News you can use
News you can use
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I had a restless night, had made a hasty decision hard to unmake, nothing important, but irritating, and my mind wanted to run it on a Mobius Loop. I said, Enough of this. I’ll think about something else. On my bedroom wall I’d hung a beautiful depiction of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It’s not art, more like a framed poster. In the full moonlight, it was easy to focus on her calming face. I began wondering what the not-historic parts of Mary’s life might have been like and this is...
“I’m jealous,” my husband wrote as a comment to an article link he sent me. “What a cool way to lose an arm.” How many times does a person get to say that in a lifetime? A lot for some of us, and for sure John’s persona story about losing an arm is epic. An 18-year-old gets into a motorcycle crash just as a paramedic instructor is driving by. What are the odds? The surgeon on call at the hometown hospital that day had honed his trauma surgery skill as a Navy hospital surgeon at the front lines of the Vietnam War. Does it get...
“I don’t remember you at all!” the portly man informed my husband, Peter. Peter smiled, introduced himself, and reminded the gentleman where they might have met half a century ago. The man shook his head. “Nope!” This was the first high school class reunion I had ever attended, and it was filled with moments like that. I have never gone to my own class reunions. I’m not sure why. I was busy. I lived far away. I never knew more than a tiny fraction of the students in my class...
Such a simple thing, making the bed when one gets up in the morning. If one does. Make the bed, that is. If that is one’s habit. Who’d have thought, who could have imagined, there would be at least five different things one did wrong every morning of one’s life while making the bed. Cor blimey. (I read that in a book. It means something similar to “what the hay” or “dang me, orter take a rope and hang me” and other phrases of utter astonishment.) How do I know that I and po...
Thank you Havre, thank you Hi-Line, that’s really all that needs to be said. Thank you. I’m saying thank you because, as many of you know, the Havre Daily News went through a difficult portion of the summer where our press required a major repair. As the old saying goes, you can live without a lot of things when putting out a newspaper, but a printing press isn’t one of them. During the almost two months our press was down, we did the absolute best we could to still bring...
Sometimes, you just need to talk to someone who understands your condition. For instance, I have specific criteria to meet before protocols trigger a call to speak with a medical person. My doctor knows through experience I don’t call to see her for any old problem because she practiced medical due diligence, and asked one day why I waited so long before coming in. And I was, like, Hey, doc, I call for three reasons: 1) I’m off my feed. If I can’t stomach food, I’m critical. 2) I have something that registers in my mind as we...
What a week. When my son flew back to Washington, along with a bundle of two-foot long cinnamon sticks for gifts to friends, he took my energy. I wasn’t worried. I knew that the following day my supply would be replenished. Sure enough, the next day I flew into a cleaning frenzy. Order was soon restored but I have a question. Where does order hide out that it needs to be restored? At the Orderaria, of course, Spanglish for the Order Store. You know, like “carneceria” (meat...
BIRCH CREEK — One summer evening when my daughter was a toddler, I took her by the hand and walked into the backyard to water the garden, when our dog began to bark like mad. I looked up and saw a grizzly bear on the other side of the garden. I had only a second to think, and since the dog had the bear occupied, I scooped up my daughter and dashed back in the house. That’s what life is like when you live with grizzlies. My husband and I run Angus cattle and quarter horses on our family place on Birch Creek, along the Roc...
The Montana Districting and Apportionment Commission is responsible for redrawing state legislative districts to reflect every community in Montana. Voters need to be able to elect legislators who represent different viewpoints and can come together to solve the problems our state faces. This responsibility requires the commission to ensure voices are heard in every part of our state, and no one is left behind. That is why it was so unfortunate that when the commission proposed maps earlier this month, the Republican...
It wasn’t much of a joke, as far as jokes go. I saw the man wearing two hats, one on top of the other. The second hat may have been for his wife. It was decorated with intricate drawings. He was walking with her, a third hat tied to the handle of a stroller, and the family was making its way through the artisan market, where hats and ceramics and glass and handwoven, hand-carved, handmade items of all types are sold. The man had his hands full, guiding the stroller loaded w...
Editor, Fresno Reservoir, Aug. 23, 2022: The pelicans, herons, plovers, and gulls are mostly gone. The fish are starving, some are dying. The water levels are dropping faster than the clams can move. They die on the shore, far from the receding water’s edge. Fresno is almost 30 feet down and only 15 percent of capacity. Despite the Bureau of Reclamation’s statement to “manage, develop, and protect water in an environmentally and economically sound manner in the interest of the American public,” they have sold almost all of...
I tried to read the news this week but, honestly, outside of work where we are treated like a prison work gang, without the snappy uniforms, and forced to read news, I was too tired and rundown (and more than a little, as the British say, couldn’t be arsed) to read much past the headlines. So without further ado, I give you all the news I could make up about my favorite weird headline of August: “Turkish scorpion farmer milks arachnids for their expensive venom,” by Umit...
