Zoom Chron Blog

On January 1st, 2020, a police report listed Sean Stevenson as an “informational informant”. Two days later Sean was assaulted inside the Poverello Center, which put him into a coma that he would never recover from, thanks to the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office. Today, for the first time, I’m including the full report that I think led directly to Sean Stevenson’s death:

The reporting officer listed in this police report is Mike Colyer, Missoula’s current police chief. Knowing what I now know about law enforcement fusion center activity with drug traffickers, I’d REALLY like to have a candid conversation with Mike about Sean Stevenson, what happened to him on January 3rd inside the Poverello Center, and why a coroner involved with exhuming a dead CIA agent was involved in controlling the narrative around Sean’s death.

When you review Mike Colyer’s resume for the position he got selected for by Missoula’s interim Mayor, Jordan Hess, it’s not just the Quantico training that stands out, it’s being a Drug Recognition Expert, a Drug Recognition Expert Instructor, and a Drug Evaluation and Classification Program Coordinator that leads me to believe Mike Colyer would be aware, through a cursory examination of Facebook, that the people Sean Stevenson was around on January 1st, 2020, were connected to the slice of the drug trade coming out of Browning and controlled by Blackfeet with well-known surnames.

When I reviewed Billy Bullplume’s friends on Facebook I saw surnames like Heavyrunner, Ingraham, and Marceau, with that last one popping up in a pretty serious drug case with ties to Mexico:

A Great Falls woman who admitted to dealing methamphetamine and heroin for a drug trafficking organization in Mexico was sentenced today to five years in prison, to be followed by five years of supervised release, U.S. Attorney Jesse Laslovich said.

Katie Marie Marceau, 38, pleaded guilty in March to possession with intent to distribute controlled substances.

Chief U.S. District Judge Brian M. Morris presided.

The government alleged in court documents that Marceau was a significant drug dealer in Great Falls and had direct connections to a drug trafficking ring in Mexico. Leaders of the organization sent workers to Great Falls to distribute meth and heroin and to recruit local workers, like Marceau, to distribute drugs. The workers typically distributed the drug in Great Falls for a few months, and then the leaders rotated to the next worker to avoid law enforcement detection. In late 2020, Marceau became the new designated worker for the drug organization and sold meth and heroin to undercover officers. Marceau also was on state supervision at the time when she engaged in this drug activity.

When I found this case online the time-frame and connection to Mexico all lined up with what a known informant told me a few weeks ago. I also took note of the U.S. Attorney who prosecuted this case, since Jesse Laslovich is related to Dylan Laslovich, the former chief of staff for Jon Tester.

Hmmm.

The named victim in the police report, Seth Reeb, popped up in a local article after getting his 8th DUI. What I found significant is that Reeb is reported to have cases out of California, where Johnny Lee Perry was from.

“During the investigation, officers observed indicators of impairment from Reeb,” Arnold said. “Between the observed driving behavior and the indicators of impairment during the contact with Reeb, Reeb was placed under arrest for a felony DUI, which is a fourth or subsequent offense. Drug use is suspected in this incident. Thankfully, the vehicle was stopped without incident and no person was injured.”

Court documents indicate Reeb has three prior DUI convictions, two pending felony DUI’s in the Fourth Judicial District, and two DUI arrests with unclear dispositions out of California.

The Chief Deputy Coroner who exhumed a CIA agent before getting tasked with controlling the narrative around the sequence of events that led to Sean Stevenson being removed from life support BEFORE his family knew what happened to him is Jace Dicken, now retired.

Below is a picture of Jace Dicken from Facebook, along with an image from the 1982 burying of Hog Daniels in a Missoula burial plot and some excerpts from the article:

Thirty-five years later, one mystery is solved. There’s a body buried in Jerry Daniels’ grave in the Missoula Cemetery.

The next question: Is it his?

