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Politics of power: PUC OKs industrial rate cut
This week, in a 3-2 split decision, the Minnesota Public Utilities approved a five percent rate cut for large industrial power customers, a deal targeted to help taconite mines in Northern Minnesota. Last February, the PUC rejected Minnesota Power’s proposed rate deal, saying the utility had not adequately proven it needed to raise rates on residents while…
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Great Northern Radio Show to broadcast from Tower
On Saturday, Sept. 24, I’ll bring my Great Northern Radio Show to Fortune Bay Resort and Casino near Tower, Minnesota. It’s exciting to start another new season (our sixth!) and to announce some changes. The Great Northern will remain a music and comedy variety show featuring the same talents as before. Instead of broadcasting one live…
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The Iron Range and Donald Trump
The Star Tribune led its Sunday political coverage with this Patrick Condon story about the perceived popularity of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the vaunted DFL stronghold of the Mesabi Iron Range. Northern Minnesota’s Iron Range has voted for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party since WWII, typically by massive margins. (The DFL is Minnesota’s unique version of the Democratic…
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Attracting hope years after 9/11
I was almost done editing the Sept. 11, 2001 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. Then another. Then one more hit the Pentagon. What? Another in a field somewhere? At some point I knocked a tray of story ideas off my desk: press releases and notes…
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Northern MN co-op to further expand fiber network
As I pointed out in July, Paul Bunyan Communication continues working on its Central Itasca Fiber Project. In fact, this week they’ve been laying cable on the little dirt road that leads to MinnesotaBrown World Headquarters in Balsam Township. Readers know that I’ve long advocated for ubiquitous high speed internet as a means of economic diversification for…
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Automation on the industrial frontier
Labor Day on the Iron Range means more than just the last big car race up at the Hibbing Raceway, though that is without doubt a big deal. Here, Labor Day celebrates the broken bodies and fighting spirit of pioneering loggers, miners and entrepreneurs. Their sacrifices slowly built a better world and a better workforce…
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N. Minn., Canada share deep economic ties
The other day I got a note from a longtime reader saying something I wrote “sounded positively Canadian.” And while I’m a proud citizen of the U. S. of A., it’s true that my beloved homeland here in Northern Minnesota is very near (and rather influenced by) Canada. A Northern Minnesota accent sounds more like a Canadian accent than…
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MinnesotaBrown, KAXE at the State Fair
I’ve seen the numbers. Even though this is the only independent blog wholly dedicated to “Modern Life in Northern Minnesota,” nearly half of you live or work in the Twin Cities metro area. That’s fine. We’re cool. But it means we never get to have awkward exchanges at the grocery store, or silently wonder what’s…
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On ‘Clarence’ and wallets filled with gravity
My kids like to watch a show called “Clarence” on Cartoon Network. To be honest, I like it, too. This oddball kid Clarence lives in Aberdale, a suburb of a large city in the American Southwest. His mom is a hair stylist and her boyfriend Chad, Clarence’s father figure, is unemployed. All but one or…
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Radio consolidation swells in Northern Minnesota
Back in high school in the 1990s, two radio stations impacted my life. The first was the one I listened to: KQDS out of Duluth. Classic rock ‘n’ roll, something I preferred to pop. You couldn’t always get KQ on the Iron Range, but you could on the jacked-up antennae my dad put on our roof…
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Magnetation facing potential Sept. 30 shutdown
Magnetation, LLC, announced today it would prepare for a potential Sept. 30 shutdown of its Plant 4 scram mining operation in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and its processing plant in Reynolds, Indiana. Magnetation is an iron ore mining and processing company based in Grand Rapids. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice (WARN) of a potential shutdown relates to an effort to…
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Essar owes $1.1 billion in bankrupcy
Bankruptcy proceedings began recently for Essar Steel Minnesota, the struggling subsidiary of the Indian company Essar Steel, which seeks to build a new iron mine in Northern Minnesota. The story draws rapt attention from residents and leaders on the Mesabi Iron Range. For good reason. The outcome of this case will determine if hundreds of new…
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Bonding spat ends in election season splat
Last week, Minnesota legislative leaders and Gov. Mark Dayton abandoned hope of a special session this year. That means that the legislature’s failure to pass a bonding bill, and Gov. Dayton’s veto of the tax bill, will stand through this November’s election. This sort of thing can happen with divided government. Gov. Dayton is a…
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Dig a mile in another man’s skid steer
As khaki-wearing bloggers go, I interact with a unusually high number of people who operate heavy equipment. These people move dirt for fun and profit using machines that suck diesel fuel the way a dry horse drinks water. I owe part of this to family ties. My Grandpa Brown, now an octogenarian, uses his skid…
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Teeming masses for Duluth Tall Ships
On Friday, the family and I made the trek down to Duluth for the 2016 Tall Ships Festival, which runs through Sunday. I love history. I love ships. Good times. I won’t lie, this event was considerably more crowded than the previous Tall Ships events we had attended. In fact, we attended our first Tall Ships by mistake. We…