News you can use
News you can use
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This morning after Qi Gong, I told Jim, “I write my column today and my mind is blank. ” “Easy,” his reply. “Write about purple.” We were beneath the Jacaranda, which this week is a purple umbrella, sheltering 50 shades of birds burying their heads in each blossom, milking the honey-nectar. In that disconnected way that one thought leads to another, I knew that what I really wanted to write about is my simple life. “Jim, the more I pare down my life, the more important small t...
Banks and credit unions don’t always agree on much, but they agree on this: Sen. Jon Tester stood up for Montana’s communities, and their small banks and credit unions, when he helped author a bipartisan bill to provide regulatory relief to certain financial institutions. The Dodd-Frank Act was a “one-size-fits-all” congressional response to the 2008 financial crisis designed to address the risky decisions made by “Too-Big-To-Fail” Wall Street banks. It was 2,300 pages long and created more than 400 new regulations...
March 20, I read in the Havre Daily News yet another article speaking out against gun violence toward children. Here again, like so many other letters and statements, it's only against the gun. And it's always the same answer, ban guns. Some blame video games, others, drugs and cults. bullying has been mentioned as well by our top shrinks. Never once have I ever heard that parental guidance was needed or was lacking. Not only are parents needed, but mentors and adult role models are critical for young development. From birth...
Local input is a hallmark of democracy. Good laws should and do bubble up from neighborhoods, country churches, and bar stools, just as bad ideas are often killed by the folks who have to live with the results. That’s why, if you’re running for public office, it’s a smart idea to say that you’re in support of local decisions. Imagine the alternative: “I’m from the distant government and I’m here to tell you how to live your life.” You probably wouldn’t win many votes. But that alternative is precisely what our lone U.S. Con...
I was never one of those chicks who had guys rushing to do things for her or even to save her from herself. I wasn’t one of those uber-pretty and delicate girls for whom guys fell over themselves, and I had enough sarcasm and swearing to make anyone possible rescuers think twice. Plus, my ridiculous parents raised me to be independent. What was that about? That said, I was raised to expect some coddling from loved ones, as I should do for them. My husband, John, does a fair j...
The Rail Passengers Association — a 50-year old passenger train advocacy group — is “pulling the alarm bell” regarding the future of Amtrak long-distance services. There is good evidence that a major discussion going on within Amtrak to consider cutting and reconfiguring its long distance trains — including the Empire Builder across Montana’s Hi-Line — to operate but 3 days a week. These discussions are apparently happening due to presidential influences in the White House, in the U.S. Department of Transportation and Amtrak...
Two weeks ago the neighboring trees out my east window were naked sticks. Today the same sticks are tricked out in every shade of leaf, heavy with green. Most trees here shed their leaves in spring; the old brittle leaves pushed off the branch willy-nilly by the new sprouts. The Jacarandas are still naked, just budding into flower. By next week a giant purple umbrella will fully cover the northwest corner of my yard. The Prima Vera wear great daubs of primary yellow. And over...
I waited for my friend — a combat veteran of the First Gulf War — at a restaurant. As I sat there, my Twitter feed was lighting up with news of Dana Loesch of the National Rifle Association who had put all of us lyin’ journalists on notice that our time was up. The practitioners of the First Amendment were being strongarmed by those who love the Second Amendment even more. And as someone who cherishes the First Amendment, I support her right to freedom of speech. I also have a message for Loesch and her NRA zealots: Right...
Congressman Gianforte is proposing two bills in Congress that amount to the largest reversal of public lands protection in Montana’s history. From the Upper Missouri River Breaks to the most remote corner of the Bitterroot Mountains, Gianforte seeks to open the door for mineral, oil, and gas exploration in 28 wild and remote places where many Montana families now hike, hunt, float, fish, and camp. Our lone congressman is not only assaulting public lands, he’s also assaulting public process and our way of life. Taken as a who...
I support all the students in Montana and across the country who are voicing their concerns about gun violence. The walkouts and March for Our Lives deserve our respect and recognition. We should be embarrassed that teenagers are showing the courage it takes to stand up to groups like the National Rifle Association and demand policies that prevent gun violence in our schools. We need to ask ourselves, how many innocent lives are lost before we do something meaningful? Have shootings at schools become normal, acceptable? When...
In 2018, we are at a crossroads for women’s rights and reproductive health. Who we select in the election for the U.S. House will have immense consequences for women in Montana and across the country. We have been here before. Forty-six years ago this very month, I was serving my first term in the Montana House of Representatives. I was a 23 year-old political rookie — the only woman in the chamber — with a head full of issues affecting our beautiful state that I thought needed addressing. At the top of that list was women...
This is another election year and my heart would be filled with a sense of dread and foreboding sauteed in a tangy brine of bored cynicism, if it weren’t for a few bright spots of hope. Hope for hijinks, pratfalls and a little bit of “what the what is that about?” already forming. Elvis Presley is alive and well in Arkansas, of all places, and looking for his magic moment in the Arkansas State House. The Associated Press reported Feb. 27 that Elvis D. Presley, who is a professional impersonator of famous rock crooner Elvis...
