News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1033 - 1057 of 3210
The Governor of Jalisco pushed the Emergency Button. Only food stores and pharmacies are open for business. The numbers for COVID infections and deaths have doubled what they were a couple weeks ago and are rising daily. Like elsewhere, people were getting careless and complacent. Out here in the hinterlands, every day we hear of nearby deaths. Today, five in little San Marcos, just up the road. How is that possible? I feel like Joe Btfsplk from the long-gone comic strip,...
A question was asked to me recently, "Do you think we miss out on everything because we constantly view it through a lens?" My best friend and I were watching our kids play at the park on an unusually warm autumn day. Like typical moms we were snapping pictures here and there among chatting. Before that moment, I had rolled my eyes at the irony of articles I happened to be reading on my phone telling me the world has become too dependent on our cellular devices. However, in...
This has been a year that defies explanations. I spoke with my parents a week or so ago. We have used Zoom and other types of video to communicate but, more often than not, I just call up my dad, he puts me on speaker, and we chat as we always have. My parents were about to go skiing. They live in the north, but they don’t live on the North Pole. It was much too early to cross-country ski, but they’d had an early snow and my mom decided they should give it a try. “You know...
COVID-19 cases in Montana are on the rise, with daily cases approaching 1,000. The public health crisis is real and Montana is now one of the most impacted states. In the early days of the pandemic, we enjoyed a false sense of security that Montana, with our wide-open spaces and relatively sparse population, would avoid the worst. Now, the reality of COVID-19, and it’s impacts to local businesses, is staring us in the face. Montanans are community-minded; we are hardworking, generous and we look out for each other. We need t...
Since 2020 has proven to be about as funny as a pratfall that lands in an actual tiger trap, I’ve felt a little flinchy about humor, like my timing is off just a bit and I can’t quite be confident whether my joke or my whole topic is a helium balloon or one of those doggy doo-doo bags. It seems my weird/funny news sources are having that trouble as well. Take the murder hornets for example. I scoured my weird and funny news sources for some fodder for today’s column and saw l...
A couple weeks ago I wrote Kathy, “I have aged 10 years since I had surgery in January.” Today Kathy wrote me, “I’ve aged 20 years since this coronavirus pandemic.” Since Kathy is close to 10 years younger, that makes us about even. Fears, worries, lack of solutions, illnesses, deaths, feelings of isolation and helplessness — all take their toll, on our bodies, minds and spirits. It was March before most of us realized the dangers which surround us. March when we began to hu...
It's the season for all things scary, and I found myself wondering how many people are actually looking for more things to frighten them this year. There is a new horror movie about Zoom that is supposed to be terrific ... and I won't be watching it. I've never been a fan of horror movies. On the very few occasions I've tried to watch a scary movie, I end up both covering my eyes and plugging my ears (the ominous music is the worst part of it) and I emerge with a pretty...
Please vote. (I know many of you already have. Thank you!) That said, please vote no on CI-118 and I-190. Proponents of these initiatives receive millions and millions of out-of-Montana dollars. … over two-thirds of it. They say that marijuana is "just like alcohol." It's not ... it's opposite. The classic "Bell-Shaped Curve" exists for alcohol use: a few use none (or very little); most have "moderate" use; only a few are "heavy" users. There is a "U-shaped Curve" for marijuana: there is either no or rare use, or there are he...
Election ballots hit Montana mailboxes recently and many voters are scratching their heads in confusion over one measure in particular: LR-130. But, as confusing and poorly written as this measure is, the answer on how to vote on it is simple: Montana voters should vote “NO” on LR-130. The bipartisan Montana League of Cities and Towns, which represents all 127 incorporated municipalities in our state, opposes this dangerous measure, and you should, too. LR-130 is the product of lobbyists and politicians in Helena who wan...
We are the people of liberty. The family of freedom. In our bloodstream is the inheritance of our common ancestors – men who jump off the pages of human history. Ancestors who, with a terrible fury, consumed the tyrant and built a mighty nation on tyranny’s grave. Imperfect men to be sure. But called by God to change the world. And so they did. On this sacred soil they established a country called America, that would be forever free. We are the people of liberty. The spiritual bloodline of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and...
Shutdown of schools I am disappointed in the decisions to close schools. In rural Montana, our students face varying degrees of connectivity and lack of appropriate device issues. This means that not every student has a device or internet connectivity and yet our schools are sending students to remote learning for semesters, quarters, or weeks at a time. The achievement gap is already huge, it is getting bigger by the day, and now, we are going to make it insurmountable by going remote without every child having a device or...
What is it with kids these days? These teenagers have been taking their game up a notch and it doesn’t matter if I compare teen-me or adult-me to them, I’m left nursing my pride. Livescience.com reported this week that 14-year-old Anika Chebrolu from Frisco, Texas, may have just helped to save our lives. No biggy. Whatever. I can flip my tongue over – both directions – so I’m not without skills. Chebrolu identified a molecule that can bind to and potentially disable the SARS-...
