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Breaking Broadband: progress in rural Minnesota
“If I were the hugging kind, I would hug you.” “OK, then.” I had clearly unnerved the surveyor on my township road, but I knew why he was there. He was mapping the route for new fiber optic cables near my home. You can see the little flags all over the Itasca County countryside.…
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The future of the Iron Range is already here
“Where are all the young people?” Anyone involved in a graying committee, civic group, city board or arts organization has probably heard a comment like this. The words often come from someone who wouldn’t know what to do with a young person if they saw one, like the dog who caught the proverbial car. And…
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Politicians on parade
The marching band lined up along the avenue, belching snare taps and horn squawks. Retirees toddled back to lawn chairs left as markers along the parade route hours earlier, grandchildren in tow. The air hung heavy with the smell of fry bread and popcorn. Meanwhile, Congressman Dirk Fostle emerged from the back seat of a…
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Hell on Earth
I heard someone at the gas station say that the world is going to Hell. The shootings. The drugs. The politics. But I don’t believe in a literal Hell. I know a lot of people do. To me, logic dictates that God is a benevolent force, or at least not a malevolent one. A literal…
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‘Finding Dory’ gives ‘seagull treatment’ to Minnesota state bird
How could anyone forget the comic relief in the classic Pixar film “Finding Nemo” as the teeming, hapless seagulls scrapped over morsels of food? “Mine? Mine? Mine?” Heck, the scene was so iconic that the Minnesota Twins — an inland team — plays the gull catchphrase over the loudspeakers every time the visiting team hits…
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The night Ali lit the torch in Gilbert
I spent most of the summer of 1996 nocturnal. Even though I couldn’t tell you much about those days, the nights seemed hotter and more humid than average. This was Northern Minnesota’s Iron Range, a place where winter cold gets more press than the deceptive heat of summer. I was 16. It was my first summer with a driver’s license,…
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Bringing local food back home
We often hear the phrase, “you are what you eat.” It could also be said that “you are where you eat.” Here in Northern Minnesota, people subsisted off the land for millennia. But then came Wonder Bread, TV dinners, hot dogs and Cheetos: tasty, calorific foods that can be named but not necessarily identified. Cheap to buy, these…
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Fired up for the end of school
The Jack Pine must burn to live. While most everything in nature is adapted to avoid fire, the Jack Pine welcomes the flame. Old Jack’s branches and needles evolved to attract and spread fire. Indeed, most of its tightly-sealed cones contain seeds that will only be released by temperatures above 112 degrees. It’s amazing to…
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Congratulations, whoever you are!
The gold-lined invitation glinted from the pile of mail, classing up the usual stack of junk and bills. Addressed by hand, the heavy stock envelope coughed out yet another envelope from inside the first one. This envelope was smaller, but meant business. Inside this fat envelope was a collection of photos of a proud member…
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Rethinking strength of Iron Range towns
The small working class towns of Minnesota’s iron ranges were founded for a profoundly simple purpose. Each village cut into the thick forests of Northern Minnesota to provide housing and supplies within walking distance of an iron mine. Few towns grew beyond that purpose. Dozens were were abandoned after a decade or two. As the…
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Daniel Berrigan, radical priest & Range native
On Saturday, April 30, peace activist and Jesuit Catholic priest Daniel Berrigan died at the age of 94. Berrigan was probably best known for his high profile protests of the Vietnam War, including multiple arrests for anti-war demonstrations. Most notably, Berrigan and fellow protesters seized draft records from an office in Maryland and burned them…
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On Letters of Hope
“Plant a nut, get a nut,” someone once told me about my son Doug’s antics. Approaching 9 years old, he has somehow outpaced my childhood obsession with historical trivia and the macabre. Last year, he wandered down to my home office and extracted a ten-pound American history textbook left over from my college days. “Can…
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Mud for our modern world
Thus ends the afternoon meeting. You can hear him now, the co-worker who’d rather be fishing. He slaps open the conference room door as though exiting an outhouse. Then comes the husky voiced lady from the department that has no name, the one who smokes reds on the loading dock without blinking. “Clear as mud,”…
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‘If you want to predict the future, listen to the future’
Last week, students delivered informative speeches in my class at Hibbing Community College. One student spoke of the generational divide in how we communicate. He referred to Generation X, those of us born between 1965 and 1985, and said, “You know, like our parents.” Now, Gen Xers have been parents for some time. I’m 36.…
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Ideas at heart of MPR Iron Range forum
Every society has its elite. That might not seem possible here on the Iron Range, where ore dust still clings to old company houses and Mich Golden Light cans dot the ditches like poor man’s glitter. But even the Iron Range has its elite: the professional meeting-attenders, money-handlers and vote-collectors. They aren’t all bad people.…