If North Idaho was a board game
By Ben Olson Reader Staff What if North Idaho was a board game? How do you think it would look, and what exactly would be a good strategy to win? In the interest of...
Tagged: Ben Olson
Soft sounds for hard times
By Ben Olson Reader Staff I’ve been on a mission during the pandemic to listen to music that provides a soothing soundscape to help curb the vitriolic rhetoric that has plagued our world for...
Racist robocaller Scott Rhodes fined $10M for nationwide harassment campaign, including attacks on Reader and its publisher
By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff Scott Rhodes, a former Sandpoint resident and last known to be living in Libby, Mont., has been fined almost $10 million by the Federal Communications Commission for a yearslong...
A dark day in our nation’s history
By Ben Olson Reader Staff Publisher’s note: This is an opinion article. As Reader staff members were preparing our first edition of 2021 before press time on Jan. 6, pro-Trump extremists in Washington, D.C....
2020 was one hell of a year; here are some good things that happened
By Ben Olson Reader Staff During “normal” times, the last page of the calendar usually brings wistful looks back at the year that has passed and hopeful views of the year ahead. Let’s face...
A safe holiday season
By Ben Olson Reader Staff While Thanksgiving is usually a time when family comes together — often for the only time of the year — with COVID-19, many families are rethinking their holiday plans....
Pickled perfection
By Ben Olson Reader Staff A curious thing happened in my mid-30s: I grew infatuated with pickling vegetables. Not only is pickling a great way to preserve vegetables grown in our home gardens, they...
The tech of shredding
By Ben Olson Reader Staff I grew up on skis and always loved skiing, but it was when I was 13 years old and strapped on a snowboard for the first time that I...
An integral process
By Ben Olson Reader Staff As ballots were still being counted across the country in the tight presidential race that has widely been projected as a win for former-Vice President Joe Biden, Idaho had...
The healing nature of kindness
By Ben Olson Reader Staff I was traveling in my 20s when I witnessed my first real random act of kindness. I was visiting a friend in San Francisco. We were driving across the...
