Today I am confronted with two alarming facts:

1. Minnesota is home to a roller derby league reviving the all-female rollerskating battle sport phenomenon from the 1970s.
2. The Iron Range DOES NOT have a team in this league.

Well, we DIDN'T until I discovered this, the recruitment page for the Iron Range Maidens. (link expired; go here now) They need 20 women roller athletes and all manner of coaches, equipment managers and referees. These can be guys. Lucky guys. Or maybe not. I really don't know. It's exciting and terrifying at the same time!

They're running this on "flat track," as the inclined roller derby rinks of the old days are cumbersome and cost-prohibitive. The Maidens will operate out of Grand Rapids, it appears, but I'm sure they'll take team members from anywhere in the Taconite Tax Relief Area. Other teams in the league include Duluth/Superior, Bemidji, Fargo/Moorhead and two teams from Minneapolis.

Added bonus: Women who participate create an alternate persona for themselves. (eg: Missy Thumpskull).

Here's the explanatory video from the site. It is exactly what you would expect and yet you will still watch it.



Join today, ladies!

As a nerd engaged in a lifelong battle with body weight, an event called "Lunch and Learn" is a siren call to be heeded. Maybe for you too? Iron Range historian Pam Brunfelt will be the featured speaker at this Minnesota Humanities Center event Thursday, Sept. 9 at Valentini's in Chisholm. I'll be there. Join me! (RSVP) Here's the description:

What would U.S. history look like without Minnesota’s Iron Range? The discovery of vast iron ore deposits in Minnesota ensured that the United States would emerge as a world power in the Twentieth Century. It is no exaggeration to state that the history of the U.S. would be different without the iron ore produced by the people who lived and worked on the Iron Range of Minnesota. The Mesabi, Vermilion, and Cuyuna Iron Ranges produced billions of tons of high grade iron ore used to manufacture the steel that built America and resulted in victory in World War I and World War II. Iron Rangers have been at the center of the U.S. economy throughout most of the past century, and this Lunch and Learn program will illustrate why industrialization in the United States was largely the story of Minnesota’s Iron Range.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER

Ms. Pamela Brunfelt received her M.A. in History from Minnesota State University-Mankato and is currently a member of the faculty at Vermilion Community College in Ely, Minnesota, where she teaches courses in American History and Political Science. As a life-long Iron Ranger and historian, Ms. Brunfelt has the unique capability to blend her deep regional knowledge with her scholarship in American history.

Pam was a central source and important influence for my book "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range."

Readers of my book, "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range," might remember that I'm a fan of the myth and historical impact surrounding the Northwest Passage. Northern Minnesota's Iron Range was just one of many regions that early European explorers believed might have been part of the fabled "sea route to the Orient." The St. Louis River, Lake Vermilion and the mighty Mississippi, all of which originate in this area, enjoy the fame of having once been fervently traversed by spice-hungry mapmakers. Like many who wander the north woods, these explorers did not find their prize, but left behind clues of minerals and timber for future settlers. I know people who've drank beer while floating on inner tubes in all these local waterways. Progress!

The dream of a warm, year-round waterway that connected the Atlantic to the Pacific proved to be just a legend. However, there is a real Northwest Passage that runs through all those jagged little islands in northern Canada. Until recently, this passage was usually closed off by ice, but climate trends have opened it, quite possibly because of "global warming," (quotes used not to dismiss the theory, but to reflect that "warming" isn't always what happens in human influenced climate change).

One of my favorite blogs TYWKIWDBI ("Things you wouldn't know if we didn't blog it") shared an image and description of a climatological rarity -- the opening of the Northwest Passage and the lesser known Northeast Passage north of Russia. For the third time in recorded history you can sail around the world entirely within the Arctic. In keeping with my theme lately, I present this information not as being good or bad, just as being interesting.



Stan Rogers, "Northwest Passage"

When we first considered building our current house in the country, what struck me about the site was this tall white pine along the property line. The woods around northern Minnesota's Iron Range once teemed with some of the largest white pine in North America, a fact that literally put the place on the map as loggers, then miners, then tourists poured in from places with smaller trees. The biggest white pines were harvested away, building up many late 19th, early 20th century homes in Chicago and other Great Lakes cities. A combination of disease and habitat now limits the growth of most white pines from ever reaching the species' historic heights. But here on our land, a really big, pretty white pine towered above the collection of balsam, basswood, poplar, maple and other common Itasca County foliage. For me this was one of the signs that this was the right place for us.

Well, we cleared the scrubby growth up to the edge of this white pine, built our house and went about the business of producing and raising our three boys in its shadows. We started to notice the top of the tree die off a couple years ago and then the birds starting picking it apart from top to bottom this summer. As more branches began drying up and falling off we knew that the tree was dead and would be a risk to fall on our house.


Last week a tree service came and cut down the tree. I love this tree. I didn't want it to go, but it had to.


I had them cut four rounds out of the only marginally usable wood left on the tree. I'm going to make them into clocks, because lately I've been contemplating the steady passage of time.

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Aug. 29, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A version of this piece ran in Saturday's edition of "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE.

School days spring fresh every fall
By Aaron J. Brown

You have to love the unbending reality of seasons. A mere human can’t change the weather and holds only minimal ability to survive any given time of year without help from clothes and technology. Hot is hot. Cold is cold. The exponential power of wind may prevent walking even the shortest distance when the wind chooses. Seasons remind us that it’s not all about us. It’s about the world in which we live.

This is why I’ve enjoyed working in education these past several years. The American school year may be a vestigial reminder of our agrarian roots, but it serves to provide every citizen with an internal clock that ticks away the seasons for the rest of our lives. Those in education are always reminded of this clock. The clock tolled again for me this past week with the start of fall classes at our community college. Not everyone gets a beginning and an end to a work year, or at least benchmarks more interesting than the filing of fiscal reports and sales figures. For some, like the postal worker Newman from “Seinfeld,” “the mail just keeps coming.” Students and educators enjoy a starting gun and finish line, and it’s a special privilege.

But this year the bell tolls for another member of our household as our oldest son Henry prepares for kindergarten next week. Prepare might be a strong word because other than occasional work with letter worksheets and whatever he gleans from TV Henry is by and large conducting his normal routine. He knows he’s going to kindergarten but thus far the discussion has mostly focused on whether he’ll eat hot lunch or bring “regular lunch” in a box.

And it occurs to me that Henry is now old enough where my pontificating about the significance of his childhood isn’t doing him any favors. So enough with that. In truth any parent who reads into this sort of thing is really playing out their own memories and insecurities about school. Added to that is the realization of mortality, that young parents become regular parents when their kids go to school, and we’re all going to die, just like all the old parents in the local obituaries. But there’s the seasons again. It’s good to know what you can and can’t control.

I used to think I could control my emotions at times like this. That was until OfficeMax began lobbing bombs at my tear ducts with a TV commercial tailor-made to force new kindergarten parents cry, smile, laugh and then buy reams of paper and enough colored pencils to fill a whisky barrel. Some touching song plays while a bunch of kids get on the bus, again and again, different kids each like snowflakes and, well, here we are again.

The first time I got on a bus to go to school I was wearing a homemade pair of pants, shirt and jacket, with a homemade backpack and a Muppets lunchbox. In my memory I got on the bus the first day of school but my mother has since reminded me that the bus driver forgot us the first day, turning around just past our driveway and missing us again. Mom drove me to school in the station wagon with my younger sisters in the back, still in pajamas. It was actually the SECOND day of school that I remember climbing the steps of the bus looking for a friend and some comfort in a large, changing world. That bus rode straight and true to school, where the smell of fresh floor wax blended with the peanut butter and jelly sandwich lofting out of that lunchbox at midday. To this day the new floor wax at work conjures the phantom odor of peanut butter, and adrenaline, and the excitement of another chance for a new beginning. I hope this one is the best one yet.

