The implications of Peter Passi's Duluth News Tribune groundbreaking investigation into the squandering of $41 million in public money by Excelsior Energy on the Iron Range continue to unfold. The story now appears to be the biggest fiscal disaster in Iron Range economic development history, but there's more yet to explore. Karl Bremer at Ripple in Stillwater digs into what I think will bring this story to a head: Excelsior's massive lobbying and campaign contribution operation at all levels of government, in both major parties. You should read Bremer's post.

In addition to the company regulars, one key figure at the center of this Excelsior Energy influence ring is former DFL State Sen. Doug Johnson, who has been one of the central lobbyists for Excelsior and whose influence in Range political circles is very strong. He's the political mentor of Sen. Tom Bakk, Johnson's successor who is now the Senate Minority Leader and the lead apologist for Excelsior in the Passi story.

Johnson and Bakk have long labored in the good graces of Bill Hanna, the editor of the Range's largest daily newspaper and a man very much without a political party. Hanna's Mesabi Daily News has has maintained radio silence over the project's failures and the Duluth investigation after a string of pro-Excelsior front page stories and glowing editorials in the mid- to late-2000s. Hanna has a great deal of sway in Range media circles. Few politicians, save Tom Rukavina (a noted Bakk/Johnson rival within the delegation), seem willing to take Hanna on for fear of him painting them as anti-job or anti-Range, his favorite things to do to politicians.

Rukavina, however, also voted for Excelsior legislation at every turn, along with most of the DFL-dominated Iron Range legislative delegation. State Sen. David Tomassoni (DFL-Chisholm) has used this project as his legislative priority for most of his time in the Senate. Sen. Tom Saxhaug (DFL-Grand Rapids) has also dedicated great amounts of time to defending the project against early questions and keeping its dealings as quiet as possible. Iron Range state senators continue to publicly support the project in the face of the damning information found in the Passi DNT report.

In the House, along with Rukavina, defeated former Rep. Loren Solberg (DFL-Grand Rapids) and Rep. David Dill (DFL-Crane Lake) carried most of the legislation for the company over the last decade. Former Rep. Tony Sertich, who had supported the project early on, is now the IRRRB commissioner charged with executing the agency's loan agreement with Excelsior. Even Sertich's successor Rep. Carly Melin (DFL-Hibbing) and Carolyn McElfatrick (R-Grand Rapids), who beat Solberg, had a chance to break away from the pack this last session, but both ultimately voted for a pro-Excelsior amendment anyway. So, too, did the entire House GOP majority caucus!

The only Iron Range legislator who has not voted for Excelsior language, who also hasn't taken any money from Excelsior, its officers or lobbyists and who has clearly stated the numerous problems with the Excelsior project at every turn has been Rep. Tom Anzelc (DFL-Balsam Township).

As I've disclosed before, Tom Anzelc is a personal friend and fellow Balsam resident. I've run each of his successful legislative campaigns in District 3A, a vast territory including the western Iron Range, northern Itasca County, Koochiching and Lake of the Woods counties along the Canadian border. We are in many ways different people, from different Iron Range generations and political traditions, but we very much share our position on this project and the need for a new direction in Range economic development and government strategies. I believe there are others who share this view and I know they will join the fight. Indeed, they must.

To be clear, on this blog I speak only for myself. The Iron Range must do better. There is no acceptable defense of the status quo in the context of this story. Those who persist to ignore facts and advance the causes of private interests over the public good are enemies of the people of the Iron Range and should be treated as such.

In private conversations, I know many leaders on the Iron Range know of the troubles with this project and share my assessment of its failures. I know some of these people well and believe them to be of good will. They are paralyzed by the fact that admitting there will be no project means admitting the fundamental error of the initial IRRRB loans, and never getting back the $9.5 million in Iron Range money, which mostly paid for Excelsior's salaries and legal fees. Everyone on the Iron Range faces an important decision in coming months. Will we learn from this terrible mistake? Or will we bury our heads in the sand?

If it is to be the latter, the voters should rightly bury the rest.

• Reform disclosure rules so people know how their money is spent.
  
• Reform loan agreements so that developers share risk with taxpayers.
  
• Focus public-private partnerships on smaller projects with clearer, less politically-dependent plans and more specific expectations.
  
• Focus public spending on public good: education, redevelopment, and needed services and infrastructure that the private sector can't or won't deliver.

UPDATE: I have repaired an error in my links to Bremer's post. You can find it here.

Times are neither good nor bad nor normal here on the Iron Range. We seem to be going through a transition that no one fully understands. And it occurs to me that the rest of the country, even the world, might be doing the same.

So I could double down on my concerned missives on Range political topics. A couple hundred people would be mildly pleased with that. Or I could do something a little different. I could add something of aesthetic value to my community, fulfill a longstanding ambition of mine, and encourage people with doubts that we can forge our own hope from the light of the horizon.

To that end, I am proud to announce the Great Northern Radio Show, Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011 on the stage of the Hibbing Community College Theater. This will be live radio from 5-7 p.m. featuring a couple dozen musicians, voice actors and more. The theme of our first show will be "Hard Time Good Times." I've got a jug band, Finnish folk musicians, a choir, a teenage singing prodigy and a few surprises in store.

I've already booked and written most of the show, but I am open to new ideas. If you'll be in Hibbing that day plan to attend this free show at the theater. We'll be taking free will donations and signing up new members for KAXE, which will be putting on their annual fall fundraiser that week. If you're anywhere else, plan to listen live on 91.7 FM or streaming at www.kaxe.org or in one of the many scheduled rebroadcasts. This show will be made available to independent public radio stations all over the country so be sure to contact your local station to encourage them to re-run this show.

If the Great Northern Radio Show is successful we hope to do a few of these each year at different stages around northern Minnesota. We have affordable underwriting and cross-promotional opportunities for businesses and organizations. E-mail me or call KAXE at 218-326-1234 for more information.

And stay tuned, there will be more on this soon.

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Aug. 28, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

School days are here again (Whoopee!)
By Aaron J. Brown

I’m a teacher by trade so I’m always revved up for the school year. A new school year means new students, new opportunities and a fresh new chance to do your job better. Not everyone gets a moment like this and I appreciate it.

But this is the first year I’m also itching for my kids to go back to school, too. Kids. They’re great. They’re cute and funny and we love them. And they need to go to school.

Our oldest Henry is 6 and he’ll be a first grader. You learn a lot in first grade. More words. Number stuff. I really don’t care. He needs to go to school.

The twins, Doug and George, they’re 4 and have an array of preschool activities on tap. They’re going to prepare for kindergarten, expand their hungry minds and … well, I suppose other things, too. Mostly they need to go school.

Over the last few weeks a writhing pile of boys has been crying, laughing or yelling. It’s hard to tell which is which and, anyway, all three sounds are usually going at once.

Summer vacation is something of a vestigial remainder of an agrarian U.S. society where the kids were expected to till the fields, reap the harvest and field dress the wild boar. Most other industrialized countries send their kids to school longer which is probably an indirect reason our country can’t manufacture electronics.

Nevertheless, because of tourism, tradition and a few other factors, we’ve held on to the long summer break despite the fact that these kids need to be in school pretty much all the time, except on evenings and weekends and major holidays. There is research supporting this. I’ve seen it. It was some article. I think it was titled “What the heck, guys? What did you break? Seriously?” by Dr. Stopit Iamonthephone.

