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Some guy: Big steel company will not screw us
The Grand Rapids Herald Review reports on a discussion held during a recent Itasca County Regional Rail Authority meeting that pokes at a persistent rumor around northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. Namely, it’s been suggested that Essar Minnesota, the local affiliate of India-based Essar, a major global corporation moving up the ranks of the steel, ore…
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Hey, wanna buy a bunch of rocks? We’ve got some
“Overburden” is more than just the title of my award-winning book (though principally that’s what it is). Overburden is also a real word that means something “miney.” Miney is my new word for things related to the mining industry. You start saying things like this after a few years of covering the mining industry. Anyway,…
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Lake, Cook counties to see broadband to all homes
Lake and Cook counties in Northeastern Minnesota will receive millions in funding to create a publicly-owned network of broadband internet access for all their households. (Note: Link is to a private company’s press release). News items like this will continue to circulate as federal grants surrounding rural broadband start circulating outward from Washington, but I…
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120 very important years, ctd.
I wrote last week on Pam Brunfelt’s lecture about the significance of the Iron Range in U.S. history. KAXE just shared a 12 minute interview of Pam which is a pretty good distillation of her talk. You should give it a listen. Related posts: No related posts.
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This is a post about manhole covers and Bob Dylan
Duluth continues to expand its homage to its native son Bob Dylan with new manhole covers on Dylan Way. The heavy metal discs celebrate Dylan by way of his song “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” featuring some kind of fancy image of sandals and candles. The vandals and handles will be forthcoming, I’m sure. You might know…
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Carp czar risks assassination by bullhead-sheviks
I’m still getting hot-off-the-press media dispatches from the pro-lock and dam, anti-carp, pro-common sense, anti-bureaucracy lobby, which opposes Asian carp to the degree which it affects shipping on the Great Lakes. CONFUSION IS PEACE! Seriously, Asian carp may soon invade the Great Lakes, which is hella bad considering how just one Asian carp can fly…
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COLUMN: The empire of Iron Range past
This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Sept. 12, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Once again, this is inspired by a blog post earlier in the week. The empire of Iron Range pastBy Aaron J. Brown Last week the family and I headed out to Palo, another of the wonderful scrub-brush townships…
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Live blogging #mnblogconf (Minnesota Blog Conference) in St. Paul
Here are some intermittent updates from today’s Minnesota Blog Conference in downtown St. Paul: 3:03 pmI’m ODing on blog talk. Need steak and open flames, anything three dimensional will do. More later. 11:35 amEgg salad, because I live dangerously. 11:14 amMe to “blog-to-book” presenter: “How do I break out of regional base to national audience?”…
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Brown on the Air: JOKES!
Tune in to “Between You and Me” Saturday morning on 91.7 KAXE for music, commentary and listener contributions about this week’s rotating topic: JOKES! Guest hosts Michael Goldberg and Gail Otteson will be taking calls and celebrating 9/11 humor! Ha ha! Too soon? Yes. Too soon. They’ll be taking jokes from the audience and not…
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Inappropriate emphasis of key POINTS in a SPEECH
I ALSO have a master’s degree in communication. Unfortunately this guy is doing a good job if showing what that’s actually worth. This viral video has been dubbed the “worst stump speech” in the history if the republic. I don’t know. I kind of like it. It’s good enough to get him on the Itasca…
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Minnesota blog conference lures Browns to urban environs
Today Christina and I will be heading south for the Minnesota Blog Conference in St. Paul. She’ll be presenting in one of the sessions on Saturday and I will be a dutiful participant in all the proceedings. I look forward to meeting some of our colleagues in the Minnesota blogosphere and learning more about our…
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120 very important years
Today I attended Pam Brunfelt’s Minnesota Humanities Center lecture on the significance of the Iron Range in American history at Valentini’s in Chisholm. Pam detailed the modern history of Minnesota’s three iron ranges starting back in the 1880s until today, showing how this one small place in northern Minnesota changed the course of history. Without…
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Is this prudent policy on prurient pay-per-view? P’shaw!
Here’s something interesting. Commissioners in Winona County in southeastern Minnesota have voted 4-0 to ban county employees from staying in hotels that OFFER pay-per-view porn movies. (One commissioner “abstained” — HA HA). Bear in mind that purchasing such movies has always been against the rules, but now everyone who works for the county has to…
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Mini retreat boasts bold agenda
Sometimes I have to post a local link just for the headline: “Chaos is the focus of Women’s Mini Retreat” (Hibbing Daily Tribune). So much material here. A lot might focus on “chaos” as the funniest thing about this headline, but I choose to highlight “mini.” Indeed, if chaos can be handled at a mini…
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Empire past
David Schneider writes at 3quarksdaily about how maps don’t mean what they used to. That’s a very simplistic way of describing a strong, creative piece exploring a changing world. He writes about Brooklyn. I’m working on the Iron Range version of this, which is weighed down by a lot of haul truck references and, thus,…