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  • View from the north 40: Maybe we should just switch to using body language

    Pam Burke|Updated Dec 27, 2022

    I hate to make sweeping pronouncements about “This is what’s wrong with society … ,” but I see a deeply rooted problem with what I’ll call a modern language disconnect — people not using language others understand, people not putting in the effort to understand the words they are hearing and that old flimflam classic of using words in ways they weren’t intended in order to create confusion, perhaps act in malice. As an example of the first of these, I give you the Eurasian...

  • On Second Thought: Where is the beef?

    Will Rawn|Updated May 13, 2022

    Lately, everybody is mad at the Big Four beef packers. Last December, the Biden administration reported that, since the outset of the pandemic, a period when it could be hard to find a steak, cattle prices fell, and beef processing workers were dropping from COVID, the industry had pulled off a 300 percent increase in profits. When JBS settled its piece of a price-fixing lawsuit from a group of grocers against Tyson Foods, Cargill, National Beef and JBS in February, cattlemen...

  • Don't ask for smiles, offer solutions

    Pam Burke|Updated May 12, 2022

    Editor’s note: This version corrects the comparative income of women versus men. As a woman and a graduate of Montana State University-Northern, then Northern Montana College, I am taking this opportunity to address a few off points made during Northern’s commencement ceremony Saturday. I was highly disappointed state Sen. Brian Hoven used his opportunity of his commencement speech to Northern graduates to promote investment companies and to put voice to the political farce that the United States is threatened by soc...

  • Letter to the Editor - Help sought for pre-marathon carb feed

    Updated May 12, 2022

    Editor, Friends of the Bear Paw Marathon are seeking help with preparing and serving its all-you-can-eat spaghetti and baked potato banquet on Friday, June 3, at the Eagles Club in Havre. The pre-marathon race-day meal has been shown to provide runners and their loved ones with a number of advantages. The runners will benefit with the extra store of readily available carbohydrate-fueled energy and improved hydration on race day. They and their families will also have the opportunity to get acquainted with other like-minded fo...

  • Our Constitution is clear: let people vote

    Updated May 12, 2022

    My grandfather Melvin Running Wolf was only 36 years old when all Native Americans finally gained the right to vote in the United States. Imagine that. Only three generations ago, not all Native Americans could vote in elections due to frivolous state laws that acted as barriers to the ballot box. Although Natives gained their citizenship in 1924 and states were allowed to determine voting rights, many states created laws with the intent to interfere with many people’s right to vote. People like my grandfather, who served i...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Well, change my mind!

    Sondra Ashton|Updated May 12, 2022

    Two weeks ago, a shepherd dog running full speed body slammed into my knee. Maiming me was not Chebella’s intent. She was fleeing from my Lolita, half her size, but in full protect-my-mistress mode. Size means nothing in dog world. Lola still quivers, after all these months, when Snowball, an ancient, tottering mini-poodle, growls when we walk past her people. No bones were broken. The doc sent me home to bed and chair. The first week flowed rather smoothly. Leo showed up e...

  • The Postscript: Poking and clicking

    Updated May 11, 2022

    “You gotta keep poking and clicking,” a friend tells me. “That’s what my daughter does.” By this, she means that learning new technology is not a straight path. I have to play with it. I have to find the process of learning fun and challenging and not get hung up when I make mistakes along the way. I know I’m not the only one who finds the “poke and click” mindset a challenge when I just want to get the darned thing done and move on to something I enjoy. Like reading a book. With real pages. My current frustration is...

  • Letter to the Editor - Help clean up Havre on Pride Day Saturday

    Updated May 10, 2022

    To Havre Public Schools and St. Jude’s and Montana State University-Northern and the Havre community, I would like to use this letter to invite all our Havre schools to help clean up Havre this week. Show your pride in the town. Take a garbage bag which I can provide and clean up the parks and areas around our schools. A flyer is on Page A5 of today’s paper. Could we put it on the school reader boards also? Join us Saturday in Town Square at noon for a free lunch for everyone who participates. I feel this would be a gre...

  • Letter to the Editor - Still saying no to debate, Matt?

