Minnesota Brown

Minnesota Brown: Modern Life on the Iron Range

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  • Bob gets bling for being Bob

    Bob gets bling for being Bob

    Christa Lawler of the Duluth News-Tribune has a nice story today about Bob Dylan receiving the Medal of Freedom from President Obama yesterday. She did interview me for the story, but I rather enjoy the quotes from Dylan’s high school bandmate LeRoy Hoikkala of Hibbing: “I’m proud of him,” Hoikkala said. “Everything he got, he…

  • Meantime, Ely escapes raging fire

    Meantime, Ely escapes raging fire

    While I was sipping water and preparing to read the names at the Hibbing Community College graduation (congratulations graduates, by the way), on the other side of the region the Vermilion Range city of Ely was being evacuated from the path of a raging wildfire. This photo is from Wayne Erickson at the U.S. Forest…

  • Controversy nets Minnesota Zoo dolphins

    Controversy nets Minnesota Zoo dolphins

    There’s quite a tizzy brewing over the Minnesota Zoo’s decision to discontinue its dolphin exhibit after receiving state bonding funds last year to repair its dolphin tanks. You have to drain the tanks to fix them, and apparently the costs are too high to house the dolphins elsewhere during that time so they are just…

  • Minnesota Power to reduce more emissions at Boswell

    Minnesota Power to reduce more emissions at Boswell

    Minnesota Power will spend up to $400 million improving emissions by about 90 percent at another of its power generation units at the Clay Boswell Energy Center in Cohasset. The Duluth News Tribune reports the story, though I heard about this elsewhere today. The improvements were required to meet tightening state standards, but the investment…

  • Mining the space range

    Mining the space range

    This week we talked about scram mining, mining revenue politics and growing marijuana in abandoned old mines, but what of the future of mining? Mashable reports that a group of very wealthy, eccentric (which is rich person for “crazy”) entrepreneurs and adventurers are planning to mine asteroids. Oh, they’ve got a plan alright. I think…

  • Stuck, but operational

    Stuck, but operational

    We have a winter storm warning here in Itasca and north central St. Louis counties. Most Range schools are cancelled. The community college didn’t cancel, but I can’t get out of my driveway so let’s call that an intervention by a higher authority. It’s a great day for a drill on how well this blog…

  • We’re going to … Twins. We’re going to … sigh

    We’re going to … Twins. We’re going to … sigh

    I usually comment on the opening of the baseball season. It’s a time for hope and good feelings. But I was busy with the radio show this weekend and the Twins are awful, just awful. They are going to lose 100 games. Their pitching is bad and they have no offense. Their most expensive players…

  • A dying town fights back with awesomeness

    My God in Heaven this is beautiful. A nine-minute YouTube video has cured me of my indifference toward Grand Rapids, Michigan. This film was apparently produced in response to a news story describing Grand Rapids, Mich., as a “dying town.” Not dead yet, as you can see. You know it’s good because all I can…

  • Talking live radio on live TV tonight

    Talking live radio on live TV tonight

    I’ll be on WDSE-TV’s “The Playlist” tonight at 9 p.m. talking about our upcoming performance of the Great Northern Radio Show from Bemidji on April 7. This would be the variety show I produce, write and host with talent from around the region. The Playlist is a live arts and entertainment program by the Duluth…

  • 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…

  • The benefits of looking up; the costs of looking down

    This video asks some important questions about the decline of space exploration in our age of austerity. It features a mash-up of statements by one of my favorite speakers, the astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I am left wondering what good can come of our nation if we can’t figure out how to strategically spend money…

  • The last snowman falls

    The last snowman falls

    My Sunday column prompted a loyal reader to wonder if I would conclude my winter snowman series. I hereby offer the conclusion. I’m now taking nominations for the art motif I should use through the summer. Related posts: No related posts.

  • Winter’s Empire Strikes Back

    Winter’s Empire Strikes Back

    We’ve made much of the lack of snow this winter. It’s still poised to be a well-below-average snow year here in northern Minnesota, and certainly a record warm season. Nevertheless, inexplicably (well, it being winter) it began snowing again last week. We got about 10 inches at our house over the weekend in Itasca County…

  • MPR details disturbing patterns of pursuit in remote MN county

    The perils of cultural isolation and human nature appear in so many surprising ways. There’s “The Lottery,” of course, and backwoods places where all manner of family arrangements might not pass their way into a lighthearted sitcom. And then there is this shocking story from Minnesota Public Radio today. It details the prevalence of older…

  • Minnesota moose population in danger

    Minnesota moose population in danger

    The Minnesota moose population is in free fall, according to recent reports. Scientists are preparing us for the possibility that Minnesota might one day soon lose its moose population entirely. The cause is not over-hunting. Rather, moose mortality and pregnancy rates are being affected. Biologists in this Duluth News Tribune article say that a generally…