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Tom Russell’s "Mesabi" cuts like sharp wind on the Iron Range
Texas-based singer/songwriter Tom Russell named his recent 2011 album “Mesabi.” It includes the title track below, which seems to call on the mystique of Bob Dylan, the North Country and the Iron Range. Sings Russell: Some things never change, on the Mesabi Iron RangeWhere the wild north country rain screams“Please don’t make me do the…
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‘Inwardly, we are being renewed’
There is no denying the dark pallor hanging over every corner of the United States after last Friday’s devastating tragedy. President Obama spoke Sunday at a memorial service for the teachers and students lost in Newtown. I share his remarkable speech here: I also share this piece, “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” by Liza Long,…
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COLUMN: The gift of skills
This is my Sunday column for the Dec. 16, 2012 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A version of this piece aired Dec. 8 on Northern Community Radio’s “Between You and Me.” The gift of skills By Aaron J. Brown Life in northern Minnesota isn’t easy. You have to identify trees, drive through snow and…
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Great Northern Radio Show hits the airwaves tonight
Today brings the Great Northern Radio Show holiday special, broadcast live on Northern Community Radio from the Edge Center for the Arts in Bigfork, Minnesota. The show runs from 5-7 p.m. The free tickets to the theater are reserved, but there are usually unclaimed tickets at the door if you would like to see it…
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Finally, a snow shovel with old look, new pointlessness
They say it will snow this weekend in northern Minnesota. I saw this floating around social media as sort of a local joke, but it is a real product: Behold the “Snow Wolf” wheeled shovel in action. It’s an ergonomic dream, they say. A snowblower without the dirty engine attached, they say. I see a…
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The promise and perils of attracting film projects to MN
There’s been a renewed push lately to attract film projects to northern Minnesota. Yesterday, the IRRRB approved an $800,000 incentive to attract movie projects to the Iron Range. News that the Minnesota Film Board was working with a production company for a 2013 movie made for headlines recently as well. Of course, the region had…
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Essar loan extended, company in talks to bring steel plant to Range
Essar Steel, an Indian company planning to open a new taconite plant near Nashwauk next year, is talking to another company about bringing an historic steel plant to northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. This according to reports from yesterday’s meeting of the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board in Eveleth. Essar also got their $6.7 million…
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Long arc of justice bends toward ‘Lincoln’ on the Range
Daniel Day-Lewis portrays Abraham Lincoln. Quite a while ago I read a story that Daniel Day-Lewis would portray Abraham Lincoln in a movie based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book “Team of Rivals.” I had an episode that would probably be categorized as “geeking out” but probably exceeded the norm. The world’s best actor. My favorite…
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Great Northern Radio Show to deliver holiday spirit in Bigfork
Sam Miltich, Matthew Miltich and Gary Schulte will light up the Edge. I’m in the midst of preparations for another Great Northern Radio Show this Saturday. I hope you’ll listen, and consider coming to the show. We have a small number of free tickets remaining for the show at the Edge Center in Bigfork. Call…
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Those Duluth prostitutes are so dressed up that they look like … not prostitutes? Wait, what?
A joke in Monday night’s “How I Met Your Mother” suggested that prostitutes in Duluth, Minnesota dress very conservatively. Because of the cold? Kind of a context thing, I think. Didn’t watch. Could have, but didn’t. Anyway, the Duluth News-Tribune ran this as a “namedrop” in the today’s culture page. I really don’t know how…
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Our paychecks now face constant ballot test
In a glimpse of what could easily have happened in Minnesota and could yet occur, a Republican legislature and governor passed “right to work” laws in Michigan yesterday, one of the biggest union states in the nation yesterday. Lawmakers did so with little debate and no hearings, ushering in laws that weaken both public and…
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Iron Range roller derby team sports new logo
The Iron Range Maidens roller derby team has released its new logo: The selection was made as part of a contest. Doug Kahlberg created the winning entry. I attended a Maidens bout once and wrote this. In addition, you should know that the Maidens have a B-Team named the “Attackonites.” Attackonite is a mineral product…
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Language, not lutefisk, might be Scandinavia’s greatest gift
One of my favorite blogs, TYWKIWDBI, posts the following question: “Is English a Scandinavian language?” Some professors in Norway apparently believe so, saying that viking domination of the early English nation had more lingual influence than “Old English” or later intermingling with the romance languages of central Europe. Specifically, sentence structure is one area of…
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DNR proposes moose as endangered species
Growing up in northern Minnesota in the ’80s and ’90s, we saw moose in the woods just outside the Iron Range. No, we didn’t see moose every day, the way we often see whitetail deer. But you saw a moose or two every year, more if you lived farther north than the Range. Those days…
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Horrific crash near my home under investigation
The investigation is ongoing, but this old garage near my home was incinerated in the vehicular incident reported here by the Hibbing Daily Tribune. I wrote about the garage before the election. It is entirely gone now. According to people around the township it was a terrible scene. Prayers to the family of the person…