Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/page/105/)
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.
Smiling Dog Records owner Mike Ludlam was standing behind the counter of his Minnesota Avenue shop Wednesday afternoon, looking through a collection of records by musicians who died in 2016.
He’d already mentioned Prince, David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Sharon Jones, Merle Haggard, Leonard Cohen, Keith Emerson and Vanity, one of Prince’s proteges. Continue Reading →
If it weren’t for a pinched nerve making my right leg unreliable, I probably would be wearing a silly grin, one of just pure happiness that I get when I’m doing something I really enjoy. Today it’s returning to a small pine and sandstone canyon to get some photographs needed for an article I wanted to complete. Continue Reading →
Richard Spencer is stirring up trouble in both my native and adopted states. Spencer, who created the term alt-right, is a resident of Whitefish. On Tuesday, he gave a speech in the Texas town where I used to live, at the university where I both taught and studied. Spencer has been spouting the virtues of the white race for years, but last month he gained a dubious national reputation for shouting “Hail Trump” at a conference in Washington, drawing Nazi-like salutes from his white supremacist fans. Even for many hardcore racists, invoking Hitler was going too far. Continue Reading →
Marc Johnson doesn’t pretend to know how to fix our broken political system, but he figures a good start would be to encourage people to learn about and reflect on our history.
That’s why he recently launched a podcast called “Many Things Considered,” the motto of which is “Looking to politics past to make sense of politics present.” Continue Reading →
As I drop down Interstate 90 into the river valley that holds the “Magic City,” I swear: I won’t ever live in Billings, Montana.
The sun glints off a spawling refinery that dominates the city’s eastern entrance. A sickly sweet smell smacks my face, making my teeth ache and my stomach curl. And they’re processing sugar beets on the South Side. Continue Reading →
Jordan Wolf Voice was planning to leave early this morning for his second trip to join the pipeline protesters in North Dakota.
Wolf Voice is a 27-year-old Northern Cheyenne and Lakota. He has lived in Laurel his whole life and he works in the deli at Lucky’s Market in Billings. In late November, he spent three days at the protest against the Dakota Access pipeline, just outside the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, and he’s going back for three more days out of a sense of obligation. Continue Reading →
I spent my Thanksgiving this year at Standing Rock, where a poverty-stricken Sioux tribe has faced off with a $3.8 billion oil pipeline project. I did not understand the irony and deep significance of my trip until I was reminded of the holiday’s dual origins soon after I arrived at camp.
In 1637 during the Pequot War, settlers from Massachusetts Bay colonies massacred something like 700 natives after a white man was found dead in a boat. Casualties included Pequot women and children, who were burned in their village or hunted and shot if they escaped the inferno. Continue Reading →
Dear Mayor Tom Hanel,
I am writing to you to express my concern regarding a comment you made during the Nov. 21 Billings City Council meeting. Your statement, “If millennials want to move because Billings is boring, I’ll sell their home for them,” is disappointing at best. You, as the mayor, are the figurehead and vocal proponent of our great city. With that title comes great responsibility. Continue Reading →
