If you ask folks to name something about the Minnesota state flag, most would remark “It’s blue.” And, for the most part, it is blue. With some gobbledegook in the middle. Now, perhaps you’ve spent some time looking closer at that gobbledegook, enough time to realize that it looks like one of those old newspaper…

Modern heating technology and time-tested knowhow makes living in Northern Minnesota much easier than it was for our ancestors. Sure, the harsh winter conditions might cause a few angry comments on social media (we get it, your face hurts). True, the cold creates real danger in certain situations, especially if people fail to wear adequate clothing or face other…

If you haven’t heard yet, the duly elected State Senator from the Iron Range, David Tomassoni (DFL-Chisholm), recently announced he would take a job as Executive Director of the Range Association of Municipalities and Schools (RAMS) while continuing to serve in the Senate. RAMS is a public influence group that helps Range cities and schools…

Each day the sun cracks the ramparts of Northern Minnesota’s great boreal forest, filters through trees into my little blue house on the hill, illuminating a world quite unlike the televised universe of “Good Morning America.” Nevertheless, each day we let the TV talk our ears off while we ingest the coffee, toast and overnight…

For me, one of the biggest difference-makers in my life was going to college. What success I’ve found comes not only from the degree I earned, but from the growth I experienced trying to get that degree. Like many of my fellow 1990s high school graduates, I was taught that if you had the will,…

Winter birds eat what they can to survive, including some berries that have been out a little too long. This leads to a common phenomenon this time of year: birds drunk on fermented berries. National Geographic wrote about this last month, even describing a sort of rehab program used on some exceedingly drunk waxwings in…

Today is my 35th birthday. With this monumental occasion comes an important announcement. Despite now being constitutionally eligible to run for President of the United States, I am suspending my campaign to do so which began 1992 in Mr. Softich’s sixth grade class at the Cherry School. When they brought in the button making press…

Christmas arrives Thursday. This, after weeks of new Yuletide songs mixed by club DJs trying to pay mortgages, blinking houses and assorted efforts to render consumerism as Christ-like as possible. For those who celebrate Christmas, nothing can compete with joyous hope of the actual holiday. For everyone else, the promise of a return to normal…

To continue my annual tradition of writing about the year’s top words and how they shape our world I will have to explain not just the word, but the very concept of “emoji” to many, many grandmas and grandpas, including my own, who will read these words as ink on paper. If I survive, and…

When leaders in Northern Minnesota talk about the importance of our young people, the words often dressed in paternalistic tone. You get a sort of verbal head pat that would make most anyone blush or roll their eyes. In any case, the conversation is generally one-sided. Elected officials on the Iron Range, especially in local…

Talking weather in Northern Minnesota is dangerous business. There is very little chance of being right about anything. Conditions change too quickly to allow anyone but a hibernating bear to be properly prepared. In short, conversations about weather are just meaningless filler between meaningful nonverbal grunts, the sounds actual Minnesotans use to communicate language, art…

Like most Iron Range children of the 1980s, I once dreamed of a future in my state’s metropolitan area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. My family’s rare visits to the Big City bright lights, shiny tall buildings and teeming freeways were such a contrast to the dull world of trailer houses, shuttered windows and forever…