Featured Event

Missoula Filmmakers Preview Their “Best Bar in America”

Missoula filmmakers Damon and Eric Ristau are finishing up their independent feature film Best Bar in America and you can see in the trailer above that it’s taking shape.

So much shape, in fact, that the Ristau brothers are celebrating with a preview party this weekend.

The film, starring the likes of Andrew Rizzo, David Ackroyd, Gregory Collett and Lee McAfee, showcases some of the West’s best bars and places, through the eyes of two men on a quest. Eric said this summer in an interview with New West Missoula: “One of the epiphanies of the film is that rather than it just being a room full of people drinking alcohol there is actually a deeper culture to it and a wisdom that exists in those places as the modern day campfire. It’s a place to exchange stories and a place to exchange wisdom.”

You can check it out yourself: The preview party is on Saturday, Nov. 22 at the Stensrud Building (314 N. 1st Street) from 7 to 11 p.m.  (See the full listing at MissoulaEvents.Net here.)

News Brief

USDA Rule Would Send Organic Dairy Cows To Pasture

The United States Department of Agriculture says organic milk cows should be sent to pasture -- at least for 120 days a year.

As Steve Karnowski reports for the Associated Press, the draft USDA rule comes after outcry about big organic milk producers that keep their animals in large feedlots, feeding them organically and producing organically, but not giving them any fresh grass or room to roam. Under the proposed rule, which is up for public comment until December 23, in order to be certified organic, milk cows must be on pasture for half of the year and 30 percent of their dry food must come from grazing.

Boulder-based Aurora Organic Dairy, which produces store brands for the likes of Wal-Mart and Safeway and Broomfield-based Horizon were at the center of the controversy. Aurora spokeswoman Sonja Tuitele tells the AP that the company is looking at the draft rules and will provide comment. As Karnowski reports, Tuitele "said the proposals don't adequately provide for inclement weather. She also said the final rules will need to take geographic differences into consideration." Horizon, on the other hand, is supportive of the proposed rule.

Guest Opinion: Children Chant

Children’s Chant Against Obama: Never Again

When second- and third-graders chanted "Assassinate Obama" on a Madison School District bus recently, district spokeswoman Janet Goodliffe explained that most of the children didn't understand what the words mean. According to The Associated Press, she attributed the chant to the community's being "highly conservative" and overwhelmingly for John McCain.

I admire Janet Goodliffe as a preschool education leader. But as a teacher, she offered tortured excuses instead of capitalizing on a great teaching opportunity.

This is not an isolated incident. As a former teacher and Idaho Falls school volunteer, Luella Hendrickson, wrote on this page Thursday, after the election, children in her daughter's elementary class condemned Obama for being a Muslim, not being a U.S. citizen, selling out to the Arabs, taking away our guns, etc.

Anyone with ears to hear know these children were parroting their parents. Children get the drift from home: The new president is radical, dangerous and not to be trusted.

How terribly sad.

New West Missoula

The New New West Missoula

We're very pleased to launch our new New West Missoula page - a new look and lots of new features. We'll post at greater length shortly on the thinking behind all this, but in the meantime let us know what you think. You can leave a comment here or take a brief survey here. Thanks!

A Westerner in the White House: Messina Tapped as Obama Deputy Chief of Staff

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Jim Messina, former chief of staff for Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., as one of his deputy chiefs of staff in the White House.

Messina, who partly grew up in Boise and graduated from the University of Montana, worked as Obama’s campaign chief of staff and will now be part of Obama’s tight inner circle as the President-elect prepares to take over in Washington.

Messina is a long-time political figure in Montana who started his career in the statehouse in 1991. In August, Messina did an interview with High Country News‘ Ray Ring, (You can read the full interview, titled “Obama’s Western Ace-In-The-Hole” here) in which he he said:

I think that’s what (much of the West) is—Westerners are not partisan. ... People ask me all the time, “Why are Democrats doing so well in Montana?” It’s because we are able to speak to all Montanans about issues that are important to all, like public access to lands—that’s not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, but the fact is, Democrats are better at it than Republicans are, and it speaks to a whole bunch of people who are unaffiliated and who care deeply about it.

News Brief

Credit Crunch Trickles to Power Industry

The Associated Press' Matthew Brown today details how the credit crunch is squeezing the nation's power industry, focusing on a hot-button coal-fired plant near Great Falls, Montana.

Brown reports:

If credit woes put the brakes on scores of proposed plants, observers say a shift to other, more expensive fuels could end up soaking customers. The alternative is more frequent and potentially extended outages.

Click here for the story.

Real Estate Woes

North Idaho Hit Hard by Slump

It's not a big surprise that Sandpoint, Coeur d'Alene and other parts of North Idaho would be suffering from the real estate bust and the souring global economy; the area had been among the fastest-growing in the country, and was increasingly reliant on expensive resort development and second homes. But Associated Press writer Nicholas K. Geranios today details just how tough it has become: the "preferred builder" at the Idaho Club, a new luxury golf community near Sandpoint, is going out of business after failing to sell a single home in the past year.

The region, a classic story of conomic transformation from a mining and logging base, could be in for a double-whammy because the global downturn is also taking the shine off metal prices (just six months ago there was talk of a mining revival) and hurting the wood-products industry badly.

Column: Politics

Mountain West Cities Join National Protest Against Prop 8

No matter your feelings about gay equality and marriage, the issue is firmly political. It’s the civil rights movement of our day, and can no longer be relegated to a fringe few --especially after the passage of Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage, in California ten days ago.

Donors from many states gave money to help pass Prop. 8, but Idahoans donated more than $400,000 to pass it, second only to Utah in out-of-state contributions.

Several publications, including Pride Depot, are calling for a boycott of businesses on the donor list.

A national day of protest called “Join the Impact – Promote Love and Equality in Your City” on Saturday aims to bring national attention and a collective experience to people who want to claim their support for gay marriage and their objection to the California initiative.

In the Rocky Mountain West – at least in the states where New West publishes - there are 19 events scheduled for tomorrow, all at 11:30 Mountain Time, which are listed here.

From the New West blog: Opinion

Eastern Idaho Kids Chant “Assassinate Obama” on School Bus

In Rexburg, a small eastern Idaho university town, Tuesday’s bus ride home from an elementary school had kids chanting, “Assassinate Obama, assassinate Obama.”

Then they added in the name of a classmate, chanting “Assassinate Obama and Kate.”

A couple named Whoolery found out about it when their second and third graders got off the bus and reported the chanting. The Whoolerys weren’t Obama voters, but they were astonished and contacted the school.

According to a Twin Falls TV station, the Whoolerys “just don’t like people joking about a serious matter concerning any leader of the country.”

The school superintendent sent an email to teachers, principals and bus drivers about the incident and saying they should be told their behavior is unacceptable.