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Oberstar denies cabinet rumors
Doug Grow at MinnPost reports that a Jim Oberstar appointment as Secretary of Transportation is unlikely. Twin Cities Daily Liberal blogs that this isn’t a bad thing. Agreed, but me, I’m an Iron Range blogger working in the 8th Congressional District. What the holy hell am I going to write about if Jim stays in…
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Brown on the Air: BIG CITY
My essay for the Saturday KAXE program “Between You and Me” this week deals with the show’s topic: Big City. What is the “big city” in your world? As a station that covers the vast region of northern Minnesota, from Brainerd to Bemidji to Grand Rapids and the Iron Range, KAXE will be beaming this…
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Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is still the great, unspoiled American holiday. Cheap as a cooked bird and all about the family. Enjoy your Thanksgiving. No blogging today. Probably no blogging tomorrow. Get off the blogs. Eat! Be merry! Related posts: No related posts.
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Agency: huge Iron Range steel project still on track, despite economic news
I may have already tubed my invitation to the Iron Range Resources teddy bear picnic, but in the spirit of the holidays I’ll take a minute to point out some pro-IRR news. My friend and fellow Cherryite Lee Bloomquist, the IRR information officer, posted a status update on the Essar Steel Minnesota combined mine and…
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Thank you, Ely
Last night brought another fine evening of discussion on my “Overburden” Iron Range book tour. This time the venue was the lecture hall at Vermilion Community College. Though the audience was primarily “captive” (my colleague and host Pam Brunfelt’s Minnesota History class) many community members and other students also came out for the reading and…
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I’m holding up a piece of paper that says ‘UNION’
Kudos to Kim Johnson and the WDIO production team that worked on this series about the past, present and future of the labor movement in northern Minnesota. This is some of the best issue-related reporting I’ve seen on local TV in quite a while. Related posts: No related posts.
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‘Overburden’ tour reaches the gates of the Boundary Waters tonight
Moving away from political and economic topics (but not too far away), I remind you all of my community lecture in Ely this evening. At 7 p.m. in the CL104 lecture hall of Vermilion Community College I will give a brief lecture and reading from my new book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”…
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Naked emperor just keeps on chooglin’
As expected, the Iron Range Resources board voted Monday to give Excelsior Energy a sweetheart two-year extension on making any payments on its combined $9.5 million in IRR loans since 2001. Bill Hanna of the Mesabi Daily News is reporting that the vote was 9-1, with Rep. Tom Anzelc (DFL-Balsam Township) the sole “no” vote.…
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From a Blue fall to Purple times
Political junkies are still learning to cope with the dramatic emotional drop-off that has occurred after the end of the election. Sure, we still have the Minnesota Senate recount and idle chatter about President-elect Obama’s cabinet to poke at. Some of the hard cases are really tweaking out over these things. But that’s nothing compared…
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‘Overburden’ tour explores northern edge of the Iron Range
Below is the press release for my Tuesday night lecture and book signing at Vermilion Community College. Ely by starlight makes for a great evening. Stop on by! November 18, 2008Press ReleaseFor Immediate Release Aaron Brown, Author of Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range, to speak at Vermilion Community College on Tuesday, November 25…
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Boondoggle Monday
Today the Iron Range Resources Board meets to discuss extending the deadline for the $9.5 million in loans to Excelsior Energy for its Mesaba Energy Project. The Mesaba Project is a $2.1 billion (probably more) coal gasification power plant proposed for Itasca County and/or Hoyt Lakes. I have, at times impolitely, called for this project’s…
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The Irv Era
Doug Grow, who is apparently my blogging BFF for the weekend, wrote a great story for MinnPost about Irv Anderson, the late State Representative and Speaker of the House whose funeral was held Saturday in International Falls. The story demonstrates quite a bit about Anderson’s personality but also much about the political culture of northern…
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Conservation leads to drop in electricity use; implications abound
Xcel announces a 3 percent drop in power consumption from the August to September period from last year. (MinnPost reports on a Wall Street Journal story). That’s good from an environmental standpoint. And it further proves that the proposed $2.1 billion Mesaba Energy Project, which would produce gobs of electricity priced higher than last year’s…
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Into the den of girl clothes
This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. I used a version of this story for my Saturday essay on KAXE. Into the den of girl clothesBy Aaron J. Brown Like others, I did many things for the first time during my freshman year of college.…
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Up north, the front line in the battle over ‘new’ journalism
Here’s an interesting post from “Graham” at Entrecard, a traffic service for bloggers. He suggests, tongue in cheek, that it’s the journalism industry that really needs a bailout. Here’s an excerpt: I don’t have the solutions, but I know four things about the future of journalism, blogging, and newspapers: Print newspapers will die. People will…