This hasn't been a great week for blog content but I will give you a hint at some of the things I'm working on. Naturally, Item #1 has been the Great Northern Radio Show coming up Saturday, Oct. 15 on the stage of Hibbing Community College and live on 91.7 KAXE.

I'm also working on a column or longer blog post related to high speed internet issues. After my TEDx talk early last week, I've been fielding some questions about the topic. I'm working on a piece related to the business of fast internet -- how it's could be extended to wider audiences, made faster and why all that matters to the economy of the future.

This is a weird mix of topics, so I'm not doing a good job sharing everyday Iron Range news these days unless you count massive, obvious fires. Send items along if you have something I've missed.

Tune in 10-noon this Saturday morning for the 91.7 KAXE call-in and music program "Between You and Me." I'll be offering up a new commentary along this episode's theme of "My Perfect Day." This is actually an impromptu speech prompt I give my public speaking students, so it surprised me that the answer was as hard to find as it was. In short, if you keep good control of your definition of "perfect" you can have a lot of perfect days. Also, jokes and a continuation of this year's ongoing theme of my growing estrangement from the human species despite my need for human approval.

Tune in 10 a.m. to noon on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming live and archived at www.kaxe.org. "Between You and Me" is a radio gem in the north woods and available to other public radio stations through PRX.

I'm pleased to announce...

KAXE's Great Northern Radio Show set for live radio debut Oct. 15
Public radio variety program highlights northern Minnesota talent, culture

HIBBING, Minn. (Sept. 28, 2011) -- Old time radio and new media combine on an Iron Range stage for the live broadcast premiere of 91.7 KAXE's Great Northern Radio Show Saturday, Oct. 15.

The Great Northern Radio Show features music, storytelling, comedy and the excitement of an unpredictable live radio show. The 5-7 p.m. program will be performed on the stage of the Hibbing Community College theater, broadcast at 91.7 FM and live streamed at KAXE.org. Admission to the show is free with seating before 4:30 p.m. Free will donations to KAXE or membership pledges will be accepted but are not required.

The program is a local, original production of KAXE-Northern Community Radio, the Grand Rapids-based community radio station serving northern Minnesota, including Brainerd, Bemidji and the Iron Range. This show borrows from the format of A Prairie Home Companion and the storytelling of This American Life for a new sound based in northern Minnesota culture and Iron Range sensibilities.

The Great Northern Radio Show is produced and hosted by author and commentator Aaron Brown. Brown's book "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range" won the Northeastern Minnesota Book Award. His creative nonfiction blog MinnesotaBrown.com was an Editor's Choice in this year's WCCO Minnesota Most Valuable Blogger awards. He teaches communication at Hibbing Community College.

“Our first show is entitled “Hard Time Good Times,” said Brown. “We’re going to be celebrating the Iron Range, most notably the region’s resilience and lengthy experience in weathering bad economies through art, music and humor.”

Musical acts for the show include the Duluth jug band "Da' Elliott Brothers," performing original and traditional tunes. Virginia's Pete and Jack Pellinen present Finnish folk music on guitar and mandolin. Hibbing H.S. senior and HCC student Iris Kolodji will be a featured soloist on some surprise numbers, including the guitar accompaniment of Mitchell Zubich.

Noted regional storyteller Ed Nelson from the Grand Rapids Forest History Center will spin a new yarn about the old Range. Original comedy sketches and a full radio drama will be presented featuring the Great Northern Radio Company of writers and actors, who hail from across the region. Big surprises are also in the works.

“This will be a wonderful show to hear on the radio, but the appeal for those who attend in the theater will be a remarkable view of a complex live broadcast,” said Brown. “The audience will really be an important part of the show’s success.”

The Great Northern Radio Show is underwritten by the Iron Mining Association of Minnesota. KAXE is a nonprofit independent public radio station. The Great Northern Radio Show will be podcasted after it is broadcast on the radio and internet.

For more information call KAXE at 218-326-1234 or go to www.kaxe.org. 

The people of the Iron Range town of Babbitt are figuring out what to do after the devastating fire that took Zup's Grocery, the drug store and damaged several other downtown businesses last weekend. Northland's NewsCenter had a story, which I am sharing because of their handy embed capabilities.

This is my talk from last week's TEDx 1,000 Lakes Conference at the Reif Center in Grand Rapids. Enjoy!



UPDATE: You can watch the whole conference, speech by speech, here. There were some great talks that day. I'll post more with some context in the near future.

Sometime it's informative to see how others see the places and institutions you live every day. To that end, the Duluth News Tribune recently ran a story from the Times of Northwest Indiana (covering Hammond, Gary and surrounding areas). The story runs over some familiar territory, showing how Duluth faces many of the same struggles of other Great Lakes cities but has found some unique ways to spur growth. The story is worth a read, but a particular line caught my attention.

Then there’s the “(expletive) cold,” said Charlie Stauduhar, owner of Spirit Lake Marina & RV Park, describing the weather in winter and other seasons.

Winter ... and other seasons. And the writer's hand is tipped.

I'm sorry, I have to vent on this. I know the winters get cold here in northern Minnesota. Colder than, for instance, those in Gary, Indiana. But it gets hot in the summer. Fall and spring are somewhere in between.

We live in a temperate climate with four distinct seasons. The cold makes us wish for the hot. The hot makes us wish for the cold. The rest is unpredictable. But that does not make it cold all the time.

When you live in northern Minnesota you can walk outside and now exactly which part of the year is spinning past you, as your mortal boulder rolls down from the moutaintop. We are aware of the futility of fighting time. I find this to be comforting. Buy a coat.

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Sept. 25, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

Fly with the birds By Aaron J. Brown

A couple years ago some sort of swallows built a nest beneath our deck out in the woods north of town. We looked up the birds in a special book. I could try to tell you what species they were but not with any authority, nor without abandoning all readers who aren’t avid birders. And now the birders have their pens out, ready to correct my errors of which there will be many. Giblets. Plumage. I am not ready for this.

