Missoula News

Blixseth's Alleged Breaches

Accused of secretly siphoning $286.4 million of his assets to a Nevada company so creditors couldn’t get it--and charged with bankrupting the ski resort he built from scratch--Yellowstone Club founder Tim Blixseth sat in a federal courtroom in Missoula yesterday and watched the latest chapter in his legal saga unfold.

The ending might be riches-to-rags.

The 59-year-old real estate tycoon, who launched a lavish 13,400-acre private enclave above Big Sky a decade ago, is on trial before U.S. District Judge Ralph Kirscher for allegedly committing fraud and breaching his fiduciary duties to the club.

GUEST COMMENTARY

The current public wrangling about Senator Jon Tester’s jobs and wilderness legislation heralds the many opinions about land use and protection policies. Perhaps somewhat disguised at the moment, but in a very real way, this heated debate represents a celebration of the passion we Montanans hold for the land and waters.

To us the landscape is not an abstraction, a Kodachrome; for millions of others the land exists only as images on a flickering screen or colors on a canvas. Out here the land is real. We work, play, and live on it. The land’s sustenance and provisions have created within us a visceral regard for place--this place.

Western Book Roundup

Wyoming has the smallest population of any U.S. state, but it maintains a literary output that rivals most other places.  While it’s been a quiet year so far for writers in Colorado (population 4,939,456, according to 2008 Census Bureau projections), writers in Wyoming (population 532,668) have been publishing at a good clip over the past few weeks. 

Laramie’s Alyson Hagy kicked things off in early February with the publication of her fourth story collection, Ghosts of Wyoming.  Claiming Ground, a memoir by Cody’s Laura Bell, is due out March 9, and it comes with glowing blurbs from Rick Bass, Kent Haruf, William Kittredge, and Mark Spragg.  Haruf writes, “This is a book that compels you to the last sentence, both because of its sheer beauty and its profound meaning.” Spragg writes, “Laura Bell’s Claiming Ground is the finest memoir I’ve read.” I guess I’d better read it myself.

Knopf will publish Spragg’s third novel, Bone Fire, on March 11.  Spragg is also from Cody, (population 9309), which means that .0215% of Cody’s population will publish a book in March.  To put that in perspective, writers in New York City (population 8,363,710) would have to publish 179,820 books in March to keep up with Cody’s per capita output.  Even if you include self-published writers, I doubt New York’s scribes could produce that many volumes, especially given that about 172,000 books were published for the entire year in the United States in 2005, the most recent year for which UNESCO’s publishing statistics are available.

RMEF, NRA OPPOSE 1-161

UPDATED: 7 pm, February 25: I just received a press release from Safari Club International, also in opposition to I-161.

A proposed ballot measure in Montana to eliminate guaranteed big game licenses for commercial outfitters, I-161, just picked up some serious opposition.

Proponents of I-161 are currently gathering signatures, so it’s still uncertain whether it will actually be on the ballot this November 2. Nonetheless, in separate press releases, the Missoula-based Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) and the National Rifle Association (NRA) strongly opposed the ballot initiative. 

ONLY TWO STATES NOT INTERESTED

There’s no such thing as “too big to fail” at the Adventure Cycling Association (ACA).

Formed back on America’s Bicentennial in 1976, the Missoula-based nonprofit has long ago become the nation’s leader in providing advice, maps and detailed route information for long-distance cyclists, including the development of an extensive system of signature bicycle routes for both self-contained riders and those who like a hot shower and soft bed every night.

Now, energized by its past success and undaunted by dwindling government budgets or the sheer massiveness of its new project, ACA has started, in partnership with state transportation agencies, planning and coordinating the U.S. Bicycle Route System (USBRS). 

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

Separation anxiety. Abandonment issues. Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Auto-erotic fixation. Low self-esteem. Possible Napoleon complex. I tell you what, this family member needs some professional help in the worst way. But I’m not sure what kind of help I’m going to be able to afford. I mean, sure, I love him, but money is money. And he’s a dog.

Houdini, our 8-year-old Daschund/Rottweiler/Ferret cross, is getting more neurotic with age. He’s physically pretty healthy, maybe a touch overweight. I was noticing that just this morning as I gave him a plateful of garbage. He’s developed a small lump on his side, that’s either a harmless fat nodule, or an Indian Manitou spirit embedded in his flesh. I’ll ask his vet when I take him in for his annual check up next month. Like most dogs, he’s motivated solely by food and sleep. So to the untrained eye, he appears to be pretty normal.

CAN ANYTHING MOVE SLOWER THAN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT?

Lately, it seems, I’ve been doing a lot of bemoaning about our inept political system, but alas, sometimes it does work.

Back on November 5, I devoted my column to pushing the USDA to fund a new hunting access program called Open Fields that Congress passed as part of the 2008 Farm Bill.

Western Book Roundup

Wallace Stegner, as probably most of the people reading this know, was a novelist, nonfiction writer, and environmentalist who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for Angle of Repose.  His place in the literature of the American West is so secure that he’s often called “The Dean of Western Writers.” Stegner grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, Great Falls, Montana, and Saskatchewan.  He taught writing at several universities and founded the creative writing program at Stanford. 

In a New York Times column last year, Timothy Egan called Stegner an “uber-citizen of the West” and wrote, “All over the West, Stegner centers, Stegner prizes and Stegner scholars produce work that follows his life theme: an attempt to get Westerners to make peace with their surroundings.”

Last year the University of Utah celebrated the 100th anniversary of Wallace Stegner’s birth with a series of events culminating in a spring symposium.  But Westerners aren’t done celebrating Stegner yet, as several Stegner-related events are scheduled across the region over the next few weeks:

FORMER MONTANA WILDERNESS ASSOCIATION COUNCIL MEMBERS BOLT

UPDATED, 10 am, 2-18-10: After seeing this article, two more former MWA council members, Susan Colvin and Dan Heinz (past vice-president) have joined the list and signed the letter opposing Tester’s bill, bringing the total to 18.

Anybody who has followed the torturous, eight-month path of Senator Jon Tester’s (D-MT) Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, S. 1470, already knows the bill has caused a split among conservationists. But that split just got a lot more more serious.

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

“Wash up, kids, your breakfast is ready.” I stood in the kitchen Monday morning, pushing scrambled eggs and fried potatoes from the frying pan onto the kids’ plates. I poured them a glass of juice, and set a napkin next to each place setting. “I sure miss your mom,” I said.

Rusty and speaker sat down and immediately started wolfing down the food. “Are you making pancakes?” Speaker asked.

“No.”

She gave Rusty a look. “I miss her too,” she said around a mouthful of eggs.

Welcome to Single Dad Week.