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FARGO REVIEW: Episode 3, ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’
The third episode of “Fargo” Season 2, entitled “The Myth of Sisyphus,” 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…
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Great Northern ‘goin’ up the country’ for Nov. 7 barn show
The blog will be entering another “hot idle” for the same reason as last time. I’ve got a show to write. On Saturday, Nov. 7, my Great Northern Radio Show will broadcast live from Larson’s Barn outside McGregor, Minnesota. The show airs 5-7 p.m. on Northern Community Radio and its northern translators. To be clear, we…
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FARGO REVIEW: Episode 2, ‘Before the Law’
The second episode of “Fargo” Season 2, entitled “Before the Law,” 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…
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Don Ness, Teague Alexy take book tour to Iron Range
On Wednesday, Oct. 21, Duluth mayor Don Ness and musician Teague Alexy will bring their shared book tour across the Mesabi Iron Range. Ness’s book is “Hillsider: Snapshots of a Curious Political Journey,” a self-published creative memoir combining essays, stories and photographs by the popular outgoing mayor of the Zenith City. Alexy’s book is “The New Folklore:…
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Heads of state named ‘Justin’ nearing reality
UPDATE: Justin Trudeau and the Liberals won a majority government in Monday’s election. It was an unexpected rout. I’ve long foreseen a world in which heads of state — including one day a U.S. President — might be named “Justin.” Lots of kids are named Justin now. And once the Justins take over, then come…
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Creative space the next frontier for libraries?
This is a follow-up on my Oct. 11 column “Thinkers, tinkers, and 3-D printers,” which explores 3-D printing and efforts to support local innovation and ideas in Iron Range economic development. After that piece went to print, I learned more about how maker spaces are becoming the vogue. For one thing, I was not aware that Duluth,…
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Cliffs CEO threatens to close mine
UPDATE: Cliffs Natural Resources spent most of Monday trying to walk back Goncalves’s comments about closing an Iron Range mine. ### Lourenco Goncalves, CEO of Cliffs Natural Resources, is threatening to close one of Cliffs’ Iron Range mines in the event Essar Steel opens its new mine near Nashwauk. This is Bill Hanna’s front page story of today’s…
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FARGO REVIEW: Episode 1, ‘Waiting for Dutch’
The success of the first season of “Fargo” on FX was one of the best surprises of television last year. The 10-episode short-run series was ambitious, daring, heartfelt and yet still true to the spirit of the original acclaimed movie (without being too derivative). After the early reviews of the second season, which debuted last night,…
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Veda Ponikvar: America’s Iron Lady
Veda Ponikvar, founder and publisher of two Chisholm newspapers, esteemed American civilian military leader, and arguably the most powerful person in Iron Range politics of the latter 20th Century, died Tuesday in Chisholm at the age of 96. One could remark that Ponikvar was the most consequential women in the male-dominated industrial history of the Iron Range.…
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Gov. Dayton, officials meet with Essar to negotiate repayment
On Monday, Gov. Mark Dayton and Iron Range lawmakers, along with officials from the state Department of Employment and Economic Development, met with representatives of Essar Minnesota. Essar is building a new taconite mine on the western Mesabi Iron Range, but scuttled initial plans to build a value-added steel mill on the site, all while…
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A Minnesota guide to ‘Fargo, Season 2’
UPDATE: Read my Minnesota-centric “Fargo” reviews for Seasons 1 and 2 at my “Fargo” review page. Tonight at 9 p.m. CST (Fargo universal time) the sophomore season premiere of “Fargo” airs on FX. Noah Hawley’s macabre Midwestern series, inspired by the acclaimed Coen Brothers movie of the same name, will bring an entirely new story, cast…
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How mean is Lake Superior?
Last week, Lake Superior Magazine ran an interesting infographic story titled “How Big is Lake Superior?” (Big). The centerpiece was a news graphic showing the outline of Lake Superior placed over the eastern sea board, a span stretching from Baltimore to Boston. The rest of the story talked about how much water was in Lake Superior.…
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Looking down on the Laurentian Divide
As we see the autumn leaves of the Iron Range reach peak colors, already beginning to fall in my corner of Itasca County, enjoy this recent video by Above the Range, a YouTube channel dedicated to aerial footage of Northern Minnesota scenery. See it here: The Laurentian Divide is the geographical “rock” (no pun intended) of…
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Neutrinos in the news
Two scientists, one Japanese and the other Canadian, are sharing this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics. Their combined research helped confirm that neutrinos — the tiny, invisible particles that abound throughout the universe — have mass. From the Reuters report: Takaaki Kajita and Arthur McDonald’s breakthrough was the discovery of a phenomenon called neutrino oscillation that…
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Seeing indigenous history on the Iron Range
For many reasons, the stories of native Northern Minnesota and the Northern Minnesota that formed after European and American settlement are often considered entirely separate matters in most history classes and casual conversation. The latter, written by the ancestors of most people who live here, tends to get much more attention. If kids learn about the prior, it’s usually…