Winner: The Mexican government deserves praise for designing a new identification card for its nationals who are living here in the United States. The new card contains an infrared band and other things that can be seen only under special lamps, which make them much more difficult to forge than the old cards.
Colorado has been obstinately fighting recognition of this card, but Utah has embraced it, and wisely so. The card provides assurances of a person's identity and allows him or her to open bank accounts and obtain a driver's license, helping Mexican nationals become productive members of American society.
Loser: An American Fork Junior High teacher made a bad choice when he decided to store his personal collection of pornographic videos in the school's ceiling tiles. Thankfully, the teacher, whose name was not released, has resigned. Because none of the tapes contained child pornography, the man apparently committed no crime. But his sense of judgment, his fitness to work with adolescents, and his level of intelligence certainly seem suspect.
Loser: Speaking of people who make poor choices, the Salt Lake man convicted this week of trying to sell stolen moon rocks and meteorites has to rank near the top. Gordon McWhorter now faces up to 25 years in prison. Three college interns, including a promising science student from the University of Utah, have pleaded guilty to stealing the items. The plan, apparently, was to sell the rocks over the Internet and make a bundle.
But even though that effort fell apart, the group apparently still has plenty of rocks — if they can just mine the space between their ears.