Month: January 2021

by Travis Mateer

I’m continuing to track the developments of Montana’s new meth placation plan, which got $248,000 dollars in Federal money from Project Safe Neighborhoods last November for drug prevention efforts.

The PR infrastructure being built around this seed money has the word “connect” in it.

Why is that important?

Because, as this post will show, I like the word “connect” ALMOST as much as our illuminated braintrust, and they REALLY LOVE the word, as the former Project Homeless Connect (now Community Connect) and Project Employment Connect programs clearly illustrate.

So, this latest installment of creating a program to connect people is called Substance Abuse Connect (SAC) and is described like this (November, 2020):

A coalition called Missoula Substance Abuse Connect received a $248,000 federal grant on Friday to help the community fight violent, drug-related crime and to reduce substance abuse.

U.S. Attorney for Montana, Kurt Alme provided details of the grant to KGVO News on Friday.

“Project Safe Neighborhoods Missoula has been focusing hard on reducing meth supply because of its connection to the increase in violent crime there and across the state and now, Missoula community has received almost a $250,000 grant from the Office of National Drug Control Policy that’s come through the Rocky Mountain HIDTA which is our drug enforcement organization to help our community develop a prevention and treatment plan to reduce demand for methamphetamine.”

Now, when I hear the word “connect” and see that some kind of government funding is involved, I immediately think United Way, one of the more influential non-profits in Missoula. And, with this SAC, sure enough, United Way is heavily involved, like I have previously reported (see first link).

Here is how the leadership of the SAC is shaping up so far:

“The United Way has taken the lead in Missoula County, and they already have an excellent staff beginning to come on board, such as the very talented project director Shannon Spruill, and also project chair Jana Lundquist, who will be working and leading the way on this coalition as we develop what the needs are and what the steps should be taken to shore up what we’re lacking in prevention and treatment.”

The Department of Justice government website has a little more context on this SAC’s leadership (my emphasis):

Missoula Substance Abuse Connect will be managed by United Way of Missoula County and a volunteer board of business and community leaders. The project director is Shannan Sproull, who is an authority on substance abuse prevention with decades of experience in the public and private sectors. The project chair is Janna Lundquist, a respected organizational consultant and former United Way board president with an extensive background in business and nonprofit leadership. Project leaders are recruiting an executive committee and working group from among the 40 public and private coalition member organizations.

Since I’m a curious Virgo who LOVES organizing stuff AND I enjoy the word “connect”, I went to MEET THE TEAM at Janna Lundquist Consulting. By “team” I guess I mean the only other person involved in this consulting group, Tiaan Terblanche, a handsome fellow with an exotic sounding name and pedigree to match:

If the screen shot is difficult to see, this dapper man–with connections to a British law firm AND a big bank is South Africa–is based in a faraway place called Pretoria.

Hmmm, I thought to myself, didn’t Missoula’s State Senator, Ellie Boldman (formerly Ellie Hill and formerly Ellie Smith), get temporarily stranded in South Africa on some State Department funded trip to promote STEM education to poor African girls?

Yes she did (my emphasis):

The team will partner with University of Pretoria college students and faculty members in South Africa. They will oversee a pilot program in a nearby township to connect girls with college-aged mentors and local professionals while teaching them math skills.

“Partnering these teenage girls with college-aged mentors makes the possibility of next steps in education and leadership development accessible,” said Hill. “Through this grant, we are able to pilot larger-scale, long-term partnerships to replicate. My passion is gender equity in STEM and leadership development not just in Montana, but worldwide.”

I like making connections, but, sadly, not every connection can be explicitly stated. And not every point of emphasis needs be overtly explained.

Other people are out there, making their own connections, and with every off-the-record conversation I have with piece-holding connectors, the picture of a network that protects its own, and why, becomes a little bit clearer.

