloads an important update that will require you to restart?
And what if it decides what it really needs is to update the driver?
Unfortunately for Rep. Todd Akin, when a politician is about to say something really stupid, the body doesn’t have a way to shut the whole thing down.
Akin, who caused a storm of criticism over uninformed comments about rape and pregnancy, needs to learn that whenever your doctor tells you something, it’s best to get a second opinion.
Otherwise, you could end up in the gaffe doghouse, with no one to talk to but Joe Biden.
A hurricane is bearing down on Tampa, Fla., as the GOP Convention prepares to convene. This could be a problem. As some members of Congress apparently demonstrated recently in the Sea of Galilee, they don’t do too well in water.
And speaking of hot water, Mitt Romney took flak last week for joking that “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate.” He could deflect all this by arguing that he really was taking a dig at Rocky Anderson, that other candidate of uncertain origins.
Speaking of Rocky, the former Salt Lake Mayor took it on the chin last week when he was beaten out of a spot on the California presidential ballot by Rosanne Barr. It’s kind of hard to know what to compare this to. The only thing that comes to mind is that it’s kind of like losing a national-anthem singing contest to, well, Rosanne Barr.

'On Second Thought' for Aug. 20, 2012

8/13/2012

OK, everyone save the notes you took on diving, archery and water polo so you can pick up where you left off in four years.
While many of us thought Kim Jong-Un and the North Koreans had the corner on the nutty dictatorship market, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus was waiting in the wings. Last week he went nuts because some Swedes parachuted Teddy Bears into his country complete with human rights messages.
Lukashenko has summoned the Swedes back to his country to face charges, and he took two Belarusians hostage as bait. No word on the fate of the teddy bears.
You've gotta love a leader who wants to protect his nation from invading stuffed animals.
But Lukashenko is no dummy. He knows: today it's a teddy bear, tomorrow it could be Buzz Lightyear.
Five Mormon siblings got married on the same day recently in Arizona. That means there are at least five guys with no excuse for ever forgetting an anniversary.
In the spirit of the Olympics, I suppose it’s only right to stage synchronized weddings. But if all five couples eventually have a baby on the same day, that would be going a bit too far.
Vice President Joe Biden in Virginia this week: "Where is it written that we cannot lead the world in the 20th century in making automobiles?" Good question. For that matter, let's set a goal to lead the world in automobiles in the 19th century, too.
Then he told the folks in Virginia, "with you, we can win North Carolina!" Was he talking about basketball? Can the vice president please have an interpreter?
Muhammed Rahim — a former translator for Osama bin Laden and a current inmate at Guantánamo Bay — sent a letter to his attorney recently saying he feels Lebron James should apologize to the city of Cleveland for the way he left to play basketball for the Miami Heat. Well, of course. As every good terrorist knows, there are some lines that can't be crossed.
Killing innocent people is one thing, but we're talking about NBA loyalty here.
One thing is for sure, Rahim has put the good people of Cleveland in a difficult spot, somewhere between Lebron and a hard place.
The Canyons School District this year will be encouraging good behavior by handing out "bus bucks," redeemable for prizes, to kids who act civilly on school buses. Hey — maybe they've hit on a cure for negative political campaigns.
If President Obama knew it would cost him that bicycle he wants, maybe he would tell his people to quit accusing Mitt Romney of felonies.

On Second Thought for Aug. 13, 2012

8/6/2012

A recent USDA employee newsletter suggested going meatless on Mondays to help the environment. Apparently, this wasn’t good for the environment of the USDA.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association issued a strongly worded denunciation and Rep. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, started tweeting about all the meat he was eating. That got the folks at PETA going, launching attacks of its own on the attackers. Ah yes, the USDA employee newsletter — it's required reading for people in the know.

Grassley, who perhaps is considering changing his name to Meatley, said he would increase his meat intake on Mondays. Then he started tweeting about every piece of meat he was eating. For his sake, we’re just glad the USDA didn’t advocate going without alcohol.

Don’t try to tell us how to improve the health of USDA workers. If we want them fat and heart-attack prone, by gum that’s our right.

NASA successfully landed a spacecraft called "Curiosity" on Mars last week. If they find intelligent life, they will quickly ship it to Washington so it can figure out how to keep funding NASA.
Unfortunately, Washington is a hostile environment for intelligent life.

