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Range colleges have new boss
Even though I am the boss of this blog, I am not the boss at the job that pays my bills. Dr. Sue Collins is on track to become the next president of the Northeast Higher Education District, which includes five community and technical colleges in or around the Iron Range. As I am an…
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Wassomatta Tech?
As fans of Bullwinkle know, Minnesota is home to the fictional college “Wassomatta U,” where the famous moose received his education (and played football). Well, Bullwinkle’s fictional, highly theoretical children (mooselets?) might be headed off to Wassomatta Tech. During this election year, we’re bound to hear plenty of criticism and debate about the federal “No…
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Sounds like a summer blockbuster …
From a piece called “The Dude Vote” by Edward McLelland of Salon.com, by way of the Star Tribune. “I wish [Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama] could run together,” [blogger Thomas] Stodder swoons. “They’d be like one of those old 1970s cop shows — the crusty old seen-it-all guy who goes by his gut, partnered…
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Seven weeks is a long damn time
Today is the political equivalent of Groundhog Day. The sewer rat saw his shadow, so now we have seven more weeks of bullshit. I need to take a break from worrying about the national presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton had a good night in Ohio, Rhode Island and the Texas primary. My guy, Barack Obama, won…
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Country life turned this driver soft in the city
Sorry, today was a blogging bust for me. I was in Duluth most of the day visiting my grandma in the hospital. She’s doing much better; recovering well from a near-fatal aortic aneurysm two weeks ago. She pulled out her own feeding tube two days ago and threatened to do the same with her chest…
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House bonding bill includes partial funds for key Range projects
The Minnesota House of Representatives’ proposed bonding bill includes money for the Essar Minnesota Steel plant near Nashwauk and to abate the flood risk at the Canisteo Pit near Bovey. I hear that the governor is sticking to his guns about the creation of the Vermilion State Park I mentioned yesterday, however, which means that…
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Vermilion state park plan lives
One of the odd things that happened last year is that Gov. Tim Pawlenty proposed something new for the Iron Range that the state and even some local leaders didn’t even ask for or especially want. Pawlenty suggested that the state buy land along Lake Vermilion from U.S. Steel to create a new state park.…
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The "Coleman Letters" controversy
By now, you may have read the news about Sen. Norm Coleman’s campaign distributing mass letters to the editor for supporters to submit to papers around Minnesota. (MPR, MNPublius, AP). The letters were criticizing Coleman opponent Al Franken, the leading Democrat. While encouraging supporters to write letters to the editor is common practice, the concept…
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Help a Range family this weekend
This Saturday night, March 1, there will be a fundraiser for an Iron Range family at the Hibbing VFW. The Kempas experienced tremendous joy and a terrible scare all within one week last year. Just six days after Ben and Katie welcomed their first daughter Aunika into the world, Katie suffered an almost fatal brain…
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House Republicans purge the infidels
A lot of DFLers were surprised that the six Republican state representatives who supported the transportation bill stuck with the coalition in overriding Gov. Pawlenty’s veto. But the roads need to be fixed and I suppose these six finally got sick of the “no new tax, unless it’s a fee” games played by Pawlenty and…
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Graphic designers lining up with Obama
This might be for strung out political junkies like me more so than “normal human beings,” but check out this story about Barack Obama’s unprecedented use of branding and design in his campaign. A graphic designer tells an interviewer how Obama’s font-choice represents a much larger future trend in political branding. Yes, it’s a story…
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Excelsior’s new strategy?
Excelsior Energy is running large, color ads in the Mesabi Daily News thanking the Iron Range for all its support for their boondoggle coal gas power plant called the Mesaba Energy Project. Of course, the lobbyist-run company’s most important supporters are the ones on their political contributions list, but I suppose the sentiment is nice.…
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Clinton and Iraq: a metaphor?
Frank Rich from the New York Times wrote a great column yesterday (“The Audacity of Hopelessness“) detailing the logical fallacies about Hillary Clinton’s current campaign strategy as she makes her final push for Ohio and Texas. It’s not just that her candidacy’s central premise — the priceless value of “experience” — was fatally poisoned from…
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Out-of-town small town paper profiles a Range small town landmark
Many Iron Rangers know that Hibbing, positioned in the heart of the Mesabi Range, is the birthplace of the Greyhound Bus Company and home to the Greyhound Bus Museum, an interesting destination that is both informative and included on most lists of government pork projects released by public watchdog groups each year. Hey, what’s an…
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Smoky logic abounds in bar theater scheme
During last year’s debate about the statewide workplace smoking ban in the Minnesota legislature, I kept asking, “why, oh why, does the Iron Range have to strike this pose again?” Here we are, a land of change-resistant Don Quixotes who howl at the moon to keep smoking rights but snooze when public dollars are funneled…