News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 916 - 940 of 3210
I have always admired the Montana State flag. It tells a story of Montana’s past and our assets as a state. Currently in the Montana House, there are folks who feel we should either have a vote on whether we should keep what we have or redo the flag and vote on what will be offered. I have also heard the suggestion to just add some guns to what we have. This is what I see when I look at our flag: the Big Sky, our state nickname and what makes us truly unique; mountains, the beautiful skyline attracting adventure-seekers a...
My husband John and I bought a new car. And by new car, I mean we bought a car that is 14 years old, but it has barely over 100,000 miles on it, so it’s definitely new-new to us. In fact, it’s six years newer than the car it’s replacing. A lovely, understated tan car that died in six-vehicle pileup about three years ago. We loved the tan car so much that we shopped and shopped for another one, but they were too popular either to afford, or to stay on sale long enough for us to find and buy before some other lucky devil did....
One year into this pandemic, Montanans are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Our vaccines are safe and effective, COVID-19 cases are falling thanks to the tireless efforts of our front line health care workers, and Spring is on the horizon. But even with this good news, we still have work to do before we get through the worst public health and economic crisis in generations. Over the past year I’ve had hundreds of conversations with families, workers, doctors, educators, veterans, farmers, tribes, a...
Martin Luther King Jr once said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question, what are you doing for others?” Thanks to you, for 50-plus years Special Olympics Montana has cared for, lifted-up, and empowered people with intellectual disabilities to be all they can be through sports training and competition, health and education initiatives, and leadership opportunities. While we serve more than 3,000 athletes annually, nearly 20,000 Montanans with intellectual disabilities sit on the sidelines waiting for a chance to get in t...
True Montanans fully understand Virginia Woolf’s expression that “The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think.” We are trained from early times to know that sunny days won’t last, that rains likely fall when the hay is down in windrows, that ants infest every picnic. Not necessarily gloomy, but realistic. We are taught thusly. Here’s a different slant, OK. What I have come to believe, and Woolf’s quote fits perfectly, is that if we could see through...
The end of the pandemic in the U.S. is in sight. The COVID-19 vaccines currently available in the United States have proven to be outstandingly effective at protecting recipients from coronavirus and they are also safe. These vaccines — and the potential of others on the way — have the power to lift us out of the depths of this pandemic and put us on the path forward to rebuilding from COVID-19’s devastating economic, social, and psychological impacts. Put simply, getting America vaccinated is our ticket to halting the death...
Every election cycle, you can count on Republican candidates promising to reduce the size and cost of government, and in general, getting government out of our businesses and out of our daily lives. Yet as every session of the legislature demonstrates, that pledge — for the majority of Republican lawmakers — has a distinctly hollow ring. Not unlike their Democratic counterparts, the GOP’s commitment to controlling government and reducing welfare dependency is highly selective. For their friends, the free money game conti...
Throughout the past year, my husband, Peter, and I have been seeing no one except Peter’s sister, Lori, and her husband. Lori has Stage 4 cancer and has had a tough fight. She’s been on oxygen all this time. The decision of how careful we needed to be was easy. If we were going to see Lori, we had to be extremely careful. And as a reward, once a week we have heard Lori’s laughter. I’ve been writing fiction for the first time in my life. No one told me in advance that writing...
Week 11 already; just short of three months spent in Helena. Although we have a very nice place to live for the time we are here, it will be good to get back home. That being said, it is an honor to be here and serve you and watch out for what we Montanans believe in. We passed two voter initiatives dealing with marijuana in the last election. Now how to implement those into law is the task of the legislature. At present, a 280+ page bill is being drafted and being “fixed,” as they say, daily. One of the heavy lifts for Mon...
If citizens elect an anti-tax, anti-government legislature— like Montana’s 67th - it is not surprising that they get legislation that undermines government finances and weakens government services. Oklahoma and Kansas are two states that tried an ideological approach to fiscal policy a few years back. The results were disastrous cuts to public services, a fiscal crisis in each state, and near bankruptcy in the case of Oklahoma. They discovered that you cannot continually drain a state’s general fund and expect gover...
As I said in a column a few weeks ago, I’ve taken up archery and am completely enamored with it, largely because it has turned out to be one of those things in life that just hits me on a pretty deep and introspective level. Sure it’s fun — how can you not feel a rush shooting a bow and arrow? I split the tail end of one arrow with a perfect hit from a second arrow. That’s some next-level Annie-Oakley-with-a-bow stuff right there (Robin Hood, who?). Of course it was purely...
I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, and among the many reasons for that is a question that seems to buzz around in the back of my head before I close my eyes: How will COVID-19 be remembered? To be frank, I fear the answer. The United States has been hit very hard by the pandemic with more deaths than any other nation, including those with larger and more crowded populations and less public health resources. Communities of color, especially Native-American communities, have seen a disproportionately high amount of i...
It’s a paradox. Constancy — firm, steadfast, permanent, consistent, un-changing. We can count on something with the property or nature of constancy. One thing we can count on is change. Saturday I double-masked my face, and with my bottle of sanitizer in hand, went to town, for the second time in a year. The first time was three weeks ago for vaccination. While this later trip was not of ultimate necessity, I let impatience rule and set off for my favorite furniture store wit...
