Columns

The race card, 2020 version

Published on Wed, 06/03/2020 - 4:30pm

Donald Trump has been trying for years to play his Willie Horton card, to divide the country along lines of race as a means of reaffirming his base.

Packed trails: Welcome to the great outdoors

Published on Tue, 06/02/2020 - 2:56pm

The coronavirus produces a fever, all right — a burning desire to get out of the house, especially as temperatures climb deliciously into the 70s and 80 these days.

That fever has propelled lots and lots of people onto national forest trails in Park County — many more people than those of us who hike those trails have seen this time of year.

Grizzly Advisory Council should recommend against hunting

Published on Thu, 05/28/2020 - 4:12pm

Grizzly bears are a paradox—at once valued and vilified, long-studied yet mysterious, powerful but vulnerable. Currently, they are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. However, last fall Governor Bullock convened an 18-member Citizen’s Advisory Council to recommend how the complex animals should be managed by the state if, in the future, those protections are removed. 

I commend the Council members for the time, energy, and thought they have dedicated to this difficult task—particularly during recent months under such trying circumstances.

Good use of milk

Published on Thu, 05/28/2020 - 4:11pm

It’s been an awful couple months but the China virus brought some good news last week.

It seems the bigwigs at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts may cancel the 2021 Oscars.

For those who prefer to forget, the Oscars is the annual event where the Deep Thinkers in Hollywood get together to tell each other how wonderful the world is to have them. Over recent years, however, the mutual-slobberfest was not enough for this bunch.

So they took to lecturing the rest of us.

Summer people are already here

Published on Thu, 05/28/2020 - 4:10pm

When the pandemic hit this winter, city people with second homes moved into them. This upset the rhythm of beach, lake and mountain communities that attract a lot of “summer people” -- but not until the summer.

As for winter destinations -- Florida, Arizona, Texas or any ski area -- the snowbirds seem to be lingering into the spring. Full-time locals may wonder when they will leave. They’re going to leave, right?

Political leaders must deliver on U.S. Postal Service

Published on Wed, 05/27/2020 - 2:40pm

Have you checked the mail?

Practically every day, Americans ask this question.

If there’s anything that’s a near daily occurrence in this country, it’s to check for mail.

Americans rely on the U.S. mail.

We depend on it for letters and bills. We endure its solicitations. We get our magazines and birthday cards through the mail. And a full 20% of Americans over 40 get their prescription drugs exclusively through the mail, according to one survey.

Increasingly, we are voting by mail.

Choosing the wrong opponent

Published on Tue, 05/26/2020 - 4:25pm

It is a common, if not especially honorable, practice in American politics for a candidate and her campaign to prefer to run not against their actual opponent on the ballot but rather against the most unpopular caricature of the opponent’s party.

Congress must expand voting opportunities

Published on Fri, 05/22/2020 - 3:34pm

Even as some states and localities are “reopening” businesses and public spaces, it is likely that the COVID-19 pandemic will still be with us in November when Americans will elect a president, the entire membership of the U.S. House and more than a third of the U.S. Senate.

It is past time for Congress to require states to expand opportunities for voting by mail and early voting — and to help pay for those changes — so that Americans on Nov. 3 aren’t faced with a choice between protecting their health and exercising the most important right of citizens in a democracy.

Spring perfect time for new outdoor traditions

Published on Fri, 05/22/2020 - 3:33pm

Leaving the toilet seat up, or eating the last half of a doughnut left in a box — family traditions come in all stripes.

I know a woman who reads the newspaper every morning when the coffee drips.

“My dad taught us to do that,” she says.

There’s no room for excuses when you stay informed, she confides without even the slightest wag of a finger.

The shutdown’s silver lining

Published on Fri, 05/22/2020 - 3:33pm

The government has closed most schools.

So, more parents are teaching kids at home.

That upsets the government school monopoly.

Education “experts” say parents lack the expertise to teach their kids.

Without state schooling, “learning losses ... could well be catastrophic,” says The New York Times. Home schooling “will set back a generation of children,” according to a Washington Post column. Harvard Magazine’s “Risks of Homeschooling” article quotes a professor who calls for a “presumptive ban.”