This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
Vote early, and often • Well, actually, each registered voter should only cast one ballot. But Utah voters have apparently embraced the idea of early voting, now under way across the state. In Salt Lake County alone, nearly 48,000 people had cast ballots at one of the county's 21 early-voting locations as of Wednesday, County Clerk Sherrie Swensen reported. Those sites will be open through Friday. And another 71,000 have already returned their mail-in ballots, out of the 130,000 requested. At that rate, Swensen said, as many as 40 percent of the county's 444,000 active voters might have voted before the polls even open on Tuesday. That will increase participation, cut down on the lines on Election Day and make the exercise of democracy that much easier.
No boobies in Provo? • October — or Pinktober, as it is known to some in the breast cancer awareness movement — is a time when individuals, groups, businesses and schools make an extra effort to bring attention to the detection, treatment and cure of a disease that has devastated so many lives. One of the more popular ways of doing that is the "I d boobies" bracelets worn by many people. Including, until some overly sensitive adults objected, one 12-year-old student at Westridge Elementary School in Provo. Administrators demanded the boy remove the rubber bracelet. They were worried that such a slang expression might turn into a way to taunt impressionable and sensitive pre-teens. And that's always a possibility. But the word is common and harmless. The cause is unimpeachable. And anything that gets people of any age to be more aware of a disease that can be conquered with early detection is a benefit to all.
Scare tactics • Mitt Romney is hardly the first candidate for public office in America to stretch the truth. And he won't be the last to portray some event as much more sinister than it really is, just so he can claim to be against it. But Romney's statement that the Chrysler-owned Jeep company is moving production jobs from Ohio to China is simply false. The charge, being driven home in a series of TV spots in that swing state, is a desperate ploy to belittle President Obama's claim to have saved the American auto industry, which is a huge part of that state's economy. Chrysler insists that, while it does plan to make more Jeeps in China, for the Chinese market, it is also in the process of adding workers to its Jeep plant in Toledo. This fib sharply undermines the challenger's claim that he would be an improvement in the White House.