Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/page/134/)
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.
BALLANTINE — On her husband’s farm 25 miles east of downtown Billings, Kate Vogel is standing amid green blades of annual ryegrass on what would normally be bare soil between silage stalks. She is holding a forage collard plant, its tangled roots clinging to a big mass of black dirt.
The collard was part of a cover crop her husband, Marc Vogel, planted last fall, after harvesting a crop of silage corn. Continue Reading →
When the Northern Plains Resource Council opened its Home on the Range building in 2006, it wanted to make a point about the importance of sustainable, energy-efficient building practices. It also wanted to save money.
When NPRC celebrates the 10th anniversary of the building at 220 S. 27th St. on Saturday, it will argue that it has done both. The event, from 10 a.m. to noon, will include the dedication of a new solar array that is designed to offset all of the building’s electricity costs. Breakfast pastries and coffee will be served. Tours will be offered, and speakers will give brief talks. Continue Reading →
Thursday night, many of the people and the dogs who considered Tom Weaver their friend will take to the sidewalks on either side of Broadway in downtown Red Lodge, to mark Weaver’s death and to remember his life.
“I was a pretty good friend of Tom’s,” Gordie Blevins said. “I’m not saying I was his best friend, but my dog was probably his best friend. My dog loved Tom.” Continue Reading →
Few stories I have written have been so dispiriting as my June 9 article on cable TV ads criticizing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
It wasn’t that I was unable to come up with the source of the ads, which were placed by a shadowy group called Protect America’s Consumers. Reporters who have tried harder than I did to find out just who this group is also failed. What bugged me was that there seems to be no way to determine the source. In today’s political world, anything goes. Continue Reading →
I had a dream last week that I was driving a semi-truck. In the dream I had just topped a steep pass to start my descent when I realized that I didn’t know the first thing about semis and that I was probably doomed.
I forgot all about the dream until a few days later, when I received an email from the American Trucking Association, the subject line of which read: “Have you ever taken a ride in a big rig?” Continue Reading →
Red Lodge Ales is on the verge of a major expansion into Billings, which includes opening a taproom, making fresh-pressed hard cider and hiring Jason Corbridge as the chef.
“I think it’s really an exciting project,” said Sam Hoffmann, president of Red Lodge Ales. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.” Continue Reading →
This is the 16th chapter of the 32-part video series “The Montana Ethic Project.” This chapter features Judy Martz, a former governor of Montana and former Olympic speed skater, speaking on how she came to know the truth of the statement, “Trust in the Lord and He Will Direct Your Path.”
You can watch the whole video below. Here is how it begins: Continue Reading →
Filling out a medical form the other day, I was asked whether I had lately felt any “fatigue or disinterest.”
I wanted to say, “As a reporter and proprietor of an online newspaper, I strive to be disinterested on a daily basis, unless I am clearly stating my opinion, and even then I hope a spirit of disinterestedness informs what I have to say.” Continue Reading →
