In addition to being the most prolific voice on Minnesota news Twitter, @NewsCut (MPR's Bob Collins) has broken open the story I only dreamed of exposing. He found shaky YouTube footage of the LTD Jewelry ad from Superior, Wis., featuring the "Second Coming Sale" that I wrote about a couple days ago. He also talked to the guy, the guy from the ad, who is ALL IN on this deal. Read the story and check out the ad for yourself.

The debate continues over new forms of mining in northern Minnesota, the way it always does: dueling op/eds.

Deciding Iron Range issues via op/eds is like having zoning disputes being settled by a figure skating competition between Oksana Kryksstrkgghg and Svetlana Rokavrrrkgrrgh. What? What is going on? Who won? She did? Really?

What I'm saying is that the only people who read op/eds are those who write op/eds. That's important, but in a limited context.

Here's the current incarnation of the "VS" battle we've had over nonferrous mining in the Boundary Waters area of northeastern Minnesota. Kent Kaiser for the Center for the American Experiment (a communication instructor at Northwestern College in St. Paul) offers his take that nonferrous mining in northern Minnesota should happen for economic and environmental reasons. Today, Elanne Palcich, a retired teacher from Chisholm, offers her take on MPR's Commentary site. She believes that nonferrous mining in northern Minnesota should not happen for economic and environmental reasons. I honestly believe you should read both and then form your own conclusion. (For and Against).

Central to this discussion are two key questions that I can't currently answer. What are the real economic costs and benefits to this kind of mining in this kind of region? To what degree is our mineral past a reasonable solution to our economic future? On the other hand, what are the real environmental costs and benefits to this kind of mining in this kind of region? To what degree are clean water and woods a solution to our economic future?

They've been turning this one over for a few decades, so I don't pretend to know the answer right here and now. I just know that everything on the Iron Range happens when those in power, through money or political influence, make it so. That is, except for the 10 percent of the time when the rabble makes enough noise, an importance difference from other places. But is this still true? In this regard it looks like, for the time being, we'll be mining some stuff up in the woods. It looks that way. It will require great effort for that to change and whether it's good or not is a matter that is not yet certain.

I do know that as long as we are arguing about a few hundred jobs on the corner of our region we are not dealing with the reality of losing a few thousand jobs over the past three decades. That I know. That's our problem. That's America's problem.

Normally I'll let the eccentric northern Minnesota TV advertisements go without notice here on the blog. There are just too many and one could really allow this sort of thing to consume a blog of its very own. There's the aggressive wardrobe, hair and makeup choices of the one furniture store spokeswoman. Then there's the repair shop that claims to be staying open just because the man is too poor to retire in this economy. (That means he's experienced).  He throws a Forbes Magazine into a bed pan. I actually like that one.

But I cannot allow one recent ad to pass without notice. Did anyone else catch the "Second Coming Sale" ad for Superior's LTD Jewelry on the WDIO News last night? That's Channel 10, the ABC affiliate in Duluth. My kingdom to know how to pull this thing off my DVR onto YouTube. Anyway, cold open to storm clouds with lighting, and then direct to camera with jewelry store proprietor wearing brightly colored "jewelry" tie. He's talking about Jesus, how Jesus is coming back and how the news these days seems to indicate that Jesus is coming back sooner than later. And then my favorite word of the whole ad, "nonetheless." That's why they're have a Second Coming sale, in which everything is 50 percent off.

Do not mistake my consternation with this ad as dismissal of religion. Maybe Jesus is coming tomorrow. I'm in trouble if he does, but that's fine. Why are we selling jewelry at all then, huh? What do the affordable holiday tennis bracelets have to do with any of this? D'aaargh! Is this real? IS THIS REAL? I had to rewind and watch it three times before I believed it really happened.

I wish I could show you this ad. Did anyone else see it?

This is my column for the Sunday, Nov. 28, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A version of this piece was broadcast on an earlier episode of "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE. Support this blog by considering: Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range as a holiday gift.

We’re not going to take it, or will we?
By Aaron J. Brown

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

That’s a quote from Howard Beale, the fictional TV news anchor who cracked up on live TV in the 1976 movie “Network.” The aging newsman, upon losing his job, spiraled into this rage that, in the movie, set off a national sensation and ended in ironic tragedy.

It’s funny how “Network,” made before the internet, personal computers or even cable TV, holds up so well more than three decades later. A connected people can become angry quickly. Or is it that angry people connect faster than anyone else these days? Ah, there we go. An old Chinese proverb says “may you live in interesting times.” And the preponderance of anger in our midst makes our times interesting, if not particularly productive.

The sort of rarefied fury seen in the media is far from unusual in our house. With three boys aged 5 and younger, anger here is pure and loud. When one boy wants a toy he takes it, and the original owner will scream like a howler monkey, tackling the thief like an NFL free safety running at full speed. One could produce a cable news show in which each boy was given a corner of the screen to bellow his claim on the toy and, on mute, it would appear structurally similar to Fox News or MSNBC. With the volume up, I’d argue it might even make more sense.

But our boys are being raised Minnesotan, just like I was. Soon enough they’ll learn to bury their anger, or at least avoid it. That’s what good Minnesotans do. Bury it down low, swallow it like a pill.

When I was in the fifth grade I remember being so generally angry at my teachers and classmates that I would scrawl things like “March is Official UnFair Month for All Time” into my notebooks. This is how I phrased things as a child, there never was much hope for me being normal). But once I hit puberty and saw how my parents, grandparents and friends’ families ignored serious problems in all their respective relationships, hiding in the kitchens and garages of their varied lives, I realized the normalcy of doing the same myself.

I can only recall a half dozen or so times since where I’ve been perceptibly angry in public. One time on my college newspaper staff I was furious at the advisor for censoring my editorial decision. My hands shook as I told her off, her and her big stupid hair. A couple years ago I spoke somewhat loudly at a faculty meeting. But these were just very nerdy exceptions to my normal rule: anger must be taken out on yourself, not others. Your liver and your digestive tract.
Those are the proper whipping boys. That’s the Minnesota way. Our superior health care balances out our shortened life spans with the rest of the nation, and thus life proceeds as it will.

