News you can use
News you can use
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Indian Trail, N.C.: the final town council frontier. This was the last general meeting of council member David Waddell. His four year mission: to explore strange new conservative practices, to seek out new funding and new budgets. to boldly cut where no council member had cut budgets before. I’ve heard of LARPing — live action role playing where geeks dress as other-worldly fantasy/action game characters and act out their game moves. I’ve read about how avid fans of scien...
On Jan. 9, Montana State University Northern Agricultural Research Center's cow herd made the annual trek from the Research Center's pasture in the Bear Paw Mountains to Fort Assinniboine. The herd of about 300 bred cows and heifers travelled the 16-mile route from the Thackeray Research Ranch south of Havre on Bullhook Road, through a portion of Beaver Creek Park, across Beaver Creek Dam and north down Assinniboine Road to pasture at the Research Center. The cows and heifers...
We can all rest easy, now. The latest reports from the those in the know, say that 2014 will most likely be a better year for the porn industry. Oh, yeah, NBCNews.com had a whole write up on it Tuesday in its business section, so it’s legit. Very legit, according to one source who said that porn is a $97 billion industry globally and $10 to $12 billion of that is generated in the U.S. alone. Who knew? It seems like a wildly outrageous number, but I’m inclined to believe it...
Thanksgiving is long over, but I’ve been trying to keep that spirit of giving thanks alive throughout the year — which is all heartwarmingly fine and furry until you get the flu and then your husband doubles down on that illness action, too. My challenge, since succumbing last weekend to fever and chills and coughing and a general malaise which has inspired up to 22 hours a day of sleeping, is to find 10 things about this bout of flu for which I am thankful. 1) It’s not intest...
Anymore, I’m happy once Christmas is over not because I am curmudgeonly or because of the commercialism, or the mad frenzy to have everything ready for the big day, or even the constant sound-barrage of Christmas music. It’s the big mud-pit brawl over whether Christmas is a holiday or a holy day that is sucking the life out of the celebration. If there were such a designation as “The Biggest Brouhaha Over Nothing,” my vote would see the award go to the argument-cloud surroun...
I believe the definition of fizzle is “to fail pitifully, drizzled in embarrassment.” For what it’s worth, I’d rather fail spectacularly because, really, if you’re going to fail it might as well be epic. In the case of a public speaking fail, flop sweats should actually gush from your pores like from a sprinkler system. Extravagant gesturing should wipe out a table-full of wine bottles. That Tourette-like thing where I start swearing to make a dock-worker proud, like I di...
On a Friday night in late November Eric McLain is out on the frozen rink of the Havre Ice Dome setting up for what has to be one of the area's most obscure sports: curling. Though curling is most notably seen on U.S. television during the winter Olympics, the Ice Dome has had an adult league with about 10 teams for two season, McLain said, and is heading into the third with possibly more teams. McLain, who says he grew up at the rink playing hockey and now referees the sport...
I’ve long held that I learn the best life lessons about being a better human from my animals. Not that I spend time staring into my dog’s brown eyes pondering the existential status of the universe or basing important life choices on how many times my cat twines himself around my legs before tripping me or reading my future from my horses’ manure like Asian tea leaves. Occasionally, though, a lesson presents itself. I give you: The Booty Lesson. My dog, Cooper, has thin skin...
As the rush of Christmas season threatens to overwhelm, one seasonal tradition in Havre offers a time for quiet, peaceful reflection Saturday evening. This island of harmony in the chaos of Christmas preparation is the live Nativity scene put on by members of Van Orsdel United Methodist Church as an annual event in Havre since 1998. With dramatic lighting glowing through the dark, church members take turns filling the traditional roles of the Nativity from Joseph and Mary to...
Fissures, deep cracks or narrow crevices, are the root of all my dentist phobias. Well, fissures and my mother. Or, rather, fissures and my mother and being born a decade too early. Or maybe it should be fissures and my mother and being born a decade too early and my first dentist. I had cavities when I was a little kid, lots of cavities. My molars were plagued by them, and their appearance seemed to have no correlation with the amount or quality of brushing I did. After the...
When an event like the Havre Community Thanksgiving Dinner runs smoothly, people can be forgiven for thinking it is accomplished as if by magic, but in reality, it's the product of years of experience and the generosity of many helping hands. After Debi Rhines agreed to take over as chief organizer of the event in 2011, she was given, she said, a three ring binder with "everything" in it. The information in the binder includes the purpose statement, shopping lists, contact...
One can expect certain things when pursuing one's chosen profession. One can expect to make sacrifices in pursuit of a professional goal. One can expect to suffer hardships and to sweat, even if it's a mental sweat, to learn new aspect of one's job. One can expect these things. But does one ever expect to have to eat two Thanksgiving meals in one day for work? I don't recall seeing that in my job description, and, yet, as of the writing of this column on Wednesday, that's the...
