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On fear and autonomous vehicles
Today’s column (gift link), like much of my work, is about perceptions, reactions and implications of change in a specific place. In our modern media environment, we often feel that everything is happening everywhere all at once. This is literally true, of course, and always has been. But our human perception isn’t really able to…
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Living by gratitude is its own kind of immortality
We’re all trying to make sense of what we experience in this world. Writers just do so with a compulsion to create resolution. The only bad part is that resolution is like a cigarette; the good feeling lasts 15 seconds before you’re on the hunt for a new pack. Over 25 years of professional writing…
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One more opportunity for the Range to diversify
The first time I wrote the words “economic diversification” was probably back in 2001. I was a new reporter and then the editor of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. If you asked any kid who grew up on the Iron Range in the 1980s and ’90s what the place needed, the answer would be “more.” The…
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Our world needs resilience, from climate to everything else
Climate change is real. This upsets some people because they know and are worried. It disturbs those whose politics prevents this acknowledgment, too. But the data is clear. It’s happening. Considerable effort has been expended to create a strange dynamic of denial, which only exists in nations with powerful oil interests. But I can observe…
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Cold weather hits before federal funds are ready
About the rarest commodity left is human attention. We talk about rare earth minerals, rare beauty and rare courage, but it’s all noise without people paying attention. And people aren’t, or more accurately they can’t. The way we produce and consume media punishes focus. That might be the biggest failure of Democratic senators who voted…
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To restore white pine we must restore the forest
Today’s column (gift link) is about the white pine, specifically how it towers over a big family of forest species in Minnesota. One family made a mission out of bringing back the white pine, and learning that it’s not just the white pine that makes for a successful forest. I also give some tips for…
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The throughline on Trump, Mamdani explains our moment
Some might say that newspapers spill far too much ink on Zohran Mamdani, the new Mayor-elect of New York City. Why would a local leader in one place, albeit a big, important place, matter that much thousands of miles away in places like Minnesota. It’s a fair point that I am refuting in today’s column (gift…
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Critical thinking on critical minerals
History is like a log floating downriver. Much of the time it bobs along in a predictable sort of way. Sometimes it snags on a rock or along the banks, but the river always moves it along eventually. And then there are the times that the sheer momentum of spring melt or quickening rapids takes…
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Good neighbors, unnecessary conflict
Sometime around 1865, Francis “Frank” Browne crossed the Atlantic from St. Austell, Cornwall, England. He was part of a generation of young, skilled British tradesmen who left dying mining towns looking for work across the seas. These men had few prospects at home, but many abroad. Frank landed in Canada. Immigration was malleable then. To…
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People, not place, at heart of rural policy issues
This week I interviewed I interviewed former Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire and former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota about the issues facing rural America. The pair are co-chairing the Brookings/AEI Commission on US Rural Prosperity, a bipartisan initiative to promote a more resilient rural economy. They’ll be in Minnesota on Thursday, Oct.…
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Bittersweet inspiration on the road to Randall, Minn.
In a big world with big problems, we should not overlook small places. My writing has mostly focused on one such place: Minnesota’s Iron Range. It’s not that this one place explains everything about everywhere, but rather that taking the time to understand the many layers of a place helps you understand the composition of…
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The lack of movement that slows our housing market
Maybe it’s my age and the fact that my kids are starting to fledge, but I often think about the phoebe nest underneath our deck. The nest was constructed by some enterprising lady bird two years after we built our house in 2005. She and her mate raised their first clutch and then they skipped…
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The value of philosophy in a world of rocks and numbers
The comedian and actor Steve Martin turned an apt phrase on the study of philosophy. “If you’re studying geology, which is all facts, as soon as you get out of school you forget it all,” he said, “but philosophy you remember just enough to screw you up for the rest of your life.” That’s a…
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Bringing Iron Range past to digital life
One of the most intimate relationships in my life has been with a 200-pound microfilm machine. Each rendezvous flashed sparks of passion. Dim light. Late nights. Clunking. Grinding. Fire and ice. But let’s start from the beginning. Microfilm stores a high resolution photograph to archive periodicals like newspapers. Compared to saving fragile hard copies, microfilm…
