Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/page/250/)
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.
Neil Gaiman was a shrewd choice to bring in for a reading during the extended celebration of the new Billings Public Library.
Appearing Friday night at the Babcock Theatre, courtesy of the Friends of the Library and the library foundation, he spoke lovingly of his own immersion in libraries as a boy and of their continuing importance in our culture. Continue Reading →
A Fox News contributor last week asked protesters at a North Carolina rally whether the Tea Party is racist. Sure it is, they said. Could they give examples? Not so much.
A graduate student at UCLA analyzed signs at a Tea Party rally in Washington, D.C. She found that only about 6 percent mentioned President Obama’s race, religion or American citizenship. Continue Reading →
When Café DeCamp closed a year ago Monday, many people were left wondering about the small restaurant, once nestled in Billings’ industrial North Side. Continue Reading →
Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath, by Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman, 2009. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 464 pages, $30.
The central character in this history is Ben Steele, the Bataan survivor and artist who, now in his mid-90s, lives in Billings. Given that I greatly admire Steele and have written about him on several occasions, why did it take me four years to start reading this book? Continue Reading →
Kevin Nelson was more than a little surprised when he learned that he would be the first recipient of the Making Democracy Work Award from the League of Women Voters of Billings.
“The first thing I said after ‘thanks’ was, ‘I didn’t think anybody was listening,’” Nelson said. Continue Reading →
You hate to kick a guy while he’s up, but is anyone else weary of the relentlessly laudatory news stories about former Sen. Max Baucus?
After Baucus was nominated and then won confirmation as the new U.S. ambassador to China, it was inevitable that barrels of ink would be spilled to chronicle his 39-year run as a House member and senator. Continue Reading →
Except for a stint in the service, Hank Armstrong has lived most of his 86 years in the house his grandparents built in 1910, seven miles east of Geraldine, Montana. He is a local historian, seemingly familiar with every square inch of land for miles around his native hearth and the stories of everyone who has lived there over the decades. Continue Reading →
Editor’s note: David Crisp occasionally writes an Editor’s Notebook column for his weekly newspaper, the Billings Outpost. We are honored to be able to share his work with our readers. We are also a little embarrassed to be mentioned in this, his first contribution.
In Washington, Ezra Klein cuts ties with the Washington Post to launch his own online news venture, Project X. In Montana, Ed Kemmick cuts ties with the Billings Gazette to launch his own online news venture, Last Best News. Continue Reading →
For a couple of years, Adrian Jawort had been thinking about what he could do to promote contemporary Native American fiction writers.
He is a Northern Cheyenne who grew up in Lockwood and Billings, a successful freelance journalist who has been interested in writing fiction since he was a young boy. He knew there was hardly any market for native writers. Continue Reading →