When Henry got on the school bus for the first time last year we felt all the usual emotions. It’s bittersweet watching your child become independent. We’re reminded of the constant change found in life, and our own mortality. If I was in the business of writing poetry, I would have had lots to work with last year. This year, with so many boys all gaining independent minds all at the same time, in the same house, in the same room, well, let’s just say I have a solution. It’s called sending them to school.

I remember when I was a kid I overheard my mom talking to someone about how much she was looking forward to school starting. My thought then was, “Me too!” I loved school. I was a nerd. But it is only now that I realize she wasn’t talking about my bourgeoning opportunity to gain knowledge. It probably something to do with all the awful things I did to my sisters and other assorted valuables around the house.

It’s probably no small coincidence that my wife told me this week she was glad I was going back to work (school). I’ve been milling around the house, leaving things out and making messes. I get bored and when I get bored I make bad decisions. I need to go back to school, too.

I love being a parent for many of the same reasons I love living in Minnesota. The seasons churn constantly and nothing is permanent. Life is a spitting, cascading overflow of change and only in the rare little quiet moments do you realize that you’ve changed too, occasionally for the better.

So sure, I’m glad for the school year to start. But my reasons for doing so have never been so many, so varied, or so much related to the relative safety of the dog, the breakables and the furniture. I love my kids. It’s exciting to watch them grow, learn and develop into people who I hope have lots of lots of children just like them.

And it’s time for us to go to school.

Aaron J. Brown is a writer and Hibbing Community College speech instructor. He is the author of the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and the book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

A friend of this blog Jennifer Rian is writing a blog called "I (heart) Hibbing," the ideas of a Range transplant looking back at her hometown. She has some good ideas and good taste in baked goods. You should check out her blog, too.

As with all things Iron Range, I have to add for those who don't live in Hibbing that it's OK for anyone to read this blog and absorb her theories, as they also apply to Chisholm, Buhl, or even, gulp, Coleraine, Virginia and Eveleth.

Tony Sterle at A Little Bit of Liberal has written a fascinating series entitled Growing Up Gay in Northern Minnesota (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). He's done a nice job of writing about the issue as an advocate, but with honest journalistic consideration of both sides in the debate. Really, Tony is a great addition to the Minnesota blogging community and you should follow his blog regardless of your views. He and his writers cover all kinds of issues, not just politics.

This is a curious press release. A company is considering relocating to Duluth in the old Northwest Airlines maintenance facility by the airport. One factor in their decision will be the outcome of a job fair this upcoming Monday and Tuesday at the DECC. Don't screw this up, unemployed people.

If Job Fair Takes Off, Duluth Could Land Aviation Company

ST. PAUL - Hoping to land an aviation company in Duluth, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) and other partners will hold a single-employer career and networking fair from noon to 8 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday, Aug. 29-30, at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center. 

AAR Aircraft Services is considering opening an aircraft maintenance facility at the Duluth International Airport that would bring about 250 jobs to the city. DEED is working with the Duluth Economic Development Authority, Duluth Airport Authority and APEX, a private-sector economic development organization, to help attract the company to the city.

"The success of this career fair is an important factor as to whether AAR will locate in Duluth, so we have to show the company the depth of our talent," said DEED Commissioner Mark Phillips. "The strength of our workforce is a critical consideration in their expansion plans."

AAR Aircraft Services, which specializes in aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul, is a division of AAR Corp., a Wood Dale, Ill., based company that provides products and services for the commercial aviation and government and defense industries. The company employs about 6,500 people in 13 countries.

AAR Aircraft Services is looking for workers in several areas, including airframe and power plant mechanics; sheet metal, avionics and interiors specialists; nondestructive testing inspectors; and quality control inspectors.

The Duluth Entertainment Convention Center is located at 350 Harbor Drive in
Duluth on the city's waterfront. Parking is free for participants. For job seekers who cannot attend the career and networking fair, resumes can be e-mailed to aircraft@duluth.gov. Candidates may also submit qualifications online.

The topic for this Saturday morning's edition of "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE is "advice." What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten? What’s your philosophy about giving advice? Have you ever written to an advice columnist?

My contribution will be a reprisal of one of my favorite "Between You and Me" bits, an advice program hosted by Bambi's father, the Prince of the Forest, called "Ask a Stag." It was an epic achievement of voice acting and sound engineering by yours truly, multi-tracks and sound effects. You've really got to hear it to believe it.

You can tune in to "Between You and Me" from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming live all over the world at www.kaxe.org. The program and my commentary pieces are archived and distributed to other public radio stations through PRX.

From the governor's office:

Today, Governor Mark Dayton issued Executive Order 11-27, establishing the Governor’s Task Force on Broadband and continuing his commitment to strengthening our state’s infrastructure and fostering a strong business climate.   The Task Force will be charged to expand broadband access in Minnesota.  Dayton’s stated goal is “border-to-border” high-speed internet and cell phone access throughout Minnesota.

 

Governor Dayton also directed the Minnesota Department of Commerce to create a Broadband Development Office and convene a subcabinet of agencies to work on statewide broadband policies.

 

“Our state’s history of economic success has shown us how vital a solid infrastructure is to building a strong business climate.  Broadband access is an important part of that 21st century infrastructure,” said Governor Mark Dayton.  “Broadband accessibility is an issue that is critical to growing our state’s economy – particularly in Greater Minnesota.  As long as there are inequities in access to broadband in Minnesota, we will see those same inequities reflected in our schools, hospitals, and businesses.  This task force will give our state an action plan for identifying and correcting these disparities so that Minnesota can compete and thrive in a global economy.”

 

We will be focused on concrete ways to build broadband for Minnesota’s homes and businesses,” said Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman. “By working together, we will ensure that we set the best possible foundation to meet Minnesota’s broadband needs and goals.”

Yesterday we learned that Duluth broadcasting legend Lew Latto died unexpected at his home as he prepared to go to work hosting his talk radio program. Latto was a pioneering local broadcaster and the owner of several Duluth and Iron Range stations.

Though I never met him, I worked for Latto in my first media job when I was a weekend overnight guy at his station WEVE in Eveleth, Minnesota. Like many broadcast pioneers, Latto was very influential in the development of local media. Unlike many broadcast pioneers, Latto kept his own stations live and local long after most owners sold out to larger groups that automated most of the programming. I believe that is the best statement about Latto's commitment to the region and to broadcasting. My condolences to his family and friends.

On the subject of town halls, here are some more. Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN8) is sending his staffed mobile office to the Range on Thursday, Aug. 25 and Friday, Aug. 26. This after his hotly discussed town hall in Duluth today. The congressman's mobile office will be at the Keewatin City Hall from 2-4:30 p.m. Thursday and Coleraine City Hall from 9:30-11 a.m. Friday.

Meantime, Lt. Gov. Yvonne Prettner-Solon will be holding a "Bring the Capitol to the Range" tour on Monday, Aug. 29 and Tuesday, Aug. 30.

Furthering Governor Dayton and Prettner Solon’s commitment to transparency and accessibility, the tour provides Minnesota residents with the opportunity to connect with state leaders in their own community.

