Month: March 2021

by Travis Mateer

This week’s episode of Zoom Town is a virtual spring break conversation with two buddies I went to college with at the University of Montana, Nick Newton and Jim Bennett.

The topic of conversation is the long decline of UM and its unceasing assault against the humanities, as well as three friends reminiscing about their college days.

If you want to contact me about being a guest, or if you want to financially support my efforts, go to my about page for ways to help out.

Thank you.

by Travis Mateer

I think it’s time for George Ochenski to be put out to pasture. This Republican-bashing opinion writer who once opined for the Missoula Independent (before hopping over to Lee Enterprises) is just too old and out-of-touch to be relevant anymore.

After wasting readers time with a wrapped axle metaphor, Ochenski describes his cognitive limitation regarding Republicans’ collective non-vote on the stimulus bill:

It boggles the mind to think that not one Republican in either the U.S. Senate or House voted for the massive $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill signed into law by President Biden last week. How, one might ask, is it possible to justify these cult-like unified votes against measures that significantly help their constituents? What, there’s not a single Republican out of the nation’s 331 million citizens suffering from the year-long trials and tribulations of the coronavirus pandemic?

Ochenski won’t be put out to pasture because he plays a very important role for Democrats. Keeping the focus squarely on the “cult-like” actions of Republicans means less attention on Democrats failure to provide $2,000 stimulus checks as promised, their failure to raise the minimum wage (thanks Jon Tester!), and their failure to protect stimulus checks from debt collectors.

None of that gets any attention from old George, who is still talking about Trump and using Trump to bash the legislative actions of “Trumpers”. From the link:

Closer to home, the Republican-dominated Montana legislature is not exactly garnering widespread applause for its actions — just the opposite, in fact, as Montanans rightfully wonder at the nutty legislation emanating from the Trumpers in the first half of the session. Far from helping fellow Montanans, so far the focus (if you can call it that) seems to be on doling out favors to special interests and bashing those that don’t fit the Republican ideological mold into which they’re trying very hard to stuff the wide diversity of Montanans.

I’m not sure if George realizes this, but the Montanans he arrogantly assumes to speak for OVERWHELMINGLY voted for Republicans. That is why Republicans won every big ticket race this election cycle.

If George wants to see Democrats win political races in Montana he should spend some time examining why the DNC doesn’t give two shits about what happens in this state. The last time the DNC cared about Montana was during the Victory Fund money laundering days of the disastrous Hillary Clinton campaign. Since then, the blue bench efforts from Montana Democrats has been utterly pathetic.

Self-reflection over political failure is not something Democrats and their supporters appear capable of doing. That needs to change if they want to win races in Montana again.

by William Skink

52 weeks to flatten our verve
then shift all the goalposts
and meaning of words

after the fear bombs and mesmerize claws
seized our cognition 
and flipped all the laws

now you hold what they put in your brain
not pausing to wonder
if they are insane

just hideaway, isolate, so terrorist hugs
cannot threaten these
sociopath thugs

who vaguely recall the feeling of love
enough to despise it
and want it expunged

the gauntlet is here, the question is posed
will you mentally stitch
the emperor's clothes?

and eagerly build your security cage
where you can audition 
for America's Top Slave?

or will you instead choose to wake up
using consciousness 
to brim over your cup?

the time-stop is close, and some animals know
a reboot is coming...
go high, or go low

by Travis Mateer

The University of Montana is a dumpster fire and instead of putting out the conflagration, Major Bod is building MORE structures around it.

The first piece of news that should raise concerns is the departure of the Dean of Humanities and Sciences just 8 months after the last guy quit the job. From the link:

“Throughout the months of academic planning in which we have been engaged this year, it has become clear to me that aspirations I have for the college cannot be met in the current budget environment,” Larry Hufford wrote in an email to colleagues. “The vision I hold for the college is not sufficiently consistent with the vision held by university leadership. Recognizing this, I believe it is best for me to step down.”

If the departure of Hufford isn’t a BIG RED FLAG that core problems at UM persist, then you haven’t been paying attention.

