News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1385 - 1409 of 3214
Used to be, if I had a serious deadline, I would work all day, work all night, work until the project was finished, ready to deliver. Ah, well, that was then. “Used to be” is like paint, it covers a multitude of sins. Nowadays, in what the “boys” here call “my wonderful retired life,” and it is, mostly, I parse out my day in bits and pieces. Perhaps like today, hang laundry, rest, generally with a book in hand, make the bed, rest, sweep floor, rest, work on project, re...
August has been a slow month as far as politics goes. Some jockeying for who is going to run for what office, is interesting to watch. But it is a busy time for the agricultural folks. The crops have been better than expected, the cooler spring and summer may have been the reason. Many areas received hail and a number of fires have been reported in the harvest fields. Some farmers are finished but many are still cutting, so be on the lookout for equipment. I have not been involved in a great deal of harvest, only moving a tru...
They say that blessings come in disguise. If so, my blessings are poorly disguised. They show up wearing false noses and funny eyeglasses and are instantly recognizable unless I am being completely thick-headed — and it is astonishing how often I am. I had a really bad year a few years back when I lost my husband and my job and my home in rapid succession. All of this happened while I was living in Nigeria (which was not great to begin with). I realized immediately that this w...
As a pro-life Montanan, mother of six (biological and adoptive), I am frustrated with the Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund’s endorsement of Greg Gianforte for governor of Montana. He is currently running against two pro-life candidates in the Republican primary, one of which is my husband, Dr. Albert D. Olszewski, state senator. Dr. Olszewski has sponsored and articulately carried multiple pro-life bills through three legislative sessions. In 2015 he drafted and carried HB 479 “Montana’s Unborn Child Pain and Suffe...
We had that weird dry spring, so I scheduled a week off to get some work done outside — I even booked a rental tractor to help with the work — and then the skies opened up and it rained all that week. I canceled the tractor, but kept the vacation, which turned out to be a good move on my part. I slept all that week and kind of stared at the walls as if I’d had a chemical lobotomy. Apparently, I needed a little down time. But not this week. I am on vacation from the offic...
Today I bring you the banal, the mundane, my trite self-discovery in household hints. Soap-pads Ohso Special. Also known as SOS or, in Español, “fibra metalica.” Can you believe I could not find any of those soap-embedded, finely-shredded wirey scrub pads that I think of as SOS pads, no matter the brand? Not anywhere in town. I am a proponent of shopping locally. Though my town is small, I generally find whatever I need in a store right around the corner. Fruterias and abor...
I was not popular in high school. Everyone says this. I now realize that no one — not even the most popular person in high school — self-identifies as popular. Lately I’ve been getting a lot of Facebook friend requests from people I scarcely knew in high school. I have a 40th class reunion coming up next year and I’ve been getting friend requests from people who, I am quite sure, would not have recognized me walking down the hall in high school. In their defense, I was par...
I don’t know what you’ve heard about Greenland, but it’s a strong, independent, saucy country that don’t take no nonsense off of any countries, even Denmark, which it is married to but not necessarily living with. If you know what I mean. Archaeologists have found prehistoric evidence that different Inuit cultures have inhabited Greenland starting in about 2500 B.C., but life was not easy there on the largest non-continental island on the planet. If you recall from almost...
My backyard pulls me out of the house. I take a book with me, as always, but cannot focus when surrounded by such magical glory. This is the same yard, the same beauty, the same powerful stillness around me day after day after day. What makes it feel different today? I don’t know. Maybe something about the quality of light in August. Already the sun slants winter-wise across the sky. Perhaps it illuminates more detail, each edge of leaf, each bird wing, each petal of b...
I spent the last couple weeks visiting my parents. I’ve been lucky in the parent department. It’s fashionable to recall some pivotal incident that occurred when we were eight and extrapolate how every difficulty experienced in our life since is a result. But I’ve never seen any truth to this in my own life. I was really happy when I was 8 — and I give my parents full credit. My life is very different from my parents’ life. Still, they have always been supportive and have alwa...
Homeowners know that when a leaky roof is spotted, it’s important to act quickly to find and fix the leak. If left unattended, that slow drip overhead can turn into a ceiling that collapses — costing far more to repair and threatening the integrity of the entire home. The same should be true for our public buildings such as schools, city halls, police stations and tribal government buildings. But the reality is that many of Montana’s aging public facilities are far behind in keeping up with routine maintenance, and the resul...
Don’t be fooled by the current Washington rhetoric about “reforming” the pharmaceutical industry. Most recently, Sen. Chuck Grassley has been promoting his bill which would place inflation-based caps on Medicare drug prices. There are also proposals to eliminate “middlemen” and increase transparency in pricing. While these things would be an improvement, they don’t address the fundamental problem of a drug industry gone wild. Thanks to our system for granting patents for new drugs, these companies are given a virtual mon...
I was going to start this column with the eye-catching phrase: I am tired of being a woman. But that’s not true. I’m just tired of all the falderal around the status of womanhood as a whole. Are we objects like doormats or arm candy? Are we being reviled, or are we being too sensitive? Are we being paid less than men; or is it the same amount in some financial mathematics form of “separate but equal,” making that discrepancy true; or is it less because we deserve it? Are fem...
