Happy New Year's Eve, everyone. Here are the most viewed posts from this blog in 2008, according to Google.

1. Go to Hell, KSTP
After Twin Cities ABC affiliate KSTP did a misleading hit piece on Ironworld under the guise of "investigative journalism," I gave them the business. The day the story ran I was getting a sense that folks who know my blog were expecting a show and, looking back, I think I tried a bit too hard. I hardly ever say "go to hell" to anyone in real life, but it flowed like butter for this one and ended up at #1.

2. Norman and the Green Screen
This is from a more innocent time last summer when Minnesota's U.S. Senate race was merely ridiculous. I still think there was something up with this Norm Coleman ad. I wasn't one of the primary beneficiaries of the national links on this, but I caught some of the wake.

3. Tom Bakk: the MinnesotaBrown interview
This was the first of two interviews I did with (very, very early) DFL gubernatorial candidates. This one got the most attention because Bakk is an Iron Range senator and I am an Iron Range blogger who travels in some of his political circles.

4. More Dylan Days press, including my large head on a webcam
I am a co-chair of Dylan Days in Hibbing, a music, arts and literature event held each May. The search engines drove up the numbers on this one on two fronts as the post included Bob Dylan and the name of many Minnesota media outlets. I wish I could have posted video of my webcam interview that ran on KARE 11. I've never looked more like W.C. Fields in front of that many viewers in my life.

5. Paul Thissen: the MinnesotaBrown interview
This is the second of my gubernatorial interview pieces with DFLer Paul Thissen, one of my favorite legislators.

6. Optimistic news about Minnesota Steel on the Iron Range
I got a lot of search engine traffic on Essar, Minnesota Steel and related terms from the ongoing mining and steel making project near Nashwauk. Sometimes I think the only people who read this blog are cranked up political types, my friends and family, and consultants checking to see if I'm causing mischief for their Range projects. If this is true ... uh, hi. This is awkward.

7. Two perspectives on an Iron Range Wal-Mart protest
This is an example of me trying to step out of a lockstep union vs. anti-union debate and make an argument about how labor issues can be advanced in the 21st century. It provoked an interesting discussion. There are a few things I'd do differently if I wrote this over again, but I stand by the sentiment.

8. Oberstar's opponent?
The GOP has a lot of problems in a lot of places, not least of which is Minnesota's Eighth Congressional District. In MN08 the Republicans didn't even announce the NAME of their candidate until near the end of the filing deadline. I found out from an anonymous reader who seemed to be close to GOP operations and who was disgusted with how the candidate recruitment process turned out. This earlier post caught a lot of links. (The candidate ended up being Mike Cummins and he lost to Jim Oberstar along the typical heavily DFL index of the district).

9. 'Those mobster ads' and why union choice really matters
This is my take on the anti-Employee Free Choice Act ads that sprang up during the U.S. Senate campaign. It's another look at the difficult 21st century terrain for the labor movement.

10. Confirmed: Duluth councilor Reinert to seek 7B seat
This was one of the first posts I did about the heavily contested House 7B DFL primary in Duluth after Rep. Mike Jaros retired. Duluth City Councilor Roger Reinert won the primary over Marsh Stenersen and other candidates and went on to cruise to a win in the general election in this longtime DFL bastion. I did several dozen posts about this race. Why? Most of the Range races were pretty boring this year and I wanted to see how I could do covering a race with some action. These posts all generated a lot of traffic (by my standards). I consider this something of a dry run for what I might do if there's another open seat on the Iron Range or if Jim Oberstar ever retires.

This is a fascinating list to me. Some of my favorite posts were largely ignored by readers, but in retrospect the ones that were most popular were so for a reason. It's quite a learning experience. I've also burned a lot of time on this blog. I am going to reconsider my strategy in 2009 to provide more quality using less time, which might mean somewhat less frequent posting. I posted almost 1,000 times in 2008. I can't imagine doing that in an odd year.

I welcomed at least 20,000 unique IP address holders to MinnesotaBrown in 2008, which isn't huge when you consider that some were search engine misfires, but not bad for my first full year of daily blogging. The number was probably larger because my stat analysis was spotty during the first few months of the year and was down during my redesign last fall. If these visitors were to create a new town on the Iron Range it would be the largest Range town (and most awesome!)

Other than the name of the blog itself, more people found this site googling "Tony Sertich" than did googling any and all variations of my name. And yet, not one of the ten most popular posts even mentions House Majority Leader Sertich. There is no justice in this world. Not for me, or Tony.

Happy 2009 everyone! This last year was a memorable adventure. Thanks for joining me and offering your thoughts as well. If you're a regular reader of this blog, a fan (or mortal enemy) of the Iron Range or someone who enjoys a unique perspective on life in an off-the-wall place, pick up a copy of my book "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range." This is my first book from a new Duluth-based publisher Red Step Press. It's a mix of humor, history and my typical unusual perspective on the world I see. The sale of said book is how I justify my unpaid blogging, so ... you know. Just sayin.'

Thomas Friedman isn't as bad as my fellow progressives think he is. From his latest column in the New York Times:

... we don’t just need a bailout. We need a reboot. We need a build out. We need a buildup. We need a national makeover. That is why the next few months are among the most important in U.S. history. Because of the financial crisis, Barack Obama has the bipartisan support to spend $1 trillion in stimulus. But we must make certain that every bailout dollar, which we’re borrowing from our kids’ future, is spent wisely.

Hubris is why the Republicans failed to build a permanent majority after the 2002 elections. Democrats should learn from that and build the necessary bridges to the fiscally moderate masses that decide our elections. Prove that the money is spent wisely and it is no longer a proposal, but reality.

I honestly thought I would write a comprehensive post about the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota before the end of the year, but it appears that I won't have that chance. There's a lot of information we just don't know yet.

There will be lots of armchair analysis from both sides on this race, but I have boiled it down to this: IF Al Franken wins, he wins the way he deserved to win. IF Norm Coleman loses, he loses the way he deserved to lose.

Keep in mind I actually like Al Franken, and not just because he was my party's nominee. I like the writer and entertainer Al Franken and believe he is sincere in his desire to change careers and become a Senator. He could end up being a good senator. But he showed some serious self-inflicted weaknesses during the campaign, a slight lack of the easy-going nature Minnesotans prefer and, of course, the hours and hours of footage of him doing and saying things that are outrageous. You can't negotiate around the fact that the other side had footage of Franken saying most of George Carlin's seven words you can't say on television. Franken is a celebrity new to elected politics. A tight win and the shallow public support that would come with the outcome will give Franken an opportunity to sink or swim on his own merits. Six good years of public service and he could reverse any lingering negativity seen today; six bad years and he goes the way of Jesse Ventura. Give Al a chance. Al, you're on the clock.

