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So many topics, but my heart grieves for events locally. As happens in every community, we have had some sad events in our community. A couple of Saturdays ago, a guy was driving erratically, passing in no passing zones and shooting randomly. Leading to a police encounter and ending with him taking his own life. Then the next day, two gals and another couple were involved in a collision just south of our town. There were fatalities and others went to hospital. Of course, it is life in a small town, so the gossip is flying, the rumors are...
The first company to mass-produce the TV dinner was the Swanson company that sold 10 million trays in 1954, its first year of production. Following the lean casseroles of the 1930s of the great depression and the wartime meatloaves of the 1940s, American families welcomed progress and prosperity with frozen meals, canned foods and cereals. With the advent of the television, the family substituted the round-the-table family dinner with TV trays. We may blame our expanding waistlines, poor metabolic health and addiction to the screen on the...
Sunday was one of those crisp, clear, Indian Summer days I had been longing for since the smoke cleared. Like a lot of people I feel robbed of summer. Now its counterpart, and always my favorite time of year, is here. Our neighbors recently invited us to pick MacIntosh apples from their trees. Jan picked the apples and will make a pie. The leaves on our trees turned color and just as soon started blowing off. For just a little while longer, everything is glorious and alive before the onset of...
A few weeks back my opponent and I were able to share both of our visions for rural areas like the Seeley-Swan. I respect Rep. Connie Keogh for coming to our rural community to debate topics from property taxes to 2nd Amendment Rights. As I’ve stated, I respect Rep. Keogh, and thank her for her service as a representative for House District 91, a city house district. We agree on topics, such as preserving our public lands, and a Homestead Exemption that will lower full-time resident property taxes, and make second homeowners pay their fair s...
As a retired Missoula Municipal Court Judge, I write to ask for your support of District Court Judge Dan Wilson, candidate for the Montana Supreme Court. I have known Judge Wilson for many years, and he embodies the qualities we need on the Supreme Court. His background demonstrates a solid foundation to serve the state in that role. He has served as a prosecutor, and defense attorney, a civil attorney, a Justice of the Peace and, for the last eight years, a District Court Judge. He has provided training and mentoring to lower court judges. He...
Montana leads all 50 states in the total federal aid it receives as a percent of its total state revenue, 31.8%. Stated another way you could consider us a “welfare” state. Also, the largest employer group in Montana is government, local, state and federal combined. So when a candidate says he or she is going to cut federal spending and shrink government, we must understand we may be the most adversely affected. Montana has a large amount of federal forest service, BLM and national park land. Our state and federal park areas are combined nearly...
Allow me to share how the Rosary changed my life tremendously by helping me to understand the Faith more deeply, though it took many years after converting to start reciting and praying the Rosary daily. Why? Ignorance of the Rosary commanded by God through the Blessed Mother and also repetitious prayer seemed monotonous, but not as monotonous as my repetitive sins must be to God, I fear. What is the Rosary? The Rosary is a recitation and meditation on the life of Christ with prayers assembled from Holy Scripture: the Apostles’ Creed, Our F...
By reading the column “A Place for All” in the Pathfinder over the years, we can learn about the places, organizations and programs that make our valley a special place. We can remember what went on in the past underlies all of what we have now. In times like today with lots of changes happening, it’s important to look back at this history and ask ourselves a question. Is what we are today because of external — things from the outside -— or internal, driven by those who live here? The answer is both. Indigenous peoples were present in our ar...
On a sunny Thursday in August, Lisa Hathaway and Rachel Jaquith knelt on the concrete floor of Missoula's Johnson Street Emergency Shelter to help a patient with a painful wound on his abdomen. "Let's see what we can do to help you out today," said Jaquith calmly. Jaquith, a registered nurse, and Hathaway, a physician assistant, are members of Partnership Health Center's Community Care Team, or CCT. Sometimes called a "street medicine team," the CCT supports Missoula's unsheltered neighbors...
In 2020 Montanans elected a super-majority of Republicans to govern our Last Best Place. Republicans currently control every branch of government. The consequences of that election cost ordinary Montanans dearly. Homeowners saw huge property tax increases. Housing costs increased and that burden is passed on to renters. Our utility rates were also raised by 28% by a Republican dominated Public Service Commission. Montanans are understandably upset about being priced out of our homes. Who is getting blamed for this catastrophic mess? Montana...
We are truly at a crossroads in our great state. Do we maintain our traditional values of freedom and let live or do we sell our state to out of state billionaires? I for one am truly tired of newcomers coming and deciding what is best for Montana. I am a newcomer as I moved here in 1994, but I have embraced the values of our treasured state. I am very concerned about Tim Sheehy and his special interest groups. He just doesn’t feel like a good fit for Montana. Although I do not always agree with Sen. Jon Tester, Tester has done us right e...
In my 35 years as an attorney, I litigated cases in courts from Libby to Billings and in Municipal courts to the U.S. Supreme Court. I have had many complaints about many judges, but one judge of whom I never had any complaint is Jerry Lynch. I appeared many times before Judge Lynch when he was the U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge in Missoula. Although he often didn’t agree with me, I always believed he ruled according to the law and not because of personal bias or political beliefs. I have never before written a letter supporting a j...
My first experience with Christian nationalism was around the conflicts over the Ten Commandments being displayed on courthouse lawns. On the one hand, people of faith I knew and loved were concerned about the removal of these displays, fearing it was a sign that our government systems were rejecting the good, divine principles by which they believed it necessary to promote in order to have and form a society that was pleasing to God. On the other hand, other people of faith I knew and loved agreed that these displays needed to be removed....
