Category: Newspaper Columns

  • The Iron Ranger who would not hunt

    The Iron Ranger who would not hunt

    In honor of the 2013 Minnesota deer hunting season opener (rifles, of course), happy hunting to all those participating. I dedicate this column to all the non-hunters struggling with day-to-day conversation this time of year. I live in northern Minnesota. I’ve lived here all my life. I don’t hunt. Yes, I eat meat. And the…

  • A new world behind the trees

    A new world behind the trees

    On a cold November morning, trucks rattle along an old dirt road behind a stand of timber across from our home in the woods of Itasca County. The chains rattle against the trailers in the crisp, clear air. Sound carries. Two miles, maybe three? This land has been logged several times over in the past…

  • Earth’s surly bonds stretch thin

    Earth’s surly bonds stretch thin

    Northern Minnesota’s iron ranges hold special distinction in American history, but for reasons more than ore. I was down in Crosby preparing for a show last week. There I learned America’s Space Race, the technological marathon that spurred developments like computers and the Internet, got its unassuming start in a Cuyuna Range mine pit The…

  • Now entering the Minnesota century

    Now entering the Minnesota century

    Minnesotans experience spring, summer, autumn and, of course, winter the way God intended: entirely, each season accompanied by a unique wardrobe and emotional self-defense strategy. In the dead of another frigid winter or the mires of an ambiguous spring it can be hard to argue for the virtues of this cycle. Further, Minnesota’s place in…

  • Federal government shutdown bears down

    Federal government shutdown bears down

    As the federal government shutdown wore on this past week the effects were felt everywhere. Nowhere was this more true than in our national parks, where the shutdown turned away visitors and left the animals therein to fend for themselves. This is their story. FOX ANNOUNCER: Thank you for watching ACTUAL FOX News continuing coverage…

  • The art of building an Iron Range economy

    The art of building an Iron Range economy

    One finds resistance discussing the diversification of northern Minnesota’s economy into areas outside natural resources. Convincing local leaders that real economic growth can come from abstract concepts like art and design is often as difficult as extracting 100 long tons of iron ore from the earth. I mean, you can’t even use dynamite, which would…

  • Fall: Love it or leaf it

    Fall: Love it or leaf it

      High up an old oak tree on a rolling hill just outside Hibbing, Minnesota, two talking leaves dangle by hardening stems. Fall has arrived. LEAFY: Lefty, you ever get the sense that things are changing? LEFTY: Everythin’ changes, Leafy. No point worryin.’ LEAFY: But, I mean, *really* changing. I don’t know how to tell…

  • Comfort food for the dieter’s soul

    Comfort food for the dieter’s soul

    My name is Aaron and it has been four months since my last Holiday gas station cookie. This, of course, refers to the third cookie I ate that night, because they cost less if you buy three, and why wouldn’t you want to eat three? They are the greatest cookies ever made. Sure, your mom’s…

  • No hope on the Iron Range, but for hope we create

    No hope on the Iron Range, but for hope we create

    To drive the Iron Range spine of Highway 169 is to see a sleeping giant not unlike the region’s namesake, Missabe — the Dakota and Ojibwe “big man” resting on the divide between all that is north and south. Missabe’s body is not like that of a man. Its fluids are water. Its bones are timbers.…

  • Iron Range mining commentary in the works

    Iron Range mining commentary in the works

    The nonferrous mining debate in northern Minnesota continues its holding pattern around the flaming, riot-scarred airport of Progress. I’ve written a two-part Iron Range mining commentary series for the Hibbing Daily Tribune, the first of which ran today. I have decided that instead of running the two-part series here on the blog, I’ll release an…

  • On wormholes and fantasy football

    On wormholes and fantasy football

    In the movie “Napoleon Dynamite,” caretaker Uncle Rico can’t escape past mistakes. “If I had a time machine,” he said, “you’d better believe things would be different.” He was referring to a football game in which he didn’t even play, but also life. So, too, go the folk mantras of many among us this week…

  • Summer ends with turtle-racing flourish

    Summer ends with turtle-racing flourish

    Summer lives, of course. It’s still kind of nice outside. The leaves are still kind of green. The calendar places the start of fall in September, but we all know that’s junk. Tomorrow I’ll pilot the car early in the morning to teach a college class for something called “Fall Semester” and how can you argue…

  • The untold perils of media consolidation

    I write a column for the Hibbing Daily Tribune, which is part of the Superior Publishing Group, a division of American Consolidated Media of Texas, itself a division of a vast international company, the name of which I forget. Australian bankers, mostly. When the Superior Publishing group reorganized its management structure a year ago —…

  • COLUMN: From way up here the ants look like people

    COLUMN: From way up here the ants look like people

    This is my Sunday column for the March 25, 2012 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. From way up here the ants look like peopleBy Aaron J. Brown I ran up the driveway from our lime green and white trailer house across County Highway 7 to the mailbox. Mom used to let me do this…

  • You win this round …

    You win this round …

    Dammit. On the same day the Hibbing Daily Tribune runs my column about hitting a deer with my Ford Focus station wagon, the Duluth News Tribune runs Janna Goerdt’s column about hitting a moose with her Subaru. Not only does she get the bigger, rarer and much more literary dead animal on which to pontificate,…