The winners and the losers

Winner: A Canadian couple won an incredible $10.9 million in the lottery recently, and then gave almost all of it away to charity. Allen and Violet Large said they are perfectly content with what they have in life right now and don't need anything more. They gave $10.6 million to churches, fire departments, cemeteries, hospitals and the Red Cross. Lotteries promote selfishness, even as they devalue the need to sacrifice to help society function. The Larges have reminded everyone that there are things more important than accumulating riches.

Loser: A tropical storm is bearing down on Haiti even as thousands of people still struggle against disease and without adequate housing following a devastating earthquake, and yet the U.S. government has not come through with the $1.15 billion in reconstruction funds it promised last March. The holdup? Congress wants to be sure the money won't be lost to corruption. That's an important consideration, especially in Haiti, but a reconstruction committee co-chaired by former President Bill Clinton ought to be able to make sure money is handled properly.

Loser: A report this week ranks Utah among the top 10 states for vulnerability to gasoline prices. The state finished No. 8 in the survey by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an international non-profit environmental group. In Utah, the survey said, people spent 4.76 percent of their income on gasoline last year. Unfortunately, things aren't going to get better any time soon. Experts predict gasoline prices will rise heading into the Thanksgiving weekend, prompted by a weakening dollar.

Winner: We like what federal appeals court Judge Thomas Griffith had to say at BYU this week. In the midst of a volatile political season, with hot-button issues raising passions on all sides, his career advice was simple: "Be nice to people." The unfortunate thing is advice like this seems almost jarring, especially coming from a judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia who originally came to Washington as a conservative Republican. But it's a simple admonition that would go far toward making the nation better.