As for Norm Coleman, the greatest criticism about him has not been extremism but malleability. I learned at Christmas that many of my relatives voted for Dean Barkely because they didn't like Franken and because they knew if Coleman won he'd just vote with the prevailing political winds of a Democratic government. That's hardly a ringing endorsement. To lose by such a tight margin with support in the low 40s is a poetic conclusion to a career that has been shaped by jumping at opportunities and surviving by a mix of luck and calculation.

Minnesota's 2008 U.S. Senate race wasn't especially pretty, but it was full of all of the elements of great fiction, drama or poetry. This story, however, is not yet complete.

Nate Silver provides a fascinating look at the importance of the middle class in our economy today. It has the appearance of being boring but it simplifies some large concepts very well, explaining how incomes are related to stability in the housing sector and how both are related to the policy that emerges from Washington.

Here's a New York Times story about an NPR reporter who was laid off while reporting on the unflappable American spirit that sustains people recently laid off from their jobs. Seriously. She was doing a series and before she got to do the last story, she got canned. So she did the last story about herself. This is quite a story.

By way of the Politics in Minnesota morning report, I found this story from the St. Paul Legal Ledger about the massive workload of Minnesota's Office of the Legislative Auditor. From the state's health care system to the JOBZ economic development program, the OLA staff has exhaustively investigated many important aspects of state government, saving the taxpayers millions and exposing improper or unwise practices. The article, which is worth a read, doesn't even mention the OLA's report on the Iron Range Resources Loan to Excelsior Energy from September, which discovered misused funds and the larger issue of lobbying with public funds. I don't think that was a deliberate oversight; rather, just a sign that the OLA is extremely busy with many important investigations.

That Excelsior report from the OLA prompted a series of posts and a column from me, and also exposes the Achilles Heel of economic development on the Iron Range. If developers can come to the Range promising a job-creating project, receive a large loan with loose terms, and use that money to actively lobby for regulatory change essentially mandating that their original idea be protected from market forces, then we are essentially asking to be exploited. This sort of thing has produced modest, some would say negligible gains in the local mining sector, but has flopped nearly every time it's been applied outside mining. I suspect Excelsior will be the next flop. I merely contend now that it is a very big, very expensive bad idea.

I've been criticized for "getting personal" with the backers of the Excelsior Energy coal gas power plant, but it's not personal. It's business. In business, emotions matter but not as much as facts. In the blogosphere, emotions are plentiful but facts are rare. That's why an impartial, professional agency like the OLA is so important in an Information Economy.

The OLA didn't explore all the same complaints I have about the IRR Excelsior loans, but they were professional and fair. A couple key passages of their report indicate a sort of amazement at the structure of the loan agreement and strongly recommend that Iron Range Resources clarify the matter of lobbying with public funds in the future. If that comes to be then the OLA will have done a great service for the future of the Iron Range.

As you can see from the St. Paul Legal Ledger story, the Office of the Legislative Auditor serves the state well in countless ways.

ADDENDUM: And to head off the anti-Range complaints that so often emerge when the matter of Iron Range Resources spending comes up, let me again clarify:

Iron Range Resources is funded by taconite production taxes paid by mining companies for the ore they remove from the land. This is not extra money or a secret pot of Ranger booty; it is money paid by these companies in lieu of property taxes to local governments. The money is divvied, by statute, to schools, cities and counties on the Iron Range and then also spent by the agency in ways that rehabilitate and revitalize the Range economy. Sometimes I agree with their actions and sometimes not, but the importance of this tax structure and the agency itself to our region cannot be overstated.

The Mesabi Daily News is reporting on a program to encourage biomass fuel use in the heating of Iron Range schools, dubbing it a "copy cat" program from one that is 25 years old. Iron Range Resource Board officials are quoted recollecting that the idea for using biomass in schools goes back to the Rudy Perpich days. This is true. Actually burning wood goes back a lot farther than that (ha-ha). But seriously folks, the reason biomass is back on the table now is that the costs of other energy forms have risen to the point where biomass, wind and solar are economically viable sources of energy. Coal prices, in particular, are why renewable energy is suddenly possible. This means that all those people who said, in futility, that we should be investing in wind, solar, bio fuels, hydro and whatever else during the '80s and '90s in preparation for these changing economic and environmental conditions were right. Hooray ... Retroactively!

As a nation, we could be moving away from coal today, using it as a transition and emergency fuel source. We could be perfecting nuclear or expanding the use of hydrogen (and resources don't get more abundant than hydrogen). But instead, we're still here dinking around with wood chips and propping up the myth of clean coal. Watch how fast "clean coal" disappears when somebody commercializes hydrogen fuels. With the price of coal continuing to rise, you can bet someone is working on this for reasons that have nothing to do with the environment or politics.

Check out how steel industry stocks leveled off last week after a huge price drops over the year. They're not exactly up, but the free fall is more like a gentle roll. Nate Silver contends this has to do with high hopes for the Obama stimulus/infrastructure plan. Spending on bridges, roads and technology across the country could turn these stock prices, along with steel prices, around which would be positive news for the Iron Range. This stock price correlation could be great political capital to use in the passage of the federal infrastructure bill.

It's that special time of year when media vacation schedules collide with a news vacuum to produce year-in-review specials!

From my spot here in the North, here are a few good roundups I saw over the weekend:

The Duluth News Tribune offered its top 10 stories of 2008 on Sunday which include a couple of Iron Range angles. You can kind of see how they were stretching toward the bottom. I remember that from my days in small town newspapering. The first few are easy and then you're left with zoning issues and the new Arby's. The DNT covers a big enough area to avoid the most flagrant examples of roundup stretching. Also, the paper offers several 2009 predictions from a "who's who" of relatively important Duluth-area people. No Rangers on the list. Hey, DNT. I noticed.

The Mesabi Daily News ran a Sunday review of the Iron Range taconite mining business and a status check for other Range mining projects.

The Sunday Hibbing Daily Tribune had an interesting feature on what folks are really doing and talking about on the streets of the Iron Range amid the economic stories in the media.

Below is a press release of note to fans of rural broadband expansion. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) is convening a broadband roundtable this morning. It's good to see a northern name on the list in Bill Coleman from the Blandin Foundation of Grand Rapids. The Blandin Foundation is working to expand internet infrastructure and use in northern Minnesota which is vital to our economic future here. It seems that broadband infrastructure will be a part of the Obama stimulus plan. If northern Minnesota, particularly the Iron Range, misses the opportunity to expand its tech infrastructure in this economic environment, it is making a huge mistake.

Sen. Klobuchar to Convene High-Speed Broadband Roundtable

Broadband Infrastructure Expected to Be Part of Obama Stimulus Plan

WHAT:

Officials with President-elect Obama’s transition have indicated that investments in broadband communications infrastructure will be part of the economic stimulus and recovery plan expected in early 2009.

