A murdered child --- is anything worse?
Posted by ctrentelman, Yesterday, 02:43 PM
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, somewhere in Layton, is a father who is going through the sort of Hell that nobody else can imagine and no parent should ever have to experience.
He's the father of Brittany Nichols, the 23-year-old North Ogden woman found Sunday afternoon, stabbed to death.
Stabbed, police say, by her live-in boyfriend. Found by her father.
We're posting my story on the details of the crime, and the confession of the man accused of killing her, on the web site, and it will be in tomorrow's paper. I just got done writing it.
That just leaves me with a few minutes here to ponder the suffering of that poor father. As I told Chief Polo Afuvai, I have kids about that age, and I can imagine what it must have been like for that father to find his daughter, dead. It's a kind of mixture of shock and horror that makes the term "nightmare" feel lame by comparison. Words really don't cover it.
Chief Afuvai said he's got kids that same age too. So, he knows what it would be like. I like to think that's one of the reasons his department worked so hard to solve the crime so quickly.
Good for them. They did a quick job, got a confession, now it can play out in the courts.
Doesn't really make it better, though. If that was my daughter, or son, nothing could. The concept of "closure" would be a cruel joke. The pain would never, ever, go away.
Charlie
Happy, and safe, New Year
Posted by ctrentelman, Dec 31 2008, 04:08 PM
Several people have asked me how I and Carla intend to celebrate the New Year.
Not much, really. If recent history is any guide, there will be little to celebrate. Obama's administration is already being called the worst in history by some folk even though he hasn't taken office yet, a rough indication of how bi-partisan and unified the country will be in the coming year.
Immediate plans are for dinner then a movie at home, safe from all the drunk drivers. This doesn't make one completely safe -- several years back someone still managed to smack one of our cars parked out front, and people driving their cars into homes is a frighteningly common occurance.
Still, for good or ill, the new year will come. I suspect we will find that it brings us no resolution on any of our problems, and a whole crop of new ones to boot, so we better resolve, if nothing else, to get busy solving some of them.
In any event, have a happy and safe holiday. This is pure self-interest speaking: I don't want to have to be writing about any of you dying in the new year.
Charlie
Hero cop a jerk? Well, he is a man
Posted by ctrentelman, Dec 30 2008, 09:46 AM
The story today on Officer Ken Hammond, the hero of the Trolly Square shootings, being charged withunlawful sexual conduct once again raises the question, "Why are men jerks?"
Being a male of the species, I like to think I have some insight into this, but I don't. I cannot explain why a man, a sworn peace officer who, obviously, has good instincts, would have trouble keeping his pants zipped up. Simple desire for sex doesn't explain it. A desire to be powerful over someone else? Perhaps. Congresspeople and even presidents have the same trouble, as we often learn.
Did Ken? Ken is innocent until proven guilty, but the charges are disturbing and, once again, make me sad that this sort of behavior exists at all.
It reminds me of a column I did just last January asking this very same question. It's worth rerunning, apparently:
Men behaving badly- 'They know there is no law'
Tracy Howland-Barker's story made me ask, yet again, "Why do men do that?"
Tracy is a former Ogden resident. She was a professional, going to a professional business location, staffed by other professionals; all of whom happened to be men, but who were supposedly, let me repeat, professionals.
As soon as she got there, they started acting like schoolyard bullies.
Tracy says she was sexually harassed and assaulted. When she tried to report it, she was locked in her room. When she tried to leave, she was dumped in the desert.
The Iraqi desert.
Tracy worked for Kellogg Brown & Root, a major government contractor supporting troops in Iraq. Most of the men she accuses also worked for KBR, but one works for the United States Department of State. None of them have been brought to justice, or even charged.
She's home and suing. She has a Web site, www.tracybarker.com, with all the details.
But even she couldn't tell me why the men she worked with, who one presumes have families and churches and reputations back home, acted as they did.
"They acted like a free-for-all. They acted like the wild, wild west. It's a 'Do what you want' atmosphere," she said. "They know there's no law."
But why? Do some men only behave when forced to?
Not just Iraq. Women know this can happen anywhere.
