News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 637 - 661 of 3210
The plan was to buy everyone cake. My husband, Peter, and I are finally getting ready to leave Mexico, and we can’t say we are too happy about it. The last two months in San Miguel de Allende have convinced us that it is a place we want to return to, and now leaving it feels very hard — especially when my sister tells me about the freezing rain hitting her home right now. “We had to cancel our trip to visit Uncle Andy and Bea!” she tells me. “The roads were terrible!...
Remember those words from long ago? I glance at tee-shirts on computer side-bar ads, and see that phrases from when I was young and innocent, or at least oblivious, our phrases are making a comeback. So go with the flow even if you’ve no idea what it means. I remember during a particularly tough few years when my mantra (I didn’t know the word mantra back then) was “acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.” I thought if I said it often enough the words would magical...
In the space of a few days I’ve transformed from a hermit grub to social butterfly. It all began when John and Carol invited me to please, please, please join them for a lunch before they headed off into the sunrise back to Minnesota. I had turned down numerous such invitations during these last months, just not comfortable being out in the greater community. When you come to visit we will take you to spend an afternoon walking the grounds of the Hacienda del Carmen, a b...
One of the benefits of the modern foodie fascination for people like me is that we can just keep throwing ingredients together with abandon, but now we can attach professional-sounding terms to it and all of a sudden our haphazard cooking process is legit. When you make chicken something out of whatever you found in the fridge, it’s more eater-friendly to say the meal is “based on a traditional dish from the Oaxaca region of Mexico,” rather than “It’s kind of Mexican ....
“A child said, What is the grass? ….................................... “Growing among black folks as among white, “Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, “I give them the same, I receive them the same.” Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass Recent expert panels point to voter suppression efforts, legislative bodies that don't bother that much with the issues that concern citizens, and rancid partisan politics as “flaws” in American democracy. Each of our major parties agrees that the other party has become an existential thr...
The stage is now set. Although the general election is still months away, we know who will be on the ballot in November to represent Havre in the Montana House of Representatives. I’ve had the great honor of working for and with the community of Havre and a significant portion of northern Montana for the past 22 years in my role as executive director of Bear Paw Development Corp. During that time, I have worked with a committed team of economic and community development professionals to bring millions of dollars into our c...
I have a weakness for grouchy people. I have a couple of friends I would describe as perpetually grouchy, and I’m not quite sure why, but I think they are good for me. To clarify, I’m not fond of being around people who are in the habit of deliberately messing up their lives. I think everyone has known at least one person like this, and it’s hard to watch. I see the train coming down the tracks. I hope my friend will alter course. I try not to be too bossy as I suggest it mi...
What if, when you wake up from the coma, the hospital people are having one of those political differences of opinion? Medical Person One:“So Mr, Rawn, could you tell us who is president?” Me: “That's an easy one: Joe Biden.” Medical Person One: “Stop the steal! The real president is Donald Trump!” Me: “Well, things have been kind of hazy ever since the asteroid fell on me, so if you say so.” Medical Person Two: “Actually, Mr. Rawn was technically correct the first time, but in reality Joe is just a place holder while Kama...
In 2021, a state audit of the Montana Public Service Commission revealed “several situations indicative of an unhealthy organizational culture and ineffective leadership, including certain commissioners overriding department controls.” They added, “We believe this culture limited management personnel’s ability to enforce compliance with state and department policy.” Put differently, at a taxpayer funded agency, there was a complete failure of integrity that created an environment ripe for fraud. Being incompetent is bad, b...
With the peer review process complete as of last month, the scientific community has officially announced that they have now completely mapped human DNA, and winging it without any review or guidance whatsoever, I am here to tell you to keep the champagne corked because that doesn’t mean as much as it should. Reuters ran an article Thursday covering a statement from Eric Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute about the March announcement of the a...
Birds: Karen from Floweree reported to our girl-group that she heard her first meadowlark singing from atop a fencepost in her garden. We who no longer live in Montana sighed as the meadowlark’s unmistakable and beautiful song rang in our refreshed memories. Here in Jalisco, as everywhere else in spring, the skies crisscross with bird travel, some heading north, some arriving to build nests in which to plant new baby birdy eggs. Especially in early morning and late afternoon,...
I don’t know if this is an east side of the Mississippi vs. west side thing, or urban vs. rural, or maybe this modern generation of deer just lost its will to be wild, but I do know that I got the raw end of the deal when it comes to deer wrangling. A March 18 article in United Press International reported that a deer in South Bend, Indiana, got trapped in an empty backyard pool, so animal control and police officers responded to rescue the animal. The article says that the o...
I cheated death one day this week. Not in a dramatic or heroic fashion, naturally, but in that way in which you do something sketchy that the Universe normally tries to capitalize on. You walk out of the house wearing a pair of underwear of the likes your mother warned you about and you’re just asking to get into a car wreck. Or maybe that’s just me. Not that the unders in question were dirty, or ratty, or otherwise unsavory or even illicit, it’s just that, OK, they were...