Times Were Simpler We like to imagine Times were simpler then. We brag to grandchildren, Honey, when I was your age I walked a mile To school every day, Barefoot, through the snow, Uphill both ways. They laugh. We romanticize the past, Ignore ugly parts, piece a mosaic Of what we wish to keep. If only we could turn back The clock a hundred years … Times were no different. Wars, inequity, cruelty, Hatred, disease … The same. We were simpler then. Poetry? Ewww. Not that awful incomprehensible stuff we were forced to read in hig...
She wore it for one day in 1919 and it looked as if it was sewn with this in mind. My grandma’s wedding dress was more than a little worse for wear. It had been folded up in a small box and kept safe by my cousin, Jill. (How Jill ended up with it, I do not know.) I’m guessing the dress was sewn by a relative of my grandma’s, maybe a sister or one of her many cousins. There was no lining, no reinforcement of any seam. There were raw edges inside. Much of the dress was held toge...
Professional skateboarder Mitchell “Mitchie” Brusco, 22, competing Saturday in Skateboard Big Air at the X Games Minneapolis 2019, became the first skateboarder in history of the world to land a 1260 in the competition. That’s a spin of 3.5 rotations. Did anyone imagine such a thing could be done in the beginning? Skateboarding is relatively new in the history of sports. Sure the wheel has been around literally for ages, but it wasn’t until the 1940s that someone yanked...
There’s a simple principle savvy citizens use when evaluating politicians: to understand their priorities, don’t pay attention to what they say or how they vote during the re-election cycle. Focus on the voting record from earlier in their term. That’s an important thing for Montanans to remember about Sen. Steve Daines in all areas, but especially in relation to public lands, wildlife habitat and public access. His recent, re-election rhetoric doesn’t match his record. He’s currently crowing about his support for the Land...
Do you ever wonder if the big ol’ sun up there looks down and thinks, “Those are some mighty strange beings down on that little ball of mud, especially that one there, standing by the mango tree, looking up in the sky and trying to puzzle out the unfigurable”? (Not only can I anthropomorphize with the best, I’m good at making up words.) I can smell the moisture in the air. Morning is heavy with fog. The afternoon hot and sticky. The clouds split and gallop along the mountai...
The surprises just kept coming. When I moved in with Peter a few years back, I brought my clothes, a few books, and some artwork. I rented out my house, gave away my furniture, and everything else was consigned to “things I’ll deal with later,” a pile which — mysteriously — did not shrink with time. These stacked plastic boxes were still in my barn, still waiting for me, long after I’d forgotten what was in them or cared. But I am going to put the property up for sale and it...
His sensational investigation of the Teapot Dome scandal made Montana U.S. Sen. Thomas Walsh a national figure, known for his ironclad honesty, and his earnestly disciplined approach to his senatorial duties. There is no known picture of him smiling. With my interest in Montana history, I’ve made a practice of meeting and interviewing Montana historical figures. I met Walsh’s granddaughter Elin Gudger Parks through my acquaintance with the family of Walsh’s contemporary U.S. Sen. Burton K. Wheeler. The Walshes and Wheel...
The summer months are often filled with car events for Judy and me, and this summer holds true. We attended the June Geraldine Fun Days and car show in Geraldine. A friend of ours, Bob Farmer, who was promoting the event, invited us to bring our 1969 AMX. He had worked on the car for us quite a few years back in Havre. We ran into him in town and he asked if I knew where the car had ended up. As luck has it, we still own the unit, bought by my brother new and had the wherewithal to keep it all these years. Bob told us to...
Many ancient and traditional medicinal recipes call for animal parts, but modern medicine has its share of animal ingredients, too, and I ain’t just talking about how grandma told you chicken soup would cure your cold. From bear gallbladders to tiger testicles, bird beaks to fish bladders and deer eyes to alligator skin, animal body parts in traditional medicines are believed to cure everything from acne to cancer, malaria to erectile dysfunction and phlegmy lungs to organ f...
Yesterday my computer went strange on me, would not let me make any of my usual connections. So after trying everything I knew (not much) I phoned my son for help. Ben was at work, so he said he’d call me to fix it when he got home. A few hours later, I thought to give it one more futile try. Obviously, the dang bugger heard me make the call to Ben, quaked in its reboots and fixed itself. My errant computer was a small glitch in my day. Even with the importance my computer h...
Nobody was using the old wren house. My grandfather built it. Grandpa started building birdhouses when he retired from milking cows and his second oldest son took over. That son, my mother’s brother, is now 87 and retired 20 years ago. It’s a pretty old birdhouse. “My dad never built fancy birdhouses,” my mother explained. Grandpa put on a tarpaper roof and, if you needed to clean it out, you had to unscrew the back. But they were sweet little birdhouses, painted bright...
When I was about 15 years old a friend of my family rode his 10-speed bicycle on a 330-mile road trip from Salmon, Idaho, to our home in northwest Montana and then home again — a 660-miles that took about a week each way, averaging something under 50 miles per day. He was 16 years old, and this was in the dark ages before cellphones and internet. He had to use quarters in pay phones and know how to fold paper maps. I remember admiring that he even conceived of doing such a t...
