Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/author/edkemmick/page/97/)
It’s awfully early in the 2015 Montana legislative session to be optimistic about anything, but Jani McCall thinks this might just be the year lawmakers finally authorize cities and towns to pursue local sales taxes. “I think it’s going to be a tough haul,” McCall said, “but I think if there was ever an opportunity to do it, this will be the session to do it.” (more…) Continue Reading →
Three days after we published Russell Rowland’s piece about attacks on press freedoms in Montana history, and on the same day we published David Crisp’s column touching on similar subjects, we have learned of a new article of a similar nature. It is a story at Smithsonian.com, written by Billings native Patrick Sauer, about Montana’s World War I-era sedition law, which was used to imprison people for, among other things, expressing mild opposition to U.S. involvement in the war. The story has been told before, but this is a good recap, and a timely one. Sauer also tells of the efforts of some really admirable people—with Clem Work and Jeff Renz leading the way—who succeeded in securing posthumous pardons for all the people convicted under the infamously bad law. If I could add my own two cents to this fascinating piece of Montana history, it would be to note that in 1995, as part of the Billings Gazette’s “History on Your Doorstep” series, I wrote several stories about the labor troubles in Butte, culminating in the occupation of that city by National Guard troops, briefly in 1914 and then for 42 months starting in August 1917. Continue Reading →
After I published my column Sunday, many readers asked which legislators were responsible for bringing in Matt Trewhella to speak in the Capitol rotunda. (more…) Continue Reading →
I’ve covered some clueless public officials in my 35-year newspaper career, but I never had the pleasure of covering anyone so wonderfully out of touch as Kirby Delauter. If you haven’t heard of him, that shouldn’t be too surprising. He is a councilman for Frederick County, Maryland, a position that is not normally a springboard to national recognition. (more…) Continue Reading →
Editor’s note: The editors of Noise & Color, Billings’ independent monthly magazine of culture and entertainment, asked me to write them a piece expanding on my recent column about downtown Billings, and the intense reaction to a certain column about the downtown that appeared in the Billings Gazette. (more…) Continue Reading →
Editor’s note: When this Lay of the Land series started, I explained how it came into being by accident, after several people sent me unsolicited essays. Now, having published 16 of these pieces, all of them looking at life in Montana, we have come to the end of the twice-a-month series. (more…) Continue Reading →
More accolades for Kate Morris’ beautiful grain bin house near Great Falls. Yahoo! Homes put the house, designed by Nich Pancheau, of Collaborative Design Architects in Billings, on its 2014 list of “most genius converted spaces.” Other projects on the list include a coverted monestary in France, a 120-year-old church in London and a laundromat boiler room converted into a tiny guesthouse in San Francisco, so Kate and Nick are in some pretty cool company. Continue Reading →
There was not much travel involved in this latest gallery of photos. A few of us did drive over to Paradise Valley on the weekend after Christmas, but most of the photographs were taken pretty close to home—in the case of the old Arcade Bar building, just half a block from home. (more…) Continue Reading →
I doubt we could see all the way to Wibaux from Bismarck, N.D., but I like to think of the magnificent red sunset as our last glimpse of Montana for a week or so. My middle daughter, who was driving, saw the sunset out her rear-view mirror late Friday afternoon, and so of course we had to stop and get some photos. She didn’t see it through the rear window because the only patch of glass visible among our vacation baggage, our supply dump, was about as big as a credit card. (more…) Continue Reading →
Downtown Billings ushered in the new year with the second annual Downtown Countdown under Skypoint Wednesday night. (more…) Continue Reading →