Even the skeptics are convinced it is, though Dr. Robert Kurtzman, Montana’s chief medical examiner, continues to analyze evidence in Billings after the body was exhumed for several hours on Oct. 25.

“They requested the press not be there or it could have turned into a circus,” said Kent “Dan” Daniels of Florence, one of Jerry’s three surviving brothers.

As it was, the process at the cemetery, Garden City Funeral Home shop and the state crime lab on Palmer Street in Missoula was a private and by all accounts professional affair. It was conducted under the auspices of Kurtzman and Lt. Jace Dicken, chief deputy coroner for the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office.

For those unaware of how the CIA recruited Smokejumpers for Vietnam, Jerry “Hog” Daniels was the rockstar who earned unparalleled respect among the Hmong and, during the war effort, he was an indispensable asset for the CIA. It was Hog’s story, as told by his biographer, Gayle Morrison, that inspired me to troll the CIA last June during the 80th anniversary Smokejumper celebration on campus.

Besides exhuming the body of a CIA agent in 2018 (the same year Jermaine Charlo went missing), what other red flags in Jace Dicken’s background did I find? Did I find that Jace Dicken was involved in a fatal shooting with fellow Sheriff Deputy, Tony Rio?

Yes, but it gets worse.

After shooting dead 42 year old, Eugene Statelen, who was allegedly trying to run down Dicken and Rio in his car, it was discovered that the Sheriff Deputies had their WIVES riding along with them that night, as well as the minor child of Undersheriff, Jason Johnson.

Two officers involved in a shooting on New Year’s Eve had their spouses in their patrol cars. The women are now being treated like witnesses in the investigation.

We found out the wives of Captain Tony Rio and Sgt. Jace Dickens we’re on ride-along’s with their husbands when shots were fired. Undersheriff Jason Johnson’s 13-year-old son was also riding with another deputy who arrived at the scene shortly after the shooting.

Under Missoula County policy, citizens can ride along with a deputy once a year and family members can do so with permission of the shift commander. Patrol Captain Bill Burt tells us it’s not rare for loved ones to do ride-alongs.

“I think the primary reason is that there is an exception for spouses, is so spouses can have more opportunity to come out and see what these stresses are. Law enforcement has stresses that are unique.”

None of the people named in this article needed to convince me they lacked professional discretion, but this incredibly problematic scenario certainly helps me make my case to people outside this bubble that something is SERIOUSLY wrong in western Montana when it comes to law enforcement, drug trafficking, and the wreckage of drug abuse all over the country.

For more context on who and how narrative control is exerted by local authorities I’m offering–again, for the first time–documentation that shows Jace Dicken in the early stages of controlling the narrative in order to manipulate the expectations of the Stevenson family, who didn’t know enough at the time to wrap their heads around law enforcement’s complicity in killing, then covering up, Sean Stevenson’s death.

Then, after that, I have a video clip of an informant I recorded (for my own safety) who says, straight up, what he thinks Sean Stevenson knew that got him killed.

But first, the Dicken performance:

While the Dicken performance goes on a bit longer, I’m stopping it here because I’ve seen the autopsy pictures of Sean Stevenson’s dead body and can therefore comfortably say fuck Jace Dicken and his little performance.

Moving on to the video clip I recorded on August 31st at 6:40pm along the river trail in Missoula, the individual in-frame is the guy I wrote about here who claimed, I believe credibly, to be a dealer for the cops working the regional HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area).

In the video clip below, “Coby” is a younger black guy I spoke with recently who knew “Johnny Blaze”, or Johnny Lee Perry, the guy NOT credibly blamed for being allegedly responsible for putting Sean Stevenson into a coma on January 3rd, 2020, before getting shot and killed himself on August 29th, 2021.

Listen carefully to what the man in the video clip says because this is the moment I’m finally getting some substantive answers to a question I’ve been asking for years.

What this guy says lines up nicely with the case prosecuted by Jesse Laslovich against Katie Marceau, and it confirms what I’ve heard from other street sources that something BIG was brewing around the time Sean Stevenson got assaulted by, I believe, MULTIPLE people inside the men’s dorm of the homeless shelter I once worked at.

