News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 474 - 498 of 3212
Firstly, I want to take a moment to recognize our veterans. Many Montanans, including myself, have served in a branch of our military. I am proud to be a veteran and thankful to every single one of you who have kept our country safe through your sacrifice, combat duty, and dedication to protecting our country and our freedom. Well, the 2022 election is over. I want to thank everyone for the great support in this past general election, with a special thanks to folks who allowed a campaign sign on their property. The wind did...
After 33 years of threatening to leave our ancient, cheap trailer house, it finally took charge and kicked us out — which seems like an appropriately blunt-edged end to an often-contentious era and an appropriately chaotic beginning to the next. My husband, John, started the whole thing. I don’t mean that as an accusation, I’m just saying that after five years of plugging away at converting part of our big shop into a house and three years of him telling everyone that we’re...
Sunday, here in Mexico, we pushed time back an hour. Whew. Hard work, pushing. Guess what? It’s the Last Time. I don’t mean the End of Times. Or the end of time, as relative a concept as time happens to be. The Mexican governing body voted to hang out in Standard Time, forever and ever, amen. I’m happy with that decision. I have no reason to complain. I don’t live by the clock. I don’t need to get up at zero-dark-thirty to go to work. Nevertheless, I’m happy to stay on one...
I am delighted to report that my mother has come around. I have been lobbying my mother for months to take pity on a little red squirrel who had acquired a great fondness for her, demonstrating his devotion by digging up all her flowerpots and gazing at her for minutes at a time through the window. My mother spent the summer shooing him off the deck and telling him to “scram” when she saw him through the window. “He loves you, Mom.” “I don’t love him!” The little squirr...
Me on Wednesday: I should never, ever, ever listen to myself when I have an idea. Ever. I know this, and yet, I fall for it over and over, again. Repeatedly. Fair enough, I really do know better than to listen to myself. Or I should know that. After all the injuries — physical, mental and emotional. All the wrong roads followed, both actual and metaphorical. All the pride swallowed, the dignity lost, the ego trammeled. After all these years, I still get pulled in by myself s...
As medical students wanting to practice medicine in Montana, it is chilling to see LR-131 on our ballot. This initiative would put medical workers at risk when they provide compassionate care for infants who are born too early to survive or have life-limiting birth defects. We are likely to second-guess our intention to practice medicine in Montana if we can be criminalized and prosecuted for providing medical care that is within the scope of our practice, and the best possible care for our patients’ needs. Parents e...
I have loved the state of Montana since I moved here in the fall of 1990. Nothing has ever made me wonder if I should move until now. I have had three children born in Havre and raised them all here. I am the only useful parent my children have. I’m still very active in their lives. There is a referendum proposed in the upcoming Montana election that would threaten my freedom to provide health care to Havre and the surrounding communities. And it threatens my freedom to be an important part of my children’s lives. You may won...
As the campaign season winds down and we cast our ballots, I want to thank the residents of House District 28 for the kindness they have shown me over the past several months as I have listened to their hopes and ideas for a better Montana. It’s energizing and hopeful discussing the future of our state as I’ve taken my campaign to the porches, driveways, garages and lawns of folks in and around Havre. If there’s one resounding, consistent message I’ve heard over and over again from people of every political persuas...
America, and Montanans in particular, are blessed to stand on the shoulders of giants. Fortunately for us, wise and brave leaders have shown us the way forward to fulfill the idea and ideals of America. While our country has fallen short of those lofty goals from time to time, those aims are true and worthy of pursuit. And America soldiers on. As a young girl, I thrilled to the courage and wisdom of American leaders, long dead, whose thoughts and actions provided a road map to America, the beacon of hope to our world. I...
My husband, Peter, says they are rushing the season. I’m not sure who “they” are. The Christmas Cartel, perhaps. The vast conspiracy of premature holiday merrymakers. Whoever they are, Peter does not approve. And he does have a point. There are still life-size skeletons scaling the walls of a huge brick house I walk by every day. The remains of jack-o’-lanterns are still sitting on the stoops — although the squirrels have eaten off most of their faces, making them much scarier...
Nov. 8, my fellow Montana voters and I will decide on a ballot measure that will have devastating implications for pregnant patients and their families. LR-131, or the “Born-Alive Infant Protection Act,” would introduce extreme consequences for clinicians who provide compassionate care for dying infants Proponents of LR-131 will tell you this measure will save babies. And they will tell you that the devastating pregnancy complications that lead to infant loss are “mythical situations.” As a high risk obstetrician who has bee...
Montana health care providers shouldn’t face extreme felony penalties when providing compassionate medical care. That’s why our state’s health care leaders ask you to vote no on ballot initiative LR-131. Montanans will find the initiative LR-131, known as the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, on the back of their ballots, placed there by the 2021 Montana Legislature. As medical experts concerned about misleading information surrounding LR-131, we’d like to make the message clear — the measure poses harm to both families...
