News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 3002 - 3026 of 3210
Clarena Brockie and Tony Belcourt are running for the Democratic nomination for a two-year term in the Montana House for District 32, which includes Rocky Boy's and Fort Belknap Indian reservations and adjacent areas. Belcourt is seeking his third term in the House. He is CEO of Chippewa Cree Construction Co., and has been involved in a variety of community activities on the reservation and in the general Hill County community. Brockie has been involved in numerous school and church activities in Harlem and Hays. She is now...
My friends, Cheryl and her husband Dave, are touring Spain and Portugal this summer. They will stay the nights in monasteries, fortresses and castles. In one stronghold, many of the bedrooms were, once upon a time, occupied by the master's harem. Cheryl said, "I certainly am not going to sleep in one of those rooms. I want no part of a harem." Personally, give me the harem room. I've seen the movies. I could stand to be waited on hand and foot. I can see myself lounging...
This week opened with news that Montana's Attorney General filed briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to revisit the 2010 Citizens United decision and give Montana's restrictive campaign finance laws a pass. With all due respect, I think our AG is either stuck in a time warp or doesn't understand the basics of a marketplace and especially a marketplace of influence or ideas. Montana's campaign finance laws date back to when copper barons outright owned much of our state's legislature and most of its media outlets....
Pamville News reporters have been scouring the news wire to bring you, the discerning public, the latest in the most important issues. And speaking of public — the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas is bucking Texas redneck traditions with a Texas-sized red face. Seems the guests at their commencement ceremony this year were handed programs with a missing L, making it the School of Pubic Affairs. School officials did their best to correct t...
I think it's high time we quit bad-mouthing air traffic controllers. A few weeks ago, investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration corroborated allegations by a former ATC, a Mr. Evan Seeley (pronounced "stoolie"), that some of his colleagues were low-life scum. Seems when flight traffic thinned out at a certain, gruff New York airport, ATCs watched movies on laptops, gambled online, threw stilettos at helpless rats, sharpened pencils with their teeth, and ate cucumber sandwiches laced with dill seed. The reports,...
I was half listening to my radio. The woman's voice said something like this: "I'm retired. Retirement isn't the end. Retirement is another phase. I worked hard all my life. Now I can live." "Whoa," I responded. "I've worked hard all my life too, but it would be a crying shame if I had to wait for retirement before I could live. What's that supposed to mean?" Sondra Ashton The past few days, every time I turn around, a reminder to live fully has popped up smack in my face. I...
He may look like the stuffy academic type, but James Lipton, host of Bravo channel's "Inside the Actors Studio," knows how to play nice with the politicos. After a cartoon in The New York Times suggested that presidential candidate Mitt Romney should take acting lessons from Lipton to "learn how to appear more relatable," Lipton played along by submitting a blog post of suggestions to New York Magazine. In his blog op-ed "How to Act Human," Lipton suggests, among other things,...
One of the primary reasons many outdoors-minded people have chosen to live in Montana is the love of the landscape and the unlimited outdoor opportunities this great state has to offer. Montana is a sought-after destination by many who want to experience the beauty and rich wildlife resources available to all. In this new technological age, and with the greater ability to commute elsewhere, Montana is becoming a popular home base for many. However, many Montanans may take for granted what we have today and may not realize...
More than 30,000 Montanans are unemployed. Our country is $16 trillion in debt. And if Obamacare is allowed to be implemented as currently written, Montana's current budget surplus could be wiped out within 24 months from exploding Medicaid payments. This is not the time to bail out public pension funds in Montana. I have laid out an economic expansion plan that deals with pensions at a later date, once our economy recovers and more Montanans are back to work. We need to keep our priorities on what's most important right now,...
Maybe we could then combine the pool budget for this year with the budget for next year to do the most needed repairs. Maybe the person who made that comment was me. You know how small towns are. The next day half the citizenry were in a panic and an uproar. "Did you hear? The city is going to close the pool. Where will our children go if they cannot go to the pool?" In a mere 24 hours, my suggestion, which had been ignored at the meeting, had now become gospel truth. Sondra...
This July 4, thousands of Montanans hit the roads to visit family, watch fireworks, get out of town and relax. That special day reminded us of the precious freedoms our forefathers fought so hard for; so many freedoms, in fact, that we could not begin to list them all. The freedom to go where we choose, the freedom to say what we want to say, and the freedom to gather and celebrate are just a few. All you have to do is turn on the nightly news to see that so many of the freedoms we enjoy are not shared across the globe. We...
The role of the press in our country is quite unique. They are called to be the most inquisitive amongst us. Their importance and power is specifically enumerated in the First Amendment to our U.S. Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press … ." In the words of Socrates (470 BC - 399 BC) the press should be counted on to "follow the story wherever it leads." Rick Dow I would like to thank t...
