News you can use
News you can use
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There are few things as daunting as buying jeans. I don’t buy jeans frequently enough to buy the same kind twice. By the time I’m ready for a new pair of jeans, whatever I’ve been wearing is unavailable, out of style, or both. Of course there are sizes on jeans, but the sizes mean nothing. They are only intended to provide some sort of rough orientation. It would be like saying you know how to find your grandmother’s house in Texas because you know how to get to Texas....
With numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths continuing to go up in this region and across Montana and the nation, people need to follow Gov. Greg Gianforte’s request and use personal responsibility to deal with this pandemic. And the numbers are going up faster than they did a year ago despite people being vaccinated and many people already having had the disease, which also increases resistance, although not as much as vaccination, health experts say. Hill County is reported to have 6,914 people fully vaccinated, 52 percent o...
Remember last week when I said that magnetic north and south could just up and swap ends and that birds’ ability to migrate properly could be disrupted by that or by the mad scientists in France who are planning on firing up a magnet that’s 280,000 times more powerful than Earth’s magnetic field? Fun times. I’ll bet that more people than just the two who said it to my face were thinking, “Oh, Pam. You and your brain hopped up on google-y things are willing to write all manne...
We stood side by side on the ditch bank, relaxed, Dad leaning on his irrigation shovel. The July afternoon was quiet, air hardly moving, hot, dry. I was in high school but I can’t remember which year. A wisp of cloud lifted above the horizon. We stood together, in silence, watched the cloud gather substance. The spring rains had abandoned us that year. Here it was, mid-summer, and the earth gasped for moisture. We tracked that cloud all the way from the cusp until nearly o...
“We are cleaning up our stuff,” Meschack, the tile layer who now more or less permanently resides in our home, informed me. “We are giving you more space.” “More space!” I said in mock amazement. “Why would I need more space? I see at least three square feet over there by the closet and another four feet behind the dining room table!” Meshack squinted his eyes and looked at me seriously, as he does. He was again accompanied by his assistant, Yusefu, a recent immigrant from Ken...
Magnets are all fun and sciency until the earth gets knocked off its access. I don’t have to tell you that magnetic north is different from geographic or true north. We all know Santa’s North Pole stays put right where the giant candy cane was anchored into the permafrost back when he and his merry band of elves started that gift-giving franchise. But magnetic north — to where the arrowy thing in your compass is wont to point — just takes up residence wherever it feels like. We’ve been able to google that informati...
Watching Arizona’s freshman Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema trying to figure out how to vote on President Biden’s budget plan reconciliation bill reminds me of a Montana situation almost 44 years ago with freshman Sen. Paul Hatfield. In both cases, there was an important upcoming vote in which every vote counted. Both Hatfield and Sinema had let themselves become essentially the final necessary vote, breaking a political rule to never let yourself be the final vote because of the disproportionate blame that could be laid at...
In the 1920s, Adolph Hitler published his book titled “Main Kampf.” He advocated for big lies as he advised leaders who needed to lie to the public to tell only big lies. He assured his readers that people would easily see through small lies and reject them. He also convincingly wrote that the public would be in awe of big lies, accept them and act accordingly. For example, utilizing his philosophy, Hitler convinced many Germans that they were a super race destined to conquer and rule other nations. The big lie phi...
Editor, At least four times this last legislative session, the Republican majority showed us that they do not trust Montanan voters to decide their own future. HB 176 eliminated same-day voter registration. Originally passed by a bipartisan Legislature in 2005, a majority of Montana’s voters affirmed their support of this voting right on the ballot in 2014, when 57% of us voted to keep same day voter registration. The 2021 Legislature took that right away. HB 273 took away our right to vote on approval of nuclear energy p...
Turned out to be a surprise party at my house, planned by Ana and Leo, unbeknownst to either myself or Michelle. I knew Ana and Michelle were coming over. I’d asked them if they would accept a lovely tooled leather stool that had no acceptable place to live in my home but I thought it would have several spots it would like to live at their place. Michelle said they had to be in town so would stop by to get the stool. I’d considered asking Michelle if she’d bring her espre...
We were supposed to get the tile backsplash installed in our kitchen yesterday, but my husband, Peter, said he needed to use the kitchen so he could bake ginger cookies. “Can you work in the bathroom today instead?” I asked Meshach, the talented tiler from Kenya, who has been here so long by now that he feels like part of the family. “Peter wants to bake ginger cookies.” Meshach has now been joined by a second Kenyan, who is assisting him, named Yusefu. Yusefu and Meshach...
There is no doubt north-central Montana is the best place to live. This past week was a true testament of what a giving and caring community we all live in and how we can band together in a disaster. When Amtrak derailed just west of Joplin there was an outpouring of help from every county within a hundred miles. Emergency responders came from Blaine, Hill, Chouteau, Cascade, Toole, Glacier, Pondera, and my home county of Liberty. These emergency responders have been trained for this, were ready, and did a great job of managi...