Regardless, each summer since these birds laid several batches of eggs. As many as nine birds hatched out of this nest this summer, with another half dozen out of a little auxiliary nest built in a nearby tree, we think by a relative bird – maybe a cousin or ex-lover. Some kind of drama there, but we stay out of it.

The birds, eggs and nests were a big deal for our three boys throughout this last season as they provided plenty to check on every day. We seldom saw the mama or papa birds around, though they did flit through on occasion.

“They must be scared of us. Now their eggs won’t hatch, because they aren’t sitting on the nest.”

This is a real thought I expressed verbally to adult people, a vestigial inaccuracy from first grade and the chicken incubator and “Are You My Mother?” In truth the eggs did hatch without the mother sitting on them all the time because SERIOUSLY, THIS IS NATURE.

Now I’m going to take you back in time again to when I was a kid and my parents finally let me have a hamster. We went to the pet store in Eveleth, the one that burned down just like the pet store in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure did. Mom insisted on getting a boy hamster because they don’t have babies. We bought a boy hamster and a couple weeks later I was walking by the cage and WHAM, there was all this ham laying around. “M-m-mom! The hamster found ham somehow?”

Of course, the hamster did not find ham. It was a rogue female and the ham was babies. I tell this story to show that the Hollywood images of the natural world that dominate the minds of TV-era American children belie the reality that baby hamsters look like ham and so do baby birds, except with beaks.

So over the summer the ham-birds grew feathers and, honestly, did almost nothing the whole time. Every hour or so an adult would stop for a moment. The baby birds didn’t say anything, just feebly arched their necks upward when they heard something, flopping their heads back down if it was anything except a larger bird with food.

After a while they looked like furry ham. But then one day I’m mowing the lawn and I see these birds stumbling around the edge of the nest, looking like the kinds of things hawks would eat.

“Well, that’s neat,” I thought. They’ll be flying soon. By the end of the day they were all gone. Just plain gone. Never came back. More eggs showed up a few weeks later and another batch of birds. A little while and they were gone, too.

With the fall, birds from all over the continent pour through our property on their way south for the winter. We furiously page through the bird book trying to keep up with it all, usually in vain. It did strike me that so many of the birds we saw were headed not just south but WAY south over the border and beyond. Those hapless, flaccid birds from under our deck will see Mexico probably decades before I ever do.

I want to say, BIRDS! I caused that deck to be built and allowed your nest to stay there over two winters! I could have poured hot sauce on that ham pile and THEN where would you be? Birds? Big shot, traveling birds?

But I do not say this because after a moment of fuming, I realize with amazement that this is how it works, and it does work. It is me playing Angry Birds on my iPad that is unnatural. Surely, those real birds must have peered in my window, wondering how all that ham got in there.

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

A fire destroyed Zup's grocery store in the eastern Iron Range city of Babbitt early this morning. A drug store was also destoryed and other nearby downtown businesses were damaged. This is a terrible blow for this small Range town, essentially devestating the business community there. WDIO has the story and links to pictures. Range News Now is also following the story. If you've been over there today share your stories in the comments.

Saturday morning on 91.7 KAXE's "Between You and Me" we're talking comic books. I've contributed an original essay exploring a favorite cartoon and comic of mine from the late '80s and early '90s, a strange time for us as a people and me particularly.

"Between You and Me" is a weekly music and call-in show featuring featuring music, commentary and stories from you. You can listen from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming live and archived at www.kaxe.org.

The 2012 election in Minnesota's Eighth Congressional district could become the more significant contest in the region's political decade. The conservative swing seen in the 2010 election of Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN8) could be solidified with his re-election. Or the GOP trend could be repelled with the election of a DFL challenger. Still more, this could all be made irrelevant if the courts draw an entirely different district.

My recent MN-8 series explores the background. The news over the summer has been repetitive. Chip Cravaack is acting exactly like a freshman incumbent in a tough district, crisscrossing the media markets and raising money. He had a notable political setback with his family's decision to co-locate to New Hampshire. Generally speaking DFLers are hungry to campaign against him, even if the race has yet to attract a clear frontrunner. Mostly though, Cravaack's style is where we left it in '10: almost always more conservative than the MN-8 index, but disarmingly charming to anyone who isn't a DFLer.

On the DFL side, three candidates have announced. First there's former St. Cloud area State Sen. Tarryl Clark, who moved to Duluth to run for the seat. Then there's Duluth City Councilor Jeff Anderson, an Ely native who has worked in advertising for a popular radio station in Duluth. Finally, former U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan of Crosby jumped in the race this summer, ending a self-imposed 31-year exhile from elected politics after a second career in business.

These candidates all have strengths and weaknesses and, really, no one can properly gauge their support until they are tested somehow in debates, delegate acquisition and what appears to be an inevitable DFL primary.

Clark has been running a boilerplate campaign in every imaginable way. She moved into the district to run for the seat in the traditionally solid-DFL district after losing badly to Michele Bachmann in MN-6. Rather than talking much about the reasons why, she's focused her message on the DFL platform, heavy on Social Security and labor issues, acting as though the "carpetbagger/packsacker" tag won't stick come next year. Interesting hypothesis. She's raising more money than the others, though, and seems poised to raise even more if she starts winning labor support, which is still possible. Having run a virtually nonstop Congressional campaign for three years, Clark seems to give every indication she'll plow forward to a DFL primary where she'll run aggressively and probably have some support.

But it would be dead wrong to call Clark a front-runner because the "packsacker curse" has not been tested in any competitive way. If she's utterly skunked at precinct caucuses or stumbles at a big event, she'd have little oxygen to continue. I'm looking forward to hearing how Clark addresses this in the future.

Nolan is the only candidate who's stated he'll abide by the DFL endorsement process. Though he's something of a surprise, outside candidate in some ways he's rapidly become the comfortable option for experienced political types in the district. Case in point would be the two endorsements he rolled out last week. Former State Rep. and current IRRRB citizen board member Joe Begich was the first to endorse him. Then former Chisholm newspaper publisher Veda Ponikvar, Iron Range cultural and political icon, endorsed him the next day.