So, I guess when I see all the trumped up bravado that passes for discourse in this so-called modern nation of ours, I have a pretty strong emotion. I guess you’d call it anger. I guess you could say that I’m pretty much mad as heck, and there’s a real good chance I won’t take it much longer, unless it’s easier that way. And it probably is. Winter’s coming. You’ve got to store energy for survival; anger is just wasted heat.

Aaron J. Brown is an Iron Range writer and community college instructor. Read more at his blog MinnesotaBrown.com or in his book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

A headline from today's Hibbing Daily Tribune thanksgiving wrap story reads "Turkey for me, Turkey for you." Do you think the author, retired local English teacher Dan Bergan, wrote that headline, or was it someone who spent the '90s listening to Adam Sandler comedy albums like They're All Gonna Laugh at You? I have my doubts it was both.

"Hoagies and grinders, hoagies and grinders, hoagies and grinders, navy beans navy beans, MEATLOAF SANDWICH."

Not proud of this. Not proud of any of this.

This week on 91.7 KAXE's "Between You and Me" the show explores the topic of grandmothers. With this season of holiday gatherings and matronly traditions, what better time to share stories about your grandmother or your experience of being a grandmother. I'll have my usual quasi-comedic occasionally though-provoking contribution during the first segment of the show.

You can tune in between 10 a.m. and noon on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming live all over the world at www.kaxe.org. The show blends calls, stories, music and produced elements for a unique listening experience that celebrates all that is great about northern Minnesota and its people.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us (me) at MinnesotaBrown. What a great holiday! FOOD! LOW EXPECTATIONS! Can it BE more American? I think not.

A couple weeks ago I wrote a fun little comic piece for KAXE about the first Thanksgiving. It stars Mark Twain as the overly self-aware protagonist. Just some clean holiday fun that most of my relatives will never hear or understand. But I will eat turkey with them, and how! Have a great holiday weekend.

LISTEN. (MP3, should open on your computer)

There's a snow storm coming. Every few weeks in the winter a snow storm comes to Minnesota. I love Minnesota. I love this strange state because living here with the snow storms, which so frighten people from other places, is hard and good.The cold, too, reminds us of our location and status.

Here. Cold.

You watch the local television news stations, where a youngish meteorologist tells you about the snow storm. He or she takes such delight, this young meteorologist, in telling us about the snow storm that always comes, every winter. They went to college for this and there are numbers involved, a bar bet to be won, stories to be stored up for when the young meteorologist moves to a warmer climate. They always do. Snow storms never obey the young meteorologists, who are then pilloried for their insolent predictions. If you see an old meteorologist in northern Minnesota they are probably only 28. Snow storms do that to young meteorologists.

The snow deadens the sound. Just a few weeks ago I could hear my son's school bus driver start the engine a mile away, pilot the growling dinosaur along the highway and down our dirt road. During a snow storm we see the lights first, the silent eyes trolling down the path. The grumbling engine sound only barely exceeds the volume of the snow crunching below the tires.

The falling snow makes soft ringing sound, like tinnitus in your ears. Maybe it is tinnitus. Anyway, I only hear it when it snows. It will snow, and soon.

And driving? When the snow comes, you will drive slower. If enough snow comes, you will not drive. You are not in control. Your world is petty and vulnerable to nature's wrath. Everything you try will fail, sometimes. But then again it's not so bad. It's important to know this.

Minnesota: Cold. Here. And I love it.

Minnesota Public Radio features a guest commentary of mine over at their website today. Titled "The giant Mesabi places a bet," the piece is cut from the same flank of much of my writing but refined for the big city audience. This is the result of my lecture at MPR earlier this month. If this all goes well I might write more for MPR in the future, all while lingering outside the Fitzgerald Theater on Saturday afternoons. You know. Just in case. You know. 

Meantime, I will continue writing and commentating for KAXE, Northern Community Radio, with no plans of stopping until I am felled by hunters some year. This is just a dalliance with the metros. A guy is only human. 

Here's a Duluth News Tribune update by way of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on that proposed open pit iron ore mine in northern Wisconsin along the Gogebic Range. My prediction: developers overstating the number of jobs will do battle with environmentalists overstating the environmental risk. The result will underwhelm us all.

I support anything that gets local newscasters to say the word "Gogebic" with a frightened, tentative look straight to camera. Do a shot if you hear "Goj-bick."

My book "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range" received a very favorable review from Mark Munger at his Cloquet River Press blog. Munger, a notable northern Minnesota author and well regarded judge, offers the following:

For a young person, Aaron Brown possesses extraordinary powers of reflection and observation. He also happens to be one hell of a writer. This collection of new essays and recycled newspaper and radio pieces (from Brown’s work as a journalist, editor, and commentator) merits, overall, a big thumbs up.

He goes into more detail in the review, including some valid criticism that somehow still makes the book sound good, a feat indeed. Thanks for the review, Mark!

And you, dear reader, should consider "Overburden" as a holiday gift for the Iron Ranger, ex-Ranger, or Range-curious reader on your list. It's a scrappy, fun read and a good starting point for the even better work I plan to churn out over the next few years. Munger again:

In some ways, the fact that every story isn’t remarkable reminds me of the vinyl albums I collected in my youth: Not every cut was a favorite. But “filler” songs, like “filler” stories aren’t all bad; they allow the listener/reader to grasp genius when it appears.

Genius is a stretch, but I'll take the vinyl comparison. Think Jethro Tull. Jethro Tull has recorded far more rock flute songs than are necessary, but when you need a rock flute song that's where you go. I'm like that for Iron Range creative nonfiction and pop history.

I'll be offering an "Overburden" promotion for blog readers in a couple days, just in time for Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday. Buying the book keeps this blog in business, especially if you buy it through this link: Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Nov. 21, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. 

Turning the e-page
By Aaron J. Brown
One of the joys (terrors!) of raising children in this modern age is explaining old things to these new people without revealing your own waning youth. In this you will fail, just as your parents failed and their parents before them.

Several books and movies in our home collection involve phone booths. How does one break this down? There once was a time without cell phones in which there were phones with cords. Further, these corded phones could be found within glass booths and required coins to make a call. Also, there were such things as coins.

“You had to remember the number, son. It wasn’t in the phone.”

Sometimes it’s best just to start with the concept of booths and let the kids form their own conclusions about what to do inside them.

