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Freaking beobabs everywhere!
Who remembers “The Little Prince?” In this French children’s book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a pilot meets an alien who looks like a little kid. This “Little Prince” lives on a tiny planet where all he does is pull up the baobab trees so they don’t take root and choke his world. C’est une métaphore!…
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Yes We Can
You know it’s a rough night when the TV makes your beer taste bad. So, Clinton won New Hampshire. I’ll avoid the more cynical thoughts that have been bouncing around my head all day, but sufficed to say we’ve got a battle on our hands. It’s all about Feb. 5 now. One on one. Clinton…
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MPR posts ‘Select a Candidate’ quiz for 2008
Minnesota Public Radio posted their “Select a Candidate” feature for the election year. I wouldn’t recommend using it as your only method of selecting a candidate for Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race or the presidential caucuses, but it will help show you which candidates line up with you on your most important issues. I took the…
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New look at Ironworld
For those interested, Ironworld is going through some changes this year. Check out the Hibbing Daily Tribune story. Dylan Days — one of my many side projects — is working with Ironworld to put together a Dylan exhibit next May. Stay tuned for this and potentially even more exciting news. Related posts: No related posts.
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Pawlenty really doesn’t want to be a wallflower in ’08
T-Paw is really hoping for someone to ask him to the prom. He’s got the dress. He’s got the body glitter. He’s ready. Future Republican nominee, just ask him. Get him out of our state for just a while because I’m betting he’ll act like a total bitch if he doesn’t get asked. We’ve got…
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‘West Wing’ in real life?
OK, so this is nerdy but it’s the Internet so you’ve got to expect some of that. IF Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee and IF John McCain is the Republican nominee, then our election this year will be strikingly similar in tone and style to the “West Wing” fake election held during the last…
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New Hampshire speaks tomorrow
The New Hampshire primary is Tuesday. There is a good chance that my “endorsed” candidates, Barack Obama for the Democrats and John McCain for the Republicans, will win on both sides of the aisle. The biggest story of this election so far has been Obama. I feel like his candidacy could be remembered as a…
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JOBZ analysis in Hibbing paper
One of the primary economic development strategies of Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s administration has been the use of tax-free zones in rural areas, called “JOBZ.” The program gives businesses a break from property, payroll and sales taxes during a fixed period to encourage growth. It’s one of those ideas that sounds foolproof at first blush, but…
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A ‘surge’ of ‘hybrids’ last year
With politics in full swing after last week’s Iowa caucuses and next week’s New Hampshire primary, it’s easy to overload on words right now. Candidates pour words aplenty upon the voters, some true, some truish, some true lite, and the rest regular old false. But while people sometimes distort the truth, words themselves don’t lie.…
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Brown on the Air: Coffee
My weekly radio essay for Saturday’s “Between You and Me” on 91.7 KAXE is about coffee, which is also the show’s theme this week. Breaking a recent trend I don’t wax philosophic about the deep meaning of coffee. Rather, I talk about the base value of coffee: a fast, reliable source of caffeine. I do…
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No U.S. Senate candidate has Range advantage
The Iron Range doesn’t always line up votes in statewide endorsement battles, but often it will. Not so this year. If you recall some of my earlier posts about Range politics (Part 1 and Part 2) the Range has three basic DFL factions: labor, progressives and opinion leaders. Sometimes they line up and sometimes they…
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Obama wins Iowa
Here I am, in my easy chair. My three young babies are asleep in their beds. I grew up on a family-owned salvage yard in northern Minnesota in a place called the Iron Range. As I grew up, my dad was a diesel mechanic who after being laid off in the 1980s managed the junkyard.…
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News from the Iowa front
I’ve been getting some hilarious e-mails from a friend of mine who lives in Dubuque, Iowa. I wrote her because I was curious about what life was like in Iowa amid the nonstop statewide campaigning going on by the 8 or 9 top presidential candidates. She gave me these hilarious details: 1) She hasn’t had…
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MinnesotaBrown endorsements: Obama, McCain
2008 will be regarded as an historic turning point election in the United States. Someone always says that about every election, but this year we have some evidence. No modern U.S. election has ever featured such wide-open primaries in both parties. No modern presidency has ever left such deep ideological divides in this county as…
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Happy 2008!
We’re in a bit of a holding pattern today. Not much locally and all the national news focuses on Thursday’s Iowa caucuses. The MinnesotaBrown endorsements — irrelevant though they may be — will be out tomorrow. So, Happy New Year! I’ll post later if I hear something. Related posts: No related posts.