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Super Bowl bread and circuses
“Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.” ~Roman poet Juvenal, circa 100 A.D.…
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Laskiainen 2016: the flax and the furious
(The complete Laskiainen schedule is at the bottom of this post) The winter doldrums of Northern Minnesota now roll over us with workmanlike routine. Don hats and gloves. Scrape the windshield. Warm up the car. Walk like a penguin. Repeat. Perhaps small comfort, but true the same, is how for millennia these same cold squalls…
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Talkin’ middle school parking lot blues
Let me be clear. I do not plan to murder anyone. But if I did the crime would almost certainly take place in the parking lot of my son’s middle school. Winter parking in Northern Minnesota is hard enough. Ice and snow cover the yellow lines. Every slight maneuver involves spinning tires and the risk…
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Fit, just a bit
I recently went to the thrift store to buy “surrender pants.” This is the periodic occasion where I acknowledge that, yes, most of the pants in my house no longer fit. Nevertheless, I am not willing to pay normal prices for new pants. What a waste! Or rather, waist. Both, I guess. Why not? Because,…
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Iron Range lessons from Mars
Every time NASA beams down new pictures from Mars we are reminded how much this desolate planet resembles an Iron Range taconite mine. The red landscape. Pits like craters. Dumps like dunes. Yet, every time commodities prices tumble in topsy-turvy global trade we are also reminded that economic survival here can seem just as difficult…
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Oracle breaks winds of change in 2016
The gas burner spews a flame of blue, red, orange and yellow into the ghostly white sphere above. I’m trying to type on an old manual typewriter, no easy task on a hot flying monstrosity operated by a muskrat. “Gnnaaaaagh!” shouts the muskrat. Steamy breath in cold air, his jaunty captain’s hat adding authority to…
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‘Microaggression’ top word of 2015
Before I begin, have you checked to see what you’re supposed to be outraged about today? See, it’s important to know, because the bulk of small talk in our times dwells on anger over etherial, untouchable matters. That might be a red cup at a coffee shop. The comments of a mayor in a small…
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The year Santa came early on the Iron Range
Every Christmas I’ve known occurred in the same place, in pretty much the same way. We spend Christmas Eve south of Eveleth with the Browns. Christmas is in Keewatin with the Johnsons. It’s been this way since before I can remember, all through childhood and long after I left home and got married. When my…
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Golden opportunity for broadband on the Iron Range
Many people reading this have access to reliable high-speed internet access for less than $60 a month. You use this bountiful bandwidth to work from home, communicate with family, attend college, or help kids with homework. But for people who live in rural townships throughout the Iron Range this service isn’t available. They pay twice…
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A nod to Iron Range roots on every Greyhound Bus
A century ago, a pair of iron miners in Hibbing, Minnesota, began charging 15 cents for a ride on a seven-passenger Hupmobile from Hibbing to Alice Location. Alice, then a bedroom community for miners and their families, would later become the new townsite when Hibbing was moved to access the ore beneath the ground. From this inauspicious beginning, a…
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Iron Range Makerspace: Making something new
In 2014, engineering student Andrew Hanegmon of Hibbing was walking through downtown Pittsburgh when something in a window caught his eye. It was a person working with a laser engraver. He went into the building to find an active maker space, a sensory smorgasbord of computers, electronic equipment, lathes, saws, 3-D printers and more. “I…
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Rich history, stark present, unknown future for iron and steel
From the beginning, humans forged a special relationship with iron. Ancient people knew the mineral before they had the ability to mine it, discovering slabs of pure iron that fell from the sky in meteorites. The Sumerians and Egyptians called it “heaven stone,” according to Brooke C. Stoddard’s in his new book “Steel.” The strength…
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Home for the holidays, as if we ever left
It’s fitting to talk about family reunions this time of year. Everyone’s coming home. First comes Thanksgiving. Then Hanukkah. Christmas. New Years. Car doors slam. Snow crunches on familiar sidewalks. Huggers hug, smokers smoke, the rest waive awkwardly before reaching for snacks. These early winter holidays center around families coming together to celebrate what matters…
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Stop it. Dot com. Dot … html.
Remember that cantankerous “60 Minutes” commentator Andy Rooney? Or the old Chicago metro columnist Mike Royko? Even the Duluth News Tribune had Jim Heffernan. They each had an opinion about everything. As a young writer I admired them more than would be considered normal. I remember one of them, Heffernan I think, wrote something about…
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Ya, I guess I do have an accent then
Folks, it’s been brought to my attention that I have a Minnesota accent. It’s true. I didn’t believe it either. But last month I toured with a Swedish journalist researching mining in Northern Minnesota. In English better than most of my relatives, he concluded by saying he just had to ask me about my accent.…