    Updated May 10, 2022

    Matt Rosendale, I called into Montana Talks Radio, (a statewide radio broadcast that can also be found on an app) challenging you to a live debate on Montana Talk Radio again! You have declined to attend any debate, especially the Montana Farmers Union Debate. The 2023 farm bill that will effect Montana farmers, ranchers and communities for the next five years is a critical piece of legislation. Aaron Flint with Montana Talks brought up the point that the reasons for all of the other debates you purposely declined to attend...

  • View from the North 40: Paradoxically, it makes sense

    Pam Burke|Updated May 6, 2022

    Some things in life just make sense - maybe not at first, but eventually you know enough or you stumble into some information or you just get lucky, like the half-finished puzzle, which you've been struggling to assemble without the picture, and all its loose pieces fall onto the floor in such a manner that the puzzle is completely assembled. Ta-dah! And you look at the assembled puzzle image like, "Oh, yeah. Huh. That makes sense." (As a side note, yes, I understand that...

  • Letter to the Editor - Rosendale supports Montana agriculture 

    Updated May 6, 2022

    Dear Editor, As a Montana farmer, I am deeply concerned about the anti-natural resource policies of the Biden administration. Agriculture is the economic backbone of our state, and his policy decisions are causing serious issues for Montana’s agriculture industry. The struggle to pay skyrocketing prices for essentials like fuel and fertilizer, plus inflation and supply chain issues is very serious. I am pleased to see that Congressman Matt Rosendale has signed onto a letter sent to President Biden with concern over these i...

  • Daines undeserving of conservation recognition

    Updated May 6, 2022

    Recently, I canceled a trip to fish for steelhead in Washington because that state closed the Hoh River over historically low returns. This is nothing new to any angler who has followed the trajectory of sea-run fish throughout the Northwest. A deadly cocktail of irresponsible development, climate change, and dams have decimated salmon and steelhead in the lower 48. Fortunately, Montana anglers who dream of taking a trip to chase these species have a critical ally in a Republican member of Congress. Idaho’s Mike Simpson l...

  • Montanans rule

    Updated May 6, 2022

    All of us who love Montana are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the state’s Constitution that keeps the power of Americans’ right to vote in the hands of Montana’s citizens. Montana’s Constitution is championed throughout our increasingly imperiled free world for how it protects democracy for its citizens from Fort Peck’s to Flathead’s lakes, from Browning to Billings, from Livingston to my hometown of Shelby. I’m the lucky, straight out of Missoula’s U of M Grizzly who way-back-when staffed delegates from all over the sta...

  • On Second Thought: There ought to be a law

    Will Rawn|Updated May 6, 2022

    Thanks to the Supreme Court and the Department of Homeland Security, the partisan bonfire should burn hotter than ever for this year's congressional contests. Not long after the first news of that Supreme Court leak on Roe v. Wade, the Democratic National Committee was running an "Abortion is Healthcare" ad on Facebook with a "chip in to elect Democrats at every level" plea to protect abortion rights, because with a Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees, rights are...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: I got pruned

    Sondra Ashton|Updated May 5, 2022

    Any person raised on the Montana plains knows how precious is every sprout, blade or leaf of green. Precious. We baby each new evidence of life, coddle it, rejoice when it survives the season. Living here in central Mexico with year-round green, flowers, fruits, one learns to do differently. I had to discover how to prune all manner of precious greenery before they morphed into Audrey, the blood-sucking terror from “Little Shop of Horrors” and took over my whole garden wor...

  • The Postscript: A great time to get old

    Carrie Classon|Updated May 4, 2022

    "It's a great time to get old!" That's what my husband, Peter, says. He's right. And getting old is — as the saying goes — better than the alternative. I was thinking this while waiting for my father to get a pacemaker. My father had no idea he needed a pacemaker until two days before he got one. They had been monitoring his heart because he was suddenly so tired that he was getting winded going up a flight of stairs. My dad typically climbs a lot of stairs, so this was not a...

  • It's time to stop warehousing people with dementia at the State Hospital

    Updated May 4, 2022

    One of us is a Republican legislator representing rural Gallatin County. The other is a Democratic legislator representing the city of Missoula. Despite our political differences, we are committed to taking action to end the crisis at the Montana State Psychiatric Hospital at Warm Springs. The State Hospital’s problems are not new. For more than a decade, federal investigators and disability rights advocates have sounded the alarm about persistent human rights violations against the hospital’s residents. Avoidable falls, pre...

