The winners and the losers

Winner: The Utah State Bar is beginning a program that encourages seasoned attorneys to act as volunteer mentors to those who are fresh out of law school. Officials hope this will serve a couple of purposes. First, it will help young lawyers learn the ropes of the profession, which can be especially helpful to those in private practice who may not have learned practical business skills in college. Second, the collegiality will help foster greater civility among attorneys. That's always a good strategy in a field where adversity and competition often rule the day.

Loser: US Airways pilot Chesley Sullenberger is a certified hero. But some of his passengers may be considerably less than that. The airline has offered to give each passenger on the flight Sullenberger landed safely in the Hudson River $5,000. But some of the passengers say that isn't enough. Certainly, those who can document the loss of computers or other personal belongings that cost more than that should be compensated, but we doubt many Americans would sympathize with the salesman from North Carolina who told USA Today he "would like to be made whole," and that he hasn't yet determined how much emotional stress he suffered. Hey buddy: You have your life. You have no lasting injuries. How much more whole do you want to be?

Loser: A Utah Senate panel has killed a dramatic hike in the state's cigarette tax, which would have moved Utah out of the ranks of states with the lowest such taxes in the nation. Unfortunately, the Senate bought into the snake oil pitch about hurting the economy and about people driving hundreds of miles to get cheap cigarettes in Wyoming. Each tax hike leads to lower smoking rates among juveniles, in particular. Forget the money, that reason alone should be enough to raise the tax.