The clip I’m using today is from a longer recording where a man, off-camera to the right, can be heard claiming to be Jermain Charlo’s cousin. A few days later I ran across this same guy and we had a longer conversation about the person he said was involved in the drug money negotiations that led to Jermain Charlo disappearing AND Sean Stevenson being killed.

“the last Governor,” he said.

No, I immediately thought to myself, that’s too much. Nope.

But that didn’t stop me from thinking about it, then thinking some more, then putting this out cryptically on X:

I know, this post started with implying Missoula’s Police Chief, Mike Colyer, put Sean Stevenson’s name on paper, which led to his targeting and eventual death, and now I’m claiming an even more important public official–a fucking Governor–could be implicated in large-scale money laundering as he jockeyed his massive ego for a run at President.

What am I smoking, you might be wondering?

Currently, a Sativa strain called Blue Dream, but that’s beside the point. The point is Steve Bullock DID ignore some pretty crazy shit as Attorney General for Montana, as evidenced by these curated excerpts from a Missoula Independent article you can read here:

When I first read this article I was 32 years old and working at the Poverello Center. Ten years later, when Sean Stevenson was assaulted inside the Pov’s new facility on West Broadway, it had become a different world, one where it’s taking me 6 years to finally understand why it appears Sean Stevenson had to die, and who continues to benefit by keeping the reason for his death covered up.

Unlike Mike Colyer and Bob Franke, who got nice promotions and enjoy even more power over people’s lives in this town, I spent an entire summer homeless, living in my box truck, and the last three years defending myself from active lawfare, which has left me broke and very socially isolated.

All because I couldn’t accept the bullshit narrative of what happened to Sean Stevenson on January 3rd, 2020, inside the Poverello Center.

Don’t worry, Mike, as the old saying goes, you can’t BREAK the law if you ARE the law.

Thanks for reading.

Chapter 3 of my Substack research, titled Earth Horse Beats Fire Horse Dead, Dead, Dead, is up at my Substack, so check it out.

Yesterday was my birthday, so thank you to the handful of well-wishers who reached out. I spent the evening alone, watching Donnie Darko, so it was quite a party, but in a retarded town like Missoula, being alone is the safest option.

On Friday I watched someone present information on homeless trash and how he’s picking it up because it’s everywhere. I also listened to one of the participants suggest this guy should get money and support for the amazing work he’s doing, the same person who said something similar about Ryan Tollefson after he got ARRESTED for picking up homeless trash two years ago.

NBC Montana has been following cleanup efforts along West Broadway Street in Missoula. On Wednesday, the man who took it upon himself to move debris from the riverbank to the sidewalk was arrested for disorderly conduct.

Ryan Tollefson said police arrested him after he defended himself when a homeless person attacked him. The man accused Tollefson of taking away his possessions.

I’m not trying to throw shade on the local effort to hold our public officials more accountable, because good work has been accomplished through this group, most recently the volunteer-led cleanups of the Snowbowl parking lot owned by the asshole who refuses to be proactive in dealing with “car camping”. But, despite incremental accomplishments, many of the participants still don’t understand how vicious the lawfare can be when you cross the clique running this town, so I do my best to warn them.

Unfortunately, taking the time to warn people makes me feel just like Cassandra.

The Cassandra metaphor (variously labeled the Cassandra “syndrome”, “complex”, “phenomenon”, “predicament”, “dilemma”, “curse”) relates to a person whose valid warnings or concerns are disbelieved by others.

The term originates in Greek mythology. Cassandra was a daughter of Priam, the King of Troy. Struck by her beauty, Apollo provided her with the gift of prophecy, on the condition that she agree to accept his romantic advances (or without prior agreement from Cassandra, depending on the source), but when she refused Apollo’s romantic advances, he placed a curse on her, ensuring that nobody would believe her warnings. Cassandra was left with the knowledge of future events but could neither alter these events nor convince others of the validity of her predictions.

