Barack Pays For Golf Access in Montana

Access to The Golf Channel that is.

So you thought Obama's stimulus was done?  Nah, it keeps on cranking away.

West of Bozeman, crews are busily laying cable for Opticom between Belgrade and Big Sky (playground and ski resort for the rich and famous), along Ted Turner's ranch and other intermediate points.  In July 2011 the project received Illinois Senator Mark Kirk's "Silver Fleece" award.

The Silver Fleece Award for the month of July goes to a $64 million Stimulus award to provide broadband service to Gallatin County, Montana. According to an analysis conducted by Navigant Consulting, 93% of the households in the project's proposed service area were already served by five or more broadband providers. The fact that tens of millions of taxpayer dollars were spent to subsidize broadband service in an area with already strong private sector representation is reprehensible. Perhaps even more staggering, though, is the taxpayer cost of these services per unserved household. 

Ted Turner on his Flying D Ranch, Bozeman, Montana

According to the program's own definition of "unserved household", this project cost taxpayers more than $340,000 per unserved household. However, many of these so-called unserved households have access to 3G wirless broadband. Not only are 3G speeds approaching or even meeting Administration broadband standards, but 3G will soon be replaced with 4G broadband, which will far exceed current standards. Subtracting the number of homes that had existing access to 3G wireless leaves only 7 households in the Gallatin County service area unserved by broadband. It cost the U.S. taxpayer an astounding $7,112,422 per household to provide broadband service to the truly unserved population.  

Yellowstone Club, Big Sky, Montana
exclusive ownership, cable access by Obama

I wish I could say this project is the exception, but I cannot. This funding was provided through the Stimulus' $3.5 billion Rural Utility Service Broadband Initiative Program. On average, this program cost the taxpayer over $1,000 per household. In the projects analyzed by the Navigant study, 85% of the households served already had access to broadband. 

Unfortunately, rural broadband subsidization has been long mismanaged by the Rural Utility Service. A 2009 Inspector General (IG) report found that just 2% of Federal broadband buildout funds provided between 2005 and 2008 went toward unserved communities. The same IG report found that funds were also going to areas that weren't rural at all. In fact 148 of the communities provided with subsidized broadband between 2005 and 2008 were within 30 miles of cities with at least 200,000 inhabitants. We continued to see this occur in the Stimulus funding, where in my home state, Cook County, home of Chicago with a population of 2.79 million, and suburban Will County received funds.

We watched for three weeks as the drilling crew worked to lay cable under the driving range at our favorite golf course in Four Corners. The high water table and several feet of river rock just below the range's grassy surface repeatedly confounded the six person crew. Now that drilling is done and cable is accessible, here's hoping the course manager is willing to buy an Opticom telecast package that includes the Golf Channel. For some reason, he has been unwilling to buy a Golf Channel included package with his Dish TV subscription.  

$37.7 million of the $64.1 million grant has been spent but I doubt the driving range bill has been submitted. According to the Obama administration this 40 smile stretch of coaxial cable funded 136 jobs last quarter, or about 5 times as many jobs as what Obama acknowledges for 2,000 plus miles of oil pipeline.

As is so often the norm, the big beneficiaries of Obama's largess are corporate interests, and rich folks, not poor rural farmers, isolated women and children on the other side of the digital divide as the title and justification for the program suggests.

The head of the firm that won a $64 million federal stimulus grant to install a new fiber-optic network in Gallatin County is part of a Pittsburgh family that owns property at the exclusive, gated Yellowstone Club at Big Sky and is involved in a similar development nearby.

Exclusive private golf, Obama cable access,
The Club at Spanish Peaks, Big Sky, Montana

James Dolan Jr., the manager of Montana Opticom, also owns property at Big Sky, including a lot at the private Spanish Peaks housing and golf course community - which, so far, is home to the only customers served by Opticom, a small broadband firm based in Gallatin Gateway.

Opticom, which won the $64 million award Aug. 4, serves about 300 customers at the Spanish Peaks development.

Dolan's father is a former investment fund manager and founder of Ascent Data, the Pittsburgh-based parent of Montana Opticom, as well as a principal in the Spanish Peaks development. Dolan Sr. owns a home at the Yellowstone Club that is appraised at $11.5 million, according to state records.

