Boise News

OLYMPIC FEVER

Skiing and snowboarding aren’t exactly the TV spectacles that baseball and football are in this country, but every four years when the Winter Olympics roll around, they have their moment in the spotlight.

Resort operators hope the Olympics will inspire more people to get out on the slopes this winter, and more traveling skiers to avoid Vancouver’s crowds to come to ski areas south of the border.

“The Olympics coming up are going to bring so much attention to the sport of skiing and ski resorts,” says Billy Kidd, a former Olympian and director of skiing at Colorado’s Steamboat Mountain Resort, as he signs posters for fans wearing his trademark Stetson hat at the annual Denver Ski & Snowboard Expo.

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New Conflicts arise

Montanans living along the winding Teton River, well east of the Rocky Mountain Front were quick to notice their new neighbor this summer. As early as the beginning of July, ranchers and other landowners along the prairie began intermittently spotting a solitary grizzly bear journeying east away from the mountains.

Residents of the rural grasslands, including Mike Madel, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Park’s Region 4 Grizzly Bear Management Specialist based in Choteau, were even more surprised in mid-July when members of a local ranching family captured photographs of the lone bear on their land along the Teton north of Fort Benton, ambling through open prairie nearly 100 miles from the mountains, where Ursus arctos horribilis is expected these days.

For Madel and other bear managers in the state, the bear’s arrival so far beyond the range of today’s grizzlies and into historic habitat was a revelation – and one that would be the first of many throughout the summer and fall. Madel, a 23-year veteran of working with grizzlies along the Front, called 2009 an “unprecedented” year for bears wandering back on to the prairie, and says the bears’ presence there is only likely to increase in coming years.

That means an entire population of humans will now have to learn how to cohabitate with grizzlies. While the plains are historically grizzly country, for many living there now, the return of the grizzly is – to put it lightly – a surprise. 

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Flu News and Blues

As flu pandemics go, H1N1 sometimes seems hard to compute, given all the information flooding our way. Is it a panic? An impending storm? A party theme?

Yes, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that some people are hosting “swine flu parties” where people who know someone with H1N1 purposely hang out and try to get infected. Their goal is to get a mild case and gain natural immunity, so they won’t catch a more dangerous version later on. Health officials, not surprisingly, say this doesn’t work and isn’t smart. “While the disease ... has been mild for many people, it has been severe and even fatal for others,” the federal health agency says. “There is no way to predict with certainty what the outcome will be for an individual or, equally important, for others to whom the intentionally infected person may spread the virus.”

Meanwhile, as news about the flu continues to spread at viral speed, a Montana health official offers a few facts to help put things in perspective. Elton Mosher is the influenza surveillance coordinator and an infectious disease expert with the Department of Public Health and Human Services. Here’s his view of the flu, plus statistics from the World Health Organization and CDC:

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From the Panhandle

For years, panhandle residents have been trespassing on a narrow strip of private land along the northwest shore of Lake Pend Oreille, using an old road along the shoreline to bike, run, ski, walk their dogs, and occasionally take a dip in the lake. Although their trips rarely traverse more than a mile or two, the land they cross has a multitude of owners—including several private citizens, the cities of Sandpoint and Ponderay, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Bonner County Historical Society, and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad has a right-of-way across it as well.

Nearby is the site of the historic town of Sandpoint, which—along with its related de facto public waterfront-- was lost a few years ago to a high-end development. It may be this loss that has spurred the community on to try to formalize and save their access to the strip along the shore.

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National Journal Online

Senate Majority Leader Reid released an $849 billion healthcare overhaul bill Wednesday that includes a public option and will extend coverage to 31 million uninsured Americans, though a few Democrats are still on the fence over whether they will vote to proceed to the bill.

The bill would extend insurance to 94 percent of eligible Americans.

The measure, which would reduce the deficit $127 billion over a decade, creates an insurance exchange where people can compare and purchase coverage; allows insurance co-ops to be formed; expands Medicaid to those earning 133 percent of the federal poverty level; and offers federal subsidies to help those without employer-sponsored coverage purchase insurance.

The public option would allow states to opt out if they choose. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., shepherded a more comprehensive public option through the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee but called the opt-out version a strong public option.

The overhaul also includes an individual mandate with penalties reaching $750 per person for noncompliance by 2016. Employers that do not offer coverage will pay a fine for each of their employees who receive federal subsidies to purchase insurance in the exchange of as much as $750 per employee at the company, a senior Democratic aide said.

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FOLLOWING MY SHOTS 2

I used to play basketball, but not too much since the day my coach took me aside, patted me on the head, and said, “Bill, you’re short, but you’re slow, and you really need to follow your shots.”

Well, that was a long time ago, and I admit to never doing anything about the shortness or the slowness, but I have learned to follow my shots. And sometimes, they’re worth following. When I write my columns, I frequently hope something happens, and guess what sometimes it does. Check out these updates to past columns.

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