New West Network

There is an aggressive effort behind the scenes to "bail out" Montana's timber industry with an ill-conceived initiative divorced from economic reality and any concept of sustainability. Led by the Missoula Area Economic Development Corporation, this initiative is based entirely - and, up to this point, only - on a "wish list" that was put together by the timber industry. The basic premise of MAEDC's initiative, which in August was given to state officials, legislators and the Montana Congressional delegation, can be summed up simply: Log, Baby, Log. The initiative calls for "immediate action" to increase national forest logging by 330%, double state land logging and a bizarre plan for the state to seize control of a million acres of national forests, purportedly for even more logging.

Tomorrow in Chicago, Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank president Gary Stern will give an updated version of his speech called "Repercussions from the Financial Shock" in which he argued that banks should be allowed to fail, so managers will learn the harsh lessons only failure can teach. The text of the new speech at the Council of Institutional Investors won't be made available. Perhaps the subject matter is too close to a critique of the daily money matters rocking the financial world and the world economy. Not that anything should be read into his decision. Stern is a private Fed president. He speaks less than most others, said Minneapolis Fed spokeswoman Patti Lorenzen, and it's fairly standard for him to keep the text of his speeches to himself. The upshot is that unless you're planning to attend the meeting in Chicago tomorrow, you'll miss the words of this influential and smart guy. That's why I thought it would be a good idea to point you to this story I wrote about Stern's earlier version of this same speech, given in Three Forks in mid-August. In light of recent events, I might re-write the headline as follows: Fed Reserve Branch Head Says Let Banks Fail.

I've written extensively about Montana's Wilderness drought, 26 years and counting without Congress designated one acre of the Big Sky State as Wilderness. Now, Congress seems poised to pass S. 3213, a massive public lands bill, a collection of 90 wilderness and watershed protection bills covering almost every state. For Montana wilderness advocates, it's another in a long line of no shows. In fact, Montana gets less than zero.

Transportation issues are bearing down on the economy of Montana. How is this affecting our farmers, industries and how we view our future strategies, policies and approaches? The Burton K. Wheeler Center, at the Montana State University, hosted a conference on transportation in Billings last week, with the goal to discuss with leaders and legislators how this increase in fuel has forced a shift in our economy and how are we to approach the future. Representatives from three of Montana's major industries tourism, farming and food distribution discussed how Montana's markets are being significantly affected by fuel costs.

Last night Barb and I watched the most thought-provoking, inspiring movie I've seen in years. It's not often that a film comes along that can challenge your way of thinking, and shake up your preconceived notions of how things work in our dirty little world. Our individual perceptions are constantly being manipulated by the media, and sometimes we're exposed to something that just shocks our belief system right down to our core. I mean, TWO Spidermen? Whoa! Then, after the kids went to bed, we slid Shut Up and Sing into the DVD player, on the recommendation of my friend Chris. He's not necessarily a big country music fan, but he's turned me on to some pretty fine stuff. From Ryan Bingham, to that heavy metal band You Will Know Us By The Tabouli In Our Beards, he's batting a thousand. So when Chris gave the Dixie Chicks documentary a glowing review, I put it at the top of my list. Shut Up and Sing is an account of the controversy from The Comment, and the ordeal the trio went through on their journey back to the top of the charts. While playing a show in London during the run-up to the Iraq War, Maines mentioned to the crowd that she was ashamed that President Bush is from Texas, the home state of all three Dixie Chicks. The crowd cheered, but as soon as The Comment was reported in the world press, rednecks everywhere lost their shit.

