Irreplaceable Wildlife
On Endangered Species Day, Panel Discusses Risks of Climate Change
Local scientists, faith leaders, conservation advocates and city officials gathered at the Roxy Theater in downtown Missoula on Friday afternoon to mark Endangered Species Day and draw attention to climate change’s impact on Montana wildlife.
Sandwiched among photographs of threatened Montana animals, Missoula City Council President Ed Childers read the city’s Endangered Species Day proclamation. The photographs were a part of the "Irreplaceable: Wildlife in a Warming World" exhibit, which will be at the Roxy until June 15 before moving on to Seattle.
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Featured Photo
Pasque flowers pop up in the Rattlesnake Recreation Area. Photo by Kristina Hubbard.
rally at msu
Barack Obama to Visit Billings, Crow Reservation, and Bozeman Monday
UPDATE: Obama has added a visit to the Crow Reservation to his Monday schedule. Details below.
Sen. Barack Obama will be in Billings for a townhall meeting Monday morning and in Bozeman for a rally at MSU Monday evening, the campaign announced today. The visit marks Obama's second stop in Montana in as many months in advance of the June 3 primary. Both events are free and open to the public.
Details after the jump.
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Rooted in the Soil
From Edible MissoulaBy Neva Hassanein
Over the last decade, a movement to build a vibrant local and regional food system has gained tremendous momentum in Western Montana. As someone involved in this effort, I smile when I step back and look at how many pieces of the localization puzzle have begun to fall into place. While there is much to celebrate, the challenges have become clearer too. In the face of rapid population growth and development, one of the biggest hurdles of all may be saving fertile soil -- the medium in which our local food system must be rooted. Yet, opportunities for innovative and collaborative problem solving present themselves. [more]
local food & agriculture
Ag Land Value Becoming a Factor for County, Developers
As the finite fertile soils in the Missoula Valley increasingly sprout houses, the value of the remaining agriculture land is beginning to affect Missoula's subdivision permitting process.
Chad Harder writes in this week's edition of the Indy that the city rejected a subdivision proposal in the Orchard Homes neighborhood largely because the 14 homes would have eaten up four acres of prime agricultural land -- the first time agriculture value has influenced such an outcome.
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guest column
Zero Spread: Help Control Noxious Weeds
With higher temperatures on the way, local Montanans and visitors are hitting the great outdoors in pursuit of warm weather activities, including boating, swimming and hiking. But the favorable weather and outdoor adventures play host to unwelcome guests—noxious weeds. Montana’s land and waterways are under siege during the warm season as noxious invaders gain root and spread throughout Big Sky country. [more]
New West Book Review
Brandon R. Schrand’s “The Enders Hotel”
The Enders Hotel
By Brandon R. Schrand
University of Nebraska Press
230 pages, $17.95
Brandon R. Schrand's vivid new memoir chronicles his childhood growing up in the Enders Hotel in Soda Springs, Idaho. In the 1970's, Schrand's grandparents restored the place, originally built in 1919, and welcomed all kinds of people, especially the itinerant laborers of the region. Schrand, who teaches creative writing at the University of Idaho, moved back and forth to the Enders as his mother's and stepfather's jobs came and went. "Because we were job seekers," he writes, "we endured the perpetual ebb and flow of work—the overtime followed, always, by the lay-offs, the shut-downs, the walkouts."
Brandon Schrand will appear at Common Knowledge Bookstore in Sandpoint, Idaho (May 16, 4:30 p.m.), Fact & Fiction in Missoula (June 13), and at The Enders Hotel in Soda Springs, Idaho (June 30, 5 p.m.).
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Dems Say Obama Can Rope Independents
Why Obama is Winning the West
The Barack Obama campaign held a conference call this morning to discuss Obama's electability and appeal to people in Montana and other Western states. On the call were former Colorado Governor and former Chair of the Democratic National Committee Roy Romer, DNC Committeewoman and superdelegate Jean Lemire Dahlman of Rosebud County, Montana, and Lewis and Clark County Commissioner and superdelegate Ed Tinsley of Helena, Montana.
Here are some choice quotes from the conversation, glimpses into why these particular Western political leaders -- and Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming -- have chosen Obama as their guy...
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downtown master plan
A Streetcar in Missoula and Other Big Ideas
The Missoula Downtown Master Plan may sound like it's all about the future, but in many ways it’s a step back into the olden days.
Putting a street car system in the downtown and returning Front and Main Streets to two-ways were a couple of the changes discussed at the second public workshop Wednesday night in the Holiday Inn-Downtown. Master planners from the Crandall Arambula firm and roughly 280 residents worked on creating a plan for the future of Downtown Missoula.
A streetcar, like the one that used to run down Higgins Avenue in the early 20th Century, would be a great local circulator and would influence more development, said George Crandall, the firm’s principal and award-winning architect.
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SHARE THE ROAD, NOT THE LANE, WITH CYCLISTS
How to Drive a Motor Vehicle
A couple of weeks ago, I was riding my bike up MacDonald Pass, on four-lane U.S Highway 12, on the shoulder. It was a mid-day, low-traffic time, and even though the left lane was available, a driver purposely hazed me by speeding by with his right wheel on the fog line going at least 80 mph. His mirror missed my helmet by about six inches. One minor correction to miss a rough spot on the road, and I wouldn't be writing this.
Besides wondering if this reckless driver realizes how close he came to killing somebody, the incident reminded me of one of the first commentaries I wrote for NewWest.Net when I started the Wild Bill column three years ago called I Can Feel the Scorn. I'm sorry to say that I can still feel it.
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SAME ROAD, SAME RULES, SAME RIGHTS
Montana Adds Section on Driving with Cyclists to New Driver’s Manual
Commendably, and with the counsel of a committee of road cyclists from around the state, the Montana Motor Vehicle Department (MVD) allowed me to re-write the three-page bicycle section of the Montana Driver's Manual, which is now being distributed. It replaces a woefully outdated bicycle section written decades ago and constantly re-used with minor if any updating.
In it, I emphasized the "same road, same rules, same rights" philosophy and urged motorists to "share the road, not the lane."
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Montana STays in the Spotlight
In Missoula, Bill Clinton Makes a Case for Hillary
The morning after Sen. Hillary Clinton clobbered Sen. Barack Obama in the West Virginia primary by 41 percentage points, her husband, former President Bill Clinton, came to the University of Montana in Missoula to make his case for her candidacy, despite what many political pundits and elected officials say is an insurmountable Obama lead in delegates, the popular vote and now superdelegates.
Mr. Clinton likened Hillary's campaign to the 1995 University of Montana Grizzlies football team that came back in the fourth quarter against Marshall to win the Division I-AA national championship -- a game played in West Virginia. "No Democrat has won the White House without West Virginia since 1916," he said.
That's the campaign's main argument at this stage in the game: that Hillary would be stronger than Obama versus the presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain in November in key swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.
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