Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
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Reflections on the value of movie criticism in general and their necessity to newspapers in particular could fill volumes, and do. The answer to the question “Why run film reviews?” is short, however. It’s a sad truth that there is little good film writing these days. Staff movie reviewers have been dismissed from their posts across the nation, and those who remain are granted less and less space. The Internet seems ruled by a lynch mob mentality, as shown in the online pileup that purported to be rational comment on the second season of True...
I would like to expand a little on last week’s piece. This is not a rebuttal, as I wrote this before last week’s Courier was sent out. I hope you noted that I did not say we weren’t a Christian people. However, we are not a specifically Christian nation. We have many religions in this country, many of which do not acknowledge Jesus Christ. This is our right, granted in our founding document, the Constitution. The founders of this country framed our founding documents specifically to avoid endorsing any one religion. They were free think...
Imagine you are a twenty-something single male (I’ll call you Ken) with two children and a girlfriend. You make enough money to enable you to purchase a house. The American Dream, right? Well, follow along and this is where it gets real good. A feller named John Tabb came up with this formula for pursuing the New American Way Of Life. It’s been proven to work for tens of thousands, if not millions, of Americans and we are the only country on planet earth where it works. You should always use your mother’s address for your mail. You still live...
This past week I travelled across eastern Montana visiting local Job Service offices and updating staff about the exciting programs we are rolling out for Montana’s workforce. It is always wonderful to visit Glasgow and discuss how important your local Job Service is to your community and the workers who visit the office to not only find a job, but to also improve their skills to seek a position with a higher wage. Montana has a robust and productive economy right now. In the last year, Montana businesses and industries had exceptional g...
When I am at a community gathering, I like to admire the men around me. I am of the opinion that an adult man should be clean-shaven, wear a cowboy hat and Wranglers, and boast a belt buckle. Most of the men in this area meet these expectations very nicely. Call me old-fashioned, but nothing offends me more than when a full-grown man has the gall to grow a full mustache and cover up the face that I, as a single young woman, have a right to see and enjoy! Now, grow out your underarms, let your secret garden grow wild, but leave that sun-beaten...
The Tenth “Sunshine Week” ended about six months ago, on March 21. This annual celebration of open government was created by the American Society of News Editors with a grant from the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation. Now co-sponsored by ASNE and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Sunshine Week is intended to highlight the importance of open government around the country. All indications pointed to the fact that this year’s Sunshine Week was one of the best yet. In Washington, DC and throughout the country, people found...
Recently, my older sister posted this on social media: “So I just got an email from the RNC. Some chick in Florida wants me to donate so she can help return this country to the conservative values it was founded on. I don’t think she knows our history at all or she’d realize that we were founded on extremely radical values. You know, all that about all men created equal, no monarchy, no religious litmus test to hold office, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, a government of the people, for the people, and about the peopl...
In 1964, Congress enacted the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) to set aside a portion of federal revenues from offshore oil and gas development to pay for parks, wildlife habitat, and other natural areas. In other words, the money the federal government makes from developing public resources is dedicated back into conserving other public resources. LWCF provides a simple, common-sense way to offset some of the impacts of oil and gas drilling and support much-needed land conservation without using taxpayer dollars. It’s no wonder that L...
First, a big thanks to the Courier’s editor, James Walling, for agreeing to provide a forum for the start of this conversation. While the Q&A format has its limits, it has allowed us to get a good feel for the kinds of misinformation that is shaping opinions of our organization in Glasgow. And, wow, is there a lot of misinformation out there! For starters, you can rest assured that there is absolutely zero truth to statements from opinion pieces on these pages that APR received any kind of preferential treatment from any state or federal a...
We’re taking a break from Probing the Project this week to collect our thoughts, consider and reconsider reactions from the public, and recalibrate our approach to investigating the American Prairie Reserve and their plans for bison release and grasslands restoration. If anything, this pause reflects an attitude of seriousness from our staff, concerned community members, and APR representative Hilary Parker, who has graciously played along with the press despite hostile and skeptical attitudes about her organization’s goals from residents of...
I have two subjects this week for your reading and or listening enjoyment. Controversial both but not too bad. One is this facial piercing craze and the other is the infamous four day school week. I’ll start right off with the facial piercing thing. Being born in late 1942 I recall pictures in the National Geographic of African women with bare upper bodies, images that have fascinated me through my infancy, my puberty and into my adultry. The images I’m referring to aren’t the bosoms. It was the pictures of the body and facial piercings that...
Leave ‘em laughing I like the Op Ed page of any newspaper, but our own Glasgow Courier’s keeps getting better, yet Virgil is still my fave! Mary Honrud’s garden articles aren’t on this page but I sure enjoy them. Sandy Laumeyer tells of things that take me down my memory lane as well. Her last week’s “Just the Facts” column was typically Sandy: upbeat and positive in spite of the crisis she’s facing. And last but not least, Gwen’s piece reminded me of the custom combiners that came up north to Richland where I grew up. The time frame was ci...
Remember when most livestock was transported using pickups and stock racks? This was the usual method of getting horses to pasture for moving cattle, and it was likely you would see many pickups with stock racks at rodeos. If you had a couple of cows, bulls, or pigs to move to market this was the transportation mode. Trucks (the western terminology of truck) with stock racks were also quite commonly seen at the local sales yard. Then it became quite common to see a single or double horse trailer used for this means of moving a few head of...