Begich and Ponikvar were once "leading indicator" type endorsers who could portend other Range endorsements to follow, but both are not as involved in Range political circles as they once were. Nolan had previously announced the endorsements of retired State Sen. Becky Lourey, a hero to the party's progressive wing, and former Rep. Tim Faust.


Then yesterday Anderson announced two significant endorsements, State. Sen. Roger Reinert of Duluth and Rep. Carly Melin of Hibbing. Reinert and Melin are both relatively new to the legislature and emerged from the much more modern campaign style of our current age (I will call this the "Bush/Dean era" in honor of the politicians who brought this style to their respective parties).

These endorsements are compelling because Reinert and Melin much more closely represent the current political leadership of the region, but on the other hand the traditional, parochial politics of MN-8 will probably blunt their endorsement from having a lasting effect, except within their own inner circles. I wouldn't expect any other endorsements from sitting legislators in the near future, nor do I believe they'd influence what appears to be a very fluid process anyway.

Anderson is still undecided about whether he'd run without the DFL endorsement. That's the safe spot to be right now because there doesn't seem to be much consistency in grassroots organizing by anyone involved. Where the district's Republicans tend to be cut from a similar cloth, the district's Democrats include many stubborn, conflicting constituencies. This district has gone to a primary in every DFL nomination battle in the lifetime of most of its residents. Until very recently, DFLers had quickly reunited for the general election.

So, where are we now? Pretty much where we were in June. That's why I'm not losing sleep writing non-stop about this race yet. More candidates are likely to enter the race, particularly if they can deliver a compelling narrative or raise a lot of money quickly for a primary where 40 percent is a ceiling.

I just learned that Iraq war vet and Duluth-area DFL activist Daniel Fanning will be resigning his position as field coordinator for U.S. Sen. Al Franken this month. Fanning was a rumored candidate once before and I wouldn't be shocked if we end up calling his name as a candidate in this race before long. I've said before that he would qualify as a "dark horse" candidate, one who could do extremely well or extremely poorly depending on circumstances and the quality of his campaign.

That said I doubt Fanning, if he runs, would be the last entry in the race. I predict three to four credible candidates in a DFL primary, maybe up to five depending on how the endorsement plays out. I don't know who will step forward. I can only sense that there is an opening. The three announced candidates have a short amount of time to close that opening if they want an easier path to the nomination and a chance to run against the vulnerable but formidable Cravaack.

Fans of my column about the Black Hills/Connecticut cougar a couple weeks ago might appreciate that this summer another cougar was spotted heading east in view of trail cams across northern Minnesota and northern Michigan. The plot thickens!

On Tuesday, MinnPost's Doug Grow penned an interesting profile of the activities and attitudes of recently defeated former U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN8) as his former district girds for a new political fight in 2012. It's worth a read. Notably, he appears to be accepting retirement and vows to stay out of the 2012 race.

On that front, campaign news on the DFL side has been accumulating and I'll be preparing a new post on MN-8 for later this week. Rep. Chip Cravaack's people are still on speaking terms with me and have assured me that an interview with Cravaack is in the making later this year or early next. I expect to do interviews with DFL candidates sometime during the endorsement process next spring.

To reiterate my approach to this race, I'll rush "breaking news" to the blog if I think it means anything in the long run. Mostly, I'll be observing the gentle ebb and flow and offer periodic commentary on the trends. If you missed it, I recently wrote an easy-to-digest series about the race.

I'm still catching up from yesterday's wonderful TEDx 1,000 Lakes Conference in Grand Rapids. They'll be posting the videos early next week and I'll write a detailed post then with links to some of the great ideas I heard, along with my speech (for those who are interested). It was a marvelous event, owing much to its organizers, including members of the Blandin Foundation, area citizens, and particularly Becky LaPlant. I look forward to writing more about it soon.

Today, however, I am happy to share my latest commentary for Minnesota Public Radio, "Grandpa Taconite keeps the Range family together, for now." This is an expansion on my observance of the 56th birthday of commercial taconite production last week. I think I'm the first person ever to mention taconite in a TEDx talk and a MPR commentary within a 24-hour period.

Please, go to MPR's site and read the commentary, comment and share. It helps!

There's a lot going on in northern Minnesota and we'll get to it in due time. Today I'm speaking at the TEDx 1,000 Lakes Conference at the Reif Center in Grand Rapids, Minnesotta. The event theme is "Expanding Opportunity" and my speech is titled "Courage: Northern Minnesota's Untapped Resource." I'll be speaking in the morning and might tweet some in the afternoon, @minnesotabrown. I'm told that the live stream won't be functional but that speeches will be archived online within 10 days. You'll be hearing more about that in the future.

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Sept. 18, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A shorter version of this piece was broadcast Saturday on KAXE's "Between You and Me" program.

Nap supply never matches nap demand
By Aaron J. Brown

My boys are entering that early educational stage where the phased withdrawal of the afternoon nap has begun. Henry, the first grader, regards the institution squarely in the rear view mirror. Doug and George now begin their final preschool classes before kindergarten next year, the last curricular gasp of sleeping rugs.

Now, as with all great social changes, the absence of the daily nap in the boys’ lives has long been a practical reality. The idea of going into a room during the day, remaining quiet and sleeping for 45 minutes to an hour now seems absolutely insane to the boys, and the marked increase in parental insanity must surely be related.

The end of naps marks a tough transition for parents. You know, we’re not anything special: just giant baby-children who grew into hairy, misshapen adults, got jobs and mortgages, learned how to fake our way through conversations about insurance and/or relationships. Then one day, through means that are neither routine nor fully understood, actual babies become our responsibility. And during this time there is only one handhold on sanity for some, especially parents of twins such like we were, and that is naptime.

I hold so many memories of the time at home with a two-year-old boy and twin newborns. Actually, scratch that. I hold almost no memory whatsoever of this time. I remember diaper changes so frequent that they sort of blend into a never-ending diaper memory, a psychedelic array of colors and textures still stinking up a corner of my mind. I remember reading the final installment of Harry Potter on the midnight shift, learning how to bottle-feed a baby with one hand while turning pages on a 19-pound book with the other.

