The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
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March 19, 1969 Local Chamber Has A Name A fiveman steering committee has decided to name the new organization 'Lincoln Valley Chamber of Commerce'. At a three-hour session Friday the committee also appointed a nominating committee to select a president, vice-president and secretary-treasurer. The group also set up by-laws and determined a six-man board of directors should be nominated. The first election of candidates will provide for two members to serve as directors for on...
Your Republican led legislature is in the process of compiling the budget for the next two years. We are not just talking about efficient state government, we are implementing it. We are doing this by focusing on reducing waste in bureaucracy, while at the same time retaining indispensable state services. The Republican caucus is united behind the idea of no new or increased taxes while rejecting what the Governor calls "revenue enhancers" (new taxes). Last session we began to...
Politicians in Helena need to understand that good intentions and well wishes don’t count for much when their decisions cause harm to Montanans. Montanans are aware of the damage the opioid epidemic has caused to families, friends, and our communities. The state has taken many commendable steps to combat opioid addiction. However, the need to fight opioid abuse does not excuse bad policy making. Helena politicians are working on proposal to impose a new tax on prescription medication in order to address the opioid epidemic. T...
With most of the news being about politics these days, I think often about our maternal grandmother who was a dedicated Republican in the Eisenhower vein. Her political views stemmed from her intense dislike of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. She was disgusted that FDR was on the dime, and when the 10 cent stamps with his bust on them were issued, she was vocal in her contempt. She disliked using the stamps, blaming FDR for the high price of postage and everything else...
Dear Readers, Today I am writing about a topic near to my heart: nutrition and cancer, or more pointedly, nutrition myths and cancer. My clinical experience included twelve years of oncology nutrition, in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Good nutrition can help prevent some types of cancer, and not surprisingly, it is the same diet that helps prevent other diseases, such as heart disease and stroke. You’ve heard it before and read it in this column: Eat lots of f...
This last siege of storms has made for long winter. The snow is welcome, but it may delay spring grass and the return of migratory birds. As kids, our first sign of spring was the melting snow, which was ideal for snowballs. During the better part of winter, the snow was too cold and dry to stick together. After the doldrums of the cold months, any change was welcome. We knew that the huge snowbanks formed in December would start to disappear soon. Being raised in the country...
Montana is a single state. But in reality, there are many Montanas – some defined by variations in terrain and vegetation, others by climate and still others by land use and population density. Area economies also vary considerably from one part of Montana to the next. From east to west, the state splits into two vastly different regions, one defined by rolling grasslands stretching across sprawling plains and the other defined by a large number of forested and interconnected...
Dear Dietitian, My cousin tells me she is taking fish oil supplements to help her with depression. Do you know of any studies on this topic? Thank you, Andrea Dear Andrea, Omega-3 fatty acids, or simply omega-3s, have received a considerable amount of attention from the healthcare field and the general public. There are several omega-3s, and two in particular have been studied, DHA (Docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (Eicosapentaenoic acid), which are found in fish, especially...
As Speaker of the House, it is a goal of mine to have unity within the Republican Caucus and a positive working relationship with the minority party. At the halfway point of the 66th legislative session we are hitting those marks. Another goal of this session, was to put the K-12 funding bill on the Governor's desk very early in the process. In other sessions this bill was often used as a political football late in the session, sometimes as late as May. We passed it out of the...
The students I teach at the University of Montana often show up with a powerful assumption: If there is some piece of information out there, Google can find it. It’s an understandable belief for 19-year-olds who have grown up in a world where ubiquitous connection to the Internet and easy access to vast reams of webpages is expected. But for all those Wikipedia pages and Wayback Machines, there are countless documents that you, as a Montanan, have a constitutional right to see and you won’t find them no matter how many pag...
Winter will end. Trust me. But what will we see when all that white stuff disappears? A landscape green from melting snow littered with dead deer? Probably not. Yes, February was brutal for much of the state, but let's not lose our perspective. This is winter. This is Montana – a northern latitude state. And for the memory deprived last year was worse or at least longer. This year, few ranchers so far have complained of deer in their haystacks. Nothing like last year. That's p...
This last blizzard got me thinking about how hard the old timers had to work just to keep the house warm from September to May, and to cook every day of the year. Both families and homes were often large in those days, many having a cook stove plus three or four heating stoves. I've been told that some of the houses used over 60 cords a year. Our paternal great uncle took care of the firewood at the ranch, and always maintained the woodshed completely full of split blocks – p...
Dear Dietitian, My husband was recently in the hospital and diagnosed with congestive heart failure. He has been instructed to follow a 1500 mg sodium diet. He's trying, but it's very difficult. I'm afraid he will get frustrated and give up. Any words of wisdom? Signed, Deborah Dear Deborah, A new diagnosis can be overwhelming and often brings about the need for a lifestyle change. For readers who are not familiar with congestive heart failure (CHF), it's a chronic condition...
