News you can use
News you can use
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One of my favorite stories as a child was “Stone Soup.” I don’t know if you know it or not. It’s an old European folktale, and there are a lot of variations, but in most of them two soldiers come into a town during a war. They ask for food, and everyone tells them they have nothing to eat. So the soldiers build a fire, and they ask an old woman if they can borrow a pot because they are going to make stone soup. “Soup from a stone?” the old woman asks. “Yes,” they say. “We a...
Are the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Montana U.S. congressional delegation on the same “sheet of music” on plans to fix two failed steel siphon pipes near Babb? Are they talking? Exceptional reporting from Tim Leeds, Joshua Murdock, and Keila Szpaller reveal competing priorities that need a “Marshall Plan” to meet “cost, schedule, and performance.” As a former legislative aide at the U.S. Capitol, I used cost, schedule, and performance criteria to fund — or not fund — programs with taxpayer dollars. Let’s apply the three cr...
I told my husband, Peter, when he first announced the idea, that I thought it was dumb. I probably didn’t say “dumb,” because I try to be nicer than that. But I let him know that I thought his idea of getting exercise by climbing stairs in the stairwell was, well, kind of dumb. “Find out if I can access the stairs in the stairwell!” he told me, after we had purchased this condo, sight unseen, during the pandemic. We didn’t see it for almost two years. When we were finally rea...
With this year’s campaign in full swing and the stage set for November’s general election, it’s time to turn to that age-old event that is so important to voters to get a better understanding of where candidates stand on important issues of the day — the debate. This year in particular there has been an extraordinary amount of focus on debates between candidates, especially at the presidential level, and the role they play in vetting those who aspire to represent us in government. At the federal level, the nominees for U.S. S...
It was not the usual party. Bear with me while I paint a picture for you of the background that led to this strange, but not unfamiliar, party. First thing, Baby Marley, my great-granddaughter, who spent the winter in the hospital NICU in Billings, who is still fighting the effects, came down with COVID. Oh, yes, the whole family fell ill, one by one, like a standing-on-edge row of dominoes. Every morning I’d check in. How is Marley? How are Kyla, Leilani, Tate, Jessica and D...
Poor Homer. He started to look disreputable. Rather down in the mouth, long in the tooth, rusty around the edges. Sadly, I had reached the age to consider procuring a companion. While Homer is not exactly a cabana boy, I was attracted to him the first time I saw him. His price was mind-boggling. It took me a good year of back-and-forth trips to Tonala, home of huge artisans bazaars, before I made the purchase. This was back in the first couple years I lived here, when each...
It is construction season. The building we live in is 40 years old, and it was recently discovered that water was finding its way behind the brick. This requires some very loud repairs that are not expected to be finished until fall. Usually, I am just finding my way to the coffeepot around 8:30. But now there are men standing on scaffolds, jackhammering bricks at 8 a.m., right outside my window. If I open the drapes, I can see their boots. There is no one to blame. The men...
“If you could master any language in the world, what would it be?” “C++.” It’s a classic programming joke. The humor is ironic: language skills are less important than technological ones. Humor, I’m told, doesn’t flourish in tech. Computers can’t understand it. And, some would argue, neither can engineers. But the computer bit isn’t quite accurate. Chatbots based on large language models, like ChatGPT, don’t understand things the way we do. But with enough data, they can communicate like us. They can even repeat jokes when p...
It is construction season. The building we live in is 40 years old, and it was recently discovered that water was finding its way behind the brick. This requires some very loud repairs that are not expected to be finished until fall. Usually, I am just finding my way to the coffeepot around 8:30. But now there are men standing on scaffolds, jackhammering bricks at 8 a.m., right outside my window. If I open the drapes, I can see their boots. There is no one to blame. The men...
One of my Montana classmates, who has chronic problems with her back, sometimes to the point she cannot walk, told us the story of what happened a several years ago that caused her to resort to hanging onto her walker this week. Cheryl was on a ladder painting the eaves of a new-built garden shed. She needed to move the ladder, started down, slipped and landed on her bottom, broke her tailbone and crushed several vertebrae, but, by golly, she hung onto the paint bucket. Does...
I’d never been to a U.S. citizenship ceremony before. I’d never even thought about it much. I knew the process took a long time but, beyond that, I knew nothing about it, until I was invited to one. My dear friend, Betty, was coming in from out of town to attend the citizenship ceremony of her son-in-law, Raul. Raul is a quiet and soft-spoken man who works in corporate catering. He has been waiting to become an American citizen for many years and finally, last Thursday, he...
Rainy nights. Sunny days. Moderate temperatures. “I could live in this season forever,” I said to a friend this morning. If only. Right? Nope, we get to experience all things. We got to experience a mountain-storm almost-tsunami the other night. A right whopper. A few days prior, during a lighter storm, I lay in bed thinking about geography. I’m at the foot of mountains. If a phenomenal rainstorm, something much more than the ordinary, were to burst forth, we could be flood...