Two weeks. What a gift. I have had two weeks with my son at my home. My guestroom with bath was finished before Ben’s plane landed. He said, “Mom, I don’t want to do a lot of visiting neighbors (of whom there are so few) or any tourist stuff. I just want to be with you and to have solitude to consider my life, to figure out what I want to do next. I want a retreat, away from everyday activities and responsibilities.” And so it went. We filled each day with stories, memorie...
U.S. House races are boring. It's a Democratic district or it's a Republican district, that's all you need to know. That was definitely the look of Montana's new eastern congressional district at the beginning of the year where recent voting history heavily favored the Republican incumbent. That's until independent Gary Buchanan got into the race with backers from left, right and center. If approval across the political spectrum were the key to electoral success, the...
Montanans are good at forming relationships. As I’ve traveled in the eastern U.S. House district, I’ve met voters who are husbands, wives, friends of friends, sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers … all of whom know someone who knows someone I should get in contact with about my independent campaign for Congress. But one of the most important relationships that Montanans cherish is our relationship with nature and wildlife. In no other state is there such a rich tradition of hunting and fishing. I have enjoyed chasing my son a...
We all have our little quirks, right. They’re nothing to be ashamed of because they are, in fact, one of the components of what makes each of us unique — quite probably weird, too — but unique for sure. In her Aug. 26, 2020, Pyschology Today article about quirks Sheila Robinson-Kiss says one of the keys to good mental health is recognizing that just because a behavior seems outside the norm, doesn’t make it bad. If it’s not hurting anybody, we should just figure out a way to h...
If you ever for one minute think you are different from other Americans in this foreign country, who seem to live by the motto of “I want it; I want it all; I want it now,” just endeavor to undertake a major construction project. You will discover your Gringo sense of entitlement. Guaranteed. My project isn’t major and it is only quasi construction. In a little-used space adjacent to my bodega guest bedroom, I’m installing a bathroom. Rendering my guest bedroom to en-suit...
I was walking down an old street in an old part of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Brightly colored wooden doors line the streets. There is no indication from the outside what might be within. It could be a courtyard filled with flowers and a fountain, or a small business, or somebody’s kitchen. It is a mystery what is behind these doors, and so, when one is open, naturally I look inside. Last week, a door was open, and I saw a few items of clothing for sale, so I stepped i...
One of the first lessons I learned on becoming a state legislator was to make it as easy as possible for other legislators to agree with me. I saw how those who demonstrated both competence and good will were taken seriously and achieved the greatest success in accomplishing their goals. Several decades ago, there were relatively few ideologues intent on imposing their own narrow ideas of how things should be done. Now we sadly see that there are many more elected officials who self-righteously attempt to impose their...
Fundamentalist and evangelical preachers of the last century used the advent of radio and television to skew Christianity in ways never before possible. Social media and the Christian Nationalists have taken that Christian world, atilt on its axis by the turn of this century, to a complete reversal of its poles. His disciples and other early Christians, who followed His teachings, were willing to die for their faith, as was He. Today’s Christian Nationalists appear ready to kill for the lack of theirs. Show me in the Bible wh...
I successfully built and hung a gate this week. It bears pointing out that I conquered my nemesis, the hanging of a gate, by getting the thing hung level and plumb. It swings freely and quietly both to and fro. It looks good doing it. I should be giddy, overjoyed, brimming with pride and other degrees of over-the-moonness, and yet no. At best I feel a sort of grim satisfaction. I was raised well before the era of participation ribbons, nobody cared about bolstering our...
Volunteerism in Havre has a long history. From our town’s start, there were people willing to give their time, talents, resources and dedication to worthy community causes. From giving to those less fortunate, to creating health care facilities and forming two libraries, the people of Havre and Hill County care about our town and work to achieve wonderful things, some which last generations. The Clack Museum and Wahkpa Chu’gn Buffalo Jump are no different. From our inception, our growth and successes have been based on vol...
They call the impossibly complicated screen I am looking at a “dashboard,” which I do not find reassuring at all. It would be nice not to associate my ignorance of technology with crashing some out-of-control machine into a ravine, although, as I think about it, that is very much how it feels. Learning new technology is a bear. I don’t care what they say. I understand the need to play with it, get familiar with the functions and learn in a less-than-linear fashion. But less-than-straightforward learning often leads me to tr...
Generation after generation, Americans have gone to war, backed by the promise that their country would take care of them when they came home. Yet for years, our government failed those in uniform who returned home only to face a different kind of battle: the battle of cobbling together their earned care and benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Sgt. 1st Class Heath Robinson was one of those veterans. Heath’s story is, unfortunately, far too familiar among our military men and women. Like many Americans, h...
I am proud to have served as a Republican all my life. I have been the vice-chairman of the Montana State Republican Party. I served two terms as a Republican county commissioner here in Yellowstone County. I worked 10 plus years for Republican Sen. Conrad Burns as his state director. I was appointed Montana U.S. Marshal by a Republican president. I also forgot to mention a ran as a Republican for the U.S. Congress, but I came up short. I remember being so proud of this country and now I fear for our grandkid’s future. T...
