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  • Letter to the Editor - Let commissioners know what you think about board appointments

    Updated Mar 26, 2024

    To Editor and readers: The Hill County commissioners will be dealing with appointing county boards at the commissioners’ business meeting this coming Thursday, March 28, 10 a.m. Citizens should have the opportunity to comment on how the commission will handle board appointments at this upcoming commissioners’ business meeting. Serving on county boards and committees is one of the few means for citizens to participate in and influence what will be happening in the county. At times, finding people to serve on county boards and...

  • The Postscript: Living with a cat

    Carrie Classon|Updated Mar 26, 2024

    We have had our adopted Mexican street cat, Felix, for a month now. “Has he bulked out?” I asked my husband, Peter, as we watched Felix, standing on his back legs and walloping the tattered mouse hanging from his sisal scratching post. Felix looked like a boxer, beating the remaining stuffing out of his helpless little toy mouse. Bits of fur and mouse innards were strewn around the kitchen. But the carnage was not limited to the kitchen. Living with a cat, you start to eye gra...

  • Backlash: Women's History Month in a post-Roe world

    Updated Mar 26, 2024

    It’s 2024, but it feels like we’re back in 1991 this Women’s History Month. Back then, President George H.W. Bush was following in the footsteps of his predecessor Ronald Reagan by continuing to appoint conservative judges to the federal bench, and Roe v. Wade was expected to fall. Radical anti-abortion activism had gained prominence and strength. Popular media was awash with stories pushing the myth that women were dissatisfied and unhappy — and feminist ideals of women’s empowerment were to blame. Then a blockbust...

  • Letter to the Editor - Reducing professional standards will make things worse

    Updated Mar 22, 2024

    Dear editor, “The true measure of any society is found in how it treats its most vulnerable members” — M. Gandhi Having spent our over 40 year careers in Montana as a licensed social worker and physical therapist, we are alarmed at the unraveling of our communities in terms of getting help and resources for our most vulnerable members. Our ability to safely and compassionately care for older adults, persons who are cognitively or physically impaired, mentally ill persons and students is strained. A solution being offer...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Thing One and Thing Two and Thing Three

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Mar 22, 2024

    I have perfected English muffins. What that means is that I got hungry for English muffins, not available on the shelves of any tienda in town. I made my first batch, which exceeded my expectations. Unfortunately for me, I made the breadly goodness on a social day and within a couple hours had none left. I called that batch “Thing One.” I’d eaten one hot off the griddle with butter and jam but wanted a breakfast sandwich muffin on the order of the classic from the Golde...

  • Letter to the Editor - Families, freedom, and fairness

    Updated Mar 19, 2024

    Editor, Montana families deserve the financial freedom that comes from good health and a hard day’s work. It is only fair. Under Gianforte’s government the uninsured rate has increased by 127,000 Montanans of all ages. His approach to Medicaid redetermination has failed. We all will pay for Gianforte’s comedy of errors, but wait, there is nothing funny about human suffering. Or so most of us believe. As a matter of fact, the Governor is hurting defenseless children, making it harder to work for their parents, and furth...

  • SB 442: A bill for all Montanans

    Updated Mar 19, 2024

    The legislative session in Montana is a full-contact sport. Bills get introduced that stoke controversy and debate. My bill (SB 442) was no different to begin with, but we ended up with a bill Montanans could be proud of. Thousands of Montanans were able to convince 130 of 150 legislators to vote for SB 442. It was popular because Montanans were able to put aside long-standing disagreements and work with their neighbors to help craft a bill that invests in every single one of us. As legislators get ready to override Gov....

  • The Postscript: Useful

    Carrie Classon|Updated Mar 19, 2024

    I had a discouraging day yesterday. I don’t expect anyone to keep track — heck, I can’t keep track half the time. But I got another rejection of my book from another editor with another publishing house. I’ve read the stories of how long it has taken well-known authors to sell their first novel. A publisher has to put a lot of money into a new book, and the odds are slim that a writer’s first book will ever earn that money back. Publishers know this and so they are understan...