Sometimes the only reasonable solution to life's problems is too much pizza. Sure, I have it from good sources that, in times of need, prayer and meditation are highly beneficial, but — and I don't mean to be hyper-critical — they seem overly complicated and seriously flawed. If I go the prayer route, there's that whole dilemma of whom to pray to and in what language, format or respectful posture (and honestly the thought of tackling that makes my head feel like one major ane...
Should workers and employers have only seven to 10 days notice before they face a unionization election? Apparently, that's the union boss standard being forced on Montana's workplaces. If these so-called "ambush elections" become enshrined in federal labor regulations, we'll see a steady rise in forced unionization and the discord and disharmony such activity brings to our workplaces. No one disputes the right of employees to freely join a union and collectively bargain for their rights. But joining a union is a big...
As the end of the school year rapidly approaches students in the class of 2012 have already began to make plans for graduation. Graduation is the culmination of a K-12 journey that is cause for celebration. On Sunday, May 27, at 4 p.m., family, friends and the community will gather inside the Havre High School gymnasium to commemorate this joyous occasion. Unfortunately there are students who started that journey that for varying reasons will not be present at the ceremony. It is an unsettling truth, and we as a school...
I started reading the Women's Health Magazine article "First bite warning: Foods that make you do bad things," which explains how eating sugary, fatty and other junk foods starts people on a crazed, junk food binge. Duh. I was hoping to read that lima beans cause carjackings, or canned asparagus has been linked to adultery and tax fraud, or fried liver and onions is the leading cause of sociopathic behavior in teens. Nevertheless, I'm sure I'm right. ——— Denver telev...
"I don't know what to do," said Kathy. "Richard thinks he has to have a chain saw. I keep telling him we don't have money in the budget for a chain saw, but you know Richard. He is researching for the perfect model." "Are you sure he hasn't already bought one? Did you check to see if he has one hidden in the trunk of the car? And, whatever you do, don't take any trips without Richard." When Kathy and I go on a trip, Richard often takes the opportunity to buy his latest...
A recent 24/7 Wall St. website article, "The most, and least, safe states in America," looks at statistics from the nonprofit Institute for Economics and Peace to compile lists of the top 10 least and most safe states. Montana didn't make either list. The report, at http://economicsandpeace.org, says we're the 18th most peaceful state in the union. Not shabby, not awesome. Montana hasn't made other top 10 state statistics lists either: The Center for Public Integrity's least...
Graduation Matters Montana. All across the state, students are walking across the stage to receive their diplomas and celebrating this significant milestone with their families and friends. As state superintendent, I have the privilege to share in several graduation celebrations. This year, I will speak at Rocky Boy's high school graduation after being invited by two students who serve on my Student Advisory Board. These two young leaders started a peer mentoring program to improve their school's graduation rate, and both...
A gray compact car eased up to the curb in front of my house. Two women got out and started up my walk. I had seen them drive up, so I met them at the door. They seemed hesitant. A bit red-faced. One of them asked, "May we see your bathroom?" "Oh, of course." I was relieved that the purpose of their visit was neither religious nor political. "Come in." I'm used to strangers who knock on my door and ask for the bathroom tour. Generally, they follow the request with "so and so...
Graduation Matters Montana. All across the state, students are walking across the stage to receive their diplomas and celebrating this significant milestone with their families and friends. As state superintendent, I have the privilege to share in several graduation celebrations. This year, I will speak at Rocky Boy's high school graduation after being invited by two students who serve on my Student Advisory Board. These two young leaders started a peer mentoring program to improve their school's graduation rate, and both...
As a Montana newspaper editorial succinctly put it: "The greatest living issue confronting us today is whether the corporations shall control the people or the people shall control the corporations." Jim Hightower That might sound like it was written in the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling. But it was actually in 1906, back when Montanans were rising up against out-of-state mining corporations known as the "copper kings." Those corporate powers were exploiting Montana's workforce, extracting its public...
Many years ago, when I was Back East, the newspaper I worked at was in an old-fashioned newspaper war with a paper in a neighboring community. One of the columnists for "the other guys" was a young woman who learned one day that she had cervical cancer. Many of us would crawl into a corner, fearing the future. Not this woman. She began writing a column periodically on her disease, updating readers in how things were going and how she was feeling as the cancer progressed. She knew all along that the final column would not be...
Politico, the website that is the go-to place for political junkies looking for their fix, has been paying a lot of attention to Montana in recent days. Every month, Politico lists the top 10 most closely watched U. S. Senate races in this November's elections. Once again in July, Montana's donnybrook between incumbent Jon Tester and U. S. Rep. Denny Rehberg was third on the list, trailing only Massachusetts and Virginia. Tester "won" July, Politico declared, based on his success with his campaign ads claiming that Rehberg...
When I moved back to Harlem, what was supposed to be my lawn looked to me to be a 40-acre grass-infested weed patch. In reality, huge as it seemed, my house sits on a mere two city lots with a large backyard. I was used to natural landscaping with nary a blade of grass to nurture. And danged if I was going to start. I cringed at the thought of spouting our limited water onto grass to mow to water to mow and so it goes. The first year in my transformation plan, I set out...