On Monday night, Prettner Solon will be joined by Representative Carly Melin, IRRRB Commissioner Tony Sertich, MPCA Commissioner Paul Aasen, DLI Commissioner Ken Peterson, DEED Commissioner Mark Phillips, and DNR Northeast Regional Director Craig Engwall for a town hall listening session on Jobs and Economic Development. Residents are encouraged to arrive early to sign-up if they would like to speak.

In addition to the town hall, Prettner Solon will hold office hours on Monday from noon – 4:00 pm at the IRRRB office. To request a one-on-one meeting with the Lieutenant Governor, residents are encouraged to visit www.governor.state.mn.us/schedule  or call 1-800-657-3717. Meetings will be scheduled on a first come, first served basis.

The final part of the Iron Range visit will be a tour of local businesses and initiatives.

According to reports, Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN8) has scheduled a last minute, long-anticipated town hall meeting in Duluth, the district's biggest city and historic center. The town hall will be held at 4 p.m. today, Wednesday, Aug. 24, at the Duluth International Airport.

This came together quickly and there was some confusion about whether it would occur or not. It will.

The Duluth News Tribune ran an pertinent editorial today after its must-read, two-part series investigating Excelsior Energy's Mesaba Energy Project on the Iron Range. Worth reading entirely, here is the thrust:

Questions abound: Why didn’t elected leaders demand more spending scrutiny? Why has Rep. Anzelc been largely alone in waving a red flag? Why did state lawmakers vote to hide from the funds-providing public financial information? Why has there been no effort in the Legislature to provide more transparency, especially during the shutdown when every penny was being squeezed?

And, perhaps most pressing of all to taxpayers, what happened to our more than $40 million?

Why, indeed? I've been asking that for a very long time. 

I've neglected to mention this deal between the state and U.S. Steel. The largest mining company on the Range would clean up pollution at its properties, most notably MinnTac, in exchange for rights to expand Keewatin Taconite, adding another line and more jobs to the western Iron Range.

This is another example of the strengthening fortunes of Range mining companies in 2011 and into next year. Earlier today I cautioned against complacency.

Today I follow up on last week's post about the meaning of temporary prosperity in Iron Range mining. I've come up with a working list of things we (that is, the people, by way of our institutions) can do to diversify our economy and bolster our communities. The links go back to previous writing I've done on these topics.

One, the central premise here is that Iron Range mining revenue is not "bonus" money; it's the statutory substitute for property taxes on the biggest land-owner and dominant industry in the region. Mines don't pay property taxes. The production tax is to the Iron Range what 3M's property taxes are to the city of Maplewood and its schools. The levy can be increased or decreased (though it hasn't changed for decades); the money can be spent effectively or wastefully. That's really up to us. This is the tax formula preferred by the industry.

Of course, mining and to a lesser degree logging will continue in northern Minnesota and will remain an important part of the economy. What they won't do is provide the job base that they once did. Community prosperity will require other areas to pick up the slack.

High speed internet infrastructure. In just a few years, most of our media consumption and a serious majority of American productivity will be produced and delivered through a ubiquitous internet-like medium. Maybe it'll be through the air, where telecom companies are developing profitable (read "expensive") pricing and data transfer control. Or maybe the Iron Range can get out front on the more consumer friendly, democratic and potentially faster internet that can be delivered door to door through fiber optic wires.

Is it expensive? Yes. Do Iron Range retirees clamber for faster internet right now? No. But effective economic planning involves anticipation and risk, both of which point to using digital work as a major growth sector in the affordable and amiable north woods of our region. The cost is considerably less than doubling down on big industrial developments, a strategy that has failed for a generation. Costs may be further restrained if public/private partnerships are fostered. Why do this? Our interconnected communities and relatively large, centralized funding source could give us a competitive advantage over other areas like ours.

Public works. Hold on now, I don't mean what you think. We don't need foolish expansion of expensive sewers with no specified purpose, or spec buildings or land hoarding. Rather, we need to fix up Range towns and spend public works money to repair and remodel buildings for actual use. In many cases, the population loss and aging housing stock of some Range towns would suggest an ideal time to remove blight and replace it with parks, gardens and other low-cost public spaces or cheap sale to private entities. Certain road improvements and community buildings need money, too. Range production tax money is designed for this purpose.

School consolidation PLUS. What's the "plus?" Well, the word consolidation sends people into a tizzy around here and for good reason. The communities of the Range are prideful and steeped in tradition, each with its own political structure and factions. Sports are such a big part of the culture that the identification with school colors and mascots runs deep long after people leave school. In many cases, the schools are important parts of a small town's economy, which is why local business leaders are often the biggest opponents to consolidation efforts.

So "PLUS" means that we acknowledge all this. Consolidation must not be done as a form of surrender, but rather as a new opportunity to modernize curriculum and reduce class sizes. This will require not just leaders willing to risk their careers on the closing of buildings, but also money to modify or build centralized schools and increase course offerings. Ninety years ago the Oliver Mining Company put money into Hibbing High School to move it to new south Hibbing. Today, mining profits would suggest an opportunity to put local Range production money into schools.

To a degree, planning for the future of the Iron Range can only happen if the schools and communities herein find a way to collaborate for a shared future. It's only happened a few times. The labor movement of the early 20th century. The establishment of the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board and corresponding state agency in the '40s. Perhaps during the Taconite Amendment fight back in the '60s and subsequent revisions to statute that put more money into Range communities. Since then the story of the Range has been cities and school districts scrapping it out with less money and mining companies becoming more efficient and profitable.

The final item I'd suggest for the Range in this period is Self-Determinism. This doesn't have to involve a libertarian/conservative revolution or a comfortable old liberal utopia. More likely it will involve elements of both. The Range must learn to welcome and produce entrepreneurs with ideas and the ability to raise their own capital. We must consciously consider how we're doing and what we can do better. We must not wait for the next election or the next palpitation of mineral prices. We must do something.

It's easy to imagine opposition to these unorthodox Range policy suggestions. But the enactment of Iron Range economic diversification can be done without the traditional talking heads or old powers, or even a political party. People in communities get together and do something. Opposition will melt, because they've not seen the likes of that in a long time.

That said, this can be done more quickly and with lasting results if board members and staff at the IRRRB adopt a bolder position during the current mining production boom. I hope they do.

Peter Passi of the Duluth News Tribune continues his must-read investigation into the troubles facing Minnetonka-based startup Excelsior Energy. Over ten years Excelsior received more than $40 million in public funds for its "clean-coal" Mesaba Energy Project on the Range but has little to show for it.

Today, the story is where Excelsior stands today. Nearly out of money, the company is grasping for a last-ditch effort to convert the project to natural gas. Minnesota Power and Xcel Energy reiterate that they aren't interested in purchasing the electricity.

The only part of the story left untouched is the deep and abiding ties between lobbyists and officials with Excelsior Energy and elected officials of both parties here on the Range and across the state. I've already talked about that.

Peter Passi has an important Sunday story in the Duluth News Tribune on Excelsior Energy's controversial Mesaba Energy Project, the Iron Range clean-coal proposal that has yet to materialize, despite its $40-some million in public dollars.

I urge you to read Passi's story. It is a wholly effective explanation of the project's origins and political patronage.