If you want to share your piece of the puzzle, you can reach me at willskink at yahoo dot com. Thanks for reading.

by William Skink

trust the plan
trust the plot
hope's not dead
more crumbs drop
trust the pardons
trust the spies
9-D chess, man
trust disguise 
look at sheepdog!
memes are great!
hands in mittens
chill dude, wait
maybe it's like
all a con
a clever set-up
a bet gone wrong

trust your stomach
your need for fuel
trust that kindness
is a golden rule
trust that time
is speeding up
read the signals
bleed the cup
every new age
shakes the earth
their game rides
on top your worth
trust the twist
of your DNA
trust awakens
then WE invade!

by Travis Mateer

I don’t make the claim that Martin Kidston’s online news rag, the Missoula Current, is a propaganda mouth-piece for the political establishment in Missoula as some outsider-critic. When I claim Martin Kidston’s work is a PR extension of Missoula political establishment I am making that claim as a former insider of the Mayor’s Downtown Advisory Commission.

To show you how kick-ass I was back then (making all the right people happy) here is a link showing I was nominated for the Downtowner of the Year award in 2014:

Anne Guest, director of the Missoula Parking Commission, was presented with the 2014 Downtowner of the Year Award at the Missoula Downtown Association’s annual Awards Banquet last week at the Doubletree Hotel.

Guest was one of 21 award nominees for the MDA’s six prestigious awards that recognize individuals and businesses who make Downtown a great place.

Others nominated for the Downtowner of the Year award were Travis Mateer of the Poverello Center and Greg Oliver of Oliver Consulting.

The Downtowner of the Year award is the most prestigious award with 25 community leaders earning that award since 1989.

I have an anecdotal story about Martin Kidston from back then that I think exemplifies his approach to “news” reporting. It was during a meeting of the Mayor’s downtown commission where we had planned on discussing the challenges of chronic homelessness and public daytime intoxication threatening commerce. These meetings are open to the public, but no one ever showed up, so we could talk freely as stakeholders about the issues.

One day Martin showed up. He was a Missoulian reporter back then, and he was there to report on what we were discussing, but it was obvious that his presence was not well-received by those of us in attendance and that his presence was going to keep us from talking as openly as we normally would have.

Lucky for us, Martin was a good boy and chose to leave. He seemed to intuitively understand, without words being spoken, that this was not the way to curry favor with the illuminated braintrust as they (including me) were working out their schemes.

Now, fast forward to the “reporting” efforts of Martin’s online news rag today, and see how two recent articles show how that past intuitiveness has evolved into overt bootlicking.

The first piece is total shit, in my not so humble opinion. The stink immediately begins wafting from the title: Practice what they preach? Helen lawmakers increasingly meddle in local affairs. The entire setup for this political hit piece is that Republicans who don’t like Federal overreach are hypocrites when they “meddle” in dens of victimhood like Missoula. One of my favorite excerpts is this rot:

But increasingly, the legislators sent to Helena from other counties have taken a keen interest in Missoula politics and have worked to head off ordinances they dislike. From gun regulations to vaping, the examples aren’t hard to find.

“I would hope that Legislators keep in mind that pendulums swing and efforts to negate the will of local voters and the authority of local officials can be a two-way street,” Engen said. “I’d ask that lawmakers put themselves in the shoes of locals and think about how they’d feel about Missoula imposing its will on Scobey.”

This article, and the divisive setup pitting Republicans in Helena against Democrats in Missoula, is a dynamic I believe Martin Kidston is very invested in maintaining, to the point of selectively reporting on what a Missoula Democrat recently said to his fellow state legislators in Helena.

Now, let’s take a look at that SECOND Missoula Current article, starting with the benign title: Missoula legislator’s bill adds duplexes, triplexes to single-family zones. Here’s an excerpt:

On Tuesday at the Montana Legislature, a coalition of proponents from differing backgrounds lined up to support a bill they say would increase housing supply to meet out-of-control demand, thus reducing prices.