In anticipation of these infrastructure investments, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar will convene a roundtable discussion to identify key priorities for high-speed broadband Internet access and service in Minnesota, so the state can have a top-quality “21st century information infrastructure.”

Klobuchar serves on the Senate Commerce Committee, which has authority over telecommunications issues.

Roundtable participants include:

• State Representative Brita Sailer (Park Rapids)
• Tony Mayer, West Central Telephone Cooperative (Sebeka)
• Tim Rice, Lakewood Health System (Staples)
• Jeff Hunt, Park Rapids Area Schools– ISD 309 (Park Rapids)
• Bill Coleman, Blandin Foundation (Grand Rapids)
• Tim Lovaasen, President, Minnesota Communications Workers of America (Minneapolis)
• Dawn Hegland, Upper Minnesota Valley Regional Development Commission (Appleton)
  

WHEN:

10:00 a.m.

Monday, December 29

WHERE:

Room 125

Minnesota State Capitol

75 Martin Luther King Boulevard

Saint Paul

UPDATE: The Christmas production schedule apparently led to my column not running in its usual Sunday spot again. Generally, I am the last to know in these situations. I expect the column will run during the week before the New Year. At least that's usually how this goes.

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Dec. 28, 2008 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. It's also my 29th birthday today. This means next year provides my last year to promote my writing as that of an "under-30 professional making a life in a blue collar utopia." After that, I'm just another poor bastard shopping a novel in his 30s working in the town where he was born. Be kind, 2009!

Also, I need to give a shout out to Christina's cousin Ann for sending me the Sarah Palin line on Facebook. Now if my other Facebook friends would step up I wouldn't have to write anything. That would definitely take the edge off the aging process.

Anyway, the column:

After a wild year, 2009 could get wilder
By Aaron J. Brown

A year ago Barack Obama was still a long shot for the presidency. The Iron Range economy was surging with a global steel boom. Our three young boys seemed as busy as they could ever be. Well, all of that changed this year, rendering moot last year’s predictions of a Hillary Clinton vs. Rudy Giuliani election and a solid “Gold Man” statue next to Chisholm’s Iron Man. The boys are much, much busier this year and we’re not even close to suggesting that next year will be easier.

On the final Sunday of each year I’ve made a tradition of predicting events that will occur the following year. To be honest, these are often meant in jest, but I still get them right sometimes. For instance, last year I predicted that Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race would end in a complicated tie producing an effect similar to a swirling wormhole in the space-time continuum. That was supposed to be a joke but it ended up being the stud in my stable.

My predictions once again originate from the Oracle of the Sax-Zim bog, a haggard-looking woman with more unpublished volumes of poetry than original teeth. Each year she bakes a cake of dubious origin that contains parchment paper visions of the future. I’ve learned not to eat the cake but I sneak the predictions out in my shoe.

This year, the first batch of predictions came in the form of future newspaper headlines:

“Economy improves by default”

“Hot new toy actually large rock painted gold”

“Sarah Palin hosts Academy Awards; awkwardly hands Oscar to Sean Penn for ‘Milk’”

“Skunk elected”

“Tall beer not as tall as it thinks it is”

Headlines are easier to divine. From there we go into some of the more in-depth predictions:

For instance, the Oracle says that all Range school districts will pool resources to bus children to suburban schools with AP English and shop. These students will be turned away when suburban officials use a little-known but ultimately controversial application of California’s “Okies Go Home” Act of 1935. On the bus ride home, entrepreneurial students will close the Range schools’ budget gaps by counting cards at several tribal casinos.

Later, Range schools will receive another boon when a private study indicates that the decline in NHL attendance and TV viewership is directly related to declining enrollment on the Iron Range. A private foundation formed by French Canadian syrup magnates keeps local schools afloat.

Moving beyond education, 2009 proves to be a banner year for transportation projects. The federal stimulus plan allows the completion of four lanes along Highways 169 and 53 across the whole Iron Range. Having Chisholm resident Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) at the helm of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee helps make this happen. Any remaining funds will be spent on an additional third lane to be used by old pickups with unsecured loads.

Balsam boughs, gardens, venison, pawn shops and liquor stores again sustain the Iron Range through another recession. Good times will be ushered in by the resumption of spending on lobbyists, studies, consultants and vision statements. The circle will be unbroken, by and by, Lord, by and by.

Finally, reports that the newspaper industry is collapsing into a pit of financial doom are proven unfounded when it is learned that the newspapers can be used as both clothing and bedding.

Fact or Factish? Truth or truthiness? Only time will tell. All one can do is say, “One, it’s time for a new year.” Have a safe and happy New Year’s Eve and a prosperous recession-proof 2009!

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. You can contact him or read more at his blog, MinnesotaBrown.com. His new book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range” is out now.

My weekly essay for Saturday morning's episode of "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE will cover the show's topic of "ice." Ice is a big deal in Northern Minnesota. Ice on roads. Ice on lakes. Ice in drinks. Ice really covers the gamut.

My essay explores the world of ice and will again serve as a conversation propellant for the morning call-in and music show featuring the sounds, voices and culture of Northern Minnesota. Do you have an ice story? How thick is the ice on your lake? You can tune in between 10 a.m and noon on 91.7 FM in Northern Minnesota or streaming online everywhere at www.kaxe.org.

One Iron Range Christmas Eve just after LTV Steel's taconite mine and plant shut down in 2002, my dad's family gathered in full force -- as we always do -- at grandma and grandpa's house just outside Eveleth. The house pulsed with children, raw heat and wine vapors as what represents normal in our world. Suddenly, the doorbell rings. Someone opens the door and IT'S SANTA!

Bear in mind I'm a grown-up in this story, as are most of the people in attendance. There are a few young children in attendance, though, and they start freaking out. Santa "ho, ho, ho's" his way up the stairs, tells the kids he'll be by with their presents later tonight before sidling his way into the dining room where the adults are anchoring chairs and conversing. Santa leans over the table and asks directions to a nearby road where he's late for a pay gig. Grandpa sets him straight and Santa does the "ho, ho, ho" bit all the way back through the living room.

As Santa leaves, Grandma calls out, "Hey, Santa, those look like some well worn boots." Everyone looks down at Santa's dirty work boots. "LTV issue!" calls out Santa Claus, apparently enjoying his new career.

None of us were every really sure who this man was so I am left to assume it really was Santa Claus. This kind of story is why I love living on the Iron Range, good economy or bad.

For all the readers, commentors and supporters of this blog, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Posting will be sporadic over the next few days but will resume regularly next week.