On Burr and Vaupel A while back I was tempted to write with a niggling complaint about Patrick Burr's reporting on a city council meeting. At that time I was left wondering if he was reporting the news or writing a novel. The wording was too ornate and confusing for what should have been a "just the facts, ma'am" report. I'm glad I didn't, as he's shaping up quite nicely. His reporting is much clearer, with fewer $10 words and flowery phrases. His latest report, about the mural at the post office, did revert a bit to that, but it was a delight...
I don’t remember a lot about custom combining. I remember that many of them arrived in my hometown about the time school started. Maybe there were some young boys on the crews that accounted for the notice of arrival, but likely it was all of the equipment parked along the outskirts of town. Did they have specific farms on their schedule or did customers come to them? Our community also had local people who put together crews and headed south to custom combine. The string of equipment lined up, ready to leave looked quite different from the p...
Being the eternal optimist that I am, I initially hoped that the Glasgow Courier’s Probing the Project column would finally help to open up communication between the American Prairie Reserve (APR) and the local community along the Hi Line. Based off of the APR’s responses to various questions, it seems like the APR lacks the capability to answer difficult questions with any hard data or substance and even evaded questions all together. What I did learn is that the APR is unwilling to devote funds directed towards public relations in our loc...
That’s the question I have asked the folks at the American Prairie Reserve but have as yet failed to receive an answer I could swallow. Yeah, I know. “Why” is a question a three-year-old would ask. Again and again. And the tot will usually get an answer to his “Why” very similar to what I get when I ask “Why.” When I ask “Why Montana?” the APR’s stock answer is something like this: The northeastern portion of Montana was chosen because for its lack of human population, making it easier to acquire properties. One rancher or one hundred, these...
Some years ago there was a program on television called Dragnet. One of the detectives in the show would say “Just the facts, ma’am.” So, here are the facts. In October of 2014 I was told my cancer had metastasized to my bones. A malignant tumor had been found in my right hip. Since then I’ve had six radiation treatments and they have helped considerably with my pain. About two months ago, I began having pain in my right hip, along the top of my right thigh, and in the lower part of my pelvis . . . the sit bones. I made a call to the radiati...
More Criticism for the Critic I’m deeply saddened by the critic’s article about “Steel Magnolias” printed in the Courier. I drove from Havre with my family to support the Fort Peck Theatre on Saturday, Sept. 29, and I’m so happy we didn’t read the article before we came. All of us we very entertained and thought that the play was wonderful. All of the actresses did a fabulous job and brought laughter and tears to the whole audience, the few that attended, that night. I believe the critic’s review probably harmed the attendance, what a shame....
Harvest is in full swing, some being about finished, and others just beginning. Being a farm girl, my mind was flooded with “remembers” the other day while doing a little driving off of the beaten path. Now, I grew up in a home where girls were to stay in the house and help their mothers, however we were also expected to go beyond taking meals to the field whenever a truck driver was needed. How many of you remember the frustration of not knowing how to use a clutch correctly and missing a gear of two, or trying to get the truck lined up wit...
I was sitting here listening to the PBS World News while foundering myself on hot chocolate, with real milk and eating a pound and a half of stale, moldy Christmas cookies when a plan started whirling around in my previously empty head. My computer tells me the United States has military presence in at least 60 countries around the world causing a huge depletion to the “federal coffers,” of “taxpayers donations.” Money to put a “World Police Force” out there comes from fees paid to the United Nations by every member country in the world. The...
This coming Sunday, the congregations of Queen of Angels in Nashua, St. Albert’s in Hinsdale, Holy Family in Glentana, and St. Raphael’s in Glasgow will gather for an outdoor Mass followed by a potluck picnic at Kiwanis Park in Fort Peck. As I was perusing my recipe book—recipes I’ve gathered over the past almost 20 years—I was remembering other parish picnics and remembering what dishes I’d taken to share. I’d have 10 times the recipes to look through had it not been for losing my recipes twice to house fires. Not only did memories of a...
I was disappointed in the Aug. 14, 2015 Great Falls Tribune article, “Restoring buffalo is an act of healing” by the National Wildlife Federation. The article claims that “[Original Americans’] lives centered on a close relationship with buffalo for thousands of years.” And yet, it proposes “restoring buffalo in and around the million-acre Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge.” I firmly believe that buffalo and Original Americans were part of a vital dual-species keystone species complex. Neither species could operate in its old, keyston...
“Hi-Line Heart and Soul” The recent articles by James Walling and Mark Herbert raise important questions about how our way of life and our heritage will be impacted by the American Prairie Reserve’s (APR) desire to turn Montana’s Hi Line into North America’s largest Serengeti. Prior to these articles, discussions with APR have been largely one-sided and questions and concerns from the local community have been brushed aside. Will the APR’s work to save “free roaming bison” from extinction eradicate a sizable portion of Montana’s agric...
Thanks for listening is being brought to you this evening via wireless radio. I remember my grandmother actually using fire to cook meals. She used a wood stove and made some of the tastiest meals known to man (except when she served mutton of course). Now it’s fireless cooking with microwave ovens and crock pots. Remember using a key to open your house or car or motel room? Today we’re living in a keyless society. Back in the day when you got a flat tire on your one-speed balloon-tired bicycle, it usually could be fixed with a patch on the...
