News you can use
News you can use
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I am a 68-year-old retired farmer, fourth generation Montanan and a lifelong avid hunter, angler and conservationist with a degree in wildlife biology and research experience on large predators. I started farming in 1977. Now I own Circle S Ranch in eastern Montana and pay property taxes in five counties. I have always shared the bounty of the ranch with sportsmen and conservationists for free. No one has ever paid a dime for access. My wife and I have been engaged in conservation, habitat improvement, and fish and wildlife...
It is no secret that family farms and ranches face tremendous challenges right now. Corporate monopolies, a changing climate, rising health care costs and a lack of capital are just a few of the obstacles that today’s farmers and ranchers have to navigate to stay on the farm. While the organizations I am proud to be a member of are all focused on the challenges farmers face right now, we also have to keep our eye on emerging perils that could threaten the family farmers of tomorrow. One of these perils is a series of tax p...
The governor’s office called last week and asked if I was interested in visiting a couple of locations in my Senate district. It is hard to tell the governor of Montana “no.” Plus, it seemed like a great opportunity to show off our district. This past Wednesday, I met with the governor and his staff at the Liberty County Medical facility. COVID-19 protocol was in place, as a staff person had just been confirmed positive with the virus. The governor asked questions about staffing challenges. The response from the CEO was a nee...
Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm round of applause as we officially welcome into the human species, and perhaps an election near you, the 80-some hippopotamuses affectionately known as the “cocaine hippos,” and if you are confused, just wait until the end, where I make none of this clear. For those who haven’t heard or read in the news about these hippos and their legal case, the recap of the situation is that in the 1980s four hippos were illegally imported to Colom...
Years ago, when I was in the hospital in India getting a new knee, I walked the corridors as part of my therapy. At the end of the hallway I stood at the window and watched the construction activity across an empty lot. A new building was going up the old-fashioned way, with men’s muscles, not machinery. The empty lot was not really empty. The men’s families were camped in the lot. I’m making an assumption here. Perhaps they were homeless people, but as I watched, they seemed to be the families of the construction worke...
Editor, Sen. Steve Daines is holding the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act — BSCA — hostage. The BCSA, a bill introduced by Sen. Jon Tester, intends to strengthen public land protection while ensuring public access to outdoor recreation and the economic advantages to the Montana economy that follow from it. The BCSA is an outstanding example of what can happen when Montanans work together, because the act stems from collaborative conversations between recreationists, timber companies and conservation advocates that beg...
When I was 8 or 9, I played a game that I invented with my friends. On index cards, alphabetized in a recipe box, were written descriptions of fictional ailments, each with a ridiculous name and an equally ridiculous cure. In order to diagnose what illness my playmates suffered from, I would ask them a list of questions, including, “Do you worry about being late?” “Do you have time to do what you like?” and “Are your shoes or boots uncomfortable?” Then I would just watch them for telltale symptoms, like moving more than t...
My one brief experience with presidential politics occurred in 1995. My candidate was Colin Powell. The great historian Stephen Ambrose had emerged as a leader in the movement to win the 1996 Republican presidential nomination for Powell, and I was able to make contact with him in Helena where he shared a part-time home with his daughter and son-in-law. Ambrose, probably best known in Montana for his authorship of his biographical work on the tragic life of explorer Meriwether Lewis, was also the biographer of Eisenhower,...
Havre lost a great man yesterday, and I would like to personally take this opportunity to recognize what an amazing person Steve Helmbrecht was. First and foremost, if you went to school in Havre, or on the Hi-Line, played a sport, or had just about any other reason to get your picture taken, Steve was usually the guy. As a professional photographer, Steve did incredible work. Not just from an artistic standpoint, but what amazed me more is just how hard he worked. Steve seemed to be everywhere, from team photos, to school...
When a person benefits in some way from the tragic misfortune of another, I think it behooves that person to honor the sacrifice with a moment or two of reflection on life lesson take-aways. Or maybe I just feel guilty about getting official credit for identifying a bird that is a rare find in Montana, when really I only “found” it because my killer-assassin cat offed the bird and dumped its still-warm carcass on my doorstep (as if I would use the bird as his contribution to...
This morning, a friend whom I’ve not yet met sent a photo of foliage turned colors in Maine. Everywhere the season is turning a corner. Maine. Montana. Mexico. Everywhere. Rains are tucked back into their rain locker until next rainy season. We’ve a week with nary a drop of moisture, nary a cloud in the sky-blue sky. Immediately the daytime temperatures ramped up fifteen degrees. I put away the rain towels, draped across my windowsills since June. Just like that, I’m out dragg...
I am a person of generally good habits, which is why it is puzzling when I acquire a bad one. Habits are probably the most important thing when it comes to having a happy life. I eat things that make me feel good and are good for me. I take my long walk every day. I do daily push-ups (even though I hate them). I go to the doctor on a regular schedule, sleep a good amount every night. I haven’t smoked a cigarette since I was in my 20s, when it seemed like fun. I stopped drinkin...