House Bill 134, sponsored by Rep. Danny Tenenbaum, D-Missoula, would force cities with more than 5,000 residents to allow developers to build duplexes in single-family zones. The bill would require cities with more than 50,000 residents to allow triplexes and quadplexes in the same neighborhoods.

“If we continue down the path that we’re on, we’re effectively evicting Montanans from Montana,” Tenenbaum told the House Local Government Committee.

There is a glaring omission here, but you wouldn’t know it if you ONLY read Martin’s PR rag. If you read other news sources, like the Montana Free Press, you will discover WHY Rep. Danny Tenebaum, a Missoula Democrat, is asking his fellow state legislators to meddle in Missoula’s affairs. From an actual news source:

“We can no longer be members of the communities we grew up in. We’re being evicted from our own state,” Tenenbaum said. “I know that sounds like hyperbole, but it’s the reality for an increasing number of Montanans.”

Tenenbaum also argued the Legislature should take control of municipal zoning because local politics have prevented mayors and city commissions from effectively addressing their housing problems. He requested the bill, he said, after coming away frustrated from meetings with Missoula Mayor John Engen and City Council members about reining in zoning requirements there.

“They said they want to do this, but they can’t because a few loud voices appear at local planning boards and City Council meetings and say, ‘Absolutely not. We cannot do this — it would ruin our neighborhood character,’” Tenenbaum said. “And that scares city councils, it scares elected officials, and I think it really gets at the root of the problem, why we’re not seeing sufficient supply in certain parts of the state.”

This MUCH MORE informative news reporting totally undermines Kidston’s bullshit PR crap he tries passing off as news in the first link, and makes the drivel from our Mayor stand out as the fecal pile it is:

“I’ve long argued that local elected officials are highly accountable to the residents they serve and live with the consequences of their actions as residents themselves,” Engen said. “And while there are circumstances in which central, consistent rules makes sense for states and the federal government, there’s considerable room for local jurisdictions to make the values of their communities manifest through laws and policies.”

You will not be a well-informed Missoula citizen if all you consume is PR from sources like the Missoula Current. If this post doesn’t make that obvious, well, enjoy your NEW MISSOULA.

by Travis Mateer

I was worried about the path technology was taking us, as humans, but that was before learning about ANGEL INVESTORS and how these amazing people are finding really cool ways to drop little angel seeds on people like Taylor Margot, the CEO of a Missoula-based technology start-up.

The problem this Missoula-based technology start-up is aiming to fix is not one I’m familiar with because I’ve been married for nearly twenty years, which means I never had the chance to use dating apps.

If I WAS using dating apps, there are apparently experiences users have where they are stuck staring at a blank screen.

And this is a problem. From the link:

Margot said that in the online dating world, a consistent problem users have with various apps is they don’t know what to say first.

“You’re staring at a blank screen and need to get the ball rolling,” he said. “That problem is ubiquitous and consistent. For those daters, that ‘cold start’ is high-frequency and high stakes. One fun stat is our keyboard was used over 60,000 times in November.”

Wait, so the solution to this HIGH STAKES “cold start” is a keyboard? No, silly luddite, the solution to this problem created by technology is MORE TECHNOLOGY, and not just some keyboard, but a special, AI-infused interface keyboard thing to help humans start their NEW NORMAL dating ritual. I’m not kidding:

“Instead of letters there are ideas,” Margot explained. “We had experts in (artificial intelligence) come up with a way to produce entire sentences if you tap a particular button. For example, if you type ‘curious’ it will generate text and suggest a way to ask a question. We are at the frontier of the intersection between human-generated language and AI-generated language.”

I can’t even.

Is this what we get for being a nice place to fly fish?

Investors like Pat LaPointe call themselves angels, then shed some angelic capital on a “Missoula-based” company. How Missoula, you ask? The article pimping this ridiculous scenario ends with this:

Margot is the poster-child of how Montana has become an attractive hot spot for new technology startups because of its access to outdoor recreation and lack of crowds.