Phone booths are just one example. I could name more but we don’t need this to come down to the sort of “kids these days” showdown common to area social clubs. I used to type messages on the demonstration typewriters at the Kmart. Remember that? They used to have all sorts of typewriters there in the store. Kids these days. Don’t even know about that.

This time of year, as people consider holiday gifts, my thoughts turn to books. Electronic book readers are one of the “top gifts” this year. I know plenty of people who have adopted these devices, downloading new titles and classics from Amazon.com, Apple or others. I don’t have an e-reader and don’t expect Santa to bring me one this year. Nevertheless, the trend provokes thought.

Traditionalists point to all that is wrong with the departure from paper books to the wild, wooly frontier of electronic books. You miss the notes in the margins, the scraps tucked inside pages, the portability and unlimited battery life of paper.

I’ve already pared down the number of paper books that I read in a year to a number that I’d be embarrassed to share in the newspaper, the last remaining form of media that attracts people who would care about such a statistic. A dozen books a year would be generous. I’m currently working my way through a 1,000-page tome about early American history from last Christmas and I’ll be lucky to finish before I receive another like it this year. It’s not that I don’t read. It’s that I read so much online now, hundreds of thousands of words from my feed reader and the recommended magazine and newspaper articles of my favorite online aggregators.

Why is it then that as a writer I still crave my work in paper? Is this mere custom or something else?

As part of a blogging couple and as an online college instructor, I live in a house that glows resplendent with the touch screens of fine modern gadgets. Our three boys join us in staring at the screens to see some of their favorite stories, characters and games. These devices, I gather, will become first as exciting and then as utilitarian to them as those Kmart typewriters were to me as a boy. They say the e-readers are making essays and “pamphleteering” as popular as the days of the revolution, and that’s good.

Nevertheless, books still rule our household. Henry, our oldest, brings books home from kindergarten. Doug and George, now 3, read their favorites around the house. Doug parks sometimes for an hour in the living room chair paging back and forth through tales of tractors. George reads at night by the dim nightlight, usually succumbing to sleep with an alphabet book still in hand.

Yes, much of this can be done electronically, and will, but beware a world that depends on the behavior of electrons in large numbers. Such a world lacks the permanence of a good book passed down to wide eyes. These eyes want to see both, and more.

Aaron J. Brown is an Iron Range writer and community college instructor. Read more at his blog MinnesotaBrown.com or his book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

You really don't realize how much your normal wardrobe resembles the general appearance of a common whitetail deer until you move to a rural section of northern Minnesota and the annual rifle deer hunting season arrives. For instance, my shoes are brown (BLAM!), my parka is brown (BLAM!) and my flapped winter hat is also brown (BLAM!). I probably won't be shot, but my chances of getting shot while waiting with my son for the bus are somewhat elevated this time of year, something that troubles the mind of a budding fatalist like yours truly.

This is the last weekend of the Minnesota rifle hunt, a time made notable by the increased sense of desperation by hunters who have told their wives or employers that they were hunting these past few weeks but were really just drinking, walking around or riding four-wheelers. Now they must justify the time with an actual carcass, preferably the body of a deer but the body of a public radio commentator? For many, that would do. I intend to curl up in a very small ball under some grass and wait for sundown.

Tune in to "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE this Saturday morning for a wide-ranging discussion and musical selection on the topic of courage. What is courage to you? Have you ever been courageous? Who is the most courageous person you know? "Between You and Me" combines calls, music and commentators like me for a unique program that explores the very nature of northern Minnesota and its people.

I'll be exploring the fine lines that separate courage from cowardice and recklessness. It's a real Goldilocks situation. 

You can hear the show from 10 a.m. to noon on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming live all over the world at www.kaxe.org. Episodes and my individual essays are syndicated through PRX for public radio stations in the known universe. Ask your local station why they aren't carrying my work. Their bewildered look will tell you all you need to know.

Redneck, blue collar, and white sock comedian Larry the Cable Guy performed in Bemidji in north central Minnesota last night. Comedians wander through Minnesota all the time but I did enjoy this Facebook video of Larry the Cable Guy giving the daily announcements at Bemidji High School on Tuesday. At BHS students produce the daily announcements in a newscast format. Jade Hovet, the young woman who anchored the piece, did fine work as Larry's foil, nabbing herself a highly useful clip for the ol' resume tape.

Larry apparently spent a whole day making public appearances around Bemidji, including serving the tacos at the school cafeteria. Not sure if this is standard operating procedure for Larry's road show but it is fun regardless. And yes, also, git... (sigh) Git 'r done.

The Iron Range is losing clout, we're told. The GOP takeover of the Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate has relegated its DFL legislative delegation to the minority, unseating scads of chairmen. Chip Cravaack's unlikely victory over Congressman Jim Oberstar, an Iron Range political legend, ends Oberstar's long run as senior Democrat on transportation issues and a source of federal funding for any number of projects.

Nevertheless, the solution to these woes isn't as simple as regaining DFL majorities. Nor is the issue that we've lost clout on the Iron Range, though we have. The issue is that we already were losing clout, a little each year, each decade, and that the puffed up leadership positions of our local leaders were good for some hollow legislative victories, but weren't fundamentally changing our trajectory. And I'm saying this as someone who firmly believes in the "Minnesota Miracle," bold public investment in making the entire state healthy and economically and educationally competitive. I'm saying this as someone who has reliably voted DFL since I could vote.

Clout is good for winning funds for big projects, which are sometimes good and sometimes not. Clout can pave roads. Clout can preserve funding models that keep cash-strapped schools treading water for two years, or five, no more than eight or nine. All of this has value. But missing from this discussion is what clout won't do, and hasn't for a generation on the Iron Range.

Clout won't inspire young people to stay on the Iron Range. In fact, political clout is nothing but turnoff for young people who are hungry to make their own name, advancing their own ideas. A right-winger who wants to start a business and a left-winger who wants to sell art are driven by the same goals: to kick ass. Nor should it be forgotten that the people who are really affected by any given public policy are the working poor, who struggle each day to figure out a world that has never considered them important. Who cares about politics and chairmanships when you're working nights with kids at home? Just going back to school for a better job is such a major step, a challenge people of better means face only through rare personal risk, that this business of "clout" is of no practical importance. Not really. Not on the street.

We need a message, an attitude, an apolitical call to arms that inspires people to again believe in the Iron Range, northern Minnesota, for all this place's true value and charms, none of which relate whatsoever to "clout." This is a good place to live and work. Here we build new clout. A real world of possibilities.

