Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/page/113/)
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.
This is the final chapter of the 32-part video series “The Montana Ethic Project.” This chapter features Michael Sexson, an emeritus professor of English at Montana State University in Bozeman, talking about “Mythic Montana: The Last and the Best.” You can watch the whole video below. Here is an edited transcript of how it begins:
I have been seriously out of touch lately.
We let our subscription to the dead-tree edition of the Billings Gazette lapse a few weeks ago and haven’t renewed it because we get sticker shock every time we see how much they want to charge us for the damned thing. Continue Reading →
South of the tracks and around the corner from the downtown skate park is the Annex Coffeehouse and Bakery. Ben and Krystal Harman are once again doing a kickflip on the food scene here in Billings, having expanded into the space next to their Fieldhouse café on Minnesota Avenue. Continue Reading →
Editor’s note: The seventh annual High Plains Grand Slam, a poetry competition held in conjunction with the High Plains BookFest, played out Thursday night before a standing-room-only crowd at the MoAv Coffee House.
With 14 competitors entered in the verbal throwdown, it was the largest and without a doubt the best slam we’ve seen here in Billings. The winner—and now the first person to have won the title twice—was Pete Tolton, of Billings. Continue Reading →
The two candidates running for the only contested seat on the Montana Supreme Court this year sparred repeatedly during a public forum Thursday over questions of experience and ideological bias.
Dirk Sandefur, who was a police officer in Havre for three years and a deputy county attorney for eight years before becoming a Cascade County district judge in 2002, said “there is no substitute for experience.” Continue Reading →
Human beings have a dual nature—a dark and light side. Yet, we label those we like as “good,” and those we dislike as “bad.” We often have problems believing anyone we label as “good” could be guilty of domestic or sexual violence. We forget that a person can be “good,” but still be capable of making bad choices that hurt others. It might easier to see this contradiction clearly in celebrities. It’s hard to imagine the possibility that Hope Solo might have physically assaulted her half-sister and nephew. Continue Reading →
Ed Kemmick note: George Moncure, whom I have counted as a friend almost from the moment of our first conversation, related below, sent in a press release earlier this week to announce that he was throwing a party to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his business, the Yellowstone Valley Brewing Co.
The release included a rundown of the brewery’s many firsts, and some of its most memorable events, and I found it so well done that I asked George if we could just run the thing as a guest column. He was willing, and after polishing it a bit sent it back in. Continue Reading →
City Vineyard is fermenting a new plan: to move into a new 5,000-square-foot space—doubling the current footprint—at the end of February. In collaboration with developer Steve Corning, new construction is underway.
It is apropos that Becky Reno’s new expanded venture is located on a street named Golden Valley. Reno has proven to have the Midas touch. Continue Reading →
When a ballot initiative’s chief talking point is wrong in two different ways, it’s time to give it a closer look. Such were my thoughts when I started hearing radio ads for Constitutional Initiative 116, the so-called Marsy’s Law amendment to the Montana Constitution. The ads say it’s time to guarantee “equal rights for victims.”
Wrong. And wrong. People who create crime victims fall into two categories: those who have been convicted of a crime and those who have not. Continue Reading →
Editor’s note: We are pleased to draw your attention to another independent online journalism site covering this part of the world.
The masthead at The Bullseye describes its mission this way: “With a focus on environmental and cultural issues in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the broader American West, we are here to champion honesty, transparency and accountability in government and society.” Continue Reading →
