Valley Views

valley views Consider blank canvases

Ihave a confession to make: I love whiteboards. Even as a child, I was completely transfixed by the infinite possibilities they presented. I even remember asking my parents if I could cover all the walls of my room with whiteboards when I was around 11. Not surprisingly the answer was “no,” but my fixation has carried on to this day. However, in all these years, I hadn’t asked the question of where whiteboards came from until recently.

In the 1950s, while working in a dark room, the photographer Martin Heit discovered that he could write on film negatives with a marker and then wipe it away. In a flash of inspiration, he realized that he could use something like this to take notes while conversing with to clients on the phone. An idea was birthed and Heit developed a board system that utilized the same concept that consumers could have next to their phones. After filing a patent, he prepared to unveil his new invention at the Chicago Merchandise Mart. Tragically, the showcase where the new whiteboards were displayed burned down the night before the planned unveiling. Martin was quite discouraged by this and subsequently sold his patent to a small company that would eventually become “DriMark.”

Whiteboards became available starting in the early 1960s; however, early versions required a wet cloth to erase. Today we refer to this method as “wet erase.” Requiring a wet cloth on hand proved to be annoying. This inconvenience would eventually be solved by another inventor, Jerry Woolf, who worked for Techform Laboratories. He patented the first-ever marker made exclusively for whiteboards. Prior to this, people just used common magic markers on whiteboards. The new marker used a special non-toxic ink formula that wouldn’t absorb into glossy surfaces. Because of this, the ink could be wiped away cleanly once it dried without the need for moisture. The new “dry erase” markers, as they came to be known, also didn’t leave stubborn ink stains that would slowly dirty the shiny whiteboard. Solving this final problem allowed the whiteboard’s popularity to take off starting in the 1980s.

The whiteboard first gained popularity in the corporate world, seen as an icon of business creativity. The image of a bunch of executives in a board room brainstorming in front of a whiteboard covered in hastily scribbled marks became a fixture in our collective cultural lexicon. However, one more event would elevate the whiteboard to unprecedented levels of ubiquity.

Starting in the late 1980s and increasing into the 1990s, more and more students in schools were beginning to suffer from environmental allergies. While the underlying cause of this shift is still unclear, one idea that gained popularity blamed chalk dust. Blackboards had been in systematic use in education and academia from the beginning of the 19th century. Suspicion arose that the dust from blackboards was causing a concerning rise in allergy-suffering students. We now know that the dust can be irritating to the respiratory system, like any other fine air-borne particulate; however, chalk dust was not to blame for pupils’ allergy issues. The whiteboard emerged as the white knight solution to this perceived problem. Forward thinking and concerned school districts began to systematically replace blackboards with white ones. This trend continued until now, where most students will never experience the sound of chalk moving across the board.

How amazing to remember all that has transpired to showcase the humble whiteboard: understated, simple, and to a degree, unremarkable. Yet, imagine all the world... creative inspiration, or problems solved by people utilizing a whiteboard. There is something so poetic about this dichotomy, something to consider when you see a whiteboard. The next time you lay eyes on one, you can appreciate how these blank canvases became an integral part of our modern world.

ben there

DONE that Ben Stone Media Production, Valley Journal

Let's discuss Mansfield, guns, statesmanship

Ithink the difference between a politician and a statesman is that the people believe a statesman will do what he or she believes is the right thing regardless of the political consequences. When it gets down to it, a statesman would rather be right than reelected.

It is generally accepted that Mike Mansfield was Montana’s greatest statesman. In my younger years I had two wonderful opportunities to have extended conversations with Mansfield. He was “as common as an old shoe” as the saying goes. When he passed in 2001, national newspaper columnist David Broder wrote that we had just lost the greatest living American.

That’s true I think, not because “Mike” as he preferred to be called, was a power broker, or strongarm dealmaker like some of his more prominent contemporaries. It was because he was totally genuine. His constituents and his colleagues all knew they could totally trust him. They knew he was simply incapable of placing his personal political interests above what he believed was the public interest.