It’s our anniversary, and Peter and I will be celebrating, like everyone has this past year, the best we are able. We have not yet won the vaccine lottery. I recently received a note from the health department that basically said, “Don’t get your hopes up.” Newspaper columnists are not, apparently, considered essential workers and, of course, I am not. Meanwhile, we continue to visit my sister-in-law, Lori, whose health remains precarious. So our anniversary celebra...
As we approach the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Drop Structure #5 of the St. Mary’s Diversion, the spotlight remains on the unaffordability of critical repairs to the Milk River Project’s aged infrastructure. From Montana’s irrigators and farmers, ranchers, recreationists, and municipalities that span from Tribal Nations to Canada, the call for affordable repairs are continuing to grow. Not only are construction costs into the hundreds of millions of dollars, Montana’s irrigators alone are responsible for 74% of...
Montana hunters are being shut out of major decisions on future access to elk. The new approach in Helena, led by Speaker Wylie Galt and Fish, Wildlife and Parks Director Hank Worsech, is to spring legislation on us. Making major wildlife management changes without public input benefits few and hurts Montana hunters. I never thought it would happen here, but we must meet this full-on effort to limit public hunter involvement in wildlife management decisions if we are to maintain the title of the “Last Best Place.” For dec...
Editor, The Montana Legislature is back in session and I was more than a little concerned when I read that Republican Derek Skees introduced HB273. HB273 if passed would overturn Initiative 80, a long-standing initiative that gives the citizens of Montana the right to vote on nuclear power in Montana. I don’t understand why Derek Skees thinks the citizens of Montana would want to give up their right to vote on whether-or-not to produce nuclear power in Montana. I personally have huge reservations about producing nuclear p...
As leaders in the health care, patient advocacy and public health community, we applaud the State House Appropriations Committee vote to retain the Department of Public Health and Human Services’ two positions dedicated to tribal health, the tribal relations manager and director of American Indian health. As statewide health organizations and associations committed to ensuring access to quality healthcare across the state, we rely on and partner closely with Native-led health organizations and tribal health authorities, i...
The first week after transmittal is always like starting refreshed, with new vigor and looking forward to seeing what the House folks have for our committees. This week, I sponsored Emma Wickum as a Senate Page. Emma is looking to study political sScience and one day do lobby work. I connected her with some Helena folks and we visited with them: Molly Kruckenberg, the director of the State Museum, lobbyist Kali Wicks, with Blue Cross Blue Shield, and lobbyist Mark Baker, who works as a contractor for a number of businesses....
Dear Montana Education Leaders, In his recent directive implementing Executive Order 2-2021, Governor (Greg) Gianforte highlighted that “access to school is essential to the developmental, social, mental, and educational needs of school-age children.” We cannot agree more that access to school is essential to the health and well-being of our children and adolescents. Across our state and nation many K-12 schools have remained open during the COVID-19 pandemic by following a multi-layered approach to protecting students, tea...
Apparently, the coronavirus social distancing guidelines haven’t slowed down the Good Luck Fairy from spreading her magical glittery stardust around the world. Good Luck Fairy, better known to her friends as G’Luck, went nuts with that glitter in Connecticut last year in order for its magic powers to play a bit of a long game. The Associated Press reported March 2 that a Connecticut man, who wished to remain anonymous for reasons that will become obvious, bought a cobalt blu...
We all know what happens to the frog in a gradually warming pot of water. Too slow to react it eventually boils to death. Since the Industrial Revolution humans have been steadily turning up the heat in this big pot we call planet earth with ever increasing carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuel. Even hard core climate change skeptics are finding it harder to deny the harsh reality of global “weirding,” as dramatized by the recent extreme winter storm in Texas where millions suffered from lack of electricity, hea...
Because of the pandemic, health cautions and precautions, these past several days, I’ve found myself to be the only gringo in town, or to be precise, on the ranch. Tom and Janet drove their big yellow cargo van to Arizona for medical appointments and to bring back another load of belongings from storage. Lani and Ariel exited Etzatlan about when winter entered, gone off to lounge on a beach somewhere near Manzanillo. John and Carol, in a fit of stir-crazy, packed up their a...
I’ve never been a fan of March. March is supposedly spring, but we all know it’s not. In much of the country, more snow falls in March than any other month. But it doesn’t have the courtesy to stay. March snow falls, makes us shovel it, then turns into a sloppy mess in three days. It becomes slush, mixed with mud. The sky stays gray. And all the ... things (you know what I mean), things that were buried in previous snowfalls ... all those things come to light. Whatever they...
Editor, Here in the United States, and Montana especially, free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy. We have focused a great deal on how everyone gets one vote this year, but not enough on how everyone gets one vote. The full fairness of our democratic union is bolstered by expanding access to the ballot and ensuring that everybody gets a say in how our government is run. When only part of the state has access to the ballot, only part of the state is heard. House Bill 613 provides much needed revisions to...
