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Brown on the Air: Exercise, Dylan Days and more Dylan Days
My weekly radio essay for KAXE’s “Between You and Me” this week is about exercise. I take a broader look at exercise through an evolutionary lens. Using phrases like that helps me feel better about the general appearance of my torso. It’s supposed to be funny, so tune in and find out if it actually…
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Life is short
Rick Weegman from the Duluth News-Tribune writes a column today about a young woman from my hometown of Cherry, Minn., who was killed in a car wreck. It’s about the everyday reality of mortality, something that hits home for me since I crossed that same intersection thousands of times when I was in high school.…
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Steelworkers endorse Obama
Here’s a union endorsement in the presidential race that has implications on the Iron Range. (Found via yellowdog) The Range was going to be John Edwards country on Feb. 5 and Obama needs to hold the big DFL margins up here to win Minnesota. The Steelworkers aren’t necessarily the largest constituency up here anymore, but…
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McCain gets all futuristic on the TV
I just watched John McCain give a speech that was carried live on cable news. I came in late so it took me a minute to realize that his rhetorical construct was “it’s the future and here’s what I did in my first term.” He was saying things like “the economy is robust and people…
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Obama deserves to win because…
… he got ABC to break into World News with live coverage of his rally with John Edwards … the day AFTER he lost West Virginia by 40 points. Hot damn! That’s no small feat. Here’s the whole Edwards speech from CNN: Related posts: No related posts.
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Remember, U.S. Steel deals in the folding money
Just a friendly reminder, the biggest investor of new capital into the Iron Range economy this year will not be Essar Global, Excelsior Energy, Wal-Mart or even the Pabst brewing company. No, the most new money will come from U.S. Steel, which is dropping a smooth $350 million to restart an old line at Keewatin…
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UPDATE X2: Folstrom drops out of 4A DFL race; Persell poised as frontrunner
Dammit, blogging, I can’t quit you. So much for the “no blog” Tuesday afternoon. FLASH! From the House District 4A DFL endorsement race. Irene Folstrom withdrew her bid for the endorsement today, leaving a clear path for the other candidate, John Persell, a Beltrami County Soil and Water commissioner and longtime DFLer. Persell has worked…
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Minnesota Power to step up wind power by 200 mW
I’m already breaking my no blog rule for the day. Minnesota Power announces the purchase of a transmission line and the intention to phase out of one of its coal contracts in favor of 200 megawatts of wind power from the Dakotas. From today’s MP’s press release: In a major move to accelerate its strategy…
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Paper Chase
Believe it or not, I don’t pay my bills with this blog. If I did I’d be on a slow boat to an Australian debtors prison now. I teach at a community college and finals week is coming up. From now through next week I’ll be grading a massive amount of papers, all while keeping…
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Midnight in the halls of Iron Range power
I didn’t think Excelsior Energy could go a whole legislative session without deploying its vast lobbying force for something. Recently, in the tax bill conference committee, State. Sen. Tom Bakk inserted language that extends the property tax exemptions from 2010 to 2012 for everyone’s favorite black hole of government giveaways and special favors. Excelsior is…
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Five questions about the Iron Range economic boom
Tony Barrett, an economics professor at St. Scholastica in Duluth, poses five excellent questions about the Iron Range’s prospective economic boom in today’s Duluth News-Tribune. I sense on the streets and back roads of the Iron Range that people are sitting back, perhaps a bit too comfortable in the belief that good times are about…
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Democracy on the March: Batman vs. the Penguin
In the old Adam West TV show, Batman once battled the Penguin (both in full costume) in a democratic election. Sadly, the satire is particularly appropriate for this year. My favorite is Robin’s reaction at the end of the clip. Related posts: No related posts.
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True knowledge in the north woods
This is my weekly Hibbing Daily Tribune column for Sunday, May 11, 2008. I archive my columns at my writing site. True knowledge in the north woodsBy Aaron J. Brown The other day, my almost-three-year-old son Henry and I walked down to the lake to throw sticks, a favorite pastime of Henry’s and a ritual…
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Update: Forums scheduled for hot 4A race
Here’s an update from the House District 4A race. This is the seat that popular incumbent Frank Moe (DFL-Bemidji) is abandoning to pursue a Ph.D. and focus on his family. We’ve got endorsement fights on both sides of the aisle. DFLThere are still only two announced DFL candidates for endorsement: Leech Lake band member and…
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More steel and speculation in this week’s Biz North
Wayne Nelson and the writers at Business North do a fine job of covering the economic news of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. This week’s edition has a couple of interesting Iron Range stories. First, this story reviews Essar Global’s North American steel ambitions, something I talked about earlier in the week. This is the company…