Some contributions from Twitter:

@jayevensen Somewhere on #mars, there's a microbe staggering out of a bar and screaming, "ALIENS!" #curiosity
— James Hofheins (@jwhof) August 6, 2012

@jayevensen Last night there was a tweet from #mars: "Did y'all just see a UFO landing, or was that just me?" #Curiosity @nasa
— James Hofheins (@jwhof) August 6, 2012

@jayevensen Good thing Mars isn't following #slc ordinance to get junkers off front lawns.Depending on where #curiosity landed.
— James Hofheins (@jwhof) August 6, 2012

A Utah woman won a court case in Utah last week allowing her to get paid for braiding hair without 2,000 hours of classroom work and a professional license. Good heavens, what's next? Will we have to allow the kid down the street to mow our lawn without a Ph.D?
The cosmetology establishment argued that if you braid hair incorrectly, it can lead to permanent hair loss. That explains why you see so many bald little girls running around school yards.
There was only one problem with this argument: The 2,000 hours of required classroom work had little to do with braiding. They did, however, have a lot to do with stifling competition.
The The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said July was the hottest month ever recorded in U.S. history. The previous record was 1936. Given the bad economy and the relentless heat, all we need is to pull Shirley Temple out of retirement to do some movies, close our eyes and it will be 1936 again.
No, if it were 1936 we would be facing an election between a charismatic liberal president and a staid, buttoned-up governor accusing him of subverting the Constitution.

On Second Thought for July 23, 2012

7/15/2012

"On Second Thought" is a weekly feature in the Deseret News that takes a light-hearted look at current events.

Police say a man has been robbing banks in the West lately, using a note that says he has only four months to live. Faced with death, people often focus their priorities. In this case, the focus seems to be on $50s and $100s.
Maybe "rob banks" was the last check-off on his bucket list.
Or maybe he really has figured out a way to take it with him.
This is an interesting tactic. Perhaps he's playing the sympathy card, hoping banks will say, "Gee, let's let him take the money. Shouldn't his final months be spent amid jewels and fast cars?" But if he keeps doing this five months from now, we'll know he's dishonest.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry this week said he wants three things: President Obama to release his college transcripts, all candidates to become more transparent and Mitt Romney to ... to ... what was the third thing? Oops.
The Associated Press first reported that Gov. Perry wanted Romney to release more of his tax returns. Perry's staff quickly said that wasn't the case. Perry wants candidates to be transparent, not not if it hurts his own party.
Clearly, some former presidential candidates should be a bit less painfully transparent.
Police in England arrested a 17-year-old boy who tried to lunge at a person carrying the Olympic torch and steal it. Maybe he just wanted to light some briquettes for an evening barbecue.
Where would you put a stolen Olympic torch? In the back yard right next to your stolen jet plane, hijacked police car and original copy of The Scream?
The state of California has outlawed the sale of foie gras in restaurants. Some eateries, however, are offering it for free along with certain entrees. Is this what's known as "ducking" the law?
Of course, this strategy may not hold up in court. It's what is known as a "liver let die" attitude.

On Second Thought for July 9, 2012

7/9/2012

By Monday, you will know whether the latest Internet scam has thrown you back into the 1950s.
If so, enjoy the ride, and try not to give away all the I Love Lucy plots before people can see them.
Say what you want about the ‘50s, at least no one back then could devise something that would make all the typewriters stop working at once.

When Al Gore invented the Internet, you think he would have been more careful about security, maybe putting the key in a lock box.
Think politics is simple? Republicans were quick to jump all over President Obama after the Supreme Court said Obamacare raised taxes. But Mitt Romney’s adviser had to defend Obama because he didn’t want to concede Romney raised taxes with the same type of law in Massachusetts. Then finally, Romney admitted Obamacare does raise taxes after all. In plain English, if it isn’t a tax, you can’t make attacks.
So, does this mean Romney was in favor of the Obamacare tax before he was against it? Will John Kerry be his running mate?
The president, meanwhile, seems to act as if talking about health care is making him sick. “Let’s keep moving forward. Nothing to see here.”
And the latest unemployment report? “I said, just keep moving.“
Considering the state was one giant torch during the Fourth of July, “Stadium of Fire” seemed an unfortunate choice of a name.
“Stadium of cool water and refuge” may have been more appealing.
The annual fireworks extravaganza in Provo featured the Beach Boys. Perhaps a more appropriate choice would have been Earth, Wind and Fire.
After target shooters and people parking cars on grass started fires, Gov. Gary Herbert lamented there was no way to outlaw “stupid.” But then a fire near Alpine was started when a track hoe struck a rock. Face it, nobody in Utah should be allowed to move or touch anything for at least two months.
Meanwhile, the IOC announced it won’t make a bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics, ending Salt Lake City’s plans to be the host city that year. That’s too bad. The state seemed to be turning itself into one giant Olympic torch to plead its case.
Mayan calendars supposedly pinpoint the end of the world as Dec. 21 of this year. Coincidentally, the I-15 project in Utah County is scheduled for completion in December. Anyone want to lay odds on whether the freeway will be finished before the world ends?
I hope the state negotiated a clause that says it won’t have to pay contractors if the planet ceases to exist before work is done.
The Utah Judicial Council may soon rule that cameras should be allowed in state courtrooms. So much for that sketch artist’s degree you were working on.
If that rule passes, courts will have to schedule trials so they don’t compete head-to-head with Judge Judy.

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