If your community has corrupt cops, corrupt prosecutors, a corrupt Sheriff’s Office running corrupt jails, and corrupt state oversight, my prediction is the Federal authorities will be just another layer of corruption, too distracted by an FBI director defending literal animal fuckers to pay attention to fusion center complicity in drug trafficking.

Tomorrow, in furtherance of reducing this local ignorance, I’m implicating our Police Chief, Mike Colyer, in helping setup, then cover up, Sean Stevenson’s death. Another name tied to this case is Bob Franke, the police officer who was once partially paid by the Downtown Business Association to manage the downtown transient population before becoming the Detective who was apparently standing in the St. Pats hospital room when Sean Stevenson was being removed from life support by the coroner for the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office.

Like Mike Colyer, Bob got himself a promotion for controlling the narrative around Sean Stevenson’s death and ensuring early attention went to the patsy, Johnny Lee Perry, who got himself shot in the back in the woods 20 months after Sean died.

This is SUCH a small town that I even know Lydia Arnold, the woman who briefly served as the “communications officer” (read paid narrative controller) for the police and, before that, a one-time volunteer for me when I coordinated the Homeless Outreach Teams for the Poverello Center.

Why were you guys so interested in homeless people back then, Bob and Lydia? Another small-town question in my mind is what kind of gossip Lydia Arnold could have gleaned about ME by attending the women’s group for the church my mother still attends.

And people wonder why I hate this town.

It makes sense that people don’t want to sacrifice their paychecks, social status, mental stability, and literal freedom to stand up for what they claim to believe in–like, for me, that would be NOT killing a homeless man in a coma before notifying his family–and that’s why I told the judge who loves bathrooms and nothingburgers about the chilling effect he was enacting by validating the delusions of a very unwell person:

If the County Prosecutors who regularly clear cops of killing people with performative coroner’s inquests want to put me back in jail for writing about what’s happening to me, they should do it. If they want to put me back in jail for being too broke to afford the $395 dollars for my electronic harassment, they should do it.

And if they want to add another charge for continuing to ask where my stolen property is, then THEY SHOULD DO IT!

And if YOU, dear reader, would like to donate digital dollars to my future commissary fund, here’s the place to do it.

Thanks for reading. Tomorrow’s post is already scheduled to drop at 9am.

The only thing sillier about this image is the fact it’s based on a “real” image rendered for the Missoula Redevelopment Agency showing a “real” use of Tax Increment Financing, which I brought attention to on Thursday in my unique retard-maxxing way.

Below are images of what spending $55,000 on plants will look like, the words rationalizing this expenditure, then my comment after that.

Since I don’t have the ability to declare my life blighted in order to get a cash infusion of Tax Increment Financing, I’m going to offer viewings of my living space tomorrow, September 19th, which is also my birthday. Starting at 4pm, at … (text 406-529-1655 for details), local supporters of my work can stop by, provide a cash donation, then enter my domicile where a fallen Lego world struggles with its terrible, terrible leadership.

In addition to viewing Lego art, supporters will also receive a Zine featuring all the poems that have gotten me into the most trouble. I also have some new poems I’m working on, like this one about blight, written by me and performed by Pirate Booty:

View this post on Instagram

So come on by and see what your favorite broke-ass citizen journalist is up to on the eve on his biggest post about WHY Sean Stevenson had to die and WHO I think are the people most responsible for setting up his death and maintaining the coverup after.

That post will drop Monday.

Thanks for reading!

Yesterday, at a Congressional hearing on Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP), Montana’s Attorney General, Austin Knudsen, took the national stage for an opportunity to promote his leadership for his eventual run for Governor, which we all know is coming.

To bolster his leadership credentials, Knudsen claimed that authorities in Montana have found 99% of the people who went missing last year. If true, that’s an impressive number. Also, according to the official transcripts, Knudsen indicated how many missing people in Montana are NOT women.