Aaron J. Brown is an Iron Range writer, blogger and an instructor at Hibbing Community College. Read more at MinnesotaBrown.com or in his book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

Saturday morning's edition of "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE explores a topic close to my heart, "Back to School." Guest host Maddi Frick, a college student about to head back to campus herself, will be leading the conversation. She's got a great name and a smooth drinkin' public radio voice, so give it a listen for that alone. My commentary will touch on the unique "back to school" nature of my life these days, both in my job as a community college instructor and in my oldest son's first bus ride to kindergarten in just a couple weeks.

"Between You and Me" is a call-in and music program celebrating the unique voices and culture of northern Minnesota. Tune in locally from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at 91.7 FM in most places north of Duluth or streaming online anywhere at www.kaxe.org. Shows and my essays are archived at PRX, available for syndication in public stations all over the nation, but mostly in my own ego where my work is always well received.

Today I'm introducing a guest blogger to add some variety and perspective to the content here. I met Jeff Manuel at a book event in the Twin Cities and he's been sending me some fascinating reading material ever since. He explains the series of posts he'll be sharing here in coming weeks:

Hello, Minnesota Browners! I want to thank Aaron for letting me contribute to the blog. As someone who is interested in the Iron Range’s past and future, I’ve enjoyed reading the blog for a long time. I’m happy to join the conversation.

You’re probably wondering who this is if it’s not Aaron. I’m a historian and college professor who has spent a lot of time reading, thinking, and writing about the Iron Range and where it fits in the larger sweep of recent American history. My interest in industrial regions like the Iron Range started a decade ago when I went to Youngstown, Ohio, to see what happened after Youngstown’s steel mills shut down in the late 1970s. As a history graduate student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, I wrote my dissertation on the Range’s recent history. I now teach history at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and live in St. Louis, Missouri. But I’m still thinking and writing about the Iron Range, especially as I work to revise my dissertation into a book about the Iron Range’s recent history.

I hope to add my two cents to Minnesota Brown from time to time. If it helps, you can think of me as a foreign correspondent for the blog--a chance to think about what the Iron Range looks like from the perspective of a sympathetic outsider. I welcome your questions, comments, and any ideas. Feel free to email at jeff.manuel@gmail.com.

Yes, I'm taking a hyperlocal blog trying to expand to a new audience and adding an additional voice discussing the impact of mining on culture. Hey, Garrison Keillor gets to go on and on about morel mushrooms. Is that better? At least this involves trucks and giant shovels. Those things are cool, to paraphrase my preschool boys.

I'm still on the mailing list for the Asian Carp controversy. A ruling on whether the threat of this invasive species will close two of the Chicago locks is expected soon. MInnesota Public Radio's Bob Kelleher has the story. Mostly I'm writing this because I get to show more carp pictures. Is that wrong?



Probably.

The next-to-final show of the "Art in the Park" Iron Range music series hits the Minnesota Discovery Center amphitheater stage Thursday night in Chisholm.

Support local musicians Thursday, August 26, at Minnesota Discovery Center’s Art in the Park event. Music begins at 6 p.m. featuring Deafman’s Radio, a blues and rockabilly ensemble out of northern Minnesota, followed by Full Range, a vocal quartet. The final performance of the evening will be by Mark Pommier and band with all original material. Admission to Minnesota Discovery Center is free Thursdays after 5 p.m. The trolley will make one run, at 6 p.m. Cost is $2 per ride. Mini-golf is open all evening for $2 per round. Food and beverages are available to purchase.

Visit mndiscoverycenter.com or call 800-372-6437 for more information.

This event has been a summer hit and shows the possibilities of building grassroots events from the ground as opposed to blowing vast amounts of capital in a hunt for big names and big numbers. Kudos to MDC's staff, though the road ahead remains long and winding. Keep Looking Up.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post said that Art in the Park closed Aug. 26. It actually closes Sept. 2.

The Ashland Current reports that an Illinois coal mining company is looking at the feasibility of opening a taconite mine in northern Wisconsin. The Gogebic-Penokee Iron Range is a formation that runs from east of Ashland, Wis., through the western portion of Michigan's upper peninsula.

Though the politics of mining in this part of northern Wisconsin, which isn't accustomed to open pit mining, are sure to be tumultuous, this probably gives you a good sense of where steel prices are for the time being. The Iron Range of northern Minnesota is America's top producer of taconite and iron products. Here, we can bet that mining will enter a robust period that offers yet another, if not final chance to diversify and reorganize our economic structure before the next drop occurs.

(h/t Business North)

You'll notice some changes here at MinnesotaBrown.com. With some fantastic help from my wife Christina we've implemented a new template and header. This is part of my long range plan to do more creative work here on the blog in addition to my established regional and state commentary. Think The Awl but with mostly one author and based entirely on the Iron Range. I am certain to succeed! And when I do, jobs, jobs, jobs.

I will be introducing a new guest blogger this week and hope to roll out some other exciting new things over the fall and winter.

Let me know what you think and if you have any loading problems.

When you live in a place like the Iron Range, you learn to cope with a lot of stuff that needs "saving." Local businesses need saving. Mines need saving. The arts need saving. Schools need saving. Everybody's got problems and no institution is really safe. The population is aging and the economy is stuck wearing moon boots like they were new. You can't save it all, so you save what you can. This is a problem that Superman never has to confront in the movies. You know that if Superman was real it would take 12 hours before someone complained that their relative was crushed by a train because Superman was "favoring Asia that day." Sometimes I wonder if Superman wasn't really J.D. Salinger, who just gave up on being super, smoking cigarettes in his yard until death finally came, later than expected.

The other day I was talking to a colleague about one of the Iron Range things that need saving, the Paulucci Space Theater in Hibbing. This planetarium is a truly unique facility, featuring a large panoramic screen, a star projector, large format movies and the ambiance of a place built just before space became old news. Until very recently it was the largest planetarium in the state, something that seems wholly out of place on the Iron Range. Named for Range native Jeno Paulucci, a microwave dinner magnate and vaunted entrepreneur, this facility is managed by Hibbing Community College but the state budget crisis now dictates a new management system, mostly likely one that relies on new funds from someplace else. (Space?)

Anyway, this colleague told me she looked into getting a famous science person to come in for an event raising awareness and support for the planetarium. Bill Nye the Science Guy was way too expensive, apparently, so she was wondering who that guy was, maybe he'd be cheaper.

What guy?

"That guy who was on TV. That space guy."

Oh yeah! That space guy on Channel 8, late at night.

"Yeah, that's the guy!"

He used to walk out on the rings of a planet and talk about space. And then they played the anthem and went to static.

"What's his name?"

Oh, man, I used to watch that guy all the time when I was a kid. What WAS his name?

And I was telling the truth. That guy was awesome. I'd have to find out his name. He'd be great.

See, I'd spend my nights when I was 15 and then 16, the summer I delivered pizzas in Eveleth, up late, way later than should have been allowed. It was around this time that I abandoned my room upstairs for the cooler, more private basement, where there was an unfinished bedroom that I didn't use until I was even older. For a year prior I slept by choice on a rollaway mattress, the kind of thing you'd find in a shelter. I chose this because the amped-up TV antennae my dad installed on the roof sent a cable snaking down to an old color TV and VCR perched on a table at the foot of this cot. For most of my teenage years I'd spend every night watching Johnny Carson, and then David Letterman and later Conan O'Brien on this old TV, drinking Sprite and eating peanut butter toast or microwave popcorn, piling the bags in a corner of the dingy basement, clearing them monthly when my mom could see the heap from the laundry area across the basement. Somewhere in all this my parents' marriage was falling apart, along with the family business. But I was pretty damn happy on that cot, reveling in all the monologue jokes because I read the paper every morning, sometimes before the sun rose.