  • Letter to the Editor - Hill County Clerk and Recorder's Office misrepresented

    Updated May 4, 2022

    Editor, As a previous employee of Hill County’s Clerk and Recorder’s Office, I am replying to the interview of one of the candidates for clerk and recorder, Tina Salazar, published in Havre Daily News April 18 and her letter published April 15. I was taken back by her negative comments about the office. I don’t know Salazar because I left before she moved to Havre, but I can share my experience with the current clerk and recorder, Sue Armstrong, the office environment and staff I got to know and work with. I moved from Helena...

  • Letter to the Editor - Honoring public servants during Public Service Recognition Week

    Updated May 3, 2022

    Editor, Public Service Recognition Week, May 1-7, is a time to honor and celebrate past and present public servants across the local, state and federal levels. Recently, public servants have dedicated themselves to keeping our country running while simultaneously dealing with the challenges of a global pandemic. Many, including teachers, nurses, firefighters, law enforcement officers, public transport workers and more, risked their health to serve the American people. Beyond the pandemic, we depend on public servants to prote...

  • Why Matt Rosendale is not fit to be Montana's representative

    Updated May 3, 2022

    Matt Rosendale has a long history of saying one thing and doing the opposite. He has told Montanan’s how much he values and supports protecting public lands, supports Montana farmers, ranchers and agriculture, supports our veterans, wants to improve health care and wants to promote fiscal responsibility. However, his actions tell a different story. Rosendale’s relationship with the Wilks Brothers not only extends to the fact that he earns income from the Wilks brothers by leasing out two of his oil wells, then receives fin...

  • Letter to the Editor - Hats off to the MSU-Northern football program

    Updated Apr 29, 2022

    Editor, A great big “Thank You” goes out to Coach Souers, Coach O’Brien, Coach Broussard, and the entire Montana State University-Northern football team for their help moving the large dioramas and display cases for the H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum. We could not have accomplished this task without the strength of these young men. The dioramas are old, fragile, and extremely heavy. The guys were eager to help and showed utmost respect for these historic exhibits. with the muscle of the team, we were able to load them up an...

  • The new Selective Service Congress

    Updated Apr 29, 2022

    One hopeful sign for the future of the American experiment is the fact that a lot of people are actually coming up with better government ideas. Last year, Alaska adopted a suite of electoral reforms, including open primaries, and ranked choice, final four voting. Similar plans, at local and state level, are in the works elsewhere around the country. No doubt change is wanted. On a good day the congressional approval rating rises to 20 percent. Congressional accomplishments? We can always count on Congress to vote more money...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: My face is red

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Apr 28, 2022

    Yesterday the four of us women who are here on the rancho went to Oconahua to share pot luck with Ana and Michelle, and to meet Michelle’s sister Janice. My neighbor Janet and I have been to their home several times. This was the first for Kathy and Crinny, so it was really special for them to see the lovely and incredible stone house that Ana and Michelle built over 11 years. We each introduced ourselves to Janice, me being last in line. “Hi, Janice. I’m so delighted to me...

  • Havre Public Schools election: Do your homework

    Updated Apr 28, 2022

    Over the years, the Havre Public School District Board of Trustees has made some major decisions regarding the future of education in our community. Topics that have no historical precedent to rely on such as mask mandates, quarantine guidelines, online school capabilities, and the request from teachers to move from a traditional five-day schedule to a four-day school week, have brought an unprecedented level of decision-making expectations and public scrutiny to our trustees. Now, one of the greatest opportunities that...

  • The Postscript: The job I want

    Carrie Classon|Updated Apr 27, 2022

    “Dress for the job you want!” was advice I heard from an early age. I took this advice to heart. I was working a lowly job in a government office while applying for jobs in businesses around town. I had never worked in business, but I had a freshly minted business degree, so I bought some suits and, every day, I showed up for my job (answering the same boring questions on the telephone) dressed for the job I wanted rather than the one I had. The day I got the call for an int...

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