Flathead Valley Commentary: Kalispell, Montana News

In the northeastern Pacific Ocean there is a giant layer of floating plastic that is twice the size of Texas. It appears to me that scientists have concentrated their efforts on the contamination that the plastic is causing. I’ve seen no scientific investigation about the reflecting powers of all of that plastic.

Let's look at how it all got there. It is the clockwise motion of the Japanese current, which leaves the Sea of Japan and flows north toward the Aleutians in a clockwise manner, then down the West Coast to California and then heads west again. As the current moves south along the west coast of North America, it picks up anything that was left on the beach or that has floated down a river or a storm drain or that was possibly dumped overboard by countless ships. The plastic layer is composed of hundreds of millions of plastic water bottles and anything else made out of plastic that will float.

President Obama isn’t the first American president to win the Nobel Peace Prize. The first president, as well as the first American, to receive that coveted honor was a one-time member of the Montana Stock Grower’s Association. Theodore Roosevelt was also the first and only future president to win the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Roosevelt was awarded the peace prize for successfully mediating the end to the bloody Russo – Japanese War. He received the Medal of Honor for leading his Rough Riders in their hell-for-leather assault on San Juan Hill.

There just couldn’t be a better idea than the move that’s underway in Missoula to change the name of Campus Drive, which circles Washington-Grizzly Stadium and runs at the foot of Mount Sentinel, to Don Read Boulevard.

The idea, which surfaced from a letter to President George Dennison by Scott Beaulieu posted on egriz.com, drew a quick response from UM.

In October 2008, Congress directed Amtrak to study adding more routes to Amtrak’s system. Among those routes were two for the Northwest, the Denver-Boise-Portland Pioneer, and a second Seattle-Chicago line, the North Coast Hiawatha (NCH) through Bismarck, Helena and Missoula on the old Northern Pacific. Amtrak’s 53-page NCH report makes interesting reading.

Amtrak’s current long-distance trains, not counting the unique Northeast Corridor and California’s special in-state network, cover about 51 percent of direct costs. Each dollar in fares requires the same in subsidy. Some trains, such as the Sunset Limited, cover only 24 percent, meaning every dollar in revenue is backed with $3 from taxpayers. The Empire Builder across the High Line is the “best”-performing conventional Amtrak train, covering 65 percent of its direct costs.

How would you feel if you knew that there was just one 911 operator in charge of answering and directing all the calls in your county? And that it had been this way for multiple decades, despite the fact that the population there has been steadily increasing over the years?

No matter how capable the operator may be, unless more operators were added to take the calls, the effectiveness of the whole 911 system could be distorted. This is akin to what's happening with the US government and Congress.

Ahh, Kermit the Frog. You were wise beyond your years when you said, "It's not easy being green."

It isn't even easy talking about green, but we're going to do it anyhow.

Everywhere you turn, people talk about being green and going green. Quite often, it results in a number of people seeing red.

One of my chef idols, Alton Brown, talks frequently about the importance of “multi-tasking” when it comes to the things you buy for your kitchen. In other words, if you’re buying something for your kitchen that has but one use, it’s likely a waste of money. There are, of course, exceptions.

Parchment paper certainly qualifies as a multi-tasker, as it is used to line baking pans, make disposable pastry bags, and, of course, to wrap foods that are to be cooked en papillote. This will be the main focus of this column.

At a candidate forum last week, the moderator asked the six contenders for city council their opinion of downtown Kalispell. It was an area in which all of them agreed – they support its prosperity. Yet as someone who has worked in the center of the city, albeit for just over two years, it’s hard to imagine what that means.

There have been hopeful signs in that time, as incumbent Mayor Pam Kennedy pointed out at the debate. True, it appears more new businesses have recently moved into downtown than have moved out. And several – like Bonelli’s (Italian food), Camas Creek (yarn), Fawn (clothes) and Red’s Roost (bar) – have some staying power. But it is still a stretch to think of downtown Kalispell as a destination for entertainment.