News you can use
News you can use
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Grandma raised me. When I was born, my Dad was overseas fighting in The War. My Mom had what we today call mental health issues. For all know, from stories told me by that side of the family, she might have been Mad as the Proverbial Hatter. Uncles and Aunts rescued me often and I’m sure they were glad to hand me and Mom over to Dad when he returned. My Dad was a farmer. He loved farming. He loved my Mom. Mom loved Dad. Mom did not love farming. I was 3 when my sister was b...
It’s that time of year again when the morning air is a little crisper, football season is upon us and our kids are back at school. Fall is my favorite season and I always look forward to turning the calendar from August to September, which is also my favorite month. Along with enjoying the changing seasons, it’s also a great time to celebrate our public schools. As our community’s kids from kindergarten to high school get back in the swing of a schooltime schedule, it’s important to remember exactly how important a well-fu...
In the last few weeks the most boring presidential contest in history suddenly became entertaining. First, in what would prove to be their last debate, candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump engaged in a a shambling race for the worst golfer title. Next came a gunshot, and a blood streaked Trump ascended triumphantly from the Secret Service pile up shouting, “Fight!” just before Joe Biden threw in the towel. Now, a moment later, replacement lead Kamala Harris is catching up...
I want to ride my tri-cy-cle. I want to ride my trike! Queen, I shall sing you all day. Do you remember your first wheels? Mine was a tricycle, all metal, sparkly red. I remember the size, the shape, the feel of leaning over the chrome handlebars, skinny legs pushing the rubber-clad pedals with all my might, wind in my face, tooling down the lane between the house and the barn. My friend Janet bought an electric tricycle and she is excited. Her excitement is infectious. I...
When I ran to represent the City of Havre and northern Montana in the Legislature, I did it because of my strong belief in common sense solutions — so much so that I made it my campaign slogan. During my first term, I am proud to say that common sense solutions is what I delivered, and the reason I am asking the voters of House District 27 for a second term. I want to keep working with colleagues from both sides of the aisle to find practical solutions to the many problems we face in Montana, especially here on the Hi-Line. E...
Here we are, smack in the middle of August, wondering how we got here already. Yes? As a friend said, “What do you mean, August? It’s only June.” Yes. June. I mean, August! The days move along too quickly on their progression through the equinox. You can feel the difference in the air, can’t you? It might be subtle but it is there. The air has a different scent, a different brush against your skin. A different energy. Summer is still with us. The signs of the season turning...
I have been blessed with many cousins. My two cousins closest in age were both boys, Brian and Dane. We went camping and hiking together and stayed in the cabin up north. We all remember the day we made tea from red sumac berries, and — after we’d drunk about a gallon each — my Uncle Mike told us, “You know that stuff is a laxative, don’t you?” (For the record, it is not.) We are still close, although I marvel at how similar we seemed when we were young, and how serious and...
When I moved to Etzatlan in Jalisco, Mexico, I said to myself, as well as to anyone who would listen, “I will live here until I die. This is my last best place.” Unless I die in the next few weeks, I find that I have one more last best place to experience in this life. It had been a month since I’d visited my new house in Oconahua, a casita tucked into a corner of property owned by Ana and Michelle. This morning Leo helped me load his car with a few things I could take over...
I haven’t gone camping in a tent in a long time. I grew up camping and, for much of that time, it was in a tent. My parents would take my sister and me to the Boundary Waters between Minnesota and Canada for about a week. We’d paddle our canoes from one lake to the next. We’d listen to the loons at night. We’d build a fire. We’d eat dried food — which miraculously tasted better the farther we paddled from civilization. We’d drink water right out of the lake, before we nee...
Lest we forget. I tell this story lest we forget. We have suffered a tragedy in our little community. You are probably tired of hearing me celebrate every raindrop. The rain that makes this mountainous country look like the green, green, green of Ireland, wears the familiar comedy/tragedy mask, same as any country with arroyos and gullies. Water will wear and tear channels through mountains, valleys and hillsides. Last week the rain turned its tragedy cheek toward our town. Et...
I am very concerned about the future of our federal representation in Montana. The issues that plague our great nation were not brought about by just one of the two big parties. They were brought about due to the long-time cooperation between uni-party members, both blue and red. Freedom Republicans have been staunch defenders of our liberties and have attempted to block some of the runaway spending and endless wars that Congress continually pushes. Unfortunately, these stalwarts are dwarfed by the establishment (uni-party)...
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...
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...