Comeuppance. Such a sweet and silly sounding word. It sounds British: “How lovely to see you, my dear! You simply must swing by the cottage tomorrow afternoon for some comeuppance and tea.” “That sounds brilliant. I shall bring some just desserts.” Don't be fooled, though. Sweet and silly sounding, indeed. Comeuppance is a sharp-edged, pointy tool wielded by those trickster Fate sisters hellbent on their mission to make my life a cautionary tale to be ever-mindful of using u...
If making Thanksgiving Dinner for a houseful of people seems like an accomplishment or even an impossible task, imagine making the dinner for more than 600 people. The Community Thanksgiving Dinner is, now, a tradition in Havre. With turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, rolls, vegetables, pie and more, including festive decorations, it's a meal fit to fill the holiday urges. Sponsored by an anonymous donor, the purpose of the meal is to bring the community - "rich,...
History proves that humankind loves a good tale. Back in the days before modern amenities like television, Internet and indoor plumbing, people of cultures from all around the world told tales to entertain and teach. The tale of Cinderella has hundreds of variations from different cultures. One version of the tale, made popular by Disney, teaches us that good things will happen to young women if they work hard and stay pure of heart — and have a fairy godmother. Other v...
A while back I mentioned here in my column that I have zero ability to speak foreign languages, now, according to a pack of smart researchers, this failing has put the future health and well being of my brain in great peril. Scientists from Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad, India, and from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland studied people in a memory clinic in India — a country where even the average person speaks as many as four languages (4!)— and they...
By the time you read this, Halloween will be over, and, for the 25th year in a row, I will have had no trick-or-treaters and I will have had to eat all the candy myself, thus making Halloween the best holiday ever. Not that I can't buy and eat all the candy I want whenever I want — it's an adult perk — but Halloween candy is better. Everybody knows that. Even the candy you didn't really like on a regular basis was eaten at Halloween because it was a little gift from a neighbor...
If money management were a muscle, I would have to equate my investment skills, in strength and coordination, to that muscle you use, like never, to raise your ring finger up straight while making a fist with the rest of your hand. Yeah, keep trying. It's not that I can't invest money, or accumulate it in a variety of ways, it's just that I need a goal. Without a concrete goal this money exercise is like doing that finger exercise, and I ask myself what's the point? The abstra...
The artist who brought us “Normal Barbie” — with a computerized rendering of the traditional Barbie doll next to a Barbie in the proportions of the average 19-year-old girl to show that a reality-based doll is more attractive — has now given us a rendering of “Average Guy,” thus, proving that Ken doll has little to fear from the 30-something American male. Pittsburgh artist Nickolay Lamm used body-mass measurements provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for...
I never thought I'd say this — ever — but I think Americans should be more like the people of France: We need a good old-fashioned French-fried riot. This point is best served with a little background information about my longstanding disdain of the French over their even longer-standing disdain of, well, everything not French — which is quite a bit if you look at a map of the world. I had no opinion of France or its people, many of which I'm sure are exceptional, until I was...
After Brenda Bosch Napier's third diagnosis of cancer in eight years, local friends of the former Chinook resident are holding a benefit Saturday to help with expenses. Brenda, who lives in Forsyth with her husband, Herb Napier, and their two teenage daughters, was born and raised in Chinook and graduated in 1985. During her school and 4-H years in Chinook she became friends with Lori Unruh, and that friendship has lasted through the years and inspired the upcoming benefit,...
Pamville News editor’s note: The following column is an editor’s note from Pamville News editor. In a show of solidarity with all of the people placed on furlough due to the government shutdown caused by the complete incompetent failure of the House and Senate members to do their job to keep the United States running, North 40 columnist Pam Burke is not writing a column this week. Upon hearing this, as the editor of Pamville News, I sent one of our bravest reporters aro...
Any economist or sociologist can tell you that the price of all goods and services are based on actual worth and perceived value which is the sum total of both market value and personal value — none of these numbers are the same, and any two-bit salesman can tell you that. For example, consider the humble widget, that symbolic product used in teaching business and economics. It's the equivalent of the X of 2X+3=7; or the N of going to the nth degree; or the snipe of “Hey, gre...
Anyone wondering if the weather at Fresno Reservoir is nice enough to go there to play can now get online for their answer, thanks to the Fresno Chapter of Walleyes Unlimited. The group mounted a webcam and a weather station on a pole at Fresno Walleyes campground above the public beach at the southeast end of Fresno Reservoir 15 miles west of Havre. At a link accessed from the Fresno Walleye’s website at http://www.fresnowalleyes.com, video of the lake conditions streams l...
Every family does it: trots out those favorite little anecdotes about loved ones to prove a variety of points from wise to weird, poignant to pointless. Sadly, my family is no different, and I am a favorite victim. One of their favorites about me is about how “Pam, when she was just learning to walk — my gaawd, what a spectacle. She wouldn’t let anyone stand her up to help her walk. As soon as we’d ask her to take a step she’d fold up her legs and collapse. If we tried too muc...