Democrats, led by President Biden, Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi, are rushing a reckless $3.5 trillion tax and spending spree bill through Congress that would reshape the very foundation of America and push the U.S. down the path of socialism. The Democrats’ massive bill is the largest spending bill in our nation’s history and will create all sorts of new entitlement programs. To pay for it, Democrats plan to hike taxes across the board, making this bill the largest tax increase in over 50 years. In fac...
Editor: Too often in the world today there is truth in the statement, “These are wild animals, yes, but they are not free animals.” That is case with the American bison in Yellowstone National Park. The bison are wild animals but not free to roam beyond the park’s borders for just beyond those borders are hunters and quarantines waiting to determine their fates. Wild but not free is also descriptive of the big horn sheep in the Absaroka Mountains, mountain goats in the Beartooths, bobcats in the Bridgers, black bears in th...
This is back to normal? 510 Montanans hospitalized with COVID-19 is normal? If that’s the case, all I can say is, yikes. But, normal is exactly what Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte said Montana was back to late last spring. And while I admit, at the time, things did start to seem that way, this summer, they took a drastic turn for the worse once again — and now, at least strictly from a data standpoint, Montana is experiencing its worst COVID surge yet. And it’s not even close...
For a very brief period in my youth, I wanted to be famous, which was a very stereotypical urge but strongly at odds with my natural inclination to stay home and not be noticed. If I were going to pull up a couch and have a session about this, I would say that my neurotic teen-self thought being the exact opposite of who I was would be a loftier goal. Fortunately, my practical little heart won that tug of war and I’m all the better for it. Though, if I harbor some desire for a...
Honest to Pete, sometimes I’m blind as a bat. Yes, I know; let the clichés roll on. These last six years that I’ve lived in my Etzatlan house, I thought my bodega roof drained frontward. My neighbor Janet asked if I knew what that large pipe was about on the other side of our shared wall. What pipe? We asked “the boys.” Yes, that pipe drains the gutter from my bodega roof onto the other property and makes a right mess. Joe and Yvonne used to own both houses. They were her...
There are few things as daunting as buying jeans. I don’t buy jeans frequently enough to buy the same kind twice. By the time I’m ready for a new pair of jeans, whatever I’ve been wearing is unavailable, out of style, or both. Of course there are sizes on jeans, but the sizes mean nothing. They are only intended to provide some sort of rough orientation. It would be like saying you know how to find your grandmother’s house in Texas because you know how to get to Texas....
Remember last week when I said that magnetic north and south could just up and swap ends and that birds’ ability to migrate properly could be disrupted by that or by the mad scientists in France who are planning on firing up a magnet that’s 280,000 times more powerful than Earth’s magnetic field? Fun times. I’ll bet that more people than just the two who said it to my face were thinking, “Oh, Pam. You and your brain hopped up on google-y things are willing to write all manne...
We stood side by side on the ditch bank, relaxed, Dad leaning on his irrigation shovel. The July afternoon was quiet, air hardly moving, hot, dry. I was in high school but I can’t remember which year. A wisp of cloud lifted above the horizon. We stood together, in silence, watched the cloud gather substance. The spring rains had abandoned us that year. Here it was, mid-summer, and the earth gasped for moisture. We tracked that cloud all the way from the cusp until nearly o...
“We are cleaning up our stuff,” Meschack, the tile layer who now more or less permanently resides in our home, informed me. “We are giving you more space.” “More space!” I said in mock amazement. “Why would I need more space? I see at least three square feet over there by the closet and another four feet behind the dining room table!” Meshack squinted his eyes and looked at me seriously, as he does. He was again accompanied by his assistant, Yusefu, a recent immigrant from Ken...
Magnets are all fun and sciency until the earth gets knocked off its access. I don’t have to tell you that magnetic north is different from geographic or true north. We all know Santa’s North Pole stays put right where the giant candy cane was anchored into the permafrost back when he and his merry band of elves started that gift-giving franchise. But magnetic north — to where the arrowy thing in your compass is wont to point — just takes up residence wherever it feels like. We’ve been able to google that informati...
Watching Arizona’s freshman Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema trying to figure out how to vote on President Biden’s budget plan reconciliation bill reminds me of a Montana situation almost 44 years ago with freshman Sen. Paul Hatfield. In both cases, there was an important upcoming vote in which every vote counted. Both Hatfield and Sinema had let themselves become essentially the final necessary vote, breaking a political rule to never let yourself be the final vote because of the disproportionate blame that could be laid at...
In the 1920s, Adolph Hitler published his book titled “Main Kampf.” He advocated for big lies as he advised leaders who needed to lie to the public to tell only big lies. He assured his readers that people would easily see through small lies and reject them. He also convincingly wrote that the public would be in awe of big lies, accept them and act accordingly. For example, utilizing his philosophy, Hitler convinced many Germans that they were a super race destined to conquer and rule other nations. The big lie phi...
Editor, At least four times this last legislative session, the Republican majority showed us that they do not trust Montanan voters to decide their own future. HB 176 eliminated same-day voter registration. Originally passed by a bipartisan Legislature in 2005, a majority of Montana’s voters affirmed their support of this voting right on the ballot in 2014, when 57% of us voted to keep same day voter registration. The 2021 Legislature took that right away. HB 273 took away our right to vote on approval of nuclear energy p...