In keeping with that attitude, Mansfield was for gun control. The murders of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Kennedys doubt-

Valley Views Bob Brown Former MT Secretary of State and State Senate President

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from page 10 lessly influenced his thinking about guns, but there is a less well known personal side to Mansfield’s philosophy toward guns which he revealed in a speech on the Senate floor published in the June 10, 1968 Congressional Record.

In that speech, Mansfield said, “We ought to think not only of public persons – and their deaths are indeed tragic – but also the ordinary people, such as the two marine lieutenants, one of them from Fishtail, Montana, who were shot in a little hamburger stand in Washington during the past week; of the bus driver who was held up and murdered; of the high school boy from Wilson High School who a week or ten days ago was assaulted and murdered, and of the thousands of little people, who are likewise entitled to just as much protection as are public figures….”

In the same speech Mansfield said, “I favor, and have favored, the registration of all firearms,” and “As far as hand guns are concerned, it is my belief that they should be outlawed.” There can be little doubt about what Mike would think about the assault weapons of today.

Well, those views made news in Montana and triggered the first serious election challenge Mansfield had faced in a dozen years. His opponent, Harold E. “Bud” Wallace had never run for office before, but he was the proprietor of the Elegant Elk gun store in Hamilton. He made guns his sole reason for running. When the returns were in, Wallace received an astonishing 40% of the vote in the 1970 general election. Two out of five voters had rejected Mike Mansfield in favor of that unknown “gun guy.” That wasn’t lost on Montana politicians, and guns have remained untouchable in Montana politics ever since.

Now, after a decade-long series of senseless shootings, one wonders if a change in public sentiment might not be developing. Americans account for less than 4% of the world population, but we own over 40% of the world’s guns. According to the FBI, the number of mass shootings in the United States has doubled since 2018. Clearly, “Thoughts and prayers” haven’t been working.

Paralyzed by its own rules, the U.S. Senate has been impotent in carrying out its responsibility to “insure the domestic tranquility.” House passed HR 8 provides for simple background checks, which are overwhelming popular, but the bill has been trapped in cold storage in the Senate of Mitch McConnell for so long that it has freezer burns on it. Similarly, commonsense proposals for limiting the capacity of clips cannot even obtain a hearing.

In the tradition of Mike Mansfield, Senators Jon Tester and Steve Daines, could defy the gun guys and act in the public interest. They are both family men who know the difference between right and wrong. It wouldn’t have to take any more slaughtered toddlers to convince statesman Mike Mansfield to follow his conscience if he were with us again. How about it Jon and Steve?

Bob Brown is a former MT Secretary of State and State Senate President

vj

Consider freedom of religion

Editor,

America’s constitution does not condone abortion - neither does it oppose it.

The opposition to abortion may be from one’s personal viewpoint about an unborn life but mainly it stems from the tenets of an organized religion. Freedom of religion IS in our constitution, as well as being one of the building blocks of our nation. Which, then, is the bigger threat to our country; our creating laws that limit an individual’s liberty to act in a way that is not a threat to our society as a whole, or to adhere and demand obedience to the precepts of some church’s beliefs? Not all Christian religions feel abortion is a sin.

Those that do, including comments indicating that includes some of our elected legislative representatives, are missing the bigger threat to the liberties we created. Those elected ones are forgetting our heritage and playing to voters who believe they are right to push for what their religious beliefs tell them. I agree they have that right. I do not agree that their desire to eliminate the right of a woman to an abortion justifies changing who we are and why we are a free nation.

Religious control still exists in many countries. Are they the image of what we will become if we head down that path and start to strip individual liberties for a religious purpose?

Obviously our Constitution has evolved. When it was made, slaves existed, women had no vote, and in fact ownership of land I believe was a requirement to vote. It has been a nice journey forward and we are still young and learning.

I fear the next few years will see us step backwards, and maybe turn on the road to a dissolution of our nation. With the supremes saying there is not a constitutional right to an abortion, they also did not say it is prohibited. It is left to the states. And may our forefathers forgive those who now will try to enforce one set of religious beliefs over the freedoms they strived to establish for us as a nation with a freedom of religion.

Rich Bell Polson

Embrace a practical strategy

Editor,

Do you want to reduce the number of abortions that occur? Here’s a practical strategy. Vote for universal health care. Vote for free childcare. Make education free for all so women can improve the conditions of

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