There are many things I wish I could do that I just can't. First is to be able to sing. I can't. Second is to be able to dance. I can't do that either. Finally, I wish I could draw. As my students at the community college would tell you, my diagrams and illustrations on the chalkboard look like something monkeys would draw at an inadequate zoo from some midsized industrial city.

The reason I wish I could draw is so that I could put together the following cartoon and submit it to the New Yorker or maybe Hallmark.

Here's the premise. It's the interior of a small one-room woodsy cabin. In bed, a young man and woman are lying in each others' arms, strategically and tastefully covered by the blanket. A Christmas tree is in the corner. A holiday punch bowl sits empty on the table with cups strewn everywhere. Elaborate 18th century "Currier and Ives" costume clothing lays crumpled all over the room. Outside the window, a horse-drawn sleigh lies on its side. The woman is sleeping peacefully, but the man's eyes are wide open.

The caption: "I sure hope that snowman wasn't a real parson."

Nate Silver has earned fame in political circles for his spot-on statistical analysis of polling and election projections during the 2008 cycle. His site continues to explore current events and political issues with an eye toward statistics and trends.

On Monday, Silver's site Fivethirtyeight.com explored the issue of unions and the Employee Free Choice Act. Those of us in Minnesota might remember the anti-Franken ads featuring business-backed mobsters decrying this very issue. Well, in true evidence that elections have consequences, the results of Minnesota's recount -- along with several other issues -- factor in Silver's analysis of EFCA's prospects of passage in the Senate. This is also a pretty good look at labor's position in the U.S. workforce today and worth a read.

I don't feel quite right posting this on Christmas Eve or Christmas, so here it is today. From Stephen Colbert's Christmas special, Willie Nelson, the fourth wiseman:

It's a busy Monday on the Iron Range!

MSNBC reports from a Marketwire release that PolyMet has received its long-awaited Environmental Impact Statement from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. PolyMet wants to build a mine by Hoyt Lakes that would extract a variety of nonferrous minerals including copper and nickel. This EIS has been especially slow. This is good news for supporters of the project but it's also a "call" of sorts to see if the company still plans to invest in the project despite declining mineral prices.

This was in today's Star Tribune. It's an economic story that points out how the Iron Range "boom and bust" cycle we're used to around here is happening much faster than the old days.

Iron Range's fast fall follows boom
The mining industry faces sudden shutdowns, but many see a silver lining in the long run.

By LARRY OAKES, Star Tribune

December 22, 2008

DULUTH - After years of prosperity that crescendoed to a boom for much of 2008, the world economic crisis has brought hard times back to the Iron Range with stunning speed.

"It was like we were on top of a Ferris wheel in the third quarter of '08, and suddenly we're on a decline," said Sandy Layman, commissioner of the state agency Iron Range Resources. "We're rewriting the history books because of the speed of this."

However, Layman and others say they take solace in predictions that this time the plant shutdowns are expected to last months rather than years and that several major projects remain on track.

Read the whole story; it's worthwhile. The comments also belie the age-old statewide debate about the Iron Range, with some recognizing the area's cultural and economic importance and others just telling us to lay down and die already. Naturally, I've entered the fray and engaged in self-promotion. Iron Range blogs don't naturally attract statewide attention.

Thanks to Lee for the tip.

Another notable clip from Sunday:

The Hibbing Daily Tribune reports on Scot Harvey, an Iron Range man volunteering to help people laid off from their jobs in this bad economy. Having been laid off for a long stretch during the last bad spell in the early 2000s before retraining for a new career, Harvey counsels people on how to survive tough times. He worries that today's Americans are too dependent on conveniences and consumer goods to weather truly hard times. Interesting story.

The editor of the Duluth News-Tribune reassures readers in the prominent Sunday edition that the paper's owners are "planning to stick around a long, long time." That's good news for the DNT, its workers and readers. But, to be fair, that's exactly what I would tell a newspaper if I planned to sell it off and/or shut it down in a brutal media consolidation deal. The tipoff is the second, unnecessary "long." And then when I left the building I'd light a cigar with that paper's most recent edition and purchase a vast amount of Costa Rica before the storm comes. But that's just me. I'm sure real life media oligarchs are much more benevolent.

The Mesabi Daily News reported Sunday that Minnesota Power has idled 10 massive wind turbines at its "Taconite Ridge" facility by MinnTac in Mountain Iron. The shutdown may last until February. There is a problem with the blades that the manufacturer is repairing under warranty. This goes to show you that any new technology is subject to engineering issues, something to be aware of as we dive head first into "the green economy."

I posted last week about the many different media approaches to the Iron Range Resources meeting this past Thursday. This is the meeting where Essar Steel received a one-year extension on its loan for its mining and steel project near Nashwauk. Here's another: Beth Bily reports on the same meeting for Business North, reporting on the same facts with yet another interesting perspective on the meeting. Compare this to the Mesabi Daily News approach to the story. I find Beth's story to be the clearest and least slanted but the MDN story is the one that appeared before the readers of every Iron Range newspaper, as they are all owned by the same company. Alas, the challenge of our times.

Why bring this up? This story, and the one last month regarding Excelsior Energy's two-year loan extension, aren't just about loan deferments. The balance of power and indeed the very future of the Iron Range is wrapped up in these stories. Who calls the shots around here? Because to any casual observer it would appear that developers make promises, then call the shots and everyone else jumps when told. Not true? I hope not, but I'm not seeing any evidence otherwise. And most Iron Range newspaper readers are fed a sanitized version of this predicament.

Meantime, Iron Range schools are in peril. Several notable highway projects need to be completed after decades of neglect. As much as we pretend, our local economy remains closely tied to the price of steel. Young people still struggle to identify with their Iron Range roots and the vast majority of our elected officials have boundless good intentions but few good ideas for the future. We're not the only place with this problem, but the solution of this problem is the only way we have a future.

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Dec. 21, 2008 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

Santa Tube
By Aaron J. Brown

Click “Play.”

SANTA CLAUS (at desk, wearing headset microphone, hands at keyboard):Ho, ho, ho! This is Santa’s first ever “You Tube.” The elves tell Santa all the little boys and girls use the You Tube now. Santa has to change with the times, so here we go. (SANTA looks at mouse, moves it, looks up to screen, back to mouse, clicks).

The first thing Santa is going to put in his You Tube is his official response to e-mails Santa received from boys and girls around the world. (Addressing someone off camera). It says Yahoo is loading. Ho, ho, ho! What does that mean? Oh, here it goes.

(Back to camera). This first e-mail is from little Suzie. She writes, “Dear Santa, I live in northern Minnesota where it is very cold, much like your home at the North Pole. I would like a warm pair of slippers for my mom and a robe for my dad. I would also like a CD-ROM encyclopedia so I can do better in school. They have those online, but we only have dial-up internet which is very slow.” Ho, ho, ho! What a nice e-mail. Santa wishes all his letters were so altruistic.

