News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1585 - 1609 of 3210
Sometimes I believe all the people who love me beyond my faults, and those people who just don’t know me well enough, when they say, “Oh, it’s too bad you didn’t have kids. You would’ve been a great parent.” Nope. My animals, aka the four-legged family, often remind me of my weaknesses, which make pet ownership complicated. In the higher-stakes game of parenthood, though, these failings most likely would have proven fatal. Not so much for the kids, but me. I am, by my very...
In other words, “The older the mango, the sweeter the fruit.” Words by which to live from Leo’s Aunt Cuca, 100 years old. Sundays she walks five kilometers to church, refusing rides from neighbors. Señora Cuca Chavez lives on a small farm, alone, near San Antonio de los Vasquez, about an hour north of Guadalajara. I cannot find the tiny village on any of my maps. It is near Cuquio, toward the river. I had written to my son, “Not much to report. Guess my life is boring.” Ben im...
The elections are over and many will probably say they are happy to have it over with: the calls at dinner time, the basket full of flyers and knocks at your door in the middle of the evening news. As a candidate, we also get to a point of feeling that campaign grind. As I pulled the last “Vote Tempel” sign from the ground, Judy said, “This is it.” My wife of 48-plus years has been a real trooper in all of this; have to love this gal. My kids have also been very instrumental in my campaign, not only keeping me on task an...
Editor, The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s acting Director Mick Mulvaney and deputy director Brian Johnson are at it again. When Mulvaney was in Congress he represented one of the largest payday lenders in the country and took in $62,000 in campaign contributions from them. It makes sense that as acting director he would see to their best interests and not those of the consumers the agency was created to protect. In 2017, the consumer bureau issued a rule to protect Americans from predatory payday loans by r...
Just like I prepared our property for winter by clearing the driveway verge of vegetation that would cause drifting and other problems when the snow and cold hit, my mental and emotional preparedness for winter weather was impeccable this fall. By mid-September I had myself in an admirably zen-like mental state about winter — not capital-letter Zen as in of the school of Mahayana Buddhism, but lower-case zen in the Western sense of being in the moment, accepting, open-hearted...
Confusion seems to have arisen in the area about a possible connection between The Havre Daily News and the website The Havre Herald. The answer about the connection is simple: There is none. Three former employees of the Havre Daily News, who had resigned their positions over the last 27 months, started new endeavors in Havre. In or about May of this year, John Kelleher, Teresa Getten and Paul Dragu started the website The Havre Herald and its associated Facebook page and started posting stories and photos. Over the past...
Crin wrote, “Look at the nice young man you can get online these days.” A photo accompanied her note. Ah, Crinny, it’s been done. Mail order was quite a popular movement back in the late 1800s, after the Civil War, when settlers began homesteading the great western reaches of the country. The men sent off ads for brides. Generally, I understand, once the package arrived, usually by train, parties on both sides of the fence were in for an unpleasant surprise, as the promi...
Halloween has brought out all the spider decorations, but a man in Fresno, California, who was house sitting for his parents, had a problem Oct. 24 with real spiders, a problem he felt compelled to take care of himself. With a blowtorch. To be honest, the story, the visuals, the laughs, they just about write themselves after that last part. The details are pretty standard and, frankly, on the lighter side of tragedy. No one was killed or injured, no other structures or...
They flapped a clamor like rain drumming on my roof. The day is sunny and bright. Overhead, a gigantic thundercloud of blackbirds shadowed the sky in annual migration. I like to imagine these are the same blackbirds I see gathering in the wheat fields around Havre in September, eating grain, preparing for the 2,500 mile flight south. I will see these flocks daily until spring, moving between feeding grounds in the valley and night perches in the hills. Jim was here with his...
As a former sheriff and the mayor of a Montana town near our northern border, border security has always been in the forefront for me. It takes resources to keep Montanans safe, combat drug trafficking and secure the border and local government can’t do it alone. We need a partner at the federal level who is willing to fight to get us the resources we need to secure our border and keep our state safe. I’m glad to say that Sen. Jon Tester has been that partner. Jon has always been willing to listen to our concerns and tak...
As the Nov. 6 election nears and we watch the political process unfold, none of us are surprised by the steady onslaught of attack ads. However I was surprised and very disappointed by the recent mailers attacking Russ Tempel. The attacks on Russ are simply not true. Saying that Russ “just doesn’t care” could not be farther from the truth and shows how desperate Russ Tempel’s attackers are to find something negative on a fine longstanding public servant. I served with Russ in the last legislative session, as well as serving c...
In the past couple weeks, I have attended a Land Owners Mineral Association meeting, The Milk River diversion project meeting, addressed history and government classes and took in the Triangle Telephone Cooperative annual meeting. These groups all have their individual issues, be it cost of education, cell tower location costs, replacing structure costs or pipeline ownership costs. It seems they all have a common issue, funding. During this same time, I attended three celebrations of life. This whole mix makes one weigh in on...
Happy Halloween from the Havre-Hill County Library. Whether you’re dressing up and taking the family trick or treating this year, throwing a party and handing out Halloween candy at home, or turning off the lights and having a scary movie marathon, don’t forget about the Havre-Hill County Library when you’re making plans. Boo! Books and Babies is every Wednesday at 10:15 a.m., and Story Time is every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. This week after reading books about Halloween we will be playing some fun Hallo...
