Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. China invests untold billions into an industry before selling the product overseas at less than cost. That lets China capture global markets while driving competition out of business. You might think I’m talking about iron and steel, but today I’m talking about technology and renewable energy, fast-growing… Read More →
De’myth’tifying Minnesota
April 9, 2024 by 1 Comment
A couple weeks ago I reviewed a new novel reframing the Paul Bunyan myth that still prevails in Minnesota tourism and culture. Today, I share a new essay for the Minnesota Reformer entitled “Paul Bunyan and the weight of myth.” This piece digs deeper into the Bunyan story and how it shaped the cultural perception… Read More →
Only local birds
April 6, 2024 by 1 Comment
I live on a quiet little hill above a swamp at the end of a long dirt road in the woods. The nearest stoplight stands some 27 miles away. Out here, it’s easy to feel lonely. Or at least it seemed that way when we moved from town almost 20 years ago. Time, however, revealed… Read More →
When a small town wins big
March 30, 2024 by 1 Comment
One of the best breaks I ever got was growing up in the tight-knit, hard-working community of Cherry, Minnesota. It’s not that Cherry is anything special to look at. The township is composed of scrub brush, trees and hayfields. The people work as miners, nurses and truck drivers — similar to a lot of folks… Read More →
How to cover politics in northern Minnesota, and other quandaries
March 29, 2024 by 2 Comments
One of my life’s most interesting relationships has been with the word, “journalism.” I’ve always considered myself a journalist, even after leaving daily newspapers 21 years ago. But the nature of that relationship changed with time and trends. In college during the late 1990s, our journalism professor bemoaned “citizen journalism,” a reference to the idea… Read More →
New book reimagines America’s folk history
March 23, 2024 by 1 Comment
What causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall? If you didn’t know, you might worry that these life-giving events could suddenly stop. That’s why many ancient myths formed, and why humans keep making myths in modern times. The amount we don’t know only grows as we open new realms of knowledge. Myths… Read More →
Companies crowd to mine newly viable West Range iron ore
March 18, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Last week, I met someone who knew my writing and he was shocked to see that I was “young.” I put “young” in quotation marks because it’s a relative term. I think in this case he was really saying that he was surprised that I wasn’t old, because he figured I would be. It’s true,… Read More →
To build and rebuild
March 16, 2024 by 3 Comments
When I was young, I could spend a whole afternoon building a city of blocks, filling its streets with Matchbox cars. But if my mom asked me to spend one hour cleaning my room, I’d declare bankruptcy. I don’t have time for THAT! We like to build things, or have them built for us, but… Read More →
What’s black and white and gray all over? New cars
March 9, 2024 by 4 Comments
Prince sang about a little red Corvette. Bruce Springsteen told of a pink Cadillac. It’s hard to picture a ’57 Chevy that isn’t that perfect shade of blue. Chances are, the car of your dreams rolls through your mind in living color. Nobody fantasizes about a white Toyota Camry, even though — statistically speaking —… Read More →
New podcast: Meeting Mesabi
March 7, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Discover the Range, the Iron Range tourism agency, recently launched a new podcast called “Meeting Mesabi. I appear on the second episode. We recorded last summer at the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm. Host Ceasar Ortega, fellow guest Jordan Metsa and I talked about the fascinating history of the Iron Range and how it shaped… Read More →
