Minnesota Brown

Minnesota Brown: Modern Life on the Iron Range

Category: News

  • For peat’s sake

    For peat’s sake

    Today, I share my latest column for the Minnesota Reformer, “Bog is Dead: The waning defense of Minnesota wetlands.”  When most people think about northern Minnesota, they picture forests and lakes. That’s understandable. We have a lot of trees and lakes up here, to be sure. But many overlook the vast peatlands that span the…

  • Notes from the basement

    Notes from the basement

    The world seems awash with news and events I’d have blogged about in recent years. Mining industry scuttlebutt. Duluth fighter jets shooting down UFOs. Fortunately, some other writers are on the job, including Jerry Burnes and Leah Ryan of the new Iron Range Today. It was no surprise that former State Sen. Tom Bakk signed…

  • The old roads are rapidly agin’

    The old roads are rapidly agin’

    Today you can read my latest column for the Minnesota Reformer. Don’t tell anyone, but there’s a Bible verse etched above one of the entry doors to the Mesabi East High School in Aurora, Minnesota. It reads, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18). Though the biblical meaning is distinctly conformist and…

  • MinnesotaBrown’s Top Posts of 2022

    MinnesotaBrown’s Top Posts of 2022

    ↔ Another year has come and gone, and what reason — what good reason — could I give you to look back at my written work of 2022? Are we not awash in such tripe? Is there no end to the vainglory that impels the propagation of a “website” run by a “newspaper columnist”?  Well,…

  • Range’s icy disposition toward Twin Cities pushes rightward swing

    Range’s icy disposition toward Twin Cities pushes rightward swing

    I know some readers might miss my election night liveblogs, but I was quite relieved to be free of that job this year. For one thing, St. Louis and Itasca county results didn’t really start coming in until midnight. Most races weren’t really known until 3. I slept through all of that, woke up Wednesday…

  • Tensions over potential mine closure boil over days before election

    Tensions over potential mine closure boil over days before election

    I wrote several different versions of a post yesterday after news broke and then unbroke regarding the potential closure of Hibbing Taconite. Fortunately, I was too busy to post any of them before newer information came in. So today I wrote a piece for the Minnesota Reformer analyzing the complex economic and political storm brewing…

  • New disc golf course in Balsam Township

    New disc golf course in Balsam Township

    Please indulge a proud dad moment. Our oldest son Henry Brown was featured on WDIO News last night for his Eagle Scout project. Raising almost $7,000 in cash and in-kind donations, with the help of 24 volunteers, Henry built a nine-hole disc golf course at Balsam Community Park near our home in the woods. He…

  • The spirit of Paul Wellstone, 20 years later

    The spirit of Paul Wellstone, 20 years later

    I think a person’s politics should be a journey, not a destination. While my politics have mostly stayed on one side of the mountain, they’ve made quite a few switchbacks along the incline. Am I a radical big time liberal or is it just that I like school? But I do recall the speech by…

  • Red October, no surprise

    Red October, no surprise

    I’m still editing the big book, so most of my northern Minnesota political analysis has been confined to my columns in the Mesabi Tribune and Minnesota Reformer these days. Even there, I’ve avoided horse race politics this cycle, mostly out of disinterest. But sometimes the horses stick their heads through your front window. This week…

  • Core Conversations on the future of mining in northern Minnesota

    Core Conversations on the future of mining in northern Minnesota

    Last Friday I made my television hosting debut with a special episode of Almanac North on WDSE. It’s part of a quarterly series called “Core Conversations.” This one focused on the future of the mining industry in northern Minnesota. You can view the episode in the embedded video above or by following the link. Guests…

  • Brown on the Air: TV hosting debut on Almanac North

    Brown on the Air: TV hosting debut on Almanac North

    Though I wish this would have happened 15 years and six stones ago, I’ll be making my television news hosting debut this Friday, Oct. 7, in Duluth. As a print and radio-trained journalist, I view this as a mildly terrifying exercise in experimental broadcasting. At 8 p.m., you can watch a special episode of Almanac North…

  • 100 years of fascism, here and abroad

    100 years of fascism, here and abroad

    My latest essay for the Minnesota Reformer is out today: “Fascism from Italy to Hibbing and back again.” In recent years I’ve avoided the hyperbole and repetition of our national political debate. My thinking has been that you don’t really need another Trump/Biden screed that only reinforces what you already believe. I seek instead to…

  • The labor movement strikes back

    The labor movement strikes back

    Last week, my oldest son and I were camping in the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota. It was an important trip for us; a rite of passage. It’s his last year in Scouting and he’s starting college today. More on that trip later. While I was gone, my latest essay for the Minnesota…

  • Good vibes only? To be determined

    Good vibes only? To be determined

    What, pray tell, are “vibes?” People talk about them. They fill the zeitgeist. Vibes dictate how we feel about everything. And yet we have precious little understanding of the highly emotional sentiments that influence our purchases, name our next government, and shape our state of mind today and tomorrow.  My latest piece for the Minnesota…

  • Iron Range parades, street dances & fireworks for Independence Day 2022

    Iron Range parades, street dances & fireworks for Independence Day 2022

    My tradition of sharing a concise, convenient listing of Fourth of July weekend parades, street dances and fireworks displays in northern Minnesota’s Iron Range region continues in 2022. This is a small miracle. I was very close to throwing in the towel this year. One son’s travel baseball schedule demands a lot of time in…