My latest column for the Minnesota Star Tribune is out today: “Child care is expensive, but no one is getting rich from it.” Monday is “Day Without Child Care” in Minnesota. Child care providers, families and employers will raise awareness and lobby for policies that reduce the cost and improve the availability of child care… Read More →
Trump’s tariffs heralded by steel, harrumphed by manufacturing
February 11, 2025 by Leave a Comment
I hold a dim memory from childhood of an afghan quilt just a little too small for my J.C. Penney “husky boy” body. If I pulled the blanket up to my chin, my feet would stick out. If I covered my feet, my nose would get cold. Only when I balled myself up could I… Read More →
How the Iron Range became an outpost of the oligarchy
January 21, 2025 by 1 Comment
Today, I’ve got a new essay in the Minnesota Reformer: “Just like Big Tech, American steel lines up with Trump oligarchy.” We’re living in a period of accelerated change. But certain trends have been brewing for a while, and one of them is the rise of an oligarchy in the United States. You may have… Read More →
Election Day! Election Night! Election Week?
November 5, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Please forgive some brief wistfulness over the old days here at MinnesotaBrown.com. On an Election Day like today, I once breathlessly live blogged northern Minnesota election from the closing of polls to the final results. I nurtured a network of courthouse moles across the region and sometimes was the first to call races on the… Read More →
Blue dirt, red dirt, dust to dust
October 27, 2024 by 1 Comment
My latest column, “When a blue district turns red, the dirt stays the same” is in the Sunday, Oct. 27 Minnesota Star Tribune. The “Iron Range is shifting to the GOP” story is now a well-worn trope in Minnesota media and political chatter. As a 20-year columnist in the region, I’ve documented every inch of… Read More →
Who’s driving the bus?
September 3, 2024 by Leave a Comment
It’s back to school season! For me, this has always been a special time of year. I loved school as a kid. College, too. I covered education as a reporter and editor. Then I became a college instructor. As a parent, school meant something different: freedom, maybe, but also the growth and development of those… Read More →
As flames rise, true progress beckons
August 5, 2024 by Leave a Comment
My latest essay for the Minnesota Reformer, “As flames rise, true progress beckons,” is out today. This column continues last week’s exploration of the natural world in an industrial landscape. Go back far enough and you realize that words don’t always mean what we think they do. Call someone a “nimrod” today and they’re likely… Read More →
Children of the slash pile
July 25, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Today, my latest essay, “Children of the Slash Pile” ran in the Minnesota Reformer. Here’s an excerpt: Working people came in like aspens, regenerating what was destroyed, with no memory of what came before. Today, some of us enjoy the privilege of thinking we’ve always lived here. In realizing this, we might better understand the… Read More →
Interview highlights relatability of rural health care woes
July 9, 2024 by Leave a Comment
After my latest essay, “Health care ‘implosion’ in Greater Minnesota,” in the Minnesota Reformer, I received many kind comments and some very insightful responses. Trying to help my mom after her stroke has been something of a private matter until now. It’s nice to feel the support, even when we’re all still exploring what solutions… Read More →
Rural health care system barely holding on
July 3, 2024 by 1 Comment
My latest essay for the Minnesota Reformer is out today. Read it now. Longtime readers know that my mother suffered a serious stroke in late 2022 that changed her life and, to a lesser extent, mine. Every time we see a new doctor or medical provider, they look at her chart and remark how few… Read More →
