I think I might have spent the first few days of this happy new year perusing the internet trying to find out what happened to Montana’s once vibrant blogosphere. I happened across an article in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that talked about just how the Montana bloggers are making noise.
The article touched on a few points with regard to how important blogging could be as an augmentation to big media and journalism.
The article talked to a few once fellow bloggers — David (GreaterFalls.com) Sherman, Rob (Wulfgar “A chicken is not pillage”) Kailey, Matt (leftinthewest) Singer, Craig (mtpolitics.net) Sprout, among a few others, and discussed some of the reasons why they might blog. We all blog for different reasons — some serious, some not so serious, and still yet, some others between the two.
I guess I was mainly trying to come up with some sort of blog roll this weekend as I spent seemingly countless hours in the internet archives.
My time away since 2009 saw me in Texas working on FEMA housing after hurricane Ike, and later in Seattle re-starting my web development business.
Along the way I had the chance to catch up with Craig Sprout in San Antonio for a visit, and at other times I never really ever quit looking at our Montana blogs (though I wasn’t actively blogging at the time).
With the exception of a few remaining hardy souls, like David In Great Falls (formerly greaterfalls) , most of those, or us, in the once thriving Montana blogosphere don’t blog, or haven’t blogged in quite a while.
Even still, I managed to scrape together, albeit a rather minimal, blog roll.
Doug (Montana Misanthrope) Dodge and Alan (The Raving Norseman) Tooley are both gone (they are still around, they just aren’t blogging) — 4&20 blackbirds hasn’t posted since 2015 and Wulfgar hasn’t posted since 2018.
All was not lost in my quest to scrape together a blog roll however. In the course of my search I might have discovered a few other quite interesting bloggers who weren’t around in Montana’s blogging heyday.
One blog I found that was somewhat intriguing is Reptile Dysfunction, and I think I might be inclined to continue giving it a read. I lived in Missoula for just under 20 years before claiming refugee status here in Great Falls back in 1989.
At any rate, This new blog of mine is called Cookies & Cowpies … I have wide ranging interests and a pretty good number of even more varied opinions on those interests. I’ll pretty much post what might suit me depending on which interest might speak the loudest on any given day.
Greg Gianforte to be sworn in January 4
Gianforte, currently a representative for Montana’s at-large House district, won 54% of the vote in the November election, and he won with the largest margin for a non-incumbent governor since 1920, according to KULR8. According to state data, Gianforte received more votes than any candidate for governor in Montana history.
Republicans gained control of every statewide office after the November election and hold majorities in the Montana House of Representatives and Senate.
Gianforte will face the immediate challenge of tackling Montana’s COVID-19 response. He has signaled a willingness to reverse outgoing Governor Bullock’s mask mandate, but in an interview, said he would be wearing a mask to set an example for Montanans.
“I trust Montanans with their health and the health of their loved ones,” Gianforte told KHN. “The state has a role in clearly communicating the risks of who is most vulnerable, what the potential consequences are, but then I do trust Montanans to make the right decisions for themselves and their family.”