During our recent snowstorm I backed into a pickup, nicking its rear fender. I waited about 15 minutes but the driver didn’t appear. Time is precious so I left my name and phone number on the windshield and reported the damage to my insurance company, Farm Bureau. I explained my fault, gave them the vehicle’s […]

Montana State University will be prominently featured in the history of 20th century environmental thought. Shortly after the first Earth Day of 1970, this university was to environmental policy as Stanford is to semiconductors, the font of constructive and successful innovation. Unfortunately, despite their positive contributions, the ideas emanating from MSU researchers were not patentable […]

By now, most of us have broken one or more of our New Year’s resolutions. Here’s one to add, keep, and respect, Handicapped Parking. Most of us obey this designation. We do so for good reason, it’s the right thing to do. Further, there are penalties for violation, a $100 fine and disdain for those […]

A man works in a Gary, Indiana steel factory. His high school son contemplates his future. The factory may close due to competition from cheaper imports. If so, jobs will be lost and people hurt. Should we let the factory go under or protect it with tariffs or quotas? The answer doesn’t come from tallying […]

“Everyone works for love and money and no one has enough of either.” Throughout the developed world, the balance between love and money implied by this aphorism is no longer true. Our astounding wealth would be unimaginable to my frugal grandparents, relatively prosperous rural people born in the late 1800s. This wealth creation creates turmoil […]

Bjorn Lomborg calls himself “an old left-wing Greenpeace member” . He teaches statistics in the department of political science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. In 1997, an article about the late economist Julian Simon angered him. He claimed that the state of humanity and the natural environment were both improving. Specifically, Simon predicted: “The […]

Bjorn Limber calls himself “an old left-wing Greenpeace member” . He teaches statistics in the department of political science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. In 1997, an article about the late economist Julian Simon angered him. He claimed that the state of humanity and the natural environment were both improving. Specifically, Simon predicted: “The […]

Forestry, one of Montana’s traditional industries faces rough times. With continued demands for environmental quality and rejection of the negative consequences of resource extraction, what is the future of our state’s timber economy and the communities which rely upon it? Unfortunately for this industry, the future ain’t what it was. Here are six reasons why. […]

Fundamentalists are people who believe they are God’s chosen people with a monopoly on Truth. Fundamentalism has attracted millions of adherents for centuries. Relying on revelations from God, it elevates, it comforts, and it offers meaning and direction to those lost when uncertainty and ambiguity reign. However, lives are lost when fundamentalists seek the coercive […]

There were more people in our church on September 16 than last Christmas or Easter. And Billy, my old logger buddy, and his wife Pam, were sickened by events and saddened by assaults on American Muslims. The outpouring of sympathy and constructive reactions represent America at its best. We believe that America is the world’s […]