Not spring, but not bad
The Kingfisher Flyshop’s Five-River Fishing ReportThings have been heating up on a couple of the local rivers recently but winter's a long way from over. This time of year, you don't have the luxury of waiting, so the moral of the story is to get it while it's good! [more]
Does Post-Fire Logging Make Ecological or Economic Sense?
Betting on BiscuitIt’s rare to find two diametrically opposed sides using the same exact posterchild to support their views. However, that’s essentially what’s developed over the past few years as the logging industry and their supporters have locked horns with conservation groups and scientists in a battle over so-called “healthy forests� policy and the future of America’s public lands following wildfires. [more]
Beat That Hollywood
3rd Annual Big Sky Documentary Film Festival Offers Reality from 28 Countries
For the most part, Hollywood movies serve up a whole load of crap. From ex-Jackass front-man Johnny Knoxville crashing the Special Olympics to a couple of wedding crashers who deceive and sleep their way into a world of "true love." Everybody loves a happy ending because that's reality. Right? Try again.
For a good slap back into the realm of the real, the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival has a backhand cocked and ready to swing February 16-22 here in Missoula.
Now in its third year, the festival attracts documentary filmmakers from all over the world. This year, the festival will feature films from 28 countries covering issues ranging from the violence of the G8 in Scotland to documenting two guys who row across the Atlantic Ocean together. Did I mention they don't speak the same language? Beat that Hollywood.
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From Forest to Floor
A New Angle on ThinningJim Robbins has a nice piece in today's New York Times detailing the business end of forest thinning. Robbins looks at a new wave of thinning and what it could mean in the forest products industry, including a profile of Missoula writer and now entrepreneur Peter Stark. Stark's business, North Slope Sustainable Wood LLC, turns little trees into beautiful hardwood floors and is perhaps at the leading edge of a new trend. Stark tells Robbins: "I'm a tree hugger. If we can take the small trees and leave the big ones, the loggers and environmentalists are both happy."
On the News
Nate Schweber’s New GigAs an admitted news junkie I can never resist a headline like "Police Officers Drive Off Bridge," so I duly clicked through on a New York Times story today about a fatal accident in New Jersey and found it was written by none other than legendary Missoula native and sometime New West contributor Nate Schweber. I don't know yet what his deal is with the Times and whether we'll be seeing him there regularly, but whatever the case, congrats Nate!
Vote
Happy Election Day!The polls are open folks. There are bound to be some super tight races so be sure to cast your ballots. (Judging by yard signs in my neighborhood (my very scientific poll), Marilyn Marler and write-in candidate Clayton Floyd will be nearly neck and neck. And, expect the races in Ward 4 (Tim Lovely vs. Jon Wilkins) and Ward 1 (Cass Chinske vs. Dave Strohmaier) to go down to the wire too.)
If you're on your way, here are some handy links to help this fine, snowy, election day:
Click here for the city's sample ballot (PDF).
Click here to use this handy little form to find your polling place.
Column: The Human Landscape
Balancing Livability and Making a LivingI had a conversation with a friend last week from Omaha, Nebraska, where I lived for a short spell before coming back home to Montana last January. He asked if I had been doing much outside. I told him I hadn’t really. “Isn’t that why you moved back there?� he asked.
Indeed, that is why I had moved back here, among other things. But I just haven’t had the time. I told him it was a cruel, cruel irony.
It’s a familiar predicament for the brand of New Westerners I’m a part of. Too often, when we talk about the plight of a New Westerner, we conjure images of baby boomers and second-home owners. But the reality is, a fair amount of the growth our region will see in the next 10 years will also be in my age group (20 to 35) and good chunk of that will fall under the group demographers call “return migrants� – people with ties to region who leave for a few years, make a couple bucks and then move back home.
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A Park’s Pull
Feedin’ the Yellowstone JonesBy K. Stachowski
We are Yellowstoners -- emphasis on stoners. We are addicted to the place. Isn't admitting it an essential first step?
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Political Dynamite
Burns Blasted for Sexist CommentsWhy doesn't this report about Conrad Burns telling a flight attendant she could stay home to be a mother if she lost her job to outsourcing surprise me?
Because he's notorious for such comments. From personal experience, after covering him time and again and being introduced to him as a reporter, he was still convinced that I, and several other female reporters in Helena were some sort of secretaries. In the office for a visit once, he needed some copies made so he turned to a female colleague of mine and said she could do it, pointing out that she probably knows how to run a copy machine.
Celebrating Community
Happy Birthday Rattlesnake | |
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| Pat Williams speaks to the crowd gathered to celebrate 25 years of the Rattlesnake Wilderness. Photo by Jacob Cowgill | |
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We gathered Wednesday night at Rattlesnake Gardens to wish our favorite urban wilderness a happy 25th birthday. The cake was good, the pulled pork was even better and the conversation lively and celebratory. To someone who wasn't around when the fight for the Rattlesnake was waged, it was a great education on something many of us Missoulians likely take for granted. The wilderness had its share of formidable foes in the beginning but it also had a firey group of friends, many who were on hand Wednesday to talk about the history of the National Recreation Area and the Wilderness Area. Cass Chinske, who very much led the charge said a few words, as did the governor (his comments read by artist and Rattlesnake resident Rudy Autio), Missoula Ranger Maggie Pittman and of course, the guy who pushed the wilderness where it needed to be pushed, former U.S. Rep. Pat Williams. He told the crowd, amassed under a tent on a rainy afternoon, he was happy to have been their "errand boy" all those years ago. "You didn't ask me to do this, you by God told me."
The night was not just a celebration of wilderness, but one of community as well.
"As we join here this damp evening to say Happy Birthday to the Rattlesnake," Williams said, "we are in a way seeing the connection between each of us to each other and to the children not yet born. It's a great thing ... It's a great thing."
