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The Legislative Session is coming to an end. I have heard rumors that Republican and Democratic leadership are thinking we might be done by Easter but we hear that leadership wants us to be done early every session and it usually doesn’t work out. The State Budget is now back in the House and should come up for a vote on the Senate’s amendments to the budget at the end of this week. Our next update on the revenue estimate will come on April 20th. Once we see the update, it will be our final look at the estimate before the end of the ses...
HELENA - Monday was the final day for general bills to transmit back to the chamber they originated in, so any policy bills that weren’t returned to the House or the Senate, depending on where they started are now dead. Moving forward, most of the work on the House side will be reviewing appropriation/revenue bills from the Senate and processing House bills that come back with amendments from the Senate. Most of the big policy bills are still working their way through the process. As we come down to the end of the session, we will have one m...
In past articles, I described consciousness as awareness but we must ask: Does awareness differ from person to person? Clearly, everyone has consciousness, however, like so much of psychology each person's consciousness is different. We seldom, if ever, consider that our understanding of the world is different from another person's understanding. When we talk to someone, we expect to be understood because we assume their understanding of the world is pretty much the same as ours. This...
Q: Watering always is a problem for us. We hand water some raised beds but that doesn't work if we are going to be gone for several days. If we use sprinklers with timers, we end up watering areas that aren't part of the garden. That promotes weeds. We have tried drippers and found them unreliable. Sometimes they put out way too much water, and sometimes they plug up. Soaker hoses are hard to install and they start plugging up after a year of use. Is there a better method? A: If there is, I...
Dear friends, Retiring in Seeley-Swan Valley? What does that look like? We know it is an extraordinarily beautiful landscape. We absolutely love it here for many reasons: fishing, hunting, hiking, swimming, skiing, snowshoeing, wild animals, horses and dogs free to run, no traffic jams ... the list goes on and on. On the flip side, retirement here in Seeley-Swan can be particularly challenging as we age-in-place. Some of my friends have recently lost a spouse and they are now alone. Some...
HELENA - This week was the final week before transmittal, meaning that every bill that started in one chamber, had to pass through to the other chamber in order to stay alive. So at this point, any bill that started in the House and has not passed over to the Senate is dead. There are less than 30 days left in the Legislative Session, most of our work from here on out will be processing bills from the Senate and confirming or rejecting amendments made to House bills by the Senate. The final piece of the state’s infrastructure package, the S...
This past winter we had some normal cold spells. It's winter in Montana folks. Watching the TV and to hear the weather people ramble on you'd think we lived in the Arctic. Oh, that's right all the ice is melting up there. Those folks spend most of their working days go'n from a heated house to a heated car, to a heated workplace. Those who log or work over in North Dakota know what hardship in the workplace is, don't ya see? I can remember a couple of bad ones. Many moons ago I was working over...
HELENA - Last week, the State Budget passed out of the House and is now on its way to the Senate Finance and Claims committee. As Finance and Claims begins having hearings on the budget, the legislature will receive another update on the State’s revenue projections and we will have a better idea of what we are working with, allowing us to all but put the finishing touches on the budget for next two years. In the same week, the House voted on and passed out almost every single one of the normal infrastructure bills. I say “almost every sin...
The reason I hate the .357 so much is partly because of the handguns it is available in. Many of the firearms manufactured in the .357 are works of art by themselves. Some of them are so nice and so carefully crafted, they are almost too nice to shoot. This is true especially of the Smith and Wessons. Practically every company that has ever manufactured a center fire revolver has made a .357. Hence, there is an almost endless variety of .357 revolvers available. Everything from small...
Things are starting to pick up again here at the legislature after transmittal. House Committees are starting to hear all of the Senate bills that were sent to the House during transmittal. Most of the “Big Issue” bills, from tax increase bills to Medicaid Expansion, have been drafted and are set for hearings if they haven’t already had one. This next week, we will move the big budget bills through the House Floor. The State Budget (HB2) is set to be heard on the House Floor on Tuesday. After the budget moves through the House Floor we are p...
What is meant by truth or consequences? Well, at one time, this was the title of a game show. The consequences in the game show were fun and humorous. In addition, throughout the centuries philosophers have debated basic truth and consequences concerning life and the universe. In this article, however, we're not interested in either. We're interested in psychological truth and consequences. For our purposes, psychological truth has to do with meaning and expressions of justice, and is...
Q: We are starting our first garden of raised beds in Seeley Lake. How much do we have to worry about soil contaminants in our garden beds? Is there some way to keep the soil in good health from year to year? A: It has been said that if a gardener takes care of the soil, the rest of the garden will take care of itself. The soil is where everything starts. The dirt is full of living organisms--billions of them in every teaspoonful. Yes, that is right. There are billions of fungal spores,...
Hear the band? Join the March... Join us as we march into spring with our local Meals on Wheels (MOW) campaign March for Meals - Seeley Lake. March for Meals – Seeley Lake is the annual fundraising event which helps pay for Seeley Lake's Meals on Wheels Program. Meals cooked every morning, Monday through Friday at the Seeley Lake Senior Center are hand delivered by volunteers to homebound older adults and people with disabilities in Seeley Lake. Our service goes beyond meal delivery at the door....