Example: Weber State University's newspaper just did an article on new bus shelters on campus.
The design team was four men and one woman. One question they pondered was why women didn't use the current shelters.
The woman pointed out, "There's only one door." Go in, you're trapped. Women won't take that chance.
The new shelters have three doors. Adele Smith, former member of the Ogden City Council, said men who behave the way Tracy describes puzzle her.
"I think a lot of them are emotionally retarded, but what could cause that? When our last baby was a boy, I vowed he'd be different, more sensitive, and I worked on that. And he is. I never laughed when he and I were watching a TV show in which someone falls and hurts himself; I'd express sympathy, and hope that person wasn't hurt too badly."
Linda Brady, our music writer, had an interesting observation: Think of men as wolves.
"Men are straightforward. If they're nice, they're predictably nice; if they're jerks, they're predictably jerks." But in a bunch, she said, pack behavior takes over.
Linda said Tracy, in Iraq, had men who were in a war-stress situation, without military training and no laws. So, they became wolves.
She may have nailed it.
"I thought I would be protected going over there," Tracy told me last week. "I never thought, working for a U.S. contractor hired by the U.S. government, that anything would happen to me."
But it did. Her lawsuit describes unremitting sexual harassment and assault while trying to do her job.
When she protested she was told "boys will be boys."
Tracy's writing a book about how those red-blooded, all-American boys behaved.
The title is "Abandoned."
Wasatch Rambler is the opinion of Charles Trentelman. You can reach him at 625-4232, or e-mail at ctrentelman@standard.net.
Ambulance pricing scaring people dead?
Posted by ctrentelman, Dec 29 2008, 04:32 PM
A story in the Salt Lake papers says thousands of Utahns refuse rides in ambulances, even though they are sick or injured, because they can't pay for the ride. Usually medical insurance pays the cost, and with several hundred thousand Utahns now lacking insurance, and more losing the jobs that provide that insurance every day, the problem is only going to get worse.
This is beyond obscene. An ambulance is supposed to be a symbol of hope and rescue. For people to not be able to ride in one, when they need to, because of cost is as telling an indictment on our society as any I've ever seen. People should never, ever, fear the coming of medical care.
And yet, many people do.
Really, my taxes support the fire department that owns that ambulance. They also pay the wages of the people who drive and staff it. Is our society so money grubbing that we can't even guarantee someone a free trip to the hospital where, increasingly, they can't access the care without going broke?
I know, it costs money to buy and staff an ambulance, but most of the EMTs and others do double duty on fire engines. A way to simply fund the ambulances should be possible.
After all, they aren't making any money when they go back to the station house empty, and yet all the costs are the same. Maybe I better be quiet about that, though, or someone will figure out a way to bill the person who called for the ambulance, not the one getting the ride.
Monday moans -- anyone out of work?
Posted by ctrentelman, Dec 29 2008, 03:31 PM
Is it Monday already? Ouch.
Actually, I'm lucky to be alive. I drove to Salt Lake City on Friday night to see the Nutcracker Ballet and only almost died driving home on that skating rink UDOT calls a highway. I spent all of Saturday indoors except for one quick walk to keep the dog sane, and even he was sliding around on that one.
Here's a question: Why was the pavement on I-15, from Farmington on South, clear and wet, but from Farmongton on north it was like a skating rinks. Last time I checked the weather between those two areas was not all that different, and one presumes the plows are the same. I would hesitate to speculate that UDOT takes better care of commuters between Farmington and Salt Lake than it does to those of us up here in the northern climes. Anyone who knows if this is the case, feel free to call.
On another matter: I am trying to do a story on the face of Utah's economy -- does anyone know someone who was recently laid off or is having trouble finding or keeping a job because of the economy?
If so, please give me a call at 625-4232.
Thanks
Christmas Eve Wonders
Posted by ctrentelman, Dec 24 2008, 10:02 AM
I stopped at Carlos' fruit stand to buy my contribution to the company Christmas Eve potluck this morning.