ELF (appears from off screen): Actually, Santa, Suzie is the victim of big internet providers slowing public efforts to expand high speed internet to rural areas like hers. What you want, Suzie, is a system of delivering the internet that is comparable to the electric grid. It’s the only way the economies of rural places will ever catch up.

SANTA: But Santa has fast internet. Santa lives at the North Pole.

ELF: Santa is magic. That means automatic free fast internet for life. If you had dial up, we’d never be able to upload this video to You Tube.

SANTA: There is so much Santa doesn’t know. (Looks at screen). What’s this now? Norton Disk Scan? Who is Norton? Norton is messing up Santa’s world.

ELF: (off camera) Minimize it. Click the line.

SANTA: Ho, ho, ho! What? (click, click … clickclickclick). OK. Santa thinks he fixed it. Now for another e-mail. This one comes from someone Santa has known a long time. In fact, Santa remembers Billy from 1986 when he was a little boy asking for Go-Bots. Ho, ho, ho! Remember Go-Bots? Billy writes, “Dear Santa, this is a tragic story about a puppy, a veteran, a little old lady and the flag. Please forward this to 9 people immediately or all of them will be burned by hippies.”

Ho, ho, ho! Santa doesn’t like the sound of that. Santa will forward this to his eight reindeer and also Rudolph even though his bright red nose often discourages the use of computers.

ELF (off camera): It’s bogus. That’s just some nonsense that people keep forwarding around to drum up political or religious fervor. They appeal to people’s pathos in the raw environment of the Internet.

SANTA: Ho, ho, ho! Ho. Ho. Hmmm. Santa wonders why he’s bothering with all this. We had a pretty good system with the letters and the kids and the presents and the sleigh. It all made sense. Why is Santa recording this when he could be doing his appearance at the mall and pounding some pegs into some old school wooden toys?

ELF: Don’t you get it? We’re reaching a new generation. This is how information will be shared in the future. Don’t you want to spread Santa’s message of holiday joy to a new generation?

SANTA: Yes. Santa does. But Santa wishes people would just come down to see him in the stores like the old days. Santa just wishes people would enjoy the holidays with their families. Times are hard. Santa knows. Santa thinks people should just love each just a little more than last year. Then everything would be OK.

How does Santa turn this off? Santa is looking for the Stop button. Santa sees a record button, but he doesn’t see a … no, this is something else. Oh, there it is … (END BROADCAST)

Replay? (225,295,959 views)

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Contact him or read more at his blog, MinnesotaBrown.com. His new book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range” is out now.

Thanks to everyone who came out to my final 2008 book signing for "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range" at the Village Bookstore in Grand Rapids today. We're in the midst of a modest but notable winter weather event in northern Minnesota, so it was no easy task getting to the mall or home afterward. Despite being a few minutes late, everything worked out great. Most people who stopped by appeared to be desperately seeking last minute Christmas gifts, so if you receive "Overburden" and wonder why, well, just know that your relatives were between a rock and a hard place and I was the friendly guy sitting at a nearby table.

This "book signing" business takes some getting used to. Unlike "readings" or "lectures" where people show up at a prescribed time to hear you spew your whatnot and then buy your book, signings occur in a big open area filled with people who likely will never read, much less buy your book. Today, I learned some things about "the biz" and about myself.

• I learned my new low when I said the following: "It's not history, it's histotainment."
• I was getting laughs (but not sales) making jokes about my book being the perfect holiday gift for any human being currently alive. Then these nice folks walked into the mall and looked at me curiously. "Get all your shopping done at once," I joked! They said nothing and then walked into the Chinese buffet across the way. Oh. They're there for food. I have no food.
• I got into a long-winded explanation of the book with a lady who then asked me if I had ever read Patrick McManus. I hadn't. She then went into the store, got a McManus book and showed it to me. "These are the books my son reads. You should read them too." Sale: Fail!
• No fooling, people in northern Minnesota really dig game warden books. All "regional" books are judged in comparison to game warden books like Tom Chapin's "Poachers Caught." It's all got me seriously considering taking up poaching. Not just "my family is hungry" poaching, but blatant "I hate animals and the government" poaching. That will move some books!
• People responded well when I said the line "I am a fifth generation Iron Ranger, the first generation to never work in a mine." Most others lines led to blank stares, especially when I said that I worked in Hibbing.
  
• A whole lot of the people who walk in and out of book stores have unpublished novels they would like to shop around. None of them want to buy books.

Anyway, I appreciate all those who talked to me at the table. The "Overburden" tour continues in the new year with a freshly confirmed Twin Cities TV interview. Stay tuned!

My last book signing of 2008 will be today at the Village Bookstore in Grand Rapids from 2-4 p.m. This is your final chance to get a signed, personalized first edition copy of "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range" for yourself or as a Christmas gift. A second run has been ordered which means the highly collectible "first edition" copies are going to be off the shelves soon.

Yes, there may be a "snow storm." But I say those high talkin' meteorologists are just drumming up business. Come on down to the Village Mall and join the fun.

But don't be sad. The book tour will resume after the holidays with a hard push into the Twin Cities and some promising media coverage.

Two late follow-ups to Iron Range stories that have appeared here:

The Star Tribune reports on the public meeting in which experts explained the progress of U of M researchers exploring a rare kind of cancer that is more prevalent among Iron Range miners.

Beth Bily of Business North covers the "Focus on India" conference last week in Hibbing. India is a growing force in the international economy and one of its company's, Essar, is planning to invest heavily in an Iron Range mining and steel operation.

My radio essay for the Saturday morning KAXE program "Between You and Me" will deal with holiday traditions and mishaps in keeping with the call-in/music program's weekly theme. I will discuss how one of my family's traditions is threatened by the government. Let's just leave it at that.

Sound's interesting, huh?

Tune in between 10 a.m. and noon on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming online everywhere at www.kaxe.org. Happy holidays from MinnesotaBrown!

Another reminder: make plans to attend my book signing of "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range" at the Village Bookstore in Grand Rapids Saturday, Dec. 20, from 2-4 p.m.

"Overburden" makes an excellent Christmas gift for any Iron Ranger, but especially Iron Rangers who grew up here during the turbulent 1980s and '90s and found the declining population and economy to be the backdrop of a unique upbringing. As I've been saying, the book is for Iron Rangers, former Iron Rangers, future Iron Rangers and those mystified by the Range. Also, it's funny and getting strong notices. I hate sounding like a shyster but the book (published by Red Step Press of Duluth) pays for this blog, so show some respect.

