The Retort

Letter from the Editor

April 19th, 2010 by Bailey Martin Of The Retort Staff

While I am still coasting on my enjoyment of last night’s Indigo Girls concert - yes, it was wonderful and you should check out Lucy Wainwright Roche, she was their opening act and she nearly stole the show - I am writing the last of our April issue. Spring is in the air, I can smell the earth outside absorbing our April showers (right now I cannot think of a better smell). Summer is on its way, and the vibrant colors and dancers at the “Coming Home” powwow reinforced the idea that school is almost done for the summer.

As this may be my last letter from the editor (hopefully not), I wanted to say thanks. Thanks to everyone who submitted anything to The Retort since we restarted in January of 2009. We really appreciate every single thing that we get from you, even if we cannot publish them all. Thank you, everyone who submitted work to our second annual creative writing contest.

Thank you to everyone who took our survey, some of you had great comments and criticisms for us. We try to do our best to meet all of your reasonable demands and hopefully next semester we will be able to try to meet them again. And, for the person who wanted more boobs in The Retort, check out the story on page 10.

Thanks to ASMSUB and PUB board for all of their help, criticism, and support. Thanks to those students, faculty members, staff, and regular people who read The Retort. And a very big thank you to everyone that has worked at The Retort, but especially to Heidi, Jen, Jenn, Joe, Kyla, Leah, Lou, Matt, and Matt. Some of you have helped me retain my sanity. Thank you none the less for your contributions to The Retort.

I have to salute all of the previous editors of The Retort, this job is a lot harder than any of us believe. Some days my day starts with 8am phone calls and text messages about The Retort. Even better days are when I get Retort phone calls while I am lost hiking in the dark and trying to find my way off of a cliff. All of this has and does happen and for some reason, I enjoy my job anyway.

This issue has been a strange one and also a very special one. Having a bird in our office - yes, a living, flapping, and chirping bird - was one of those many strange things. Thank you, bird whisperer who helped me usher that creature out of the office. We tried to make this issue into our second annual green issue, but unfortunately there was not enough room for all of our submitted articles on green topics. So, in compromise, our green articles have green titles to help highlight their purpose.

Also, while I happened to be rifling through old issues of The Retort looking for an article to use as a “blast from the past” (see page 4), I received an e-mail from Larry Portis. Larry was a member of The Retort staff during the tumultuous 60’s and he was looking for copies of his articles written then. All I had to do was ask and Larry agreed to write us a political article (see page 16).

Larry has quite the resumé, after he graduated from MSUB in 1968, he attended Northern Illinois University where he obtained his masters and doctorate, and then he received the equivalent of a second doctorate from the Université de Paris 7. Since 1977, Larry has lived in France where he has taught history or sociology at many different universities. Larry also has published many books such as American Dreaming and Soul Trains: A Peoples’ History of Popular Music in the United States and Britain.

Anyway, I am quite excited that Larry wrote for this issue. Also, we have, for the first time this semester, opposing viewpoints in the Opinion section (on page 14). One of our U.S. senators from Montana and a Billings resident each write about their viewpoints on health care reform.

We had some interesting Letters To The Editor submitted for this issue and they are in the Opinion section. I - and everyone else at The Retort - always enjoy receiving responses to our articles because it means that someone out there is reading those articles and our articles are inciting a response or making our readers think.

After our last issue, I was inspired by Leah’s article about folfing and I tried the sport for the first time since high school. Unfortunately my group’s game of folf turned into what we now call Survivor Folf. Apparently, I had enough fun - mostly taking photos because I am too bad at folf - because I have agreed to play again.

Since we have not told you much about our two new staff members of this semester, here is a quick briefing. Leah Campbell, our layout editor, is a freshman and graduate of Billings Senior High. She is majoring in English and minoring in both Spanish and History.

Joe Olivo is our sports editor and a good friend of mine. Joe is a Skyview High graduate and enjoys folfing and football and he also is a MMA fighter.

I hope that you enjoy this issue, your summer, and hopefully you will keep reading us.

Thank you,

Bailey Martin

Editor-in-Chief