This past Saturday I climbed the narrow stairs of the Keewatin City Hall, stepping around the hoist chair at the bottom which was new last year but is now just part of the scenery. The occasion was the annual Keewatin Legion and Sons of the Legion spaghetti feed held in the auditorium where they used to have dry socials back when that meant something. As a second-year member of the Sons I was there with my Grandpa Johnson and his friends. On one hand this was what you might expect: A group of men talking about the past, checking who was alive and who wasn't from last year, sharing stories. There was spaghetti, and no shortage of it. Giant meatballs. Giant.

But for me, these things are always significant for what is not typical, even if it seems typical to those participating. These old hall auditoriums are found all over the Iron Range. There's a stage in the corner, an old piano. Old portraits of presidents adorn the walls. All other imagery is devoted to one of two things: military veterans or education. Inspiration statements extolling the importance of education and self-improvement are etched into ornate decorations around the top of the auditorium. Everything else is the names, photos and accomplishments of the town's military veterans.

Halls like these show the values of a community, and military service and education are the very historic definition of what separates the Iron Range from other mining regions. The immigrants that built this place had the twin goals of proving their allegiance to their great new country and providing a better life for their children than the dark, damp dangers of underground mining. They succeeded, producing more enlisted men and women and educated professionals per capita than any other region in the latter half of the 20th century.

These men are old and gray now but there remains hope yet for what they and their fathers defended from tyranny, both foreign and domestic. It is up to the sons and daughters, many of whom are absent from occasions such as this but remain capable of carving a better future for their children, too.

Also of note: there is a Facebook class sign-up sheet on the wall up there.

This is my weekly column for the Nov. 14, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A version of this piece aired as a commentary on 91.7 KAXE on Nov. 6.

Bringin’ it all back home, again
By Aaron J. Brown

When you live in the heart of the Midwest, in a little notch of the Rust Belt called the Iron Range, you are accustomed to wanting things back. If you are young enough to have taken a high school computer class in a place like this you almost certainly watched the computers replace your parents. By the time you were old enough to recognize places, those places were changing, moving, closing. And when the Chucky Cheese closed the Chucky Cheese stays closed.

As time passed on the Iron Range first the Woolworth’s, then the Pamida, then the Kmart closed. You watch schools close, perhaps your own, and when your school closed you were lucky if it wasn’t torn down. Mine became a bar. The institutions of your life almost always became something like a tattoo parlor, a pawn shop, or a less practical business that will itself soon close.

The Iron Range is a place where great things happened quickly, not so long ago. Dozens of immigrant groups converged on an unlikely stash of ore and timber in a forgotten region that spent a century along an unknown, barely disputed border between the British Empire and the emerging United States. In the century that followed the Iron Range produced resources that built modern cities, people who revolutionized the American workforce and won World War II. The Iron Range forged the modern age, which now teeters on the brink of a new age. In the skittering debris, even the most sophisticated among us must watch thing leave and want them back.

You might have heard of an authentic Jamaican Restaurant in the Range town of Gilbert called the Whistling Bird. My wife and I went there when we were first married and again every year on our anniversary. Smooth reggae played in low light over delicious tropical entrees. It reminded us that greatness can exist anywhere. Until one year the place seemed just a bit off and closed soon thereafter. I want that place back.

I want the Zim Store, the Forbes Store and the Cherry Store back, all the stores from the places I lived as a kid. I want the Red Owl back, the baseball card shop back, and the five and dimes that my parents went to when they were kids. I want the downtown theaters of the 1950s back, and the opera houses of the 1920s.

Sometimes living on the Iron Range in the year 2010 is only tolerable if you know what used to be here. A proper map of the Iron Range shouldn’t be limited to geography and landmarks, but also time. Layers of paper could be peeled away to reveal the buildings and earth that were once there but now aren’t. Bob Dylan, who’s from here, named an album “Bringin’ It All Back Home.” You can travel the world, but home is where your head is.

Here’s what I don’t want back. I don’t want Cummins Diesel back, or my dad’s lost job. I don’t want the mines back like they were in the ‘70s. It’s impossible and anyway the same things would just happen all over again. I don’t want all my friends who left for the Twin Cities to come back. They’ve moved, become other people. We need people who want to be here.

There’s one more thing we don’t need back, something that can’t be taken away: the future. Some believe the future is fixed in place. Others believe that we can change the future. Regardless, the future will come, its life and its death, growth and decay, new and old. The future is the only true comfort to be found on the Rust Belt, on the Iron Range or anywhere else. Everything else will disappoint. You can’t bring the past back to life. We have only one choice: to want things back, or to make things happen.

Aaron J. Brown is a writer and community college instructor from the Iron Range. Read more at MinnesotaBrown.com or in his book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

This week on "Between You and Me," the Saturday morning radio show sensation from the northern indy powerhouse 91.7 KAXE, host Heidi Holtan is taking your calls about getting ready for Thanksgiving. Holiday purists know that Thanksgiving, with its dogmatic commitment to eating and forced interaction with family, is the one true American holiday. I was given a writing prompt for my regular commentary on the show of finding out the authentic origins of Thanksgiving's history in American. I took that prompt and decided instead to make up the history, turning Mark Twain into the time-traveling, McRib-inventing protagonist. You will be pleased with the results, if only because my recent foray into big-time public radio blathering reminded me that I really need to keep these damn things under two and a half minutes. Premise (pow) Punchlines (pow) and Reflection (Jab Jab) and you go on your merry way.

Tune in from 10 a.m. to noon on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming online all over the world at www.kaxe.org. "Between You and Me" is syndicated through PRX, as are my individual essays.

I've become a big fan of Dan Carlin, not only for his "Hardcore History," the best history podcast in existence, but also for his "Common Sense," a political podcast aimed at advancing an independent agenda in American politics. My following of Carlin and the blogger Andrew Sullivan are probably the biggest reasons I've seen my internal locus-of-thought move more toward a Whiggish center from the more traditional liberalism I adopted after I left school. I guess I've finally learned that I am at my happiest when my views are complicated and unlikely to meet the favor of most people around me at any given time. This should serve me well in today's 8th congressional district in northern Minnesota, where some crazy things are going to happen in the next 10 years provided we can keep the republic.