We have now finished the 45th Legislative day and are officially halfway through the legislative session in Helena. Most members of the Legislature have a week or so break as the general bills are all transmitted over to the opposite legislative chamber. I will be staying in Helena in order to get infrastructure ready for when the Legislature returns, and members of the House Appropriations committee will be back early on Thursday in order to start the committee hearings on the full state budget. In the first half of the legislative session,...
Let's talk today about one of the most horrible illnesses known to, well-MAN-the man flu! As a man and a previous man flu sufferer, I can tell you-it's awful. While my wife (and women in general) may not agree, the urban dictionary explains quite clearly that the man flu experience is more agonizing than childbirth. The nurses at our clinic are pretty good at spotting this terrible affliction. It's pretty much a text-book diagnosis, just watch for a man who is emitting involuntary groans of...
Cutt'n timber all over the country you get to see and hear some things that you'll never forget. On that burn over at the North Fork of the Blackfoot where me and Elden Rammell were sentenced to cut, a sorta comical comment from a dude sticks in my mind. I was falling along an old road and here comes an outfitter out for a day ride with a bunch of dudes. Not wanting to scare the ponies, I sat on a stump to let them pass. I guess I was a sorry look'n sight, black from one end to the other. The...
We are two weeks out from the deadline for General Policy bills in the legislature. These are policy bills that do not have any dollars associated with them. Every committee has been having full hearing schedules trying to work through them all and either pass or fail them before the deadline. This also means that you can count on seeing a substantial increase in the number of bills coming alive this week as legislators try to get their bills through the process in time. Any bill that deals with money, whether it is appropriating dollars or dea...
Of course a real leopard cannot change its spots but the question refers to psychological spots, such as personality characteristics, behaviors, emotions, values, beliefs, childhood influences and conditionings and on and on. Psychological spots vary and depend on an individual's psychological make-up. Psychology, just like the medical field, relies on diagnoses to help guide treatment approaches. Unlike medical ailments, psychological conditions are not physical; nevertheless, these conditions...
I want to talk today about a vaccine. Wait...don't roll your eyes! This one is important, especially in light of the recent outbreak of measles that you have probably been hearing about. I feel it appropriate that we reexamine our thoughts on the MEASLES (MMR) vaccine. Most of our children here in Seeley Lake have been vaccinated, as have most of us adults. This has given our community a certain 'herd' immunity. In simple terms, this means that those of us that have been immunized have been a sh...
HELENA - There are now 900 introduced bills with around 100 or so already having been killed by committees. By the time the legislature ends, we should have somewhere around 1,500 bills having been introduced or having been drafted and had a hearing. We are now coming up to the general bill title deadline. This means that bills that deal with policy without having dollars connected to them have to be passed through the chamber they started in by next week in order to transfer over to the other chamber in time, so look to see an avalanche of bil...
The foamy sweat rolls under the curry comb as I watch each line the blade makes in the red color of your winter coat. It's unusually warm for January. You cock your hip and lick your lips standing quietly, eyes slit against the sun. My hand runs through the course and knotted mix of gray, red, white, ambers and black hair that makes up your mane. I let my knuckles catch in the knots and lean in, resting my head against you. I feel the weight of my thoughts dissipate, fading off with the gentle...
Dear all, A Personal Emergency Response System (PERS) is a device you can wear either around your neck as a pendant or on your wrist like a large watch. Simply put, the purpose of the PERS is to rapidly alert emergency responders to come and help you if you fall and can't get up or if you are in danger. The main reason people buy them is because they want the peace of mind that someone will come to help them if they are alone and need assistance. Often, the child of an older adult is worried...
Can’t remember if I told this here story many moons ago or not, so here goes. Me and Butch was cut’n timber near Haines, Alaska. When we quit the job we decided to drive down the Alaska Highway. Haines Junction was the first stop in the Yukon Territory. The place, in them there days, looked like a frontier town. I inquired where the bank was and was pointed to a Chevy van across the way. Not wanting to ask too many questions, over we went. Yup, there both side doors open and set’n behind a card table with money in little stacks was the bank...
Things are off and running now at the legislature as an avalanche of policy bills are hitting committees and receiving hearings. In the infrastructure committee, we have just finished hearing all the projects in the Long-Range Building Program (HB5) and in the coming week we will be hearing water, wastewater and bridge projects from all over the state. I have scheduled the committee to vote on all the rest of the infrastructure bills on Feb. 7 in order to move them through the process as quickly as possible, so we are close to finishing our com...
HELENA - Things have started to pick up this week in the Legislature as committees have started taking executive action on the bills they have been hearing in committee and the Appropriations Subcommittees are in full swing. There are around 450 bills now moving their way through the legislature, dealing with everything from public defender fees and medical marijuana reform to the amount of plastic straws a business should be allowed to hand out. Most of these bills that move through the various committees will end up dying in committee, but...