It was the time the kids napped that we got to wander around our house, doing grown-up things that no longer seemed as important as sleep, glorious sleep. Naps, glorious naps for all. And then they turned 2. And then 3. And now 4.

Whether it’s a formal nap or even the parental-enforced bedtime at night, it’s funny how kids resist the notion of sleep so forcefully as this age, and presumably several ages yet to come. It’s been several weeks since anything I would classify as a nap for myself and yet now, even now as I am writing this, I crave a nap. At the end of the year I catalog the great naps – a stolen hour of half-sleep while the football game was on without anyone changing the channel, the post-meal stupor, the peace of being home alone that one time.

The household member who gets the most naps is, without doubt, our dog Molly. This 10-year-old cairn terrier has staked out her own sleeping zones throughout the house, using them in some sort of ranked preference system based on the position of the sun. I’d say there is great wisdom with this one, if she didn’t spend six hours a day barking at a squirrel up a tree in our backyard, the squirrel yelling back and throwing acorns at her.

A final irony exists for those with insomnia, adults who seek sleep but cannot find it. I have known this Shakespearean twist at times, usually owing to anxiety or stress. How great the power of a nap, and how elusive naps can be. The small interruptions. The great noises. The endless pull of work and chores. I used to judge those who retired to a life of naps. Now I sometimes envy such a life, though I doubt my ability to achieve it.

In the sleep markets, which rise and fall with fluctuating demand throughout our life, the value of sleep is never as high as when you cannot have it.

Aaron J. 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." He speaks Monday at the TEDx 1000 Lakes Conference in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

I'm excited to announce that I'll be speaking this Monday at the TEDx 1,000 Lakes Conference in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. The event runs most of the day on the stage of the Reif Center for the Performing Arts. The theme is "Expanding Opportunity" and my presentation is titled "Courage: Northern Minnesota's Untapped Resource."

TEDx is a locally organized spin-off of the popular TED lecture series that internet people adore so much. I'm now told that efforts to stream the event live on the internet have hit a snag, and Monday's TEDx talks will be shared online a few days after the event. Nevertheless, a live audience will still be in attendance and I believe you can still get tickets. There will be live tweeting at #tedx1000lakes, of which I may partake @minnesotabrown.

The lineup of speakers shows an array of ideas about expanding opportunities for the future of northern Minnesota. Readers know this is a topic I visit often and I aim to provide a new twist in my presentation. I'll do my best but I'm glad this is an exhibition and not a competition as the others speaking on Monday are bringing some formidable ideas and talents with them. Watch online or in person and join the conversation.

This week on 91.7 KAXE's Saturday morning call-in and music show "Between You and Me," guest hosts Gail Otteson and Michael Goldberg explore the program's rotating topic of "Insomnia." I'll be on with my regular weekly commentary, an exploration of sleep and lack thereof as a parent of young children. It's funny and cute, of course. You can listen to "Between You and Me" from 10 a.m. to noon on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming live and archived at www.kaxe.org.

Today marks the 56th anniversary of commercial production of taconite pellets on northern Minnesota's Iron Range. The first pellets rolled off the line at the Reserve Mining plant at Silver Bay, generated from ore mined inland near Babbitt on the northeastern Mesabi Iron Range. Today this plant still operates as Cliffs Natural Resources' Northshore Mining.

Taconite mining, you might recall, replaced the rich natural iron ore mining that made Minnesota's Iron Range region famous, winning two world wars and industrializing the nation. Taconite is the reason there is still an Iron Range to speak of.

So if Iron Range-based commercial taconite was a person instead of a large-scale economic concept, this person would be 56 -- near the age of many actual local miners who now approach retirement. Additionally, new production and hundreds of permanent jobs are likely as soon as 2012, with the final permitting of an expansion at Keewatin Taconite and the ongoing construction of Essar Steel Minnesota's Nashwauk taconite mine facility. More controversial efforts to begin nonferrous mining in the region also provides some dramatic possibilities.

There's more to the story, though: factors that the region's leaders and citizens should take into account as the region's fortunes turn for the better. I've written about this for a piece I'll be sharing soon.

Etched into the woods north of many Iron Range towns is the faint outline of the trolley line that once spanned the mighty Mesabi iron formation, transporting workers from mine to mine, but usually from mine to the wet-and-wild city of Gilbert. (Gilbert would want you to know it is now a fine, upstanding small city that happens to have three solid city blocks of bars)

The rails and the original trolleys are gone, but the impact of the trolley remains. To date, seeing the Range through the windows of a trolley remains one of the best ways to connect to a past that weighs down today's Range with Faulkner-like force.

The Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm (nee Ironworld) has wrapped up its regular season of trolley rides on its closed loop from the museum to the Glen Location, but will continue offering special rides through the fall. The trolley they operate is similar to the ones that were used in the early 1900s on the Range. Our kids loved riding the trolley this summer, though if your kids are like ours you may have to tell them that they're riding on Toby from Thomas the Tank Engine.

The trolley will make a 6 p.m. run to historic Glen Location every Thursday at 6 p.m. and Saturdays at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. through October 29, weather permitting. Sept 17, 24 and Oct 1, Minnesota Discovery Center folk arts demonstrators will be at Glen Location from noon to 4 p.m. Glen Location walking trails are open to the public. Cookies and cider will be served around a campfire.

A kids’ pajama party on the trolley will be offered from 6-9 p.m. Thursday Sept 29. At 6 p.m. the trolley will depart to historic Glen location for milk and cookies and a bedtime story around the fire, returning to the museum at 6:40. The movie, “Molly, An American Girl on the Homefront” begins at 7 p.m. with popcorn. (Please call Stefanie at 218-254-1236 to register for this event).

Then, as Halloween approaches, the Discovery Center presents a Family Fun Trolley at 1 and 3 p.m. on Saturday October 22 and 29. Ride to historic Glen Location, meet the MDC folk arts demonstrators, make a special craft to keep, and listen to a "not-so-scary" story around the campfire.