Anyway, to that end, take a look at the Simpson-Bowles report from the Debt Commission chartered by President Obama. The main reason I've maintained my support of the president is because, despite the frothing he seems to inspire by the political extremes in this country, particularly from the right, I still believe he is serious about finding workable, non-ideological solutions to the nation's current existential problems. There remains question as to whether he will succeed, but most of the howling about him you hear is hyped up political spin. This bipartisan debt report has been blasted by the left and the right, including Democratic and Republican party leadership. Democrats are furious over changes to Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. Republicans are furious over new tax structures that include increases in some taxes, most notably the gas tax. That suggests to me that this commission has figured out a balanced solution that probably does something effective.

I want to point out the interview U.S. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota) gave this morning on Good Morning America.

Conrad, in supporting the report despite criticism from within his own party, said, "There is no way of doing it that's not controversial or difficult ... If some of us have to sacrifice a political career to get this country back on track, then so be it."

And increasingly, despite how much I know these ideas infuriate some of my political friends, I am adopting the same belief. If we're not willing to sacrifice just a tiny bit of our government entitlements or tax dollars to save the highly-successful, deeply enviable experiment we call America, well, then why should we assume that we continue to be "great" by any stretch of the definition? Start with this idea, and then explain to me a better idea that balances the budget and reduces the debt. It's all cuts or tax increases. Name your cuts. Name your tax increases.

If you're interested in more reading on the aftermath of the MN-08 electoral stunner from last week take a gander at this post from a blog I just found called Gin and Tacos. It's a left-leaning affair with its share of snark (if you consider these two descriptions exclusively). I disagree with the characterization of MN-08 as a "wasteland." Rather, MN-08 is the part of Minnesota that most people would recognize as Minnesota, with a vast majority of the state's trees, lakes, cabins, moose, deer, and, if it matters, all of the state's taconite production. Nevertheless, this Gin and Tacos bit hits a chord describing the precarious pivot the district now makes with a classically conservative freshman representative in a district that had been built on heavily liberal ideals -- and gobs of federal spending.

And, for kicks, might I point out that Rep.-elect Chip Cravaack has named former U.S. Sen. Rod Grams, the famously unsuccessful 2006 Jim Oberstar opponent, as his interim chief of staff.

(h/t Carolyn King)

Minnesota Public Radio's Elizabeth Dunbar has an excellent analysis of Minnesota's 8th Congressional District in the wake of last week's upset win for Republican Chip Cravaack over longtime DFL stalwart Jim Oberstar.

The money line:

There's no question that Minnesota's Iron Range, a longtime DFL stronghold, and the 8th District as a whole have changed dramatically in the past several decades as iron mining has become a less dominant force, both politically and economically.

But the district is far from turning completely red. If anything can be concluded from last week's election, it's that -- like many areas of the country -- the 8th District has become less predictable.

This is going to be an interesting place to follow politics over the next decade. Good thing there are so many blogs about northern Minnesota. Oh .... oh, wait. Here I am. Ha! This is going to make me a thousandaire!

In all seriousness, Oberstar vs. Cravaack made for the biggest week of page views and total readers in this blog's four-year history. Thanks! I'll be here, watching and typing things into this little entry box for you to read into this bold, new future.

Today is the 35th anniversary of the sinking of the massive ore ship Edmund Fitzgerald in a terrible November storm on Lake Superior. This tragedy remains recent enough to affect the lives of some people still living in the Great Lakes region. Nevertheless, one gets the feeling that Gordon Lightfoot's song about "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" will forever be the dominant remembrance of this occasion. Considering that the sinking happened before I was born and involved no families I knew and that I'm thinking about this and pasting YouTube code for it, yeah, I'd say so.



There are so many great lines in this song. Among my favorite in the description of each Great Lake, "Superior sings in the ruins of her ice water mansion." Stand on the hills overlooking the Minnesota side of Lake Superior, particularly this time of year, and something about that line just feels right.

And then there's this:

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her.

Great lyric, almost like an old bluegrass song, but colder.

More songwriters should commemorate events of our times in this style. And I don't mean preachy stuff with a "message." Just the facts, Jack. This is what it is to be human.

Longtime news anchor Dennis Anderson of WDIO/WIRT, the ABC affiliate in the Duluth, MN, TV market (northern Minnesota and Wisconsin) announced he will retire in the next six months or so. This according to a story from my mentor Mike Simonson of Wisconsin Public Radio in Superior.

Anderson is a solid regional journalist with a deep understanding of the Iron Range and Duluth. It's not unreasonable to compare him to a local Walter Cronkite, a figure who people from around here just inherently trust when he speaks. And he's got a mustache and a hairpiece, both big, bushy and beautiful and there will never be another like this. Never.

Anderson has earned his retirement, but this market has not yet earned the ability to replace him.

Today I follow-up and in all likelihood conclude my coverage of the plight confronting the Paulucci Space Theatre in Hibbing. On Dec. 1, the planetarium will temporarily close for public shows. In the spring, the facility will reopen under a new business model. The planetarium will be rented on an as-needed basis for school groups, parties and for other educational purposes. This will end the free Wednesday sky shows that had been going on for years and all other walk-up business.The decision was all but forced by the state budget situation as Hibbing Community College (disclosure: my employer) can no longer afford to subsidize the educational programming there.

The planetarium is another of those unusual features of the Iron Range that made growing up here a couple decades ago so interesting. Less is not more. This star is getting denser and denser. One can only hope the facility continues to serve school children and interested stargazers for years to come.


I put the Paulucci Theatre issue in deeper context in this earlier post.

Sometimes the world just openly mocks you. The top of Mt. Everest is getting 3G data coverage to offer climbers, and presumably their Sherpas, high speed internet access at the world's tallest mountain peak.

Meantime, efforts to expand high speed internet access on the Iron Range more closely resemble all those guys who froze on the side of Mt. Everest years ago and who remain there today, too heavy to bring back down the mountain and too frozen to decay. All the local candidates who highlighted high speed internet in their campaigns lost last Tuesday. In fact, talking about high speed internet on the Iron Range is the quickest way to lose political influence, probably worse than actually stealing money.

But I'm being very negative. 3G on Mount Everest. That's cool, eh?

(Thanks to Paul for the tip).

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Nov. 7, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A shorter version of this piece was broadcast as commentary on a recent edition of "Between You and Me" on KAXE.

