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Tall Ships depart from Duluth, Minnesota
Tall Ships at Bayfront Park, Duluth, MN The Tall Ships Festival ends today with the tall masted ships set to depart from the Port of Duluth, Minnesota, this morning. It was a mostly cold and wet Tall Ships weekend, though yesterday was nicer. My family and I made the two-hour trip down to Duluth on Friday.…
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Freshman Iron Range lawmaker hit on mining claims
I’ve been writing how this summer is building toward a contention boiling point on the nonferrous mineral mining issue. We’re waiting for PolyMet to release its updated EIS after the EPA rejected its last one. Over in Wisconsin we’ve seen much more sharp-edged protesting and company overreaction to local mining debates than we have seen here…
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It’s official: July frost advisory issued for northern MN
MNZ010&012-018-019-290930-/ O.NEW.KDLH.FR.Y.0003.130729T0700Z-130729T1200Z/KOOCHICHING- NORTHERN ST. LOUIS-NORTHERN COOK/NORTHERN LAKE-NORTHERN ITASCA- CNTL ST. LOUIS-INCLUDING THE CITIES OF.INTERNATL FALLS. ELY.ISABELLA.BIGFORK.HIBBING327 PM CDT SUN JUL 28 2013 .FROST ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM TO 7 AM CDT MONDAY. NO SHIT THIS IS A REAL THING. THE NATL WEATHER SVC IN DULUTH HAS ISSUED A FROST ADVISORY WHICH IS IN…
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Nerds among us
This is my Sunday column for the July 28, 2013 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A version of this piece aired yesterday on Northern Community Radio’s “Between You and Me.” PROGRAM NOTE: you can hear the latest Grand Rapids episode of my Great Northern Radio Show today (Sunday) from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.…
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Generation driven to find reality amid false fronts
Last week, Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com, announced he was leaving his partnership with the New York Times to take his unique brand of data-driven journalism to the goliath sports network ESPN. He’ll still be covering national elections with poll analysis, a real boon to sister network ABC, but the bulk of his number crunching will…
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Maps combine art, propaganda, stories
The other day I caught this 1914 Dutch political cartoon depicting the author’s perception of the great European powers at that time. Andrew Sullivan wrote about it at The Daily Dish, where he opined about the political, indeed, propaganda qualities of maps. Even without the caricatures shown here, anything from the color to the orientation…
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Looking inside the numbers of MN-8
Taking a look inside the demographics of northern Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District shows a few things, mostly that it’s older than your average MN district. Take some time to check this out. Good nerdy times. (h/t Rachel E. Stassen-Berger, Star Tribune) Related posts: No related posts.
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OMG, you guys, what can we do to put ourselves on the map?
Ed Schipul, Creative Commons license Jay Walljasper had a feature on Minnpost yesterday, expressing concern that the Twin Cities (don’t call them that) of Minneapolis and St. Paul (too many syllables) don’t have a firm national identity other than that they’re cold in the winter. Walljasper continued his series today. Despite scads of stats showing…
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From the many, one mighty river to the sea
Slate shared this graphic of the tributaries of the Mississippi River. Here in northern Minnesota we’re well aware the river officially starts here, over in Clearwater County, flowing small and gentle through nearby towns like Grand Rapids and Brainerd. But if North America has one true river, it is this one. I also enjoy seeing…
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Northern MN ‘showboat’ tradition on Mighty Miss this weekend
You can still catch one of the coolest theater traditions of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, with this weekend’s closing performances of the Mississippi Melodie Showboat. Hometown Focus ran a lovely feature on the annual riverside music tradition in this northern town. You might recall that the boat sank last year. But don’t worry, they’ve got…
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This controversy is getting unBEARable
This is German bear propaganda. Source During the last Great Northern Radio Show we did a sketch that John Ramos wrote about bears. Specifically it was about a bear who, realizing that there was a web cam in her den, started hosting a television program. It was a parody, of course, of the famous live…
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What’s in a name?
Watching the nightly network newscasts this week has me wondering who really won the U.S. Revolutionary War some 235 years ago. Somewhere the ghost of Cornwallis smirks as Americans fawn over the heir to the British throne. A KING! HE WILL BE A KING! Despite our protestations those centuries ago, Americans then and now still…
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Ain’t no party like a Range nerd party cause a Range nerd party don’t (PUNCH) (BLEEDING)
How did I miss this? On July 17, Northland’s Newscenter reported on the fact that Popular Science named the Soudan Underground Mine as its top travel destination for nerds. (Attention media nerds, Northland’s Newscenter is a conglomeration of several formerly autonomous TV network affiliates in the Duluth, MN market). Feast your eyes on the story:…
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Hey Hey, Iron Range, time for the St. Louis County Fair
The St. Louis County Fair is this week, starting Thursday and running through Sunday at the fairgrounds in Chisholm. This is the “northern” St. Louis County fair, and I apologize for neglecting to discuss the southern one last week. The “North” is the Iron Range fair, the larger of the two, and the one that…
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From the junkyard; thoughts on movin’ on up
My sister Alyssa and I illustrate a heavy 1985 snow at Brown and Sons Salvage in McDavitt Township (Zim), MN. The “American Dream” is predicated on a simple concept. Unlike a lot of the 19th century European powers, America was to be a place where one could climb the ladder of social class based on…