I couldn't sleep back then. This reminds me that I've never slept especially well without some kind of medication. But they don't let kids buy the right kind of medication and the cigarettes I snuck from my dad just got me thinking. I'd stay with the broadcast channels until, one by one, they would sign off the air. Channel 8, the PBS station, retired later than most. The last thing they showed was this guy, this space guy, walking out on the rings of Saturn.

This show was "Star Gazer" and the space guy's name was Jack Horkheimer, also known as "The Star Hustler." The day my colleague and I were trying to remember his name was last Wednesday. Horkheimer died last Friday. I hadn't seen his show in a long time and I read now that he had been suffering from a lung ailment. I wish I had remembered his name, because this guy deserves to be remembered. I remember the musical interlude from his show, a sort of soothing techno riff, and his catch phrase, "Keep Looking Up," that he dropped at the end of every program. And I would run outside in the summer air to look up at clear skies and bright stars. Some things you can save, some things you can't. But you can save more if you keep looking up.

I'll be on the KAXE Morning Show at about 7:20 Monday morning to talk Iron Range news and politics. I wonder what we'll talk about?

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Aug. 22, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

Even Bob the Builder has it rough
By Aaron J. Brown

In this dim economy, even Bob the Builder struggles. The animated Bob, found locally on public TV, builds and fixes ecologically friendly outbuildings with his sentient pieces of heavy equipment. Or at least he did, before the recession apparently swallowed his capital. Though still somewhat popular, Bob has been fading off the airwaves, toy shelves and consciousness of kids. Disney’s “Handy Manny” and his talking tools push Bob to the margins with a slick corporate message. To make matters worse, the exact opposite trend is happening in our house. Our twin 3-year-old boys can’t get enough Bob. Here we begin today’s elaborate, possibly strained Bob the Builder metaphor. Join me, would you?

First, a disclaimer. Yes, we’re those kind of parents, the kind that lets their children watch a “Bob the Builder” show instead of teaching them how to speak Chinese. We’re not going to stop doing this. Don’t write. Allow our actions to silently feed your sense of superiority. I’ve got the feeling we’re not alone. Maybe you have slightly older children, boys perhaps, and remember the Bob the Builder lifestyle we’re currently experiencing. You know the song, right? Can we fix it? Yes we can! Bob the Builder owned that catchphrase long before President Obama. In fact, Bob debuted in Great Britain in 1999, quickly emigrating to the United States and Canada not unlike the Cornish miners of my ancestry, but without the pasties.

“Bob the Builder” contains numerous holes that can only be filled with the phrase, “Well, it is just for kids, I guess.” Let’s start with how there is no money in Sunflower Valley or in nearby Bobsville (named for Bob’s father, a stoic patriarch whose unqualified love young Bob seeks but shall never receive). Bob acquires all the supplies from the building yard or recycle them from large, convenient piles of pristine demolition waste.

Periodically, some eccentric person will arrive in the new development and demand a deeply impractical customized home with no discussion of financing. The talking backhoe, cement mixer, crane and roller, never flummox these transients despite scant evidence that any OTHER talking equipment exists elsewhere. The homes become part of the backdrop of this town, which has no visible government other than an unseen mayor mentioned occasionally by the only real authority figure, a powerful capitalist named Mr. Bentley.

Naturally, a sunflower farmer named Mr. Pickles lives in Sunflower Valley, and he employs a sentient scarecrow named Spud and tractor named Travis. Spud is the single most destructive, inefficient creature that could be devised by man’s imagination. While he enjoys moderate, though inconsistent, results in scaring away crows, every episode usually involves him stealing, scheming, lazing, or accidentally incinerating key props in that week’s teledrama. Nevertheless, Mr. Pickles retains Spud’s services, indeed even going so far as to name his new house Scarecrow Cottage, sharing the space with his straw minion despite his loud snoring.

Then we have the aforementioned talking equipment. Scoop, Lofty, Muck, Rolly, Dizzy and other ancillary motorized characters dutifully obey Bob and his assistant Wendy, who loves Bob despite his detached unawareness of her affections. The assembled machinery are not paid, nor do they require food or anything but the most basic overnight storage. Yet despite being self-aware these characters do exactly what regular equipment would, only less efficiently and with more near-fatal accidents.

In other words (here’s the payoff), Bob the Builder’s rise and fall from top kid status explains the discontinuation of the Bob the Builder toy line my kids love so much. More than that, Bob the Builder is in its own way a metaphor for our economy as a whole. In Great Britain, the sluggish aftermath of the recession is actually being called the “Bob the Builder” recovery, criticized for depending too much on superficial construction projects. But sadly, one cannot feel joy for the pain of dear, sweet Lofty, or the collapse of Bob’s business, Wendy’s unspoken love or the Utopian dream of Sunflower Valley. Bob’s story is an American story, even though he’s secretly British. (Psst. So are we!) We’ve got to figure out a happy ending.

Aaron J. Brown is an Iron Range writer, blogger and an instructor at Hibbing Community College. Read more at MinnesotaBrown.com or in his book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

And in a dramatic change in tone, we move on to this week's delightful homespun radio program. "Between You and Me," the Saturday morning call-in and music show on 91.7 KAXE features "summer recipes" this week. This will be a wide ranging celebration of the end of summer and the things we like about the season. My regular contribution will be my own personal recipe for a crazy summer helping raise three preschool boys. It's delightful! And I only say "shit" twice, unless you count "shit sandwich." Then it would be three times.

Just kidding! It's radio! This is the internet, where this sort of wordplay is amusing?

"Between You and Me" airs 10 a.m. to noon Saturday on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota and streaming live all over the world at www.kaxe.org. My essays and the program itself are available through PRX for syndication on YOUR public radio station. I'm looking at you, Midwestern State of Some Note!

Well, they went and did it. Today I'm breaking with my party and conventional political wisdom in describing a great injustice being done to the people of the Iron Range. That's not a light word, injustice. I aim to defend its use here.

The matter, of course, is an old one, something I've railed on in language both subtle and deliciously over-the-top: Excelsior Energy's proposed Iron Range coal gasification power plant known as the Mesaba Energy Project. Today the Iron Range Resources Board approved the commissioner's request not only to extend the deadline for the original loan payments, but to revise the loan agreement itself to require lower interest payments over the next six years, at which time Excelsior would supposedly pay back all the money and some sort of bonus on any revenue collected in any potential sale of the Mesaba project. Of course, that doesn't get this boondoggle any closer to an investor or a workable engineering plan to turn coal into magic juice, but I suppose it was foolish of me to think officials might start thinking about that now. In truth, we've just started a new chapter in an ongoing farce.

This project, as it was originally proposed in 2001, was to become an innovative new way to burn coal that captured and stored carbon, providing untold numbers of new jobs and reinvigorating the East Range, which had then been knocked flat by the announced closure of the LTV mine. Initially, developers floated vague job numbers in the upper hundreds, with thousands of related jobs. Over time the project grew, shrunk, moved and changed to accommodate political and logistical reality. As it stands now, the Mesaba Project would be a somewhat clean coal power plant along the Scenic Highway 7 in Itasca County on the West Range that would employ 100 permanent people in a generous estimate.