I’m not a fan of reality TV because I can’t stand all the drama, worse, it’s manufactured drama. That is just not my thing. I know that makes me sound old and stodgy, but I was there and of that age when MTV descended from music video television to reality television. I hated it then, too. Reality TV programs are like an online comment section come to life, only you can’t easily skip across the nonsense you don’t want getting into your brain. Plus, it’s so much worse to pu...
I woke up grumpy. Not normal. Beautiful sunrise. Normal. After coffee and Qi Gong with Jim, I still felt out of sorts, no energy. I sat; he gonged. Decided to go to the doctor. Definitely not normal. Leo, who came to see if I needed anything from town, offered to take me and be my interpreter. “Do you want to see the cheap doctor or the good doctor?” “I don’t care. I just want to make sure I don’t have pneumonia.” The “cheap” doctors are those who are working off government...
Right now, somewhere in Montana, there are two families who may never meet — and yet will profoundly influence each other. Like many people these days, one needs a little extra help to get on their feet and may struggle to get by. The other has been fortunate enough to be able to provide for themselves and their future, and now they are eager to give back. As the president and CEO of Montana Community Foundation, I have the humbling job of interacting with both of these types of families firsthand. It reminds me that even t...
We Montanans are facing a choice of who would best represent us in the United States Senate for the next six years. While this choice is critical for everyone, it is absolutely foundational for Montana Indians. The federal government has a legal trust responsibility to Indian people, and congressional acts are the primary way of fulfilling this responsibility. Sen. Jon Tester, a third generation farmer from Big Sandy, Montana, deeply understands this and has a strong record in this regard. This is why we support Jon Tester...
I don’t know what to call the last seven days, but they just might be the death of me. Technically, I can claim vacation for Monday through today, but applying the word vacation to these days is not just a stretch of the imagination, it’s flat out wrong. Vacation means travel. The closest I’ve come to that is driving to another side of town. Twice. But it’s not one of those dubiously named “stay-cations,” either, because, whether your “cation” is “stay” or “vay,” it means some level of recreating is being done. That hasn’t be...
Ballot Initiative 185 is a bad deal for Montana that voters should reject. The winners of this bad deal would be the hospital corporations and their wealthy executives. The losers would be the rest of us — veterans, the middle-class, tobacco consumers and most of all, people who want to quit smoking. It’s a costly idea with almost no upside. Like most bad deals, you have to read the fine print to understand the Initiative doesn’t deliver on its promises. For example, read the fine print about big promises to veterans. The p...
I was sold on voting yes I 185 early on just to prevent 100,000 Montanans from losing their health care coverage. But I was significantly more convinced when I recently was shown a Juul, a small little nicotine-ingesting gadget that looks like a USB thumb drive, which would be easily disguised on any computer desk. Tobacco companies have engaged their superior marketing techniques to address the decline in cigarette use and find a way to appeal to youth. And, I’m sad to say, they’ve succeeded. As a father of five, three of wh...
I should have a good ten years of health ahead of me, since the last time I was this sick with a head cold was a good ten years ago. The prevailing wisdom is, if you don’t medicate a cold, it will wear itself out in two weeks. If you do medicate a cold, it will hang on fourteen days. In these two miserable weeks, I’ve hardly left my bed. Medical advice from the young men on the Rancho; Tequila. Medical advice from my cousin Jim; Whiskey. My Medicine Cabinet is empty. My fri...
We are a group of pastors and faith leaders from many different perspectives across our great state of Montana writing to express our strong support for Initiative I-186 which is called Yes for Responsible Mining. The purpose of this initiative is to give our state the power to deny any new hardrock metal mining (eg. gold/silver/copper) permits that would create permanent water pollution. This does not apply to coal, oil or gas operations. This initiative is important and necessary because our waterways and landscape are at r...
As a physician who specializes in pediatric psychiatry, it became clear to me in my medical training that barriers to mental health care needed to be reduced to ensure access to care and treatment for all patients. Voting yes on I 185 is an important step in reducing barriers and improving health and access to treatment for all Montanans. Misleading statements by the tobacco industry purposely confuse the facts about I 185. So far, tobacco companies have invested almost $12 million in an attempt to defeat I 185. Here is what...
Health care providers strongly back I 185. Doctors wish to see their patients smoke less and enjoy better health care. I 185 does both things. It makes cigarettes less affordable through a hefty tax. It also ensures health care for 100,000 working Montanans. As a doctor, I share those sentiments. However, I am also a conservative voter. I have spent years fighting to oppose government-run health care. Why as a voter, do I support I 185? When we tally up other government funded programs including Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, wo...
Take it from me, the job of state auditor is not always easy. The job requires high ethical standards, an ability to understand complicated regulatory rules and a strong sense of duty and service to the consumers you are sworn to protect. As someone who served two terms as Montana’s state auditor, I have first-hand experience about how to navigate these sometimes-difficult waters and the responsibilities of the job. Current State Auditor Matt Rosendale has failed to uphold the ethical standards of the office. Montanans l...