Personal Record: A Love Affair with Running By Rachel Toor University of Nebraska Press, 164 pages, $24.95 Rachel Toor, who earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana and currently lives in Spokane, came late to the sport of running. She writes that she was "a bookish egghead who ran only to catch a bus," never competing in high school or college meets or even casual jogs, and didn't lace up her sneakers until encouraged to do so by a boyfriend when she was "on the edge of thirty." But then she took to the sport with the fervor of a convert, hiring a coach, joining running groups, and participating in marathons, ultramarathons, and a sport called "Ride and Tie," in which two runners and a horse complete a course of between 30 and 40 miles. In her new essay collection, Personal Record, Toor immerses the reader in the world of long-distance running, examining her bruised, muscular body, the contents of her closet, her pantry jammed with energy gels and protein bars, and her love life in the process of explaining what running means to her and describing the experiences the sport has given her. Rachel Toor will discuss her book in Missoula at Shakespeare and Company on October 14 at 7:30 p.m.

We gathered with fellow Las Crucens and students to see, hear, and ogle Eva Longoria of Desperate Housewives fame and Adam Rodriguez of CSI: Miami as they expressed their support for Barack Obama outside New Mexico State University's Corbett Center. Braving a rare New Mexico rain, we listened to Obamified music as we waited for the rally begin. Strains of Bob Marley and Queen became vehicles for Obama chants. The husband danced the boy because, well, how else do you entertain a two-year-old at a political rally?

The installation of Schlushmans chair ushers in a new era at Bridger Bowl.

Absentee ballots have become a major get-out-the-vote tool for both parties in recent elections, and the practice is changing the way candidates and parties spend money and campaign, reports John S. Adams in the Great Falls Tribune today. Monday is the first day absentee votes can be cast by mail or at elections offices, where polls will be open until Nov. 4. The sheer number of early ballots cast has been rising sharply, election by election.

A collection of bipartisan bills that would protect land and rivers and limit energy development around the West -- the Omnibus Public Land Management Act -- may make it to the Senate floor in November, the Jackson Hole News&Guide reports.

Ah, diversity, you gotta love it. We brown human types just refuse to be nailed down. We keep having these opinions. Yes, just like everyone else, Indians, American Indians, Skins and even those dang Native Americans just can't get it together and agree on a public agenda. This latter fact was brought home to me vividly when I was recently jerked up for assuming there are no Republican Indians.

In about a month, an army of volunteers will hike up Mount Sentinel to re-seed about 320 blackened acres with native grasses and plants. If they can scrape together $22,000 for the seeds. The University of Montana and the City of Missoula each own about 160 acres of the burn area. Native seeds to sow on the area aren't very expensive, compared to previous years. Estimates had the seeds costing as much as $50,000. But the manager of Missoula's conservation lands says the seeds will only cost about $30,000. Prices are down because the seed yield is up from a wet summer and demand is down from a mild fire season.

The final count was 263 to 171 as the House of Representatives passed the Economic Recovery Act of 2008 Friday afternoon, just four days after they had rejected an earlier version. Less than an hour later, President Bush signed the bill into law. It's complicated, and we're going to make sure whatever we do is done in a deliberative fashion, Bush told reporters. The bill's passage and signing came after about ten days of historical upheaval in Congress a period during which both the presidential and vice-presidential debates made history. Rep. Barney Frank said, It would be highly irresponsible a betrayal of our oath if we were to stop here. Now we have to perform more serious reform, he said, promising to seek a complete overhaul of federal regulations for all of the financial industries. What Congress said to the American people today I hope will be taken as a promise, Frank said. Our task now is to make sure no future Congress faces this choice. MSNBC's Allison Lynn has updated her excellent article, Financial Crisis: What You Should Know to reflect changes based on the newest version of the bailout legislation. The wrestling match for control of Wachovia involving Wells Fargo and Citicorp has taken a new twist as the financial chaos continues.

With Wednesday's passage of a veto-proof $13 billion Amtrak funding bill, Amtrak will consider restoring two bygone Western routes, the Pioneer and North Coast Hiawatha. The Pioneer, from 1977 to 1997, connected Seattle and Chicago via Oregon, Southern Idaho, Utah and Colorado. The North Coast Hiawatha, from 1971 to 1979, diverged from the Empire Builder and ran through southern Montana and North Dakota. Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo and Montana Sen. Jon Tester introduced the amendments.