For most of these events, general admission plus $2 per person for the trolley applies. Thursday night events have free admission. Call 800-372-6437 for details or check out mndiscoverycenter.com.

The big story in northern Minnesota right now is the raging Pagami wildfire in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in the state's arrowhead region. About 500 firefighters will be working by day's end to battle the 100,000-acre blaze which now threatens the region's tinderbox of timber blown down more than a decade ago. The Milwaukee Brewers had to close their retractable stadium roof because of the smoke from this fire and people as far away as Chicago can reportedly smell the fire.

This is already the biggest wildfire in Minnesota since 1918 and could become even larger because of the dry, windy conditions right now.


(Photo: Derek Montgomery/MPR)

Gov. Mark Dayton held a jobs summit yesterday in Virginia, Minn. Northland's News Center had the story:

Last year this blog attempted to become the authoritative source for sarcastic commentary about the Asian carp infestation of the upper Midwest. I do believe we were successful for a time before the fame and power sent us crashing back to earth.

It's been exactly one year since my last carp post. The carp czar has consolidated power. The lock-and-dam people stopped sending me their press releases and, after a while, the B-roll of Asian carp flying over the water surface of muddy Illinois river systems became too compelling for local TV stations to ignore. The market on Asian carp snark had bottomed out, until today.

Yesterday, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton held a "carp summit" calling for efforts to prevent the Asian carp from entering Minnesota. The carp czar was present. This can only mean that the state is now under the control of the carp czar!

On the other hand, Asian carp have eyeballs that are lower than their mouths. We must fall in line with the czar or enter league with the carp. This is no longer about party label. In this new world you will judged solely upon your tolerance for risk and your taste for uncooked indigenous fish spawn. I am not afraid.

This is a quick update to the post earlier about the Duluth News Tribune investigation into Excelsior Energy on the Iron Range. Citizens Against the Mesaba Project (CAMP) released a response that includes this tidbit:

The $1.46 million reported as spent on state lobbying does not include the $220,000 spent prior to 2005, or the amount spent in 2011 that will not be reported until 2012.

Other entities that received payment from Excelsior as consultants and/or attorneys also employed active lobbyists and made campaign contributions.

It is likely that the $98,775 reported for state and federal campaign contributions does not reflect all of the contributions related to Excelsior. Related contributions have been made to local party units, which often pass them on to individual campaigns. Also, it is common for contributions to be made by lobbyists known to be representing a particular entity, issue or project. In addition, family members of Excelsior's CEOs have been noted on relevant donor lists. 

The $1.8 $1.6 million in lobbying and donations documented by the DNT is probably just some of the money this company and its assigns have used to influence the political process, a sampling of the contributions that could be documented by the newspaper.

The local party unit factor is significant as I've sit on two DFL local party unit boards that have accepted Excelsior money. I don't believe that's included in the totals for the story.

No, nothing illegal. But this is a worthy consideration for those interested in bettering public policy and politics.

Peter Passi continues his Duluth News Tribune investigation into Excelsior Energy, the start-up company that has spent 10 years and $41 million in public dollars without producing local jobs or any electricity. Today's topic? The $1.8 million Excelsior and its officials have spent on lobbying and political contributions to state and federal officials of both political parties. Passi and the DNT have done a good job with this series, shedding light on serious policy problems while offering the company and local politicians significant space to explain themselves. Read the story. Do you feel reassured? Or do you think it's time to retool how the Range does economic development?

I wrote about this topic a couple weeks ago. Karl Bremer of Ripple in Stillwater had previously done a fantastic job reviewing Excelsior's lobbying and political spending.

On Tuesday, Sept. 13, Governor Mark Dayton will hold his fourth regional economic development summit on the Iron Range in Virginia at Mesabi Range Community and Technical College. The event will take place at 10 a.m. in the college theater (F-100).

Dayton is holding several such events around the state before hosting a larger statewide jobs summit in October. The event is open to the public.

Hotel housekeepers will compete in some sort of gladiator pageantry on the Iron Range later this Morning morning. There will be a color guard. And I do mean American flag, not laundry. So many feelings. Experience the press release with me.

Clean, fold and go for the gold!
Iron Range hotel hosts seventh annual Housekeeping Olympics

WHAT: The Hibbing Park Hotel will host the 7th annual Iron Range Housekeeping Olympics. Housekeeping teams from lodging properties across the Iron Range will participate in laundry folding, bed making and the popular obstacle course race.

The Housekeeping Olympics begins with a parade of competitors and official opening ceremonies, complete with a presentation of the flag by the American Legion Color Guard. The games include timed events in bed making and laundry folding and the grand finale and fan favorite: the obstacle course, where teams wind their way through a course with a maid cart. They have to zig-zag through a maze of cones, stop to scrub toilets and shower stalls, make beds and race to the finish line. A presentation of awards concludes the event.

The Co-Masters of Ceremonies this year are local entertainer Shannon Gunderson and Jim Currie, President/ CEO of the Laurentian Chamber of Commerce.

WHEN: Monday, September 12 at 11:00 a.m.

WHERE: Hibbing Park Hotel
1402 East Howard Street
Hibbing, Minnesota 55746

WHY: The Olympics are held in conjunction with International Housekeepers Week. Organizers say they’re a fun way to show appreciation for a job that often goes unrecognized. This annual tradition fosters friendships among employees of different hotels and businesses across the area.

MORE: More information can be found at http://www.ironrange.org.

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. 

Ten years, worse for wear
By Aaron J. Brown

Ten years ago this morning the thing on my mind as I walked to work was a photograph I'd just seen of me hosting a country music show at the Hibbing Community College theater that previous weekend. I was wearing a robin's egg blue polyester western shirt like Glen Campbell would have worn in his prime. I was also thinking about our puppy kindergarten class that evening. Our new puppy Molly badly needed some guidance.

On 9/11 I was the inexperienced editor of an afternoon daily newspaper on the Iron Range. We still had a composition department, guys who cut with scissors and pasted with adhesive. There is a difference.

