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The Hidden Valley In Montana We have seen some beautiful places in Montana, but the last two days introduced us to a remote canyon in the state that we have fallen in love with. The Castle Mountains are on one side and the Crazies on the other. Tucked in between are thousands of acres of farm land filled with cattle. The green hills, the trees, the streams….it’s beautiful. Our journey started at the little church in Lennep, Mt. Never heard of it? You aren’t alone. There’s an

America’s Battle with Electoral Dysfunction. It’s election day in many places, including my home state of Oregon. My email is littered with stories of multiple ballots showing up at people’s houses, and people out of state still receiving an Oregon ballot. In Maryland, tens of thousands of ballots were mixed up and messed up. We are experiencing a national outbreak of Electoral Dysfunction. Electoral dysfunction (ED), sometimes called election impotence, is the consistent ina

You Come To A Point The Reason Doesn’t Matter You come to a point in life where truth is more important than anything. As a journalist, my professional life was all about learning to smell the faint odor that follows the path of a lengthy lie. Like a doctor can sense disease, a journalist puts together bits and pieces of information to find not one conclusion but story after story, colliding into one messy narrative. There are not two sides to every issue, but many. You learn

Something About A Mom I understand moms and dads are equally important in the world we live in. In a perfect world, a child grows up with both. My mom is one of the few people who truly understood me. She told me once, “Ricky, you aren’t everyone’s cup of tea.” She wasn’t setting me up; she just knew the path I would take would not be an easy one. The last time I saw my mom alive, I had just been diagnosed with cancer. I was up in Portland near where she lived. I had told her