By Curmudgeon
OK, I realize today's main topic is going to be Mr. Schwebke's continuing to dig into the campaign financing scandal involving Hizzonah and Mr. Johnson. And that's as it should be. But as we congratulate the SE for continuing to uncover more and more of the story, we don't want to lose sight of another good page this Sunday. The Standard is running one hell of an op-ed page today. Three interesting and controversial pieces, all well composed, all chewy, and all local to Ogden or to Utah.
First there's a piece by Prof. R. C. Wadman [WSU, Criminal Justice], discussing the appalling carnage guns achieve in the US each year, and calling for amending the Second Amendment to limit gun ownership rights. Mr. Wadman cannot be passed off as just another damned anti-gun liberal. He writes:
Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and George Walker Bush, these are the people I voted for. But on this issue -- America in general and my political party in particular, has lost its way.Next, there's a piece by Ronald Mortensen, Ph.D., a retired Foreign Service Officer, taking to task the SL police, the Utah state police, and others, for, as he puts it, preferring to "maintain good relations with Utah's rapidly growing illegal alien community." He discusses at some length the price Utahns [and Americans more generally] pay for the resulting identity theft by illegals here.
Finally, there's a piece by State Senator Patricia Jones, the Utah Senate Minority Leader. She talks about how a legislative minority, even a very small one, can contribute a great deal to the public good by its actions in the legislature. It's a piece of the quality those who log onto the NY Times or Washington Post websites are going to get to read. [Though I couldn't help but think after I finished reading it that both the nation and the Republican Party would be a lot better off if the minority leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate approached their role in Congress as Ms. Jones does her role as minority leader in the Utah Senate.]
All told, one hell of an op-ed page this morning. Local focus, local or state authors, and filled with chewy pieces, nicely argued [even the ones I disagree with some] that folks not taking the SE aren't going to find on the national news sites.
Nicely done.
