Minnesota Brown

For 25 years I’ve been writing about economic development on the Iron Range. In fact, I could blindly type the words “Iron Range economic development” on the underside of a dark car trunk as I’m being hauled away. One day I might do just that. Today’s column (gift link) is about Iron Range economic development,…

We experienced a small tragedy and a big epiphany this week. I describe it all in my latest column (gift link). Last Saturday night — well, actually Sunday morning — I was up late working on the book. I let our very sleepy small dog out one last time and she immediately started barking. This…

Today’s column (gift link) knows where you live. Somewhere near your home lies a very important intersection. At this intersection, an international spy, world-renowned detective or merciless bounty hunter could tell “them” (whoever “they” are) everything about you. They could certainly tell when you’re running late. They could even determine if your phone failed to…

Today’s column (gift link) tells the tale of an unlikely return to a topic I mistakenly thought was resolved years ago.  Back in 1999, a local community-minded woman secured a small grant to start a community newspaper in Cherry, Minn., where I grew up. She didn’t know anything about newspapers, so she hired me, a…

Parenting is hard but rewarding. I’d allowed myself to feel accomplished when our three sons hit adulthood. But, in truth, parenting keeps going, and with three in college we’re the latest to realize how expensive it’s become to start a career. Today’s column (gift link) brings new perspective on the challenges. I grew up in…

How strange is our relationship with our own bodies and their various functions? Like most Americans, I was raised to hide as much of mine as possible. That was fine with me, because my body was always lumpier than most. “Shirts vs. skins” in gym class was less an activity, more an existential crisis. So…

I’m relieved that the cottage industry of “Why did the Iron Range turn red” political analysis has mostly dried up. I wrote or participated in many such stories, but it grew tiresome. The region shifted from DFL to Republican, fueled by demographic and cultural changes, along with economic estrangement from the state’s wealthier metro area.…

Today’s column (gift link) is about housing. And ducks. I’ve now written about housing several times. I didn’t start from a position of expertise, but I’ve had the opportunity to learn from a lot of experts. You could say the same of my knowledge about birds. Even 12 years ago, I actively resisted interest in…

Today’s column (gift link) is about recent legal and political blowback against social media companies. But here I’ll start a little further back. In middle school, I wrote a humor column about the injustices of hall pass policies on a piece of notebook paper. At the time, I did so for my own reasons, mostly…

Today’s column (gift link), like many of mine lately, is about the friction between technological advances and human well-being. For all the talk of innovation in business and political circles, you see precious little of it on any given day. We humans love our patterns and, to paraphrase George Carlin, half of us are of…