This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Earth Day remembrances • On balance, this 41st Earth Day is worth celebrating. Since the movement was launched by Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin in 1970, the popular demand for a cleaner and healthier environment has taken root in the national consciousness. Concrete examples include the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act. There can be little doubt that the nation is healthier than it would otherwise be. But this week marks another anniversary, two years since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Biologists are still finding tainted water and diseased fish in the area. And not one person has been held to account for the disaster.
Let the kids do it • Brigham Young University researchers found that parents may be sacrificing too much. An in-depth study of college students found that the more their parents paid for their education, the less work and more partying the students did. And those who were paying their own way had a better grip on career goals and said they felt more like adults than did their peers whose parents picked up the tab. What's more, the "minimal providers" had strong relationships with their children. The researchers suggest that a "middle ground" between paying for everything and paying for nothing would be best.
The big lie in the mailbox • Delegates to yesterday's Republican State Convention received a great deal of input from good friends and total strangers in the days before the event. But little that they saw was likely as destructive as a colorful and anonymous flier that attacks both the Common Core education standards and any Utah politician specifically Gov. Gary Herbert who supports them. Problem is, the flier is a lie. The standards are not a top-down federal mandate so feared by many in Utah's far-right fearocracy. They are a generalized, and totally voluntary, set of reference points, developed by officials in many states, including Utah, who only want to provide some useful guidance as to what the nation's students should learn before entering college. (See: http://www.corestandards.org) The governor and the Utah State Office of Education are right to support, and defend, the standards. But they will have to work very hard to overcome the constant ravings of conspiracy theorists with big bank accounts.