I’ll start, today, by providing you with some statistics that helped me get a clear picture of the problem when I was first briefed on the issue as Attorney General. Some of what I say might surprise you. It was a surprise to me.

It’s a common misconception that only women are going missing. In 2025, 48 percent of all people reported missing in Montana were male and 52 percent were female. In the Indigenous community, the data starts to skew, but there is still a large percentage of males that are reported missing. Last year, 40 percent of the Indigenous persons that went missing were males. Our current messaging that it’s only a problem for women

Today, after trying to use the searchable Montana database of Missing Persons, I’m going to add a little context to how problematic Knudsen’s speech was, since he admitted something VERY important yesterday, which is this:

As Attorney General, my hands are tied. I have no jurisdiction on tribal land. The Montana Legislature can pass all the bills they want, but without action from Congress, we will never see meaningful change. You have the power to give tribes the authority they need by removing unnecessary and confusing jurisdictional red tape. You can also give states some authority to help.

If Austin Knudsen would like to make an improvement with how Montana provides information on missing people, then making the missing persons database actually functional is a good place to start. Instead, when I put in the name of someone who I know is on the list, Monte Swanson, this was the result:

In order to actually find Monte Swanson’s entry, I had to manually scroll through the list of 169 names until I came across it.

Last September, as reported by the New York Post, my conversation with Boston 25 news put Monte Swanson’s name out there again in connection to his potential killer, Kevin Lino, who caught new murder charges last fall in Massachusetts:

“I believe he is a very dangerous, dangerous individual. So, I think he is a serial killer for sure,” said Montana journalist Travis Mateer, who spent time with Lino as a homeless counselor in Missoula.

Mateer believes Lino is even responsible for the vanishing of another homeless man, Monte Swanson, who knew Lino in Missoula.

And prosecutors are also open to the idea that Lino might have more deaths on his hands.

“We continue to investigate that,” said Ryan. “We never give up on those cases. We don’t forget about them, and we stay open to other information.”

(note: I was the Homeless Outreach Coordinator, not a “counselor”, and my interactions with Lino’s gang was minimal)

Another case I’m familiar with–the disappearance of Heather Tifft in Hot Springs, Montana–is likely connected to drugs, so if anyone knows anything, they aren’t talking to local authorities.

Another case I think involves drugs is assumed to be a case of the “boyfriend did it”, at least that’s the impression left by Detective Guy Baker, who retired from being a Detective last year after failing to locate Jermaine Charlo.

Despite Baker’s failure, that didn’t stop him from going on TV to keep feeding the hope he’s got something brewing to break this case. We’re waiting, Guy.

After investigators concluded that all the evidence seemed to point toward DeFrance, police met with the county prosecutor, who promised to take a hard look at the case. 

At the episode’s end, Baker told Charlo’s family that he was “very confident” they’d get the resolution they hoped for in the “very near future.”

I know Baker has his heart set on blaming DeFrance, but if he had put together a stronger case, maybe prosecutors would have charged him, but Baker’s case was apparently NOT strong enough for those charges, so perhaps his theory is WRONG and Jermaine Charlo saw something related to a big drug deal that put her at risk.

At least, that’s what one of MY sources is telling me.

Two years ago I published a text exchange I had with Guy Baker around the same time I was hearing about Heather Tifft’s disappearance for the first time from a woman who was later shot in the stomach by her brother (yes, drugs were involved). Because of this context, seeing Guy Baker in the courtroom last May was a bit unnerving, but that didn’t stop me from calling him to the stand as a witness in my hearing and having the judge put him under oath so we could have a little “honest” chat about his new career as a Private Investigator investigating ME.

I don’t know what kind of advice, or recommendations, someone in Guy Baker’s position would give a supposedly “reasonable” individual who is allegedly so afraid of claimed conduct that an order of protection is necessary, but from my perspective (which is admittedly biased in this case), I would assume a Private Investigator would tell his terrified client to NOT go to a location where said person claimed he would be to raise money for the cost of court transcripts.