The developers got rich with hardly any of their own money on the line. They will stay rich regardless of whether one shovel ever turns. In the story, project supporters like Sen. Tom Bakk and the developers themselves blame the economy and Xcel Energy for not buying their overpriced power, two factors that could have been predicted in the early 2000s and indeed have been argued consistently by project opponents. There is simply no valid defense to the activities reported in this story that doesn't include the words "We're sorry. We made a bad call"

I've written thousands and thousands of words on this project. Follow the tags if you'd like to read my old material. In summary this project remains the biggest mistake in Iron Range economic development history. The sooner we learn from it and purge ourselves of the incompetence and cronyism that led us to this low place, the better.

Passi has a second part of the story running Monday. I'll post a link then.

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Aug. 21, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A version of this piece aired in an episode of "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE earlier this month.

I was a sacrifice-only, middle relief bullpen right fielder
By Aaron J. Brown

As the Major League Baseball season enters the final stretch I am reminded of my own baseball past playing for youth teams in Forbes and Clinton.

If there was such a thing as a bullpen for right fielders that is where I would have spent my three year career in youth baseball. When the starting right fielder was struggling or was simply too tired from scoring incessant runs on a crying six-year-old from some other town, a change would be made. The coach would make a “four eyes” signal to the right field bullpen, located in or around the water cooler on the end of the bench. He wanted the kid with saucer sized glasses, the one whose glove still smelled like Kmart even though it was a year old. That’s the kid we need, he’d say. And I’d be in the game.

Right field was an obvious place for the overweight kid who couldn’t run, catch or throw very well. It’s a bit of a cliché, but one for which I am profoundly grateful. As a kid I loved baseball and had a sense that if I loved it I should play the game. But I was afraid of the ball and practice only steeled my nerves against the inevitable injuries without preventing them. In youth baseball, right field is quiet because most right handers haven’t learned how to pull the ball yet and most left handers are still dealing with the existential hand-to-eye problems that stem from having different dexterity than most people.

I would have been a middle relief bullpen right fielder. You wouldn’t leave a guy like me in the game into the last inning any more than you’d put me in before the fifth. I was in there to make things interesting, something to keep the ADHD kids on their toes when the game had become lopsided.

I’d get a few at-bats, but my role at the plate was clear. A kid with my speed and presence on the basepaths was duty-bound to lay down a sacrifice, regardless of the number of outs or whether or not anyone was on base. A couple times I got walked. One of those times I was thrown out by the catcher as I absent mindedly led of first because, in the moment, I had literally forgotten that I was playing the game of baseball. This can’t be taught, folks. Not possible.

My career stats probably wouldn’t put me in the hall of fame, even if they had a category for middle relief, sacrifice-only bullpen right fielders. I fielded two pop ups in three years, one caught and one dropped. I converted the dropped one into an out when the guy advanced past first assuming I’d have curled into the fetal position by the time he got to second. Ha! I did that afterward, punk.

Like all athletes I reached a point where I knew I had reached the end of the road, a time when my body just wouldn’t respond to the demands of the game. For me that time came when the pitchers began exceeding 50 mph fastball speeds and the coach could no longer cede right field as some sort of unorganized territory. Hey, the game changed and guys like me got left behind.

Sometimes in my dreams, though, the coach still gazes down the bench at ol’ four-eyes, watching a beetle eat a sunflower seed next to an old piece of gum. I hear my name called and I know that it’s my time to show everyone what I’ve got, even if no one in particular wants to see it.

Aaron Brown is a writer and community college instructor from the Iron Range. He is the author of the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and the book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

The history keeps coming! My Silent Cal post from two weeks ago and my update about historical Range voting patterns last week have elicited an important clarification from the Iron Range's most prominent and respected working historian, Pam Brunfelt.

Actually, it is not accurate to state that voters had to request a ballot for the general election. The Australian Secret ballot was adopted in the state in 1891! The open primary system, one in which all political parties are listed on the same ballot so voters don't have to request a ballot for a specific party, was adopted as a result of the Progressive reform movement. Under the closed primary system that existed before the adoption of the open primary, voters had to publicly declare which party ballot they wanted. Under the closed primary system, workers were, therefore, disinclined to go against the wishes of the corporations and their company spies because they feared the blacklist.

Voting results after the 1930s and the electoral success of the Farmer-Labor party reflected the emergence of the second generation of immigrants as citizens--many of whom were natural born citizens of foreign born parents. They began voting and voted for their own issues. They did not yet dare campaign openly for the Farmer-Laborites, but the party officials knew the miners/workers supported their candidates and vote totals reflected that change in party support. Once FDR came to power and began advocating for the workers in a variety of ways, miners expressed their electoral support nationally for the Democrats. The New Deal, the National Industrial Recovery Act's Section 7 (a), and, finally, the National Labor Relations Act (commonly known as the Wagner Act) solidified Democratic party support and pulled the majority of Socialist and Communist Party supporters into the Democratic and Farmer-Labor party orbit. That support was further reinforced in 1944 when the Minnesota Democratic and Farmer Labor parties were unified (and the Communists ousted) by Hubert Humphrey.

The voting pattern before 1930 that tended to look like strong Republican support was actually because so few immigrants--first generation Americans--were not citizens and so the number of miners voting was suppressed. Many immigrants were not yet (and many never would be) citizens. Once miners could vote in large numbers--again mostly the children of immigrants--the Republicans would never regain their status as the "majority" party on the Iron Range. But the reality was that the Republican Party was never the majority party because the miners could not vote! Sometimes numbers do not tell the whole story.

I hope this helps clarify this issue. I have written about this in "Political Culture in Microscosm: Minnesota's Iron Range" which can be found on the Minnesota Humanities Center website and was published in a political science textbook and reprised in the Hometown Focus a couple of years ago.

As always, if you really want the dirt on Range political history go read what Pam wrote.

I'll be on 91.7 KAXE - Northern Community Radio's "Between You and Me" Saturday morning at 10 a.m. This is the call-in and music program highlighting the voices, stories and condition of the people of northern Minnesota.

Contributors like me were asked to "bring something to the potluck" in honor of Saturday evening's Green Cheese Trivia Show potluck picnic. My offering involves a cougar.

Listen 10 a.m.-noon on 91.7 FM or streaming at www.kaxe.org.

A banner year for Iron Range ore shipments on Lake Superior. Not so for the IRRRB, where the lingering woes of 2009 are dragging down the agency's three-year taconite tax formula. The 2011 boom of mining activity on the Iron Range should be taken for what it is: another, perhaps final chance to retool our economic development plans and fundamentally diversify the economy here.

The "Art in the Park" free Thursday night music show at the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm continues. Several fun acts seem lined up for the next few weeks.

Thursday, August 18, Minnesota Discovery Center welcomes Fathers and Sons, performing “bluesy acoustic” music on the MDC amphitheater stage at 7 p.m. followed by Mark Henderson and the Mojosaurus Blues Band at 8 p.m. Food and beverages are available to purchase; museum, park and mini-golf are open. Admission to MDC is free Thursdays after 5 p.m.; mini-golf is $2 per person per round, a 6 p.m. trolley ride to Glen Mining Location is $2 per person. Folk arts demonstrators Barb Lleueling and Barb Walters will demonstrate pioneer life skills from 5-9 p.m. Art in the Park is a weekly summer music event at Minnesota Discovery Center. On August 25, Art in the Park features acoustic duo BitterSweet at 7 p.m. and Bluewolf at 8 p.m. September 1, see rock bands Colmekill at 7 p.m. and 5th Floor at 8 p.m.