Never mind the coal. That's the least of our problems right now. The real problem is that the developers have shown bad faith in their dealings with the Iron Range and have nothing but billable lobbying and legal service hours to show for the almost $9.5 million in Iron Range Resources loans and many millions more in state and federal grants they've received. Truth is, most members of the Range legislative delegation simply realize they're soaked for $9.5 million and, lacking pleasant alternatives, humility and/or guts, they're going double or nothing on another spin of the roulette wheel with their good friends, their old hockey buddies at Excelsior Energy.

My friend Rep. Tom Anzelc was the lone "no" vote on the agreement today, and had pushed to table the matter until the developers would explain their real plan for the next seven years and how their project would change (as it certainly will) to accommodate the new reality facing this kind of technology. As it stands, there is NO explanation for what the company will do and Excelsior faces no obligation, other than $100,000 a year, until 2017. At that time this discussion will have been going on for almost two decades. I should say there is no PUBLIC explanation for the changes, because I have since learned that some board members heard a proposal from Excelsior in a recent private "liaison" subcommittee meeting. Yes, they have legal private meetings at the agency so that unpleasant issues may be resolved quietly.

Let's get back to the deal, though. $100,000 a year is chump change for developers who have $2.3 million remaining in their federal energy fund. Excelsior can declare bankruptcy at any time and still walk away clean. They'll take some time now, try to lure a few unwitting municipal utilities into an ill-advised power purchase agreement. More likely Excelsior will draw another set of snake eyes and start looking for an exit plan.

Why would Range public officials entertain another decade of back-and-forth on this job creation dud? I submit for your consideration the following observations:

Aug. 4 - Sen. Tom Saxhaug/Rep. Loren Solberg golf fundraiser. Saxhaug made the motion to accept the altered agreement this morning.

Aug. 5 - Sen. Tom Bakk golf event and fundraiser. Bakk has carried more water for Excelsior at the legislature than anyone other than David Tomassoni.

That same week Sen. Tomassoni, chair of the Iron Range Resources board, held his cabin fundraiser. Excelsior developers attended all of these events, writing numerous checks. They've been attending events like these and writing checks since the dawn of the concept of the Mesaba Energy Project nine years ago. These checks didn't always go directly to the candidates. More often they went to local party units, which often fly under the radar for campaign finance report snoops. All of this is 100 percent legal. No laws were broken. But the economic development machine on the Iron Range is most definitely broken, if not rotten to its core. This one-sided money exchange is a crooked, cronyistic loophole built on personal relationships and a Midwestern desire to please the people who attend your gatherings. Tom Anzelc is the only Iron Range legislator who has never taken a donation from an Excelsior Energy official.

It is politically imprudent of me to talk about this just a couple months before an election where members of my own local political party, once again lumbering onto the biennial ballot, are greatly responsible for this Mesaba monstrosity's birth and continuation. But then again it was politically imprudent of them to do any of this in the first place. Only a combination of political sloppiness and arrogance would allow this matter to be frog marched in front of the board in a turbulent electoral environment like the one we have. Since I am free from the constraints of wanting to be elected to political office, I am free from caring what the powerful, dim-witted architects of this scheme think of me personally. I think they are killing my homeland through cronyism and bullshit boosterism. I'm sorry if I don't play ball like the old days.

Indeed, this is simply a rank injustice, which now transcends the matter of routine economic development policy and has become a metaphor for everything that is wrong, and everything I hate, about a place and a people I truly love. If you believe me, my decade of writing about the hope and potential of the Iron Range despite its many challenges, you know that I am telling the truth. I would gladly leave this issue to history, allowing the long arm of time to confirm my beliefs. My grandkids would sure get a kick out of that when they come up here to visit their summer cabins, maintained by hired hands from the dwindling local rabble, unless of course they end up in the rabble. Time is the one element the Iron Range cannot afford. Waiting on empty promises will kill our best chances for genuine innovation and entrepreneurship if it hasn't already.

I'm still a member of the DFL. I serve in my local DFL organization. I have dozens of friends in the local and state DFL. I am close now to resigning and becoming an independent as I have ever been. And I mean independent, because Gov. Tim Pawlenty's Iron Range Resources agency and former Sen. Norm Coleman were vital Republican co-conspirators on this whole operation. I'm not alone in my disgust, but the deafening silence from most in the Iron Range DFL on this topic is what troubles me most.

DISCLAIMER: I am Tom Anzelc's friend and campaign manager. We have obviously spoken about this matter and, while we are in agreement on his vote today, this post reflects my opinions only. I've covered this issue in some form since I was editor of the Hibbing Tribune in 2001. My single greatest regret about my time in journalism was not asking harder questions back about this project when I had a chance to expose the problems at the outset.

This story explains my rather foul mood tonight. Excelsior Energy, a nearly 10-year-old front company staffed by lawyers and lobbyists with Range roots, is seeking a rather profound sweetheart extension on what was already a rather appalling $9.5 million in sweetheart loans from Iron Range Resources. If the terms of this proposal are upheld, the local political class would be breathing another half decade of life into the biggest mistake ever made by Iron Range Resources.

The MEP is a proposed coal gasification power plant that I've roundly criticized as a boondoggle here at the blog. Large investors and government agencies alike deemed the project not to be viable. It would provide jobs, jobs, jobs, though, if it is built. But it will never be built. Not as advertised. Not with the impact of its lofty, false promises. Not without some serious, even more appalling help from all levels of government. Apparently that last item is on the menu Thursday.

The IRR board meets Thursday morning. I expect some discussion on this matter. If this proposal is passed as described I'll have some things to say Thursday evening. These will not be pleasant things.

The internet is littered with link bait and spam sites, robot-generated content that mindlessly spews random (usually stolen) content. But one of these sites is good for a laugh. "Voter Factory" allows you to search a person's name and hometown and find out if they are a Democrat or Republican. I was shocked to learn my true nature:

If I had to guess I'd say that this a site that got a bunch of voter data, names and addresses, and then randomly assigned party affiliation. I did some searching and found several names of "known partisans" that were occasionally correct, but often totally wrong. The site is selling(?) a Facebook app to determine the party leanings of your "friends." Strange. I wouldn't recommend purchasing this.

Then again, maybe this site knows something we don't. Is half the population waiting for a latent party switch to take hold of its sensibilities? Do I have a Palinmania tumor growing deep inside me, waiting for just the right amount of imagined socialism to set off a spell that ends with me making homemade signs about taxes and buying more guns than I would otherwise need? Only time will tell. Stay tuned! Oh, I am so hot on politics right now. So hot.

I'm on the MPR MinnEcon blog again today with a vlog version of a post I wrote a little over a week ago about the true meaning of "jobs, jobs, jobs." Check out the MinnEcon post.

Much has been made of the Minnesota Discovery Center (formerly Ironworld) and its efforts to find footing after the community heritage and entertainment venue reopened last May after an abrupt closure in 2009. I'll say this, they are finding some low cost ways to connect with the Iron Range community. The Art in the Park live music series has been a big hit, and now they're trying a creative new contest for artists and metalworkers.

The Ultimate Fire Ring Competition Begins!

CHISHOLM, Minn. – Minnesota Discovery Center is seeking entries for the first-ever Ultimate Fire Ring competition, an event that will showcase the talents of northeastern Minnesota’s welders, fabricators and metal artists.

The Ultimate Fire Ring competition was designed to recognize craftsmanship, industrial arts and the enduring tradition of the campfire.

The competition will be based on votes cast by Minnesota Discovery Center guests October 5 through November 3. All entries will be on display at the museum, and all fire rings will be auctioned and/or raffled as a fundraiser for Minnesota Discovery Center arts and education programming. The winning fire ring will be on display through the winter.