The sun was shining, Ben Lomond was crystal clear, a white behemoth against a gorgeous blue sky, a guy in the parking lot was chipping ice and glad for the warmth of the light, sounds rang clear in the icy cold air.
I wandered around, looking at the displays of fruit, the baskets piled with oranges and apples and pears. There were nuts and dried fruits on the displays on the wall, crunchy floor underneath.
It is my contention that office pot lucks are usually sadly lacking in fiber and vitamin C, so I normally hit a place like this for these shindigs. I wanted some of those Clementine tangerines, the ones that are easy to peel, but they didn’t have any. I finally picked a box of apples, figuring I can take the leftovers home and dry them.
What struck me, though, was the joyful experience of just being around all that lovely produce, the smiling clerks, the clear air (for a change) and the brilliant mountains around.
It was a moment, one of those "Wow, this is neat!" instances, something to be looked at for a moment, remembered and even recorded.
I’m not the first to realize such a moment was special. Charles Dickens in "A Christmas Carol" has Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present experience something very similar. Since Dickens said it better than I can, here it is, and a merry Christmas to you all:
The Grocers'! oh the Grocers'! Nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses.
It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious.
Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, clashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.
Tuesday tribulations--Flying J Busted? Not really. but ...
Posted by ctrentelman, Dec 23 2008, 10:30 AM
Wow, Flying J bankrupt?
My first reaction was “How does an oil company go broke?” Especially one with wells that, presumably, are still pumping.
Actually, it’s easy. Flying J is not the first company to run into money flow trouble because of a boom, and won’t be the last.
What happened to Flying J is simple -- the price of oil plunged so fast, so far, that they couldn’t adjust their buying and spending fast enough. Prices have been dropping like a rock since late September.
Any time prices are high, and a boom is on, a company providing the booming product goes into overdrive: They spend more producing product, hire more people to haul and handle it, expand delivery systems, the whole nine yards. I’m sure Flying J’s people tried to be careful in case the boom stopped, but that’s hard to do. Fail to expand enough, people go without and you have angry customers. Expand too much, you get caught with your pants down when the bust comes.
Another example? Consider the Yo-yo. In the 1950s the Duncan company was doing fine making this humble toy in predictable amounts, but suddenly a national Yo-yo craze hit the country. The company saw demand expand 10-fold, or more. It hired airplanes to fly in special shipments of Vermont hard rock maple, put on extra shifts, spent extra money shipping product out, and generally went nuts to meet demand.
It was a huge up front investment, and if demand had stayed that way for very long time, or at least slowed down slowly, the company might have been all right. But it didn’t. The craze stopped as rapidly as the price of oil dropped this year. Within months Duncan found itself up to its ears in debt and unsold Yo-yos and went bust. Current Duncan Yo-yos are made by Flambeux Plastics, which bought the name.
One hopes that won’t happen to Flying J. The company says it did this just to meet a temporary cash flow problem, although Chapter 11 strikes me as a rather drastic measure for a cash flow problem.
Expect to see more of this sort of thing as time goes by. Many, many industries in this country, or just individual companies in those industries, set up and planned business models based on the boom years funded by trillions of dollars in the world economy that, we now discover, didn’t really exist.
When that kind of money goes “poof!” tectonic plates shift, and we all live on those plates.
Monday blues for the rich?
Posted by ctrentelman, Dec 22 2008, 10:31 AM
Both the Washington Post and Newsweek Magazine, last week, joined in the general press effort to show how tough economic times are by highlighting people who are cutting back.
Problem is, they tend to pick people whose idea of "cutting back" involves cutting back on stuff that most of us here in the real world wouldn't think of buying in the first place.
For example, the WaPost had a story about a couple who gave up buying anything, and I do mean anything, for two weeks. They paid the mortgage, and paid the utilities, but that was it. No gasoline, no food, no nothing. They lived out of their pantry.
Here's the kicker: At the end of two weeks they said they had not spent $2,000.
Yeah, my reaction exactly: "What the heck would they have spent that $2,000 on?"
They had no idea either. In a typical month they said they spend $300 on toiletries, for example, and about $800 eating out, so there's half of it right there.
