New West Network

My Page: Marjorie Smith

<< Newer articles <<    Author Home     >> Older articles >>

Overly enthusiastic endorsements

This is the first year I’ve thought much about those “We endorse so-and-so” ads that run in the daily paper with long lists of people who presumably feel strongly enough about a certain race to put their names and their dollars down to pay for the ad. But this year I stumbled upon an ad that raises some questions: How honest and sincere are these efforts to garner votes? Are they just one more mildly dishonest attempt to influence prospective voters?
[more]

The Awesome Polka Babes on the Loose

Is it possible to keep one's fingers on Montana's political pulse and strike a blow for the environment while squeezing an accordion in Oktoberfests around Eastern Montana? Well, it's possible to try. [more]

Successful? Or a big bust?

Some folks are saying that the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Celebration was a big flop. I disagree. Probably no one got rich on it -- at least no one in Montana -- but it's left us with a valuable legacy.

For one thing, as pointed out in recent OpEd piece by Bozeman author Landon Jones, there’s the expanded understanding of the effect the expedition had on the West. While it may not have originally been a large part of the plan for the bicentennial observances, by the time the anniversary years were actually upon us, we all gained an appreciation for the impact the expedition had upon the Native American people. [more]

Delegates celebrate 34th anniversary of the creation of Montana’s Constitution

Okay, he didn’t actually call the people beautiful. What litigant extraordinaire James Goetz did last Saturday in Bozeman was tell the delegates to the 1972 Montana Constitutional Convention that the document they created was beautiful. And brilliant.
[more]

Nobel Laureate Thomas Schelling

A Libertarian darling makes a knee-jerk liberal feel a great deal better about the world. [more]

Bringing Bert and Ernie to Montanans

I’m guessing that many NewWest readers are like me: addicted to public television. If you can’t imagine life without “Nova” or “Frontline” or “Mystery!” and “Masterpiece Theatre," I wonder if you realize that Montana was the last state in the United States to get its own public television system.
[more]

Just what the neighborhood always wanted: a super highway

Perhaps I fell into a time warp that day in New England last month when I found myself worrying about homes that must have been displaced to build a major throughway years ago in Massachusetts. The day after I returned to Montana, I caught a glimpse of future displacement in Bozeman, just a block from my house. I attended a meeting across the street at the Hawthorne School gym to learn about one more of those perfect storms of impending disaster and progress that galloping growth is bringing to the New West. The Montana Department of Transportation was holding a meeting to outline alternatives for improvement of North Rouse Avenue and to seek public comment. [more]

Have we forgotten the oldest westerners?

With all the fascinating stories and commentary we read on NewWest, it strikes me that there is one perspective we rarely get. In fact, with the exception of the story a couple weeks ago about the Apache Indians demanding the return of Geronimo’s skull (if it can be proven that the Skull and Bones Club at Yale has it) we rarely read anything in these pages about the Oldest West – the Native Americans. It’s almost as though the dire predictions of George Catlin and Karl Bodmer have come true.

Bodmer and Catlin were artists who traveled throughout the West in the nineteenth century and specialized in painting the faces, lives and costumes of the Indians they encountered. Both men – and many of their contemporaries – believed that Native American cultures would soon become extinct. Catlin considered his art a memorial to native peoples.
[more]

So What Do Tourists Want?

For several years, I’ve been teasing my friend Bonnie about her attempts to herd cats. Last week, I think I saw how it can be done. What you need is an outsider to play the role of a bureaucrat (or dog).

The cats Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer has been trying to herd are Bozeman area artists and cultural organizations. For five years, she has been working at organizing something now known as the Bozeman Cultural Council. It all started when Bill Bryan, who runs the Off the Beaten Track travel agency, and George Keremedjev, founder of the American Computer Museum, were brainstorming about how to get Bozeman known as a community remarkable for its arts and cultural facilities, rather than its just being seen as a great jumping off place for fishing trips and tours of Yellowstone Park.
[more]

Coming clean on the Ides of April

I’m getting $200 from the State of Montana – and I didn’t pay them anything in taxes. This is what I feel you should know, in the remote event that there is anyone else out there in NewWest land with an annual income as low as mine combined with an age as advanced as mine. The reason the State of Montana is paying me is that I am an elderly homeowner and I qualify for property tax relief. [more]

<< Newer articles <<    Author Home     >> Older articles >>