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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…
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LIVE FEED: Dayton, legislative leaders discuss 2013 agenda
Gov. Mark Dayton (DFL-Minnesota) and legislative leaders from the state House and Senate will hold a joint press conference today at 11:30 a.m. Courtesy of The Uptake, I’ll carry the event live here at MinnesotaBrown.com. Last week, state budget forecasters announced a deficit of about $1.1 billion, about what was expected. Still in the mix…
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Nolan featured in NY Times story on political experience
Rep.-elect Rick Nolan (D-MN8) is in the lede of a story in the New York Times about the importance of experience in political leaders. Nolan ran as an experienced “down-home” small businessman, but had this little nugget in his resume: he served in Congress 30 years ago and left of his own choice because of…
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The Great Northern gets front page for Bigfork show
The Grand Rapids Herald Review was very kind to the Great Northern Radio Show in Sunday’s paper. They ran our press release and put my stage-lit mug up over the mast on the front page and sprawled across the culture section. I question the effect this will have on rack sales, but I suppose that’s…
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COLUMN: Hay! What? Hay bales (that’s the joke)
This is my Sunday column for the Dec. 9, 2012 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. I previewed this column earlier in the week, complete with the 1998 Cherry High School class picture, in which my class posed in a hay field with hay bales. Also, I am wearing white pants. Hay! What? Hay bales!…
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Twitter list is a big deal … you know, regionally
On Monday I’ll be posting details on the next Great Northern Radio Show next Saturday, Dec. 15, at the Edge Center for the Arts in Bigfork. I’m editing the script right now. There’ll be a lot of that next week. So no time for news today, but how about an internet narcissism break? You didn’t…
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Looking in on Hibbing’s ‘Castle in the Wilderness’
WCCO’s Bill Hudson did a “Finding Minnesota” story about Hibbing High School, one of the most ornate and visually stunning school houses in the state. Most Iron Range locals take this place for granted, or at least are desensitized to its grandeur. This building and its history are a fascinating part of the area’s rich…