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A first-in-a-generation political battle brews up north
The sun rises over the treeline along the eastern horizon, highlighting the steam cloud over Keewatin Taconite. This is the first day in a while mist hasn’t billowed off the lake.The water is cold all the time now. Soon enough it will grow dark and gelatinous, freezing hard and staying that way until sometime around…
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The late, late show in St. Louis County
The Star Tribune profiles the old Minnesota election day tradition of waiting for St. Louis County to report its results late at night. The Democratic bastion, which includes Duluth and much of the Iron Range, is the largest geographic county in the state and one of the most remote. The speeds on return time have…
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COLUMN: Scary amount of election cash this All Hallows (Election) Eve
This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Oct. 31, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Scary amount of election cash this All Hallows (Election) EveBy Aaron J. Brown The Washington Post reported last week that candidates will spend more than a combined $2 billion in the nation’s House and Senate races so far…
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Minnesota’s Fightin’ 8th readies for its closeup
We’re entering the final countdown of the 2010 election, a contest that will go down as a very informative historical study on the voting habits of (in no particular order) Americans, Minnesotans and the people of Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District. It’s good that I have been plowing through “The Rise of American Democracy” by Sean…
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Brown on the Air: BRINGIN’ IT ALL BACK HOME
Join me this Saturday morning for “Between You and Me” on 91.7 KAXE. The show blends calls, commentary, music and more for a unique northern Minnesota media experience. This week’s topic is “bring back.” Say what? Well, that just means we’ll be talking about all the things, both specific and conceptual, that we want back.…
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Dayton, Oberstar rally on the Range
Tom Scheck of Minnesota Public Radio covered last night’s Iron Range DFL rally in Virginia. Audio links to speeches from Congressman Jim Oberstar and Mark Dayton are included. Related posts: No related posts.
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My secret project is not-so-secret trend
The New York Times Book Review has a story (“All Programs Considered” by Bill McKibben) that fits nicely, perhaps too nicely, with thoughts I have been having lately about the direction of my writing and media projects. You know that this blog and my columns, essays and book, are professional in that I am sometimes…
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The gales of November are not kidding this time
TYWKIWDBI reports on the massive winds of yesterday’s storms in the middle of the country, including this NOAA graphic of waves on Lake Superior. Shipping companies pulled all the ore ships off the lake out of deference to the storied “Gales of November” made famous by sinking the legendary SS Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. Those…
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Steel recovery slows, the need for creativity grows
A sluggish national economic recovery means the recently buoyant steel industry is tempering its optimism. Things aren’t bad, per se, but U.S. Steel and ArcelorMittal are seeing orders drop as new construction in the U.S. and Europe continues to tread water. It would seem to me that new construction would and probably should remain slower…
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Range DFL to hold bean feed, rally in Virginia Thursday
If politics is your thing, the Iron Range DFL will be holding a bean feed and rally at the Miners Memorial Building in Virginia Thursday night with DFL nominee for governor Mark Dayton, U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar and others on the DFL ticket. Virginia native Paul Metsa will be on hand as the musical entertainment.…
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New live music series slated for venerable Range venue
Following the successful “Art in the Park” outdoor live music series this summer, the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm will be holding free indoor acoustic music shows starting this Thursday, Oct. 28. Seems like a good idea to me. Minnesota Discovery Center introduces Acoustic Café In a partnership with the Iron Range Original Music Association,…
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Milford Mine site now open to public
The first phase of a memorial site for the Milford Mine disaster of 1924 is complete in Crow Wing County. The Milford tragedy took the lives of 41 miners on the Cuyuna Range, one of the three major historic iron ranges in northern Minnesota. A park commemorating something so awful might not be the ball…
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The ugly yet possible truth of balancing the federal budget
We’ve heard a lot of talk about balancing the federal budget, securing our nation for our children and grandchildren lately. It’s a tea party mantra, but not a new idea. Several decades of deficit spending under governments run by either or both parties have led us to this low place. Esquire magazine took a few…
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Alternate reality in the State of Superior: Election 2010
This is the first of an occasional series exploring the people and times of an alternate reality. In this world, the areas today known as northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula joined together as the Lake Superior Territory in 1848 and became the State of Superior in 1866. With vast mineral and timber…
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COLUMN: The real tweet
This is my column for the Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010 edition of Hibbing Daily Tribune. The real tweetBy Aaron J. Brown The internet is for narcissists. Narcissistic internet people told me this on their blogs, so I know it’s true. I’m smart like that. And I have a blog. But even as the internet goes,…