News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1058 - 1082 of 3212
I get stomachaches. I get them with regularity and always have. “It’s just gas!” my mother says, and, of course, she’s right. My mother tells me I get stomachaches because I have the “Benson stomach,” by which she means that I have the same stomach she has, which is the same stomach her mother had, which my grandmother inherited from her mother — who was a Benson. It seems a little sad that the only time the Benson family comes to mind is when I have a stomachache....
Human expression is different from other more biological responses like sweating when we’re nervous, which is a primal response of the fight or flight kind. Probably the most common shared experience with the fight or flight response is public speaking — the thing that a majority of people fear more than actual death. What I learned in five years of teaching public speaking — and a lifetime of hating it — is that the thinking/feeling part of your brain says, “No. No. No, n...
In these perilous times, we must make our own fun. In the interests of pleasure and economy, aided by an unusual (to me) scientific bent, I set out to boil up some chemical experiments. A huge tree with giant orange flowers lifts arms to the sky just outside my northern wall, an African tulip tree, common in Jalisco. I gathered a bowl of fallen flowers, dumped them into a large pot of boiling water. What I hope for is a natural dye, a color in light shade of brown, to dye a...
Yesterday, I had a nice long Zoom chat with an old friend. I know this is nothing remarkable these days, but it was the first time my friend Andrew had used Zoom and I was frankly a little surprised. Andrew isn’t on Facebook. “It’s none of anyone’s business what I’m up to!” he tells me. I don’t think Andrew is “up to” all that much, but he takes a particularly fierce view on privacy. He won’t buy groceries with his credit card if they are going to track what he buys. “Why...
Early this week my husband and I had to say goodbye to the best dog ever. Cooper was complex, unceasingly faithful, funny, a bit of jerk, neurotic, sweet and adored by many fans and loved ones. He was the number one wing man in my posse, John's best little buddy, the supervisor on all work parties, a semi-professional trick performer and the finest example of how far a good attitude will get you. His early life unfolds like the dog version of a 19th century novel, maybe a...
Here in Montana, we are granted the right to vote on ballot initiatives once they clear a number of hurdles, including having the related petition garner enough qualifying signatures. Not achieved, however, is the ability to hold public hearings on the proposed issue — such as is accomplished during legislative debate, fiscal review and the amendment process. Nov. 3, we will be voting on CI-118 which would legalize marijuana here in Montana. Aside from what the proponents and opponents argue in the press about public h...
When I sit at a blank page with no idea what I want to write, I go through who, what, when, where and how of the past several days to see what might pop up and out. My life is simple. I read a lot. A lot. I read the phrase, “explains the real meaning of life,” in a book blurb. Blurbs operate as the worm on the end of the line that is meant to hook me into choosing to read that book. “Real meaning?” I kid you not. Is there other meaning of life? Several meanings? Isn’t l...
During six years of my service in the Montana Senate and all eight years of my service on the Montana Public Service Commission, I had a ring-side seat with four major bankruptcies that had huge impacts on Montana residents, and I helped Montana avoid being taken down by a fifth. The first four, in order, were Enron, Montana Power/Touch America, NorthWestern Corporation, and Southern Montana Electric. The fifth, and dodged bullet, was Babcock & Brown Infrastructure — BBI — an Australian investment conglomerate that pro...
The recent lawsuit alleging that Montana’s mail-in elections are risky discredits Montana’s election administrators. Montanans can vote safely and securely by mail in this election and every election. More than 70 percent of Montana ballots cast in the 2018 general election were absentee mail ballots. Montana’s June 2020 primary all-mail election had the highest voter primary turnout in recent history with a record-breaking number of ballots filed. Our county elections offices and US postal workers capably handled this surge...
My husband, Peter, is now at war with the mice. The mice (possibly with the assistance of a rat or two) have eaten the electrical wiring in our car, causing extensive damage. The coating on the wires is apparently tasty. I don't know any automobile engineers personally but, if I did, I would suggest that constructing a car out of tasty materials is probably not a great idea because now we have a lot of small creatures trying to eat our car, one piece at a time. We are not...
Nowadays, it is difficult to know when to stick your neck out and fight for what you believe in. We ask you, are your kids worth fighting for? As the days pass, with what doesn’t seem to be much of a plan for adding more days of in-person learning, the education of our children is becoming the topic that we are willing to fight for, regardless of the backlash. We need a re-opening plan based on a realistic threat assessment. We need Mr. Mueller, his re-opening team, and the school board working with the Hill County Health D...
“I looooove fall. It’s my faaaavorite time of year ... all the colors, the cool temps, the blah blah blah.” If words were one-hundreds — $100 bills that is — I could retire off the number of times I’ve heard some version of that before. I think I’d be close to being able to buy a new pickup truck, just from the number of times I’ve heard it at home from somebody who’s not me. Don’t get me wrong, if I had my way our seasons would be five months of spring, five months of fall...
Several years ago I attended a prestigious writers’ conference in Seattle. It was time. I was committed. I paid a bundle. The conference offered a chance to mingle with real writers, to talk with agents and editors, to attend numerous workshops; an immersion in the literary world. Already, I knew I was not a real writer. I did not set a schedule to write daily, come fire or flood or dark of night. When my babies were babies I did not lock myself in the bathroom with my p...