I feel sad. This morning I made a list of things I wanted to buy in Etzatlan. Since I don’t have a car, I rely on taxi service or a friend or one of the workers here on the ranch to take me around. I had asked Leo, my gardening helper, to “bring your car and let’s go have breakfast at Dona Mary’s before we shop.” It’s been easy for me to swing into the Mexican way of eating. Early morning coffee with a small snack, fruit or a biscuit. Mid-morning, a breakfast meal, somet...
Hiding under the labels of “conservative,” “Republican” and “federalism,” Broadwater County Attorney Corey Swanson attempts to justify his support for the CSKT Compact in a column in the Havre Daily March 2, 2018, and carried in the Helena Independent a few days later. Swanson’s taunting of conservatives who oppose the compact as being opposed to federalism is misplaced. The compact does not embrace federalism; it embraces federalization — or federal control of the waters of western Montana! Most conservatives,...
The following is my personal opinion and not that of Montana State University-Northern nor any of its other employees. Reference to letter to editor Feb. 28 which presents itself as a “challenge” to Professor John Snider but is actually a fact-free, logically challenged personal attack on the man. The Feb. 28 letter claims Snider has never written anything positive about Northern in HDN. A quick look at the archives shows that this is the first of many false claims the letter makes. For a comprehensive list of Snider’s many...
I’m calling it a quirk, but if I were hard-pressed to be honest about it, I’d have to admit that it’s a failing or a weakness or a glitch, even, in my brain. I suffer from homophonia. That’s not a word. I just made it up. I started with a real word, though: homophone, which describes how words can sound the same, or nearly the same, but be spelled differently and have completely different meanings. I occasionally mix up my homophones, usually when I’m tired or in a hurry, and...
Seniors will be watching closely as Congress engages in ongoing federal budget and policy deliberations in the coming months. At AARP, we will continue to monitor any proposed changes to Medicare, Medicaid (including long-term care benefits), Social Security, and other programs that so many of us, our children and grandchildren rely on to maintain the our health and dignity. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as Food Stamps) can be a critical piece of that equation for many Montana seniors....
Several of us here on Rancho Esperanza begin our days with Qi Gong, a Chinese energy-movement routine; good for balance, stretching and breathing. Breathing is a good thing. We have learned the form, Soaring Crane. Most of us are in our seventh decade. Samantha, our teacher, goes through each of the five separate movements with grace and beauty. We do the best we can. I would say I look more like a Crippled Crane. But I keep going. It makes me feel good. The last few weeks...
“I cried … I was praying to God … I didn’t want to die … I want to live to be old like you.” Guns and kids are tragically intertwined today in America. It shouldn’t be so, but it is. From Columbine to Sandy Hook to Parkdale and dozens more, our minds are haunted by the image of innocent young bodies brutally shattered and shredded by the effects of high-powered military weaponry. Public schools and kids. We could talk about colleges, or churches, or places of entertainment, but public schools are where this epidemic of g...
Behold the mighty comma — arguably the most common of punctuation marks, though oft misused, misunderstood and misplaced, and subject to roughly a bajillion rules — and one comma, or rather lack of a comma, just got its day in court. Oakhurst Dairy in Portland, Maine, just settled in court to pay $5 million in back pay to its delivery drivers because of the way a state law is punctuated — and because at least five of the company’s drivers are big nerds. Here’s the deal, Maine...
In 2015, the Montana Legislature ratified the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) Water Compact with Montana, which settled all water rights claimed by the CSKT under the 1855 Hellgate Treaty. This was the culmination of a multi-year negotiation process between Montana’s Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission and the CSKT. The final step in the implementation of the CSKT Compact is ratification by the United States Congress. The federal ratification debate has inevitably turned political, and now many of the a...
One of the best things about Montana is that we always step up and help each other when our communities are in need. We roll up our sleeves, set aside our differences, and help one another. The creator always humbles us and reminds us that one of our greatest assets is each other. Last summer, people from across the state stepped up to help our agricultural communities when some farmers and ranchers suffered crop and livestock losses due to fire and drought. It reminded us that we are a big state with a big heart. That is...
Can you believe it? My third spring in Etzatlan? And, my third year fighting with a squirrel. Truth to tell, there might be more than one, but the one I see seems to have the same face and the same cheeky attitude. My first year, when the surround of my casita was all dirt, she burrowed beneath the east corner to build a nest for birthing babies. Squirrels are cute. Cute when they are “over there.” When underfoot, I tend to view her as a rodent with longer hair. Imagine a nest of rodents making comfort under MY house, mak...
Montana’s farms and ranches are an essential part of our state’s economy. They also provide important habitat for wildlife and, often, public access for hunting and other recreation. Working lands support big game, upland birds and waterfowl, as well as numerous nongame species. That abundance didn’t happen by chance. For decades, Montana hunters and landowners have worked together to restore and manage the public’s wildlife on private habitat. Hunters and landowners don’t always agree, but our cooperation has given Montana t...
Nature is all around us, and sometimes it’s a little too much in-your-face. A Cooper’s hawk in upstate New York is helping one city with its pigeon problem, but not everyone is appreciative. A red-eyed, crow-sized raptor, the Cooper’s hawk normally feasts on birds like pigeons and mourning doves, which are often found in urban and suburban areas — so now the hawks are, too. NYup.com reports that a bank in Dewitt, New York, had a Cooper’s hawk move into the area in the first...
