Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/page/117/)
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 29th chapter of the 32-part video series “The Montana Ethic Project.” This chapter features Bob Quinn, a third-generation wheat farmer from Big Sandy, talking about the dangers of genetically modified wheat. You can watch the whole video below. Here is an edited transcript of how it begins:
The good news is that the Billings City Council intends to debate in a public meeting whether to appeal a District Court ruling in a pay dispute with the city’s police officers.
The bad news is that the council will be taking advice from the city legal department, which should have been able to read the plain language in the police contract to begin with, and which foolishly prolonged a court fight over that language, all the while running up a higher and higher tab—which now stands at about $3 million. Continue Reading →
Calling Chris Dixon a supporter or a backer of football doesn’t quite convey his passion for the sport.
He is more of a football evangelist, always looking for ways to introduce young people to the sport that did so much for him, and to nurture them as they get better at the game.
“Football is the ultimate team sport,” Dixon said. “You can’t move without everyone doing their job. You build character and you build relationships through football. That’s what I want to offer these kids.” Continue Reading →
It took Parker Brown a long time to figure out what he wanted to do with his many talents.
The 33-year-old had played guitar and bass guitar in rock, blues, fusion, country, jazz and soul bands, worked as a sideman for singer-songwriters, played in duets, trios and other combinations, dabbled in songwriting and appeared on at least 20 albums. Continue Reading →
Joanie Swords has reopened Harper & Madison. That’s a good thing. What “Yellowstone Valley Woman” (one of my favorite local publications) has called a “quaint eatery … for people of all walks looking for baked goods made in-house, coffee, lunch and camaraderie” had been closed for remodeling since Christmas Eve.
Look for Harper & Madison on 10th Avenue North—sunny side of the street—between North 31st and North 32nd streets. Continue Reading →
“Vote with your fork.”
That was one of the overriding themes at the Homegrown Prosperity Conference, sponsored by the Northern Plains Resource Council at the Billings Public Library last Saturday. Continue Reading →
In 1956, after 11 years in Siberian prison camp and internal exile, Alexander Solzhenitsyn began writing seriously. He never expected to see a single word of his in print. But in 1962, his first novel, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” appeared in a Russian magazine. It was for many years the last of his work that would make it into print in the Soviet Union. Solzhenitsyn was exiled in 1974, and the KGB, the secret police serving at the direction of the Soviet government, launched a campaign to publicly discredit him. Continue Reading →
If you walk out the front doors of St. Olaf Church 15 miles north of Red Lodge, you see the high peaks of the Beartooth Mountains spread out on the horizon.
Nearer at hand you can trace the paths of Red Lodge Creek on your left and Volney Creek on your right, the two streams divided by an expanse of rolling, grass-covered hills.
Farm families, most of them Norwegian, used to live up and down both creeks, and those Lutheran families founded St. Olaf in 1904, gathering in people’s houses until the church building was completed in 1921.
Continue Reading →
Never forget.
Not even a week after the twin towers were struck down by two hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001, people were repeating this phrase everywhere around the nation, in newspapers, on TV, bumper stickers, posters, banners.
Never forget. Continue Reading →
At a time in campaign season when election-weary voters are curling up into tiny balls to ward off the endless phone calls, TV ads and door knockers, one group of young people in Montana is revving up its efforts. Continue Reading →
