Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/author/david-crisp/page/17/)
Rocky Mountain College faculty and staff got an unusually upbeat message Wednesday from President Bob Wilmouth. The annual all-campus meeting has focused in recent years on financial and enrollment challenges facing the liberal arts college. But Wilmouth told a packed auditorium today that he had good news. The college had its first positive net revenue in more than five years in 2015-16, he said. Positive revenues also are expected in 2016-17. Continue Reading →
A spokesman for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign defended his statement on Monday that Hillary Clinton “lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS” by saying that Trump was referring to policy differences. “Mental and physical stamina” is a synonym for “policy”? OK, I thought: It is official. Words no longer mean anything at all. It’s kind of a relief. Continue Reading →
Lee Enterprises, Montana’s media behemoth, has purchased a share of Okanjo, a native commerce company in Milwaukee, Wis. Native commerce has nothing to do with business on the reservation. It’s a technique for presenting ads on web pages so they blend seamlessly with news content. Lee’s investment in Okanjo was announced in May, but the two companies had been working together for a year, according to an article in the August issue of Editor & Publisher. The size of Lee’s investment and its stake in the company were not disclosed. Continue Reading →
The rollout of two new books about high school basketball in Montana turned into an appreciation of basketball legend Larry Pretty Weasel here on Wednesday. Pretty Weasel is widely considered the best Indian high school basketball player in Montana history, and some people call him Montana’s greatest high school basketball player, period. He also is a key character in a new book by a Hardin teammate, Steven E. Dyche, author of “Integrated Basketball at the Little Big Horn: A 1957 Success Story.” (more…) Continue Reading →
Somebody was wondering the other day why the Billings Gazette had not announced its new redesign. Good question. The redesign rolled out on July 22, when I was in Texas, so I figured I had just missed the announcement. But going back through the paper, I see no mention of the changes that day, or the next, or on the Sunday opinion pages. Google also didn’t help. Continue Reading →
My wife just retired, and I have turned 65, which makes us likely marks for professional scammers. Twice this year we have gone to presentations by people who offered to make our lives wealthier, happier and more rewarding. We’re still waiting. The first was a phone call inviting us to a sales pitch for new and improved attic fans and insulation. This drew my interest because the temperature in my attic office soars on summer afternoons and doesn’t cool off until long after the sun goes down. Continue Reading →
Economic times are good for Montana—but not that good. In a presentation in Billings on Tuesday, speakers from the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana gave a generally upbeat overview of the Montana economy, but they warned that 2016 is unlikely to be as good a year as 2015 was. (more…) Continue Reading →
New York magazine has an infernally long but rewarding story about everything wrong with the media today. Based on interviews with more than 40 journalists, the article gives 53 reasons, with examples, of how the media screw up. If you are insufficiently depressed, it’s worth a look. Even if you aren’t, you might take a moment to skip down to No. 29, under the heading “Whoever the subject, the press can be cruel.” Marin Cogan describes traveling to Montana to interview former Gov. Brian Schweitzer, then a bit of a national media darling with possible presidential aspirations. Continue Reading →
In a rare act of political courage, or of political opportunism, U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., became an early and strong supporter of Donald Trump. Initially, this required ignoring or explaining away Trump’s assertion that John McCain was no war hero and the accompanying implication that prisoners of war in general are losers unworthy of our admiration. Now it requires that Zinke somehow excuse Trump’s attack on a Muslim family who spoke at the Democratic National Convention about their son, a U.S. soldier who died an undeniably heroic death fighting in Iraq. In a guest column in Saturday’s Billings Gazette, Zinke tried to get over the hurdle by accusing Trump’s presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton, of equally reprehensible behavior. He wrote: “Both of our candidates for president have picked fights with and said extremely regrettable things to the families of service members who paid the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our great nation. Continue Reading →
The Atlantic had an article in July about a Montana man who may have overturned scientific understanding of how those incredibly tough and hardy lichens work. For 150 years, the article by Ed Yong says, scientists thought that lichens were composite organisms made up of a fungus in partnership with algae. Toby Spribille, who was home-schooled in a Montana trailer park and returned here after studying in Germany, found a third element: another sort of fungus that works in partnership with the other two. Spribille suspected that the additional fungus existed, but it took him five years to find it, going through some 45,000 lichen samples he collected over the years. “Many of the fundamentals of lichenology will need to be checked, and perhaps re-written,” Yong writes. He quotes John McCutcheon, with whom Spribille works at the University of Montana: “Toby took huge risks for many years. Continue Reading →