You get the government you vote for. I hope you are happy with it.

Obama's Stimulus Keeps On Giving

...us great stories on the absurdity of government spending and Democratic profligacy.

The gossip sheets are reporting that Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel will be raising their baby up the road at Big Sky, where they've purchased property at the Yellowstone Club. It's gorgeous, it's exclusive, it's private.

Homesites are available for from $1.65 million to $4.45 million. Condos are available for $5 million to $16.5 million. Custom residences run from $3.65 million to $16.9 million.

Yellowstone Club is a 13,600 acre private residential community set amidst the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains. The Club's superior amenities, easy Montana charm and overwhelming natural beauty present an incomparable venue for mountain living, year-round recreation, and cherished family traditions. Explore the spectacular beauty of the World's only private ski and golf community and the benefits of membership in this exclusive one-of-a-kind club. In addition to the 2,200 acres of powder drenched trails of world-class skiing in the winter and an 18-hole Tom Weiskopf-designed mountain golf course for the summer months, we have a full Outdoor Pursuits program for unparalleled mountain adventures.

And cable television and redundant high speed internet access have been granted gratis to Yellowstone Club residents via Barack Obama and the American taxpayer.

Justin Timberlake and Jennifer Biel were reported to have tied the knot down in Jackson Hole. Now they are bringing their act up to the more exclusive environs of the Yellowstone Club, in Big Sky.

Now, I brook no complaint or jealousy over whatever riches this attractive couple has accumulated. But please, does anyone think they need be beneficiaries of the Obama administration's shovel ready spending?

Check it out. It's a gorgeous place -- and private, private, private.

We advised a couple of years back:

So you thought Obama's stimulus was done?  Nah, it keeps on cranking away.

West of Bozeman, crews are busily laying cable for Opticom between Belgrade and Big Sky (playground and ski resort for the rich and famous), along Ted Turner's ranch and other intermediate points.

The cables have been laid. The internet is humming. Hundreds of television channels are being piped in. And so it is that Justin and his squeeze, and neighbor Bill Gates, will become the latest beneficiaries of outrageous government largess. How large? Illinois Senator Mark Kirk laid it out for us.

The Silver Fleece Award for the month of July [went] to a $64 million Stimulus award to provide broadband service to Gallatin County, Montana. According to an analysis conducted by Navigant Consulting, 93% of the households in the project's proposed service area were already served by five or more broadband providers. The fact that tens of millions of taxpayer dollars were spent to subsidize broadband service in an area with already strong private sector representation is reprehensible. Perhaps even more staggering, though, is the taxpayer cost of these services per unserved household.

Ted Turner on his Flying D Ranch, Bozeman, Montana

According to the program's own definition of "unserved household", this project cost taxpayers more than $340,000 per unserved household. However, many of these so-called unserved households have access to 3G wireless broadband. Not only are 3G speeds approaching or even meeting Administration broadband standards, but 3G will soon be replaced with 4G broadband, which will far exceed current standards. Subtracting the number of homes that had existing access to 3G wireless leaves only 7 households in the Gallatin County service area unserved by broadband. It cost the U.S. taxpayer an astounding $7,112,422 per household to provide broadband service to the truly unserved population.

The next time some Democratic politician demagogues on the need for spending on infrastructure, remember, this is what they have in mind. You get the government you vote for and I hope you are happy with it.

Homecoming 2016

Throughout the nation, high schools, colleges and universities host homecoming celebrations this time of year. So it was Saturday in Bozeman, Montana, with the Montana State University Bobcats, blue and gold, hosting the University of North Dakota Hawks on the gridiron. Yesterday morning the homecoming parade snake down Main Street. We were in attendance to support the locals and watch our flutist perform.

Main Street was bordered with Montana State flags and banners on the lampposts throughout downtown.

We set up across from Ted's Montana Grill. This is about as close to the food source as you can get, for Ted Turner's Flying D ranch, where the buffalo roam, is down the road to Big Sky.

 We are Montana, so, of course, there was a horse troop..


and another.

 Then horses hauling the Murdoch's Ranch and Home Supply covered wagon.

Followed by a pooper scooper to pick up offerings left behind by equine friends.

