Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/category/prairie-lights/page/11/)
Some years back, I wrote an expose of an article that ran in the now-defunct Weekly World News. The article claimed that Montana Highway Patrol officers had gunned down a Bigfoot, also known as a sasquatch, after the brute terrorized a New Zealand couple in Beaverhead Rock State Park near Dillon. (more…) Continue Reading →
David Carpenter’s phone call to Montana Attorney General Tim Fox, to apologize for coldcocking Fox at the Radisson Hotel last week, was quite moving. Carpenter had too much to drink and did something really stupid, but then he manned up and did the right thing. There’s a lesson here, friends, and not just for Donald Trump. (more…) Continue Reading →
Sen. John McCain has done something that reminds us of when this country was a bigger, better place. In a piece he wrote for The New York Times on Thursday, McCain praised Delmer Berg, who died late last month in California at the age of 100. McCain praised Berg for having fought selflessly as a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War in 1937 and 1938. (more…) Continue Reading →
Talking to Martin Kidston last week, I almost felt as though I was interviewing myself again. The former Missoulian reporter quit his job at the end of December and launched an online newspaper, Missoula Current, in early January. “I just decided I didn’t want to work for a corporate paper,” he said. “It’s a broken template, really.” (more…) Continue Reading →
In the midst of one of the strangest, most outlandish, stark-ravingly maddest election cycles in the history of the United States, a surprising number of voters have turned to me for guidance. I was tempted to tell them all to take two aspirin and go to bed until the third week of November, but that seemed a trifle irresponsible. So, I will attempt to answer all the questions to the best of my limited abilities. Here goes. (more…) Continue Reading →
If you’ve been following the news in Montana at all recently, you know that methamphetamine use is once again a terrible problem. Just last month, the Billings Gazette ran a story with a headline that said, “Meth possession spikes while other crimes stay steady.” The story quoted Police Chief Rich St. John, who said this about the near-record number of murders: “There’s a common denominator, and it’s usually methamphetamine.” (more…) Continue Reading →
At the risk of alienating readers who think all reporters should be cynical toughs too jaded and jaundiced to indulge in social niceties, I’m afraid some thank-yous are in order. We threw our Last Best News party and fundraiser on Friday and I’m writing this on Saturday, exhausted and still a little stunned by how well everything went and by how damned much fun, reportedly, everyone had. (more…) Continue Reading →
Editor’s note: In light of the many questions that have come in regarding the expansion of Last Best News, we asked the renowned but obscure one-time journalist Walter Ego to interview Ed Kemmick, the founder of Last Best News. Here, in place of Kemmick’s usual Prairie Lights column, we offer an edited transcript of the interview. (more…) Continue Reading →
Thanks to Albert Einstein, I think I finally understand what it is that I so much hate about presidential elections. It came to me last week when I was reading an op-ed piece in the New York Times, written by Lawrence M. Krauss, a theoretical physicist. His piece began like this: (more…) Continue Reading →
Sometimes, one of the best things a newspaper can do for its readers is to assign reporters to watch paint dry. During the years I covered City Hall for the Billings Gazette, I spent hundreds of hours so employed, and even when the process was stupefyingly boring it never seemed like a waste of time. (more…) Continue Reading →
