News you can use
News you can use
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Having spent last week’s column bemoaning man’s inhumanity to the ugly creatures of the world, I must confess that my husband, John, and I are no less guilty of our own prejudices in favor of beautiful creatures. Of course, we have justification. Humans always do for their blatant acts of inhumanity. In our world, ugly is as ugly does. The common pigeon, for example, is quite lovely in all its variations of color and markings, but the droppings, well, I imagine some level of h...
Picture yourself in this situation. You’ve just pulled up to your local garbage disposal site. You’re ready to unload whatever you brought with you. And there, amongst the foul smells and the many items of junk and debris, the things people didn’t want anymore, is a dog. But not just any dog — a very young, very small puppy. A puppy too young and too helpless to survive even a few days in an environment like that. What do you do? Fortunately, for the dog that would eventua...
Right now, there are nine active wildfires in Montana, burning thousands of acres of our cherished national parks, forests and grasslands. Hundreds of thousands of acres in California are burning too. This is in part because of the dry and hot weather we’ve had, but even more so due to decades of poor management of our federal forests. The evidence? One need look no farther than one of the first fires of the season, the Glacier Rim Fire which quickly burned about 100 acres of dead timber and thick regrowth brush in the s...
Oh, dear, my troubles began with air travel. I managed to get me and my bionic parts through security in Mazatlan and through both customs and security in Dallas/Ft. Worth. To me, that is a big deal. The Dallas airport is the size of three European countries. Paste a gold star on my forehead. I even hustled through three gate changes in half an hour, which I count heroic. Let me set the scene. Due to age and recent surgery, I get to pre-board. I travel with a walking stick,...
This week marks National Health Center Week and there is no better way to recognize the work of Montana’s Community Health Centers than to tell the story of our patients. Holly lives in the Flathead Valley with her husband and her mother. Five years ago, she was diagnosed with a lung disorder that began attacking her kidneys. Within six months she was in kidney failure and in need of a transplant. Holly had employer sponsored insurance coverage when she got sick, but she eventually lost her job because of her illness. W...
Cecil the lion, yes, I’ve been avoiding the topic. It’s a matter of prudence and respect to the issue. In case you are among the 1 in 1.02567 million people who doesn’t know what I’m talking about: a hunter from the U.S. went on a dream-come-true lion hunt in Zimbabwe. His guides lured in an older male lion and the American shot and killed the lion with a bow and arrow. Of course this isn’t the end of the story. The lion was part of a 10-year study on the Hwange Game Rese...
My friend Cheryl’s children are urging her and Dave to move right now from their long-time home in Tillamook, Oregon to the inland side of the Cascades. Why? Because they live at sea level between two rivers. We are told the Big Quake, the one where the west coast slides into the sea, with requisite tsunamis to follow, has been scheduled to creak and crack any day now. Certainly, disaster can strike. Look around us. The world seems a topsy-turvy place. But I’m irreverent. I ca...
Two years ago last week we received my diagnosis: “highly suggestive of ALS.” As the last two years have played out, clearly the suggestion was correct. I walked in to the Mayo Clinic in July 2013; I sit in my wheelchair today and for the rest of my life. However, I am still here, still out in public, still working and volunteering. I will continue until I lose my voice, and even then I may keep up my (new) normal life. I am still functioning largely because I have incredible support from my family and friends. We are for...
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who helped with our summer reading program at the Havre-Hill County Library. “Community Heroes” has been a great success. I appreciate everyone who has made this summer a success beginning with the U.S. Border Patrol for bringing the drug dog and helping with the carnival. Thanks to Brian Simonson for being our military hero and Sheri Simonson for setting up an excellent obstacle course. We gratefully appreciate Jessica Sheehy and her nurse, Shelbee Fritchman, for being local med...
My personal frugality is legendary … if you can call using an old towel dangling from three strips of duct tape as a curtain over the window in the front door a legend, rather than low-class, uninspired, white-trash slothful chintziness. Po-tay-doh. Po-tah-to. I wear clothes for a few months past the point where they are fit only for the rag bag. And notice that I make them into rags, not just throw them away. I purchase used vehicles and drive them until they die of old a...
One never knows, right? It’s one thing to plan. For example, today I mop the floors. Then a friend stops by and suggests, “Let’s go to Callecita for seared tuna and guava pie.” Are you going to be flexible? Or are you rigid in concrete, “I cannot go. I must mop my floors.” Really? Only a few more days and I will cross the heat-shimmering tarmac to board the plane from Mazatlan to Dallas to Seattle to Great Falls, Montana. Originally I planned a trip for March and April, with a...
My daughter is a Navy diver, my son-in-law is an active duty Navy SEAL, and I spent 23 years as a Navy SEAL, leading countless young men through BUDS training and commanding thousands more men and women in Iraq. I know the sacrifices our veterans have made, the incredible leadership skills they develop, and the deep love of country they harbor. In fact, that’s why I’ve hired five veterans to help lead my team in Montana and our nation’s capital. But you don’t have to be a veteran to know that as a nation and a government we a...
You ever have those days when it becomes obvious that you might have a knack for being a genius? I don’t. Well, I didn’t until one glorious day this week. It all started when I bought a bag of cheese curds at the grocery store as a snack to hold me over for the drive home to supper because, hey, who doesn’t love cheese curds and, of course, 10 minutes is a long drive when you’re really hungry. In my weakened state, the sturdy packaging thwarted all my attempts to gnaw through...
