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FARGO REVIEW: Episode 9: ‘The Castle’
The ninth episode of “Fargo” Season 2, entitled “The Castle” aired last night on FX. What follows is a Minnesota-centric review that contains spoilers. This year, “Fargo” takes us to Southwestern Minnesota in 1979, the same year I was born on the other side of the state. A small town family crime syndicate based in Fargo…
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LIVE BLOG: MN House 3A Special Election today
Today voters head to the polls in Minnesota District 3A. This district is the state’s largest geographic House seat sprawling across Koochiching, northern and eastern St. Louis, most of Lake and all of Cook counties. This is a special election to replace the late Rep. David Dill (DFL-Crane Lake), who died last summer. Polls will…
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Season 3 of Fargo will be set 2008ish
As many here know, I review the TV show “Fargo” in between my usual fodder about news, politics and life in Northern Minnesota. Last week we learned that Noah Hawley and FX are bringing “Fargo” back for a third season. I even waxed poetic about how I would like to see a season set on the…
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Devil in the details for Steelworkers special session
Gov. Mark Dayton and Senate DFLers are still seeking a special session to help Steelworkers whose unemployment will run out between now and March. They also seek economic measures to address racial disparities in the state. As we discussed last week, House Republicans declined to support such a session unless Dayton established support for two controversial projects, the…
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Navasota project tied to Minnesota Power plan
Earlier this week, I shared a developing story about a new natural gas peaking plant proposed for the city of Cohasset, home of Minnesota Power’s giant Clay Boswell coal-fired power plant. After a great deal of initial confusion, we established that the $300 million proposal by Navasota Energy of Texas for a 400 MW plant…
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Tense Essar negotiations with Dayton, contractors
UPDATE: Today, Gov. Dayton’s spokesperson Matt Swenson issued this statement, which indicates that Essar is issuing new capital into its Nashwauk project: “Governor Mark Dayton spoke Thursday afternoon with IRRRB Commissioner Mark Phillips and Cathy Polasky from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), to discuss the status of Essar Steel Minnesota’s payments…
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FARGO REVIEW: Episode 8, “Loplop”
The eighth episode of “Fargo” Season 2, entitled “Loplop” aired last night on FX. What follows is a Minnesota-centric review that contains spoilers. This year, “Fargo” takes us to Southwestern Minnesota in 1979, the same year I was born on the other side of the state. A small town family crime syndicate based in Fargo is…
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Talking Iron Range woes on MPR
This morning at 11 I’ll be on Minnesota Public Radio News with Tom Weber talking about the economic slump that has hit the Iron Range mining industry. Other guests include Tony Barrett, an economics professor at St. Scholastica in Duluth, and Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk of Cook. I’ve written about the downturn in the iron ore…
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Gov. Dayton to Essar: Pay contractors now
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton says that if Essar Steel Minnesota doesn’t pay outstanding bills to its contractors by the end of the businesses day on Wednesday, he will call the state’s $66 million loan in full. Essar seeks to build a $2.6 billion taconite plant on the western Mesabi Iron Range, but has been plagued by…
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The not-so-special election in MN House 3A
Remember when the Iron Range political structure appeared poised for street riots heading into a closely-watched DFL primary in House District 3A? Anyway, that was a thing that happened not that long ago. Today we are just shy of a week away from the Dec. 8 House 3A general election that will determine who actually heads…
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Cohasset proposes $300 million power plant
UPDATE: New information offers more clarity to this story. Cohasset City Administrator Max Peters said that the city backed the Navosota project as a matter of routine for potential buyers for lots in its industrial park. Though there are other bidders for this project in the Upper Midwest, this is the only one looking at…
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WWI Christmas Truce musical in Chisholm Dec. 2
War is hell. But the kind of hell seen in The Great War, now known as World War I, is hard to understand today. See, there are terrible wars in our times, but they are fought with an understanding of what modern wars are. In WWI, soldiers were sent to battlefields trained for old wars without…
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Makers unite for Iron Range Makerspace
Some of you might recall my Oct. 11 column “Tinkers, Thinkers and 3-D Printers,” in which I suggested one way to diversify the Iron Range economy was to develop homegrown inventions and entrepreneurship. In that piece, I talked about “maker spaces,” places where dues-paying members would have access to sophisticated building, welding and milling equipment along with 3-D printers.…
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Happy Thanksgiving on the Iron Range
Happy Thanksgiving! To you, reader of MinnesotaBrown.com, however you got here, I am thankful for you. This blog doesn’t make much money and it hasn’t made me famous, but it has become a authoritative source for news, commentary, and discussion about Northern Minnesota, my home and the place I love. I didn’t make a…
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Everybody wants to save the Range
I can’t stand this indecision Married with a lack of vision Everybody wants to rule the world Say that you’ll never never never never need it One headline why believe it? Everybody wants to rule the world ~ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears So, that’s the tune, only try it…