Opinion

Serving others to build community

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Too often in our hustling and bustling world of consumerism, we are taught that in order to solve and tackle the issues our communities face that we must think of what is best for us, our family, or only the people who think like we do. I propose a different solution to you today. What if we viewed all our neighbors’ problems as equally as important as ours? This is not a new solution to the issues we face in society. Countless leaders have done this throughout time and in various places throughout our world. Sadly, I do not believe, even those of us who emphatically purport we do, think this way as often as we claim.

Senator puts own interests before the public’s

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Private property rights are important. But so are the public’s rights. It seems some of our lawmakers have forgotten that.

How are we telling our truth?

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Remember when you were a kid and someone said, “Tell the truth! Straight in the eye!” The premise being that no one could lie looking his or her accuser directly in the face. The idea has some merit. Although we also have the term, “bald-faced liar” meaning they can look you in the eye and still lie.

When it comes to protecting birds sometimes poison is the only option

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Three percent of Earth’s land mass is comprised of islands, but 95 percent of all bird extinctions have occurred on them. Main cause: Mice and rats introduced by humans.

Local growers and rural grocers should be allies

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If you think growing food in rural America is a tough business, you should trying selling food—groceries—in rural America.

The soul of democracy is embodied in the right to vote

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The soul of democracy is the ability of individuals to have a say in their own future, embodied in the right to vote. The spirit of a democracy is to expand the participation of citizens in elections so that every citizen of that democracy is not only eligible, but able to cast that vote. That expansion hasn’t been easy or trouble free, and it hasn’t been without opposition and bloodshed. It’s the duty of those who

Bills would be deeply destructive to Montana’s judicial system

The three of us have known each other dating back a half century when Dorothy Bradley and Bob Brown were young legislators and Marc Racicot was emerging as a top prosecuting attorney. Over the decades we have been fierce competitors as well as staunch allies in the rough and tumble arena of Montana politics. We have maintained our friendship and appreciated our varying commitments, which was once a worthy Montana tradition.

Rural American shouldn’t be a dump site for corporate Amercia

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There’s a clear lesson in the chemical and ethical cloud now shrouding AltEn, a 25-million-gallon per year ethanol plant just south of Mead, NE.

You can hit the reset button but watch out, there’s no such thing as normal

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I just left a lunch meeting with a group of pastors from across the southeast corner of the state. Previously there had been Zoom meetings, but this was the first face-to-face in quite awhile so everyone was talking in small groups, trying to catch up on their church’s activities. The consensus was, there was a gradual coming back to the way things had been done in the past, a return to some of the sacred rites and practices of the faith that are so precious to Christians everywhere.

The Kansas 2012 tax experiment is a cautionary tale

In 2012, Governor Sam Brownback convinced the Kansas Legislature to enact sweeping tax cut legislation. The plan was billed as a “shot of adrenaline to the heart of the Kansas economy.” As a Republican member of the Kansas House of Representatives at the time, I was intrigued by the proposal but worried it was “too far, too fast.”

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