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Iron Range newspaper profiles early ‘silence breakers’
On Sunday, the Mesabi Daily News featured a major story about the #metoo movement with a special tie to Northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. Penned by editor Jerry Burnes and reporter Leah Ryan, “One of the First Silence Breakers” includes an interview with Lois Jensen, the original Eveleth Mines sexual harassment case plaintiff. This story is…
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Itasca County special election coasts to Dec. 12
On Tuesday, Dec. 12, voters will finally cast their ballots in the Itasca County District 5 commissioner special election called more than half a year ago. The seat opened with the resignation of Commissioner Mark Mandich on June 21. County officials scheduled a special election an insane six months later, with a primary in October.…
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2018 becoming year of reckoning in Minnesota
Today, U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) is expected to resign amid numerous credible accusations of past inappropriate behavior with women. This according to a report by Minnesota Public Radio. I wrote about Franken in the context of the larger issue of sexual harassment and abuse of power in a Nov. 26 column. In full disclosure,…
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‘Blue-Collar Battleground’ opens at Chisholm museum
Job creation. Job training. Worker shortage. Part time work. Stagnant wages. Higher productivity. Health care. Retirement savings. These words filter through our news like water down a pipe, presenting clear evidence that the “labor history” of America is hardly finished. Rather, we’re living in the continuation of an unresolved labor movement. This Thursday, Dec. 7,…
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Beep-Boop, you can drive my car
News coverage of driverless cars tends to skew from “Oh, wow, look at these fancy gadgets” to “Look out, the robots are taking over!” But we’re going to need to take a very real look at autonomous vehicle technology. After all, it will dramatically reshape our lives in Northern Minnesota. Like most change, the issue…
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Rural housing crunch hits home
One of the biggest challenges in moving to Northern Minnesota is finding housing. The same struggle broadly applies to all of rural Minnesota. Sure, we’ve got lots of houses. “For sale” signs dot the streets of Iron Range communities. But if you’re not looking to buy, or especially if you’re not looking to buy what…
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MN Sunday liquor basically fine, nothing special
There’s a lady who smokes outside this one liquor store I drive by fairly often. I think she works there. She was out there again last Sunday. That got me wondering, how are Sunday sales going? Well, the local paper was a step ahead of me. I saw this later that day. A Nov. 26…
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Hill Annex Mine State Park to change … but how?
Rumors of the demise of Hill Annex Mine State Park have abounded for a long time. For one thing, it’s an odd state park. Hill Annex serves as more of a museum of mining history coupled awkwardly with a massive trove of pre-historic fossils. (The amount of fossils blown to smithereens in the history of…
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Dig Deep on political realignment
This month, the Northern Community Radio Podcast “Dig Deep” considered the topic of political realignment. The episodes aired on the radio last week. This program features conservative commentator Chuck Marohn and myself, the liberal commentator. The goal is not argument, however, but the open and honest exploration of new ways to understand and even solve…
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Diary of a Thanksgiving Turkey
[FREEZE FRAME] *record scratch* Yep, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I got here. It started the Friday before Thanksgiving. I was just chilling in my containment pen with a few dozen of my genetically selected pals. All of a sudden, one of the Grabby No Beaks yanks me up by the neck and drags…
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New broadband grants include Northern MN projects
Today the State of Minnesota announced $26 million in grants for 39 projects in the Border to Border Broadband initiative. Almost 10,000 households will receive affordable access to high speed internet as a result of these investments. “It’s not fair when almost 20 percent of Greater Minnesota households don’t have the same high-speed internet connections…
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Make or break moment for Iron Range mining projects
I’m part of a tortured, high-strung group of people who receive regular e-mail and social media updates about the mining business. It’s part of my duty to better understand the industry that shapes Iron Range history and its current economy. And in recent months the news has been far less depressing than usual. For instance,…
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Don’t cry for me, Bloomington: MN loses World’s Fair to Argentina
The World’s Fair. One quickly imagines the art deco poster of the touchstone 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Heck, that poster hangs in my home office. Or maybe we recall the fact that Montreal named a professional baseball team after the fact that they had the World Expo in 1967. An American delegation from…
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New project seeks the meaning of ‘Grace’ in Bovey
You’ve seen the photo. An elderly man bows his head in prayer before a modest meal of bread and oatmeal. A large Bible rests on the table, perhaps read after dinner. Eric Enstrom took this picture in Bovey, Minnesota, in 1918. The subject, a local peddler named Charles Wilden. Wilden was better known locally as…
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Northern Minnesota already firing up the SAD bus
It’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but Northern Minnesotans already grow weary with an early winter. In fact, stories about Seasonal Affective Disorder, or “SAD” appear on the news, seemingly months ahead of schedule. SAD generates depression-like symptoms in people, primarily during short, dark winter days. The lack of daylight is one of the leading causes.…