Signed copies are currently available at the aforementioned Village Bookstore, the Howard Street Booksellers in Hibbing and Lisa's Upstairs Bookstore in Ely. We just sold out at Woodward's in Virginia, but will be restocking this weekend. It's also available online at Barnes and Noble and in most Duluth bookstores along with several Barnes and Noble locations across Minnesota. Any place that sells books can order it. If you should see me on the streets of an Iron Range town I will sell you a signed copy out of my car. I am a full service shyster.

The Iron Range Resources Board met Thursday on a variety of topics, summarized here in a post by Lee Bloomquist at the agency's blog Rangeviews. News stacking is always a judgment issue, so I'll note that the non-agency WDIO TV (Duluth's ABC affiliate) led its 6 p.m. Thursday news with Minorca Mine announcing it had no plans to lay off any workers in 2009, contrary to the decisions made by larger Iron Range mining operations. U.S. Steel recently announced an indefinite idling at Keewatin Taconite while Cleveland Cliffs is considering layoffs at its Iron Range properties in Hibbing, Eveleth and Silver Bay. Minorca is a smaller operation, but its announcement might be an indication that there is a bottom to the sinking steel market right now. That's good news for the Iron Range.

In the Rangeviews post, the top story was the effort to use biomass-produced energy at some Iron Range schools, also good news and an exciting reminder that being a natural resources-based economy might have its advantages in the future.

However, the story that had the most buzz going into the meeting was only casually mentioned in Lee's account and not at all in WDIO's. Essar Steel was granted a one-year forbearance on about $6 million it owes the agency. Note how the lenghth of the extension was reduced from four years to a much more reasonable one year. I'm told a tough discussion broke out when Tom Anzelc (my friend and political colleague, for conflict of interest's sake) mentioned that this loan extension was different than the one granted Excelsior Energy last month. Essar is an established company with permits and ground operations in place, whereas Excelsior is still theoretical and plagued with logistical and business problems. Despite this, the two projects have often been mentioned in the same breath these last few years and have both been granted ample public funding. That seems to be a sore spot in the Iron Range economic development class and will continue to play out these next couple years.

In truth, the bad economy might set both projects back in 2009. I contend that Essar might have a chance of recovering while Excelsior remains a mirage. I'll update if I see any local media coverage of the meeting on Friday.

UPDATE: The Mesabi Daily News covered the Essar loan angle. For those playing at home, see if you can determine slant. It's actually kind of comical today.

Janna Goerdt at the Duluth News Tribune reports today about a meeting tonight in Mountain Iron to detail plans to screen miners who might have been exposed to fibers from the taconite process. The University of Minnesota was funded to run a study on mesothelioma, a rare cancer, that has been appearing in disproportionate levels on the Iron Range. This health concern has lingered in the region for a long time and led to a controversy last year when the state health commissioner delayed the release of information on the topic. Now Iron Rangers are hoping for answers.

I found this by way of Andrew Sullivan. This is an animated graph from Ian Stevenson showing global immigration trends to the United States since 1820. Each dot is 100 people. Look at how many people have come to the U.S. from all over the world. As Sullivan says, no other country attracts people the way the U.S. does. The only thing that has changed is where the people are coming from and where' they're settling. Look at how many European immigrants came to the Iron Range and Minnesota in general from the late 1800s through mid 1900s. It means something more when you see it animated.


Immigration to the US, 1820-2007 v2 from Ian Stevenson on Vimeo.

Reading the comments at Stevenson's site led me to flowingdata.com, which has all sorts of statistical goodies for human trends.

Hey, here's a message for everyone preparing a campaign in the event Jim Oberstar gets called up to be Secretary of Transportation: Crack a cold one and enjoy the status quo. Obama's team is vetting a congressman, but not ours and not even a Democrat. The Hill, which I found through PoliticalWire, reports that Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) is under consideration for the transportation post. This would satisfy Obama's pledge to appoint a Republican to the Cabinet (Robert Gates, though a Bush appointee as Defense Secretary, is technically an independent). It also would keep Rep. Oberstar (D-Iron Range 4eva!) at the helm of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee doing what he's good at: getting many things paved at the same time. (Such as, hint-hint, Highway 169)

All I know is that this pick will "play well in Peoria." That's where LaHood is from! HA!

While I would have enjoyed the crow's nest view of being the Iron Range/Duluth blogger in an Eighth Congressional District special election, I must admit I don't need to see my holiday season sucked out through my eye sockets by the stampeding herd of candidates that would have come forth. Save it for 2046 when Oberstar retires (or is frozen in carbonite for display purposes).

I hope LaHood likes bike paths. Because he's going to get some damn bike paths whether he likes them or not.

Check out this transcript from a recent broadcast of the MSNBC program "Morning Joe" featuring host Joe Scarborough and commentator Pat Buchanen, both conservatives, along with other commentators and co-hosts of various ideologies and affiliations. I used to watch "Morning Joe" regularly but gave it up for the same reason some people give up vodka. It's a morning treasury of rarefied political spin fresh off the still.

Anyway, Scarborough and Buchanen are buying into the talking point that the Minnesota Senate race is being "stolen" by the Democrats, a charge evidenced by the thorough recount of every legal ballot (eg: an abomination of democracy). But midway through, Buchanen references, in jest, that there is a "station wagon" up on "the Iron Range" with 120 hidden Franken votes somewhere.

Hey, I resent that. I've got a station wagon but all the ballots in the back are leftovers from 2004. What I wouldn't give for some of those hot '08s!

I won't get into the politics of this or the ridiculousness of these accusations against what has always been a clean election state. I'm just glad to know that these national guys know, and apparently fear, the Iron Range. We made Karl Rove's election map during the '08 cycle as well. The Iron Range holds a strange mystique all over the country in political circles because no one has figured out how we've stayed so reliably DFL when social change has stratified so many other areas like ours. I explore this and many non-political topics in my new book "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range." It's a collection of humorous and/or thoughtful essays about life under age 30 on today's Iron Range, written for people of all ages who have an interest in our unique region and state. Don't worry, conservatives. It cuts both ways and is (mostly) apolitical.

Here is a widely circulated op/ed from Iron Range/Duluth entrepreneur Jeno Paulucci, whose family's tiny former Hibbing grocery store I once lived across from. This piece ran in Duluth and across the Iron Range this week. Paulucci says the economy needs "an enema." And suddenly, he has our attention.

His idea: as in the depression, taxpayers should receive "scrip" or specialized currency that can be used to buy specific, economically-beneficial U.S.-made products. He says this would be more beneficial than the straight-up stimulus checks that we got before which most people used to pay debt.

Scrip. Enema. Lots of fun words today. I prefer scrip.

State Rep. Tom Rukavina (DFL-Virginia) hearkens a Rudy Perpich job creation program from the 1980s as one potential way to address job losses and the bad economy in this Mesabi Daily News letter to the editor from a few days ago.