The story was generally positive about the family, but the comments were uniformly critical, a strong "Gee, how nice for those rich folks to discover how the rest of us live!" sentiment pervaded the comments.
My thinking: I'm sitting here right now with a sandwich in my camera bag for lunch because, about 30 years ago, I calculated the cost of buying lunch every day and realized it would add up to several house payments over the course of a year. I couldn't afford that.
Ditto most other expenses. We still don't have cable TV. If it's not free over the air, we don't watch it, and darn little that is over the air. Our TV is 20 years old, our cars aging as well.
But that's the reason I was able to pay off my house, and my car, and college educations for my wife and son, and still have money to spend on Christmas now.
Here's the real kicker: The family that avoided spending for two weeks kept a blog of their exprience and said some very angry people accused them of being unpatriotic for hurting the economy.
That's beyond crazy thinking, since it is wild spending that got us into this fix in the first place.
What is saving us now? All us folks who did save before the crash hit, who did live within our means, who did avoid debt and built up savings accounts.
If the bank has any money to lend, it is our money they are lending. If anyone is doing any Christmas shopping this year, it is people like me, who saved and can afford to.
So it is the thrifty who didn't add to the boom who are saving us during the bust now. Have a little gratitude.
Charlie
Malan's Basin Redux
Posted by ctrentelman, Dec 19 2008, 03:03 PM
I see where my friend Dan Schroeder agrees with one of my speculations on why Chris Peterson is clearing a route up at Malan's Basin.
When we ran a story on this earlier this week I wondered on this blog if Chris was trying to convince people that it was an ongoing project so people with money would invest in the ongoing project, making it a funded ongoing project instead of what it is now, a to-all-intents-and-purposes-defunct project, at least as far as I can tell. If Chis knows more, he's not telling.
So we can all spend time guessing.
Dan, being part mountain goat, as well as a member of the Sierra Club, climbed up again and took pictures earlier this week. His results are posted on the Weber County Forum and the Sierra Club web site:
http://wcforum.blogspot.com/2008/12/malans...what-chris.html
and
http://utah.sierraclub.org/ogden/OgdenFron...2008/index.html
In his forum post he says
To get to the point, here's my tentative explanation: Chris Peterson is trying to convince people that you can ski from Malan's Basin all the way down to the city.
As the map shows, there's another newly cleared route on the north side of Malan's Basin that I was unaware of before. That route descends 500 feet over a little more than a mile, starting at the valley bottom near the eastern end of Peterson's property and ending on the ridge overlooking Taylor Canyon, a little east of Malan's Peak.
In fact, this route does precisely what Chris Peterson told me you "could" do, back on July 20, 2006, when he met with the Ogden Trails Network Committee. Specifically, when I asked him to elaborate on his claim that you could ski all the way down off the mountain, he used his finger to trace a line on a map following essentially this route. He described how the route would provide a gentle descent to link the upper basin to Taylor Canyon. His crew had already done some minor clearing on the very steep slope that descends into Taylor Canyon from there. That slope is suitable only for expert skiers (and snowboarders). Presumably this would be an "end of the day" route, with skiers continuing down the Taylor Canyon trail to the top of 27th Street.
This could all be cleared up if Chris would tell someone what he's up to, of course, but he doesn't seem inclined to do that yet.
Charlie
Ponzi scheme economy>
Posted by ctrentelman, Dec 19 2008, 10:38 AM
Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman had a great commentary today in the NYTimes comparing the economic "boom" of the last 10 years or so to a Ponzi scheme, an arguement I''ve been making for some time now, so I'm glad to see he agrees with me. That kid is getting smarter.
On the column one can make comments, and I was particularly struck by the second comment, by an engineer in Oregon, who laid out the problems facing society pretty well, looking beyond the Ponzi scheme pe se by showing why we were so vulnerable to it, and why our national culture seems to be heading in a terribly wrong direction.
