Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/page/132/)
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.
Former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, also the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, is making waves for his anti-Trump op-ed in the Washington Post.
The piece is interesting both for what it says and what it does not say. For starters, it is full of the kind of grandiloquent Hallmarkian sentiments Racicot was known for when he was governor. Continue Reading →
The Yellowstone Valley Citizens Council is partnering with Art House Cinema & Pub to present a Food Film Festival on three Tuesday evenings this month.
The tagline for the festival is “Films about how what we eat matters for people and the planet.” The festival is part of the larger Community Food Campaign sponsored by the Northern Plains Resource Council, of which the YVCC is an affiliate. Continue Reading →
If you think young adult fiction is something to be looked down upon, or that the people who write young adult fiction are to be condescended to, I invite you to match wits, or sentences, with Blythe Woolston.
Woolston is a Billings author, a late-bloomer whose first book, “The Freak Observer,” was published six years ago, when she was 53. She has published three other books since then and she is almost done with another. Continue Reading →
Potential customers of and investors in a downtown Billings cooperative bookstore got a sneak peek at the space Thursday night.
The two-hour open house at This House of Books, in the old Wendy’s at Second Avenue North and North 29th Street, attracted a steady flow of people. The event no doubt got a bit of a boost from the Pita Pit-hosted Alive After 5 concert, which drew hundreds of people to the stretch of Second Avenue between North 29th and Broadway. Continue Reading →
Supporters of public lands who filled a room at the Crowne Plaza on Wednesday were warned not to ignore rural people who feel threatened by federal land ownership.
“I’m very concerned about what I see in this country right now,” said John Sepulvado of Oregon Public Broadcasting. Unless people listen to each other, he warned, controversy over the transfer of federal lands to state management will continue to fester. Continue Reading →
RED LODGE — At Domestic and Sexual Violence Services, we follow national news stories that deal with issues we see close to home. Lately, we’ve been following the media blitz about the Stanford rape case.
If you haven’t heard, at the beginning of June, Brock Turner, a Stanford student, was convicted by a jury of three counts of felony sexual assault. Sadly, Judge Aaron Persky gave Turner an extremely light sentence of six months in jail with a high likelihood that he would be out in three months. After this farce of justice, the victim went public with an eloquently written letter to the court and the rapist. Continue Reading →
Last week I was feeling dispirited about the propaganda flowing into Montana by way of TV ads attacking the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This week, I feel an acorn of hope.
No, I still don’t know who has been buying those ads, other than the nonhuman face of Protect America’s Consumers. And the ads are still running in abundance, hour after hour, on cable news channels in a few targeted states, including Montana. Continue Reading →
The numbers haven’s been finalized and won’t be until the end of the month. But it’s safe to say that AniMeals has received the miracle it was looking for.
Karyn Moltzen, founder and executive director of AniMeals, said Tuesday that volunteers from around the world came to the organization’s rescue, helping it raise the $60,000 needed to pay off debt and keep the no-kill shelter open. Continue Reading →
Before reading Sid Gustafson’s new novel, “Swift Dam,” the only thing I’d seen of his was a short story in the winter 2015-16 edition of The Montana Quarterly.
The story was uncommonly good, but I didn’t even recall reading it until I had finished this novel. What really prompted me to pick up “Swift Dam” was my fascination with the Gustafson family. Continue Reading →
The recent vote in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union has sent economic shock waves around the world.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron did not have to hold a referendum on Britain’s staying in the EU, but he thought people would vote to stay and thus give public approval to the partnership. Continue Reading →
