Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/category/prairie-lights/page/13/)
Starting approximately three seconds after Barack Obama was declared the winner of the 2008 presidential election, we were warned nonstop that the nation was unlikely to survive his four-year term. It did survive, quite well, thank you, but the same warnings were issued, in even more heated tones, on the evening of the 2012 election. Those fears weren’t even based on fear, just partisan hatred of the slimiest kind. (more…) Continue Reading →
Years ago, I wrote a story about a Billings man who had entered one of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps shortly after it had been liberated. That prompted a well-known crank in Big Timber to call me and “argue” about whether the Holocaust had actually happened. I specifically said in my story (unavailable in the Gazette archives) that the soldier had entered a concentration camp, not technically one of the death camps, but that was beside the point. The crank didn’t need much pretext for expounding his silly views. (more…) Continue Reading →
I see where all the pointy-headed commentators are making fun of Dr. Ben Carson, the Republican presidential candidate, for asserting that the ancient Egyptian pyramids were built by Joseph, last name unknown. Carson, citing references in the Bible, has said that Joseph, known for his coat of multiple hues, built the pyramids to store grain. The pointy-heads say this can’t be true because there are something like 130 pyramids, built over a period of at least 1,000 years. (more…) Continue Reading →
It’s a good thing I kept a clip file of everything I wrote in my newspaper career. If I hadn’t cut out every story and pasted it into a spiral notebook, I never would have remembered that the Sons of Norway, Ryvingen Lodge 136, had planned to meet at the home of Burton Colwell, at Spring Hill west of Anaconda, on the first Sunday of August 1979. (more…) Continue Reading →
I was driving down Grand Avenue when my windshield was suddenly awash in Old Glory. I did a quick look-see in the rearview mirror, ascertained that the right lane was clear and swerved over before I ran into something. Then I saw the problem: A big, black Ford F-250 was flying two American flags so enormous that they trailed more than a car length behind the bed of the truck. (more…) Continue Reading →
All over Montana, bruins are on the march. How could any of us have guessed what was in store back on the last day of August, when a black bear that had been breaking into houses in the Emerald Hills near Lockwood was killed by game wardens? (more…) Continue Reading →
When the Billings Gazette hired me as a night editor in 1989, I was thrilled at the prospect of working alongside Roger Clawson. I had known of him since the mid-1970s, when I first started visiting Billings in the company of the Missoula Flying Mules, a gang of bar hounds masquerading as a hockey team. (more…) Continue Reading →
It’s a good thing I’m not pretending to be a professional art critic, or even a thorough chronicler. Mrs. Kemmick and I were already planning to take in the ArtWalk in downtown Billings on Friday night, and at the last minute she suggested I take photos at as many venues as possible. (more…) Continue Reading →
Ed Kemmick is suffering a case, a very bad case, of equinox fever and was unable to complete his Prairie Lights column this week. (more…) Continue Reading →
I was recently asked by a community group that will be interviewing Billings City Council candidates if I had any questions for the candidates. My suggestion wasn’t really a question, it was this: “Name your three favorite books.” (more…) Continue Reading →