Just like the headline says, friends do not let friends get hooked on Quordle. “What is Quordle?” you might be asking. If you have a good life, a happy and fulfilled life you are definitely asking yourself that. The naive and sympathetic are lamenting, I’m certain. “Have you gone and got yourself hooked on some new gateway drug that the nefarious street dealers are calling Quordle?” And thank you for caring, but no, you have it all wrong. The gateway drug is Wordle a 5-lette...
“What a sweet dog!” I said in Spanish. “She is a sweet dog,” the man walking her answered, in English. He had an Irish accent and was walking the young dog down the street as my husband, Peter, and I made our way home from dinner. “And she has no idea what will happen tomorrow,” he added. “What will happen tomorrow?” I asked. “She will get on a plane and fly to California!” he said. “Really?” “Really.” He sounded a little sad. “Are you going with her?” I asked. “No,” he said,...
If you have opened any messages from either the Democratic or the Republican party lately, you know the state of the nation is parlous, and it's up to you to fix it by making sure the other party, which is actually causing the trouble, doesn't win any more elections. But wait a minute. Saving the country better not be that simple, because the other party is going to win again sometime. The teeter-totter principle of American politics clearly states that, whichever party is up now, is going down again soon. And while we may...
“The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the pieces,” advised wildlife biologist Aldo Leopold. In ecology, that means saving diverse niches, all the habitat types necessary for native species to thrive. That is appropriate for our public lands. But some public land users are taking the best, the highest-grade resources for private uses. When the best is gone, they go after the next-best, and then the next-best. This is the high grading downward spiral. Grazing, for example, had so damaged public lands in the...
Was it Mark Twain who said that any two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead? I have a secret, but it is too good not to share. But I’ll only tell you. So get a mug of coffee and pull up a chair to the table. But before I spill my guts, let me tell you the backstory. In 1966, when my daughter was a baby in diapers, I lived on a small ranch south of Dodson. We had electricity. That is important because a lot of our neighbors were not hooked up to the flick of a switc...
For over a century, passenger rail has been part of Montana’s heritage, culture, and economy. It’s currently a lifeline for Hi-Line communities. And, without a doubt, it is part of Montana’s future. In the fall of 2020, 12 Montana counties, stretching from Sanders to Wibaux, came together to establish the first regional passenger rail authority in the history of Montana — the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority. Over the course of the past year, we’ve added five additional counties to the authority; ex officio represent...
My landlord, Jorge, is a patron of the arts. When I imagine a patron of the arts, I imagine some fabulously wealthy person in the past, supporting the creation of art in Italy or New York — someone with an impossibly luxurious lifestyle, maybe with a couple of designer dogs on diamond leashes standing at attention nearby. None of this sounds much like Jorge. Jorge runs a small hotel in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and spends most days either repotting plants or greeting customers. But I don’t know what else to call him bec...
As the Ukraine invasion entered its third week our gas and diesel prices now eclipse the old record set in 2008. Mindless partisan haranguing on causation and solution play out with hackneyed “Trump did it better” and “Biden has the vision.” Our energy conundrum is best addressed by an educated populace; not political platitudes. XL KEYSTONE Republican candidates and law makers have chortled for 14 years, “We need to build the Keystone.” Anyone still using this is admitting they have no idea what they are talking about. “We...
With food prices and the cost of living on the rise, many Montana families face the threat of hunger and food insecurity. The State of Montana currently has the opportunity to connect thousands of families and children in our state to federal food benefits, but is planning to turn down these funds. Unless Montana’s Department of Public Health and Human Services acts soon, Montana will miss out on an estimated $36.6 million in federal food assistance for more than 97,500 children. Last week, a diverse group of 60 local food p...
Chances are fair, some day soon you may be asked to sign an Open primaries, Final Four, Ranked Choice ballot initiative. When my curiosity about electoral reform sent me to the Ranked Choice Voting Montana website a few days ago, I knew about the recent call for a top two open primary from former Governor Marc Racicot and former Secretary of State Bob Brown, but I didn't realize the full package of Montana electoral reform might be in play in the near future. Even the Ranked Choice Voting Montana homepage-entirely devoted to...
I just saw the most marvelous little creature clinging to a hand towel out on my clothesline. I’ve no idea what it is, have never seen anything quite like it. Wondering what it could be, I lightly brushed it with my fingertips and it spread out, moved a few steps and settled down again. The body is much like a walking stick, wings closely tucked. Spread out, the wings appeared silvery gray, a lacy, gossamer delicacy. At the tip of each wing was a more defined, darker, s...
“Maybe I’m a little old for this dress?” I suggested tentatively as I made my way to the mirror in the little shop. I was in the artisans’ market in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where they sell everything imaginable — and quite a few things I had never imagined. I was wearing a dress that had been hanging on a rack outside a tiny shop in the market. It was in my favorite colors. I’ve been collecting “my” colors, various shades of blue and green. It started with the bracel...