September Top Posts

Thank you loyal readers!  We surged out of the summer doldrums in September, beating our previous best month, page view wise, by 21 percent.  To date, Along the Gradyent's top ten September posts are as follows.

1. It is gratifying when a post offering useful suggestions is widely read. With the budget impasse coming, we wrote a piece advising During the Shutdown Go to Mount Vernon.  At the time we posted, little did we know that Obama's National Park Service would try to shutter the operation by lawlessly Barrycading Mount Vernon's privately owned parking lots. Cheers to the Mount Vernon Ladies Association for thwarting the attempt. We are pleased to offer advise on getting down to George's place, and visiting numerous other places of interest in DC and Alexandria not owned or patrolled by Obama's Federales.
2. Go to was a popular theme again, underlying the No. 2 post Please Visit the BMW Championship: It's for the Caddies. When yours truly was completing high school, we pulled a Noonan and were blessed to receive the caddie scholarship.  Because the Western Golf Association sponsored Evans Scholar Foundation is the charitable beneficiary of the BMW Championship, we encouraged readers to attend the golf tournament.  The tournament was a smashing success with attendance of more than 130,000 for the week, and a magical 59 shot by Jim Furyk in the second round. Next year the tournament moves to Cherry Hills in Denver.  That's a long day's drive from Bozeman. Hmmmmm.  
3. Failing to note that we had not even a single hurricane of intensity one through five, Prince Al climbed on his Gore box to insist we need a category six to classify 'canes of increasing intensity. We inquired Calling Al Gore: What About Cats 1 Through 5?
4. In Declining Median Incomes we shared data illustrating that our friends who support Dear President the most have fared the worst under his economic regime. 
5. We enticed prospective attendees to the BMW championship with the possibility of hostilities breaking out as Tiger and Sergio were paired for the first time since their dust up during the third round of the Players Championship and Garcia's racial dig at Tiger a couple of weeks later over in Europe.  Alas, no fireworks ensued.  Their meeting was marked by icy indifference.
6. On September 11, 2001 we lived in Arlington, Virginia two neighborhoods up from the Pentagon and worked across the river from the site of the plane crash in Washington, DC. In September 11, 2001; We Remember we recounted our experiences during that horrible day and remembrances honoring victims in years since.
7. In Educate the Dream we blogged on the importance of providing a high school education to immigrants, no matter where they come from and regardless of how they got here.
8. We said Barack Pays For Golf Access in Montana. What we really meant was access to the Golf Channel. Obama's spending stimulus keeps on giving, providing cable television and high speed internet access to Ted Turner's ranch and gated developments and high brow private country clubs further south in Big Sky.
9. On the occasion of its success evacuating personnel under attack from the Washington Navy Yard, we recognized its heroism, bravery and effectiveness over the years in Kudos to the US Park Police Helicopter Crew.
10. It ain't about lollipops. Suckers! blasts Obama for falsehoods he spread concerning the badly misnamed Affordable Care Act.

Thanks again to all our readers!  

Golf Anyone?

It's not about my skill or performance.  I enjoy the game regardless and love the outdoors.  I got the golf bug honestly – as a caddie – looping from age 10 through age 18 and winning the caddie scholarship.  Golf has been very, very good to me.

Hereabouts in Bozeman Montana and Gallitan County, it is time for preseason pass sales.  By buying early a fellow can save 50 or 100 bucks and maybe get an extra perk or two. There is also the option of joining a private course – some are decent deals for frequent players.  It is time for making decisions. 

For an area with fewer than 100,000 people the Gallitan Valley has a surprising range of golf options.  There are resort, private and, as befits the local culture, open-to-the-public golfing options.  The area accommodates people who have expensive and exclusive tastes (think Ted Turner at one extreme) and at the same time is committed to ensuring that everyone (particularly children), no matter their economic status, has affordable and accessible recreation opportunities.