Biodiversity is simply the web of life that includes us. Montana lists over 300 species at risk or potentially at risk. That is evidence that the global biodiversity crisis is a Montana crisis as well. This crisis calls for a national biodiversity strategy. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon introduced in the Senate a resolution to create a national biodiversity strategy, S. Res. 494: “A resolution expressing the need for the Federal Government to establish a national biodiversity strategy for protecting biodiversity for current a...
There are 33 million reasons to protect Medicare Advantage. That’s how many American seniors and persons with disabilities rely on the program for affordable health care with more benefits and better health outcomes at a lower cost than fee-for-service Medicare. I should know — as a senior living with tight margins every month, the cost of my health care is very important to me given the increase in costs of just about everything these days. Thankfully, Sen. Jon Tester has long been a supporter of Medicare Advantage, a pro...
I am packing the long packing. I am saying the long good bye. I am readying myself for the big move, the great distance of ten kilometers, all the way to far off, exotic Oconahua, a move which is months away. I love where I am living now, this place, this small house, all my plants. Nobody would ever question my love for this place. And this place has loved me back, big loves. Everybody’s financial and personal situations are different. We who live on the rancho are a v...
Last night, my husband, Peter, and I went to see the play “Come From Away.” I read about it last year, waited for the day tickets were available, and bought the very best cheap seats I could buy. I love going to the theater more than almost anything, so you might be surprised to learn my husband is not much of a theatergoer. I’ve learned, over the years, if I ask him months in advance, he imagines the date will never come and agrees to go with me — and that’s what he did when...
Having proudly served as former secretaries of state in Montana, we understand how important democracy is to the people of our state. It’s not a matter of what side of the aisle you stand on — it’s a matter of what you value. Recently our state’s Supreme Court reaffirmed that Montanan’s right to cast a ballot is not a mere privilege — it is a right guaranteed by our Constitution. A coalition of lawmakers in Congress, including Montana’s Sen. Jon Tester, are working to uphold the integrity of our democracy through the F...
I never learned my multiplication tables. Not really. To this day, if you ask me, “What is six times nine?” out of the blue, with some urgency, I will panic. (Please don’t do this.) The troubles started when I was transferred from one math class to another in the third grade. I now understand that this was some sort of promotion from lower math to higher math, but it did not feel like that at the time. Almost immediately, I realized everyone around me was privy to some secret...
I’m not going into a lot of detail. There was a death, not unexpected, in the family who own this rancho. It’s a big family, a lot of history here. For the past few days, it’s felt like, humor me here, spirits wandering, a lot of back and forth, disconnected and disconcerted. I’m talking about a lot of restless spirits. I’m sensitive to these things, to an extent. Aware, that’s all. This morning I woke up angry, for no discernable reason and with no object for my anger. This...
When it comes to hunter crowding and the state of mule deer, non-resident hunting pressure and harvests aren’t the only culprits, but mounting evidence shows they’re a big one. According to an FWP Interoffice Memorandum dated 5/6/2024, the “total Region 6 mule deer harvest in 2023 was estimated at 9,986, 28% above the 26-year average” and — for the first time ever — non-residents harvested more antlered mule deer than Montana residents in Region 6. The memo added that “antlerless harvest in 2023 was 35% above the 26-year a...
Having lost an election, I know it hurts to lose. I know, too, that there is a good life beyond losing because I’ve been living it for the past 20 years. I know that the people’s will in a democracy can only be determined by a process of elections; American democracy has successfully functioned on that model since George Washington. When the people lose their faith in elections, democracy is finished. There have been as many losers as winners in our legacy of elections extending back over 230 years. By their respect for the...
Out of nowhere, no foretaste, foretelling, forewarning, it dropped from the sky, swooning, gobsmacked us in the best way. Rain, glorious, wondrous, wet, rain. Before the sun settled, the rain swung low like a sweet chariot, and dropped love from the sky. The trees, the grasses, the flowers, the chili peppers, the weeds, me; we all lifted our arms in glad welcome. Lola The Dog scurried into her wee casita and hovered against the back wall. Lola is not a water dog. She cools...
My dad doesn’t like asking for help. He told me this recently when he asked if I could help him put out the dock. His knee was bothering him, and the dock was pulled up on shore at a steep incline. The dock frame was rolled into the water and then the boards of the dock were laid into place. It was a good job for two people and two sets of hands, especially since my dad’s knee is bothering him and he’s been legally blind for a number of years. My dad doesn’t like asking...
I’m about the only person I know without a tattoo. Well, this is not true. My parents don’t have tattoos, and I don’t think most of their friends do — although I’ve not done a close inspection. That would be hard to do, and probably not very polite. But among people my age and younger, I’ve become something of an oddity, yet I can honestly say I’ve never considered getting one. This isn’t because I have anything against tattoos. I’ve seen some that were beautiful. But I’ve als...
Recently, I joined other National Farmers Union leaders in meetings with the House Ag and Senate Ag committees about each of their versions of the 2024 Farm Bill. Based on those discussions, a tight timeline, and the need for modifications to both versions, I’m not optimistic for the passage of a 2024 Farm Bill but foresee another extension. The Senate version and the House version of the Farm Bill are strikingly different — and, in the current Congress, “compromise” is a dirty word. Nonetheless, Congress will not allow t...