The competition’s format, guidelines and other details are available at mndiscoverycenter.com or by calling 218-254-1220.

That's right; a competition for people who superheat metals and form them into objects, in this case rings that HOLD FIRE. That's a win. And you know this will end with fire: Sweet, controlled, ready-to-stare-at-while-drinking-beer fire.

As we speak I'm making plans to attend the first ever, (FREE!) Minnesota Blogger Conference in Minneapolis on Sept. 11, 2010. I usually don't leave the wooded highlands of the Iron Range, except for court dates, speaking gigs and the procurement of rare goods and sundries. Conferences are the sort of thing I avoid, preferring to burn old boxes in my driveway while pretending that the can of Diet Coke in my hand is really a cigarette.

But this conference is different. My wife Christina, the Northern Cheapskate, is presenting at the conference and I will be accompanying her. The Minnesota Blogger Conference was put together by some Minnesota bloggers who thought it'd be a good idea for all the people in the state who so routinely communicate online to actually meet one another and share ideas. This conference is designed to have something for all bloggers, regardless of genre. For instance, my blog is a mix of creative writing, politics and Iron Range observations. I'll be interested in some of the sessions on blog writing style and design. Christina, a frugal living blogger whose blog is a business, will be part of the panel discussing how to make money off your blog. She also just moved her blog to WordPress and there are several sessions on how to make that work. I'll be going through a redesign myself soon, though I am sticking with Google's free hosting for now.

I'd like to invite all bloggers, but particularly my fellow Minnesota political, news and culture bloggers to sign up. This isn't about echoing a particular opinion, rather just an opportunity to share a craft and lifestyle that -- if you're like me -- often must be explained to perplexed older neighbors and relatives.

More at www.mnbloggerconference.com or at the Twitter hash #mnblogconf.

This is my column for the Sunday, Aug. 15, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

High speed internet would create new Range jobs
By Aaron J. Brown

I write this entire column, every word of it, while I am uploading a large but not unusually large piece of video to YouTube for a statewide media organization commissioning my thoughts on the Iron Range economy. In this video – stay with me, this gets hot – I talk about how the video, the one I am uploading right now, is a living example of what the future of northern Minnesota’s economy might hold.

If people can produce media in a wonderful place like northern Minnesota, edit and upload it from their homes or offices, our geographic location is no longer a hindrance, but a major help to our appeal for new entrepreneurs, creative types and young families. It doesn’t have to be a YouTube video. It could be a blueprint, schematics, graphics, a report or software used for any function. The work would be done where the worker wants to live, and “sold” to the employer where he or she needs it.

CRASH!

What was that sound? A sound so loud it was in ALL CAPS. Why, it was the crashing of my upload in a giant ball of e-flames, sending little bits of my video skittering across my computer’s innards, lost forever. Don’t cry for me, reader. If you’ve read this far you probably have an idea where I’m going with this. I’ve got another window open on my computer and I’m taking another stab over there while my brain is formulating this very sentence. Here goes.

I live in the woods about a half hour northwest of Hibbing in Itasca County. We subscribe to a satellite internet service for two reasons: 1) my day job and my sideline gigs both depend on fast, reliable internet access, and 2) dial up is so slow out here it’s a joke, even by 1998 standards. Satellite providers deliver fast download times (except when it’s raining). However, upload times are much slower – a lot more like dialup. For us, other methods of connecting to the internet are not an option, even though DSL hubs and other infrastructure lie just a few tantalizing miles away. Furthermore, our service is expensive, justified only by my specific vocation. Most families prioritize more basic needs ahead of this.

More and more work in our digitized, connected economy can be completed outside a traditional office, while other “real time, real place” work tends to follow wherever people live. If you have a community of 50 middle class creative workers – engineers, writers, software designers, etc., you’ll need a gas station, grocery store, school and clinic to support them, among other things. But even jobs with a hard location (mining for instance, no pun intended) increasingly depend on high speed communication between work sites and parent offices. Where 80 years ago a mine boss like John C. Greenway might have been summoned to New York for orders, today he could attend a video conference with all members of a global ownership team. The same is true for training, re-training and other basic work functions. That’s not to diminish the important of the physical world, just to say that routine matters no longer need to be conducted in person.

Whether public or private, having the fiber optic cable wired to everyone’s house and business is vital, but not the only part of the picture. Education about how the internet can be used to do work and provide for a family is the next, equally important step. Many of the young adults I know in our area are finding ways to start business or hold jobs based in far-away cities because of high speed internet. If those connections were universal and could be advertised as such, we might be able to attract new young families and some of the people who left. All of this is possible, and – for the impact – far less expensive than a billion dollar, publicly financed “jobs, jobs, jobs” project.

Well, I just took a break to eat dinner, go swimming with the kids and build a perpetual motion machine. I see that my upload is complete. I sure hope the next one goes faster. That sure would be a lot more productive and profitable for me, and others. The future of the Iron Range is only partly tied to its past. Today’s mining opportunities are great, but only a concerted effort to create a blended, globally connected economy will create the true prosperity and growth the Iron Range so desperately needs.

Aaron J. Brown is an Iron Range writer, blogger and an instructor at Hibbing Community College. Read more at MinnesotaBrown.com or in his book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

I forget to mention the Embarrass Fair going on now in Embarrass, Minnesota, the lowland intersection between the Mesabi and Vermilion ranges. Right now at the Timber Hall the famous TV Dr. Oz, or at least his crew, will be at the fair filming people asking "embarrassing" medical questions. Ha ha! Embarrassed in Embarrass! The Timberjay has the story.

Dr. Oz won't be there, so don't "follow the yellow brick road" or you might get your hopes dashed.

As a longtime pun enthusiast I get the reason Oz sent his crew to Embarrass. What the producers fail to realize though is that not only is Embarrass in the Midwest, where people don't say "poop" without blushing, it's on the Iron Range. Here men and women learn at a young age to bury their feelings in a place deep, deep down below, and accept the resulting cancer. The best this crew is going to get is "If I punch you in the face, will you cry?" Or at least that's my prediction. My other prediction is that the crew will opt for the hard liquor upgrade on the Duluth to Chicago flight tonight. We'll see!

Tune in this Saturday morning for "Between You and Me," the call-in and music program on 91.7 KAXE. The topic this week is "road trips." I've written about road trips in the past so I decided to go a different direction this week, instead writing another character piece about road trips from the viewpoint of a cynical, older Toyota Corolla. It's good fun and references both marijuana and Corn Nuts, so -- you know -- target demo 18-30 is covered.

"Between You and Me" airs from 10 a.m. to noon on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota and streaming online all over the world at www.kaxe.org. The show features the voices and attitudes of northern Minnesota along with many regular segments, including my commentary. The show and my essays are syndicated through PRX.

One of my stated conflicts of interest is that am the volunteer campaign manager for Rep. Tom Anzelc, a good friend and fellow Balsam Township resident. You might recall that a temporary restraining order was issued against Tom by a former girlfriend in June over salacious allegations that he denied. I defended him on this blog. Today, the court issued its ruling, dismissing the order. This was Tom's statement:

Today Judge Dale Harris denied a request for a Harassment Restraining Order and vacated the temporary order that had been issued against Rep. Tom Anzelc. The Court found:

...a possible ulterior motive of the Petitioner…. (and Respondent Tom Anzelc’s) witnesses to be credible and, as a result, finds Petitioner’s testimony to be less so….(concluding) that a harassment restraining order is not warranted.

Tom Anzelc stated: "I want to thank the people of Northern Minnesota for being kind enough to wait for a decision in this case from an impartial judge. I’m pleased that the judge determined that the allegations were baseless. The court was very fair and patient issuing a 10-page memorandum. I know how important harassment orders are in our legal system, and I’m glad we have judges who listen to the facts and apply the law fairly."