Newspapers cuts this week have begun to seriously call into question the continued ability of newspapers to deliver news. Yesterday the independently owned Spokesman-Review announced plans to cut 27 more newsroom jobs, almost one-quarter of its editorial staff while newsprint prices continue to soar and profits, industry-wide, keep plummeting. Earlier this week Lee Enterprises flagship paper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, cut 18 more jobs, including its primary cops reporter. Over the past few months, the newsroom has been practically gutted by Lee, which remains one of the few profitable newspaper companies.

UPDATE: Another site, FactCheck, has its own list of checks from the debate. CBS News' Reality Check Team filed this report Thursday night after the Vice-Presidential debate between Democrat Sen. Joe Biden and Republican Gov. Sarah Palin. Among the questions which CBS fact-checked are, Did McCain Vote to Cut Off Funding for the Troops? Obama Voting 94 Times to Increase Taxes? and McCain's Health Care Plan. Here is Fox News' Fact Check piece, which draws slightly different conclusions from CBS'. It includes checks on statements the two candidates made, such as PALIN: "We cannot afford to lose against al-Qaida and the Shia extremists who are still there, still fighting us." And BIDEN: Warned that Republican presidential candidate John McCain's $5,000 tax credit to help families buy health coverage "will go straight to the insurance company." CNN's poll which showed Biden Won; Palin Exceeds Expectations is parsed and analyzed here. The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. said 51 percent of those polled thought Biden did the best job, while 36 percent thought Palin did the best job. On the question of the candidates' qualifications to assume the presidency, 87 percent of those polled said Biden is qualified and 42 percent said Palin is qualified. And this: Respondents overwhelmingly said moderator Gwen Ifill was fair during the vice presidential debate, repudiating critics who said that Ifill, of PBS, would be biased because she is writing a book that includes Biden's running mate, Sen. Barack Obama. Ninety-five percent of those polled said Ifill was fair.

The most ballyhooed, most anticipated, most fraught with jeopardy debate of the cyle is now behind us. And what is there to say but "meh"? The stakes for both candidates were negative. Sarah Palin could come out looking even less fit for the job than she was going in, and Joe Biden could have come across as obnoxiously condescending. Neither performed to those low expectations, which made the debate much easier to watch than I, for one, anticipated.

Cromwell Dixon: A Boy & His Plane 1892-1911 By Martin J. Kidston Farcountry Press, 168 pages, $14.95 Cromwell Dixon awoke on October 1, 1911 as the talk and toast of Helena, Montana. This child prodigy turned aviator had become the first pilot to fly across the Continental Divide in his aeroplane, the Little Hummingbird. Five days earlier, the Helena Independent declared that this 19-year-old daredevil pilot had given the greatest exhibition ever seen in Northwest. Now, he had truly outdone himself. He was a nationally recognized aviation hero. Martin Kidston - a present day reporter for the Helena Independent - has taken a forgotten page in aviation history and authored it into a light, enjoyable read, Cromwell Dixon: A Boy & His Plane, 1892-1911.

A record viewing audience watched the nationally televised vice-presidential candidate debate Thursday night, Oct. 2. They got a good show. When it was over, things stood just about where they were before the debate began that is, with Obama-Biden holding a 5 percent lead nationally over McCain-Palin (as per the most recent Gallup Daily tracking poll). Neither candidate made a major blunder Thursday. Both did a good job of representing their presidential candidates' views. Sen. Joe Biden, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, showed his knowledge on overseas issues and also was able to cite legislative history on domestic issues of which Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin lacked knowledge. But Palin held her own on foreign, domestic, and economic policy. She was poised, well-briefed, and exceeded expectations about her performance.

A new poll released Thursday by Rasmussen Reports has John McCain up 8 points over Barack Obama in Montana, 52 percent to 44 percent, a narrower advantage than the few polls conducted in recent weeks have suggested.