A house in order
By Aaron J. Brown

It’s probably fitting that the news of the past week centered so much on the House of Representatives, or that the economic troubles of the past few years owed so much to the housing crisis. When a word like “house,” associated with hearth and home, meets any form of disarray we find ourselves anxious. We long for the comfort of a house we remember, if we were lucky enough to have such a house. 

Indeed, it all comes down to houses these days. Houses are the most expensive things people buy. Most people expect to buy and sell several before they end up in the retirement home, which is something different. Problems in our country relate so closely to debt and social expectations that houses are as good a metaphor as any for the trouble in American life. What makes us feel comfortable and powerful also distracts and indebts us.

That’s why I was lucky to grow up in a trailer. Every house since has been just slightly better, warmer and less drafty. And when I drive down I-35 to the Twin Cities I see the nice homes on the rolling hills that once yielded grain. These houses now feature four available colors of vinyl siding, covering up hasty construction that passed some sort of cursory legal inspection. These houses hid the finances of their original owners, already gone now, and the entire shell game of our economic mess. These houses will be tilled back into the earth in my lifetime.

Something I read recently talked about the opportunity of hard times. This buying, building and disposing of unremarkable houses is killing us, the author wrote. He opined we should return to the time when we built homes with a sense of permanence, and a goal of passing them to future generations. The thought conjures the image of a castle, lorded over by, well, a lord, who tended the land and negotiated the family business in town.

It’s hard to reconcile this vision with another bit of information about our times. I got in an argument online with someone derided the costs of paying unemployment to workers unwilling to move for jobs in far away, fast-growing states. I was taking the position that in the 21st century no one should be forced to move to distant urban centers for mere temporary comfort. If family and community matter we shouldn’t throw them out at the first sign of duress. This exchange ended the way most internet arguments end, indistinctly and without much pleasure for anyone involved.

Nevertheless, it’s true that the economist Richard Florida predicts that the country’s future will become more urban, with young people combing the concrete landscape like digital nomads, renting to keep light on the land and putting behind them thoughts of home, wherever that might be. This, we’re told, is the immediate future of our people. Our houses, a little less permanent each passing year, tell the story.

My wife and I moved into a new home on family land in 2005 and here we stay. We will not be forced to leave and we hope at least one of our sons chooses to stay here someday. This is possible only because of the changing world, the technology that allows someone to do big city work while looking at the steam cloud of a taconite plant. We are just a few decades separated from relatives who lived in company homes at the edge of a mine where the men worked. Today, women and men tap into an economy connected by wires, where the edge of the mine is just one front.

Times have changed, but not all has changed with them. For instance, all the great peoples of this earth build for the future, not the moment.  We know this because the great people left something behind that mattered. The pedestrian people, the ones who milled around between empires, are known only to the highly educated scholars who write their mild tales of excess and sloth into mostly unread books tucked away in the deepest corners of well-built houses.

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

MPR's Bob Kelleher reports on efforts in Ely to turn the old Pioneer Mine site into a culture and heritage center.

A quasi-high-end hotel with convention facilities now sits across the street from the Pioneer Mine, the culmination of an immigrant miner's dream. That is, provided the immigrant miner had the foresight to encourage his grandchildren to make a fortune elevating the price of commercial real estate opportunities, then selling at a massive profit. How would this have sounded in the original Slovenian?

But I digress. As with the Milford Mine site in Crow Wing County, these historic mine sites need to be recognized now while the people who can explain them still have the chance.

This is the latest in a semi-regular series of Iron Range posts from historian Jeff Manuel.

News coverage of Representative Jim Oberstar’s loss to Chip Cravaack on Tuesday has emphasized Oberstar’s long record of using earmarks to fund projects in Minnesota’s Eighth District. The Star Tribune called Oberstar “a powerful transportation committee chairman who has delivered millions of dollars in pork-barrel projects to his northern Minnesota district.” For his part, Oberstar emphasized that these projects will long outlast today’s politicians. Anyone driving over the Duluth-Superior bridge named after Oberstar’s mentor, John Blatnik, will appreciate the truth of ths statement.

Pork-barrel politics have been controversial for decades, but it’s important to understand Oberstar’s earmarks in a broader context of how America’s mining regions dealt with industrial decline in the second half of the twentieth century and their relationship to the federal government.

On a national level, earmarks have been the most significant vehicle for the federal government to put money into mining regions like the Iron Range that are challenged by globalization and deindustrialization. This isn’t just an Iron Range story. In Pennsylvania’s declining anthracite coal mining region, historians Thomas Dublin and Walter Licht note that federal earmarks were the most important source of federal money for economic development. Democratic and Republican congressmen from the anthracite region “were masters at channeling federal dollars--for whatever purposes--into their districts.”

In short, earmarks were an imperfect and ad hoc form of industrial policy. Unlike many other nations, the U.S. federal government never pursued a coordinated industrial policy in the decades after World War II. Opponents of industrial policy ultimately won the argument, but important voices on the Iron Range argued in support of just such a coordinated federal plan to support the vital steel industry and the iron mines. Here’s a 1941 letter from Fred Cina urging the federal government to support the mining region and assist with unemployment. In the absence of a coordinated industrial policy, the federal government channeled development money through ad hoc programs like mineral stockpiles and the 1960s-era Area Redevelopment Administration (the Iron Range was a test case for ARA programs in the 1960s). And, most significantly, federal money flowed to mining regions through earmarks.

So let’s remember that all that pork—love it or hate it—was America’s version of an industrial policy.

Jeff Manuel, a history professor at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, lives in St. Louis. He is working on a book based on his dissertation about the Iron Range's recent history.

This Saturday on 91.7 KAXE's "Between You and Me" guest hosts Michael Goldberg and Gail Otteson will be exploring the topic of "This Old House." They'll be taking calls with stories of your current house or a house from your memory. My weekly commentary goes a slightly different direction, talking about the role of houses in our current tumultuous times. With the election being over I'm hoping to wean myself off these VERY SERIOUS concepts soon, returning to sketch theatrics if possible.

You can tune in from 10 a.m. to noon on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming live all over the world at www.kaxe.org. The show and my commentaries are archived and syndicated at PRX.

