Feedback from March 21 and Beyond 

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Cover Story, March 21, "The Foilies"
Interesting story. It is the beginnings of a great story. What if we took all this information, use the skills of journalists, combine it with some of the best thinking in data science. (Stay with me.) Utah has a huge big data community. So you start gathering all of these stories together along with all the data you can get from the government, put it in a repository where we mine the data for information. Journalists would have great stories, we could spot government corruption and have the facts to back it up.

A website rating every level of government in America for corruption would give voters hard information to get rid of corrupt individuals regardless of party.

We used to have many more newspapers and local journalists to watch all levels of government. Now, legislatures of many states are ignoring the voter's demands on referendums and corrupt government officials give sweetheart deals to buddies.

Big data mining would amplify the ability of great journalists to help us all understand what is really going on in government. Because we don't know. Too much data and complexity.

Let's put government under a microscope and get our democracy back!
Edward Cheadle
Via CW comments

Opinion, March 21, "Herbert: A Failure of the Public Trust"
I am so angry about all this bullshit!
Patricia Street
Via Facebook

Though I agree with [the author] on many issues, I disagree with his stance on Gavin Newsom. The death penalty around the country has killed an untold number of innocent people. They are estimating 4% of the current inmates are innocent in California's case. It does not matter if 99.999% of Californians were to vote to kill some random person on the street, the constitution would not allow it. Putting a halt to save innocent lives is not wrong, nor does it go against the voters who believe in capital punishment. The next step after halting the madness is to go forward and see about legally ending this barbaric practice. I understand there are cases that are so egregious that the death penalty may be warranted, but our benchmark is way too low and too many innocent people have been killed. If we are going to have a death penalty the standards should be way tougher. Even then I don't appreciate the murder of innocent people at the hands of the state. Which is what it is when you are not 100% sure.
Edward Cheadle
Via CW comments

Dine, March 21, "DIY Delicious"
This is the best food reviewer you have ever had and you should give him a 1,000% raise. Also he is my baby brother and he has pretty good opinions on food, likely because when he was little I pinned him down and barfed into his face which gave him a good barometer for what's gross.
@SpryUte
Via Twitter

Online news post, March 25, "Defending the Future"
[Legislators'] response to that is usually "I don't care, I'll be dead before anything drastic happens." It isn't affecting them, so they don't care.
Richard Humberg
Via Facebook

Dear Soapbox:
What's with this bazoo bellowing balderdash that impeaching the Cowardly Capt. Heelspurs would divide this country? He already got all of us (and the rest of the free world) going to the mattresses. That's probably the only good he's done ... everyone's getting over their cranial-rectal insertion and exercising their civic duty.

Instead of impeaching the demander-in-thief, let's canonize him; with a real cannon!
Sincerely,
Alan E. Wright,
Salt Lake City

Dear City Weekly Editor:
In my eighth-grade history class, we have been learning about activist rights in the 1800s. One of which was based on the large amount of alcohol being consumed by males at the time. People were concerned that the avid alcohol drinkers weren't showing up to work, their bills couldn't be paid because of the large amounts of money that had gone toward alcohol, and children, slaves, as well as women were being abused due to excessive alcohol use. By the late 1800s, multiple states had tried to outlaw alcohol leading to the national prohibition in 1920. While there are people whose lives have been devastated by the usage of alcohol, it has not brought about the end of society as was feared in the 1800s. I'm thinking about the current debate on legalizing marijuana. I'm wondering if the negative effects that are brought up by those who are opposing the legalization of marijuana will be as bad as they say; much like the national prohibition over 100 years ago.
Respectfully,
Vincent A. Nelson,
West Bountiful

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