The free outdoor summer music series "Art in the Park" returns to the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm Thursday evening. Summer is going fast!

Minnesota Discovery Center announces the performers for the August 12 Art in the Park event: Fathers and Sons will open at 6 p.m., followed by BitterSweet (classic rock, rhythm and blues and Motown). The rock band Colmekill will perform at 8 p.m. Admission is free after 5 p.m. Food and beverages available for purchase. The Minnesota Discovery Center trolley runs at 6 p.m.; mini-golf is open through the evening. Visit www.mndiscoverycenter.com or call 218-254-7959 for more information.

The second installment in my "economic lookout" contributions for Minnesota Public Radio's MinnEcon blog has been published today. You can view the full post at MPR or see the source video below. The next installment may well be entitled, "The Economy. Lookout!"

I'm still sorting data, but here's a fun fact:

Matt Entenza's 2010 run for governor: About 80,000 votes and 18 percent.
Jerry Janezich 2000 run for U.S. Senate: About 90,000 votes and 20 percent.

And who can forget the millions Jerry spent on that race! He's been pouring lower grade whiskey at his bar ever since. (Just kidding! That's actually a pretty big insult up here). It's not entirely fair to compare a federal race with a state race. Nor are conditions here the same. But the lesson I take from this is that the candidate, grassroots support and money all matter, not just one or the other.

Furthermore, Dayton's percentage in his winning 2000 DFL Senate primary closely mirrors his performance in last night's primary, except that he had more raw votes last night. Where did those votes come from? I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that Dayton 2010 closely mirrors Janezich 2000 in St. Louis County.

What a world, what a world!

Mark Dayton defeated Margaret Anderson Kelliher in yesterday's DFL gubernatorial primary. He'll go on to battle Republican Tom Emmer and the Independence Party's Tom Horner in the November general election.

Dayton won this thing exactly how people thought he would, with the 8th CD and support from traditional, older DFL voters. The only drama was how close the election would prove to be and how Anderson Kelliher held such a commanding lead early in the reporting. The Iron Range and Duluth, despite my personal loyalties, did exactly what I thought they would -- deliver a several thousand vote margin to Dayton. Anderson Kelliher failed to do what she needed to -- control that margin of defeat by closing the gap in Range towns. Dayton pulled mid-50s in percentages in most of these towns, with Margaret in the 30s. Dayton's share surged to the 70s in some places like Buhl.

Fans of American history will appreciate this. Dayton won Minnesota in the exact fashion that Huey Long won Louisiana in the 1920s -- a near-perfect rural/urban split. With the low (but not too low) turnout, the strength of rural areas was magnified.

Throughout the night I knew the Range would spot Dayton about 4-5,000 votes. When Margaret led by 20,000 as she did early I still believed she would win, but when her margin shrunk to a couple thousand before I went to bed the writing on the wall became obvious. The despair at the Dayton headquarters, followed by the unexpected calm, was entirely justified.

Congratulations to Mark Dayton and his running mate, Duluth's Sen. Yvonne Prettner Solon. They had a rural Minnesota plan to win and managed to execute. Congratulations also to the DFL field organization and Margaret's campaign. They seized what was a sure loss and almost pulled off a major upset. Bear in mind, between Dayton and Matt Entenza, Margaret was outspent by $9 million in a primary. She lost by just a few thousand votes. This was undoubtedly Rocky I. People forget Rocky lost in Rocky I.

Now the DFL party will go through an elaborate, probably stilted and needlessly difficult unity dance. That's the way of these things. The third act of this play will begin shortly.

I'll be on 91.7 KAXE talking about the primary election results Wednesday morning at 7:40 or so. Listen in at 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota and streaming live at www.kaxe.org.

State Rep. Roger Reinert advanced easily in the open Duluth State Senate District 7 DFL primary tonight against former school board member Harry Welty. Reinert faces largely token opposition for the seat held by Mark Dayton's running mate, Yvonne Prettner Solon.

It appears former 8th CD chair Kerry Gauthier will also advance in the DFL primary for the West Duluth seat Reinert is vacating. He also faces an relatively unknown GOP opponent.

These are hard working candidates, but they really won this race back in June when they managed to avoid attracting well known opponents in what are essentially solid DFL seats.

It's primary election day in Minnesota!

First, just go vote. Second, the DFL gubernatorial contest, the most competitive and highest profile race on the ballot today, should provide ample drama as it rolls to its climax. Tonight's result will answer many questions and distribute the labels of genius and chump to all manner of people, including myself. That's the fun of writing about politics. I've been trying to stop but I can't. It's a problem. I need help.

Margaret Anderson Kelliher was up north in Grand Rapids as part of her Monday statewide tour. I shot some shaky Flip Cam footage of this but my satellite internet uploads decent video at one hour per minute. (Downloads are fine, but this is indeed why I always rail on rural broadband). At 12 minutes, I decided the video was too much effort for the yield. Featuring State Reps. John Persell (DFL-Bemidji) and Tom Anzelc (DFL-Balsam Township) along with U.S. Sen. Al Franken and former Vice President Walter Mondale, it was a compact, energetic program marred only by a fog delay. Mark Dayton made an appearance at Hibbing Taconite as part of his statewide tour. Dayton is counting on name recognition and Steelworker backing. Matt Entenza has been up north many times this campaign, but was focused on the Twin Cities on the last full day. Entenza has pockets of support throughout the Range and Duluth, but the region will likely break for Dayton or Anderson Kelliher. Stay tuned! I'll be offering small observations on Twitter, @minnesotabrown.

Tuesday is primary day in Minnesota. The marquee match-up will be the DFL gubernatorial race, as Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Mark Dayton and Matt Entenza test all sorts of political science theories, many of which involve my native Iron Range and Minnesota's Eighth Congressional District.

The candidates all exist on this ballot for some cosmic reason, to be determined, each with his or her own appeal. Still, watching this year's governor's race conjures an interesting image, the reverse cliche of an old Hollywood war movie. That is to say the people who, by Hollywood standards, would have been picked off in the first reel have become the only ones left standing at the end.

Meantime, the dashing, upstart captain with cyan eyes and an ageless charm (R.T. Rybak) was sniped before the plot even got interesting. The smart, complicated policy wonk who can make a radio out of paper clips (Paul Thissen) ran out of rope during a daring escape from an angry mob. And the outspoken Iron Range everyman with a heart of gold (Tom Rukavina) was swallowed up by an angry fascist robot. These are not necessarily the best of metaphors, but only because I've tried and failed to find better ones. Watching last Sunday's KSTP debate only confirms that money (Matt Entenza and Mark Dayton), name recognition (Dayton) and campaign organization (Margaret Anderson Kelliher), not telegenic projection, determined the state of this race. On Tuesday we find out which factor matters most. (Above links lead to my candidate interviews).

Those left as the story approaches its zenith are former U.S. Sen. Dayton, who did not seek re-election after his first term. Long known as a smart but somewhat awkward speaker with a huge heart, Dayton has consistently eschewed the DFL endorsement process in his career, instead spending his family fortune on what he considers an altruistic effort to make things fair for others. Without the money he'd lack the charisma to contend, but his willingness to spend down a century of generational wealth to implement liberal policies holds its own strange appeal. I interviewed all of the current and former DFL candidates for governor and I'll give this to Dayton. He was the only one who showed up at my real office and sat next to the piles of paperwork I keep on my ratty work couch to talk to me.