I had a great day speaking to employees at Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul today for their staff Conversations with Community series. My topic was the Iron Range. My goal, as always, was to express how life here on today's Iron Range is a complicated, almost literary existence, full of frustration and defeat, hope and possibility.

There is more to come.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I obviously got my final prediction in MN-08 wrong. I had 53-47 Oberstar. However, I was probably the only DFLer predicting a close race, and reviewing the numbers what I see is a remarkable performance by Chip Cravaack throughout the district. He won by crushing margins down south and by holding down Oberstar's margins in Range strongholds.

In precinct after precinct you see evidence that a measurable number of Range voters went into the booth, voted Cravaack and then DFL on state and local races. That's not so much a wave as it is a good candidate. DFLers lost support along the margins of most races up here, but not nearly so much as Oberstar lost against Cravaack.

The Roosevelt DFLers are fading up north, just as they have in WI-7 and MI-1. What's left is two or three smaller generations of frustrated people, hungry for growth and/or to be left the hell alone. The fact that the two desires are contradictory is a problem for another day. It's a special challenge -- one that belongs to all of us, of all party persuasions.

Longtime State Rep. and former Bovey mayor Loren Solberg (DFL-Grand Rapids) has narrowly lost his District 3B race to Carolyn McElfatrick, a Cohasset nurse and GOPer. For the first time in a generation an Iron Range legislative seat will be held by a Republican. Granted, the debate over whether Grand Rapids is part of the Iron Range rages on, but the town is ensconced within the Taconite Tax Relief Area and is part of the Mesabi iron formation, so we're counting it. This seat was briefly held by Republican Bob Lemen about 30 years ago.

Most knew this race would be tight, but I'd count this a surprise and a demonstration that the Aitkin County portion of this district has become a GOP stronghold. Further, Itasca County is trending red, not blue. Retirees on lakes and socially conservative young people will continue to lead this trend until DFLers post good ideas that attract residents and inspire current ones. As a matter of disclosure, I am a member of the Itasca DFL Board of Directors and expect to have some conversations about this.

Meantime watch District 3B in the drama over 2012 redistricting as the new GOP legislature will move to protect this western Mesabi front. The storied "Range line" between Coleraine and Grand Rapids isn't imaginary anymore.

In 1988 I was a kid whose dad was the site manager for our family-owned junkyard, where we also lived. My dad was a libertarian, my mom a silent liberal, and our family name was both literally and figuratively the color of mud. That year I had an opportunity to go to Washington, D.C., as a contest winner and was toured around the capitol. My senators were fine, I guess, delivering perfunctory office visits (or ditching, in one case). Jim Oberstar, however, spent almost two hours with us, touring me behind the scenes in Congress and offering a cavalcade of history and stories about America, our government and his day-to-day job. It was an absolutely inspiring experience for me, probably changed my life as much as any other part of that trip. I was from a oily, junked-up, scrub brush swamp just off the iron formation, and after that I never once considered that my life had limitations. I had been shown the workings and there was no reason to believe I couldn't see all the workings of this great, strange world.

Thanks, Jim.

That is what I'm thinking of this morning. Nevertheless, congratulations to Chip Cravaack. When my day settles down just a bit I'm going to talk about his remarkable victory and what Democrats should be thinking about next.

Well, my attempt to have Sarah Palin-like influence over local Iron Range races has failed, just like it mostly did for Palin. Lorrie Janatopoulos lost to incumbent Keith Nelson in St. Louis County Commissioner Dist. 6. Liz Kuoppala lost in the Eveleth mayor's race to former mayor Robert Vlaisavljevich. These are unfortunate losses for the Range, and largely emblematic of some of the demographic stagnation I see on the Iron Range. More later. I'm saying "more later" a lot this morning. It's going to be a long day.

Across the Range, it looks like the candidates who would have functioned best in the 1970s have done the best in this election.

There's so much to dive into on the Cravaack vs. Oberstar race. First, Cravaack did exactly what I expected he would do in the southern Eighth, clean up. But notably he pulled off a surprise in the north, for instance carrying Balsam Township where I live and holding Jim Oberstar under 60 percent in Hibbing and in Tom Rukavina's east Range District 5A (both places where Oberstar generally does much better). Like I said last night this was the first time I ever saw Range legislators outpacing Oberstar's totals, at least here in the West. I think Rukavina has done it before on the Eastern Mesabi.

I'll have some thoughts on Oberstar and Cravaack later this morning. This race has a lot of personal overtones for me.

Wow and a half.

I've got a busy 48 hour period that starts right now, which is why I "called it" early last night (a Sleep Party gain). As I wake up this morning I see that Chip Cravaack has prevailed in his upstart campaign against Jim Oberstar, that the Minnesota House and Senate have fallen to the GOP and that DFLer Mark Dayton is holding onto a very slim 9,000 vote margin in the governor's race. There was some sense earlier in the evening that Democrats could hold Minnesota as a firewall on the national wave, but ... waves happen.

More on all this as the day progresses.

This is the live blog for tonight, including information about Iron Range turnout, results and observations sent my way. My email is aaronjbrown@yahoo.com and my Twitter handle is @minnesotabrown if you've got something. I'm also listed in the Range Directory should you happen to possess such a fine, thick book of mostly unpronounceable names.

11:05 pm: It's looking like I'm going to have to call it for the evening soon. Notable in tonight's results is that while Oberstar may still survive, the other two "State of Superior" seats I always talk about, WI-7 and MI-1, will fall Republican tonight.

11:02 pm: The Oberstar/Cravaack race is still close by the numbers, but much of St. Louis and Itasca still aren't in the SOS numbers. That's why I still call Oberstar with some air in between, at least as an educated guess.

10:30 pm: Hmm, Oberstar/Cravaack looks close on SOS site. Oberstar's lead expands to mid-50s, I think. Notable, however, is how for the first time I can remember local DFL legislators are outpacing Oberstar. If this goes south, that's the fact I'm worried about.

10:24 pm: Also seems like Range legislators will hold, as expected.

10:18 pm: It's still very early, but every indication I have is that Jim Oberstar will easily retain his House seat. Hype! Hype! Kudos to the GOP for getting everyone's attention, including mine, but you shall not pass. Too bad he'll lose his chairmanship but a Don Young chairmanship will still allow massive amounts of infrastructure spending, if that's your thing.

