Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/author/edkemmick/page/58/)
Ben Steele was a 19-year-old ranch kid when he went to work for the Snook Art Co. in downtown Billings in 1937. “I did all the flunky work,” he said, including filling bottles of turpentine for the art-supply and framing business. The artist and writer Will James spent a lot of time at the store, and since he didn’t drive, another of Steele’s jobs was to drive James to his house on Smokey Lane on many an evening. (more…) Continue Reading →
In January, between semesters at Montana State University Billings, sophomore Carter Knight spent two weeks in Memphis, helping the World Relief organization in its efforts to resettle foreign refugees. This summer, the Billings native will spend three months in Africa, part of the time in the slums of Kampala, Uganda, helping people with disabilities and then working with refugees in several other countries. (more…) Continue Reading →
You might not think of Montana as a place where much commuting gets done. Aren’t commuters those people creeping down the clogged highways of major cities every weekday morning and night? (more…) Continue Reading →
The longtime owner of a popular bookstore in Red Lodge has been hired to manage a cooperative bookstore that supporters hope to open this summer in downtown Billings. The Billings Bookstore Cooperative is also buying the entire inventory of Gary Robson’s Red Lodge Books & Tea, which should greatly accelerate plans for the Billings store. (more…) Continue Reading →
The late Sen. Conrad Burns was an inspirational public figure. He inspired roughly half the population to love him and the other half to hate him. The thin margin between love and loathing was never more apparent than during his fourth and final Senate run, which he lost by just a few thousand votes. (more…) Continue Reading →
Narratively, which describes itself as a digital publication and storytelling studio based in New York, has launched a series called “The New Wild West.” The first piece in the series was contributed by Livingston resident Scott McMillion, publisher of the Montana Quarterly and author of “Mark of the Grizzly: True Stories of Recent Grizzly Bear Attacks and the Hard Lessons Learned.” (more…) Continue Reading →
Here’s an ugly twist in the immigration debate in Missoula, where there have been big rallies for and against welcoming refugees. Missoula Current is reporting that someone forged a letter, purporting to be from the three members of the Missoula County Commission, to the U.S. Department of State and the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. The three commissioners continue to strongly support the International Rescue Committee and to support plans to reopen a refugee resettlement office in Missoula, but in the forged letter they tell the bureau: “After further review, we don’t feel (M)iddle (E)astern cultures are compatible with our community values.”
The letter had a Great Falls postmark, which was a pretty good indication something was amiss, but as one commissioner said, news of the letter spread “some serious concern … throughout the community.” What a low move in an already unsettling situation, and what a revealing turn of phrase it was to frame the commission’s supposed opposition in terms of cultural bigotry. Continue Reading →
I feel doubly bad about the viral video in which the young woman attempts to pet a bison in Yellowstone National Park. For one thing, thousands, perhaps millions, of people will watch it and think, “I knew that business about the bison being dangerous was bullshit. The animal couldn’t have cared less.” (more…) Continue Reading →
Last year, for the Sacrifice Cliff Theatre Company’s New Works Festival, company co-founder Patrick Wilson went out on a limb and asked two non-writers to submit a piece for the collection of 10-minute one-act plays. The collaboration between Krista Leigh Pasini, a dancer and choreographer, and Matt Taggart, a musician and sound artist, resulted in “All Together Now,” which used music and movement, and no dialogue, to explore the dynamics of a family coming together for Sunday dinner. (more…) Continue Reading →
It appears that Donald Trump is not the only politician who wants to use laws to bludgeon unfriendly reporters. Up in Fairfield, between Great Falls and Choteau, the publisher of the Fairfield Sun Times is reporting that state Rep. Randall Pinocci, R-Sun River, in an email to a supporter, said he hoped to pass a law making it illegal to impersonate a reporter—apparently defined as any journalist he disagrees with. (more…) Continue Reading →