  • Speak softly and carry a can opener

    Updated Mar 19, 2024

    You shouldn’t need the arm strength of a gorilla to open a can of tuna. We live in a country where marketers insist opening cans is easy. And it is easy, if you define hard as easy. Maybe the American packaging industry wants to suss out foreign spies who grew up with jars. On my part, I’m just about ready to donate my cans to the local ballpark so I can see flying fish. Right now, the only thing I can see is a metal cylinder I’ve kicked around my kitchen. My walls have dents in them, but as far as I know, the fish are okay....

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Spring is sprung

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Mar 15, 2024

    The wolf-whistle bird is back. This sharp-voiced bird returns every spring. It has two very distinctive calls. When I hear its voice, I instinctively jerk my head around to see who is either trying to get my attention (Hey you, over here!) or is teasing me with admiration (Wolf-whistle, I kid you not). Then I laugh at myself. Foiled again! The wolf-whistle bird doesn’t sound anything like a love bird, does it? This avian character sounds more like the kind of birds your m...

  • The Postscript: Rod Stewart hair

    Carrie Classon|Updated Mar 12, 2024

    “I like your hair!” a woman at the party said. This is always nice to hear. My hair is my least endearing feature, primarily because there is not much of it. But since my husband, Peter, started cutting it, I worry a lot less. “How does my hair look?” I ask as I head out the door. Peter always pretends to take this question very seriously. (He should, as my hairdresser.) He scrutinizes the top of my head for a long moment. He asks me to turn all the way around. Then he reac...

  • Montana should lead in regenerative agriculture and ranching

    Updated Mar 12, 2024

    We are members of Montana Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate, an organization formed by a broad coalition of health professionals, working together to address climate change as a public health issue, due to the threats the climate crisis poses to the health and future of our communities. The food we eat is a significant contributor to chronic medical conditions, and even death in the US. Despite providing bountiful food, industrial agriculture also yields many products used for highly processed foods which are...

  • Letter to the Editor - Help during National Red Cross Month

    Updated Mar 8, 2024

    To the editor: Help can’t wait when emergencies strike — not for the family displaced by a disaster, the patient in need of lifesaving blood or the deployed service member alerted to a family crisis at home. Every day, when our neighbors face emergencies like these, they rely on local volunteers, blood donors, financial supporters and community partners who deliver care and hope through Montana Red Cross. Last year alone, we helped more than 560 Montanans impacted by disaster by delivering food, shelter and clothing, and most...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: The uneventful life

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Mar 8, 2024

    “Have an exciting evening,” my daughter wished at me after a phone call over the weekend. “No! No! No!’ I cried vehemently. “Not an exciting evening, Never! Wish me a calm and peaceful and uneventful evening, please.” One never knows what energies one might release with a casual word or two. I’ve had enough excitement in other periods of my life. Today I sit in front of my blank page with absolutely nothing to say. Life is good. Quiet. No waves. No storm clouds. No drama. I g...

  • On Second Thought: A serious conversation

    Will Rawn|Updated Mar 8, 2024

    Hilary Clinton warned us in advance against Tucker Carlson’s Vladimir Putin interview. Deploying one of her favorite disparaging epithets, “useful idiot,” against the journalist, Clinton told us he was going to be manipulated by the wily autocrat. Sure enough, as soon as the interview actually posted, every media personality worth a Fox or MSNBC moment chimed in to let us know Carlson had merely channeled the Russian president’s Russian talking points. Next came days of satiri...

  • Not much to speak of

    Updated Mar 8, 2024

    It’s the off-the-cuff speeches that take the most preparation. I’ve never been a great public speaker. Come to think of it, I haven’t even been a public speaker. The last time I addressed someone in public was when I asked what aisle had mayonnaise. But I am undeterred. Perhaps I mean undaunted. Or unhinged. Whatever. You get it. I want to be a good speaker. I have a lot of examples to look up to. Take Daniel Webster. I remember from school that, if nothing else, he was a great orator. He spoke against nullification and d...

  • The Postscript: What cats like

    Carrie Classon|Updated Mar 5, 2024

    “I’ve been reading about cats,” my husband, Peter, tells me. Peter has never had a cat before. “Oh, yeah?” “Salt is not good for their kidneys. We have to give Felix unsalted fish.” Felix is our adopted street cat here in Mexico. He is coming back to the U.S. with us in a fancy backpack carrier I found online. It has mesh on either side, with one big plexiglass bubble in the back, so Felix can watch his fellow passengers in comfort. He hasn’t flown yet, but our trips to an...