Havre Daily News offers its deepest condolences to the families of the people who died and to the people injured in the derailment Saturday near Joplin. And we offer our deepest thanks to the people who responded to help. The situation is tragic, with three people killed, several hospitalized and dozens or more injured of the 141 people traveling on or 16 working on the train. We cannot express how sorry the tragedy makes us feel. And thanks to the dozens, likely hundreds, of people who responded to help. Emergency...
Editor, The Friends of the Havre-Hill County Library set-up a silent auction in the library. The silent auction items are older slightly used Montana books, local authors and a few other classics; with fiction and non-fiction books by favorite authors such as Doig and J.R.R. Tolkien. Stop by the library, located at 402 Third St., to view the display and to place your bid. This silent auction is running Sep. 17 until Oct. 21 after The Friends of the Library’s annual meeting. The Friends of the Library meet at noon on the t...
The truth isn’t always stranger than fiction, but the truth could strangely inspire fiction. A big article we ran in the paper this week illuminated the trouble our local school system is having finding bus drivers to help transport students to events. I know, it seems mildly interesting at best, but apparently, it is a big deal because this bus driver shortage is occurring all over the country. However, for as far as my Google searches can see Brooke Charter School in B...
I have become adept at simply watching the sky, at comprehending or at thinking I comprehend, the grim and gritty shades of gray, unrelenting gray, and nothing sexy about it, and I confess I never read the above hinted at book but had it been around when I was a teen, I’m sure I would have thought myself quite sophisticated to hide the pages under my bed quilt and greedily turn pages in secret by flashlight. Today I’d rather read the sky, of which on second thought, I hav...
Editor, When I was in school, our director of nursing education, who had been in the military service, said that her recurring nightmare was having to do triage. This is the protocol described in the Sept. 20 article “Montana in dire straits as COVID rages,” where it becomes necessary to restrict medical services to those who have the best chance of survival. Come on people, get vaccinated. As a country we should be better than this. The vaccines have proven to be safe and effective but misinformation travels fast while the...
My husband, Peter, and I are at my parents’ cabin in the woods. The weather was perfect for a bike ride so we took a long one. We had not all been riding together in almost two years and I am not an experienced rider. So, in order to prevent my butt from getting sore, I have a big, soft seat on my bicycle. My mother, an avid cyclist, does not approve. “You wouldn’t need that big tractor seat if you had padded shorts!” she always tells me. “I’m thinking this whole idea of pad...
Editor, I’m a CASA volunteer and a Havre Public School bus driver. In each of these positions, I am not only entrusted with helping ensure children’s safety. I am also required by law to report instances of suspected child neglect and abuse as I see them. The most egregious offenses are those that negligently threaten children’s well-being and safety and those that abusively deny protections that place children in jeopardy. These can include the absence of proper clothing for weather conditions, proper diet for healthy devel...
Editor, Cattle ranchers, like me, are dedicated to caring for our animals and the land every day of the year. On our ranch, we believe that cattle are part of the climate solution. First, they are incredible recyclers, and by feeding them parts of the crop people cannot eat, we are solving a food waste issue. In the winter, when less feed is available, we feed our cattle the tops of the sugar beets and corn stalks we grow as a cash crop. Additionally, our ranch has improved the quality of the grassland and soil. By reseeding...
As expected, the Hill County Park Board has basically voted to continue with its current way of managing beaver in Beaver Creek Park. Trapping is the only means of control they have ever used and will continue to use. No mention of measures or monitoring or keeping records. There was a small mention of using other devices in certain instances but would have to be voted on by the board and to see if they have the money for it. The adopted original draft by the committee effectively indicates “the superintendent has the a...
For many of us, one of our fondest memories is going to our high school or college homecoming. If you look up the definition of the term, homecoming means “an instance of returning home” and “a high school, or university game, dance or other social event to which alumni are invited.” We want to extend that invitation to all Montana State University-Northern alumni to join us Sept. 22-25 to celebrate our wonderful 92 years of Northern. When I started at the MSU-Northern Foundation in the fall of 2019, it was only six weeks p...
I realized two things this week about the often adverse relationship between animals and man — one thing because of the lack of headlines and the other because of the wealth of headlines. First, both Yellowstone and Glacier national parks had record numbers of people visiting this summer, but we hardly had any headlines about people getting injured or killed by wildlife. A couple tourists got injured in Yellowstone, but I just don’t recall and cannot find anything about inj...
I begin my days with a loose routine of morning readings, nothing cast in concrete, but generally start with the poet Rumi. This epitomizes the week. “But for us this day is Friends sitting together with silence shining in our faces.” If friendship were a basket, this week the basket is large and we filled it to the brim. Leo announced his birthday. He’s an old soul in a 35-year-young body. I quickly put a peach/mango crisp in the oven. Leo noted that Ana and Michelle had i...
To me, “the farm” has always meant the farm where my mother grew up, one of 11 children. Every book I ever read that was set on a farm, and many other books as well, all took place in my imagination at my mother’s family farm and the surrounding woods. The farm seemed enormous when I was young. There was a barn full of cows and a coop full of chickens and a granary full of all sorts of things we weren’t supposed to climb into but did anyway. There were lots of feral cats an...
