This Saturday is the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, NASA’s first mission to land people on the moon.
“I’ll bet no pioneer mother ever had to tell her daughter to get her clothes back on.” The thought ran through my head as I stared back at the defiant teen in front of me and said, “No, you can’t wear a tank top on this trek. Pioneer women didn’t wear tank tops. They knew that walking uncove…
Keeping up with the Joneses just got three times as difficult.
An unlikely candidate for president of the United States, Marianne Williamson, recently announced that in our current tumultuous political climate, her goal would be to fight hate with love. The pundits made fun of her. I wonder why. Have we as a society become so cynical that idealism is a …
Contrary to Bill Murray’s Peter Venkman character in “Ghostbusters” — who at one point in the movie admits he’s “fuzzy on the whole good-bad thing” — I believe the concept is actually quite simple.
As a nation stumbling toward humanity, we recognize change is often slow to come and even slower to be accepted. Fifty-five years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, preventing employment discrimination due to race, color, sex, religion or national origin. T…
So how did people celebrate the Fourth of July when fireworks weren’t available, all wrapped up in fancy packages and sold by the box loads in parking lot tents?
I get the feeling that every once in awhile the government misses the whole point of issuing a product recall.
I know I like to pretend that I’m this crotchety old Luddite who hates all the newfangled technology that the younger generations are embracing. (“Hey you punk kids, get off my VHS format!”)
Summer finds me in my garden, pulling crab grass. I’ve tried everything to get rid of it, but it comes down to sifting through the dirt, pulling out one root at a time, which allows room for reflection as my mind searches for something to occupy it.
The kids can spy only so many bridges, or search for a Hawaiian license plate only so long before it’s time to move on to another game during those long summer road trips. Many families will test the strength of their relationships this summer by spending hours, maybe even days, seated next …
How did I completely miss out on the latest riveting episode of “So You Think You’re Patriotic Enough to Call Yourself an American?”
It’s true. The American public is losing faith in its traditional news sources. A 2018 Gallup survey of the public’s confidence in U.S. institutions put newspapers and television news near the bottom. Forty percent of respondents reported little or no faith in the printed media, and 45% shar…
June is shaping up to be a particularly tough month for white, heterosexual, Christian males.
Life has a curious way of reminding you who is the boss. Most recently, I’ve been out of commission due to a spine surgery that I delayed because of an intense desire to get one more thing done. And, get it done I did. But now, I am taking time to heal, not because I necessarily want to, but…
A recent news article shared the story of a baby girl born at 23 ½ weeks weighing just under 9 ounces — about the weight of an apple. Her parents were told they’d have maybe an hour with her before she died. But she didn’t. In fact, thanks to intensive neonatal care, she not only survived, b…
My family volunteered to help with Ogden’s Golden Spike Sesquicentennial, the celebration of a century and a half since the completion of the first North American transcontinental railway. What a great party. Of course, as Standard-Examiner columnist Mark Saal noted, given all the hype and c…
How big is too big?
I visited NASA in New York City last week. I know folks don’t associate NASA with the bustle of Manhattan, usually thinking of Texas or Florida or possibly the Moon, but the Goddard Institute of Space Science (GISS) is there, right next to that diner from Seinfeld.
A somber monument etched with thousands of names stands on the southeast corner of Library Square at 300 East 500 South in Salt Lake City. It’s a long, serpentine stretch of glass panels that extend along the east side of the block, edged with a quiet landscape of flowers, trees and grass. T…
So, is everybody completely choo-chooed out by now?
Some years ago, as a United States Peace Corps volunteer in the Thar Desert, also known as the Great Indian Desert, my Indian government counterpart, Narpat, and I took a bus to a conference. It was a long, tiring ride, and the temperature was at least 120 F. All the windows were open wide. …
“Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.”
Weber Basin Water Conservancy District is Northern Utah’s regional water supplier for treated municipal water, wholesale irrigation water, retail secondary irrigation water, untreated industrial water, and groundwater replacement water.