The first half of the 66th session of the Montana Legislature concluded March 1 with transmittal of the House of Representatives' general bills to the Senate. We've deliberated on a number of challenging and hotly-debated bills on the House floor. The Montana Republican caucus has been united on many fronts. One of our main priorities remains funding for our local schools. Early in the session, we made sure that our schools received the biennial funding on which they rely. Wit...
Reading Hope Quay’s column is often a highlight of the day for me. The one about the dogs made me laugh as I hadn’t laughed in weeks! The column of Feb. 27, though, I found very interesting in a different way and it gave me much to contemplate. Perhaps I can offer a different perspective with regards to Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Now, I admit right here that I’m not on social media, so I may have missed much that is pertinent to the discussion. What caused me concern was Quay’s assertion that there is no reason to like Colu...
As a conservative, I am used to Liberal Democrats accusing me, or the people I vote for as: sexist, bigoted, misogynist, racist, xenophobe, homophobe, climate denier, hater and dumb. I admit, I don’t know what some of those big words mean, but I never thought, until now, that they were right about me being dumb. Liberal Democrat’s just introduced “The new green deal” its brilliance caused me to doubt my intellectual capacity. I never knew eliminating cow gas could help stop climate change. I have thought if you eliminate peop...
“Men Wanted for Dangerous Expedition: Low Wages for Long Hours of Arduous Labor under Brutal Conditions; Months of Continual Darkness and Extreme Cold; Great Risk to Life and Limb from Disease, Accidents and Other Hazards; Small Chance of Fame in Case of Success.” - Ernest Shackleton The above quote was from an advertisement that Shackleton placed in the newspaper to recruit men of quality to his trans-antarctic expedition in 1914. It might just as well be a description issued just before one enters life. During my life I h...
Dear Dietitian, My friend is always on the latest health kick, so now she is taking probiotics every day and swears she feels so much better. She keeps bugging me to take them too, but I priced them at the drugstore, and they are expensive. Are they worth it? Sharon Dear Sharon, Probiotics are a popular health trend with sales of $1.4 billion in the United States in 2014. Since then, sales have nearly doubled, racking up $2.4 billion in 2018. Everyone wants to be healthy, espe...
Having been raised in a rather traditional lifestyle and culture, I by no means consider myself a person who places no value in the past. Having said that, I like to think that I also recognize the danger inherent in clinging inflexibly to outdated traditions that no longer fit in the world in which we live. I'm all for honoring and learning from the past, but at what point does holding on to the version of the past that suits us become a detriment to the future? This is the...
When I was at my sickest in Brazil, and my legs didn't work to the point I sometimes couldn't get off the toilet by myself, I remembered a rancher whom I knew from my infancy to adulthood. Kenny and his brother had a ranch about six miles from ours. He suffered polio as a child, and didn't have the use of his legs. He used crutches his entire life, Even on crutches, Kenny mowed hay in the summer, a job that often involved him struggling on and off the tractor scores of times...
To change biblically and travel the “self-confrontation journey” one must be born-again, a Christian, a Christ-follower; the terms may vary but you must be a person who has sincerely asked Jesus Christ to be your Savior. This is the priority principle. However, even if you are not a Christian, but you recognize there is a need for change you can still gain tremendous benefits tby applying God’s Word to your life. Taking the life principles of the Bible and applying them works...
Three things I learned from the flu. 1. You can’t take care of yourself. Nearly passed out in body pain and over-all weakness, I couldn’t raise my head to answer Art when he asked if I was staying home from church. I grunted what I hoped was the obvious answer. I thought about Jell-O. Jell-O with fruit cocktail. But the only activity I actually accomplished in the next two days was to drag myself to the bathroom and sip on water to keep from dying of dehydration. I couldn’t sleep for 48 hours, strobe lights flashed behin...
It's often said that Montana is like a small town with long streets. Montanans may be separated by hundreds of miles but it's amazing how many mutual friends you find you have after talking with someone for five minutes in this giant small town. A defining characteristic of small towns is that people care about one another and rally together in challenging times. Chances are you've attended at least a few community benefits to raise money for medical bills or to help a family...
I've always kept myself on the outer edges of society, preferring to observe its actions and ideas with a soft contempt, always keeping my "ironic distance" from the point of my own contrived superiority. I think this trait began in the spring of 1965, when I was a senior in high school. In those days, Lawrence Welk and Art Linkletter ruled the TV world. The supposed moral decay of the later 1960's hadn't yet reached Montana. It was then that I saw through the arbitrary...
Dear Dietitian, My husband was just diagnosed with prediabetes. We were given a sheet of paper with information on this, but it left us with many questions. Does he need a special diet? Will he have full-blown diabetes in a few years? We need more information, please. Suzanne Dear Suzanne, A new diagnosis can be overwhelming, and often leaves us with many questions. You are wise to seek information. Prediabetes is when your blood sugars are high, but not high enough to be...