News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 6 - 30 of 3229
Kathy is my friend who first introduced me to Mexico. I am Kathy’s friend who first introduced her to Etzatlan. Beware introductions. We both ended up moving to Etzatlan. Kathy and I have known one another twenty plus years. Those years translate into frequent opportunities to share experiences, get lost, explore places we should not have poked our noses. In other words, we know how to have fun. Since mid-November I’ve been settling into my new casita in Oconahua, enj...
The Montana Legislature is now in full swing, with the capitol building abuzz with legislators, advocacy groups, staff members and ordinary Montanans, all with the same goal of creating a better, more prosperous and more livable state now and for years to come. While there are serious and significant policy differences in how to achieve that goal, Montana is fortunate to have part-time, citizen legislators who understand the heartbeat of their communities – something that w...
After leadership canceled all bills last week, we are now receiving bills in committee this week. With the 3-day public notice required for bill hearings, week two was also a bit slow. For some reason, a bill I had scheduled for week one has been referred to another committee. It is always interesting; the predictable is not always predictable. However, one always predictable thing that did happen was the first bills introduced coming from the work done during interim committees. Most are pre-filed before session start and...
Every time I thought of my cousin, who had just had heart surgery, I found myself angry. I mean spitting angry, upset, because it seemed the man was not taking care of himself, was ignoring the sensible cautions, being a he-man gorilla, invincible. Finally, after a full couple of weeks of growling, I asked myself, “Why so angry?” Well, that question stopped me in my tracks. After some deep digging through my own rubble heap of rationalizations, I realized that I was afraid. I...
The legislative GOP misleadingly calls the twenty-seven draft bills they passed through their partisan judiciary attack committee “judicial reform.” The news media has echoed that term in their reporting. That’s sad, because saying “reform” implies that the bills will make our judiciary better. Rather, the bills are a partisan attack designed to weaken the judiciary — make it more partisan, less independent and substantially subservient to the GOP legislative majority. Montana’s government and Constitution are based on our...
It’s been a big year for our cat, Felix. Sometime in late 2023, Felix was scooped up off the street in Mexico by a teenager and brought to the home of her mother and aunt. I’m not sure how he was received when he arrived. They already had 11 dogs, at least a couple of cats and several birds. They gave him food and a home, and I imagine the teenager, Daniela, thought that the fostering arrangement would eventually become permanent. But that’s not what happened. Danie...
The last three years I have lost too many friends, good and true. There is an expression that’s been making the rounds. “Today is a good day to die.” Where did that nonsense come from? The Lakota? The Greeks? Personally, I blame Hollywood, easy to blame, a nonentity, an imaginary force with a lot to answer for in the Grand Scheme of things. That’s what I think. If I am to lay blame, I guess I blame all of us who dance to the Hollywood Tune like lemmings running to the sea, “C...
My wife and I took our daughters to Disney World in 1997, and after doing so took a quick side trip into southern Georgia to visit the Andersonville Stockade where our Civil War ancestor was held in the rebel prison. We realized while there that Plains, Georgia, was only about 20 miles away, and so decided to make that quick trip to the retirement home of former President Jimmy Carter. We picked up a few small sacks of Carter peanuts and sat in the chairs of the classroom where the former President went to school. We learned...
I would like to remind everyone about the Innovative Education Program Tax Credit opportunity here at Havre Public Schools. You can get a dollar-to-dollar tax credit for donating up to $200,000 per year for the Havre Public School District. Montana House Bill 279 allows taxpayers to donate up to $200,000 to the public school district of their choice, to support innovative educational programs. Please refer to our website for more information on this program or you can swing...
“Let’s kill all the lawyers.” These words, spoken by Dick the Butcher in Henry “VI,” are one of Shakespeare’s most famous lines. Dick is a rough character, a killer as evil as his name implies. He and his band of pretenders to the throne know they’ll be able to take over the population with ease if there are not lawyers and judges able to stand up for people’s rights, uphold the law, and oppose mobs. Attacking lawyers and judges is an age-old diversion used by those seeking to avoid facing their own shortcomings. M...
This year had a lot of ups and downs for me. This past spring, I felt about as low as I have felt about my writing since I started. My book was going nowhere. There seemed to be nothing I could do to better its chances of being sold. I was unsure if anything I was writing was any good. Then something happened. And that something was nothing at all. There’s a story Stephen King tells about his first novel, “Carrie,” my more frightening namesake. The novel, to hear him tell...
My friends roll their eyes and tell me they think I am nuts. I don’t argue. Every year I draw out a calendar by hand, a page for each month, an empty box for each day, in which I can note in cryptic form those things which I wish to remember, such as CBD80 (Crin’s birthday-80) or Lola-rabies or annual water bill due. When I draw my new pages, I review the old, plug in necessary annual items and leave blank the other boxes to be filled in as each day passes. My year-end rev...
