There’s quite a bit of discussion out there in film circles and the blogosphere about the meaning of the new Batman movie. Clearly, the movie’s sinister Joker, played so convincingly by Health Ledger in his last role, is a terrorist. And just as clearly, it’s easy to draw the conclusion [...]
You know, it’s tough enough in the media business these days without our fellow newsies bringing on even more disdain. But that’s what our brethren at Fox News have done by modifying photographs of two New York Times employees for an on-air show. Here’s a description of what happened, according [...]
Gas isn’t cheap anywhere, but where are the best deals in town? For that matter, what gas stations are the most expensive? We’d like to hear from you all as you’re out their shopping for the best fuel deal. If we get some good responses, we’ll write a story. Also, [...]
Barack Obama hadn’t even sealed the Democratic nomination before folks started clamoring for an Obama-Clinton ticket. Now, Clinton’s campaign staff is actively pushing the possibility, and Hillary herself has said she’s open to the idea. While it’s possible such a ticket would heal some of the wounds the long campaign [...]
Thanks goodness, the bunny-napping has been solved. Turns out it wasn’t a malicious crime as much as confusion over the black rabbit’s potential safety. In any case, here’s Slurpy’s owner, Toni Matlock, describing the resolution:
“Through a ‘found rabbit’ posting on Craigslist, I got in touch with the woman who took [...]
We Montanans are pretty used to being beside the point when it comes to national politics, but we still have our identity. But even that was taken from us for a while last night as Barack Obama secured the Democratic nomination and made the Montana vote, well, sort of beside [...]
OK, this is a first for the blog. A bunny-napping.This bit of news comes from Toni Matlock, who is a neighbor of reporter Betsy Cohen. Toni called Betsy this morning with news about Slurpy the Rabbit, who apparently inhabits their West Central Avenue neighborhood. Seems that two young ladies grabbed [...]
OK, so we’re sorry. I’ve been away on vacation, as were a handful of other Missoulian staffers. That left Gwen Florio pretty much alone in the newsroom, and she didn’t get around to doing much with the blog. But now I’m back, and we’ll try to get this thing back [...]
Here’s a release from the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama:
“The Obama campaign announced today that it will begin airing a new radio ad featuring Missoula Mayor John Engen. In the 60-second spot, titled “Job,” Mayor Engen praises Senator Obama’s strong commitment to Montana’s working families, demonstrated by his refusal [...]
4&20 blackbirds
A journal of Montana politics and culture
Here’s a nice little hit that ran at 4and20blackbirds,wordpress.com, which is a routinely excellent blog with lots of good Missoula stuff. And congrats to Matt and Jay.
Seminal Montana bloggers Matt Singer and Jay Stevens over [...]
Ex-Prez Bill Clinton was back in Montana Tuesday night, speaking in Kalispell. He’s in Missoula Wednesday morning touting his wife’s presidential campaign. That’s all well and good. But the chances of Hillary Clinton actually winning the Democratic primary have declined precipitously, with most strategists saying it’s simply a matter of [...]
Well, Montana’s Amanda Kimmel finished second on “Survivor: Micronesia” Monday night. She lost by one vote to another young woman named Parvati, which sounds sort of like cheese but with a better swimsuit. In any case, what we wonder about these sort of “reality” shows, is why folks watch them. [...]
Seems to be hard to find a piece of ground for the former tennis bubble from the Missoula Athletic Club. Missoula County Public Schools first planned to lease space to the Missoula Strikers soccer club to put the bubble on property behind Sentinel High School. But enough folks complained about [...]
Well, well well! Gov. Brian Schweitzer is on a list of 15 potential Democratic vice presidential candidates proposed by the influential Web site Salon on. The guv is running in pretty fancy company, as some of the other folks Salon suggests for Barack Obama’s running mate include his current opponent, [...]
Here’s a breaking story from the AP about proposed changes to the rules regulating guns in national parks. We’ll have our own story, perhaps later today, and certainly by early Thursday. Montana’s congressional delegation has been pushing to make guns legal in the parks, but we’d like to hear your [...]
We had ourselves a dandy little argument break out in the office Wednesday morning. Jamie Kelly was extolling the virtues of the new version of the hyper-violent Grand Theft Auto, noting that he’d played the game for five hours. That struck Rob Chaney as a colossal waste of time, not [...]
The often controversial undersecretary of agriculture, Mark Rey, was in Missoula Monday to talk with folks about Plum Creek’s plans to turn some of their timberlands into subdivisions. Both Rey and Plum Creek are topics that everybody seems to have an opinion on, so read Michael Jamison’s story in Tuesday’s [...]
The Washington Post got after Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg in a column in Thursday’s paper. You can read the column here: [www.washingtonpost.com]
The part about Rehberg starts at the bottom of the second page, but the first page is interesting, as well, totaling up the legal fees that Idaho Sen. [...]
