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Super Bowl done, now for superb owls at Sax-Zim Bog
The 9th Annual Sax-Zim Bog Birding Festival starts Friday, Feb. 12 and runs through Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016. It provides serious and casual birders alike a unique opportunity to see great gray owls, northern owls, pine grosbeaks and many other wintering species. The IRRRB’s Lee Bloomquist published an article on the Sax-Zim Bog Birding Festival…
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Economic salvation is local
Duluth, Minnesota, is among several cities featured in a James Fallows story in the March 2016 edition of “The Atlantic,” entitled “How America is putting itself back together.” The Duluth angle is what got my attention, but the rest of the story is what I’d like to talk about today. Fallows lists Duluth alongside his story’s…
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Molten iron in the sky
In China, people are wrapping up the celebration of the lunar new year. With a country as big and economically diverse as China you find many different traditions. I saw this next one on ABC News this morning. In the old steel town of Dunhuang, blacksmiths have an annual New Year tradition of melting scrap…
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Bakk explains failed bid for Range special session
We can now agree that Gov. Mark Dayton’s effort to call a special session to address pressing economic issues has been undone. The casualties include, most notably, expiring unemployment benefits of Iron Range miners caught in the gears of international commerce. Dayton cited Republican resistance to agree to terms for a special session, while Republicans seemed to blame Dayton for not calling one…
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Super Bowl bread and circuses
“Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.” ~Roman poet Juvenal, circa 100 A.D.…
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Slide on up to Aurora for Saturday’s show!
In a short time I’ll be making my way across the Mesabi Iron Range to Aurora and Palo as I prepare for this Saturday’s Great Northern Radio Show. If you’d like to see the show live, perhaps after a day of Laskiainen fun in Palo, you need to be seated at the auditorium in Aurora…
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Iron Range woes on the national stage
It’s always fun to watch what happens when reporters from national publications come to the Iron Range to do major stories. Movers and shakers whisper in low tones about their possible motives, while others clamber for their one chance at being quoted in a paper someone actually reads (maybe?). The results vary, but this time…
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Lost special session only one of Range’s problems
Laid-off Iron Range miners will have to wait until the late start of the legislative session this March to see if the legislature will act to extend their unemployment benefits. GOP House Speaker Kurt Daudt announced Tuesday that his caucus would not support Gov. Mark Dayton’s call for a special session to aid miners displaced by a global…
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Laskiainen 2016: the flax and the furious
(The complete Laskiainen schedule is at the bottom of this post) The winter doldrums of Northern Minnesota now roll over us with workmanlike routine. Don hats and gloves. Scrape the windshield. Warm up the car. Walk like a penguin. Repeat. Perhaps small comfort, but true the same, is how for millennia these same cold squalls…
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‘Pro-union’ Republican Farnsworth enters 6A race
On Friday, Republican Rob Farnsworth of Hibbing entered the House 6A race to succeed Rep. Carly Melin (DFL-Hibbing). He’ll seek the GOP endorsement at the Feb. 9 local convention. Farnsworth described himself as a “pro-union” Republican, who cites his family connection to the iron mining industry. “I want nothing more than to see this region…
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Warmer winters part of MN moose dilemma
The Minnesota Associated Press reports that researchers are closer to finding out why so many Minnesota moose have been dying off in recent years. Theories abounded over the past few years. The truth, as you might expect, is somewhat complex. Wolf kills are an obvious reason for many deaths, but a variety of natural causes such as…
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Great Northern Radio Show coming to Aurora
I’m excited to announce that my next Great Northern Radio Show will broadcast live from the Mesabi East High School auditorium in Aurora, Minnesota, on Saturday, Feb. 6. A good Iron Range Finn would know the significance of that place and date: This will be our Laskiainen Show. Laskiainen is the Finnish Sliding Festival held the…
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Range economic talk needs focus on future, not past
It’s been interesting reading the responses to my recent post about the Highway 53 bridge. On one hand, we have a question about an expensive bridge and its place in our infrastructure planning for the future. But really, like most things related to mining, it quickly becomes a litmus test on your perspective toward the…
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Talkin’ middle school parking lot blues
Let me be clear. I do not plan to murder anyone. But if I did the crime would almost certainly take place in the parking lot of my son’s middle school. Winter parking in Northern Minnesota is hard enough. Ice and snow cover the yellow lines. Every slight maneuver involves spinning tires and the risk…
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GOP now floating proposal for special session
On Thursday, Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Daudt (R-Crown) seemed skeptical about a special session to extend unemployment for laid-off Iron Range miners. But yesterday, the Mesabi Daily News ran a story indicating there is, in fact, a Republican proposal for a special session. It hinges on a shorter extension for the benefits, and eliminates any discussion of addressing economic disparities in…