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Jim Oberstar: a memory held up by union steel
My Sunday newspaper column for May 11, 2014 was excerpted from the post I wrote after the passing of Jim Oberstar on Saturday, May 3. I am republishing that post today. Early Saturday morning former Congressman Jim Oberstar died peacefully in his sleep at his Maryland home at the age of 79. The news of…
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Don’t give me that look; a MN fishing opener plea
Near my house there’s a place called the Twin Bridges. As advertised, it’s a pair of small bridges along Itasca County Highway 336 spanning a winding section of the Prairie River right where it feeds into Crooked Lake. It’s known locally as a place where, shortly after ice-out, you can angle for fish emerging from their icy winter…
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SS James L. Oberstar hails namesake in Duluth harbor
Yesterday, mourners commemorated the late Rep. Jim Oberstar at his funeral in Potomac, Maryland. Meanwhile, in Oberstar’s native northern Minnesota a maritime tribute took place in the Port of Duluth. The James L. Oberstar, an iron ore freighter named for the venerated Iron Range political leader, made its first entrance into Duluth for the season.…
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Essar Steel secures funds to finish Nashwauk project
This item is cross-posted with my Up North Report blog at StarTribune.com. The Star Tribune’s Dee Depass reports that Essar Steel has secured $450 million in new private financing, and is injecting $300 million of its own money into finishing its long-awaited Nashwauk taconite plant. Here on the ground north of Nashwauk, the project has…
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Upper Midwest adds color to bars vs. groceries data
Not much to add here, other than this is a map comparing the number of bars to the number of grocery stores in locations around the United States. Most of the time you find more grocery stories than bars. In the states of Wisconsin and Illinois, and here on the Iron Range of northern Minnesota,…
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Climate change lands Hibbing on front of NY Times
Hibbing, Minnesota, usually only makes the New York Times in stories about its hometown son Bob Dylan or, once every decade or so, for being a hardscrabble mining town on the rocks. So how exciting to see the town on the front page of the New York Times for something else: increasing average temperatures since…
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FARGO REVIEW: Episode 4, ‘Eating the Blame’
The FX series “Fargo,” inspired by the 1996 Coen Brothers film, is based in northern Minnesota. As northern Minnesota’s leading pop culture, news, entertainment, iron mining and invasive species blog, MinnesotaBrown is here to review the show through Minnesota eyes. Now, to this week’s episode: You know “Fargo” on FX is getting serious when even…
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Oberstar honored by House, Great Lakes fleet
The Duluth News Tribune reports that the U.S. House of Representatives will honor the late Rep. Jim Oberstar on the floor with a moment of silence during tonight’s session. Wednesday night, the Oberstar family will host a private wake in Washington, D.C. His public funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at Our Lady of…
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I’m really big in Scandinavia right now
I’m coming off a banner week for MinnesotaBrown. In addition to rolling out a nice run of blog posts for the Star Tribune, I also got my first mention in the Scandinavian super-tabloid Aftonbladet. My friend Kristin Lundell, among Sweden’s leading pop culture writers, has apparently been reading my “Fargo” reviews. Älskar du tv-serien ”Fargo”?…
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Minnesota Orchestra in Hibbing all week
With the Minnesota Orchestra now back on its feet after a long labor dispute, the Iron Range community of Hibbing will welcome the Minnesota Orchestra’s four-day residence program this week and major performance Friday evening. The orchestra’s outreach program will work with community and student musicians throughout the week. Folks might remember the success of…
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2016 promises expansion of Cross-Range Expressway
Over the years I’ve written a great deal about the cross-Range expressway, a vision of a four-lane highway that spans the entirety of the Mesabi Iron Range. It was the furtive promise of highway officials back during the Lyndon Johnson Administration, largely unrealized because of massive funding and land-rights issues. In summary: it’s hard to…
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The forest for the trees
“If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.” ~ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts (Saturday Night Live) Never mind the TV or the Internet. Trees report the real news in northern Minnesota. Is the maple sap running? Are the…
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So ends the cartoon series: ‘Happy Spring!’
A week that saw me do one of the most legitimate things in my blogging career (signing on with the Star Tribune), also sees me end one of the most illegitimate: my stint as a cartoonist. For the last several weeks I’ve written, drawn and designed an original cartoon about modern life in northern Minnesota…
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Uneasy feelings at Saturday’s #MN08 DFL convention
This story is cross-posted with my Up North Report blog at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. This Saturday at 9 a.m., DFL delegates from Minnesota’s Eight Congressional District will hold their biannual convention at the Nashwauk Rec Center on the western Mesabi Iron Range. U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan (DFL-MN8) is unopposed in seeking endorsement for re-election.…
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Tom Rukavina considering return to Iron Range politics?
The talk of the Iron Range political universe is the possibility of former State Rep. Tom Rukavina (DFL-Pike Township) returning to politics with a run for St. Louis County Commissioner. Incumbent Mike Forsman of Ely is retiring, leaving an open seat in a county board district that is bigger than most legislative districts (and most…