This came to us over the email transom on Wednesday from a gentleman named Paul King:
Attachedis a photo that a good friend sent to me from Iraq. I thought that the Missoulian might want to use it in its print and/or online edition. Although [...]
Here are the first paragraphs of Betsy Cohen’s story about a meeting between student activists and UM President George Dennision, who are at odds over an anti-sweatshop labor program:
The long-awaited sit-down meeting with University of Montana President George Dennison lasted all of about eight minutes on Wednesday for a dozen [...]
It’s not really clear what Ron Paul is running for by sticking with his campaign for the presidency. Attention? To further the debate about, well what exactly? To make Republicans feel like they still have a choice?
In any case, Paul visited Missoula on Monday on his quixotic mission. Check our [...]
Times are tough all over, and one way to solve financial problems in school districts is to cut programs. Here’s the opening of Rob Chaney’s story about possible cuts to sports programs in Missoula schools:
“Assumptions that Missoula high schools will lose some sports programs next year are premature, but such [...]
Missoula police say one woman went too far. She’s accused of breaking into Big Dipper and making herself a cone.
Read the details in Tristan Scott’s story, then take this opportunity to weigh in with your most tempting flavors.
It’s tough to resist a story that begins “Twenty-eight years ago, scientist Victor DeNoble was sitting around with a bunch of drunk monkeys when the telephone rang.”
And Vince Devlin’s tale of a former Philip Morris scientist only gets better. It’s got drugs, death, conspiracy, those drunk monkeys - and [...]
Here’s the opening of Tristan Scott’s story about a bad-faith case that will cost an insurance company a ton of money:
A U.S. District Court jury in Missoula awarded a Big Fork woman $5.3 million in damages earlier this month in the largest bad-faith insurance verdict in Montana history.
After a [...]
Here are the first few paragraphs of Pam Podger’s story about the subprime mortgage mess, the rest of which appears in Friday’s paper and online at missoulian.com:
While most Montana banks avoided the subprime mortgage mess, the ripples of tighter credit and a dragging national economy havent played out yet, according [...]
Mark Rey, the sometimes controversial undersecretary of agriculture for the Bush Administration, is coming to Montana to talk about easements on Plum Creek land. Lately, counties have been getting more than a little nervous about the timber giant’s plan to convert former timberlands into residential development.
Sen. Jon Tester has perked [...]
Here’s the opening from Murphy Woodhouse’s story about a protest at the University of Montana:
“A group of University of Montana students protesting sweatshops staged a sit-in at university President George Dennisons office in Main Hall Wednesday afternoon and refused to leave.
Were going to be here till Friday” when Dennison is [...]
A new study by the University of Montana shows that Missoula teens are getting next to no exercise. How can that be? Here we are in the midst of an outdoor wonderland and kids aren’t getting even five minutes of exercise a day. Hmmmmm.
Video games, TV, too many “organized” activities. [...]
The Darby school board fired high-school principal Dan Peters last month, and they were looking at firing him against last night. Huh? Well, as usual in Darby, there are ghosts in the machine, and maybe the firing wasn’t entirely above board. And then there’s the matter of Town Marshal Larry [...]
Tom Maclay and the Bitterroot Resort now have a proposal before the U.S. Forest Service. Read about the proposal on the front page of Friday’s paper or on missoulian.com, then get back to us with your thoughts about the proposed resort. It’s high time we had a thread for folks [...]
Here are the first couple of paragraph’s from Chelsi Moy’s story about Highway 93 in Thursday’s newspaper:
Should the speed limit on U.S. Highway 93 between Lolo and Missoula be lower?
The 2007 Legislature increased the speed along that same stretch from 65 mph to 70 mph.
Now, the state is [...]
Folks in Paris are going nuts about the Olympics and China, and frankly, the reaction is pretty understandable. The Olympic torch relay was in Paris on Monday and to say things went poorly is an understatement. In fact, a reference to the torch as the “flame of shame” was about [...]
The W. R. Grace Co. has agreed to pay $3 billion in cash and equity over the next 24 years to resolve asbestos-related claims against the company. Some of that money will eventually be distributed to the unfortunate citizens of Libby, where Grace mined vermiculite for years. At least 255 [...]
I have to apologize to you faithful blog readers for what can only be described as a fairly lame performance this week. Sure, we got some stories up for folks to comment on, but we didn’t really provide enough posts this week.
The problem was the Obama and Clinton appearances. You [...]
We’re feeling pretty special here in Montana, as the Obama and Clinton campaigns send a message we’re not very familiar with — Montana matters in the presidential election! At least in the Democratic primary, that is.
Obama leads Clinton in the delegate count, but the race is close enough for Montana’s [...]
