Salon.com > Matt Volz

Hutterites want apology for NatGeo television show

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 20:17:46 +0000

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Leaders of a Hutterite colony in Montana are demanding an apology from the National Geographic Society for a television show they say misrepresented their way of life and poisoned public opinion of them.

King Ranch Colony minister John Hofer says "American Colony: Meet The Hutterites" was supposed to be a documentary about life within the German-speaking agricultural community of Protestants. Instead, he says, the producers turned it into a reality TV show that encouraged discord within the community.

National Geographic Channel CEO David Lyle says he is happy to meet with the Hutterite elders, but the show was an accurate and fair portrait of their life and an apology is unwarranted.

Hutterites have been compared to the Amish and Mennonites, but they live in commune-like colonies in the U.S. and Canada.

Montana investigates “Three Cups of Tea” charity

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 12:57:00 +0000

Montana's attorney general is scrutinizing the charity run by "Three Cups of Tea" co-author Greg Mortenson after reports questioned whether Mortenson benefited from money donated to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Attorney General Steve Bullock's announcement Tuesday follows investigations by "60 Minutes" and author Jon Krakauer into inaccuracies in the book and spending by the Bozeman, Mont.-based Central Asia Institute.

Bullock oversees nonprofit corporations operating in the state. He has been in contact with attorneys for the agency, and they have pledged their full cooperation, he said in a statement to The Associated Press.

"While looking into this issue, my office will not jump to any conclusions -- but we have a responsibility to make sure charitable assets are used for their intended purposes," he said in the statement.

"Three Cups of Tea" was released in 2006 and sold more than 3 million copies. That notoriety helped Mortenson grow the Central Asia Institute by generating more than $50 million in donations, Krakauer said.

According to the charity's website, it has "successfully established over 170 schools" and helped educate over 68,000 students, with an emphasis on girls' education.

Gas, food prices double whammy for rural families

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 22:38:00 +0000

Twice a week, Myriam Garcia puts snow chains on her 22-year-old gas guzzler and noses two miles down the hill from her trailer in rural western Montana. Then, instead of turning south and driving the 45 miles to Helena for grocery shopping like she used to, she parks on the side of the road and waits for a friend or neighbor heading into town to give her a lift.

In Helena, Jackie Merenz loads her beat-up SUV with juice boxes, graham crackers and apple sauce she bought at Walmart for her 6-year-old daughter's birthday party. The 60-mile round trip she makes twice a week for groceries hits her wallet hard -- the food stamps don't go far, gas prices are skyrocketing and to top it off, her husband had to stop working after getting injured.

Living out in Montana's Big Sky Country often means driving long distances for the basic necessities, and people on tight budgets like Garcia, 49, and Merenz, 26, have long been creative in making ends meet.

But with food prices up nearly 4 percent last month -- the biggest leap in 36 years -- and the national average for a gallon of gas at a whopping $3.57, this economic double-whammy is stretching family budgets to the breaking point.

Montana GOP: Ban homosexuality

Sat, 18 Sep 2010 16:50:00 +0000

At a time when gays have been gaining victories across the country, the Republican Party in Montana still wants to make homosexuality illegal.

The party adopted an official platform in June that keeps a long-held position in support of making homosexual acts illegal, a policy adopted after the Montana Supreme Court struck down such laws in 1997.

The fact that it's still the official party policy more than 12 years later, despite a tidal shift in public attitudes since then and the party's own pledge of support for individual freedoms, has exasperated some GOP members.

"I looked at that and said, 'You've got to be kidding me,'" state Sen. John Brueggeman, R-Polson, said last week. "Should it get taken out? Absolutely. Does anybody think we should be arresting homosexual people? If you take that stand, you really probably shouldn't be in the Republican Party."

Gay rights have been rapidly advancing nationwide since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas' sodomy law in 2003's Lawrence v. Texas decision. Gay marriage is now allowed in five states and Washington, D.C., a federal court recently ruled the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy unconstitutional, and even a conservative tea party group in Montana ousted its president over an anti-gay exchange in Facebook.

Escaped killer nabbed in Wyo., says he’s relieved

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:50:00 +0000

An escaped killer with a handgun and a hitchhiking sign expressed relief at his capture on Monday after 10 days on the run, while authorities searched to the north of this tourist-packed park for a second fugitive and his female accomplice, a self-styled "Bonnie and Clyde."

Tracy Province, 42, was caught as he walked in sleepy Meeteetse, Wyo., steps from a church where he sat in the pews a day earlier and sang "Your Grace Is Enough."

The search for inmate John McCluskey, 45, and Casslyn Welch, 44, focused for a time on sprawling Yellowstone National Park, which straddles Wyoming and Montana. But authorities now believe the two fled the park with agents following leads in Montana.

"They consider themselves as Bonnie and Clyde," U.S. Marshal David Gonzales said at a news conference in Phoenix. "This is very, very serious business."

Province, McCluskey and Daniel Renwick escaped from a private, medium-security Arizona State Prison near Kingman on July 30 after authorities say Welch threw wire cutters over the perimeter fence. Welch is McCluskey's fiancee and cousin. Renwick, who turns 37 on Tuesday, was captured in Colorado.

Judge orders protections reinstated for gray wolf

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:33:00 +0000

A federal judge on Thursday reinstated Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in Montana and Idaho, saying the government made a political decision in removing the protections from just two of the three states where Rocky Mountain wolves roam.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said in his ruling that the entire Rocky Mountain wolf population either must be listed as an endangered species or removed from the list, but the protections for the same population can't be different for each state.

Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service turned over wolf management to Montana and Idaho wildlife officials but left federal endangered species protections in place for wolves in Wyoming, where state law is considered hostile to the animals' survival.

"Even if the Service's solution is pragmatic, or even practical, it is at its heart a political solution that does not comply with the ESA," Molloy wrote in his ruling.

Defenders of Wildlife, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and other wildlife advocates sued the federal government after the Fish and Wildlife Service decision in April 2009. They argued that the government's decision would have set a precedent allowing the government to arbitrarily choose which animals should be protected and where.

Biden touts stimulus projects in national parks

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:48:00 +0000

Hundreds of stimulus-funded projects under way in national parks across the U.S. are long-overdue upgrades to the country's neglected "national jewels," Vice President Joe Biden said Monday.

Biden began a two-day tour highlighting Recovery Act projects in Yellowstone and Grand Canyon national parks by speaking to about 100 park workers, contractors and their families in the scenic Madison Valley, where the famous Madison River is formed in the shadow of 7,500-foot National Park Mountain.

He said some $750 million in stimulus money has gone to about 800 national park projects, which have created jobs in tough times. But, he added, the projects would have been necessary even if the economy was good to protect the parks and reduce man's footprint there.

"For too long our nation's crown jewels have been neglected," Biden said. "Everything we're doing in this park is worthwhile and needed to be done anyway, whether times were good or bad."

So when the Recovery Act was passed in an effort to stabilize the economy, it included hundreds of national park upgrades and repairs that had been delayed or stalled, he said.

"We're beginning to polish once again these national jewels," he said.