Dear Havreites and Montanans, By the time many of you read this, I will be on the road to the next chapter in my journey of life. Thursday was my last day at the Havre Daily News. I just want to thank the community for taking a chance on a girl right out of college to come to a new place, start a new life and a new job. I didn't expect to learn so much about myself, fall in love, go to work in 40-below temperatures, participate in pig wrestling and so much more. I might say,...
This morning, Leo brought me a box of 24 jumbo Crayola Crayons and a pad with a dozen dry cakes of water colors. Along with the requisite brush. Just like we used back in first grade. Oh, also a tube of school glue. Little girl stuff. Things change. When I was 6, our water paints came in a tin. The crayons smell similar, but I know from coloring with my grandchildren that some essential ingredient is missing because the colors are not as vibrant as they used to be and the cray...
“I’m hunkering down,” Rebecca told me. I know what she means. My friend Rebecca just returned from a road trip she made after a lot of careful consideration. First, her mother was sick. Then, she fell and broke her hip. Rebecca’s mother is 90 and she did not seem to be getting better. Rebecca decided she needed to go visit her. Rebecca and her daughter drove across three states for the visit. Rebecca said it was a wonderful trip and she bonded with her daughter as never b...
I love the Ig Nobel Prizes, which are a satiric spoof of the renowned Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Nobel Prizes — but I watched the 30th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony this week, and that’s one hour and 16 minutes of my life that I will never get back. This is the first time I have actually watched the awards ceremony, which was conducted entirely virtually rather than at the Sanders Theatre at Harvard University. Actual Nobel prize winners hand out the awards, whi...
I am supporting Mike Cooney for Governor. It was not a difficult decision to make. I’ve known Mike for decades. We worked together when I served as Republican president of the Montana Senate and as Montana’s secretary of state. Over many years I have seen firsthand Mike’s ability to bring people together for positive purposes. For our entire careers, Mike and I played on different teams, and we didn’t see eye-to-eye on many issues, but we always retained a good working relationship. In theses turbulent times that is certain...
On Canadian Thanksgiving Day, Kathy wrote with questions about our U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Basic “how does that work?” questions. I’d been in the kitchen preparing a more-or-less traditional Thanksgiving Dinner in sympathy with and support of our northern neighbor’s celebration. In the past many years, I have managed to celebrate two annual Thanksgiving Days, with friends in Vancouver, in Victoria and in northeastern reaches of Saskatchewan. While choppin...
Today I will get Blue again. Blue is the anxious Italian mastiff that I dog-sit on Wednesdays while his owner, Bill, works in the office. The new procedure is that I walk down to Bill’s house, fetch Blue, and bring him back to my home. This seems to work better than having Bill drop him off. When Bill does that, Blue hangs onto Bill’s legs and tries to avoid coming in my house like a petulant 4-year-old trying to avoid day care — which is exactly what he is. When I go to Bl...
Times are getting more difficult and the decisions we make now will have repercussions. For the first part of 2020, COVID-19 has largely slipped under the radar in Montana. This has cultivated a sense of complacency and skepticism. And for the most part, people have let down their guards. Large gatherings continue, mask wearing is still debated, and the lethality of COVID-19 is questioned. Why must something as potentially devastating as COVID-19 be so controversial? For the...
My editor in chief, and longtime colleague Tim Leeds wrote an op-ed earlier this week begging the question: “What’s wrong with people?” Of course, as opinion pieces do sometimes, the header probably ruffled some feathers, but, in my humble opinion, and given where our state, county and community is with COVID-19 right now, it was indeed an honest and valid question. And one I’ve been pondering myself for some time now, but in recent days, that question is one that is causing...
To be fair, my husband and I both knew it was just a courtesy when I offered to run to town with him to help find and fill out some paperwork because I’m about as attentive and effective at paperwork as the average 5-year-old asked to clean his bedroom. I stayed home to tackle something that suited my skill set: Clearing out a good-sized grove of dead chokecherry trees and saplings. Nothing like a good ol’ mindless physical task to give you time to reflect on your per...
“My need is such I offend too much. I’m lonely but no one can tell.” Ah, they were a great group, back in my time, The Platters. “Pretender” is the real word of the song, not “offender.” “Too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal” so rather than pretend I took a deep breath knowing I was setting out to offend a friend. I stuck my foot in the sludge, big time. I have strict self-rules to protect myself from the COVID virus. Since I live on a walled property with hardl...
I get stomachaches. I get them with regularity and always have. “It’s just gas!” my mother says, and, of course, she’s right. My mother tells me I get stomachaches because I have the “Benson stomach,” by which she means that I have the same stomach she has, which is the same stomach her mother had, which my grandmother inherited from her mother — who was a Benson. It seems a little sad that the only time the Benson family comes to mind is when I have a stomachache....
Human expression is different from other more biological responses like sweating when we’re nervous, which is a primal response of the fight or flight kind. Probably the most common shared experience with the fight or flight response is public speaking — the thing that a majority of people fear more than actual death. What I learned in five years of teaching public speaking — and a lifetime of hating it — is that the thinking/feeling part of your brain says, “No. No. No, n...
