The winners and the losers

Loser: This week, members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., came away from that meeting saying Castro was "very healthy, very energetic, very clear thinking." That's interesting. Through his 50 years of brutally quashing dissent and intellectual freedom, and ruling the island nation with the preservation of his own power uppermost on his agenda, we've heard many descriptions of Castro. "Clear thinking" isn't one of them.

Winner: The Salt Lake City Council has been agonizing over payday lenders for about a year now, and it finally has a proposal in hand to limit them to within a half-mile of each other. This is no real solution, but it probably is the only prudent way to limit the proliferation of these lenders, who charge exorbitant interest rates and fees to lend cash to mostly poor people, many of whom have limited English skills. Unlike with most businesses, the concentration of these services doesn't seem to reduce their fees. That's because their clientele tends to be desperate and without alternatives.

Loser: All a family of four from California wanted to do was get some sleep in Utah on their way to moving their belongings to a new life in Minnesota. They found a motel in West Valley City, parked their 24-foot moving truck and the Toyota they were towing behind it in the parking lot and went to sleep. But in the morning it all was gone. A thief made off with everything, which is pretty audacious considering how hard it is to hide a Budget moving truck. As for the family, we doubt millions of dollars in state-sponsored tourism advertising will get them to come back.

Winner: West Valley City's decision to buy 40 percent of the Utah Grizzlies hockey team remains one of the nuttier ideas of the year, but the city's decision this week to give all residents free playoff tickets deserves praise. Usually, all taxpayers get for their efforts to build stadiums or, in this case, bail out teams is the opportunity to pay even more for tickets. Of course, free season tickets would be even better, but this is a start.