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Confessions of Ely: Post Secret + Northern Exposure
The other day I saw a Facebook community show in my feed out of nowhere, something from “friends” of “friends.” “Confessions of Ely” is like many online confessional projects (Post Secret, e.g.). The difference: Confessions of Ely is all about the people and sometimes bizarre, sometimes banal, always oddly fascinating activities of the people of…
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Top word of 2013: 404 (That’s bad, right?)
Every year the Global Language Monitor releases its “top words,” indicating which words represent our changing English language and world cultures. I have a little tradition of writing a column at the end of the year about the Global Language Monitor list, which I look forward to doing again next month. Past columns, replete with…
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City, school, county races top Tuesday’s Duluth vote
Northern Minnesota’s largest city, Duluth, holds city and school board elections Tuesday, along with a pair of school referendums. The Duluth vote has the potential of shifting these key boards on a variety of issues, so we’ll be watching closely. Duluth residents can find out how to vote here. Here are the candidates and questions.…
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Bellwether school vote in Hibbing Tuesday
Tomorrow a smattering of elections will take place around Minnesota. An interesting one I’m following is the school vote in Hibbing, up here on the Mesabi Iron Range. The school vote in Hibbing is over whether to renew a 10-year school bond operating levy that expires this year. Simple enough, perhaps, but the vote comes…
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12,000 feet, wings fell off, everyone OK (UPDATE)
UPDATE: The skydivers and pilots involved in this incident will be on Good Morning America Monday morning from 7-9 a.m. GMA will have a live crew on hand all morning. UPDATE II: It turns out that while GMA planned to send a crew to Superior, the skydivers were slated to be on NBC’s Today Show.…
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A new world behind the trees
On a cold November morning, trucks rattle along an old dirt road behind a stand of timber across from our home in the woods of Itasca County. The chains rattle against the trailers in the crisp, clear air. Sound carries. Two miles, maybe three? This land has been logged several times over in the past…
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Hear the Crosby Great Northern Radio Show!
You might recall that we did another Great Northern Radio Show in October from Crosby-Ironton High School in Crosby, Minnesota. This fall edition of my quarterly traveling live broadcast variety program was a big success, something I didn’t want to talk about here until I knew when the rebroadcast date and podcast would be available.…
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Lake County DFL hits Nolan for mining support
Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN8) now faces criticism within his own party for supporting a pro-mining bill earlier this year. Last Friday, the Lake County DFL passed a resolution out of its central committee condemning Nolan’s vote for the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act, or H.R. 761. The story appeared yesterday in the Lake County News Chronicle. Here’s…
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Essar plans for Iron Range pellets in 2017
This month another flurry of activity kicked up on the site of Essar Steel Minnesota’s new taconite plant near Nashwauk, Minnesota. But questions remain as to how quickly Essar plans to integrate the Nashwauk plant into its North American steel operations. This long-awaited, heavily state-subsidized, “might-make-steel-someday-but-probably-not” project has been a major curiosity for residents of…
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Range newspaper resurrects 26-year-old boner joke
In 1987, the same year the Minnesota Twins won the World Series, a huge iron and copper statue of an iron miner was installed outside the Mesabi Iron Range city of Chisholm. He stands there still, the third tallest free standing statue in the country. It is the stuff of folk journalism lore that legendary Iron…
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Sleepy Duluth county board race holds quiet intrigue
The special election to replace the late Steve O’Neil on the St. Louis County Board of Commissioners has been a mostly quiet affair. The eastern Duluth county board second district primary will be held a week from today, Nov. 5, and features four candidates, with two candidates already having suspended their campaigns from the last…
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Governor urges caution on Northern Minnesota mining
Today the three largest newspapers on the Iron Range published another edition of their “MINE” special section. Like “MINE,” “MINE II” is a collection of stories about northern Minnesota mining, stressing its positive impact on communities. Normally I would just let this stand, but I did see something really interesting: Gov. Mark Dayton declared his…
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Duluth skyscraper? Well, almost
A new building in downtown Duluth will be a bit smaller than previously hoped. Nevertheless, developers are announcing a 12-story corporate tower on the site of the old KDLH TV studios in the heart of the Zenith City. It will be one of the tallest structures in this growing northern Minnesota city, altering the skyline…
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American Internet speeds: slower, more expensive
As this Mashable story citing a recent study shows, American internet speeds are slower and more expensive than in other countries. We pay more for an inferior internet product in the country that developed the internet. And this, of course, refers to people who live in major cities where there is more competition among high-speed…
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The Big Year? Birder discombobulated in bog
In the 2011 film “The Big Year,” Owen Wilson, Steve Martin and Jack Black star as birders (!) trying to break the record for most birds seen in one year. I’ve talked about this film before because it mentions the Sax-Zim Bog a few times, known internationally as a major bird-watching mecca. As I mentioned…