A few years ago an alumnus by the name of Lewis Schneller had this to say in an op-ed run by the Missoulian:

The terrible reality is that one of the main reasons for the decline in enrollment at UM is the systematic attack waged by the UM administration on the university’s curriculum. The university’s curriculum, which is the most attractive and marketable component of any successful recruitment strategy, has been dismembered by systematic cuts in the number of faculty members, especially in the College of Humanities and Sciences (CHS), historically the driving engine of the university’s academic prosperity and growth. Outstanding academic programs with national and international reputations, such as Creative Writing and History, have been literally disfigured by systematic cuts to many of them in the form of attrition or a destructive policy of not filling vacant positions with new hires.

Instead of listening to critics, UM’s braintrust, led by Major Bod, is doubling down on a strategy of investing in THINGS instead of PEOPLE. This failing strategy will see a HUGE new dining hall built and, if the legislature goes along with this scheme, other major infrastructure investments. From the link:

One proposal would build a new College of Forestry from Montana timber. UM is asking the Legislature approve a $25 million dollar bond for the project, which the university would match with $20 million.

As proposed, the new College of Forestry building would be built from cross-laminated timber, meaning that instead of being framed by steel and concrete, the interior and exterior of the facility would be built with a product grown, harvested and manufactured in Montana.

The university is also asking the Legislature for permission to raise money to build a Museum of Art and Culture on campus by the Administration Center, which UM would fund through private donations.

The University of Montana is Missoula in microcosm. What made the University attractive is being slowly and systematically destroyed, just like Missoula. And just like Missoula, the leadership will pay PR lip service while they do it.

Major Bod makes the claim that the humanities will be strengthened by his administration’s actions. My favorite quote comes from Keila Szpaller as she delivers Major Bod’s contradictory PR bullshit (my emphasis):

To strengthen an organization while simultaneously stripping its resources sounds like a difficult proposition. But Bodnar said UM is starting from a robust place, and it already has strategies in place to bolster its liberal arts education.

What a load of crap.

It’s amazing how these amazing leaders with their amazing visions get to fail year after year at producing results. Despite clear evidence of failure, we just keep letting them throw money around and hope for the best.

How’s that being working out for ya, Missoula?

by Travis Mateer

I want to congratulate the Executive Director of the Poverello Center, Amy Allison-Thompson, on a job well done as she announces her plans to leave her position at the homeless shelter. Despite a few bumps in the road, Allison-Thompson successfully protected the important people in our community from the harsh realities of socio-economic misery and psychological anguish that permeates the clientele of the shelter.

It will be interesting to see where Allison-Thompson lands after retiring her position. Her predecessor, Eran Pehan, now runs the Office of Everything, and Ellie Boldman (no longer) Smith is a State Senator rolling around in Covid cash. The post-Pov job is a great measure of how successful a Pov ED was at protecting the right people from critical scrutiny.

Keeping the PR lid on tight was not an easy job, but Amy Allison-Thompson hung in there through expensive plumbing problems, a sexual assault, a murder self-defense killing, and a pandemic. I’m sure this loyalty to city leaders who control funding and dictate policy will be rewarded in some way.

One final success was recently announced as Allison-Thompson prepares to leave her job. The homeless warehouse on Johnson street, which was supposed to close down at the end of this month, will stay open through April. This is great news for people with PR concerns and accountability exposure. Not so much for neighbors, though, who deal with that pesky reality thing that persists, despite the best PR conjuring tricks. From the link:

Council member Sandra Vasecka thanked Jaeger and Armstrong for their hard work, but said many neighbors around the Johnson Street shelter have concerns.

“There have been property crimes, defecation on property, public drug use and alcohol use,” she said. “I know it’s a small population who uses these facilities, and it’s unfortunate that the actions of a few does impact the many. I am really concerned about that and I did promise my constituents that this would end at the end of March. They did see March as the light at the end of the tunnel.”

My buddy can confirm this shift in neighborhood dynamics. He lives between the temporary shelter and Trempers shopping center and never had his truck broken into in the years previous to the Johnson street facility opening. That has now changed.

When people’s lived experiences don’t jive with the PR narrative, it’s best they learn to just shut-up. They need to understand that they are not the important people with important titles doing the important work of massaging reality into a more attractive form.

To be one of those people you need to develop an ability to fail upward. Defying gravity like this is not an easy skill-set to develop, but I’m sure Amy Allison-Thompson has been mentored by the right people and is ready to move on to the next stage of her development.