“I was born in Palo Alto and was a corporate lawyer in San Francisco for too many years,” he said. “That’s exactly why I am in Montana, and what drew me to Montana to start a company here. Also, because there are resources like Pat.”

Poster-child? On that we can agree.

by Travis Mateer

I have been reluctant to write about what my kids are going through during this pandemic, but when a hyper partisan who is ALSO a school teacher tells me to ignore the rhetoric about “school choice”, I feel compelled to push back.

I know the concept of “choice” is locked and loaded from years of politicization, but I can tell you, as a parent of two boys in public school, I am MOST DEFINITELY reassessing what it means to NOT HAVE A CHOICE when it comes to what is being done to my kids’ mental health and education.

Since “choice” is such a loaded word, how about “alternative”, like how a friend of ours in Missoula collaborated with other parents to create a pod-style schooling alternative to what public school was offering with remote learning. Do I have to qualify that statement with further claims that our friend is a good, liberal-thinking Missoulian?

While those parents worked their asses off to create this alternative, their taxes were still going toward the public schools, where fear has dominated the policy decision-making process.

If you DON’T think school policies are being driven by fear, then please show me the peer-reviewed study that concludes wearing a mask WHILE OUTSIDE at recess is a necessary precaution for kids, playing with their peers, to be taking.

One of my kids was complaining about this absurdity at the dinner table a few nights ago. What am I supposed to tell him, that in order to protect Don Pogreba’s paycheck it’s important that mom and dad have NO CHOICE on an alternative school option if this absurdity of masking kids as they play outside continues?

No, that is NOT what I said. What I say to my kids is own fucking business until someone gets the stupid, dangerous thought in their head that it isn’t.

If you are a parent and you agree with that sentiment, and you want to explore alternatives to public school fear factories, you should do so, especially if your kid is suffering.

In Clark County, Nevada, the situation with kids committing suicide had become so dire that a scramble is on to get kids BACK IN SCHOOL to stop the surge of kids killing themselves. How fucked up is that? From the New York Times:

The spate of student suicides in and around Las Vegas has pushed the Clark County district, the nation’s fifth largest, toward bringing students back as quickly as possible. This month, the school board gave the green light to phase in the return of some elementary school grades and groups of struggling students even as greater Las Vegas continues to post huge numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths.

Superintendents across the nation are weighing the benefit of in-person education against the cost of public health, watching teachers and staff become sick and, in some cases, die, but also seeing the psychological and academic toll that school closings are having on children nearly a year in. The risk of student suicides has quietly stirred many district leaders, leading some, like the state superintendent in Arizona, to cite that fear in public pleas to help mitigate the virus’s spread.

One of the problems with even acknowledging this trend is Trump. How could that be so, you ask? I’ll explain.

Whatever Trump says, no matter the content, everyone suffering from TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) absolutely must believe the exact opposite. If Trump said the sky is blue, I’m sure experts would be trotted out to explain why that’s not true.

So, when Trump was advocating for schools to reopen, this was the predictable result:

Over the summer, as President Donald J. Trump was trying to strong-arm schools into reopening, Dr. Robert R. Redfield, then the C.D.C. director, warned that a rise in adolescent suicides would be one of the “substantial public health negative consequences” of school closings. Mental health groups and researchers released reports and resources to help schools, which provide counseling and other intervention services, reach students virtually. Mental health advocacy groups warned that the student demographics at the most risk for mental health declines before the pandemic — such as Black children and L.G.B.T.Q. students — were among those most marginalized by the school closures.

But given the politically charged atmosphere this summer, many of those warnings were dismissed as scare tactics. Parents of students who have taken their lives say connecting suicide to school closings became almost taboo.

When Don Pogreba tells parents like me to ignore my lack of choice, it’s obvious this partisan educator is more concerned about politics than he is about the kids he is responsible for educating, and I think that is disgusting.