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Homebound on a global scale
Who buys soup at Target? Apparently everyone, because the soup is gone. But we can get soap. So let’s get soap. Walking the aisles of the store last weekend my phone rang. It was my sister Alyssa in Italy. She’ve been living there almost two years now but was hoping to come home for a…
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2020 Hindsight: Revisiting the future of our past, Part 3
This is the last of a three-part series. See Part 1 and Part 2. There is no historical blind spot quite like the recent past. The living defend their memories, true or not, with self-interested passion. The recently departed are far more saintly than the long dead. Over the past three weeks I’ve been exploring…
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2020 Hindsight: Revisiting the future of our past, Part 2
This is the second of a three-part series. Last week I told you about a 1998 Hibbing Daily Tribune special section entitled “2020 Vision.” Back then, reporters interviewed local people about what they saw happening in our region by the year 2020. They got a lot right. For instance, many predicted the rise of health…
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2020 Hindsight: Revisiting the future of our past
This is the first of a two-part series. Look around. Somehow we’ve stumbled into the year 2020. We write 2020 on our paperwork. We gird for a 2020 election season that seems anything but futuristic or forward-thinking. In short, 2020 seems nothing like the sci-fi utopia of our dreams. And, frankly, I feel ripped off.…
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Questioning our past to understand today
The word “nostalgia” comes from the combination of ancient Greek words for “pain” and “coming home.” Literally, the word described the ache that came from longing for a home that will never be the same. Nostalgia is the pain of leaving home. And it could be considered as powerful as a drug. When you peruse…
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Bad ice on the rise
This winter, Minnesotans pursue an unrelenting quest for justice. Check that. Just ice. Just some halfway decent ice. This year’s January temperatures ran warmer than average. In addition, heavy snowfall during the early freeze produced poor, if not outright dangerous lake ice conditions across Minnesota. You know it’s rough because the requisite “area truck falls…
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The power of stories, true or not
Human beings are more than just ambulatory bags of meat. We are ambulatory bags of meat with stories to tell. In fact, deep down, that’s what’s really separates us from other mammals. No matter our language or technology, we transmit wisdom through stories. That’s evident in the oral tradition of early humans. The mythology of…
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No war will end all wars
One of the strongest contenders for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards is Sam Mendes’s “1917.” The movie combines a traditional war story with a remarkable filmmaking trick. The viewer follows two British soldiers on an important mission during the darkest depths of World War I. Editing makes it seem as though the film…
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Endless political season actually starts
The other day I flushed a public toilet and it just kept running. I’m not talking about one of those politely gurgling high efficiency toilets you might install in your house. This was an industrial model, the kind that can send a cantaloupe to the water treatment plant at the speed of sound. I wondered…
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‘Making It’ makes lovely tribute to Great Northern Radio Show
It’s been another busy stretch of work and writing so you haven’t seen much more than my weekly newspaper column here at MinnesotaBrown. I did want to share this episode of PBS North’s “Making It Up North,” produced by Karen Sunderman and Steve Ash. They followed us around for the whole day of our final…
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Refugee debate strays from reality
I recently spoke with a Northern Minnesota military veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. In casual conversation he described his efforts to help an Iraqi translator and his family get to America. This Iraqi man took enormous personal risk to work alongside U.S. forces. Now, he and his loved ones face even greater threats…
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Warm through winter
My son Henry and I joined our friend John Latimer for the Audubon Christmas Bird Count last month. Our day started at 7 a.m. and 24 degrees below zero. Most birds, obviously smarter than us, huddled somewhere out of sight. We spied a beautiful bevy of ten swans and a lonely goldeneye on a small…
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2020 predictions column: time for an otter one
“Twenty twenty,” says the ophthalmologist. “That’s my vision?” I ask excitedly. “No, you’re as myopic as a rhino,” she says. “That’s the year to write on your check.” I can’t believe it. It’s 2020 already. The year that we once believed would be “the future.” But here I am, going to the eye doctor like…
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Old man turns 40
When I was a senior in high school our band went on a field trip to Chicago. One of the stops was Six Flags Amusement Park. The park had one of those “Guess Your Age” booths where you won a prize if the carnival worker failed to guess your age within four years. I was…
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Last minute gift of the Magi
Scene: A desert rest stop south of the the Euphrates River. A low wage employee speaks from behind a counter. Clerking midnights at the oasis grass station is the worst. It’s when all the weirdos come through looking to refuel their camels. Let me tell you it takes all kinds in this world. Like the…