Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/page/115/)
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.
The High Plains Grand Slam, a competitive poetry-reading event, just keeps getting bigger and better.
This year’s slam, set for Thursday, Oct. 6, at the MoAv Coffee House, 2501 Montana Ave., will be the first one officially registered with Poetry Slam Inc., a nationwide organization, and it will feature a $250 prize for the slam champion. Continue Reading →
By the time you read this, I may be a grandfather. Or maybe not. My daughter’s due date was Tuesday, but no word as of late Tuesday night. Never trust a Crisp to make a deadline. There is no trick to making babies. Continue Reading →
Missoula’s gun lobby and its supporters sought to defeat an ordinance requiring background checks on all firearm sales and transfers within the city limits on Monday night, long before the scheduled hearing on the issue began.
But while opponents and the National Rifle Association mounted a strong opposition, arguing that the ordinance would be both unenforceable and unconstitutional, the Missoula City Council voted 8-4 to approve the new law. Continue Reading →
Should we be mourning the death of Ben Steele or celebrating the miracle that he lived for 98 years and 269 days?
I can’t say I knew Steele well, but I’m reasonably certain he would have favored a celebration. And I’m absolutely sure that he would rather we were happy than not. Continue Reading →
This is the 30th chapter of the 32-part video series “The Montana Ethic Project.” This chapter features Terry Anderson, former executive director of the Property & Environment Research Center, talking about free market environmentalism. You can watch the whole video below. Here is an edited transcript of how it begins:
A recent spate of political ads on TV show the Montana Republican party blaming potential job losses at Colstrip and a downturn in coal production in Montana on Gov. Steve Bullock and the Democratic Party in general.
Since we have spent an inordinate amount of time looking at coal issues over the past decade and more, we feel some responsibility to try to respond to this issue so that others will not be misled by blatant coal industry propaganda. Continue Reading →
In 1881, Martha Edgerton Rolfe Plassmann, the daughter of Montana’s first territorial governor, made her way down the Missouri River from Fort Benton aboard the steamboat Far West.
In a detailed account of the journey, she wrote of the alarm she and other passengers felt when they learned that the Far West was to stop at Fort Buford, near present-day Williston, to pick up Sitting Bull and his band of Sioux Indians and transport them to Standing Rock Agency, south of Bismarck. Continue Reading →
Professors are not just employees of the institutions they serve, they are ambassadors. Rightly or wrongly, their conduct reflects on our Montana universities as a whole.
According to the American Association of College Professors’ Statement of Professional Ethics, “Professors must give due regard to their paramount responsibilities within their institution in determining the amount and character of work done outside it. Professors need to stay away from employment outside the university that creates the appearance of a conflict of interest or otherwise negatively affects the university.” Continue Reading →
The Milton Ranch north of Roundup was crawling with botanists on the cool, wet, third week in September, and Roger Rosentreter, retired state botanist for the Bureau of Land Management in Idaho, was probably the most ebullient member of the team.
When he arrived back at the ranch headquarters two hours past the usual afternoon gathering time, he said, “We’ve been out searching for manna lichens! Do you know what they are? They’re the kind that blow on the wind, and came in time to save the Israelites from starving in the desert during their exodus from Egypt!” Continue Reading →
