News you can use
News you can use
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In an era when untold amounts of tax dollars are spent on steering kids away from a life of crime — both before and after the criminal behavior has begun — through education programs and activities or young kids, teens and parents, Nebraska police recently dropped the ball during what Pamville editors believe could have been an educational experience for one of its youngest delinquents and his mother. Nebraska TV news website WOWT.com reported April 15 that a 3-year-old boy...
In the late ’70s — when disco was first showing signs of dying a merciful death and my puberty was still lying dormant beyond its expected arrival — author and avid pilot Richard Bach wrote this popular bit of wisdom: “If you love someone, set them free. If they come back to you, they're yours. If they don't, they never were.” I hated that sappy saying. And then someone gave me a poster. The quote was flourished over a fantastical scene of white doves flying off into a tu...
Several years ago when I made the monumental move from Poulsbo, Washington, to Harlem, Montana, with several truckloads of stuff, I unpacked and created a home that was also a library, an art gallery, a virtual grocery store, a tool shed, a fabric store and a workshop. My life was as complicated as that sentence. Jokingly, I swore that if ever I relocated again, I would take nothing with me. I would become a minimalist. My life would be defined by sparseness and simplicity. I...
It is, perhaps, true that the world is going collectively crazy. Or maybe it’s just something about North America. ——— Canadians, they always seem like the nicest, most level-headed people in the world, like the United State’s corny, eccentric, responsibly booze-loving, country-bumpkin cousins. Until now. Now they're just us. In May 2013, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford admitted to spending his days drunk in public, smoking crack and being an all-around, um, low-down no-good-nik. This...
Twenty years ago, Billings set the standard for community rejection of hatred and bigotry by saying no to racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic ultra-right-wing extremist behavior. We all know the story of how extremist hateful and bigoted activity tried to send a message that you were not welcome in Billings or America if you were black, Latino, Indian, Jewish or gay. Billings’ response was a continuum of courage over many months, culminating in a single act of solidarity that was stunning in its simplicity and its s...
One of the latest trending videos on the Internet is of a young man, presumably the Jared Michael who originally downloaded it, who was trying to get a video of himself, with his back to the tracks, as a train approached and passed. That was the plan anyway. As the 10-second video saga unfolds, though, it is revealed that Michael is standing very close to the tracks, and the young man gets kicked in the side of the head and face by a driver on the train. The blow flipped him...
Feels good to be back in Montana in the springtime. One thing for certain, spring in eastern Montana is reliably brown. Other places, other climes, daffodils are popping up their cheery heads, lilacs are readying up to perfume the countryside, trees are greening. We, who identify with this north country, appreciate brown hills with intermittent bluffs of gray. Modest glaciers of white bury the north slope coulees. The calendar may declare spring. We know better. Winter will...
As we observe National Child Abuse Prevention Month in April — and especially Childhood Exposure to Violence Week this week — I am particularly mindful of the lifelong cost of child abuse. In 2012, researchers released a landmark study about the dollars-and-cents cost of child abuse, revealing that the average nonfatal case of child maltreatment costs society more than $200,000: a cost which rivals other public health concerns such as stroke, $160,000 per case, or Type 2 diabetes, $180,000 per case. Some of this cost is pai...
A Montana district court recently ruled that Montana laws dealing with the wild or domestic status of bison are “ambiguous.” Those laws certainly are complicated, and for good reason. The Montana Legislature has purposely given joint jurisdiction over bison to our state’s livestock and wildlife agencies because bison pose a unique management situation. They pose a dire threat to Montana’s livestock industry because much of the Yellowstone bison herd carries the dangerous disease brucellosis. But more than that, bison have th...
April is National Autism Awareness month, which raises the question – what is autism? First, understand the misconceptions about autism. People with autism do not have a disease, and they aren’t broken, so they don’t need to be fixed. There is no way to protect your child from it and no diet or vaccine that will prevent it. Kids can’t catch autism at a play date, and no racial, social or economic class is safe from autism. There is no medical test for autism, and there isn’t a “cure,” despite what a celebrity talking head...
It’s not that I’m afraid of change or that I hate change. I’m just highly suspicious of change, and when I say highly I mean it in a big way that’s in all capital letters — and italics — like HIGHLY suspicious. Change operates under its own motives. Change is amoral. We know these things instinctually. We have the saying: Change for the sake of change is … bad, stupid, pointless, wasteful, insert your negative word of choice here. I know, I know, people also say change is inev...
People frequently say to me, “You are so courageous. I could never do something like ‘that.’” (“That” can mean any number of things, some crazy indeed!) I’m puzzled. Often, but not exclusively, I hear these words in relation to travel. For example, my cousins in Indiana are horrified that I drive the miles from Montana to their homes by myself. I could fly but I like to see the country between hither and yon. The solitude gives me opportunity to process the sights I see....
Want to make your voice heard on a deal which, if approved, will affect your power bill for a generation to come? The Public Service Commission is holding 19 public meetings throughout Montana to take public comment on NorthWestern Energy's proposed purchase of 11 hydroelectric generating facilities currently owned by PPL. In Havre, the meeting will commence at 5 p.m. and end by 7 p.m. on Wednesday at the Student Union Building's Ballroom at Montana State University-Northern....