There’s mountain and resort golf at Big Sky Resort.  On the slope up to Lone Mountain is The Yellowstone Club, an exclusive private course with “unflinching beauty.”  Also high up the slopes is The Reserve at Moonlight Basin, a private Jack Nicklaus Signature Course with play and stay packages.  Nestled in the original resort village is BigSky Golf Course, an 18-hole Arnold Palmer designed daily fee course, winding along the Middle Fork of the Gallatin River, at the base of the Lee Metcalf Wilderness Area and offering spectacular views of Lone Mountain and surrounding peaks.  These Big Sky links options are oriented to tourists and adjacent property owners, not so much for a local mucker.  With the elevation and late snowmelt, the courses aren’t reliably open until May, not so good for me.

May Top Ten Posts

In view of the severity of last winter, which set in hard the third week of November and did not yield until late April, we have been most pleasantly surprised by the advent of real spring during May in Bozeman. The saying goes, we have a wonderful spring in Montana -- all three days of it. This year we are getting a gloriously long month and perhaps more.

We have been out on the golf course all month. And we are developing a vegetable garden plot (more on that to come). We were not able to get up in the mountains as much as we would have liked in recent weeks for Saturday pictures because many of the prime scenic locations remained blocked by the deep winter snow packs. We have been making the rounds almost exclusively at Cottonwood Hills golf course

Cottonwood Hills went tech in May with a webcam,
bandwidth courtesy Barack Obama. Thanks Dear President.

 

(see new webcam view across the putting green towards the first tee at left) because the surging and merging snow melt runoff over the banks of the creek and the East Gallitan River has temporarily made Bridger Creek golf course more like a 16 and 1/2 than an 18 hole links.

We want to thank our readers for their loyal readership. We like to research, learn, inform and entertain. Your joining with us makes the experience incredibly worthwhile and rewarding. You are awesome. 

Our top ten most viewed post list in May has a good mix of perennial favorites and new postings. Here they are top to bottom:

Dear President has plowed under the secure military golf
course (right) to make way for his latest NSA expansion.

1. CNN was once the world's premier news organization under Ted Turner. If something important was happening, CNN was the news source I would reflexively go to first. Bernard Shaw, Peter Arnett and Susan Rook, they were the bombs. John Holliman was cool. Now it is the last. The network has become a purveyor of speculation, misinformation and reality trash under the leadership and tutelage of NBC News alumnus Jeff Zucker. Accents are more valued than acumen. In NSA Overeaches are Bush's Fault? we unmasked one of Christiana Amanpour's know nothing reports from Europe.

2. Baby boomers are nothing if not nostalgic. In Growing Up In Morton Grove I recounted boyhood memories of growing up on Austin Avenue in the sleepy suburb north of Chicago during the boom. That the post has received a welcoming and lasting reception warms our hearts well.

Jock Hutchison (left) 1921 British Open champion
golfer of the year and Chick Evans,
1916 U.S. Open winner, circa 1920. Evans
was also a member at Glen View Club.

3. When I was growing up in Morton Grove, summer mornings I would jump on my bike around 7:30 am, ride up Austin Austin Avenue to Beckwith Road, turn left and then cut right across Chick Evans golf course, and zigzag across Golf Road to the entrance of Glen View Club where I caddied from the ages of 10 to 18. I sometimes looped for an old codger by the name of Jock Hutchison who played several times a week. Jock said he had won the British Open. I scoffed. In The Masters (Repost) I atone for my youthful disbelief by recognizing the man who was also first in a series of legendary honorary starters at The Masters.

4. The replacement contractor for Healthcare.Gov has turned out to be outrageously expensive and absurdly behind schedule. Who could have predicted that? Well me. Check it out at Accenture Comes Through For Healthcare.Gov.

5. Succulents don't weather well in Montana winters. It's a different story in the land that gave us Sam Houston. The special spousal guest post, Mildly Painful, Painful and Very Painful -- Texas Cactus, recounts everything you might want to know about cacti in the Lone Star state.

6. Here a lobbyist, there a lobbyist, everywhere a lobbyist. From the mortgage meltdown, to the Obamacare website disaster, It's That Fella Across The Street recounts the ubiquity of the lobbying crowd from our days inside and around The DC Beltway.

7. With the golf season in full swing again, training for the uninitiated is freshly in order. Readers of this blog who are new to the game are learning how to survive a season of professional golf coverage in The Golf Channel: Spouse's Guide To Sanity (Special Guest Post).

HWY 281 closed by Devil's Lake's rising waters.