More than 600 readers had agreed with him, as of my last look at 10:40 a.m. on Friday. I thought I'd just put it here and let you see for yourself. Go to the NYTimes opinion section to see the whole column and discussion.
charlie
The commentary:
The underlying cause of the economic catastrophe is cultural, not just a few bad policies or corrupt officials: The USA now has an excessively adversarial, exploitative, cutthroat culture, undermining the civility, generosity, tolerance and respect that societies need to function. It's a dysfunctionality that devastates human capital and ruins good people.
I'm an old engineer now, but I still teach classes and mentor budding engineers. This cultural sickness hits them in 3 cruel ways: an unforgiving financial sector where loan-sharking is the norm, mass outsourcing of critical jobs, and a legal system so vicious that good people find all their decency and good intentions subverted in the interest of personal destruction. Recent grads have crippling debt, yet they're "the ones who did everything right"-- thrifty savers who studied hard, didn't gamble or waste their savings, and patiently built their careers.
But education and living expenses debt are severe-- trapping them at the start of their careers-- and if grads hit a bump in the road, like suffering crime, illness, an accident of some kind, they're ruined financially. Interest rates in the US would be usury anywhere else, and since unfortunate circumstances causing debt are ignored, many decent, hard-working, entrepreneurial graduates are devastated. This is worsened by mass outsourcing and corporate abuse of the H1-B program, depriving grads of jobs and experience.
On top of this misery, our legal system is so viciously adversarial- with greed and high-stakes money ruling the system- that decent people are ruined, as they see their character attacked. I've seen good friends, business partners, even spouses who once loved each other deeply, pushed to "go at it" and destroy each other for money-- rather than accepting the fallibility in all of us, and coming to a reasonable accommodation better for everyone, that respects how much people have invested in their careers.
In short, the US has become an inexplicably vicious, hostile place that undercuts its talented people, denigrates achievement, and has lost touch with the basic importance of mutual respect.
1/3 of my students are inclined toward emigration from the USA, mostly to other engineering hubs (Korea, Belgium, Switzerland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan or China, depending on language skills) but many to South American countries not known for engineering-- simply because they're now better places to start one's career fresh and raise a family. Only the UK and Australia suffer a similar such brain drain-- and they've absorbed many of the worst aspects of our own culture.
Financial challenges and conflicts occur anywhere, but in most other developed countries today, greed and adversarialism do not predominate. These places are more understanding of human foibles, and more interested in welcoming simple generosity and decency, while cherishing talented and creative people who help to produce wealth with their ideas.
— Radek, Portland, Oregon
Today's Chuckle reborn!
Posted by ctrentelman, Dec 18 2008, 09:41 AM
Some things never change in the newspaper business.
When laying out the paper it is common practice for editors to keep a couple of short stories hanging around to plug little holes at the bottoms of pages where stories don’t quite run long enough.
It’s not so much a problem now, with computerized layout and a shrinking news hole that has editors telling reporters to write shorter. But even when I got into the buisiness the backshop always had a stock of little stories, already cast in lead, ready to plug a 1- or 2-inch hole at the bottom of a page.
Sometimes these even became a fixture. “Today’s Chuckle” was a little joke that the typsetter would stick down there every day, for example.
Anyway, I was pondering the Univerity of Utah’s digital newspaper database the other day and decided to look at the very first Ogden paper they have, Jan. 1, 1879, the Ogden Junction. Sure enough, even in that premier issue of that fine defunct publication, there was a whole 2-inch column of jokes, obviously strung together to fill space. What kind of jokes? Bad, of course.
The column was called “Fractional Currency.”
“A pair of drawers -- two artists.”
“Grave apprehension -- Stealing a staff.”
“A thing of the past -- the imperfect tense.”
“A case of misplaced confidence -- putting faith in a railroad timetable.”
“ There is more active fun in an ounce of a kitten than in a ton of elephant.”
And so on. And yes, since I have to run out of the office for an interview this morning I’m filling space today in what can only be regarded as one of the most well-established and honored traditions of the business.
Have a fun day.
Charlie
Guns and dirty air, an evil mix
Posted by ctrentelman, Dec 17 2008, 10:47 AM
Gun rant or ranting guns?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that Tamara Taylor, in an op-ed piece on guns in today’s paper, was trying to be funny when she allegedly mimicked gun critics, saying they, in turn, were “illogical loons” and “imbeciles” who cannot see the indisputable logic of why guns should be freely available and carried everywhere by everyone who’s taken a certification class.
