News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 2629 - 2653 of 3210
Recently, I had a spirited Facebook conversation with a friend who was upset about the government shutdown. He was not happy that Yellowstone and Yosemite parks were closed because it was hurting his vacation property rental business. And like many, he blamed the tea party and the GOP. Let’s look at some facts. Due to mandatory spending, 87 percent of the federal government was considered “essential” and unaffected by “shutdowns.” Only 13 percent requiring annual budgeting is discretionary and subject to shutdown. The Adminis...
I will do anything to avoid any mall in any large city. I don't know what possessed me to suggest the mall. It was a nice day. My 5-year-old granddaughter Lexi and I could have hung out on the waterfront. For 25 years I had lived within 10 miles of the Silverdale Mall. Frequently, two or three years would pass without me needing to mall shop. But I wished to buy one more thing for my trip. A store there carried the exact underwear I wanted. There is a "playland" center at the...
This letter is to address the concerns that Fran Buel had with me using my “opinion” while serving on the Hill County Park Board, as I wonder if she would still feel the same if I had the same opinion as she. As I serve on the Park Board, I plan to use what little knowledge I have, knowledge I can gain, research I can do, my best judgment, my own conscience and listen to people (even Fran), plus my own opinion, to try to do the best job I can do, while being fair to all the “inhabitants” of the county parks. Just to clarify...
Darin Hannum was delighted when he was named superintendent of the Box Elder School District earlier this year. The longtime administrator succeeded Robert Heppner, who had been superintendent for 17 years. But Hannum’s first few months have been among the most difficult in the district’s century-long history. The problems have nothing to do with the Box Elder community, but decisions — and lack of decisions — in Washington, D.C. The district depends on federal impact aid for about half of its operating budget. Impact aid is...
If money management were a muscle, I would have to equate my investment skills, in strength and coordination, to that muscle you use, like never, to raise your ring finger up straight while making a fist with the rest of your hand. Yeah, keep trying. It's not that I can't invest money, or accumulate it in a variety of ways, it's just that I need a goal. Without a concrete goal this money exercise is like doing that finger exercise, and I ask myself what's the point? The abstra...
The artist who brought us “Normal Barbie” — with a computerized rendering of the traditional Barbie doll next to a Barbie in the proportions of the average 19-year-old girl to show that a reality-based doll is more attractive — has now given us a rendering of “Average Guy,” thus, proving that Ken doll has little to fear from the 30-something American male. Pittsburgh artist Nickolay Lamm used body-mass measurements provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for...
Our customers look to us to provide natural gas and electricity safely, reliably and at the best price possible. That’s why, after a decade of primarily being a pipes and wires company that had to rely on market purchases, we are purchasing natural gas production fields and electricity generation in Montana. We are only buying resources that benefit our customers and our shareholders. We have been asking, and continue to ask, the Montana Public Service Commission to include these resources into rates, meaning that the p...
I try to be cognizant of the three-day rule when I am a guest, whether I'm visiting with friends or family. After three days, fish or guest, one stinks. One notices the speculative eyeball, "When do you think she'll leave?" There is a slight difference when one is a paying guest, such as I am at the hotel in Hot Springs where I spend hours each day soaking in steaming pools, sleeping, reading and healing. Just this morning when I was warming a chair in front of the fireplace,...
The Montana Commissioner of Political Practices office has always been something of a hero to us. The tiny office with a small staff has been responsible for monitoring campaigns throughout the state to determine if they are following Montana’s fair, but rather strict, rules and regulations. The governor appoints the commissioner, so it is almost certain that he or she will be accused of political bias in the decision-making process. So, it is likely that will be the case this week. Commissioner Jonathan Motl ruled that he fo...
I never thought I'd say this — ever — but I think Americans should be more like the people of France: We need a good old-fashioned French-fried riot. This point is best served with a little background information about my longstanding disdain of the French over their even longer-standing disdain of, well, everything not French — which is quite a bit if you look at a map of the world. I had no opinion of France or its people, many of which I'm sure are exceptional, until I was...
Last week I headed down the road from Havre to begin my journey to Mexico. I thought I might go to Saratoga in southern central Wyoming for their hot springs. That stubborn van I drive has a mind of her own, that's for sure. She insisted we bop into Missoula and head down I-90 west, never my favorite route. Just out of St. Regis, I tripped over nostalgia, took the exit and contined north another 20 miles to Quinn's Hot Springs. Back in the '80s Quinn's was our favorite family...
I lost my mother 27 years ago to breast cancer. She battled it twice, and lost the last fight. I was 20 years old when she died. To this day there are people in my life that do not know this. In 1976-1980 the odds for five-year relative survival from breast cancer were 59 percent. My mother skewed that statistic when she celebrated her first win over the cancer. A single mastectomy bought her five more years. But then the cancer came back. Her remaining breast and chest tissue were the battleground. She and my father took her...
Pamville News editor’s note: The following column is an editor’s note from Pamville News editor. In a show of solidarity with all of the people placed on furlough due to the government shutdown caused by the complete incompetent failure of the House and Senate members to do their job to keep the United States running, North 40 columnist Pam Burke is not writing a column this week. Upon hearing this, as the editor of Pamville News, I sent one of our bravest reporters aro...
