Opinion

Can you imagine "Dragnet" Detective "Joe Friday" on Facebook?

Neither can we, but that was generations ago when "Friday and Gannon" patrolled Los Angeles, and law enforcement has many more ways to present "just the facts" to the public.

The Ogden City Police Department and the Weber County Sheriff's Department recently created Facebook pages. The mission for the social media outreach is simple: The pages allow the public to interact quickly online with law enforcement and it allows law enforcement another teaching tool for the public about the work it does fighting crime and keeping the community safe.

The injunction filed by Weber County prosecutors that the Ogden street gang, Ogden Trece, is a public nuisance has drawn protest from some quarters. Enforcement has been delayed until Sept. 14 by a judge in order to allow the 485-plus-member Trece gang to respond. The American Civil Liberties Union has complained that the injunction -- which would set an 11 p.m. curfew for Trece members, ban gang members from associating with each other, and using or being in the presence of guns, drugs or alcohol --is "vague" and "overbroad."

Nonsense. It's time for common sense to prevail. Street gangs are a public nuisance, and anything law enforcement can legally do is great news for the vast majority of us, who want to live safe lives free of harassment and worse from urban predators.

At least Glenn Beck isn't among the nearly one in five Americans who believe President Obama is a Muslim. Nor, as far as he's yet admitted, is he among the majority of Republicans who actually told Newsweek's pollsters that they believe the president hopes to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, on America.

One wing of the Republican Party has taken the question of building a Muslim community center two blocks from the World Trade Center site and crudely tried to make it into a divisive political issue.

Newt Gingrich, now trying to elbow his way back into the national spotlight, portrayed the planned construction of Park51 as a deadly insult. The former House speaker said, inanely and offensively, "Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor."

I was a sideline observer to the "Return to Honor" rally in Washington D.C. two weekends ago. Void of cable and satellite television, I do not watch Glenn Beck in the evenings. My work schedule and other responsibilities very rarely put me in the car during his radio show.

To be quite honest I haven't even checked if Glenn is spelled with one "n" or two. I am sticking with two. Yet, during the past primary season I was accused of being a 9/12, Beck-loving nut because of my intention to vote for a new senator. The only 9/12 event I have attended was a sponsored meet the candidate night for the past senate contenders. It was held in a Presbyterian church -- which brings me to my transition and point.

This letter concerns the demolition of the Boy Scout cabin which was accomplished a mere eight hours before city council meeting on Aug 3. The demolition order approved by Kaysville city was accomplished at 10:48 a.m. August 3. Mayor Hiatt had verbal information from Ron Humphrey's of the LDS Church, that the cabin would be saved on August 2 and written confirmation would follow.

My question to the city council and to Mayor Hiatt was "Why didn't you tell the issuing authority within the city not to issue the demolition order until the mayor heard back from the council?