It’s been 3 months since I was arrested in the parking lot of the Great Burn Brewery on an arrest warrant and, for some weird reason, Deputy County Attorney, Mac Bloom, is REFUSING to produce the 911 call from that day, which puts me in a weird state of deja vu regarding the case of Rebekah Barsotti and the difficulty Rebekah’s mother had simply obtaining the 911 call from the “Oregon family” who saw folded up clothes and personal belongings on the side of the river and said themselves “Hey, let’s call those really competent law men in MINERAL COUNTY to come and investigate!” (not an actual quote)

The final missing person case I’d like to highlight involves a wife who may have come to Mineral County from the state of Washington with her husband, Earl, who, you know, tried REALLY HARD to find her before reporting her missing 9 days later.

The competency of our Sheriffs in western Montana is a BIG concern to me, and one I plan to keep reporting on. For example, under the leadership of Missoula’s previous Sheriff, T.J. McDermott, his deputies struggled to do basic math when Todd Keith Spence assaulted TWO workers for the Department of Transportation, but only caught ONE assault charge.

I’m pretty sure 1+1 is supposed to equal 2, but I majored in English at UM, so maybe I’m wrong.

In Mineral County the competency of the Sheriff, Ryan Funke, his lawyer, Lance Jasper, and resigned Commissioner, Shawn Smalley, is getting some local media attention, with more sure to come:

A Mineral County Board of Commissioners meeting became heated last week after the county sheriff refused to turn over requested documents for a purchase he made in 2025.

County Attorney Debra Jackson aired her frustrations with Sheriff Ryan Funke at the Sept. 10 meeting after he allegedly refused to complete a records request she sent him more than a month ago.  

The request is part of an investigation into missing patrol vehicles Funke ordered in 2025. The sheriff ordered six vehicles from ESU Pursuits, a Kansas-based government vehicle supplier, for $353,688, according to a figure he provided at a board meeting on May 15, 2025. The delivery remains unfulfilled, according to county officials. 

And finally, my most recent clue that Missoula’s Sheriff, Jeremiah Petersen, lacks basic skills, like using computers, arose with my simultaneous alarm that Judge Vanatta doesn’t understand the Constitution because, according to the sworn testimony of a public official, my updated address information wasn’t accessible to review for our County’s top Law Man.

Worried about our Sheriff’s computer skills, I immediately consulted the Sheriff’s civil branch, and they confirmed I’ve been served AT MY address because they do indeed, HAVE MY address in their computer system.

Hmmm…could the person making this claim have been LYING?

It’s sad to see someone struggle so hard with reality, but if readers want to experience reality with ME, I’ll be publicly sharing my 4-plex address for 24 hours, starting tomorrow, so you know where to come on Saturday to help me celebrate my birthday (and give me birthday money!).

I may even do a dramatic reading of my court transcripts, which my Daddy ended up paying for.

So, stay tuned, and thanks for reading!

What was so unsettling about approaching, by car, a Buddhist retreat center in the middle of western Montana?

Great question, but a definitive answer won’t be forthcoming in this post. Just images, public-facing narrative context, and local insights you have to be IN PERSON to hear directly, from locals, and I’m talking close enough in person to smell the aroma of urine wafting from a jovial town drunk.

It was around 4:30pm on a weekday last week that I arrived with a friend to the desolate valley cul-de-sac’ing in a horseshoe-shaped bowl of mountains where the Namchak center is located. Offering three-year stints to meditate and find enlightenment, this retreat center isn’t for your casual Buddhist.

I would expect nothing less from a seasoned JuBu like Linda Pritzker, the humble billionaire who is ultimately the figure (and money) at the heart of “establishing the Namchak lineage” into the cultural fabric of western Montana.

Whatever that means.

