Billings blogging goes big time. Ed is a good writer and a good friend, and it will be interesting to see what turns up here. Perhaps more interesting will be seeing the extent to which the Gazette is willing to tolerate some of the more traditional blogging functions, such as critiquing the local media, linking to alternative sources, etc. That (and technological ignorance) have been the big reasons why the corporate-owned media have been reluctant to move into the blogosphere. They like owning the whole show, and it pains them to even acknowledge the existence of alternatives.

Anyway, Ed, welcome aboard. Blogging begets blogging, and this blog could use the help. Between getting out the monthly billing for The Outpost last week and preparing for my Thursday night journalism class at Rocky, it's been a slow week of blogging around here.

On the other hand, it was disconcerting to go to Ed's blog bright and early this morning and see he had nothing posted yet. Hey, pal, this is a daily.



My intemperate screed about gubernatorial candidate Pat Davison drew a gracious phone call from the candidate himself. He said that his campaign intends to include The Outpost (and, presumably, other alternative media) on its distribution list, and he took personal blame for failing to get a fax through letting us know about his candidate announcement. Apparently, the fax line was busy the first time, and he didn't get around to trying again.

State Sen. John Bohlinger, who has been trying to rally support for a special legislative session, also took note of the column and passed along a copy of the letter he mailed to fellow legislators. By Oct. 1, he says, the Legislature will have $50 million in federal money, plus $20 million more in tax revenue than was anticipated. Sen. Bohlinger wants to use some of that money to offset cuts in services required by last session's funding shortfall.

"History will tell us that what we are attempting to do is nearly impossible," he wrote, "but that must not keep us from trying."

Impossible, indeed.


Thank goodness, fire season is about over, and along with it the Gazette's six-part series on the Yellowstone National Park fires of 1988. If there's anything worse than trying to keep up with daily fire coverage, it's trying to keep up with coverage of a fire that happened 15 years ago.


Least surprising news of the day: a Harvard researcher concludes that telling young people that most of them don't smoke or drink to excess not only doesn't prevent smoking and drinking to excess but may increase it. That certainly sounds like my attitude when I was a young person, and I would hate to think that modern youth are any less prickly. Even the tennis shoe companies understand that if you want kids to all think and dress alike, you have to try to make them think that they are all dressing and thinking in their own unique way.


Betty Ryniker's question about the derivation of "gubernatorial" in this week's Outpost is drawing online help.