News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 2745 - 2769 of 3208
Bernstein The Bureau of Indian Affairs was created in 1824 by the War Department of the U.S. government. Its main function was to control Native American opposition to white American expansion into Indian lands. The bureau became a part of the Interior Department in 1849, and the concept of containing the Indians within a system of reservations became official government policy. Today, the bureau costs U.S. taxpayers about $3 billion dollars a year. Its primary purpose seems to be to attempt to legitimize the 200-year-old...
Lindeen Here's to working together. Here's to the slow, arduous pursuit of compromise. Here's to the overlooked, under-appreciated, unglamorous middle ground. These days, we hear so much from the fringes that it's easy to forget that progress is possible. When Montana's Legislature met in 2011, one fringe ran the show, refusing to budge and leaving the people of Montana in a lurch. Moderates, compromise, and middle ground were scarce around the halls of the Capitol. Instead, we got a heaping helping of grandstanding and...
Jergeson This regular session of the Legislature concluded with the adjournment of the Montana Senate at about 3p.m. Wednesday, during the 87th day, three days early. The moderate center from both parties continued to hold throughout the final days and hours of the session despite the efforts of the radicals to crash the proceedings. To the extent I had a small part in forging that essential center among legislators, I consider the session to have been a success. We succeeded in balancing the budget, leaving a reasonable...
The over-reaction to the announcement that the Public Service Commission was considering rescinding administrative rule 38.2.5031, which concerns disclosure of executive pay, is both misdirected and ill-informed. Since the Commission's January motion, a steady flow of fear-inciting rhetoric has been showing up in newspapers and through the special-interest network. I would respectfully request that everyone who decides to comment on the value of the rule please do yourself and the public a huge favor and read both the law as...
In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a good person — neither am I a particularly bad person. I'm just OK-ish. I'll admit to that. Pam Burke If you need examples, then, for example, I harbor no ill-will nor ill-intent toward small children or puppies. But I have to admit that neither do I spend my free time knitting plastic, electrical-outlet covers for under-experienced children or puppies whose only desire is to create an industrial-type accident by inserting a t...
When the Public Service Commission first proposed the repeal of its rule which mandates the disclosure of utility executives' salaries, commissioners proposing the repeal argued that executives have a constitutional right to privacy and that the PSC has no business being a clearinghouse for information like this. I disagree with those points, and voted against the repeal of a good, pro-consumer rule at the PSC. Travis Kavulla It is obvious that a vast majority of Montanans...
In 2015, Montana will say welcome home to one of our state's greatest public servants, United States Sen. Max Baucus. Max, an avid runner, announced this week that he will be sitting out the 2014 senate race and instead retire after 36 years in the Senate. As the longest-serving Senator in Montana history, Max's decision to sit out stunned everyone from Washington pundits to Main Street Montanans. It was even a surprise to those of us who have worked for him for years. In his announcement, Max cautioned that he's not...
Our Hill County Courthouse is a beautiful historic building worthy of preservation and deserves to be an active part of Hill County and Havre's future. I commend the Hill County Commissioners on their quest to preserve and maintain our courthouse and applaud their efforts seeking CTEP funding to keep our courthouse safe and beautiful. This is not to impugn the efforts of the Softball Association. Both projects are worthy of funding and assets to the community. Our Hill County Courthouse is the most beautiful piece of architec...
Editor: Many of you are aware of this project, but for those of you who are not: I am reclaiming a campground, now named Hidden Hollows in Beaver Creek Park, about 1 mile south of Lions Campground on the west side of the road. This campground has the potential for seven camp sites that I plan to designate with fire pits, picnic tables and shelters with tin roofs and concrete pads. I will also be fixing the existing outhouse unless funding allows for a new one. My original estimated costs for this project were $8,000, plus or...
Havre Pride Day cleanup on Saturday was a great success. The Havre Pride Committee of the Havre Area Chamber of Commerce led the way for the spring clean-up campaign in partnership with Recycle Hi-Line and recycling partners Walmart and Pacific Steel & Recycling. The turnout to help clean up Havre and recycle was awesome. Thank you to each and every one of you that gave time to pick up many areas around town. I want to give a shout out to the schools, which did their cleanup Friday afternoon even though Mother Nature decided...
One of the most serious threats facing Montana's seniors and veterans is an acronym you've probably heard recently: Chained CPI. It's a policy you're going to be hearing a lot more of as the budget debate continues to heat up in Washington. Mary Williams In his most recent budget, President Barack Obama proposed changing the formula used for determining annual cost-of-living adjustments, called COLAs, that seniors, veterans and those with disabilities receive in benefits, including Social Security, federal and military...
I have to laugh every time scientists come up with another study about the intellect and emotions of animals. "Pet dogs show signs of empathy when owners are sad," they say. Shocker. And "Animals show signs of deductive reasoning." Y'think? I never would've figured out why my horse was pawing at the empty water trough while staring at my house, without that study. Pam Burke But nothing makes me laugh more than scientific studies which conclude that men don't understand women....
