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Another cold winter? Gee, you think?
Several news outlets are reporting the annual weather predictions offered by the Farmer’s Almanac. In short, Minnesota is poised for another cold winter, much like the last one. One recalls that while few all-time-low temperature records were broken last winter, we smashed records for consecutive days below zero degrees Fahrenheit. It was a slog, an…
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The Empirical Strikes Back: Historians debunk speakeasy
Two weeks ago I joined media outlets around the state in reporting on the speakeasy re-enactment held at Annabella’s in Bovey, Minnesota. Organizers held a fun event recreating a Prohibition era party in an underground room featuring unusual “escape” tunnels. And, by most accounts, a good time was had by all. However, the way organizers…
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Eveleth mine celebrates 50 years with public event
I spent most of my childhood trying to find shapes in the steam cloud billowing out of Eveleth Taconite’s plant at Forbes. Now known as United Taconite, the Iron Range iron mine and processing facility will celebrate 50 years of mining this Sunday with a public event. EVELETH, MN – Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE:…
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Rail delays knock Minnesota power plant units offline
For more than a year, rail congestion in the Upper Midwest has created high-profile delays for the iconic Empire Builder passenger train. Oil and coal trains out of the western Dakotas and Montana have clogged rails from Williston to Chicago. This week, however, brought the issue to another level. Wisconsin Public Radio reported yesterday that…
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Cliffs to close Duluth office
WDIO is reporting that Cliffs Natural Resources will be closing its Duluth office at the end of the month. About 30 people work at the office. Some will be moved to mine sites, while others will be offered jobs at company headquarters in Cleveland. Cliffs has a long history of operations in Northern Minnesota. The…
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Floating concrete art project sinks in Lake Superior
The Ark of the Anthropocene at Duluth Harbor September 2014 #arkoftheanthropocene pic.twitter.com/m8JMMAeVbK — Sean P Connaughty (@SeanConnaughty) September 5, 2014 Last week, a floating concrete sphere sank in the Duluth harbor on Lake Superior. That’s weird. But it gets much weirder. The concrete sphere was an art project by Minneapolis artist Sean Connaughty called the…
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Silent strain: growing hunger in community demands action
A kindergarten teacher ducks into the lounge shortly after first bell. She rustles through a collection of abandoned snacks: forgotten granola bars and leftover lunches. She got the call from a working mother who was running late. Her daughter would be here soon. “She never gets to eat on mornings like this,” says the teacher.…
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Talking MN-8 politics on MPR, Star Tribune
It’s already been a busy election season for me, and for the first time it’s been dominated by doing commentary on Northern Minnesota politics for other media outlets around the state. A couple items dropped today that I’ll refer you to, and then leave you alone for a while. I was on early this morning…
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School is in
School is in. That means I’m back teaching classes full time at Hibbing Community College. That means my kids are back at school, needing rides to things, doing activities. I’m preparing another radio show this month (Sept. 27 in Park Rapids, FYI). All of these things together mean I’ll be even more deliberate in how…
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Trampled by Turtles on NPR’s ‘tiny desk’
Minnesota’s hometown band Trampled by Turtles appeared on the well-regarded NPR Music “Tiny Desk” concert series recently, with the video being released today at NPR (which you can view below). They performed three songs off their new album “Wild Animals.” Having enjoyed listening to that album, I appreciated the depth of the songs upon seeing them…
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Bob Dylan to play 3 nights near old stomping grounds
Lost in the analysis of Bob Dylan’s biography is the fact that Dylan’s relationship with his hometown of Hibbing, his birth town of Duluth and Minneapolis, the town where he went to college for a time, is pretty much the same as that of any artistic kid who made it big in New York and L.A.…
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Shocked, SHOCKED, to see Iron Range unemployment gap
Over the weekend, you may have seen the front page story from the Mesabi Daily News declaring the fact that Iron Range unemployment is 64 percent higher than the state average. This was a statistical analysis by editor Bill Hanna, not new information, yet presented in Pearl Harbor banner headline form on the front of the…
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On brains, screens and the cross-eyed future of labor
Push the power button. The icon appears. We have a few seconds. Sip coffee. Look out the window. Sunny now, but look to the west where clouds gather just above the trees. Did we check the weather last night? Power on. Here we go. First the notifications pour over the top of the screen. Then…
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Green Party candidate could complicate MN-8 race
MPR’s Catharine Richert filed a story this week about Ray Sandman, Green Party candidate for Congress in Minnesota’s Eighth District. Sandman, a Duluth Vietnam veteran and community advocate who grew up on the Fond du Lac reservation, has run a mostly quiet campaign (he didn’t return calls to be in Richert’s story). Nevertheless, he is generally…
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Iron Range town re-opens secret speakeasy tunnel
UPDATE: Photos from the Aug. 29, 2014 event (via Annabella’s Facebook page) Northern Minnesota’s Iron Range experienced a lot of history in a short amount of time. From its rapid transition from native hunting and ricing grounds, to logging fields, to rural industrial mining region 120 years ago, to the collision of dozens of ethnic immigrant groups…