Admit it: We were gratified to see that one of our Utah legislators can be honest about how the process on Capitol Hill works. Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, was impatient for the Legislature's Retirement and Independent Entities Committee to vote on a certain bill. Others wanted more time to study it. "We get bound up here all the time on 'we don't understand this,'" he said. "Well, there's a lot of things we vote on that we don't understand . . . " We have to applaud honesty, but we also hold out some hope that most lawmakers would want to get "bound up" more often in getting the facts before voting.

Lest we forget: Lame-duck Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, never one to hide his light under a bushel, has posted a list of his administration's accomplishments over the past eight years on the city's Web site. It runs to 15 pages and 211 items, some more substantial than others (³Flew Rainbow Flag over City & County Building²). History undoubtedly will give Rocky his due, though it may snicker a bit at the mayor's hunger for validation.

Justice is served: Christine Durham is a trailblazer, and not simply because she is the first female chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court. She is, to a remarkable degree, the people's chief justice. Not one to keep permanent digs atop the Mt. Olympus of the state's court system, Durham frequently descends to the trenches to explain what it is, exactly, that all those black-robed jurists are up to, and why. She is the judicial branch's Minister of Education and Ambassador of Good Will, developing programs to teach us about such shadowy subjects as domestic violence and taking her information campaign on the road around the state. For those accomplishments and more, Durham was justly honored last week with the prestigious 2007 William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence by the National Center for State Courts.