It would be a busy day. Two planes hit the World Trade Center a few minutes before our deadline. Another hit the Pentagon. Another went down in a Pennsylvania field. About 3,000 people died. We put out a special edition. It was all so confusing then and I can't really say that time has helped.

That is true of many things these ten years. I was on desk when we invaded Afghanistan. Then we invaded Iraq. Each felt like pain medicine, temporary relief to larger, unresolved problems. And now the wars are still here, no relief in sight.

This year American forces killed Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11. While the emotions that followed sometimes ran dangerously hot, the sense of justice was palpable. That was last May, ancient history in the modern news cycle. Like all major news of the last decade – Afghanistan, Iraq, Election 2004, Hurricane Katrina, Election 2008, health care reform, the gulf oil spill, a Congress sent erratically in different directions – all it takes is a month or two and most have forgotten. Only those actually affected ever remember: the soldiers, the sick, the displaced, the poor, the forgotten. Their numbers are small but growing, one day to become a discontented majority. Those in power should fear this day but they arrogantly believe they can control us.

It’s long been said that topics to avoid around the dinner table include politics and religion. It now seems these topics are no longer avoidable, nor are they navigable.

How many family arguments have flared up these last ten years over politics, more virulent than before? People are having a more difficult time keeping friends of the opposite political persuasion. Facebook, Twitter and caustic political commentary sort us into camps that feed our hungry political id. Now there are studies showing that people are using political opinions as a primary indicator of romantic relationship success.

Don’t tell my great-grandmother, the staunch Pennsylvania Republican, that she erred in marrying my blue-collar Democratic great-grandfather. None of us would be here.

We’ve had two presidents these ten years. President Bush, despised by the left, created political conditions so unstable he allowed a political unknown to rise from nowhere to succeed him. President Obama, despised by the right, has struggled to apply textbook political theory to the mass media times of today. His strange name and background stokes so many emotions. The situation seems bigger than the president and none of the people running for his job seem any more capable.

Bush tried and Obama is trying to accomplish goals central to their different visions. Friendly congresses gave them the spending they asked for and none of the ways to pay for it. So here we are, living life on a credit card. Do not judge the politicians. So many of us, too, live this way. Our economy depends upon recklessness. All of us provide a steady supply.

It can thus be concluded that it is not our presidents that cause our woes, or even our feckless, indifferent Congress. Deep in the heart of this nation rests a hollow, empty feeling exposed by 9/11. It is the weight of age on a young nation that is no longer young. It is the resistance to sacrifice and thinking by generations raised to believe such things were no longer necessary. We had a great moment of unity. And we blew it.

To our credit, we are still here. In our hearts remain the capacity for love, forgiveness, charity and hope. We are strong enough to work and smart enough to plan. These elements will triumph if we let them. We must find a way to learn from this decade of 9/11. We must no longer deal in the shorthand of human experiences. We must confront reality, not reality television.

Aaron J. Brown is an instructor at Hibbing Community College. He is author of the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and the book "Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range."

It always amazes me that the crisp modern skyline of Minneapolis is contained in the same state as the ore dumps of the Range, my dirt road and the woods around my house. Today I'm down at the Midtown Exchange Building for the 2011 Minnesota Blogger Conference. I'll be researching ways to make this blog better. Mostly, though, I'm looking to learn more about the people who make up the diverse, prolific blogosphere of the great state of Minnesota, one of the best places in the United States to be a blogger.

9:19 a.m.: The keynote speaker is about to go on. I may chime in later with some thoughts on the morning sessions.

10:23 a.m.: I'm going to use this as example of how not to live blog for a future session. If you're remotely interested in this stuff, check out my Twitter feed or my Facebook feed (both of which you should follow anyway, reader pal!). I'm updating there.

The Iron Range Maidens roller derby team will host a Wisconsin team for a new "Grease"-themed bout next weekend on Saturday, Sept. 24. Christina and I attended their first home bout a few months ago and had a blast. I thought I knew what roller derby was when I went, but I learned that I didn't really understand what roller derby was. I still don't.

I don't just mean "the rules." I mean everything. 

IRON RANGE MAIDENS PLAY THE CHIPPEWA VALLEY ROLLER GIRLS

The Iron Range Maidens will be hosting their next home roller derby bout on Saturday September 24, 2011 at Hodgins-Berardo Arena in Coleraine. Pre-bout mixer begins at 6:30.

The Iron Range Maidens take on the Chippewa Valley Roller Girls of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Also participating in the bout are teams from Fergus Falls, Minneapolis, Moose Lake, Thunder Bay, Fort Francis and Jamestown, ND. The bout has a “Grease” theme, titled: SMACK TO SCHOOL: RIZZOS VS. SANDRA DEES. The audience is encouraged to come in poodle skirts and saddle shoes, ready to cheer on their hometown roller derby league.

The Iron Range Maidens are the area’s first organized, player owned women’s flat-track roller derby league. Formed in 2010 by a group of roller derby fans and enthusiasts, they strive to positively represent the greater Grand Rapids area by displaying superior sportsmanship, supporting their fellow teammates and giving back to the local community.

A portion of the proceeds of this bout will benefit Bridges Kinship Mentoring – an organization that encourages children and adolescents to achieve their greatest selves by connecting them with positive role models who can befriend, inspire, encourage and guide them.

Seating is limited and advanced reduced price tickets are available at Reed’s Drug, Clusiau’s Sales & Rental and online at brownpapertickets.com. Concessions and a full bar will be available throughout the event.

For more information on the Iron Range Maidens see www.grandrapidsrollerderby.com or find the Iron Range Maidens on Facebook.

My essay for this week's 91.7 KAXE edition of "Between You and Me" is about "my people." The show's topic is ethnicity. Guest host Linda Johnson will be taking stories from you, the listener, and playing great music. I'll have some amusing observations about my strange blend of Iron Range nationalities.

You can hear "Between You and Me" from 10 a.m. to noon on 91.7 FM in northern Minnesota or streaming live and archived at www.kaxe.org. The show and my individual essays are distributed to other public stations through PRX.