“First do no harm” — that is the physician’s creed. It is their guiding principle that means whatever the advice or procedure, the patient’s well-being is their primary consideration. Shouldn’t that same guiding principle apply to your financial professional? Shouldn’t your financial well-being be their primary consideration? Shouldn’t they have a “fiduciary duty” to you and your family? After all you’re entrusting them with your hard-earned dollars. "Fiduciary duty" may not be a familiar term to many Montanans — but it sh...
I’ve been accused more than once of being Polly Perfect or Goody Gertie Two-Shoes. “It’s your smile. You always see the bright side. You think life is always wonderful.” (Accusation often accompanied with spit.) Not guilty. Take this morning. I woke up on the down-in-the-dumps side, unaware of any obvious cause. A case of poor, poor pitiful me. My outlook black and bleak. Poet Dylan Thomas, urges that “old age should burn and rage at close of day.” This ol’ gal barely manage...
Montana’s National Forests and public lands have been a treasured part of our state’s heritage for generations. Growing up in Bozeman, I spent weekends hunting in the Bridgers, backpacking in the Beartooths and fishing the rivers and streams of southwest Montana. Cindy and I were engaged on a 10,000-foot summit in the Gallatin National Forest. The love of the outdoors is a tradition that I, like many Montanans, have been thankful to pass along to my kids. While Montanans recognize the importance of our public lands, mem...
Mosquitoes. I know, and I swore with actual swear words that I wouldn’t write about them this year, but these aren’t just any mosquitoes. These little guys are so strangely small and cunning that they were just asking for it. These are pint-sized, skeeter-gnat-ninja warrior hybrids with a stealth mode and an extra pain-to-the-ounce bite. Really, they are freaks of nature so small you can't hear their telltale hum coming at you and they can squeeze through the window screens. Yes, you read that right: There is no hope of pro...
Sky of Blue, Sea of Green; those words from the great American spiritual, “Yellow Submarine,” make me homesick for my Montana. What? Yes, of course, the song is originally English but so is much of our heritage which we call American. I like the idea of a yellow submarine bobbing through the seas of adversity. We are all in the boat, a comfort. What? Another question? Yes, indeedy, sky of blue describes Montana famously. So does sea of green. Well, sometimes it is sea of bro...
Noel Davidson died last week, and Havre lost a tremendous developer, a community leader and above all a fine fellow. Noel packed 200 years of living in his 97 years. People all over town recall Noel as the man who built their family's first home. He developed businesses ranging from the beginnings of Uncle Joe’s to Pizza Hut to Havre Rental Center. But to those of us at the Havre Daily News, he was the courtly gentleman who came to the office to chat and fill us in on news about town — always after deadline, our busiest tim...
I intend to unload some of my philosophy on you. I’ll call it the gospel (small “g”) according to me (small “m”). I am not important enough to rate a big “M.” So if you want to take this page right now and go wrap potato peelings and fish guts, my little feelings will not be hurt. What started me wading through the murky philosophical pool was a six-way conversation among women, friends, all of an age. A year ago I closed a door on a chapter in my life and opened a vast...
I would like to take this time to go on record as formally declaring that hot weather sucks. I know, that’s pretty strong language for not a very profound revelation. In my defense, though, if I were allowed, my column today would consist of the headline, my photo retouched digitally to look as if I were actually melting and these words in the largest, boldest print possible: “Hot Weather Sux.” Yes, I would abbreviate “sucks” because then I would have more room to make the...
It’s been been almost 40 years, so I should let it go, plus it’s not right to speak ill of the dead, but I'm saying it anyway: I still really, really, really dislike Farrah Fawcett for making several decades of my life miserable. I still keep a secret stash of resentment tucked away in a little fold at the back of my brain. The bottle has her name on it. It was in 1976 that Farrah Fawcett’s iconic swimsuit poster hit the stands. You know the one: red swimsuit, hot bod and t...
“Just walking in the rain. Getting soaking wet. . . People. . . stare at me. . . saying who can that fool be.” That fool be me. Gloriously, deliciously drenched. Three hurricanes this month held promise of rain and then either drifted out to sea or fizzled into nothing. Not a drop of rain in months. Then one morning, the skies burst. I waited for a pause in the downpour and headed out for a walk. A block from my casa, the sky unzipped right on top of me. I loved it. Instantly...
On May 28, the Bureau of Land Management reached a historic milestone in its effort to conserve the imperiled greater sage-grouse. The plans proposed by the BLM would protect the West’s sagebrush sea, which acts as essential habitat for the sage-grouse as well as mule deer, pronghorn and hundreds of other wildlife species. The agency has taken a big step toward balancing multiple use activities on Western public lands while keeping the sage-grouse off the endangered species list. While the sage-grouse protections are i...
In a depressing accident of birth, like big feet and a location in southern something-not-Montana listed as my birthplace, I was born without a silver spoon. I would be an awesome rich person — generous, fun-loving, laid back, definintely not uppity, a philanthropist, for sure. Of course, I would be born WITH money in my scenario. Not make it. That’s an important point here. I’ve never been much of one for actually making money. I think that has to do with the whole accident of birth thing that I don’t have that drive f...