National Nursing Home Week is celebrated across the country in the month of May to honor nursing home residents and the caring, committed staff who assist them in their daily lives. As the administrator at Northern Montana Care Center, this week means special dinners, a talent show, awards and plenty of smiling faces at the "office." This special week is also a perfect time to focus on our mission at the care center and how that mission is truly changing lives. There has been a recent systematic, organizational change in...
Norman Bernstein The Havre-Hill County Library has been a focus of social life in the city and county for the more than 30 years that Bonnie Williamson was the library director. She made the library the weekly center for dozens of public service and assistance programs and year-round free arts, humanities and current events programs. Children's programs brought dozens of young people into the library every week to enjoy the interactive story-telling, music, dance, poetry, and writing events. It was a vibrant and dynamic...
Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher's partner in foreign affairs, and her mirror image in domestic affairs, was president of the United States from 1981 to 1989, during which time the U.S. national debt tripled, from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion. His administration reduced taxes on the wealthiest Americans by 60 percent, ordered vast increases in military spending, attacked labor unions across the board, caused a reduction in hourly wages, a rise in unemployment as unskilled jobs disappeared, and forced more and more wives...
Havre City Councilman Rick Dow will attend his last council meeting tonight. Dow is moving to Minnesota where his wife, a doctor, has received a good position with the highly respected Mayo Clinic. Dow's 16 months in office have been marked by controversy, just the way he wanted it. He has been an outspoken supporter of conservative causes. He's asked questions that aren't usually asked and made comments that are not usually made — at least not at City Council meetings. If Dow were to compile a list of the 1,000 things h...
On April 24, at 9 a.m., in a crowded suburb of the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka, the eight-story Rana Plaza building, completed in 2010, collapsed, killing more than 800 workers trapped in the rubble, with more still missing. In 2007, the local mayor had illegally issued a building permit for a five-story building. The owner, Muhammed Sohel Rana, a wealthy member of the ruling national Awami Party, had added another three stories, without adequate foundation, and without any permit. According to the building's architects,...
Looking east from Montana toward Washington, D.C., the view can be grim at times. Congress and the president are too often bogged down in rancorous bickering while solutions to our nation's most pressing challenges take a back seat to politics. But when it comes to protecting public safety, the 2013 legislative session showed we do things better here in Montana. When I took office as your attorney general in January. I supported and introduced legislation addressing issues such as child abuse prevention, repeat DUI...
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was buried last week at a small Muslim cemetery in rural Virginia, far away from the massive chaos he created while detonating bombs that disrupted the Boston marathon, killing and dismembering many people. During the search for him, a police officer was killed and a city was kept in terror. Tsarnaev is the face of evil, and it's easy to understand why people in the Boston area were reluctant to see him buried in their area. Still, I'm glad they found a place for him to rest in peace — the kind of peace t...
A few evenings ago, we were sitting in Vic's Place, on 1st Street, talking with Kurt Johnson, who, with his wife Candy, owns Vic's, the classiest joint in Havre. The "we" is my wife, Marged, the famous Havre poet, who inspires me in all things. Normasn Bernstein Vic's is named after Vic Spinler, of Hingham, who has kept the Park Hotel running for more than 50 years. He's 84 years old and can still tell you about every little quirk and oddity in the building, that was built in 1910, just across from the park in front of the...
Western Native Voice has watched House Bill 30, short-titled "An Act Revising the Close of Late Voter Registration," with growing alarm. This bill, introduced by Rep. Ted Washburn of Bozeman, purports to be a solution to supposed problems in Montana's elections. The main part of the bill will be to close and halt regular voter registration for 30 days prior to an election. However, no information is presented indicating why this is a good idea or even suggesting there is a problem that needs to be fixed. Rather, the regular...
I believe every teacher who dedicates his or her professional life to education is special and deserves respect and gratitude, and I would like to express my deep appreciation for Mrs. Kathy Sather, first-grade teacher at Highland Park Elementary Wednesday was Wonderful Wednesday in Mrs. Sather's classroom. Parents were invited to come to school for lunch and spend the afternoon in the classroom. We split the opportunity with my husband having lunch with them and me spending the afternoon in the classroom. Although, my...
One of the many old schools of thought about horses is that the initial purchase price is a small fraction of what you will end up spending on it during its lifetime. Horses are really just hairy fertilizer factories that you throw money into. Pam Burke My experience with adopting stray cats though has been just the opposite. Those experiences have gone quite well, from a pocketbook stand point. Apparently, though, there's a little bit of luck involved in the stray cat...
I spent my youth on a Milk River Valley farm in the '50s and early '60s, my life bounded by the river which held our fields like a broken cup. A mile length of private road connected us to the county roads and on to Harlem. In those days there was little need to travel further afield. In Harlem we could find the necessities, food and clothing, hardware and tractor parts. We even had a movie house. I went to Havre only for school or church functions, maybe three times in my...
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. — P.J. O'Rourke The dust hasn't totally settled on the legislative session ... we don't yet have the final fiscal results of Gov. Steve Bullock's vetoes. But the picture's beginning to take shape, and for those who believe in limited government and slower bureaucracy growth, that picture isn't pretty. Starting with almost half a billion surplus, a coalition of Democrats and swing-vote, squishy Republicans blew through that surplus p...
