Montana is a composite; its identity defined by the beholder. The journalist Joe Howard saw it as “high, wide, and handsome;” the historian Harry Fritz as “a land of contrast;” and K. Ross Tootle described “an uncommon land.” East to west, Montana’s landforms vary from an occasional saline, wind-whipped desert to lush wheat fields to […]

Today was yet another one of those days that come far too often. A day when someone tells me their computer crashed and they have no backups. This isn’t a computer at home that’s used for recipes, photos, genealogy, Google searches, email, Facebook and maybe an occasional game. This computer is used to manage their […]

The news is that the American Civil Liberties Union wants state Judge Jeffrey Sherlock in Great Falls to declare lethal injection unconstitutional. Capital punishment foe and attorney Ron Waterman, who has run for election in 2008 to the Montana Supreme Court and tried for an appointment in 2009, is arguing on behalf of Ronald Allen […]

Montana has a unique problem on its hands. It is flush with money, at least according to the governor’s office, which is touting a $453 million surplus for the fiscal year ending June 30. That’s the state’s second-largest surplus on record, just behind 2007’s mark. Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, with a knack for the theatrical, […]

By John Fuller Scandalous incidents at Penn State University and the University of Montana have brought attention once again to the insidious relationship between college administrations and the necessity of winning. The simple fact remains that the football programs at many major universities treat their athletes and athletic staff like pampered movie stars, which perpetuates […]

The front being created that Montana is “behind the times” as far as “school choice” is a myth. We have many choices in our state: public education at a school of choice, private academies (Montessori for example), church affiliated schools, online classes and home school programs. Students are blessed with many choices in Montana. Just […]

You can’t steal second base with one foot firmly on first – a saying that is as true for business as it is for baseball. Businesses are either confident enough in their future and the stability of their surroundings to move forward, innovate, hire new employees and grow – or they are plagued with uncertainty, […]

In the past, Montana Power Company lobbied a GOP-controlled state Legislature with the seemingly simple notion of deregulating the industry. The GOP signed deregulation into law, ridding Montana of the lowest electricity rates in the country while drastically cutting property taxes for major power and telecommunications industries. Big industry’s property taxes were cut in places […]

Conservative. That’s how I would describe the way Montana has managed 5 million plus acres of public land held in trust for the schools and universities on Montana. While Oregon holds only one quarter of its original land grant, Montana holds 95 percent. These lands, particularly the 13,000 acres around Whitefish, provide valuable conservation, recreation […]

When things are going really well, we think we’re really something. We describe it as being in a groove, smooth and steady, in a rhythm or “working like a well-oiled machine”. In electrical engineering, steady state describes the “normalcy” of a current or signal after it settles down shortly after being powered up. Sometimes, normal […]

The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news organization, reported that Montana’s proportion of college graduates has increased over the last three years faster than any other state’s. It was a bit of good news for a higher education system that needed some. For months, stories about the unsettling events at the University of Montana have dominated […]

Obama’s wind energy scheme has been filled with “ill wind” of economic impracticalities, and now “gone with the wind” reports of stimulus funding funneled into overseas wind machine manufacturing plants, providing jobs elsewhere to supply our tax-supported wind energy program. Urgent demands for alternative energy production get more ridiculous as time goes on. Absolutely no […]

Despite my 20 years of research and experience with wolves, I remain appalled at humanity’s intolerance toward these animals. This mindset is supported and perpetuated by those responsible for wolf management. Where I live, this is Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP). The agency claims that management and public wolf hunts are based in science. […]

By John Fuller Wolves are one of nature’s greatest predators. Magnificent creatures, with extraordinary social characteristics, they are legendary in man’s history, culture and literature. Some fear them, others love them and others regard them as just another cog in the complicated web of life. A century ago, wolf populations were seriously reduced by farmers, […]

Most of us who use computers in our work do so because they relieve us of tedious work or eliminate slow, inefficient or error-prone techniques for producing our work, even if we do have fuss with drivers and hardware failures once in a while. In the newspaper business, I doubt anyone wants to return to […]