8. If you want to actually learn something about climate change, read this post, Real Climate Change at Work, about Devil's Lake, North Dakota. Droughts and floods, arctic cold and stifling heat -- they are all there, and episodically come and go, having absolutely nothing to do with global warming or with Dear President wiping his brow while giving a Georgetown speech in July. Obama has not visited North Dakota. He would learn too much.

9. On The Road to Bathgate Act 1: Fargo the Movie, is an ever popular pop culture story on the Paul Bunyan statue that found new legs this spring with the debut of Fargo, the series, on FX. "You should have seen it right after they put it up," said Reinhold Henschel, who owns Reiny's Bar, one of a handful of businesses in the town of 75 people about 10 miles south of the Canadian border. "It was foggy, and people couldn't see it until they got right up to it. Then, it says, 'Brainerd,' and they thought, 'What the hell?" You can join the 383 of us who like Reiny's on Facebook, here. 

10. We drove up to Kalispell to attend the Glacier Bancorp Annual Shareholders Meeting (GBCI). Glacier is a holding company of community banks, headquartered up the Flathead Valley, a gateway to Glacier National Park and hence the name. It is one of our largest stock holdings, a conservatively and well managed company that unlike most all the rest of the banking industry did not accept TARP money from Uncle Sam and never suspended, did not even cut, its dividend during the financial crisis. They walk the talk.

Top June Posts

Morton Grove and On the Road to Bathgate dominated the June top ten list on Along the Gradyent. Our top June post, On the Road to Bathgate Act 1: Fargo the Movie, was pushed forward by the airing of Fargo, the miniseries on the FX network, to almost universal acclaim. And it pushed our post's page views to near record highs.

Audiences were justifiably suspicious of Fargo before its premiere. “A TV show that’s … what, based on the Coen Brothers movie?” one might have asked. “A sequel? A spinoff? This is odd. It’s odd, right? It’s odd.”

But, with season one in the books, it’s fair to conclude that the odd bet paid off. Equal parts murder-mystery, deconstruction of the anti-hero genre that has dominated the new golden age of television, and loving, almost fanboy-ish Coen Brothers tribute, Fargo’s success proves that there’s no network on basic cable more interesting than FX.

Newsday raves,

"Fargo" has been something of a sensation for FX -- loving critical response, some buzz and decent if not outrageous good fortune in the Nielsen department. Billy Bob Thornton will almost certainly get -- or at the very least deserves -- a best supporting Emmy nod next month for hitman Lorne Malvo, and I'd be surprised if Allison Tolman doesn't get something for her Molly Solverson, the deputy with heart and brains.

It is said that "Fargo is a smart show. Not pleasant, not kind, but smart. Ruthless."

Viewed through a Minnesotan eyes, the miniseries was seen thus.

For the past 10 weeks, the makers of “Fargo” have treated us to great television. I started reviewing these episodes because complaining about the depiction of Minnesotans in the Coen Brothers original movie “Fargo” has been a local cottage industry since I was a teenager. I thought there was some kind of weird niche I could fill, and the fact that my commentary was featured on a Grantland piece this morning shows I must have guessed right. What we got from “Fargo,” though, was more than I expected. Far from being just a regional oddity, “Fargo” touched a much deeper chord. 

 Pictured: Allison Tolman as Molly and Shawn Doyle as Vern.

Producer/writer Noah Hawley has delivered the best series of the year, a 10-episode sprint that defies old TV definitions of “movie,” “series,” or “mini-series.” It’s just some gosh darn good art, you know. I’ve got plenty of northern Minnesota readers checking in on this show, but I have some from England, Sweden and Texas, too. Why? Because this is a show about human nature, not just one particular place. What 14 hours of action allowed that the movie didn’t, was for “Fargo” to show that it’s not about making fun of Minnesotans — it’s about contrasting the structure and decency of a place like this with the chaos and evil that also exist in the world. If my fellow Minnesotans can’t see this, well, folks can believe whatever they want. Ain’t my deal.

Link to your cable or online video account and watch the series here.

Now, let's get down to the nitty gritty and summarize June's top ten. A great big thanks to our awesome readers.