There's another free show Monday, Aug. 22, that looks good:

Brass in Blue to perform at MDC

The United States Air Force Heartland of America Band’s Brass in Blue, a pioneering symphonic brass ensemble, will present a concert on Monday, August 22, at 7 p.m. in the Minnesota Discovery Center amphitheater.

This concert is free and open to the public. Minnesota Discovery Center’s park will be open at 6:30 p.m. for the performance. Concessions will be available to purchase.

Representing more than 325,000 Air Force professionals, Brass in Blue showcases the service's excellence and precision in every performance. Comprised of ten brass players, one percussionist and a vocalist, the ensemble maintains a rigorous performance schedule presenting a diverse repertoire featuring orchestral transcriptions, patriotic favorites, jazz standards, new compositions and arrangements.

I recently learned about this Georgia factory making chopsticks and exporting them to China. This NPR story points out the contrast of the phenomenon, an American company sending chopsticks to China while we fail to produce so many of our own goods, including electronic devices we ourselves invented.

Folks from the Iron Range might remember the chopsticks factory built in Hibbing that operated from 1987 to 1989 to serve the Japanese market. A $3 million investment by the IRRRB, encouraged by then-Iron Range native Gov. Rudy Perpich, helped open the factory which closed rather quickly when demand for the chopsticks seized up.

People close to the situation back then have told me that the locally-grown aspen wood used in the chopsticks proved to be of insufficient quality. The company blamed archaic machinery used at the time. Critics point fingers at Perpich and Iron Range economic developers for getting caught up in a boondoggle. Perpich supporters blame the lofty promises of the Canadian company who claimed that the aspen wood chopsticks could be built efficiently on the Range.

I simply see this story as quaint. The IRRRB put in $3 million in local mining revenue, with $1.5 million more in local bonds and investments. For this a company actually built a factory and employed people for two years. That factory is a printing facility now, run by the company that publishes most of the Iron Range's larger newspapers. How many current economic development projects have involved vastly larger amounts of money without yet breaking the soil in some cases? Even accounting for inflation, the "cost per job" metric has grown to a staggering high.

The Iron Range chopsticks factory is no shining example of success, but isn't it fascinating how our economic development standards have gotten even lower since then?

I wish the Georgia people well. Sounds like they're using a more adept kind of wood. Truth is, had the aspen worked in the Hibbing plant that thing might still be operating.


Meantime, enjoy a journey in the wayback machine with two articles I found at a website called the Green Chopsticks Project:

Japanese buy USA chopsticks
USA Today; Oct 13, 1987

Folks in Hibbing, Minn., may not eat sushi, but a new business in town has whetted their appetites. Lakewood Industries Inc. today sends 12 million pairs of disposable chopsticks to Japan.

It's the first shipment of what Ian Ward, president of Lakewood's Canadian parent, hopes will be a $15 million-a-year business. Ward says his is the only USA company exporting chopsticks to the Orient. He expects to produce 7 million pairs of aspen wood chopsticks a day. Says plant manager Scott Karppinen:

``At this point, they're willing to take anything we can produce.''

Japan's scarce timber and high labor costs, along with rising affluence and fear of communicable diseases, have led to a shortage of disposable chopsticks there, Ward says.Another factor: ``The Japanese have been looking for innocuous products to import.'' 

Flash forward two years:

Chopstick Factory Closes After Picking Up Big Debt
Wall Street Journal Jul 20, 1989

HIBBING, Minn. -- A chopsticks factory, praised as a bold, bootstraps effort to compete with the Japanese and boost the depressed economy of Minnesota's Iron Range, closed here after piling up more than $7 million in debt but few chopsticks.

The plant's owner, Lakewood Forest Products Ltd. of Vancouver, Canada, blamed balky machinery and lack of cash for the closure Tuesday, but called it temporary. "The story of our demise is a little premature," said Ian Ward, Lakewood's president. He said the company is seeking $1 million from investors to reopen, but that promised backing from a Japanese investor had fallen through.

The plant drew widespread attention when it opened three years ago. But it never came close to producing the seven million pairs of chopsticks a day that its backers promised would produce a profit and 120 jobs.

Project supporters said the plant could revitalize the Iron Range economy, which lost thousands of jobs because of the steel industry's slump. Critics ridiculed the idea, calling it a pork-barrel project for Hibbing -- Gov. Rudy Perpich's home town. Lakewood raised nearly $4.5 million from state and local industrial revenue bonds and loans.

Embarrassed state officials said they planned to launch an investigation into the plant's operations. 

Ah, a bygone day when economic developers could feel shame.

(h/t Alex Jokela)

Do you like post-industrial imagery? Do you like bike tricks? You will like this. There's a whole symbolic commentary thing I could do here, but that would cut into the time you have to watch the aforementioned bike tricks.



Though this appears to be filmed in Scotland, that red color that pops off the ground and machinery reminds me very much of home.

(h/t Andrew Sullivan)

Folks seemed to like my Aug. 2 post "Silent Cal at the Hull Rust Mine" detailing the visit of President Calvin Coolidge to the Iron Range on that same date in 1928. I gave a brief overview of the Republican politics in the early 20th century on the Range. David Bednarczuk wrote me with this important addition to how the Range shifted from GOP to DFL stronghold by the middle of the last century:

The Iron Range consistently voted Republican until 1930 and then Farmer/Labor or later DFL ever since. What's up with that? The mining companies and the "powers that be" controlled the election process until 1930. A person had to ask for the ballot of the party they wished to vote for so it was easy to identify who voted for what party. If a man voted for the "wrong" party he would often be fired from his job. The mining companies used the fear of losing your job as an effective lever to control how people voted. When the Depression set in very few people were working anyway, so the fear of losing your job was no longer an effective threat. After people began to get work again in the mid-to-late 1930s, the mining companies and their allies were never again able to establish control over the elections.

This is repeated in many of the historical records, but easy to forget because that generation is largely gone now. That's why the logging camps and mining locations turned in unanimous results for GOP candidates in the 1910s. The same was happening in the eastern steel towns of Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Columbus, all of which reversed around the same time as the Range (and are changing today in some of the same ways).

While I personally identify with the workers who organized the Range during and after the Depression, it is also important to recognize the work of those earlier Republican leaders in building Range towns and finding a way to check the power of mining companies without shutting them down. The progressive Republican Victor Power will always be a hero of mine. His shared legacies -- Hibbing City Hall, the resplendent Hibbing High School, continued mining in North Hibbing and paved streets -- not only still live, but sustain the community's very existence to this day. What has anyone done lately that will last 100 years? (In a good way).

Sitka, Alaska-based punk rock band The Big Fat Babies has generously listed my book "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range" as their notable reading selection this week on their rather entertaining website. It probably helped my case that one of their members and legal counsel Andrew C. Miller is a friend and the former reporter who joined me to interview the late Communist scion Gus Hall, born one Arvo G. Halberg in Cherry, Minnesota.

Hall ran for president four times on the Communist ticket and became something of a symbol of the last gasps of traditional early 20th century American socialism. He died, fittingly, at the dawn of the 21st century in the year 2000 months after Andy and I called him from the principal's office of the Cherry School.

