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The weekly social report
What the heck? Here’s a link to a story about a party written by a newspaper’s legislative correspondent. The Ranger Party, a celebrated annual tradition at the State Capitol, was Monday night. I didn’t mention it yesterday because when you write from a woodland bunker on the actual Iron Range, every night is a Ranger…
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Water Wars
This Duluth News Tribune op/ed by Rolf Westgard details the most underrated issue northern Minnesota will face in the next century: our water. We’ve got it. The world needs it. This could be a problem. Read the full text. Related posts: No related posts.
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I’ve got the munchies just thinking about it
From today’s Hibbing Daily Tribune, under the headline “North Hibbing, high school used for film“: HIBBING — North Hibbing and Hibbing High School were recently used as settings for a film depicting how time is a “human conception.” And how, no matter how hard one tries, the past cannot be physically revisited. Or, can it?…
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News from the equinox
This is my weekly column for the Sunday, March 29, 2009 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A version of this piece will air on next week’s “Between You and Me,” Saturday morning on 91.7 KAXE. News from the equinox By Aaron J. Brown Last week we welcomed the spring equinox. Note that I did…
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Don’t be demagogin’
Wanna see an editorial about the ongoing debate over booster seats in Minnesota that contains this phrase: Come on, this issue is open for debate. Don’t demagogue it. AND this phrase? While we do not doubt the sincerity of the sponsors of the bill to provide another layer of safety for children, we find it…
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Changes coming to Iron Range medical sector?
The St. Mary’s/Duluth Clinic health system is entering talks with officials at Fairview University Medical Center Mesabi over ways to collaborate on the Iron Range. This Mesabi Daily News story shows the perspective of health care officials in Virginia about the possibility. I kind of get a “Poland 1939” feel off the article, but maybe…
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State Park? Try again, chumps!
U.S. Steel has halted negotiations with the state to turn a large swath of its lands on Lake Vermilion into a new state park. They will now pursue private development of the land. Rich people win again. They’re like the Yankees. Related posts: No related posts.
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Essar remains focused on Range project, despite continued questions
The Duluth News Tribune joins in analyzing those cryptic comments from the chairman of the Essar Group in that Indian newspaper. The question is how Essar Steel can finance a project the size of their proposed Nashwauk mine and steel mill in this economy. The company remains insistent that they are building the project. I’ll…
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Paper: Iron Range site work continues for Essar Steel
The Hibbing Daily Tribune is following up on the questions raised about Essar Steel’s new Nashwauk mine and steel mill. An Essar official recently told an Indian business publication that the project was “on hold.” However, the Tribune story says that local site work continues and it seems no one has been told anything but…
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Range paper reports on conflicting Essar Steel statements
The dog has been wagged. The Hibbing Daily Tribune is reporting on the Essar Steel quotes from the same Hindu Business Line story that I cited on Tuesday. The story quotes Essar’s top official saying that a project in southeastern India was going forward because North American projects were on hold until steel demand is…
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Ain’t no party like a Chisholm party (’cause a Chisholm party don’t stop)
Highway 169 by Chisholm will be out of commission all summer (story from the Duluth News Tribune). From April 1 until first snow, traffic will be routed through downtown Chisholm while repair work is done on the highway. The road travels over an “underworld” of underground mine shafts that have been collapsing and shifting for…
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Many Minorca miners to stay on during summer shutdown
Some good news: The Mesabi Daily News reports that ArcelorMittal has scheduled more than half of its workers during this summer’s planned shutdown of its Minorca Mine in Virginia, Minn. The miners will be kept on the clock for maintenance work instead of being . The Steelworkers Union announced that many senior workers are voluntarily…
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Physics + stimulus= jobs … and/or mutants
Federal economic stimulus efforts now include $40.1 million for a unique physics experiment just north of the Iron Range that I don’t fully understand. The Mesabi Daily News reports. The $178 million NOvA neutrino experiment has been studying the mass of the universe by shooting high energy subatomic particles from the Fermi Lab complex near…
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Essar officials indicate Nashwauk plant on hold
The top official for Essar Steel told The Hindu Business Line that their U.S. and Caribbean mining and steel projects were on hold until “some clarity emerges on the demand.” This includes the Essar Steel Minnesota project near Nashwauk. That’s reasonably consistent with what they’ve been telling U.S. media, but a good deal more stark…
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A ‘vital’ life in the ‘Zone of Plenty’
One of the best things about writing a book like “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range” is all the stories, clippings and first hand accounts that people give you afterward that weren’t in my book. This little number arrived in the mail last week from a Mr. Earl Currie. It’s a 1943 advertisement for…