The Actor, by Beth Hunter McHugh, Riverbend Publishing, 2015. 228 pages, $22.95.
About halfway through “The Actor,” I quit reading the novel for pleasure and started rooting for it. Continue Reading →
Last words, maybe, and a few thanks from Last Best News
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I was planning to ride off into the sunset today, but if I may appropriate an observation by Benjamin Franklin, it looks as though I might be heading in the direction of the rising sun.
In the week since I announced that Last Best News would cease publication today, I have heard so many expressions of interest in reviving it in some shape or form, with or without my continued involvement, that it appears likely that this independent online newspaper will live on.
Culture
In search of Montana’s spirit, a native son hits the road
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Fifty-Six Counties: A Montana Journey, by Russell Rowland, Bangtail Press, 2016. 416 pages, $22.95.
Russell Rowland’s new work of nonfiction is an altogether beguiling book, but also a strange one that is impossible to pigeonhole. Continue Reading →
Opinion
Zinke’s mixed, or mixed up, record on environment
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To say that Ryan Zinke has a mixed record on the environment may sound like saying that pouring a shot of tequila into a gallon of orange juice makes a mixed drink. U.S. Rep. Zinke, R-Mont., is the apparent nominee to serve as secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior. His confused record on public lands, climate change and America’s energy future is drawing predictable outcries, but he may turn out to be the most environmentally sensitive member of President Trump’s cabinet. True, that’s in part because Trump is filling top jobs with people who tread around the environment like a fresh cow patty. The secretary of state nominee has spent his career with a company that funded climate skepticism. Continue Reading →
News
Readers of Last Best News, we need a little help
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To the readers of Last Best News:
We have not made a direct appeal for donations since last March, when David Crisp and I launched a fund drive to support our new partnership, a few months after David shut down The Billings Outpost, a weekly newspaper. Continue Reading →
Opinion
Montana Viewpoint: Bad roads and bad guys
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What do bad roads and bad guys have in common? They are both results of America’s inability to fund preventive measures that would not only improve the country but also cost less than the current system of waiting to fix a problem, be it physical or social, until it has gone completely gunnybags. Continue Reading →
Billings
Council to vote again on backing local option tax idea
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The Billings City Council will decide Monday night whether to endorse efforts to pass a new kind of statewide local option sales tax—or to postpone a decision until a bill draft lays out more details on the proposal.
The council also will be asked to approve a two-page list of priorities that the city will pursue during the 2017 Montana Legislature, one of the priorities being a commitment to support a local option tax of some kind. Continue Reading →
Prairie Lights
Prairie Lights: Truth, if it even shows up, doesn’t always win
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Listening to late-night radio for about five minutes the other night, I heard something I can’t get out of my head.
The host of the show was talking to an “expert” of some kind, who had alarming things to say about the fate of the Earth in light of experiments underway at CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider. Continue Reading →
Billings
Competition fires students’ enthusiasm for math
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A few days before a math competition for fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders took place at Big Sky Elementary School, Tom Rupsis was explaining what the prizes would be for the top-scoring students.
Rupsis, a Big Sky parent who came up with the idea for the contest last year, said the winning boy and girl in each grade would receive a National Geographic Quadcopter Drone. Continue Reading →
