Bozeman News | New West Network

From The New West Blog

Yellowstone National Park is considering a wireless communication plan that could lead to more cell towers, backcountry webcams, wireless internet access in stores and hotels -- and, opponents say, a compromised wilderness experience.

“People go out into the wild to be in nature,” says Bill Boteler of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “They don’t go out to be surrounded by cell phone towers and gadgets.”  [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

As posted here on New West last week, with their gubenatorial candidate lagging far behind and single digit lead for McCain in the state, Montana Republicans are throwing their own version of a hail Mary, taken right out of the Karl Rove playbook. Yup, they’re trying to take away the vote.

For the Montana Republican Party to argue that this is anything but a partisan effort to steal the vote is laughable--they are targeting the six counties that most reliably vote Democratic. Why not the whole state, if they’re so worried about the integrity of the vote?

A pair of Missoula County voters and the Montana Democratic Party filed suit in federal court Monday morning to halt broad Republican challenges of newly registered voters, and to keep harshly worded letters about the challenges from being mailed to those challenged voters.

State Republicans challenged more than 6,000 voters last week in a handful of Democratic counties and Democratic-leaning areas. The challenges were made using a private forwarding-address service and notarized by Republican Party employees, the lawsuit alleges.

"I'm a challengee in Silver Bow County!" said Democratic Party official Art Noonan. He's also a state representative from Butte. (The progressive nonprofit Forward Montana, has a new Web site where you can check to see if your registration has been challenged.)   [more]

Tomorrow in Chicago, Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank president Gary Stern will give an updated version of his speech called "Repercussions from the Financial Shock" in which he argued that banks should be allowed to fail, so managers will learn the harsh lessons only failure can teach.

The text of the new speech at the Council of Institutional Investors won't be made available. Perhaps the subject matter is too close to a critique of the daily money matters rocking the financial world and the world economy. Not that anything should be read into his decision. Stern is a private Fed president. He speaks less than most others, said Minneapolis Fed spokeswoman Patti Lorenzen, and it's fairly standard for him to keep the text of his speeches to himself.

The upshot is that unless you're planning to attend the meeting in Chicago tomorrow, you'll miss the words of this influential and smart guy. That's why I thought it would be a good idea to point you to this story I wrote about Stern's earlier version of this same speech, given in Three Forks in mid-August.

In light of recent events, I might re-write the headline as follows: Fed Reserve Branch Head Says Let Banks Fail.

  [more]

Montana's Wilderness Drought

I've written extensively about Montana's Wilderness drought, 26 years and counting without Congress designated one acre of the Big Sky State as Wilderness. Now, Congress seems poised to pass S. 3213, a massive public lands bill, a collection of 90 wilderness and watershed protection bills covering almost every state.

For Montana wilderness advocates, it's another in a long line of no shows. In fact, Montana gets less than zero.  [more]

Hitting the pocketbook from all sides

Transportation issues are bearing down on the economy of Montana. How is this affecting our farmers, industries and how we view our future strategies, policies and approaches?

The Burton K. Wheeler Center, at the Montana State University, hosted a conference on transportation in Billings last week, with the goal to discuss with leaders and legislators how this increase in fuel has forced a shift in our economy and how are we to approach the future.

Representatives from three of Montana’s major industries — tourism, farming and food distribution — discussed how Montana’s markets are being significantly affected by fuel costs. [more]

New West Book Review

Personal Record: A Love Affair with Running
By Rachel Toor
University of Nebraska Press, 164 pages, $24.95

Rachel Toor, who earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana and currently lives in Spokane, came late to the sport of running. She writes that she was "a bookish egghead who ran only to catch a bus," never competing in high school or college meets or even casual jogs, and didn't lace up her sneakers until encouraged to do so by a boyfriend when she was "on the edge of thirty." But then she took to the sport with the fervor of a convert, hiring a coach, joining running groups, and participating in marathons, ultramarathons, and a sport called "Ride and Tie," in which two runners and a horse complete a course of between 30 and 40 miles. In her new essay collection, Personal Record, Toor immerses the reader in the world of long-distance running, examining her bruised, muscular body, the contents of her closet, her pantry jammed with energy gels and protein bars, and her love life in the process of explaining what running means to her and describing the experiences the sport has given her.

Rachel Toor will discuss her book in Missoula at Shakespeare and Company on October 14 at 7:30 p.m. [more]

From The New West Blog

With Wednesday's passage of a veto-proof $13 billion Amtrak funding bill, Amtrak will consider restoring two bygone Western routes, the Pioneer and North Coast Hiawatha.

The Pioneer, from 1977 to 1997, connected Seattle and Chicago via Oregon, Southern Idaho, Utah and Colorado. The North Coast Hiawatha, from 1971 to 1979, diverged from the Empire Builder and ran through southern Montana and North Dakota.

Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo and Montana Sen. Jon Tester introduced the amendments. [more]

More Editorial Cuts, and More and More

Newspapers cuts this week have begun to seriously call into question the continued ability of newspapers to deliver news.

Yesterday the independently owned Spokesman-Review announced plans to cut 27 more newsroom jobs, almost one-quarter of its editorial staff while newsprint prices continue to soar and profits, industry-wide, keep plummeting.

Earlier this week Lee Enterprises flagship paper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, cut 18 more jobs, including its primary cops reporter. Over the past few months, the newsroom has been practically gutted by Lee, which remains one of the few profitable newspaper companies. [more]