Then there's Entenza, the former DFL House minority leader, whose self-awareness of his strengths and weaknesses, and his command of the political dark arts, is both admirable and unnerving to experienced political observers. He inspires strong feelings for or against his candidacy and has thus far spent more than $4 million. By tomorrow he may have spent more of his own money than any gubernatorial candidate ever regardless of whether or not he wins.

Finally, and notably, there's the DFL endorsed candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher. Outgoing Minnesota House Speaker, Kelliher was an early front-runner who seemed to be lagging behind the energy of early convention opponents like Rybak and Thissen. After a surprisingly strong surge by Rukavina on the first ballot, Kelliher's team brilliantly parlayed Iron Range and labor interest machinations to her advantage, swamping the field. It was a triumphant victory that rang hollow for some. Since the convention she's faced criticism for her overly formal speaking style and slow engagement of her campaign after the end of the session. With the intensification of her campaign recently, Kelliher has been picking up steam. Her KSTP debate performance was her strongest yet. The question is whether she has enough momentum to overtake her well-funded and extremely active opponents, particularly Dayton who leads most polls.

Mark Dayton earned an endorsement from the United Steelworkers and the Mesabi Daily News, two important, though not all-powerful, opinion leaders in Iron Range political circles. The Steelworkers have great influence in DFL organization but less ground operation than in years past. The Mesabi Daily News endorsement is also helpful to Dayton. The MDN is the region's largest newspaper but most voters know that its editorials are essentially the comments of editor and co-publisher Bill Hanna, someone who Iron Rangers both vote with and vote against interchangeably depending on circumstances. In this case, Hanna made a five year old vote on Mesabi Nugget the litmus test for whether or not a gubernatorial candidate was for "jobs" or not. Will it stick? Hard to say. I've already expressed my opinion on this topic. I had a Facebook exchange with a teacher friend whose husband is a Steelworker. There are a lot of Range households conflicted between Dayton and Anderson Kelliher. Some will split, others will unify on one candidate.

There's a lot of conventional wisdom floating around the internet about this race. One is that if turnout is very low, the DFL field organization has an advantage in ensuring a Margaret victory, especially if enough people vote in her Twin Cities base. That might be true, but turnout will exceed the 10 percent figure that's been discussed. Probably by a lot. Turnout will be high here on the Iron Range, as it is always high. We vote here reflexively, like paying taxes, and there are plenty of local races driving up interest. To win, Margaret must not concede the Range. She has not, in my estimation, as she's been here more lately and will return for a final push this morning. That said, Dayton holds an advantage on the Range and has made the most overt attempt to court Range votes in his TV ads and selection of Duluth State Sen. Yvonne Prettner Solon as his running mate.

Union politics will play a role, as the Star Tribune has pointed out. Dayton got a huge boost from the Steelworkers, Teamsters and AFSCME Council 5 in the Cities, but Margaret holds endorsements from Education Minnesota, several of the building trades and AFSCME Council 65 in Greater Minnesota. You'd have to check the math, but this is at least a wash in terms of raw numbers of union workers encouraged to vote one way or the other. And endorsements sway some votes, but not all.

I see it this way: Dayton will probably win most Range precincts and the 8th CD, mostly out of name recognition from his past service. If Margaret holds it close she is still in the game. If she wins some of the big towns -- Hibbing or Virginia in particular -- by so much as one vote you're looking at a real chance for her to pull off what would be considered a statewide upset. Higher than expected metro turnout would also help her, but I'm not as confident of that as I am of Range and Duluth turnout. I am well aware that there are fewer people on the Range and in Duluth than in the metro area, but these areas constitute large, consistent DFL primary votes, which will have more impact in tomorrow's primary than several suburbs put together.

And again, we must address Entenza. He's been up north probably more than any other candidate, particularly here in Itasca County where I live. He's spent a lot of his own and his spouse's money. He's very smart. He came to my book signing in St. Paul. Minnesota 20/20, a think tank he founded, did some great work under his watch and continues to do so. Still, a whole lot of people just aren't willing to consider him, either because of style or because of the blunt, arguably effective, stiff arm style of his leadership days and brief run for Attorney General in 2006. For all the money and energy he's spent, Entenza didn't gain traction at precinct caucuses, the DFL state convention, or move out of third place in any poll I'm aware of. He's got a lot to prove about his ground game Tuesday. We'll see.

I'll be monitoring my "Seven Range Precincts to Watch" again Tuesday night to try to understand the trends. The election will probably be called before I have the analysis complete, but we'll know why whatever happened played out the way it did. Finally, yes, I have a favorite in this race, but I do respect all three candidates and their supporters and this post reflects my most honest assessment of the race to date. I further respect supporters of the GOP and IP candidates and hope all of us can have an honest, reasonable discussion of how to fix what is truly a test of our state's character these next few years.

Aaron J. Brown is the author of "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range," winner of a Northeastern Minnesota Book Award.

Since the heady days of the 2008 primary season I've been gradually weaning off doing endorsements on this blog. Who cares, right? I'm just some guy and no doubt I've got an agenda all my own. So I'm not going to call this an endorsement, though you're free to call it that if you want. I'm going to tell you who I'm voting for in tomorrow's primary election and why. I've got a reason for doing this and I will try to explain. Naturally, I'm a member of the Democratic Farmer Labor party of Minnesota, so if this is not your stripe then just rejoin me next week when I post about fire rings (seriously, I am tracking a cool story about FIRE RINGS!).

I'll be voting for Margaret Anderson Kelliher on Tuesday because she represents a pragmatic, 21st century approach to Minnesota's problems and, importantly, the fate of places like the Iron Range. I encourage my fellow Iron Rangers to join me, but Rangers always do what they want. Most people who read this blog are from Duluth and the Twin Cities, and you'll do what you want, too. The point is, Margaret has her strengths and weaknesses, but I do believe she's not gotten a credit for what got her here, or what she is capable of doing as governor.

Yes, I was a delegate and participated in the DFL convention that endorsed Margaret. I think the endorsement is important in keeping money from ruling the DFL primary, but that's not the only reason to support Margaret. She is somebody who forms coalitions, something that's becoming a lost art in politics. She formed the only difficult coalition I'm aware of in the last eight years of the legislature with her transportation funding override of Gov. Pawlenty. While she's suffered numerous political and PR defeats at the hands of Pawlenty in her role as Speaker, she's also won a few, and governors have much, much more power than Speakers to game the debate. I'd like to see what she can do from the bully pulpit.

I like Mark Dayton and it's very possible he could win, too. Dayton appeals to many Iron Rangers because he represents the last vestige of the Perpich era, the last time the Range seemed to control its own destiny. He is very honest about his desire to implement progressive taxation as a budget fix, something I agree with. But in Dayton's rhetoric is one tiny underlying message that troubles me: "You don't have to change." The Iron Range needs change, not just political change, but a change in attitude to compete with a world that does not care about winning Minnesota's 8th Congressional District. The district will fall when the world sucks its economic means out from under it, something that will happen unless people here do something about it. A Margaret Anderson Kelliher administration will not be an old boys club or one that avoids making hard decisions -- not just on raising taxes, but on making cuts as well. Whether it's Iron Range Resources reform, innovative job creation or a meeting in the middle of environmental and mining interests, Kelliher represents the best way forward. I'm not a typical Iron Ranger, but I do know the Iron Range. Take this however you want.

Minnesota is not a DFL or Republican state, despite what you hear from pundits. From its very inception, Minnesota has been an independent minded state built on ideas and ideals. We've watched that slip away, partly through economic attrition in places like the Range, and also through the overt, ideological political gamesmanship of future presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty. Margaret has been building a general election campaign since she won the endorsement and, despite the polls today, seems better prepared to duel it out with Tom Emmer when he starts unleashing his potentially bruising general election plan. Dayton could do well also, I grant you, but on Tuesday I'll be backing Margaret.

