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Dig Deep tackles COVID-19 and what comes next
Last week, my friend Heidi Holtan hosted my other friend Chuck Marohn and me in a live Dig Deep conversation about COVID-19. It was the first time we’ve done the show from different places. The news ebbs and flows, good news mixed with the bad. As a nation we’re not yet free of collective response…
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John Prine sang the grief of losing places like mine
John Prine died Tuesday from complications of COVID-19. He had been critically ill with the disease for days following years of battling cancer. The singer-songwriter with his high gravelly voice was best known for brilliant working class lyrics brimming with pathos, humor, and sometimes uncomfortable honesty. As the New York Times pointed out, Bob Dylan…
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New urgency for rural broadband
My family and I live down a long dirt road in rural Itasca County. Mud season reminds us of the challenges of rural life and the thin tendon joining our home to civilization. This world seems even farther away during the coronavirus pandemic sweeping our nation and the world, but it’s still there. We still…
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Iron Range in isolation: talking COVID-19
Last week I appeared on KAXE with Heidi Holtan talking about the COVID-19 situation on the Mesabi Iron Range. Check it out. This was my first radio appearance since being sheltered in place with my family here in the woods of northern Minnesota. We make a couple trips to town each week for groceries and…
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Recycling a limited solution in disposable society
The attendant at the dump extended a pair of Inspector Gadget tongs into the recycling bins to retrieve contraband. His sworn enemy is styrofoam. “If I could un-invent anything on earth it would be styrofoam,” he told me this month. He also told me that the rules would be changing. Itasca County now must pay…
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On the missing pieces in Iron Range political coverage
On Sunday, the national political publication Politico profiled the shifting political winds on northern Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range. Reporter Adam Behsudi and photographer M. Scott Mahaskey toured the region a few weeks ago. And yes, I appear in the story. It’s worth reading. But if you do, consider reading my latest column for the Minnesota…
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Homebound on a global scale
Who buys soup at Target? Apparently everyone, because the soup is gone. But we can get soap. So let’s get soap. Walking the aisles of the store last weekend my phone rang. It was my sister Alyssa in Italy. She’ve been living there almost two years now but was hoping to come home for a…
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COVID-19 crisis threatens iron ore demand
NOTE: This post also appears in the Hibbing Daily Tribune as part of a content partnership. Economic effects of the global pandemic could reach taconite mines on Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range later this year. U.S. automakers Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler announced Wednesday they would close all American production plants in response to the…
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Iron Range epidemics and the greater good
NOTE: This article also appears in the Hibbing Daily Tribune. It’s part of a new expanded partnership between this blog and the newspaper that runs my column. Frank Hibbing could sense iron nearby when he and his team camped beneath a grove of towering white pines on the western Mesaba Iron Range. Indeed, they would discover…
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2020 Hindsight: Revisiting the future of our past, Part 3
This is the last of a three-part series. See Part 1 and Part 2. There is no historical blind spot quite like the recent past. The living defend their memories, true or not, with self-interested passion. The recently departed are far more saintly than the long dead. Over the past three weeks I’ve been exploring…
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Minnesota’s iconic hockey hair video dekes out fans, parties back in
Forty years after the “Miracle on Ice,” we get another one. Last year, the mysterious creator of the annual 2020 Minnesota State High School League “All Hockey Hair” team announced his retirement after ten years of hilarious videos. But this year, against all odds, he’s back. The video’s a little shorter, a little more to…
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2020 Hindsight: Revisiting the future of our past, Part 2
This is the second of a three-part series. Last week I told you about a 1998 Hibbing Daily Tribune special section entitled “2020 Vision.” Back then, reporters interviewed local people about what they saw happening in our region by the year 2020. They got a lot right. For instance, many predicted the rise of health…
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Story of Minnesota Ojibwe chief Hole in the Day headed to Hollywood
This land we call Minnesota rests on layers of stories. Dig and you find more. Dig and the stories grow deeper and more complex. Some of these fantastic tales seem suited for the movies, and soon enough that may be true. Such is the story of a Northern Minnesota leader that most local schools still…
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Klobuchar to drop campaign, endorse Biden
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar will end her campaign for president tonight and endorse former Vice President Joe Biden at a rally in Texas. The unexpected news came less than a day before polls open in the Minnesota presidential primary and the broader Super Tuesday spate of nominating contests. Klobuchar was expected to carry her home…
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Super Tuesday in the land of 10,000 pundits
It’s Super Tuesday Eve, if that’s a thing, and I’m up with a new column in the Minnesota Reformer. Check it out. Here’s a taste: Minnesota won’t be the pivotal Super Tuesday race. The winning campaign here might not even survive the night. And, as I said, there’s no telling what voters will do at…