Opinion on The Bozeman Daily Bee

Please Let Me Hand My Ballot to a Real Person

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 07:40:00 +0000

I support absentee voting. I support convenience. I support envelopes, drop boxes and all the impressive administrative machinery that allows a citizen to participate in self-government while standing in socks near the dishwasher. What I do not support is the growing assumption that this should be the only emotional texture democracy offers.

Sometimes I want to hand my ballot to a real person.

Not because I distrust the system. Because I respect the occasion. There is a difference. We have spent years streamlining every civic interaction until it resembles paying a utility bill or canceling a dentist appointment. Efficiency has its place. But voting is one of the few remaining acts in American life that benefits from a modest amount of ceremony and the light pressure of behaving correctly in public.

Read the Ballot Like It Is Medicine

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 07:40:00 +0000

I am asking the public to do one difficult thing and one easy thing. The difficult thing is participating in democracy. The easy thing is reading the page that comes with it.

Every election, we are reminded that a ballot packet contains instructions. Every election, a portion of the public responds to this information as though it were an optional essay from a cereal box. I do not understand this. If a chainsaw arrived with a folded sheet explaining how not to injure yourself, most of us would at least glance at it before pull-starting our future. Yet with ballots, people develop a powerful faith in intuition.

The Line at Yard Sale Bagels Is the Whole Point

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 07:40:00 +0000

I have heard people complain that the line at Yard Sale Bagels is too long. This is incorrect. The line is not an unfortunate byproduct of the bagel. The line is the highest form of the bagel.

If a new food establishment opens in Bozeman and a person can walk right in without waiting behind at least six damp strangers and one man wearing trail gaiters for no current reason, then something has gone wrong. Either the product is weak or the town has lost faith in itself. I do not believe either is true.

The Snakes Are Using the Trail Correctly

Sun, 31 May 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Each spring, wildlife experts gently remind us that warmer weather brings more snakes onto Montana trails. Each spring, many hikers respond as though this is an outrageous breach of customer service. I would like to state for the record that the snakes are not the ones misunderstanding the arrangement.

The trail does not belong exclusively to the person with trekking poles, a performance fleece and three opinions about bear spray. It also runs through the habitat of creatures that have somehow persisted despite our increasingly decorative understanding of the outdoors. A snake crossing a path is not making a statement. It is merely being present in the exact kind of place where we claim to want nature.

If Streaming Won't Carry Local News, Carry My Grief

Sat, 30 May 2026 07:40:00 +0000

I am old enough to remember when television arrived through the air and a person could lose a channel only by driving into a canyon or insulting God. Now I pay actual money every month for a streaming service that occasionally informs me, with a smooth corporate face, that the local station has become unavailable due to a planned outage. Planned by whom is never made fully clear. Not by me.

Teach the Children Bike Safety Before They Meet Us

Fri, 29 May 2026 07:45:00 +0000

I support teaching children to ride bicycles safely. I want to be clear about that at the outset, because modern public discourse requires a person to declare support for childhood before making a practical concern. My concern is that if we teach these children too well, they will enter adulthood with expectations about traffic behavior that this region is not presently equipped to honor.

The third annual Bike Rodeo in Big Sky will teach hand signals, helmet use, stopping technique and general roadway awareness. These are admirable skills. They are also, in a profound sense, aspirational. We are describing to children a transportation culture that exists mainly in pamphlets and on the side of municipal vans.