Montana and Death

I was thinking just the other day that I hadn't seen an article in the Washington Post recently from Blaine Harden about Montana's problems. There for a while it seemed like every other week there was a story from Montana by him. Well the long dry spell has ended and he is back talking about the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54596-2004Mar12?language=printer">dying Montana town</a> (free registration required) again. I know he talked about it in November in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A49998-2003Nov16&notFound=true">this article</a> and now it has attracted his attention again.<br />n<!–more–><br />n<i>Meier, who is also a rancher, heard a thump in his barnyard on a savagely cold night last month. He went outside and found a duck that had fallen dead out of the snowy sky. "Poor thing didn't have any meat on its breast," he said. "It starved to death."<br />n<br />nLike all of northeastern Montana and much of the Great Plains, Valley County is at risk of going the way of that duck.<br />n<br />nAn accelerating demographic calamity is shuttering public schools, strangling the economy and stealing the future in parts of 10 states running from central Texas to northern Montana.</i><br />n<br />nEven knowing the problems of the dying towns and communities across the plains states Blaine Harden has a way with words that really pulls at your guts when you read about it. Bringing the problems of Montana to national attention isn't going to change the conditions that are causing our problems but maybe it will allow people to understand us in this lonely country better.<br />n<br />n<b>Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever happen to you, because someone's got to take care of all your details. Andy Warhol</b>