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Oracle of Sax-Zim Bog warns of 2017 dangers
The beaver wears a pinstriped suit. That’s how I know things have changed in the swamp. This year’s visit to the Oracle of the Sax-Zim Bog will be unlike any before. Until now, my New Year’s journey to the Oracle had wound through the frozen marsh like the familiar bends of Stony Creek. The Oracle’s…
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On the Thirteenth Day of Christmas
Hail, hail Christmas morning! The family gathers around the tree to behold the fruits of Santa Claus’s labor. The stockings spew forth troves of sugar and plenty. The spirit of giving crescendos as we exchange gifts selected with care, or that were perhaps on sale. RIP RIP WOW RIP RIP AHHHH RIP RIP THANK YOU!…
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Merry Christmas from MinnesotaBrown
Happy Holidays, dear reader! Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. Happy New Year to those who mark more secular holidays. And Happy Friday to those who would prefer not to deal with any of it. [Silent nod to ninjas and people with sleeping babies] We are nearing the end of 2016, a time of reflection.…
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Life on the Dinner-Supper line
Everybody eats. Not everybody does it the same way. And still more call the same meal by different names. So, my whole life I’ve eaten something called “breakfast” in the morning, a word derived from “to break a fast,” or end a period without food. At midday, I eat something called “lunch,” short for “luncheon.” And…
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On the solstice, winter’s beginning foretells its end
Today is the Winter Solstice. When I was younger, I used to let days like this pass without notice. Just a meaningless notation on my day planner. Not any more. The solstice is the shortest day of the year, the time we in the Northern Hemisphere spin farthest from the Sun. The event marks the first day…
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Season 3 of ‘Fargo’ headed for Eden Valley, MN
Season 3 of the critically-acclaimed “Fargo” on FX will begin filming in Canada in January. This week, the show announced most of its cast. I reviewed the first two seasons of “Fargo” here at MinnesotaBrown.com, providing a uniquely rural Minnesota-centric point of view. The reviews were quite popular during Season 1, but traffic fell back to…
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Speaking the hope of tomorrow’s Northern Minnesota
A few weekends ago I found myself in the rural environs of Northome, Minnesota. Two of my sons had a LEGO robotics meet there, an insanely long Saturday of watching LEGO robots intermittently pick things up and put them down again. The occasion left lots of time to wander the halls of Northome School. Northome is a logging town located in…
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Evergreen with envy
Even in the distant North Woods of Minnesota you can’t avoid our long cultural obsession with “the holidays.” By now, those of you who celebrate have likely put up your Christmas trees. The Noel tradition of decorating an evergreen tree inside the home dates backs centuries, even before Christianity itself. To discuss this tradition, today…
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Proposition 54, where are you?
Last Saturday, the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party central committee voted down Proposition 54, a controversial resolution that would have placed the party in opposition to sulfide ore mining. Now, an aside. I earnestly considered whether or not to headline this post about a failed DFL resolution with pun that relates to a black-and-white TV comedy that aired before I was…
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Trusting the wolves, hastening our fate
May 25, 2000: The morning after LTV Steel announced it would close its Hoyt Lakes taconite plant, miners lined up outside the Workforce Center in Virginia, Minnesota. Each wanted to be first to submit a job application to another mine on the Mesabi Iron Range, none of which were hiring. Though employed to monitor youth…
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Saturday is ‘Bob Dylan Day’ in Minnesota
The sign honoring Hibbing High School alumnus Bob Zimmerman for his Nobel Prize. (PHOTO: Hibbing High School) This Saturday, Dec. 10, 2016, the Swedish Academy in Stockholm will award Bob Dylan with the Nobel Prize for Literature, in absentia. Patti Smith will sing “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” Someone will read an acceptance speech written by…
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U.S. Steel vows (nonspecifically) to restore 10,000 jobs
In recent days, we’ve been talking about the general improvement of stock and commodity prices as they relate to Mesabi Range iron mines. One of my key observations was that despite the surge, U.S. Steel’s Keewatin Taconite remained closed after 18 months. Well, stop the presses. Maybe. On Wednesday, U.S. Steel CEO Mario Longhi said on…
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Duluth TV reporter lutefisk hazing continues
Used to be, no one had refrigerators. From this simple truth emerged many methods of preparing and storing food across the cultures of the world. In the Scandinavian countries of Norway and Sweden, that included soaking white fish in lye until it formed a gel. Then, months later, you could “reconstitute” the floppy former fish…
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The nation’s rural reckoning of 2016
When the founders crafted our Constitution more than two centuries ago, they enshrined the rural agrarian roots of the United States. Country gentlemen trusted city folk about as much then as they do now, and for largely the same reason: power. For who would rule this nation? The farmers and loggers of the country, or…
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Mills opts to back off recount in MN-8
Stewart Mills announced today he would not seek a recount in Minnesota’s Eighth Congressional district. Mills lost to Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN8) by about 2,000 votes in the Nov. 8 general election. Outside the margin for an automatic recount, Mills had nonetheless sought to pay for one himself. Today, Mills said the expense of doing so…