Blue had been through a rough patch. He was adopted from the shelter and then returned for unspecified reasons. That’s when Bill met him. Blue is an Italian mastiff — which means he is massive, just not quite as massive as an ordinary mastiff. I don’t know exactly what attracted Bill to Blue, but it’s not hard to understand. Blue is a very sweet boy. But he’d been through a lot. Bill is still working from home most days, but he’s been going in on Wednesdays and that’s what...
A recent Billings Gazette editorial, “Stapleton Shows Why He Is Unfit for Any Office” is right on target. What it doesn’t say is: his second in command is just as incompetent. Christi Jacobsen has been Corey Stapleton’s deputy secretary of state for almost four years. And she is now running to replace him. This is not the person you want in that office, for several reasons. First, they are joined at the hip and their record is atrocious. They have wasted taxpayer money in extraordinary, historic style. There was Stapleton’s n...
According to current popular standards, I should be referring to my animals as “fur-babies,” but we don’t share that kind of relationship. My critters aren’t my children and I’m not their mother. I think I would remembered having a puppy in a birthing room 15 years ago. I’m equally certain everyone else would remember that, too. Surely a photo would still be circling the internet of things showing a fuzzy newborn puppy, already sporting a full beard and old-man eyebrows, lying...
Last week, Crin wrote that she saw two full moons. I shrugged. That fits. The earth is flat, thank you, Pam. And the sun gallops around the earth at an unprecedented rate. The world and all its people have gone topsy turvy. Karen in England says, “What a bunch of miserable.” Restless, irritable and discontent. I rarely have these kind of days. Tomorrow will be different. Today is sniffles and sneezes and low-level weariness. A mild summer cold. And sadness. All will be differe...
Here in Montana, production agriculture is a way of life. From Sidney to Havre, folks all across our state make a living working the land day-in and day-out to support their families and put food on our tables. My great-grandfather was one of those men — a rancher, he registered the very first brand in the Montana system, the square and compass. Scratching out a living in production agriculture back then wasn’t easy, and it still isn’t today. But between a changing climate, low commodity prices, and a disastrous trade war,...
Over the past couple of weeks, I have taken advantage of social distancing guidelines and had a chance to get out and truly experience the great outdoors of my Montana Senate district. It has been an eye-opening experience. A real quick idea of the layout of District 14 would be from Great Falls to Havre, south of the Milk River to Whitlash, containing parts or all of four counties: Hill, Chouteau, Cascade, and Liberty. What lies within these counties is amazing, in the truest sense of that word. As Judy and I traveled...
Yesterday, I bought gladiolas. They are nearly three feet tall and bright fuchsia. It is safe to say they are the most exciting thing to appear at my desk in ages. When I walked in the front door, my husband, Peter, said, “Oh my gosh.” Translated, that means: “You have gone overboard on the flowers.” But Peter is too nice to say that. I always have flowers on my desk. I used to feel guilty, spending good money on flowers every week. It seemed to me it was a little frivolo...
Contrary to my grade school learnin’, Europeans of the Middle Ages did not think that Earth was flat only to be proven wrong by one Christopher Columbus, no, the Flat Earthers didn’t really get going until the 1900s. In 400-something BC, just prior to my birth, some Greek scientists, tired of looking at statues of perfect people, sat down and figured out the whole Earth-is-round thing. The problem was mapping that world accurately. Sure, a map works great if you’re looki...
I don’t know why so many of my life’s lessons seem to require humiliation. Learning has always come easily to me, book learning, that is. And in the grand scheme of things, I don’t think book learning counts for all that much. My school reports consistently lined out the A’s and the comportment side matched. Yes, I was one of those. I’ll not soon forget my dad’s disappointment at my first B+ in freshman high school algebra. I was pleased and relieved with that B+. It could ha...
Heads up Montanans, we’ve got a multimillionaire developer from Maryland trying to sell our hunting and fishing spots so that he and his buddies can turn a quick profit. Maryland Matt Rosendale is back for another try at elected office — his sixth in nine years – but the poor guy still can’t help himself from bragging to his friends about his extreme anti-public lands beliefs. “I have long been an advocate for the transfer of federal public land,” he proudly proclaimed just a few years ago. And just so his developer buddies c...
I know we can all agree that 2020 has been a challenging year — perhaps the most challenging year in a long time for many of us. This year is also important for many reasons, including that the federal government is conducting the 2020 decennial Census. This once-a-decade event is critically important for those of us who live in Montana, including here on the Hi-Line. As mandated in the Constitution, the Census works to count every resident of the United States and is used to determine representation in Congress as well as h...
They were on trail bikes and saw the bear in the direction I was headed. “It was scary!” one of the women said. We were all a little nervous. There had been a bear attack just a few weeks earlier up on the ski hill. A couple had gone up to see the comet. They didn’t bring food. There were no bear cubs. There was no reason to think they were in any danger. They were just sitting and watching the sky when a bear attacked, seriously injuring the woman. Their dog ran away, and f...
