H.L. Mencken

Recent Posts

Prairie Lights: No more room for once-innocent traditions

Surf

I won’t come right out and blame the current occupant of the White House, but a phenomenon already indelibly associated with his presidency has caused me to make an important decision about the future of Last Best News. At least temporarily, and perhaps forever, we will not be running any more fake news. I say this with a heavy heart because April Fool’s Day is just six weeks away, and photographer John Warner and I had already been talking about ideas for this year’s spoof. (more…) Continue Reading →

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Trying to understand freight riders’ desperate freedom

Teens

“Bums,” they called them. “Lazy trash,” they said. I was standing at a railroad crossing in downtown Billings during a frenzied street dance when a slow-moving train passed by. Three modern-day hobos sat in one of the box cars—two young men and a young woman. The businessmen and women standing next to me that June afternoon apparently couldn’t help but comment to one another, as if reassuring one another that their lives were superior. Continue Reading →

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