This concept started showing up on Twitter shortly after the "Bush vs. Shoes" incident in Iraq. I went to You Tube to see if anyone followed through and, sure enough, here's a 25 second clip that makes the magic happen.



I also found a mashup of the incident over the strains of MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This," which is HILARIOUS for exactly 48 seconds of its 4 minute, 46 second run time. I'll just recommend that you chuckle at the concept. People willing to search for that sort of thing probably already found it anyway.

The first two months of release for my new book "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range" have gone very well. We've gone into a second printing and are now mapping efforts to reach into the Twin Cities market in 2009. But for those who live up north, my last book signing for 2008 will take place this Saturday, Dec. 20, at the Village Bookstore in Grand Rapids. This is your last chance to get a signed, first edition copy of "Overburden" as a personalized, one-of-a-kind Christmas gift. Oh yes, I'm going there. Like a shark I must swim to survive.

But who would want "Overburden" for Christmas? That title sounds sad and Iron Rangish. It's so hard to find books people will like.

Nonsense. The book is a lively jaunt through the Iron Range's past, present and future. (Just like "A Christmas Carol" but without the ghosts). And who would want it? Let me tell you who. This list is based on the kinds of folks who have been writing and talking to me after reading the book (excluding relatives):

• Young adults on the Iron Range, especially college students, up-and-coming career folks and relatively new parents.
• Professionals (ie: people who read books) living on the Iron Range who are from someplace else. Bonus points if the Iron Range confuses and sometimes frightens them.
• People interested in Minnesota history and politics.
• People who love the Range.
• People who hate the Range.
• People who like amusing, insightful books with a lasting message and a sense of place that can be read quickly in segments, as though crafted for bathroom reading, bedtime and coffee breaks. Also, the book can be hollowed out to hold a flask or pistol.
• People who breathe oxygen.

As you can see, it's a comprehensive list. I could summarize this group of people as "hard to buy for" -- except that I can't. Because on Saturday from 2-4 p.m. at the Village Bookstore in Grand Rapids (at the Village Mall along Highway 2) I will be signing copies of "Overburden" on demand. Did I mention this book falls conveniently in the $10-$20 price range? It totally does.

I have several lectures and/or readings in the works for 2009, including our push into the Twin Cities, but this is the last hurrah of 2008. I hope to see you in Grand Rapids on Saturday!

David Brauer at MinnPost posted this story yesterday about the Star Tribune's efforts to offer buyouts to some of its high profile talent. According to Brauer's report, columnists Nick Coleman, Katherine Kersten, cartoonist Steve Sack and others might be included among those offered buyouts. Here is a follow up that includes the memo. And he later speculated about the inclusion of columnists James Lilecks and C.J. in the buyout talks.

For Minnesota media, this is like watching a powerful sports team accept the term "rebuilding year" but also knowing they traded all their draft picks for candy and moonshine. The Star Tribune will soldier on, as will other big newspapers, but the industry is increasingly unable to pay for expensive talent -- the kind of thing that comes from being provocative or good. The business will be filled by smart, well-meaning people who work hard for less money and without the time or resources they need to improve the newspapers they work for or deeply understand the communities they write for. They will all be fired eventually and write blogs for which they will not be paid.

But I'm all ears if you can figure a way this turns out better.

Today, northern Minnesota is buried in snow drifts as a quasi-blizzard blew through Sunday. Inside the house I'm buried in 100 papers (on the same topic) to grade. Shoveling. Grading. It's all about moving white things from one pile to another. So, let's just call this a snow day. I'll post under the following conditions:

1. A definitive winner is named in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race.
2. Something from space lands on the Iron Range.
3. All the snow melts as we hurtle toward the sun.

I doubt these things will occur, but if they do I suspect the three will be very closely related.

Otherwise, see you Tuesday!

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Dec. 14, 2008 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. This is based on another piece I recorded for KAXE this year.

The meaning of lost
By Aaron J. Brown

We modern folks tend to look at getting lost the way ancient folks looked at the universe. While we are lost, we are the center; everything else revolves around us. I think about times I was lost. There was the time my friend and I got lost in the woods behind my house and had to hike out to the highway following the power lines. There was the time I was on a long distance bike ride and what I thought was a short cut turned into a 40-mile, leg-straining trail of tears back to the house. But these examples involve knowing where you want to be, just not how to get there.

There exists, however, a much more difficult way to get lost: knowing where you are, but not knowing what you’re looking for. The year before we got married, my wife Christina and I drove to Illinois to visit her family. We were only a half hour away from a train terminal that was just one hour’s ride from Chicago, so on a slow day we decided to spend a day in Carl Sandburg’s city of broad shoulders.

When the day began, we knew where we were going (Chicago) and what we would do when we got there (Chicago things). Riding the train into the city, we passed a labyrinth of suburbs with vague names and cookie cutter architecture. A vacationing family with multiple small children melted down into a screaming, pulsing ball of anger and disappointment, which, at the time, seemed funny to us. Now, with three kids of our own, I can say it’s much better to be on the outside looking in. The entertainment gave us little time to consider what we might do when we stepped onto the platform in Chicago. When that moment arrived, we northern rustics stepped into a buzzing hub of human activity, gawked upward at the tall buildings, signaling the panhandlers that fresh meat had arrived downtown.

That moment was as good as it would get for us that day. See, I had been to Chicago a couple times. Once I went with my high school band to play at a festival, but that time we were escorted around by a sprightly older tour guide named Birdie. She taught us how to gouge out the eyes of an attacker using your keys on the first day and after that we just did what we were told. The other time I went with my college friends who were Chicago suburbanites familiar with the city. We had browsed downtown and the Navy Pier, went up the Hancock building and later found a cool two-story bookstore. In retrospect, that was the experience I had hoped to recreate with Christina.

This time, however, I was supposed to be the expert. I was not only supposed to know where things were, which I vaguely did, but what we should be doing. What do you do in Chicago? It was too cloudy and time consuming to go up the tall buildings. So I fixated on that book store, the book store I had seen with my friends. I had a distinct image of it and assumed that, when we found it, we’d be happy … the way I was happy to find it before. What followed was three miles of walking past countless things we couldn’t afford or lacked time to see. Christina wanted a quintessential Chicago experience. I was quitting smoking at the time and wanted a cigarette. Meantime, I didn’t really know anything about Chicago. As our time before our train home waned, words were exchanged. It wasn’t our first fight, or our worst, but it’s on the album. To this day our family photo collection shows two panoramic shots taken that day. Both are strikingly framed by the iconic Chicago Sun-Times building along the river. In one you see Christina scowling through an attempted smile and in the other you see me grimacing.

These pictures remind us that knowing what you want is more important than knowing how to get there.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Read more or contact him at his blog, MinnesotaBrown.com. His new book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range" is out now.