Sitka is a strange island city in the south of Alaska, known for salmon, for its hospitality to cruise ship passengers and for a school that attracts most of the state's gifted students from the remote northern villages.

Miller, a former newspaper reporter in Sitka, now purports to have passed the Alaska Bar and practices law and quasi-punk rock music with similar effect. He is from Hibbing, where his mother was a high school guidance counselor for many years. His father was my guidance counselor at Cherry.

It's a strange world indeed.

The recent news that the United States Postal Service would be closing scads of post offices around the country, mostly in rural, small towns, has opened a lot of eyes about the true existential danger facing rural America. I've just read a couple of great Minnesota entries in the discussion, an Aug. 12, 2011 article ("A rural reckoning") by David Peterson in the Star Tribune and a wonderful post with photographs ("Take time to stop and appreciate small towns") by Audrey Kletscher Helbling for her Minnesota Prairie Roots blog.

I was struck by this quote from the Peterson story:

"Since I've moved here," Schuerman said, "we've lost the grocery store. We've lost the café." Standing alongside beautifully crafted post office boxes whose dials have been turned by leathery farm fingers for generations, she softly added: "This is one of the last things we had."

The sun is slowly setting on parts of rural Minnesota.

That's very much the theme inspiring one of my upcoming radio projects, only in regard to the Iron Range. Though these pieces focus on the dwindling population of farm country, population loss and demographic change are big themes here on the Range and in other post-industrial places, including some big cities.

Fundamentally, so many of our problems are related to this sense of "placelessness." Where do we belong? What is the true "cost" of living there? What should we do for these places? Why do they matter? Our economic system is not making this primal urge of civilized people easy to resolve, and that's why we're all so uneasy.

Those who lack a place are uneasy because they might not find one. Those who have a place, whether it's a nice house in the suburbs or - as with myself - a little plot in the country, we fear that it will all come crumbling down. For these small town residents losing their post offices that's what is happening.

So it is all over the nation.

And so we must take back our homes, not from any particular people as might be suggested by some, but from the machinery of our world that informs us, though human minions, that such places and people like us have no value. Scratch the angriest liberal or conservative in rural Minnesota and you would find similar fears. Let's not dwell on differences. Let us unite behind the last things we share. Our places and our cultures. Our hopes that a child born here can make good someday.

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Aug. 14, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

Enjoy a delicious ‘Somewhat Pleased Meal’
By Aaron J. Brown

After last week’s diatribe about body mass problems it shouldn’t surprise you that my family goes to McDonald’s sometimes. The fast food giant has been in the news recently for its decision to change its ubiquitous Happy Meals. The new kids’ meals will still include a toy, but half as many fries and a small serving of apple slices standard with purchase.

Let us pause for a moment to consider that the most far-reaching plan ever enacted to combat America’s obesity problem boils down to the mandatory issuance of apples. And yes, fewer fries. But near as I can tell McDonald’s still plans to sell its delicious fries to any customer who demands them.

The company’s decision isn’t terribly surprising for the times. Worried about lawsuits and public relations, McDonald’s can now say they’ve tried something to combat the troubling levels of youth obesity found across America. Nevertheless, I wonder how well this will actually work.

One recent study in the journal Health Affairs shows that the cost of eating healthy foods is considerably higher than eating less healthy foods. Among other things, the Seattle-based research showed a significant decline in food costs for every 1 percent increase in fat and sugar intake.

We know from experience that you can make a meal at home cheaper than a fast food restaurant, but amid challenging schedules fast food is often the simplest solution. Busy families or those in transition face this dilemma nearly every day. But to make a nutritionally-balanced meal at home, one in keeping with USDA recommendations, often puts the price at or above a fast food selection. 

You’ve probably seen the sales on cauldrons of cheese balls or oversized sacks of potato chips. Shopping for produce or other better choices might be possible for many people, but less so for people around the poverty line. The junk is cheaper, plain and simple. It’s possible to eat healthily on a small amount of money (just ask my wife, a frugal living blogger who writes about this all the time). But doing so is not easy and the skills involved aren’t built in.

It’s essentially a market problem. If you believe that America is a land of supply and demand, a capitalist system, you must accept that our economy rewards perhaps even requires poor nutrition. McDonald’s itself is a blue chip stock, part of most 401(K) plans. We need that stock to do well and as much as you’d like people to buy salads when they go there, they don’t. I’ve had the salads. They’re pretty good. But holy mother of everything, have you tried the double cheeseburgers. They cost less than $2!

On a lighter note, I was surprised to learn McDonald’s is the world’s largest distributor of toys. They certainly are the largest distributor of toys I find behind the couch. Right now you can get a Smurf in your Happy Meal. Before that they had the Star Wars toys.

Over a series of successive weeks our three boys managed to gather quite a collection of McDonald’s Star Wars light sabers. But here’s the catch. One light saber is retractable. One lights up. Another makes the “bwoow nyaawww” sound. No one light saber does all three things. This makes for an interesting, if confusing introduction to the Star Wars cannon.

We tried to reinforce how to use the light sabers by showing the boys the original Star Wars last week. Our oldest boy wasn’t paying attention and our youngest twins only fully realized how scary Darth Vader is (very scary.) They made me turn off the movie when he was using the Force to squeeze the neck of an Imperial officer. So as far as they know he’s still out there, doing that.

The Star Wars experience, coupled with the new Happy Meals, only shows that efforts to influence the markets of human activity don’t always turn out as planned. Here’s to some healthy eating. Somewhere.

Aaron Brown is a writer and instructor at Hibbing Community College. He is the author of the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and the book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

91.7 KAXE's "Between You and Me" this Saturday morning explores the topic of road trips. I'll be joining the discussion with a personal story about how road trips have both augmented and derailed my love life. Good times.

"Between You and Me, a call-in and music program, highlights the voices of northern Minnesota and runs from 10 a.m. to noon on 91.7 FM in the region or streaming live all over the world at www.kaxe.org. Audio is archived at the KAXE website and syndicated through PRX, Public Radio Exchange.

Speaking of new ventures, I'm thinking of starting my own fantasy football league this year. It's hard to say why I enjoy fantasy football. I think it's because it's one of the few traditional male activities that I enjoy and can use to relate with men who are married to women I work with. What should I call my league? Is it possible to have a serious league that is also ironic or avant garde? I think this league is in trouble already.

If you're interested in my league, let me know.

By the by, TC Huddle is a Minnesota sports blog. I've been reading it these last few days and have to say they do a nice job. Check them out.

I'm taking some needed family time the next few days but have a couple big announcements before I do.

First, I've learned that I'll be speaking at the TEDx 1,000 Lakes Conference in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, at the Reif Center on Monday, Sept. 19. I'll be taking many of the ideas you read here at the blog and turning them into an entertaining short presentation that I think you'll like. These TED talks are delivered and streamed live, and beamed out to a online audience. All of you can watch, no matter where you are, though a couple hundred folks will be there in person. The theme of the event is "Expanding Opportunity" with a focus on northern Minnesota's future.

Further, I am very much in the midst of producing a live radio variety show for 91.7 KAXE on Saturday, Oct. 15 at the Hibbing Community College theater. This project represents a long standing ambition of mine. With cuts, losses and the ongoing economic malaise of our times, I am fighting back with songs, music and comedic sketches. Watch out.