  • Philosophy rocks

    Updated Mar 5, 2024

    Usually I don’t read anything more complex than the back of a cereal box, but this week — perhaps it was fate, perhaps it was indigestion — I found an essay on Latin America. In it was a sentence like “it was more of an Argentinization of Brazil than a Brazilianization of Argentina. Though one can argue the Brazilianization of Argentina is really the Brazilianization of Brazil.” The essay led me to make a deep, meaningful conclusion. It wasn’t about Brazil. It was about life. I should become a philosopher. Instead of...

  • Thanks for nine decades of Scouting in the area

    Updated Mar 1, 2024

    With February and Scout anniversary month coming to an end it is always a good time to step back and see where we have come from and to appreciate the journey that the Boy Scouts of American has taken. It was 114 years ago that the Boy Scout movement officially began at 11:03 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 8, 1910. This is exact date time that the Boy Scouts of America became incorporated. There have been Boy Scouts of America units in Havre and along the Hi-Line for more than 90 years. That cannot happen without the past and continued...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Miles to go before we plant

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Mar 1, 2024

    It is interesting to contemplate that a mere 2-month-old baby has accumulated more frequent flier miles than I have in the past five years. The comparison is easy. My mileage is zero. More astounding is that little Marley’s flights cost more than the sum total of all my flights, domestic and foreign, inclusive of but not exclusively: multiple domestic flights, Hawaii, Alaska, Mexico, China, Japan and India. Who could have imagined this farm girl could have visited so many f...

  • Letter to the Editor - Thanks to all for working the county spelling bee

    Updated Feb 27, 2024

    Dear Editor, Feb. 22, 2024, the 57th Annual Hill County Spelling Bee was held at Havre Middle School. This event brings together all of the best student (grades 4-8) spellers in Hill County to determine who will represent our area at the state competition in Bozeman on March 9, 2024. Crucial financial support for this event was provided by Independence Bank in the form of Chamber of Commerce gift certificates for the top three finishers: $50, $35 and $20. Medals were provided by the Hill County Superintendent of Schools...

  • The Postscript: A borrowed plate

    Carrie Classon|Updated Feb 27, 2024

    My husband, Peter, and I were surprised that two plates were missing. We stay in our little apartment in Mexico and, while we’re gone, all our dishes and glasses remain in the cupboards. We pack away most of our spices, but we leave the vegetable steamer and the pressure cooker and all the art on the walls. We leave it all in the apartment which, we assume, is rented out to other people while we are gone, although it is hard to know for sure because everything is always r...

  • Interesting things going on

    Updated Feb 27, 2024

    These past few weeks have been interesting. As the Local Government Interim Committee, we had planned to look into the property tax and appraisals issues. At least that’s what I thought and what made sense to me; that the Tax Interim Committee would address these issues alongside input from folks in local government. Then, as had also happened during and after this year’s legislative session, the administration got involved in place of letting the Legislature do our job. The administration created a special property tax adv...

  • Medicaid unwind hits older Montanans hard

    Updated Feb 23, 2024

    More than 120,000 Montanans lost their Medicaid and Healthy Montana Kids health care coverage in the past few months. Shockingly, 70 percent of those terminations were due to administrative reasons: failures on the part of the Gianforte administration. The administration’s poorly thought-out, under-staffed Medicaid redetermination process has hurt thousands of Montanans, especially our elders and children. During the pandemic, in the interest of keeping as many people insured as possible, the federal government suspended t...

  • Montana tax policy shouldn't favor corporations over workers

    Updated Feb 23, 2024

    Montana families and workers expect our state government to tax people fairly, invest in our safety and future, and give Montanans the opportunity to get ahead in life. Unfortunately, last year Gov. Greg Gianforte and Montana Republicans saddled Montana homeowners with a $200 million residential property tax increase, cut property taxes for large corporations, and then topped it off by providing global corporations a free lunch to lower their Montana taxes. This last tax exploit, while receiving less attention, is every bit...

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