She has her points, but what she and all other advocates fail to realize is that, when I see someone carrying a gun who is not a uniformed peace officer, I haven’t got a clue who that person is, what training that person has had, or why that person is carrying that gun.
This can cause unease. I’ve had a gun flashed at me by a drug dealer and I’ve had a security guard angry over his wife’s alleged infidelity flash his gun at me. The second guy did have certifications -- he was a former cop -- but in neither case did I feel comfortable.
Taylor claims that gun laws cause increased crime by letting crooks know that the honest people are unarmed. Her stats could just as easily prove that places with increased crime try to fight that crime by putting gun laws into place. Absent a national gun law, gun laws are spitting into the wind anyway.
Bottom line here: Until Taylor can come up with a way to make me feel that everyone who carries a gun is safe, I shall presume every gun, and every gun carrier, to be loaded and dangerous. That includes her. If everyone feeling that way about her makes her feels safe, well, good for her, but a climate of massive mutual suspicion doesn't sound like an ideal way to run a community to me.
State OKs dirty air made dirtier?
Dr. Brian Moench, president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, has an op-ed in today’s Deseret News saying that the state has approved a generating plant in North Salt Lake that will burn “petroleum coke and residual fuel oil, the dirtiest and cheapest fossil fuels available.”
The DAQ says the plant’s pollution will be minimal. Dr. Moench last year formed a group of doctors to lobby for clean air for the very good reason dirty air in any amount kills their patients. He points out that Utah’s dirty air is made that way by millions of minimal amounts, all put together.
My son, a program director at the Salt Lake Boys and Girls Club, says he can see, daily, the breathing problems that the air down there causes the kids who use his center.
My Sunday column is going to propose one solution to this problem, primarily looking at the automobile contribution.
What will I propose? Hey, go buy a paper.
Tuesday turmoils-New papers, New walking
Posted by ctrentelman, Dec 16 2008, 11:00 AM
I see where Mayor Matt Godfrey, in today’s paper, is talking about streetcars again.
I’m all about streetcars, but I wish that he, and others, would broaden their thinking on the proposed routes.
All we see is a discussion of the corridor between Ogden’s intermodal hub and Weber State University/McKay-Dee Hospital. That’s fine for commuters going between those two places, but am I the only one who remembers that Riverdale Road is one of the busiest streets, and most congested streets, in the state?
My fantasy route would see streetcars going the length of Washington Boulevard, from North Ogden on south, to South Ogden and then out to Riverdale, allowing shoppers to travel the length of Weber County without using their cars. Branches to WSU, McKay-Dee, Ogden Regional, and others, could be considered.
Speaking of getting around, when you go for your walk on days like today, buy a pair of YakTrax, essentially big rubber bands with springs wound around them that you slip over your shoes. For the first time this winter I felt as if I had as much traction as the dog. Considering the cost of medical care if you break a hip on the ice, they’re a very good investment.
It would be good for everyone to walk more, especially in the winter. A new census report shows that 88 percent of Utahns use cars to get to work and school, which contributes to our statewide 20 percent obesity rate, less than the national rate of 24 percent, but still not good.
Walking keeps you healthier and being healthier keeps your medical insurance rates down. Ogden City’s very agressive employee health program helped that city actually cut its insurance premiums, and healthier employees are also happier employees. Maybe Ogden can start using YakTrax as rewards along with pedometers?
On an unrelated topic, I note with pleasure the appearance of the Ogden Independent in coffee shops and stores around Ogden.
This is a monthly newspaper supported by the 25th Street business association. The editor is Steve Conlin, an Ogden businessman who used to be a photographer here at the Standard-Examiner. He’s a good friend, and I wish him well, although he might want to keep in mind one of the stories he ran in his permier edition, a discussion of the history of newspapers in Weber County.
In short, they don’t call Weber “The Graveyard of Utah Journalism” because newspapers here had a huge success rate.