Whatever your beliefs, whatever your inclinations for this wintery holiday season, I wish you only the best. Make good times. Make good memories. Make good. With love from my heart to your hearts. While these few weeks living in my new home have been mostly about creating that home to be my sanctuary, I have taken some time out to make memories by exploring the land around here. I've been to the Ocomo, the archeological digs in Oconahua, several times in the past years. In loo...
“It’s not what you eat between Christmas and New Year’s that counts, it’s what you eat between New Year’s and Christmas.” I’ve had this mantra in my head because my husband, Peter, and I have been trying to keep our weight in check. Peter is doing it for sensible reasons. His cholesterol and blood pressure have been high. He worries he might be at risk for a stroke. Peter was a skinny kid, a skinny teenager and a skinny adult. Discovering in his 60s that he was, in fact, capab...
One of my friends asked me how I felt when I came back to the Rancho and my old home sat there empty of any aspect of myself. That’s a hard question to answer. For one thing, I’ve been so busy, focused on creating my new home, that I have little space in my head for my old home. Until I find a buyer, my old home is still my home. Maybe all the ties are not cut. The good memories and all the love that place has given me will never be erased. I hope a new owner someday will feel...
I will be home in time for Christmas. It’s always a little hard to leave Mexico, and leaving right before the holidays is perhaps the hardest. The giant Christmas tree just went up in front of the church last night. Thousands of handmade tin stars hang over the streets, embedded with colored glass beads and lit from within. The poinsettias (or “nochebuenas”) decorate the windowsills. There is a concert every night of the week. It is hard to leave, in the middle of all this...
“They” let me out at night. What a revelation! It was the night of the Christmas Parade in the Plaza at Oconahua. The “they” who let me out is that part of myself which has kept me a recluse these past years. Note that I had not been out after dark in five or six years. I had taken on the self-imposed role of recluse due to pain, surgery, the pandemic, habit. With a good life in my own back yard, I felt no need to spice it up with outside entertainment. My mind does it all:...
Montana hospitals depend on payments from Medicare and Medicaid to stay afloat. Rural hospitals are especially reliant on payment from Medicaid and Medicare. In Dillon, Barrett Hospital provides services for a 60+ mile radius. About 60% of Barrett’s patients use Medicaid. Medicare provides services to more than 67 million people over 65 and some younger people with disabilities. It is a federal program that does not generate a profit. Medicaid is income based and funded jointly by state and federal governments. For e...
With the holiday season in full swing, many of us juggle the excitement of festive celebrations with the reality of financial strain. The costs of gifts, travel, and meals can quickly add up, creating stress that lingers long after the New Year. This time of year is also Open Enrollment, our annual opportunity to sign up for health insurance. While it’s easy to focus on the season’s immediate demands, the security and peace of mind that comes with having health insurance can make a significant difference beyond the hol...
During this holiday season of both thanks and giving, I am reminded of how fortunate we are to live in this wonderful Hi-Line community and that we get to call Montana — the Last Best Place — home. Especially during this time of year, I count my blessings and remind myself of the many positive attributes of being able to call Havre and northern Montana home. I am very thankful for the continued support I have received from the residents of Havre and Hill County to represent our community in the Montana House of Rep...
In the third week in my new casa just up the road a ways from my old casa, I am making home. In ways this is like baking a cake. It is not a one-step process. It is not a box mix. The moving van (non-existent) does not pull up, put boxes in marked rooms, and roll on down the highway while I make the bed and go to sleep. Oh, if only it were so simple. Bit by bit though, this cake batter of a home is coming together. While there is still a lot to do, let’s call this a complicate...
In this month's installment of Pony Posts, I would like to touch base on a few areas that Havre Public Schools is excelling in. First, a report came out at the end of November from the Office of Public Instruction that talks about declining enrollment across our state. The state is using a six-year trend to examine enrollment throughout the state. In the past six years student enrollment across the state has dropped from 148,198 students to 145, 650 students. These figures...
It is an unusual living situation, in many ways. My husband, Peter, and I spend almost half the year down in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. We had a terrible experience in another town (an absentee American owner with a filthy rental) and we came running back to San Miguel, desperate to find a place to stay — any place that was clean and halfway affordable. And that is how Jorge found us. “I have an apartment on Loreto that is available for the month,” he wrote, in respo...
The first step to fixing a problem is to recognize it exists. That’s a life lesson most of us have learned that also applies to the political world. Regretfully, Montana faces a steadfast denial by the 2023 GOP legislative super majority and the governor that they created a gigantic homeowners’ property tax disaster. So many Montanans remember late 2023 when they got their shocking tax notices. It was headline news all over the state. A politically slanted interim committee, created by the 2023 legislature, is about to pas...
My husband, Peter, told me about the unlikely friendship. When we stay in Mexico, Peter walks the same route up to the environmental preserve every day. It’s a steep climb to the park, which is filled with wildlife and rare plants. Because Peter walks the same streets daily, he has gotten to know a lot of the people who have homes on the way up. The whole thing started with Reacher, an exuberant 75-pound Belgian Malinois, and his American expat owner, Anita. The Belgian M...