Surviving volcanoes, floods, bioweapons, zombies, wildfires, and other forms of world-transforming cataclysm means having food, so pictured above are the new greenhouses currently under construction at Namchak. There are also yummy looking steaks walking around on four legs for hearty protein when the need arises.

I wanted to go back in time to before the heavy machinery getting to work outside Hot Springs, Montana, to when the number of Buddhas in Arlee was still under 500.

Who was involved in establishing the Namchak lineage back then (2010)?

More than 430 Buddha statues have been completed at Ewam Montana in Arlee. Their goal is to have 1,000 finished and placed by the fall of 2011 for the opening of the garden. If all goes as planned His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama will attend the dedication ceremony

Visualize a 10-acre garden with a thousand Buddhas to inspire visitors of all faiths to reflect on peace and find compassion and happiness within themselves.

Buddhist teacher Gochen Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche of Tibet had such a vision many years ago.

There’s a difference between having a “vision” and building an off-grid fallout complex spread across an entire valley, so let’s see who else was involved in raising that number of Buddhas to 1,000:

Recently, the center announced that the Dalai Lama has agreed to personally consecrate the garden. Dr. Georgia Milan, coordinator for the visit, has scheduled the momentous event for late 2011, pending completion of the project.

“His Holiness is getting older — he’s 75 this year — [so] we wanted to make sure we took advantage of his incredible, kind and generous offer to come and consecrate our garden,” she said. “We’re going to work very hard.”

Did the Dalai Lama make an appearance? No, but an article from 2014 better places the date of the original vision…

In Arlee in 1993, Rinpoche visited a sheep farm that seemed the real life embodiment of a place he’d dreamed of as a child. He was forced to study Buddhism in secret after the Chinese invaded his Tibetan province when he was 7 years old. He spent nine years in prison.

“He recognized the land, and other signs pointed him that way. He had a belief he would come to America and a lot of teachers told him to spread it to the West,” said Deborah Hicks, Ewam spokeswoman. “A lot of Westerners try to learn meditation but don’t know who to go to. They’re wonderful for moving here and helping us.”

In the ensuing years, Rinpoche, along with students and volunteers, turned the sheep pasture into a tranquil garden.

…and the fact that Namchak’s Hot Springs location was already being planned in 2014:

The Buddhist community at the Ewan and a Buddhist community developing on a retreat center near Hot Springs have made themselves known to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Council, said Robert McDonald, communications director.

“They’ve self-identified as trying to do outreach,” he said.

Tribal members are outnumbered three-to-one on the reservation, McDonald said.

“Our main focus is on operating our crucial services for tribal members and going about our business,” he said.

Before we return to Dr. Georgia Milan and an organization called Hands On Global, I want to tell the local story I heard about an injured elk shot dead on the Namchak property–land clearly identified in this article as TRIBAL lands.

Before mercifully shooting the injured animal, did anyone at Namchak think to notify Tribal Police that an elk had to be put down? According to the town drunk’s friend telling me this story, no, but Tribal Police eventually found out, and it took a hefty “fine” (I was told) to remedy that little whoopsie.

Not very respectful of your indigenous neighbors, is it, Dr. Georgia?

By the time Namchak was being built, Dr. Georgia Milan was in Pocatello, Idaho, working at a free clinic. For context on her non-profit work with people from other cultures, here’s an excerpt about her refugee work around the world:

Another day had been a blur—a not-one-more-thing-I-can-do-no-more kind of day—at a medical clinic in a Ukrainian refugee camp near the Romanian border last spring.

“We were all so exhausted and still had to cross the border when a grandmother came just as we were about to close,” said Valerie Hellermann, a registered nurse and founder and executive director of Hands On Global, a nonprofit headquartered in Helena, Mont., that tends to the medical needs of the underserved in the United States and abroad.

She and her longtime friend and colleague, Dr. Georgia Milan, were among a team of volunteers on a 20-day medical mission during March and April. Dr. Milan welcomed the grandmother, her last patient of the day.