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Aug. 8, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

Now, in all seriousness
By Aaron J. Brown

Anonymous internet comments are a relatively new invention, though the core concept predates the web. In the old days, people just yelled at their TV or threw a rock wrapped in a piece of paper that read “Whigs are Tyranny” through the window of a newspaper office. (I do believe this screed would have been in reference to the Whig Party, and not actual wigs, but either way the rock served an effective exclamation point). These occurrences stood as relative rarities. Most media feedback from the citizenry once manifested as an angry street corner rebuke, a signed letter, or even an editorial from the rival newspaper, the Hibbing Blunt Object Hurler, a favorite of mine in any historical research of our surrounds.

Last week on this page I shared a story of a weather alert radio, related it to my relationship with my wife and wrapped up the metaphor neatly in the last paragraph, the way I always do, except when the attempt spirals into commentary on squirrels and their motivation for shutting down the city’s power supply. Over at my blog I received an anonymous comment asking why I spent so much time on self-indulgent topics like this, personal columns filled with mix-and-match observations about life, when there are so many important, troubling problems in the world, particularly on the Iron Range. The commenter pointed out a case where a woman in this region was being forced to choose between milk for her children and cost of insurance and gas to drive a car to her job. Isn’t this awful?

Sigh. My first reaction wasn’t very helpful. Of course it’s awful, and common, and so overwrought that even the very image of the decision being made, an image of a mother in line to buy the gas and not the milk at the Holiday station out on 25th Street, while the cars whiz by on the Beltline, seems so routine that I’ve shut off the part of my head that gets worked up about it. Never mind the persistent unemployment, the ignorance that passes for public policy debate and the dragging, drawing, lasting decline that sucks away the soul of our communities. That’s a right bummer, any way you slice it, and I’ve been trying to limit my bummer distribution.

In the nine years since I’ve been writing this column, including my time at the editor’s desk before I left to teach at the college, I’ve gone through a fascinating journey that has occurred almost entirely here on the Iron Range, at least half of it (if not more) in my own head, which, though large, remains housed in this region as well. In the last ten years I’ve gone from a would-be journalist to a college instructor with a blog and book. Same, and yet different. In the last ten years I’ve gone from someone that believed in the institutions of the Iron Range outright to someone who sees writing on walls I once didn’t know existed. In other words I went from Strong Free Will to Leaning Fate. Despite all of this, I’ve written and written and written about problems: serious, serious problems we all face.

I can’t emphasize enough the peril we on the Iron Range face today, all of us from those warm and comfortable in self-assurance to the youth who scrap out for something, anything that resembles the lives of their parents or peers. This region, its history, culture and people – storied, vaunted and important – now approaches a long tunnel that leads to obsolescence. This approach is only frustrating, only notable, in that we don’t have to blindly march down that tunnel. This region – the Iron Range of northern Minnesota – possesses at this time the resources and human capacity to change. We have yet a tiny shred of free will, despite the fate we’ve been dealt. What will you, and I mean you, and I mean me, do tomorrow to change anything at all, from what’s obviously going to happen otherwise?

I’m sorry this was so very, very serious. Puppies and children are on deck.

Aaron J. Brown is an Iron Range writer, blogger and instructor at Hibbing Community College. Read more at MinnesotaBrown.com or in his book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

What does "jobs, jobs, jobs" really mean?

From the local chattering class, to state media, to everyone still running for office, the phrase, most often attributed to the Iron Range's own Gov. Rudy Perpich, is the 2010 election Pledge of Allegiance. Those of us on the Range have heard "jobs, jobs, jobs" often before, recited occasionally by local officials and developers in lieu of complete paragraphs.

The issue rises again in the Mesabi Daily News gubernatorial endorsement of former Sen. Mark Dayton a week ago. To paraphrase, Dayton is for jobs, jobs, jobs, while Matt Entenza and Margaret Anderson Kelliher took some minor procedural vote against a change to the Mesabi Nugget project in 2005, therefore proving -- to the MDN -- that while these candidates might be for jobs, they're not for jobs, jobs, jobs. I think this is a short-sighted view of these candidates' records and the solution to the Iron Range's real problems.

Mesabi Nugget is great. I don't wish those jobs away, but those jobs took massive public funding to create, are roughly similar to the "free" jobs we get from U.S. Steel and Cliffs and subject to all the same inevitable market pressures. In other words, this will all be forgotten the next time steel prices drop again and hundreds of Range miners once again rejoin the unemployment rolls. Not to be negative, but this will happen again within 10 years, and then the whole works will restart, drop and restart again and again until one day it doesn't. Meantime, we should all be bracing ourselves for a tough report from this year's U.S. Census and an existential state budget crisis. Bellowing jobs, jobs, jobs means as much as being for "freedom" or "the American Way." It's emotional, and means whatever you want it to mean, or the opposite of that.

Hold on, now. I must again remind you that I've been a great dispenser of the jobs, jobs, jobs mantra, particularly back in my editorial writing days. I'm a fan of the late Gov. Perpich, but so often those who crib from his mantra of "jobs, jobs, jobs" fail to realize that his policies included investment not just in specific projects, but also in vital infrastructure like public education and a functional, flexible public safety net. This was the prevailing policy in the years I was a young child. And as a young adult I used to think that "a good job" was all a person needed to succeed. Mostly, that's true, but a good job is hard to find, and one good job no longer guarantees a career.

I'm now tracking toward a belief that a person needs the ability to generate his or her own economic output commiserate with his or her talents -- i.e. education, critical thinking and proper understanding of risk and reward. A portion of that output is then harnessed to fund the institutions supporting society at large. That's right, Ayn Rand, I said it. We need both the efforts of individuals and the compounding power of a strong social and economic system. That's the mother's milk that made America great, and could again. I'd repeat it three times, a la "jobs, jobs, jobs," but that would be too much, wouldn't it?

Jobs, jobs, jobs will pour down like manna from heaven when we get smart, smart, smart. Anyway, this whole post is a tangent that I extracted from a long analysis post dissecting the state of the DFL Primary that I have slated for Monday, which is Primary Election Eve. Stay tuned.

There's a lot going on in my "normal" life but I will make a few program notes about what's coming up here at MinnesotaBrown. Don't forget that "Art in the Park" will fire up again at the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm Thursday evening at 5 p.m. with another great collection of local musicians playing through the evening. I'm also working on a final analysis of the DFL primary election from my own unique perch here in the woods just north of the western Iron Range. I've made some life changes designed to help me move forward on my fiction and national publishing aspirations, so stay tuned for that as well.

Tall ships dock at the harbor of Duluth, Minnesota!


The tall ships are wooden sailing vessels with towering masts and an old timey feel. They are not pirate ships; rather, they hearken a bygone day when ships like these often sunk in poor weather, and/or facilitated the harpooning of whales. Many ships like these are at the bottom of oceans or lakes, but these ones float. Thus, the $17 fee to board the ships is ironic, only because it is fully understandable.

I was in Duluth and Superior for a rare media outreach on Friday and my wife and I decided to walk down to look at the tall ships. It was raining, but thousands of people came anyway. These ships are truly impressive examples of an important human development, ships that go a long way and usually float. You have to understand that the Iron Range and its surrounding environs are subject to the whims of the Duluth media market. In Duluth, tall ships are the new Congdon murders, without the murder. They are HOT. Radio stations report on every move of the tall ships, as does the local newspaper. Tall Ships! In Duluth until Tuesday, Aug. 3!

(Actually they are pretty cool).