Two years ago, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 substantially overhauled the Internal Revenue Code. Previous reform of this magnitude last occurred with the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The circumstances surrounding the enactment of these two pieces of legislation present a case study for contra…
Mothers Day — or the annual mom’s guilt trip as some moms call it — is next Sunday. Moms have the toughest job in the world. Seriously, coal miners at least get to go home every day. Moms are on the job 24/7, and the paycheck is internally generated satisfaction and fulfillment — emotions th…
In May, Silicon Valley will host the Augmented World Expo (AWE). There, entrepreneurs will showcase devices — from headsets to holosuits — that promise to produce awe by creating virtual and augmented reality. Yet the awe these devices produce differs from the awe earlier generations of Amer…
For decades, the small Wyoming town of Evanston meant just one thing to many of us in Northern Utah.
East of Hyde Park, (a tiny community in upper Northern Utah), is a small hill named Round Hill because, well, it’s round. It hasn’t changed much beyond a slowly growing lacework of motorbike trails adding to a foot path that was once its only mark.
“April showers,” they say, “bring May flowers.”
By now you have probably heard about the astounding observations of the black hole at the center of the galaxy designated M87 and christened Powehi, a Hawaiian phrase referring to an “embellished dark source of unending creation.” This monster of an object, six billion times as massive as ou…
Think about the most unexpected plot twists of the last half-century.
I recently attended an address by a revered community and religious leader who pulled up several images of well-known sports heroes with the aim of inspiring the young people in the audience to set and achieve goals of their own.
Did you know that Utah has 27 state symbols? Well, 28 now, with that Gila monster decision. The state Legislature approved another state symbol recently: Utah’s state lizard — the Gila monster. Residing primarily in Arizona and New Mexico, the venomous Gila is named after a Colorado River tr…
When I was just a little tyke, I loved the merry-go-round.
Snow, particularly in our state, is more than a facilitator of winter recreation and breathtaking winter scenery, it’s truly the lifeblood of our quality of life, and our economy.
One week ago, members of the Ogden community joined together to honor victims of the mosque massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand. People from all walks of life gathered on the steps of Ogden’s city hall March 27. The weather was overcast, and the mood was somber. Small children climbed the …
Apparently, at some point in the past decade, the voters of Utah quietly elected God to Congress.
By now, most people are familiar with the scandal involving wealthy parents who paid a fixer to help their children cheat their way into elite colleges. The scandal illuminates the seamy side of undergraduate admissions. It also underscores some paradoxical realities about the benefits of at…
When your phone’s caller ID says “Layton City Police,” you answer the phone, right? That’s what my sweet, older, single friend thought. So she did.
If I ask Google to tell me the distance to the nearest star, I get an immediate answer: 4.22 light-years.
" The political equality that is required by democracy is always under threat from economic inequality, and the more extreme the economic inequality, the greater the threat to democracy." — Angus Deaton, 2015 Nobel Prize winner in economics
By now, the verbal cage match between Oklahoma City Thunder basketball player Russell Westbrook and Utah Jazz fan Shane Keisel has been hashed and re-hashed to the point where there’s probably not much else left to say.
In March 1961, soon after his inauguration, President John F. Kennedy introduced the United States Peace Corps — a concept offering material help to developing nations and better understanding for all. Seven years later, upon graduating from Weber State, I joined the ranks.
“Hi. I’m Louise. What’s your name?” I asked the woman wheeled up in her wheelchair across the dining hall table from me. “Lonnie,” she said. Then she pulled her arms up onto the table and as they flailed about uncontrollably, she added with a wicked grin, “And this is Parkinson's.”
How does one become a professional photojournalist at the Standard-Examiner?
Over the course of six years my husband has insisted that he had a terrific idea for an outdoor winter party in our driveway. Each time he would bring it up, I would try to be patient, listen attentively and not throw my hands in the air shouting, “That’s not the way it works in Utah. This i…
How about a little background to get acquainted before you read my first column, shall we?
Some laws just aren’t what they used to be.
Recent events at Weber State University, in our country and in the Utah legislature, have me appreciating those who embrace the often counter-intuitive thinking required for science that benefits us all.
