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The Iron Range from above
The other morning I slept in. It was the weekend and a good time to rest. As I lazed in half-sleep, half-contemplation, I looked above me to see something I hadn’t seen before. My wife loves owls so we have owls all over the house. On the top shelf of the bookcase near my side…
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Latest strike shows the pressure facing rural health care
Health care is hard to understand. Let’s start with the fact that most of us have no idea how our human bodies actually work. Thousands of years of science and development taught much to the human race. But the average individual knows only a little. We don’t know anatomy. We don’t know how drugs are…
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A Range of Sound
We have at least five senses that we use to experience the world, but history tends mute them. We read about the Bubonic Plague, but can only imagine how it smelled. What did it really look like when buck naked berserkers charged Roman legions? Did you notice the dangly bits, or was that not as…
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Art and nature are worth more than ‘the socials’
Sometimes it feels like I need to put a note on my computer than says “Do not become Andy Rooney.” The fact that I can even identify the cantankerous late CBS “60 Minutes” correspondent is already a problem. Rooney’s prime occurred when I was just a child … a child who would make his parents…
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This bill kills
A full description of the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” remains a moving target. But if the version of the budget reconciliation deal being debated in the U.S. Senate on Monday afternoon is any indicator, it could be one of the most devastating bills for rural health care in a generation. The health care system is…
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When a broken system blocks rural patients from effective treatment
The fourth in my series of columns about mental health issues in Minnesota is out now. One of my biggest goals in this series was to convey that there is hope for those facing mental illness. There is widespread agreement that effective treatments exist for those suffering most forms of mental illness. The problem is…
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Talking mental health on business podcast
This Sunday, my series of columns on mental health issues in rural Minnesota continues. Before then, here’s something related. On Friday, I appeared on an episode of “Business Talk, Sister Gawk” with Rebekkah Anderson. Anderson shared some of her personal experience with mental illness as an adoptive and foster mom for my column. She also…
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Preorder ‘On an Inland Sea’ from Belt Publishing
We must never lose our amazement over the fact that Duluth, Minnesota, is an international port. Dead center of the continent, thousands of miles from any saltwater, and we see ships roll in from Europe, Africa and beyond. Northern Minnesota may not touch the ocean, but we have always lived along the inland seas of…
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Live from New York, it’s a new world of politics
What could a corn-fed Midwestern boy add to the glut of analysis about the New York City mayoral race? Only this, that Zohran Mamdani’s upset win in Tuesday’s Democratic primary seems relevant to trends in modern American politics, including some upcoming races here in Minnesota. What’s happening is much bigger than tit-for-tat partisanship. Whether you…
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But wait, it gets worse: barriers to modern civility
I already wrote about civility in the aftermath of last week’s tragic murders and shootings in Minnesota. What more to say? How about how easy it is to say you’re against violent rhetoric while allowing it to go unchecked on your side of the street. Or how we have freedom to say just about anything,…
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What’s a ‘golden share’? Let’s find out
The successful merger of U.S. Steel with Nippon Steel of Japan will go down as one of the big business stories of the year. On Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range, the deal holds special meaning. It will bring in significant investment to aging taconite plants at Keewatin and Mountain Iron, but it’s hard to say what…
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No sickness like soul-sickness
The news snuck up on me, which is funny now that I work for a large newspaper. It was Saturday and we had plans to attend a graduation party and pick up groceries afterward. I saw rumblings on social media about a shooting in Brooklyn Park, but in America there are shootings. You still make…
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Floating an idea for airships in Minnesota
I can get very excited about new ideas, sometimes too excited. Well, be warned, my latest column drifts into this territory. Not all of the topics I’ve explored over the years panned out the way I hoped. In my early days writing editorials for the Hibbing Daily Tribune I went all in on high-speed…
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To save a tree, we must first save the forest
The forest is a living organism. Maybe you’ve heard this kind of thing before, perhaps from a hippie or some cheesy environmental meme. I’m here to tell you that it’s true. When you live in a forest and pay attention, you see all the ways each plant or animal — even me! — blends into…
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For small towns, the bill’s come due and the hard part lies ahead
Sometimes it feels like life in a rural area is just one long string of budget cuts. It’s a perception thing, perhaps. Rural areas expanded services as their populations crested decades ago. Since then, the population has dropped and everything got more expensive. But this is a heck of a way to live; a…