For a good deal of my medical career there worked in my office an avid quilter. She participated in quilting groups, received quilting magazines and periodically went on quilting junkets, riding around a multi-state region on a bus with other quilters, allegedly stopping at quilting stores and networking with other quilters. I always wondered about quilters. If, for instance, you wanted to run a secret, special-ops, counterintelligence sort of thing, who would ever suspect quilters? We think of...
Open Enrollment is your annual opportunity to optimize your Medicare coverage. Whether you’re considering a Medicare Advantage plan or adjusting your Prescription Drug Plan, MAS is here to help you make the most of Medicare. Open Enrollment consultations are tailored to your situation, helping you review your options and secure the most suitable and cost-effective plan for the coming year. Missoula Aging Services doesn’t offer a singular approach to Medicare and Medicaid assistance — we deliver a spectrum of options to cater to your uniqu...
Famously, or not, the professor in my statistical mechanics course said infinity seems to be about 100. What he meant was it’s usually safe to treat any set with more than 100 members statistically. What he didn’t add was that it becomes necessary for any set with more than 1,000 members. The US has 330,000,000 people in it. The world is at 8 billion, give or take. Even Missoula County has more than 100,000. We became “statistical” many years ago. Understanding statistics has been critical to solving societal problems for several millenn...
Last week I had the opportunity to participate in the Seeley Swan Pathfinder’s candidate debate. I appreciate events like these because they allow the community to hear directly from candidates, which helps promote democracy along with an understanding of the issues Montanans’ elected representatives will deal with once elected to office. Debating in open forums like these promotes the healthy dialogue and sensible solutions we are all hungry for right now. A hot topic at that debate was an issue that has been top of mind for a lot of fol...
You see them all summer long - those little sand-and-gravel cases on the downstream side of rocks in the shallows of the stream. They might have a little black head and legs sticking out and crawl slowly across the bottom. Spook them, cast a shadow over them, and they pull their heads in, lie still and seem to disappear. They crawl out of their cases and build new ones several times through the summer. Each case is glued together from the sand in the river bottom using a special UV-reflective...
Erin Farris-Olsen is a doer. Erin respects the law, and her approach as a candidate to be the next Clerk of the Montana Supreme Court will be to use her legal expertise to support all Montanans. As your elected official, Erin won’t play politics. That’s why I’m not goin’ with Bowen (Greenwood), who uses the office to promote his personal political agenda. We can do better! Not only does Erin know how to get things done, she also believes in a better Montana. On election day, remember to cast your vote for integrity and honor, and check the box...
When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Tim Sheehy joked about one of his experiences as, “a great way to bond with all the Indians while they’re drunk at 8 a.m.” or throwing beer cans at cultural events. He then repeated his racist remarks to other audiences for their entertainment. He tells us who he is. There is no doubt his racist statements reflect his values. Mr. Sheehy’s racist belief, declared and repeated, inflicts devastation on Indigenous people. His hurtful words are felt by us all. They are particularly damaging as they...
My first meeting with Dave Inks was inconsequential. It was somewhere in the mid-seventies and my young family was attending a sportsman's show in California's Bay Area. A number of fly fishing greats would be there and I was eager to meet some of them. My young son Jay and I visited Randall Kauffman's booth, where Randall graciously signed a copy of his new book for Jay. A few minutes later we were in the Creative Sports booth, the first mega-fly shop, manufacturing and wholesale conglomerate i...
Rush skeletonweed is rapidly advancing from the Idaho border where it has long been established along the I-90 corridor towards the Blackfoot watershed and points beyond. Rush skeletonweed is native to Asia, the Mediterranean and North Africa, and was first reported in the United States near Spokane, Washington in 1938. A small infestation was found in Sanders County, Montana in 1991 and has subsequently been reported in Lincoln, Flathead, Ravalli, Lewis and Clark, Beaverhead, Missoula and...
Thank you for the very insightful and illuminating article in the Sept. 5, 2024 Pathfinder regarding the challenges our local pharmacist, Karen Dove, and the Seeley Swan Pharmacy face from both outside sources and local considerations. For starters we should all recognize how lucky our small community is to have its own full service pharmacy. As the article points out, Dove’s facility is the only pharmacy serving all the areas between Big Fork, Lincoln and Missoula. It should also be noted that small independent pharmacies such as ours are unfo...
Two years ago, a Utah ski corporation and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) announced a plan to highly develop the rustic Holland Lake Lodge on public land in Condon in the rural Swan Valley. The ski corporation, POWDR, and USFS touched off a blistering public debate about the future not only of the small town and relatively wild valley, but a discussion about the future of Montana and the high-dollar outside influences changing the Big Sky State’s property, social and natural values. Skip ahead two years, and the situation has only become more c...
Have you ever had one of those relationships where, when it is good, it is great — a synchronized dance, a symphony, fireworks and flowers. But when it is bad, it is very bad — angry noises, smoke, disillusionment. For years, I’ve been locked in such a love/hate quagmire. Not with my wife, Pam, we’re pretty boring in that regard, but with a Vermeer BC625. Some might say that such strong feelings for a wood chipper are abnormal. (Before throwing stones, have you ever used the term “my baby” referring to a car, truck, boat, or snowmobile?) But wh...