9:32 pm DFL Sec. of State Mark Ritchie and Attorney General Lori Swanson have won re-election. Dayton leads, but much to come. I'm not getting ANYTHING from local races yet. Rural internet is a cruel mistress.

8:56 pm: I am back! A nice gathering with Tom Anzelc's family and friends was held earlier. The mood as I return to the internet/TV is that the U.S. House is going to flip to Republican and the Senate, it would seem, will stay Democratic. No word yet on Minnesota races. Working on it!

4:32 pm: I'll be out the door in an hour or so for dinner with my friend Tom Anzelc and his family. Tom is seeking his third term in House District 3A, a geographic and demographic oddity that might be swallowed up by redistricting next year. That is, unless the census bureau found a massive 1960s commune somewhere in southern Koochiching County, which would be unlikely but not particularly surprising in my experiences running Tom's campaigns here. I'll be returning to the house and the internet after I'm back from the restaurant up the highway.

2:30 pm: We've voted and the younger boys have used the local township playground equipment, including the new socialist publicly-owned basketballs, which were nice and bouncy. Turnout in Balsam is mostly tracking with 2006, maybe a shade lighter. I heard turnout was ahead of 2006, approaching '08 numbers in some West Range cities. This is generally good for Democrats unless there is an unusual shift in voting patterns, which is possible.

If we had a parliamentary system I'd probably find myself in one of the adorable, coalition-building parties like the LibDems in the United Kingdom. We don't yet have a viable third party in the United States, so my choices are the lovably inept Democratic Party of my youth and the hard-charging maniacs over in the Republican Party. Despite my complaints, I've mostly stayed with the Dems for reasons that can be summed up by this recent headline from the conservative blog "True North" for a post by Karen Effrem.

"Kindergarten Readiness: A Useless and Dangerous Concept"

Now, if you go and read the post you'll see that wrapped around this stunning rhetoric are a few halfway decent points, such as the assessment of readiness and the effectiveness of existing programs. Those are fair arguments to have. But the headline, blared without a hint of irony, is the problem, as is the assumption that because there is conflicting evidence about how many kids aren't ready for kindergarten that there is no problem whatsoever. The author further warns of how kids being "labeled" can face difficulty in their education, which is true, but must be tempered with the fact that a lot of kids really do deal with "labeled" disabilities every day.

There is an assumption by some on the right that the people who choose to work in preschool education are in the business to indoctrinate the children of the world into some kind of (presumably liberal) thought patterns, all while getting fat of the public dole. You know, the money's not that good and parents remain the single biggest influence on the values of children. That's the truth.

If they're doing their jobs, preschool teachers are teaching letters, numbers, and colors. Kids need to read by the winter break of kindergarten now if they are to keep up with the curriculum as its structured. This curriculum is only barely competitive with the education that kids in China or Europe receive. In fact, you could argue that the biggest crisis in education is the fact that we are operating at an enormous deficit with competing nations when it comes to reading, math, science, and language skills. The only thing Americans kids rank #1 in anymore is unjustified confidence, which is how posts like "Kindergarten Readiness: A Useless and Dangerous Concept" get their headlines.

Without getting into specifics, I have three boys, one of whom struggles with "a label," who have all benefited in ways both small and very, very large from early childhood education. If you were to subtract that education from their lives you would be subtracting something very important from their potential. This kind of education is expensive, but not even remotely as expensive as developmental education is later in life, or behavior problems, or public assistance for people who didn't or couldn't receive career training as a result of a lifelong struggle with basic educational concepts.

Ignoring the problem is not a proper alternative to fixing the problem. And that's why I'm still tooling around over here on the left. If the Republicans want me and my vote, they need to learn how to talk about professionals who dedicate their lives to helping kids with some respect. And they better bring better ideas than the Democrats for getting kids ready for kindergarten, which is far from useless and dangerous. In fact preparing kids for kindergarten is one of the most important things parents and communities must do, together.

Welcome to election day in northern Minnesota.This year Minnesota Brown is back on the politics wagon (or, more accurately, off the "no politics" wagon). This is an exciting time to have some inside knowledge about Minnesota's Eighth Congressional District as voters here participate in what could be the first competitive race here in my lifetime. Hell, the older kids who teased me on the bus, even they haven't seen this before. No matter, as felons they can't vote. Ha! But seriously ...

Jim Oberstar, the veteran DFLer from the Iron Range, is battling hard to keep the congressional seat he first won in 1974 and his crucial chairmanship of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He's facing a spirited challenge from Chip Cravaack, a pilot and stay-at-home dad (that's right, ladies), who has attacked Oberstar from the right as a fiscal and social conservative. Oberstar has never won by less than 18 points, averaging margins in the mid-30s. Now polls show the race neck-and-neck and national Republicans are hoping this district becomes the crest of a GOP wave. Democrats believe that Oberstar holds the line.

On a side note, can I just say that if the GOP takes the House the transportation chair will be Rep. Don ("Bridge to Nowhere) Young of Alaska. And if Oberstar loses but the Democrats retain control the chair will be Nick ("Coal is Delicious and Worthy of Considerable Subsidy") Rahall of West Virginia. So ... you know, don't expect to get a call tomorrow after you're invited upstairs tonight, fiscal conservatives.

I've written plenty on Oberstar vs. Cravaack (parts 1 and 2 of a profile, and a final recap). I'm just a humble country teacher and writer, but I have made a hobby of studying the voting patterns of northern Minnesota and will be sharing my thoughts tonight as returns come in. You'll see larger updates here and smaller observations on my Twitter feed @minnesotabrown. You can see the Twitter feed in the right sidebar of this site as well.

Also of note here, Iron Range local races and the monitoring of legislative majorities. I'll be checking the status of my State of Superior races as well. And so much more!

The Star Tribune profiles the old Minnesota election day tradition of waiting for St. Louis County to report its results late at night. The Democratic bastion, which includes Duluth and much of the Iron Range, is the largest geographic county in the state and one of the most remote. The speeds on return time have actually improved since 2000, when I spent a very long night calling in election returns from the St. Louis County Courthouse in Duluth for the now-defunct Voter News Service. As more of the rural precincts acquire scanning machines, the speeds improve.

Nevertheless, it will be another late night as we all wait to see how big a DFL wave St. Louis County produces after results from the metro areas of the state have been recorded. This is only annoying in close elections ... such as the last eight or nine.