“If a person asks for care, Georgia cannot say no,” Hellermann said. “I’ve seen it so often wherever we’ve worked together in Ukraine, Greece, India, South America, or the medical tent at Standing Rock during the oil pipeline stand-down. It took more than an hour to treat the woman, yet Georgia was never impatient or made her feel rushed. She listens, giving her entire attention to the people she sees and makes them feel like they matter. That attitude is so important with refugees because they feel like they’re invisible and forgotten.”

If refugees feel “invisible” and “forgotten” then THANK GOD (or Buddha) that an empathic white woman from America is joining forces with OTHER women, like Valerie Hellermann, and the “Tibetan Children’s Education Foundation”:

For historical context, Hands On Global got its start in 2017 after Valerie Hellermann got inspired by traveling to India to work with the Tibetan Children’s Education Foundation which, when I checked the 990 form, is also based in Helena.

Hmmm.

Hands On Global began in 2017 after Valerie Hellermann traveled to Zanskar, India while working with the Tibetan Children’s Education Foundation. At the request of Geshe Yountan, a medical assessment team journeyed into the remote Himalayan region to serve Zanskari Tibetans.

What began as a simple clinic in a mud hut became something much larger. The team witnessed profound medical needs in one of the world’s most isolated regions — a place His Holiness the Dalai Lama has described as among the last authentic Tibetan cultures. During that visit, the Dalai Lama encouraged the team to continue this humanitarian work.

How many tax-exempt organizations was I going to find? It was like an infinite lotus flower of never-ending non-profits blooming, and I just kept finding more petals, like the Feathered Pipe Ranch founded by hippies in the early 70’s.

This is getting tiring.

I went back to India and asked Baba what to do with the Ranch, and he said make a place to train leaders of the world.

In the summer of ‘73, Jeanette Herman, an astrologer, and Doug McKay, a graphic artist, wandered through, having heard about us. She and I became the seminar leaders. Janis Paulsen, William and I started the Holistic Life Foundation and we began to organize seminars. These were the summers of ‘73 and ‘74. I had nothing planned – it was a laid back, never-ending summer. William came back with students and we started to create what is now the Feathered Pipe Foundation. William had great creative energy and was able to put things together nicely, I had the heart energy and Janis had the administration skills. It was an amazing team.

By the end of the summer of ‘74 we were ready to start our mission. William and Janis went back to San Francisco, rented a large house on 10th Avenue and started the California Yoga Teacher’s Association under the auspices of the Holistic Life Foundation. They created the Yoga Journal with William as the first editor and Janis as assistant editor. They laid it out and published it from their bedrooms with an IBM Selectric – our own typesetting machine – Janis’ credit card (limit $500), and sheer will. I commuted between Montana, San Francisco and India for years running the Feathered Pipe Ranch piece of the Holistic Life Foundation.

I found this organization the way I found the others; scanning 990 forms and looking up names, which leads me to an important question I think we, as Americans, should consider asking ourselves:

Is it time to end the tax-exempt status for non-profits AND religious organizations?

I hope all the well-meaning seekers of enlightenment and helpers of global refugees in Namchak’s orbit, like Ewam, and Hands On Global, and the Tibetan Children’s Education Foundation, and Feathered Pipe Ranch, all appreciate the tax-exempt boost they got (and get) as they operate Big Sky country.

And, after yesterday’s post about Bill and Hillary’s use of “Asian money“, we definitely have a better idea regarding how much Democrats like suckling cash from “non-profits” that “help” marginalized populations.

You’re welcome, “Buddhists”.

Since I probably won’t be getting any of those JuBu dollars for my upcoming birthday on Saturday, readers of this humble blog can direct their online donations to my new GoFundMe page. Any little bit helps.

And stay tuned, I plan on ending this week with a VERY BIG post about the death of Sean Stevenson, so stay tuned…

And, as alwways, thanks for reading!