Any economist or sociologist can tell you that the price of all goods and services are based on actual worth and perceived value which is the sum total of both market value and personal value — none of these numbers are the same, and any two-bit salesman can tell you that. For example, consider the humble widget, that symbolic product used in teaching business and economics. It's the equivalent of the X of 2X+3=7; or the N of going to the nth degree; or the snipe of “Hey, gre...
So many decisions. So many choices. After spending hours on the phone with my daughter, under the assumption that two heads are better than one, a cliché not necessarily true but I needed someone to hold my hand, we concluded that there is no wrong road. I am now homeless. My auction sale is Saturday out at the Havre Fairgrounds, so come, say goodbye to me. Early next week I will head out. All the right roads beckon. Being me, I want to drive every road. What way to take?...
Growing up east of Billings, I didn’t ski. I didn’t know anybody who did. So, for me, the first snow meant a few days of exhilaration and about six months of being cold. I know some skiers now. They always get excited when the snow flies. For them, winter is cold — but it’s fun. That’s what Obamacare is like. You don’t have to like it — although people do — but it's coming. On Oct. 1, some of Obamacare’s biggest changes will begin. Montana’s online insurance store — the Marketplace — will open for business. This portal was bu...
All around us in Montana, there are hundreds of people in recovery from mental and substance use disorders. They are contributing to our businesses, connecting with their families and giving back to the community. Every day someone begins their journey of recovery. However, too many people are still unaware that prevention works, and that mental illness and substance abuse are conditions that can be treated, just like we can treat other health disorders such as diabetes and hypertension. We need to work together to make...
I remember the first time I voted an official ballot. It was 1973, just two years after 18-year-olds were granted the right to vote. I remember walking into the voting booth and closing the curtain behind me. As I started to mark my ballot, I realized how important it was to never miss an election. I was a senior in high school, and I was voting in a local election. It was a huge responsibility, as local elections directly impact our daily lives. They affect our living and working conditions, schools, and neighborhoods. They...
Shots rang out again this week in yet another mass shooting. We've seen too many of these in recent memory. The shooting of Congresswoman Gabriel Gifford in Tucson. The Aurora, Colorado movie theater massacre. The shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. And now a rampage at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. I am a proud gun owner and a firm believer in the Second Amendment in its strictest, word-for-word interpretation. I believe that our founders wanted each individual to have the right to own a gun for th...
Every family does it: trots out those favorite little anecdotes about loved ones to prove a variety of points from wise to weird, poignant to pointless. Sadly, my family is no different, and I am a favorite victim. One of their favorites about me is about how “Pam, when she was just learning to walk — my gaawd, what a spectacle. She wouldn’t let anyone stand her up to help her walk. As soon as we’d ask her to take a step she’d fold up her legs and collapse. If we tried too muc...
Following is the letter I sent to Sidney Longwell, the Louisiana speculator whose lawsuit threatens Montana’s Badger-Two Medicine wildlands, bordering Glacier National Park. Dear Mr. Longwell, I understand that you have initiated a lawsuit to develop a lease to explore for fossil fuel beneath our Badger-Two Medicine Traditional Cultural District. am writing to express my dismay that your plans for “the Badger” would violate both the sanctity of this landscape and the treaty rights of our Pikuni-Blackfeet people. Within the B...
Just today a gentleman in Great Falls, upon hearing I will soon move to Mexico, mirrored my enthusiasm, “Oh, I love Mexico. My wife and I go to Cancun every year.” Then he followed with, “Aren’t you afraid to go to Mazatlan? We hear so much bad news about the drug traffic there. Even in Cancun, when we walk the beaches, we are accosted by people trying to sell us drugs.” “Well,” I answered, “I have walked alone and with friends through many districts in Mazatlan and on the bea...
If you torture a house long enough, it will quit you. It will fall apart in little ways, and big. It will cost you money, sweat and just a little bit of blood. But it won’t all be bad. I had always considered our approach to home maintenance a practical matter: We paid $1,000 dollars for the trailer house when it was new-only-to-us, so we’ve never felt it was a good investment to sink a bunch of money and labor into it. ... beyond what we spent to replace the 6-foot squ...
Holy Baloney! I’ve been on Harlem City Council the entire seven years I’ve been back in this little town of my youth. We’ve begged and pleaded for people to please show up, please. One is a usual number, six cause for celebration and anything more is indicative of a raise in rates. If the language in the 350 little yellow flyers which had been distributed over the weekend asking for answers and accountability from the city’s mayor, council and employees was designed to drag...
Last week, as I sent my own kids off to school, I also returned to the classroom — this time with a different purpose. From Browning to Billings, I have spent the past two weeks meeting with students, parents and educators, encouraging them to work hard this school year, and make Montana proud. My time in Montana’s schools serves as both a refresher of the many good things happening in our public schools, and as a source of inspiration to work with our schools, communities and legislature to further improve our education sys...