This morning after I got dressed, I did something outside of my routine. I looked in the mirror. Hmmm, said I, to myself. Not bad. The layers match this morning. The socks don’t match the tops. Oh, well. They match each other. Mates. A pair. But if they didn’t, oh, well. No matter. Socks matter on these old feet. Warm matters, especially in the cool morning. I walked into the kitchen to fill the kettle with water for coffee. That bag of flour is still sitting on the island. Wh...
Just be yourself. You are who you were born to be. You are unique and wonderful, don’t ever change. You’re never going to change, are you. Are you? A popular, widely supported theory about personality is that five traits pretty much account for our entire personality: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Don’t worry, each trait is measured on a scale, not as an either/or situation. Yes, the science world agrees that we are a...
I am concerned about the high price of prescription medicines. I depend on prescriptions to manage health conditions such as chronic asthma, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. The price of many medicines in Medicare has increased faster than inflation in recent years, leaving seniors struggling to make ends meet. I’m looking forward to the implementation of the new Inflation Reduction Act law that will require Medicare to negotiate for lower prices in the future. Drug companies have raised their prices...
As Republican and Democratic legislators representing a mix of Montana’s cities and rural areas, we have our fair share of political differences. When the Governor asked us to join a task force to address Montana’s housing crisis, we could have said no. We could have let our disagreement on other issues get in the way. We could have refused to work with one another out of fear of giving the other side a political “win.” But with a growing number of Montana families getting priced out of their own state, we decided to say yes...
A few weeks before Halloween and many years ago, when I was still married to my former husband, he and I and a couple we knew all decided we would celebrate Halloween dressed as the Midwest. At the time, it seemed like a clever idea. I was from Minnesota, my former husband was from Wisconsin, our friend, Becky, was from Iowa, and her husband, John, was from Illinois. We were all in our early twenties, all living in Oregon, and, as we imagined ourselves dressed as our home...
Editor, The right of individual privacy is essential to the well-being of a free society and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest, these words are enshrined within the Montana constitution under Article II section 10. Section 10 of Article II guarantees all Montanans the fundamental right to privacy and has been challenged throughout its inception as all good things are that benefit the public at large. This right to privacy currently encompasses but is not limited to the right to an...
We get used to using particular products in our daily living so when those items are not available on store shelves, what is a person to do? Ha! I have the answer. We make do! Generally I’m not too fussy and don’t get into a flap about bare shelves. And I don’t play the blame game. That’s futile. Pandemic? Climate disasters? Politics? Maybe they all play a part. But that doesn’t change my challenge, to live as simply and comfortably as possible with what’s on hand, right? But...
How did we get where we are? Quantum entanglement is back in the lime light again after three scientists won the 2022 Nobel Prize in physics for their research in quantum whatever. The quick summary of quantum entanglement is when two particles, such as photons, electrons, neutrinos and molecules, link together in a certain way that no matter how far apart they are in space their state remains the same. (And as an FYI, state means condition or status not, like, Montana or...
We are down to days before the election Nov. 8. I have been campaigning by attending many functions, speaking at events, and listening to the issues at all my stops. I am fortunate and thankful to have the support and encouragement of so many of our family, friends, neighbors and strangers as we roll though these final weeks. Saturday Oct. 8, my family took in the Northern football game. It was a special day as we have a grandson playing on the team and two of our daughters were there to cheer on the team, as well. Our ties...
I love Little Free Libraries. If you don’t have these in your neighborhood, they are little boxes that look like tiny houses — not much larger than a big birdhouse — with a glass door on the front and books inside. People leave books they have read and pick up books they want to read and, somehow, the whole thing seems to work out pretty well most of the time. During the pandemic, I noticed that some little libraries went empty. The regular libraries were closed, and peopl...
Did you hear the story about Pramila Jayapal and Matt Rosendale, in the U.S. House, and Elizabeth Warren and Steve Daines, in the Senate, joining forces to get their congressional colleagues to give up insider trading on the stock market? At the beginning of September, Jayapal, a House Democrat from Washington, and Montana's Rep. Rosendale announced their Bipartisan Ban Stock Ownership Act, which would require members of Congress, along with their spouses, to sell any...
According to the latest research, now I’m apparently supposed to thank my dad for trying to drown me when I was a child. That seems pretty messed up, right? Or fitting for these illogical times. In the swimmer’s version of that infamous parental order to “stop you’re crying or I’ll give you something to cry about,” when I was too scared to swim away from the lakeshore in water that was over my head, my own father picked me up and chucked me off the end of the dock. And h...
The opinion piece favoring a city manager position that ran in Tuesday’s edition of Havre Daily News left too many unanswered questions. The statement that the manager position “would likely be a cost savings to the city budget as well” was completely unsubstantiated. How do you add a new position, which likely would require a salary of at least $100,000, and have a cost savings? Also, I think this position would require, at a minimum, one support staff employee. Where do you find this individual who in addition to being...
