The year 2009 is mostly history, and we suspect that many Utahns will say good riddance. Herewith we thumb our noses at the year that was:

THUMB DOWN: Write if you get work » The Great Recession, spawned by the mortgage crisis, clearly was the leading story in Utah in 2009. Jobs evaporated faster than raindrops on Pioneer Day, and the stock market hit bottom in March. For unemployed Utahns, this year was disaster. The good news is that the economy finally began to grow again late in the year, but job growth still is lagging.

THUMB DOWN: Marriage vows » The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints thrust itself into the Proposition 8 campaign in California in 2008, which denied marriage to gays, then was shocked at the magnitude and vitriol of the reprisals. Protesters launched boycotts and picketed temples. When two gay men kissed on the church's Main Street Plaza in 2009 and were cited for trespass at the behest of church security officers, the controversy reignited locally. Apostle Dallin Oaks then fanned the flames with ill-chosen words, comparing persecutions of LDS defenders of traditional marriage to those suffered by civil rights activists in the Jim Crow South. But the church extended an olive branch at year's end, supporting ordinances in Salt Lake City that protect LGBT people from job and housing discrimination.

THUMB UP: Bridges to somewhere » Contractors completed the rebuilding of I-80 through Salt Lake City east of I-15. The widened roadway and new bridges spelled traffic relief for countless commuters and truckers. Meanwhile, Utah launched the rebuilding of I-15 through Utah County, which eventually should hasten the flow there.

THUMB DOWN: Big disappointment » Utah's cautious version of health insurance reform got off to a rocky start when the new Web-based marketplace fell far short of expectations. Premiums were much higher, rather than lower, compared to those offered by conventional agencies for individual and small-group coverage. Rep. Dave Clark, the House speaker and father of health care reform in Utah, vowed to retool.

THUMB DOWN: Some spicy meatball » The long-running debate over making Utah a nuclear dumping ground took on an international flavor when Italy decided to send its low-level waste to EnergySolutions' landfill at Clive. Rep. Jim Matheson took to the barricades in Congress, rightly trying to block the importation of foreign waste, while Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett made lame excuses. Meanwhile, the Department of Energy sent a trainload of depleted uranium from South Carolina to Clive, despite the fact that the stuff gets hotter over time, unlike other low-level Class A waste which degrades to safe levels within 100 years. These shipments should be stopped until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission completes a study on how DU should be stored long-term.

THUMB UP: A toast to normalcy » Gov. Jon Huntsman persuaded the Legislature finally to drive a stake through the heart of the silly private club fiction that had confounded visitors and Utahns alike who walked into a bar. In a nod to tradition, however, Sen. Mike Waddoups pushed a bill requiring restaurants to mix drinks in a back room out of the public view.

THUMB DOWN: Accidental Venice » After a mudslide from a ruptured Logan canal took three lives, Utah lawmakers struggled with whether and how to regulate these private waterways that sometimes threaten homes downhill. They're still struggling.

THUMB DOWN: Water war » Speaking of water, Las Vegas wants to sink a giant straw beneath east-central Nevada and suck the water south to Sin City. Utahns are rightfully afraid of the consequences, particularly in Snake Valley, which straddles the state line. The two states negotiated a proposed agreement to divide the waters beneath the valley, but because the subterranean aquifers of the Great Basin are interconnected and the waters beneath Snake Valley already have been tapped, the people in Utah suspect that the agreement overstates and overallocates the available resource. There should be more study before Utah signs an agreement.

THUMB UP: Is this place honest? » Good-government groups are taking the fight over legislative ethics directly to the people with two initiative petitions. They would create independent commissions for ethics and redistricting. In response, legislators are talking half-measures. Note to voters: Sign the petitions.

THUMB UP: That's a great wall » When Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. resigned to become U.S. ambassador to China, he brought honor to himself and Utah. Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert stepped quietly into the governor's shoes, and wisely picked a Republican moderate with legislative experience, Greg Bell, as his No. 2. Herbert cemented his reputation for fiscal conservatism with a no-tax-hikes budget, and after a brief delay, took a nuanced stand against depleted uranium at EnergySolutions. And in the year the Barack Obama became president, Mia Love of Saratoga Springs was elected Utah's first black woman mayor. Now that's cosmic symmetry.