My wife the Northern Cheapskate (TM, not what I call her around the house) and I will be attending the Minnesota Blogger Conference in Minneapolis tomorrow. Thought it's perhaps self-indulgent, I may share some amusing thoughts about my foray into the dense, urban core of Minnesota's blogosphere on Saturday.

If you'll be there say hello. My years in the woods have ground my social mixing skills down to the kind of stump you could drive over with a lawnmower. Help me out.

The Grand Rapids Herald-Review is playing a hot hand. Their police reports, the style of which is local must-read material, included a couple gems this week:

Things that make you go "huh?" A man stripped at the laundromat in Bigfork, put his clothes in a washer, then went to the car wash to bathe. He was taken to an area hospital for evaluation and then released. Reported at 2:08 p.m.

Then, later

Thankfully all was well: The Grand Rapids Police Department received a report of a domestic argument at 4:07 p.m. It was not even close to an argument, but rather a couple being very cozy.

You can't beat the style of these things. They fill up a whole broadsheet page of a newspaper. Most of them relate to alcohol and violence, but every tenth or eleventh item is like these. These two here took place during the day. The after hours material is grimmer, but equally unusual.

A letter by Michael Burger ran in Wednesday evening's edition of the Grand Rapids (Minn.) Herald-Review declaring the organization of the Modern Whig Party. Burger cited the need to reconstitute the Whigs, defunct since 1856, because of partisanship in Washington and the Independence Party being a state party instead of a national one. He reminds us that Minnesota's first territorial governor, Alexander Ramsey, was a proud Whig. I've since learned that a similar letter was published in other Minnesota papers.

I've seen the Modern Whig literature online (logo at right). Something about seeing it printed in a bi-weekly newspaper in northern Minnesota reinforced the Herculean task facing any third party in America, even when dissatisfaction with the major parties is high. It is perhaps a fitting metaphor that it'd be the Whigs to try a reboot. They fell apart because of regionalism, internal disagreement and disorganization -- all barriers for any third party today.

On the other hand, is that a bigger barrier than the Democratic Party growing a spine, developing a plausible vision and organizing better? Is that a bigger barrier than the Republican Party becoming more tolerant to the new demographic and social reality of the United States or tamping down its current ideological radicalism? Those are both tall orders, too.

I do concede that I enjoy the owl.

Yesterday delivered a beautiful Labor Day in northern Minnesota. Forecasters predict a sunny, temperate early Fall week ahead. Today I waited with our oldest son as the bus came to take him to first grade. He's first on the route out here in the woods. I saw him pause at the first seat where he sat all last year before going back to what I presume is the first grader section. Change unfolds as it will.

There's a lot going on these days. I have to admit that the last few weeks of Range politics have been emotionally and intellectually exhausting. No, not unusual. I've just let myself get worked up more than I have in some time. With fall now darn near officially here, I focus on more exciting and certainly more useful activities, now listed in order:

• Fantasy Football draft on Wednesday. (Well, maybe they aren't all useful).
• Christina and I will attend the Minnesota Blogger Conference in Minneapolis on Saturday.
• On Monday, Sept. 19 I'll speak at the TEDx 1,000 Lakes Conference in Grand Rapids, to be streamed and shared online all over the world.
• On Saturday, Oct. 15 I'll host the first episode of the Great Northern Radio Show, a live radio variety program I'm producing for 91.7 KAXE. We'll broadcast 5-7 p.m. on the stage of the Hibbing Community College Theater as the showcase event of the independent public station's fall fundraiser.

I'll blog, of course, but you can see what's taking up most of my free time these days. Into the fall I'll resume coverage of the MN-8 congressional race, explore changes coming in political redistricting and, with any luck, report on some good news about the Iron Range.

It's interesting to see how Wisconsin officials are traveling to Minnesota's Iron Range Tuesday for guidance on mine regulatory issues surrounding the proposed Gogebic Taconite mine in northern Wisconsin. It's also interesting to see how the comments section of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel can so quickly resemble the back-and-forth of any northern Minnesota open forum held in the last five years. It's also interesting how "Gogebic" is converted to "Geologic" in spell check. What does all of this mean?

At 10:30 this morning they'll hold the 100th Farmer's Day Parade on the freshly repaved streets of Bovey, Minnesota. Bovey was bypassed in 2007 by the never-ending, never-complete expansion of the Cross-Range Expressway. City leaders have responded by installing a brickwork strip down the center of Old 169. Today they'll break in that street with horses, classic cars, candy, kids and high-stepping.

Today marks a century of Farmer's Day activities. Farmer's Day is one of the bigger Labor Day activities on the labor-friendly Iron Range, which might lead you to ask "Why is it called Farmer's Day?"

The western Mesabi iron range was settled under slightly different conditions than the central and eastern Iron Range. Loosely speaking, this is the part of the Iron Range located in Itasca County. Towns located along the iron formation in this area would remind you of most any Range town, from the age and proximity of the houses to the number of bars per capita to the ethnic names you might see on the businesses or commemorative plaques. While this is true, a large part of Itasca County was settled independently from Iron Range mining. Logging and paper making was and remains a big part of the culture and economy. Additionally, agriculture is stronger here than it is in the St. Louis County portion of the Range. Much of Itasca County doesn't identify with the Range at all.

I'm writing this from my home in Balsam Township. Even though I have a Bovey mailing address, I stand some 17 miles from today's parade route. There is a vast network of rural townships north of the western Mesabi that I am just learning after having moved out here six years ago. Balsam was once much larger and included modern Wabana and Lawrence townships, which now rest on the still-large Balsam's southern border. The eastern portion of Balsam where I live is more Finnish, more labor-oriented (or, now, more retired) and more influenced by the Iron Range. The western portion of Balsam was settled by farmers from the Great Plains some 100 years ago, displaced by weather or economic conditions. This is the part of Balsam located just north of Bovey. Bovey was once a thriving trade center for a lot of these west Balsam and other nearby farms. To this day people who live in west Balsam say "west Balsam" when you ask them where they live.