In the early days of the Iron Range immigrants from more than 50 countries came to area for mining, logging and support industries. India was not then among those countries. This past week India took center stage for a special regional conference and cultural program called "Focus on India" at Hibbing Community College. This comes after an Indian company Essar Steel announced it would invest $1.6 billion on the Iron Range in in a mine and steel plant in Nashwauk. The dynamic of this cultural exchange is noticeably different than the immigrant experience of the early 1900s. Essar is sending an Indian management and engineering team, not laborers.

Melissa Cox of the Hibbing Daily Tribune was there and wrote this story that ran Friday.

Lee Bloomquist at Iron Range Resources' Rangeview blog wrote up this item and features a short video that explains the event and a cursory review of the Essar deal.

Watching modern Iron Rangers attempt cultural awareness is still a little awkward but it's good to see the effort. India stands to grow by economic leaps and bounds in the next century and a warm relationship between the Range and India stands to benefit everyone involved. The only question left on the table is how the bad economy is affecting the Essar project. So far, so good we are still being told. Essar's officials were all over this event which gives the impression they are serious about their presence on the Range.

This week, the Saturday morning 91.7 KAXE call-in and music show "Between You and Me" explores "hot stove league," or, in layman's terms, sports talk in the winter.

Scott Hall and Fred Friedman will guest host the 10 a.m. to noon program. Their sports expertise is second to none; both can cite statistics for 1950s baseball players who are not only irrelevant, but long dead. They'll be filling in for host and producer Heidi Holtan, who knows as much about the science of the five man rotation as I do. Heidi will be steering clear of this wreckage but I'm the son of junk merchants and can't resist. My weekly essay will explore how Nintendo Wii is making uncoordinated, deceptively lumpy people like myself into next year's hot sports prospects. I have two missions. The first, as always, is to inform, entertain and honor the traditions of my Iron Range people. The second will be to confuse and/or confound Scott and Fred in a way that will not confuse or confound the listener. Tune in to hear the results!

You can listen to "Between You and Me" Saturday between 10 a.m. and noon on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota and streaming online everywhere at www.kaxe.org.

The EPA has backed off its efforts to eliminate two laws that developers say discourage clean-coal power plants. One of them has huge implications here in Northern Minnesota. Pro-coal EPA officials were trying to undo the federal haze standard that limits pollution near national parks before President-elect Obama takes office. Essentially, there is only so much pollution we can allow near the BWCA and Voyageurs. The Range's many taconite and power plants put us near that limit. There is enough room for the new Essar Steel plant and, possibly, Polymet and nonferrous mining on the east Range. But nothing more than that ... at least, nothing that pollutes on an industrial scale (unless other polluting plants reduce emissions or close).

Excelsior Energy's Mesaba Energy Project, an Iron Range "clean coal" boondoggle currently looking for its raison d'etre, cannot receive federal permits without some relaxation of the federal haze standard. So, while my objections to that project have more to do with the questionable practice of public risk for private gains, I'll take the haze standard news as being good. Good enough, anyway. I think some flexibility in the balance between jobs and the environment is important; but we need to stop sending the message here that we'll do anything -- absolutely anything -- for a few jobs. Desperation doesn't work in romance, nor in economic development.

Think what you will about the auto industry bailout. There are two main perspectives: a bailout would help stabilize the industry and economy OR it won't and is just wasteful. That's a perfectly good debate and I'm not sure I've picked a side yet. But if the auto industry bailout indeed failed yesterday because the United Auto Workers refused to accept immediate pay cuts by way of an amendment advanced by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), then we are not really debating bailouts, we're debating union busting.

Apparently, fewer people have a problem pouring $700 billion in the financial sector with only cursory limits on CEO pay and other compensation and no good oversight. But if some auto worker in some cherry picked example makes $71 an hour at the top of the pay scale, counting benefits, we've got to bust that guy down a peg by tubing the entire auto industry bill. God forbid that kind of money go to a blue collar family! It should really be multiplied by 100 and given to a CEO in a severance package after grossly mismanaging a company.

The union agreed to wage concessions, it merely wanted more time to implement them. This is just a stunt to drum up public opinion against the auto workers. Corker is a "rising star" because of this, we are told. I say he's using desperate times to attack unions. Unions aren't perfect and need to change, but they're the reason we (had) a middle class in the country and will be part of the workforce into the future. If this continues much longer we'll have to relive some rather unpleasant parts of U.S. history.

You better believe if the Auto Workers get rolled here then we can expect similar attacks on the Steelworkers and all the service unions. This fight will come to the Iron Range and everywhere else in this country. Corporations will demand help and they'll point fingers at their own workers as long as Congress lets them.

This is a map of the areas currently seen on Google Streetview after the company recently doubled its U.S. coverage area. These are the areas you can zoom in on to see photographs at street level, a service simultaneously heralded as "cool" by some and lamented as a "crushing blow to privacy" by others. Notice anything?

I do.

Aside from Duluth, Grand Rapids, I think Bemidji and Moorhead, northern Minnesota is completely uncovered, as is that strange pocket in eastern South Dakota, southern Minnesota and western and northern Iowa.

The Iron Range (except for Grand Rapids, if that counts) exists out of the view of Google's all-seeing eye. So, Google. What do you think we're up to? You have to guess. We're not telling.

Hat tip to Mashable by Adam Ostrow for his post on Google Streetview's increased coverage.

Business North ran this Beth Bily feature story in its November/December edition about my wife Christina Brown, the Northern Cheapskate. Her blog is much more successful than mine. There is a huge audience of readers looking to save money using the internet. The Northern Cheapskate has crafted a niche as someone who finds good deals that can be used in places relatively far from big cities. This story also ran in the Scenic Range News Forum on the western Iron Range.

As I tour the Iron Range for my new book "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range" one of the topics audiences and I keep revisiting is the boundary of the Iron Range. Where does it end and where does it begin? I argue in the book that Iron Ranger status is part genealogical and part self-declared, but I think there is also an invisible geographic line that is roughly related to the footprint of mining activity and, to some extent, logging activity.

A friend who digs this kind of thing recently informed me of a special federal designation of "National Heritage Areas." She lives in the state of Virginia where many battlefields have such designations. National Heritage Areas are for regions who choose to form alliances across local government lines to preserve a specific zone of cultural heritage and, more importantly, seek funding for projects that rejuvenate that local culture. This congressional testimony by Brenda Barrett of the National Park Service explains. This is not the same as signing petitions to save the old Jenkings Building, but instead establishes a region of historical and cultural significance for the purposes of future planning. We've already established the Iron Range as a significant region on the state level through the legislation governing Iron Range Resources. Could this be another way to create more projects like the Mesabi Trail? (That trail was federally and state funded by way of the regional rail authority). Or would mining interests block such a designation? It's worth checking out. What do you think?