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Controversy and difficulty: necessary ingredients for our modern budget stew
I’ve become a big fan of Dan Carlin, not only for his “Hardcore History,” the best history podcast in existence, but also for his “Common Sense,” a political podcast aimed at advancing an independent agenda in American politics. My following of Carlin and the blogger Andrew Sullivan are probably the biggest reasons I’ve seen my…
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More MN-08 reading for all you weary warriors
If you’re interested in more reading on the aftermath of the MN-08 electoral stunner from last week take a gander at this post from a blog I just found called Gin and Tacos. It’s a left-leaning affair with its share of snark (if you consider these two descriptions exclusively). I disagree with the characterization of…
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Minnesota’s Fightin’ 8th goes through the changes
Minnesota Public Radio’s Elizabeth Dunbar has an excellent analysis of Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District in the wake of last week’s upset win for Republican Chip Cravaack over longtime DFL stalwart Jim Oberstar. The money line: There’s no question that Minnesota’s Iron Range, a longtime DFL stronghold, and the 8th District as a whole have changed…
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A great song keeps the Fitz alive
Today is the 35th anniversary of the sinking of the massive ore ship Edmund Fitzgerald in a terrible November storm on Lake Superior. This tragedy remains recent enough to affect the lives of some people still living in the Great Lakes region. Nevertheless, one gets the feeling that Gordon Lightfoot’s song about “The Wreck of…
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Longtime mustachioed Range, Duluth anchor to retire
Longtime news anchor Dennis Anderson of WDIO/WIRT, the ABC affiliate in the Duluth, MN, TV market (northern Minnesota and Wisconsin) announced he will retire in the next six months or so. This according to a story from my mentor Mike Simonson of Wisconsin Public Radio in Superior. Anderson is a solid regional journalist with a…
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Range planetarium to close, reopen as white dwarf
Today I follow-up and in all likelihood conclude my coverage of the plight confronting the Paulucci Space Theatre in Hibbing. On Dec. 1, the planetarium will temporarily close for public shows. In the spring, the facility will reopen under a new business model. The planetarium will be rented on an as-needed basis for school groups,…
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I have been to the mountaintweet
Sometimes the world just openly mocks you. The top of Mt. Everest is getting 3G data coverage to offer climbers, and presumably their Sherpas, high speed internet access at the world’s tallest mountain peak. Meantime, efforts to expand high speed internet access on the Iron Range more closely resemble all those guys who froze on…
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COLUMN: A house in order
This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Nov. 7, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A shorter version of this piece was broadcast as commentary on a recent edition of “Between You and Me” on KAXE. A house in orderBy Aaron J. Brown It’s probably fitting that the news of the past week…
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In honor of the Pioneer
MPR’s Bob Kelleher reports on efforts in Ely to turn the old Pioneer Mine site into a culture and heritage center. A quasi-high-end hotel with convention facilities now sits across the street from the Pioneer Mine, the culmination of an immigrant miner’s dream. That is, provided the immigrant miner had the foresight to encourage his…
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GUEST POST: Putting Oberstar’s Pork in Context
This is the latest in a semi-regular series of Iron Range posts from historian Jeff Manuel. News coverage of Representative Jim Oberstar’s loss to Chip Cravaack on Tuesday has emphasized Oberstar’s long record of using earmarks to fund projects in Minnesota’s Eighth District. The Star Tribune called Oberstar “a powerful transportation committee chairman who has…
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Brown on the Air: HOUSES
This Saturday on 91.7 KAXE‘s “Between You and Me” guest hosts Michael Goldberg and Gail Otteson will be exploring the topic of “This Old House.” They’ll be taking calls with stories of your current house or a house from your memory. My weekly commentary goes a slightly different direction, talking about the role of houses…
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Brown in the big city
I had a great day speaking to employees at Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul today for their staff Conversations with Community series. My topic was the Iron Range. My goal, as always, was to express how life here on today’s Iron Range is a complicated, almost literary existence, full of frustration and defeat, hope…
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Crow: It’s what’s for dinner in MN-08
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I obviously got my final prediction in MN-08 wrong. I had 53-47 Oberstar. However, I was probably the only DFLer predicting a close race, and reviewing the numbers what I see is a remarkable performance by Chip Cravaack throughout the district. He won by crushing margins…
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First in a long time: Iron Range seat falls to GOP
Longtime State Rep. and former Bovey mayor Loren Solberg (DFL-Grand Rapids) has narrowly lost his District 3B race to Carolyn McElfatrick, a Cohasset nurse and GOPer. For the first time in a generation an Iron Range legislative seat will be held by a Republican. Granted, the debate over whether Grand Rapids is part of the…
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Thank you, Jim Oberstar
In 1988 I was a kid whose dad was the site manager for our family-owned junkyard, where we also lived. My dad was a libertarian, my mom a silent liberal, and our family name was both literally and figuratively the color of mud. That year I had an opportunity to go to Washington, D.C., as…