There will be more discussion of these events in the future. It's shaping up to be a very challenging but exhilarating autumn for yours truly. It all looks so pleasant now before my semester begins at work, but I'm sure we'll be touch-and-go for a time next month. Thank you all for reading and supporting my work. I could not do this without you. 

The first ever Doc "Moonlight" Graham Days event starts today in Chisholm. This is a new take on the classic Iron Range summer festival concept, with arts displays, performances, a street dance, car show and Saturday parade. Find the full schedule at the Chisholm Chamber's events page.

Longtime Chisholm doctor Archibald Graham, known locally as Doc, was brought to fame after his 1965 death when author W.P. Kinsella explored Graham's short career in major league baseball in his 1982 novel "Shoeless Joe," which was made into the Kevin Costner movie "Field of Dreams in 1989.

In Kinsella's original novel, the character James Earl Jones plays in the movie was a fictionalized version of the author J.D. Salinger, actually named J.D. Salinger in the book. Kinsella visited Chisholm the way the farmer Ray does in the book, visiting with longtime Chisholm newspaperwoman Veda Ponikvar, who provided the inspiration for the editor character in the book and movie. Ponikvar revisited the Graham story recently for the Hibbing Daily Tribune and Chisholm Tribune Press (subscription link).

In essence, the story is about an unlikely farmer who feels a spiritual call to build a baseball field in the corn, restore the tarnished reputation of "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, rescue an author from his isolation, reopen the hopes of a long dead community doctor, and repair his relationship with his own dead father, all of whom just wanted their boyhood dreams back. It's a marvelous book and Kinsella is a deeply underrated writer. I still recall reading "The Iowa Baseball Confederacy" and many of Kinsella's short stories, most of which are about baseball or the indigenous peoples of North America.

Anyway, Doc "Moonlight" Graham Days are Aug. 10-13 in Chisholm and I can't think of a better name for a summer festival.

You may have noticed the crumbly, jumbly economic news lately. Between the huge Wall Street stock selloff over the past few days or the general stagnation of growth and employment as our population grows and costs rises, we've got problems in America, sure. And we've got specific problems here in northern Minnesota, but not the ones many would predict.

Iron Range mines are running a stable and healthy level of production, as illustrated by this Dan Kraker story for Minnesota Public Radio. Demand for raw materials, here and abroad, is holding with supply and people are working in the pits and plants of Range mines, still our largest employer here.

Nevertheless, the economy of northern Minnesota's Iron Range doesn't seem good. It seems OK at best, and that's highly situational (Situation being what's going on in your own wallet or purse). People in the service sector are strained. Private sector manufacturing is volitile, waiting to see what orders come from the successful mines and if there's any work to be found elsewhere. And the public sector in northern Minnesota will be facing massive layoffs over the next year, which will severely depress the middle class in this region, probably throughout the state.

The important takeaway for northern Minnesota and the Range is that the days when the success of the mines solely dictated the success of the region are over. Mines will remain major industry and a key indicator for a long time, but will not generate the prosperity seen in Iron Range past without help from other sectors and independent leadership and innovation from people in the region.

So much of life on today's Iron Range is watching middle aged people long for the Uncle Rico time machine that takes us back to the '70s, when the taconite plants overflowed with well-paid, relatively unskilled labor. In reality, today's taconite plants (and the proposed copper-nickel mines, for that matter) will run smaller and more efficiently, with "good" jobs but fewer to go around.

As our communities bargain with mining companies for jobs, remember that these companies cannot promise the regional stability of the past, even as they become more fiscally stable and profitable than at any point in history. There, in summary, is a sampling of our larger economic problems.

We begin the week with some Iron Range stories that you might have missed if, like me, you've spent the last couple weeks trying to find a historical precedent for what's going on in America (hint: noooooooo!)

The annual Great River Energy Mesabi Trail Tour is next weekend. The ride spans from Chisholm to Grand Rapids with different start points along the way. This is a great way to see the western Mesabi Range and the towns near where I live. The Mesabi Trail is just wonderful, a living tour of Range mining history, railroading, natural beauty and old machinery left to rust. It's a challenge and a joy, just like living here.

Gov. Mark Dayton will hold this fall's annual Governor's Deer Opener event on the Range near Biwabik, Minnesota. The governor's fishing opener was held in Grand Rapids last spring, so this will be quite a year for Range-area towns vis a vis the governor wearing custom t-shirts on site.

Iron Range rock 'n' roller Paul Metsa has a book coming out. I learned in this story he once played Siberia. One thing about being from the Iron Range is that when someone says "Siberia," you say "Hmm. I'd kind of like to see that." I would gladly take a gig in Siberia if they wanted to know more about the Range. I'd find out that there's parts of Siberia that are more like America. They'd find out that there's parts of America that are more like Siberia. I've got the wardrobe for this.

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Aug. 7, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

Body of work best displayed with shirt
By Aaron J. Brown

After a long, hot summer I might be tan but I’m not taut. I read somewhere not to fret about your appearance in a mirror because of the bad lighting, unfortunate angles and your own hypercritical eye. Then my wife took a picture of me in the lake with my kids and I realized that the compact fluorescents in the bathroom had been doing yeoman’s work.

This issue is on my mind because in just one week I will be taking my family to a water park. This is the kind of water park where they also allow other people to enter the water park. These people will not know how clever or likeable I am. They will only see that my upper body resembles a terribly-designed, half-melted candle made by apathetic summer campers.

I’m in my 30s now and people talk about the aging process robbing us of our youthful build. I can claim no such theft. I’ve had the upper body of a 50-year-old Russian playwright since I was about 13 years old. I grew up the fat kid ordering slacks out of the husky catalogue. Then I lost a bunch of weight after college before getting fat, thin and then fat again over a 10 year period that included the birth of my three sons. I lost 20 pounds last spring and it’s a summer solstice miracle I haven’t gained it back what with all this ice cream and grilled meat around here.

Without getting into too much detail, my upper body resembles some sort of impressionist portrait of an elderly immigrant woman walking home from the market. I don’t mean that my chest resembles that of an old woman; I mean that my chest resembles the entire body of such a woman head to foot, rumpled and sun-starved, rolling shapes of uncertain origin. A stern expression with chin stubble stares out from the top, years of neglect and hard living cascade below, something only her dead husband has ever seen.

As you can see from the picture my face is OK, sort of like a mid-market weatherman’s face. I have decent legs from walking and a previous stint as a runner. When I was down at my ideal weight a few years ago my upper body was somewhat less appalling, but only slightly so. My ability to stay under “the deuce” is the only thing keeping this problem from spreading up to my jowls and down to my otherwise serviceable caboose. This is a constant struggle.

I can’t absolve myself of responsibility here. I eats some. I tried lifting weights back in college but overdid it and lost arm function for several days. This is just an excuse, but one that has carried the day. I could take a class, find a trainer, work my way up in repetitions and resistance, but here’s this. Am I going to put “lift weights” on my day planner to-do list? Am I a guy that’s going to do that, and talk about it with other people, like it was something I enjoy? I am not.

