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Former Sen. Dayton shows big heart on the Range
Kudos to former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton for stepping up to help a young woman with a rare heart condition from my former hometown of Cherry, Minnesota. Apparently this isn’t the first time Dayton has helped pay medical expenses for people in need. Dayton may not have enjoyed his time in the Senate, but he…
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UPDATE: Minnesota moves up wind power rankings
Take a look at this post from Bluestem Prairie, citing a Rochester Bulletin story. Minnesota has moved into third place nationally for wind power generation. And that doesn’t include those lean 25 MW from Taconite Ridge on the Iron Range set to go online this year. Minnesota is windy, let’s make that work for us.…
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The future of small town media in 1,000 words
A really interesting comment about local newspaper websites crossed the blog yesterday morning. As you may know, the ACM family of newspapers on the Iron Range now require readers to sign up for a free account to use its newspapers’ websites. A MinnesotaBrown blog reader responded to the change in this way: What the hell…
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Over at MNBlue today…
I’m running errands this morning, but will be back with some newer material tonight. Meantime, check out my latest contributions at www.mnblue.com. They are rehashes of material I’ve posted here before about wind power on the Iron Range and the potential Republican challenger to U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar. Sometimes the discussions take interesting turns with…
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March: In like a ?, out like a ?
As I was walking through brown, crappy snow and lamenting the fact that I picked the wrong kind of jacket to wear … again! … I had a flashback to first grade at my now-defunct Forbes Elementary (My elementary school closed in 1988 and is now a bar called “The Boondocks”). We would make these…
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Iron Range editor pens fascinating Obama speech analysis
Sen. Barack Obama’s speech on race, “A More Perfect Union,” was designed to open a national dialogue to chart a way past the racial bitterness of the past. It was also, from a practical standpoint, designed to put out the flames of controversy that had engulfed Obama’s campaign after inflammatory video of hateful comments by…
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Weathering the economic storm, Range style
Here is my weekly Hibbing Daily Tribune column for Sunday, March 30, 2008. I archive my columns at my writing homepage if you’re interested in reading more. Weathering the economic storm, Range styleBy Aaron J. Brown, for the Hibbing Daily Tribune So we’re in a recession, or a correction, or some other kind of “…tion”…
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Coal Hacks Are Making Propaganda (CHAMP!)
There’s an ad in this week’s Scenic Range News (a weekly newspaper on the western Mesabi Range) promoting a new group, CHAMP, or Citizens Happy About the Mesaba Project. This is an obvious turn on CAMP, Citizens Against the Mesaba Project, a large well-organized citizen group that has held the line against Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba…
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Thanks … now the work continues
A belated thank you to all the people who have attended the KAXE Community Journalism Project blog sessions across the Iron Range. We held our third session in Virginia last night and a great group of people spurred a good discussion of community blogging. The work continues. Stay tuned for news about future sessions and…
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Turbine time!
From today’s Mesabi Daily News: Work is progressing rapidly on the Taconite Ridge Wind Turbine project in Mountain Iron. These towers are part of a ten tower project which will produce 25 megawatts of power and will be hooked into the Minnesota Power grid. When completed the towers will be about 315 tall. Photo by…
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Blog revolution needs more revolutionaries
UPDATE: We’re on! You can still register, but we have enough people to hold the session now and you can just show up if you want. If you’re interested, please register for Wednesday night’s free blogging seminar at in room C-156 at Mesabi Range Community and Technical College in Virginia. You can just show up…
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‘Round the dinner table on the Iron Range
I can’t stress enough the importance for Democrats to resolve the presidential race soon, before the convention, before June and preferably before Memorial Day. I write from the Iron Range, a place that gets little attention in political coverage ironically because of its reliably important role in Minnesota’s electoral makeup. The Range delivers 40 point…
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Fate of Iron Range school district hangs in the balance
Education remains one of the top political issues (and largest portion of the state budget) in Minnesota. But on the Iron Range, education takes on special importance. Here’s why: 1) As a blue-collar region with an immigrant history, quality public education has been the #1 priority for the Iron Range for about a century. It…
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Range town wants balls back
From today’s Mesabi Daily News, the new administration in Virginia, Minn., has revived the tradition of the annual “Mayor’s Ball,” a big formal dance that was abandoned by his predecessor. I’m sure this adult prom is a fun tradition and that it could raise money for charity (in this case, perhaps a bit too ironically,…
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Closing gender gap in Range leadership a worthy goal
This is my weekly column for the Sunday, March 23, 2008 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. My columns are archived at my writing page. Closing gender gap in Range leadership a worthy goalBy Aaron J. Brown Anyone familiar with the news these days knows that the issues of race and gender play a big…