1. The winter Fargo the movie was shot proved to be uncooperative. Early winter snowfalls were followed by thaws; January and February snow cover failed to stick. In search of snowier backdrops, the production moved north, resulting on March 15, 1995 in the following AP story:

Paul Bunyan statue outside Bathgate, ND, March, 1995

BATHGATE, ND (AP) A statue of Paul Bunyan, along with a "Welcome to Brainerd, Home of Paul Bunyan" sign now stands tall on the prairie, along Pembina County Highway 1, four miles west of town.

The 25-foot statue was erected over the weekend for the filming of a police chase scene for the movie, "Fargo.""You should have seen it right after they put it up," said Reinhold Henschel, who owns Reiny's Bar, one of a handful of businesses in the town of 75 people about 10 miles south of the Canadian border.

"It was foggy, and people couldn't see it until they got right up to it. Then, it says, 'Brainerd,' and they thought, 'What the hell?"

How Bathgate got involved in a movie called "Fargo" and with the legend of Paul Bunyan and Brainerd is simply a matter of weather. The film crew needs snow, and Bathgate has snow - at least for a few more days.

"We should have more of this kind of thing around here," said Emil Martineau. "It's something to talk about." You betcha. Hence the post, On the Road to Bathgate Act 1: Fargo the Movie.

2. In early June we published Morton Grove Before the Baby Boom: The Complete Story of The Dells. Just down the street from the home I grew up in in the then bucolic suburb of Morton Grove, Al Capone and his gang ran a prohibition roadhouse, that was the site and source of gangland wars, murders, kidnappings, arson and bombings. Read all about it here. Read all about it now.

3. Our May top Ten Posts retrospective came in a solid third. Ted Turner, Bernard Shaw, Peter Arnett, Susan Rook, John Holliman George Bush, Barack Obama and Jeff Zucker -- we dropped enough names in the lead to our post on NSA snooping (NSA Overreaches are Bush's Fault?) to pick up traffic to burn.

4.  The replacement contractor for Healthcare.Gov has turned out to be outrageously expensive and absurdly behind schedule. Who could have predicted that? Well me. Check it out at Accenture Comes Through For Healthcare.Gov.

Reading Eagle,
October 20, 1966

5.  As a teenage caddie I carried doubles one sultry Monday morning for Chicago Cub pitcher Kenny Holtzman and third base coach Peanuts Lowery. Ron Santo and Glenn Beckert were in the foursome too. The fellow you least heard of was best on the links. Read all about it in Caddying for the Cubs. 

5. The Tea Party gets behind and elects a smart professor who supports the real economy providing real jobs for real people. The liberal Democrats elect a fat cat Volvo dealer who hawks imported cars to government employees, lawyers, lobbyists and government contractors in Northern Virginia. So goes Long Live the Tea Party, the Tea Party is Dead.

6. I am a baby boomer. I grew up in Morton Grove, Illinois, a suburb due north of Chicago and about five miles in from Lake Michigan. The village is physically much as it was when I left it for good in 1971. Its population has fluctuated between 20 and 30 thousand people over the last 40 years, due mostly to changes in household size. So begins the paen to my home town and perennial favorite, Growing Up in Morton Grove.

The Fourth Estate, January 9, 1915.

7. George S. Foster was a turn of the century (20th century that is) politician in Chicago, a banker, a lawyer and my grand uncle. In On the Road to Bathgate Act 4g: More on George S. Foster we reported on additional material we unearthed (including a link to Texas apropos of June's travels) on his daughter, my aunt Marguerite Foster Huff. We also report on another daughter whose son stepped out of the woodwork in response to our postings. Reporting on my ancestral family is a fascinating and fulfilling enterprise.

9.  Researching my uncle Lyn's background increased my esteem and respect for him immeasurably. Lyndon R. Foster was a rabble rouser, reformer and publisher. At various times he ran for Los Angeles County supervisor, mayor of Los Angeles, Congress and California Lieutenant Governor. His passion for good government almost literally cost him his life. If you have not previously done so, check him out now at On the Road to Bathgate Act 4f: Lyndon R. Foster -- Veteran, Publisher and Politician.

10.  We pointed out in Not Going to Happen Here, that winter temperature extremes on the downside far exceeded anything that had, could or would happen during the summer on the upside. Global warming -- phooey.