But this water park situation is real. It is happening and now I wish I weren’t some overfed malcontent who took to books before puberty. I wish I had learned engines with my dad, lifting heavy blocks up and down into big trucks and cranking big things – What ARE those things?! – up and down with beefy arms that appeared when I was 15 instead of self-doubt. Then, even if I ate all the food, my fat would be in a big masculine drum around my middle so that people could see that I merely let myself go.

Instead I must don my swim trunks and deal with reality. I will pay admission to the water park with dollars earned through sedentary scholarship and wade in with a body built on the same. Behold, people of the nation, the true price of life in low light behind a blinking cursor!

Now, excuse me while I do sit ups until I black out.

Aaron J. Brown is a writer and community college instructor who lives north of Nashwauk. He is the author of the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and the book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range.”

Tonight WDSE Channel 8, the PBS station in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, announced that beloved retired WDIO Channel 10 (ABC) anchor Dennis Anderson will assume duties as the new co-host of Almanac North. This is a weekly news magazine that does a fine job of exploring the region's headlines. It serves in the shadows of the larger TPT Almanac program in the Twin Cities, but you'll enjoy the quirky charm of a less shiny set.

Anderson, the most recognized and respected TV journalist in the region's history, will be a superb co-host with Julie Zenner. He replaces Darren Danielson, who took his old job at WDIO. Denny gets one more of these before he gets the Favre label.

This week on "Between You and Me" on 91.7 KAXE, guest host Julie Crabb engages the people of northern Minnesota in a conversation on youth sports. I join the program with a short commentary on my time as a sacrifice-only, middle relief right fielder in youth baseball. I think you'll enjoy it.

"Between You and Me" is a call-in and music show celebrating the voices of northern Minnesota. You can hear it from 10 a.m. to noon on 91.7 FM in the region and streaming live all over the world at www.kaxe.org. The show is archived at KAXE and syndicated for public radio stations at PRX.

Someone sent me this Salon.com article by David Sirota, "Is the Internet for elites?" The subhead caught my eye, too: "A new study finds some truth in a favorite GOP talking point: Much of the Web is a 'playground for the affluent.'"

I'd argue that to some degree America is a playground for the affluent, and always has been. We are a teeming mass of affluence and ambition for affluence. Always have been. History happens when larger groups seize some of that affluence for themselves. There is always resistance. And so it goes.

Sirota plays with the wording here. He's obviously sympathetic to the possibilities of the Web in our economic, political and cultural systems, but points out some of the practical realities of today's Internet. If you're an active content producer on the Web today you're probably college educated, you probably have some free time in your schedule, and you probably use the Internet as part of a self-identification process. Many of the arguments generated online are petty, divorced from the realities facing the vast majority of Americans who aren't participating and certainly aren't reading these words here, these ones here right now (also this word here: "self-indulgent." That is one word because of the hyphen).

I'd suggest reading the article for yourself. You all know I push the Internet -- its open access and use for innovation -- as a major economic solution for rural areas like mine in northern Minnesota. But I concede that we are still sorting out the way the Internet can actually benefit all the people. I don't believe the solution is to hold off from internet innovation, but rather to find ways to further democratize the Web.

If you have preschool boys in America you know all about Thomas the Tank Engine. I have three boys who've grown up with this talking train, his friends and the odd human controllers who interact with them on the vaguely British Island of Sodor.

Have I written about this before? Yes, I have. A time or two. I've got all kinds of opinions on Thomas, ranging from which narrator is best (Alec Baldwin) to the repetitive nature of Thomas plots (all of them require the trains to locate some sprawling back story on a tiny island that inexplicably no one had talked about it in the 60 years leading up to it.)

But this is getting real. Starting this weekend, Thomas the Tank Engine is in my area code. He'll be appearing at the Duluth Depot the next two weekends, Aug. 5, 6 and 7 and 12, 13 and 14.

My family will be attending one of the days. I've managed to skip nearly all political events held in this region in 2011, but skipping Thomas is not an option.

On this date in 1923, Warren Harding, an amiable, if corruptible president who sometimes questioned his own abilities to govern, died of a heart attack in San Francisco. Vice President Calvin Coolidge was sworn in during the night by his own father, a notary public. On this same date in 1928, President Coolidge became the first chief executive to visit Minnesota's Iron Range, the only to do so outside the context of a campaign.

I made a wonderful online find, a Time Magazine account from August 1928 of Coolidge's visit to the Range as he wrapped up his presidency. I encourage you to read it.

My favorite legend of the Coolidge visit to the Range comes from his Hibbing stop, mentioned briefly in the Time story. In the story he climbs a new viewing stand overlooking the Hull Rust Mine. Local historians have told me that many expected Coolidge to give a speech at the Hull Rust to inaugurate the new viewing stand and commemorate his historic visit. But the understated Coolidge, known to history as "Silent Cal," merely watched the shovels and trains, turned and said, "That's a pretty big hole," got back in his car and left for Virginia, Minn., where he was presented with animal pelts.

Coolidge kept a summer office in Superior, Wisconsin, near where Iron Range ores were loaded onto lakers for eastern steel mills. No American president has ever personally witnessed as much of the Range economy as Coolidge.

Harding, Coolidge and their successor Herbert Hoover topped the GOP ticket during the golden age of Iron Range Republicanism. In the 1920s GOP headquarters could be found in the Delvic Hotel on the corner of Hibbing's First and Howard, when Mayor Vic Power was the progressive Republican favorite to be Minnesota's governor someday. Powers's own girth and heart disease prevented this from happening when he died just two years before Coolidge's visit. (The '20s would have been very different with modern heart medicine).

During the early 20th century political records show the Range as a GOP stronghold. Logging camps would report unanimous Republican returns, same as many mining locations. The Range's merchant and professional classes were almost all Republicans, either conservative or progressive. A handful of farm-country transplants or Catholic immigrants would have composed the Democratic minority of this era.

But once the Depression hit the region began to change. For one thing, a massive generation of working class immigrants gained enfranchisement as they toiled in dangerous mines for low pay. Unemployment and the New Deal rather suddenly turned many against the merchant Republicans in Range towns. In the '30s, the Range drifted toward Roosevelt and the Democrats in presidential years and the populist Farmer-Labor party in local races. After the first successful labor strikes of the 1940s and the consolidation of the Democratic and Farmer-Labor parties into today's Minnesota DFL, Range Republicans entered a minority status they've held since.

In 2010, Republican Rep. Chip Cravaack won northeastern Minnesota's 8th Congressional District in an upset over Iron Range DFLer Rep. Jim Oberstar. Cravaack did better on the Range than any Republican since the '40s, but he didn't come close to carrying it. You have to go all the way back to Silent Cal and the Hull Rust, the Crash of '29 and Hoovervilles to see a time when Republicans held the Range. I'm not sure even Republicans would want to do that.

The patterns replay over time. The shovels run and then they stop and then they run again. New viewing stands are erected every couple of decades for various dignitaries. Big shots give speeches while the people wait for something significant to be said. Watch the shovels. Watch the trucks. The hole is pretty big. The hole gets bigger every year.

(Photo: President Calvin Coolidge, Mrs. Coolidge, and John Coolidge in their car driving through Hibbing, Minnesota, during visit to the ore mines. Behind them is the Northland business car of the Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railroad. New York World Telegraph and Sun photo collection, 1928, Library of Congress).