So that's why Bovey has Farmer's Day on Labor Day. I think it's a nice throwback to the state and region's farmer-labor tradition. Happy Labor Day, everyone! And Happy Farmer's Day, too.

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, Sept. 4, 2011 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. I hinted at elements of this column in a recent radio essay, but this is markedly different from what I broadcast.

My cougar town script is a cat-astrophy 
By Aaron J. Brown

On June 11, 2011 a mountain lion was struck and killed by a car in Milford, Connecticut, far from any place where big cats like this should be. Using DNA evidence, scientists concluded this summer that the cougar came from near the Black Hills of South Dakota and walked more than 1,500 miles before meeting its tragic fate.
 
The Star Tribune’s Jim Anderson confirmed that the cougar spent time in Minnesota, earning headlines and media attention back in 2009.

I am struck by this story. As a writer, I can just picture a (breakthrough!) novel or TV script from the concept. Unlike me, a midlevel multi-genre hack writer laboring a day job in the Midwest, this mountain lion went out and did something. Granted, the last part wasn’t so good for him, but he was living life!

If you strip away all the human emotion, you can imagine this big, young male cat striding east along waterways just outside congested human villages. Every place he sees is new. His mission is to seek, and because he seeks in crowded, dangerous pleases he never rests easy; he must always continue, until one day he is stopped by the cold paw of fate.

SCENE: The mountain lion leans up against a decorative rock in a suburban yard. It is the afternoon. Birds chirp. An animal control officer approaches.

OFFICER: Hey, kitty cat. You can’t be here.

COUGAR: (Draws cigarette from furry pocket, lights and puffs twice) You don’t even know where you are. Your tiny little mind can’t comprehend how big this world is, man. I aim to see what I please.

OFFICER: Are you going to move along, or do I have to take you in?

COUGAR: (Snuffs out cig, picks up knapsack) Your bullets are rubber, dude. Everyone knows. (Cue: acoustic pop song expressing angst, cougar is seen walking past industrial skyline as cars whiz by. Later he is seen in burnt husk of car, crying self to sleep).

It also works as a sitcom. What madcap adventures that cougar must have had on the way! Did he have a squirrel sidekick? He does now!

COUGAR: Nutty, why are you spending the last of your money on snacks?

NUTTY SQUIRREL: I know you said our next stop was Buffalo, so I thought I’d buy a bag of chips.

COUGAR: Why would you do that, Nutty?

NUTTY: Well, mom always told me not to eat Buffalo chips, so I thought I’d buy some here in suburban Pittsburgh. (laugh track)

Perhaps the cougar met an attractive lady cat whose sophisticated East Coast ways run at odds with his mountain upbringing?

ESMERELDA: Why you can’t last an entire dinner party without driving me up the walls?

COUGAR: Because where I’m from, dinner climbs up the walls and you have to go get it. Baby, I’m just trying to help! (Laugh track).

I know you’ve got your doubts, but this show will put up monster ratings among predators aged 4-9.

Each leg of the mountain lion’s journey provides a chance to include regional jokes and dialogue. I can already picture the episode in which the cougar challenges Adrian Peterson to a foot race to save the local youth center. And when that car runs the cougar over in Connecticut he can just wake up from a dream back in the Black Hills. That is much more palatable than reality, that this cougar’s death was sudden and gory, that his body was dissected by scientists and that his very life will forever be regarded as an oddity.

Maybe I’m just jealous. That cougar got people to notice him and he didn’t even have to finish a novel. Or a fully formed television script.

Maybe the cougar can sing pop songs? Or play funny cat videos he saw on the internet? The possibilities are endless. RIP, random mountain lion.

Aaron J. Brown is a writer who teaches communication at Hibbing Community College. He is the author of the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and the book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range."

After an emotionally taxing week discussing Iron Range political and economic development failures it helps to go into the long weekend with some good news.

Lee Bloomquist at the IRRRB "Rangeviews" blog highlights the success of two Iron Range Engineering students who won the Minnesota Cup student engineering prize for their generator that runs on multiple fuels. They win some seed money to commercially develop their idea.

A successful future on the Iron Range depends on these kinds of success stories. Congrats to Matt Hudson and Eric Schaupp and the Iron Range Engineering program at Mesabi Range Technical and Community College.

This Duluth News Tribune headline caught my eye: "Risk of dying is greater in the Northland."

If you live in northern Minnesota your chances of dying this year are apparently greater than in other parts of the state. Your risk of dying in your lifetime, however, holds with the state average, which is 100 percent.

It comes down to the old question, how would you like to die? Would you like to die peacefully in your sleep at a high-end active senior energy center in the metro or eating bacon and cleaning your gun at a house that is almost paid for? For a couple hundred thousand people north of the pine line that decision has been made. We thank you all for your concern.

To recap, the cold grip of death will ensconce each of us in due time. 

I'll be on the air with a new essay on 91.7 KAXE's Saturday morning program "Between You and Me," this time joining the show's theme of northern Minnesota resorts as they close up the summer season. My diatribe veers deeply into the fleeting nature of life, the aging process, the coming winter and, of course, makes these things gut-busting hilarious for you, the listener. That is the goal.

You can hear "Between You and Me" 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 individual essays are archived at KAXE and distributed for other public radio stations through PRX.

Tonight brings the final "Art in the Park" free live music show on the stage of the Minnesota Discovery Center amphitheater in Chisholm, Minnesota. All summer long the former Ironworld has been offering free shows, museum access and a live venue for local bands producing original music. Give it a shot if you haven't tried it yet.

Colmekill is on stage at 7 p.m. with Fifth Floor at 8.

Also, this weekend through Labor Day is the last time you can ride the trolley at the Minnesota Discovery Center for the season. You get to tool around in one of the old electric trolleys like the kind miners used to ride to Gilbert when it was the only wet town. They show you an old mining location. Boarding house. Giant shovels. Looms. Whatnot. All good. Tell the kids that it's Toby from Thomas and Friends and you'll have a fine time.