Want to make your voice heard on a deal which, if approved, will affect your power bill for a generation to come? The Public Service Commission is holding 19 public meetings throughout the State of Montana to take public comment on NorthWestern Energy’s proposed purchase of 11 hydroelectric generating facilities currently owned by PPL. In Havre, the meeting will commence at 5 p.m. and end by 7 p.m. April 9 at the Student Union Building’s Ballroom at MSU-Northern. Whether or...
Montana’s wilderness. That’s where my mind went to most often while I was deployed in Southern Afghanistan as an explosive ordnance disposal operator in the summer of 2009. Some people missed their families, others had a sweetheart or spouse back home whom they missed, and others just longed for a good meal and a comfortable bed. But for me it was different. What I missed most were Montana’s wild open places. In Afghanistan I quickly learned that the most important thing was the people fighting next to me. Getting kille...
Looking out the window, and cautiously waiting for the moment when his father gets home, the fear begins to set in. Many reoccurring questions start to develop in his head; “What will he do this time? Was it my fault? Will it hurt?” Fear and anticipation begin to take over while his dad’s car starts pulling into the driveway. After noticing the angry look on his father’s face, the fear takes over. The boy jolts for the best hiding place before the father gets to the front door. The boys slides under his bed as the door be...
Last week was another landmark in the long and sad epic of the Rocky Boy scandal. Tony Belcourt, the once up-and-coming state lawmaker, and several other people, have pleaded guilty to felonies in connection with a series of bribes and thievery of federal funds that were designed to help residents of Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation and other areas of north-central Montana. Belcourt says he’s ready to tell his side of the story of his sentencing hearing, but few people can imagine he could say much to change public opi...
This morning I sat in front of my casita, reading a book, sipping tea, enjoying the breeze on my face, when suddenly five truckloads of Mazatlan Policia screeched around the corner and, positioning the trucks to face both directions, blocked the entrance of our street. Without hesitation, I abandoned book, chair and teacup and melted through the screen door into the inner recesses of my apartment. I didn’t bother to lock the screen or shut the door. Why would I? These p...
I am here to say that I suffer for my art, not quite the cut-off-my-own-ear suffering of Vincent van Gogh, but I suffer nonetheless. Sure, like many artistic sufferers, I brought on some of the troubles myself. I had waited until I had 10 days to do work I could've gotten done in a leisurely two months, but I had a plan, an elegant plan for completion of said duties by said deadline. And, like all fool-proof plans, it had underestimated the fool. On the evening of Day Two it...
It is quite possible that, since the age when mankind invented ways of making fire on demand, science exists solely to make life more awesome. Carrying stuff around on your back? A big drag. The wheel? Awesome. A four-wheel drive pickup? Awesomer, of course. That fire? It not only cooked the food to bacteria-killing temperatures, but it also kept you warm. And you could stay up after dark. Aaaawesommme. Electricity? Awesomer. It’s fire in a light switch. How can you p...
Last year a 62-year-old Martin City woman was reduced to thrashing on the ground, covered with blood from her snapping, wounded dog while her 5- and 6-year old grandchildren looked on, crying in terror. The family was out for a walk. Their dogs were both caught in foothold traps hidden within feet of the road the children were running on. The grandmother was trying free her 100-pound dog. She did, finally, with a superhuman effort. The incident was reported to Fish, Wildlife and Parks in November 2013. They told her the set...
It was close to 4 o’clock when I left my apartment to walk up the street to get a liter of milk, no specific destination in mind, just a purpose — buy milk. I could go to the frutera and buy milk and fruit. Or to the Farmacia for milk and an apple turnover. Or to the Oxxo for milk and pan dulce, a sweet treat for the next morning. Or to any of a dozen other small markets for milk and whatever might catch my eye. Instead, I crossed the street to Tony’s on the Bay, seated mysel...
It was an honor to attend the community meeting held at Stone Child College on March 11. An amazing movement is being created by the people from a broad sector of Hi-Line communities. The meeting demonstrated an excellent format by allowing individuals from the communities to take the lead. Proactive and positive change always comes when individuals and communities empower themselves through a passion to see change become a reality. The meeting displayed the following elements commonly found in successful groups which I have...
With a high level of self-entertainment and very little sense of self-preservation, my husband told me that I should teach a course on how to effectively torture and kill plants. Everybody’s a comedian. Too bad he isn’t good at it, I say. To be fair, evidence of my, um, expertise in this matter abounds in our household. And to be honest, he did just overhear me in my home office struggling, ineptly, to interview two greenhouse owners and letting slip a few stories of said tor...
“In my next life, I’m going to be a man. When I’ve punched the time clock, I’ll be off work, done for the day. Go home, grab a brew, the remote, grunt, and wait for dinner to appear. I won’t cook. I won’t clean. I won’t do dishes. Mess, what mess? Do laundry? I’ll wear them again tomorrow. Fold clothes, why? Prepare lunch to take to work? Nope. I’ll buy something at the store. I’ll scratch my privacies in public and grin, think it’s normal. Think burping and passing gas is sex...
