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Iron Range mines must modernize to survive
As the iron mining and steel industries gird for a hard year of low prices and intense international competition, iron mining executives and academics meet in Duluth this week for the Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) Minnesota conference. WDIO reported on the Tuesday keynote by Don Fosnacht, director of the Center for Applied Research and…
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Tempest winds lean hard on a century
Today, April 14 or what’s left of it, is “Ruination Day.” Described fittingly by the Gillian Welch song, Ruination Day marks the date that President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated (1865), the date the Titanic struck an iceberg (1912) and the date a dust storm consumed much of the high plains amid the aptly named Dust Bowl (1935). Not coincidentally, it was…
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Ugly ship probably has a nice personality
Great news, everyone! The first ocean-going vessel, or “salty,” of the season was slated to arrive in the Lake Superior Port of Duluth today. The Maltese grain ship, the Kom, passed beneath the Aerial Lift Bridge and it was just … … stunning. Sure is … yellowish. I, uh, gotta check if I got my dip/tet…
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Are you hot, interesting and handy? Now is your time
A Colorado production company is developing a reality television program centered around a Minnesota couple that does lake home renovation and construction projects. Only one problem. They don’t have their couple yet. Maybe you know someone? “The ideal team will consist of a 25-45 year old, attractive and dynamic couple living in Minnesota who have…
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Eat the exercise, drink the burn
If exercise were a food or drink, I would want more of it. It makes me feel great. It helps me function better around other people. My clothes fit more comfortably and I have more energy. But I can’t eat exercise, nor can I chug it from a brown paper sack. So when the time…
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‘Rural agenda’ without broadband is rural sham
Yesterday the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities and others jumped on a troubling aspect of the House GOP budget proposal. Speaker Kurt Daudt’s caucus proposes to essentially end the Border-to-Border Broadband Development Grant Program and eliminate the state Office of Broadband Development. This, even as universal broadband is now widely embraced by Democrats and Republicans alike as…
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Global view of iron ore casts dim light on the Giant Mesabi
What’s happening on the Iron Range right now is much like the calm before the storm, or the eerie quiet of a city soon to be under siege. We know that come June nearly 1,200 iron miners will be out of work, with many more likely to follow. We’re not confident when people will be…
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Remembering Howard Pitzen of the Effie Rodeo
This week we learned of the passing of longtime Northern Minnesota rancher and cowboy poet Howard Pitzen, founder of the Effie Rodeo near Bigfork, some 40 miles north of the Iron Range. Nearly 89, Pitzen died in hospice care at his home not far from the rodeo grounds. Howard was a guest on a 2012 episode of my…
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Watch MN Gov. Dayton’s State of the State address
Tonight, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton delivered his annual State of the State address at the Capitol in St. Paul. You can watch the speech below, courtesy of The Uptake. Gov. Dayton entered the speech with a healthy approval rating in the mid-50s, but facing a stiff challenge from a staunchly conservative Republican State House and a…
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‘Last Call for the Mitchell Yards’ tonight
I’m excited to tell you about a new documentary you can see for the first time tonight on WDSE/WRPT PBS North. “Last Call for the Mitchell Yards” shares the story of the Mitchell Yards, an abandoned Iron Range railway station between Hibbing and Chisholm that once handled 80 percent of the iron ore used by…
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Governor’s bonding bill tilts toward Greater Minnesota
Yesterday, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton released his proposed $842 million bonding bill. While a bonding bill is expected from the DFL-controlled State Senate, there are mixed signals coming out of the GOP-led State House as to whether a full bonding bill will be on the table or not. The governor’s plan invests in economic development,…
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Putting out the ‘welcome hat’ to new Minnesotans
One of the first things you learn in Minnesota is the power of good cold-weather clothing to survive and even thrive through our characteristic winters. At first, the urge to be fashionable or “strong” causes people much suffering. Then, all at once, snow pants and giant hats become a beacon in the dark, safe refuge for…
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An uncomfortable truth about Iron Range’s mining woes
Here on the Iron Range one cannot escape the talk of impending layoffs at area iron mines. You also can’t mistake who company officials and unions alike blame for this situation: foreign steel dumping. “Dumping” means foreign companies, sometimes as extensions of foreign governments, sell steel for less than it costs to produce, just to move it off their shores. Usually their…
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Ma Peep and the way things are
“It ain’t easy being no Peep,” she said. She puffed a jelly bean flavored e-cigaratte on the porch of the large cardboard box her family has lived in since last March. “Things come harder for me, fo’ sho. I went up the doctor’s office, nurse says to me ‘I need a vein.’ I says I…
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‘Bells across the land’ in Minnesota
On April 9, Americans will mark 150 years since the surrender of Confederate sources to the Union Army in the American Civil War. The divisions that caused the Civil War — primarily slavery and attitudes about the role of government — existed for hundreds of years before the war, and continue in some form today.…