True knowledge in the north woods

This is my weekly Hibbing Daily Tribune column for Sunday, May 11, 2008. I archive my columns at my writing site.

True knowledge in the north woods
By Aaron J. Brown

The other day, my almost-three-year-old son Henry and I walked down to the lake to throw sticks, a favorite pastime of Henry’s and a ritual that has begun to grow on me. We normally throw rocks but our multiple April blizzards covered all the rocks with cold water. So we’ve been throwing sticks lately, different because they drift back to shore to be thrown again. You don’t get the satisfying “splunk” sound but the whole endeavor is much more sustainable, without the sharp rocks underfoot this summer. It’s kind of like driving a compact car instead of a Mustang. You get high off the ethos, not the pathos.

Henry is highly focused. I hope this means that in the future he will focus on kindness to others and getting a job after college, but for right now he focuses squarely on throwing sticks (or, in dry times, rocks) into the lake while Northern Minnesota’s natural world unfolds around us. On this one particular day, that world included loons.

You don’t realize how little you know about loons until you explain them to a toddler.

“Ducks!” said Henry.

“No, not ducks. Loons. They’re a little like ducks but, uh, different.”

“Ducks!” he repeated.

“No, loons. They’re Minnesota’s state bird. They’re black and white.”

“I throw sticks,” Henry concluded.

Four loons appeared in front of us. Two of them danced on the water, flapping their wings the way birds do in nature photographs in magazines I read at the clinic. Was it a mating ritual? I assumed the dancing birds were the males, but was it three males wooing one female or were these two pairs of loons fighting for habitation rights to the small lake by our house?

“Look, Henry. Those loons are dancing.”

“Ha,” said Henry. “Those ducks funny.”

I know people who know what those loons were really doing, but that’s the whole point. I wouldn’t know where to begin. Sure, I could stuff my brain full of loon facts only to be left with another question. What was that other bird that was swooping down at the loons on the lake, presumably protecting its nest near the shore? That bird has a name and story, too, as do all the other birds Henry and I saw that day. And you know, even after a lifetime in northern Minnesota, including a failed career in the Boy Scouts, a college botany class in which I received a B- and literally hundreds of observations by wily old timers, I still hesitate before identifying tree species.

Basswood? Plausible.

I know a lot of things. I know the historical dynamic of every presidential race of the 20th Century (the taller guy always wins, except when named John Kerry). I know the name of the talking horse from “Hot to Trot,” a movie starring Bobcat Goldwaith that I watched on VHS at my grandma’s house when it was a new release (Don. Just Don). And also know more than I should about adult contemporary hits of the 1980s and ‘90s thanks to a stint as an overnight disc jockey during high school. I know all these things and yet I did not know what those loons were doing on the lake last week. Not for sure, anyway. I would have traded hundreds of things that I know for that one thing I did not know at that moment.

We don’t know as much as we think we do. The more I learn, the more I realize that I don’t know much beyond the tip of my nose, if that. No one can teach this lesson better than someone young, short and curious. The very next thing I do after writing this sentence is to google loons. I need to know more about loons and most other things.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Contact him or read more at his blog: www.minnesotabrown.com.

Anzelc speaks truth on Mesaba boondoggle

In this Mike Jennings story rescued from last Saturday's edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune, my friend and colleague Tom Anzelc becomes the highest level public official to acknowledge the foolishness of the Mesaba Energy Project:

Efforts to sort out the legal and administrative tangle that has ensnared Excelsior Energy will continue next week, but Rep. Tom Anzelc says the right outcome is clear: It’s time to drop the idea of building a coal-gasification power plant on the Iron Range.

“I am more convinced than ever that this project is not in the public interest, that it does not have a willing purchaser of the power, that its location is suspect, and it flies in the face of the discussion in the country and in the world, frankly, of sequestering carbon,” Anzelc said Friday.

Backed by legislation meant to encourage innovative energy projects and funded by an array of government grants and loans, Excelsior’s proposed Mesaba Energy Project has run into opposition both locally and with the commission.

One telling blow came last August, when the commisson ruled that Excelsior’s proposed terms for selling the initial 603-megawatt output of its power plant to Xcel Energy would be counter to the public interest. The commission dealt Excelsior another defeat last month when it denied the company’s request for an indefinite stay on negotiations with Xcel aimed at persuading the giant utility to buy still more power from Xcel.On Thursday, May 8, the commission is scheduled to consider whether to place a deadline on further negotiations between Excelsior and Xcel. It will also take up a more complex question — whether based on its “clean energy” credentials and overall costs, Excelsior should be entitled to sell Xcel at least 13 percent of the electricity that Xcel provides its retail customers.

Read the whole story here. It includes State Sen. Tom Saxhaug repeating the old line on why people should go along with the project (Because electricity is important and stuff). Interestingly, Excelsior Energy's Tom Micheletti did not return calls for this story. After his desperate-sounding letter to the editor from last week, I wonder why not?

Buck up, Dollar!

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, May 4, 2008 Hibbing Daily Tribune. I archive past columns at my writing page. A shortened version of this piece also aired as a radio commentary on KAXE's "Between You and Me" yesterday. Go to http://www.kaxe.org/ and click into the archives if you would like me from the past to read this to you. Or just read what's below. That works too.

Buck up, dollar
By Aaron J. Brown

A dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to. The dollar is “weak” right now. That’s according to stern-looking smart people on those obscure financial channels up in the 8,000s on your cable or satellite service. I think the one guy was wearing suspenders and a bow tie. So it must be true. Money from other countries is forming a circle around the dollar in the dark alley of international currency exchange. The British pound brandishes a chain. The Euro sharpens its shiv. The loonie slaps a homemade club against its palm. Even the hapless peso laughs menacingly at our weakened dollar while the yen burns holes in George Washington’s face with its eyes.

As much as I’d like to fake my way through a discussion of international currency, what I really want to talk about is how far we can make a dollar go during these tough economic times. Can a dollar get us through breakfast? Can a dollar sprout wheels and get me to work? No, but a dollar can win me a rifle in a Cub Scout raffle. What does that say?

We have to keep matters of currency in perspective. I may not be an expert but I have observed that what we perceive as “a lot” in this country is “not a lot” in other countries. Some currencies measure units in the tens of thousands. In Zimbabwe, one American dollar equals 30 million Zimbabwean dollars. With high food prices and under stocked stores, people there now pay hundreds of millions just for one meal’s worth of bread. A couple hundred million dollars here buys you an NHL franchise. Not a good one but, you know; there’s a bar in the VIP box.

For Americans, there’s just something magical about the dollar. As a kid, a crisp green dollar unleashes untold powers in the candy section of the local store, the only place that really matters. First the little pennies saved turn to nickels and dimes, then to the big round quarters with the man who looks like your friend’s grandma on it. Four friend’s grandmas and you can trade them in for … a dollar. And, oh, that first kid dollar can buy anything. A helicopter. Your dead pet’s reanimation. An army of ninjas. That country on the news that you think sounds like I’veGotaStan but that your parents say is Afghanistan but that when you buy it you’ll rename I’veGotaStan because you’ve got a dollar and that’s how it’s gonna’ be from now on.

It’s no wonder businesspeople keep their first dollar earned. Even businesses that fail probably wait until the last possible moment before cracking open that frame and shipping the first dollar off to the bill collector. For the optimistic, be they children or entrepreneurs, a dollar is everything.

I wonder if dollar stores keep their first dollar. Is that too predictable? Too cute? I bet they don’t. Dollar stores exist because of a far more adult, far more cynical view of the dollar. A dollar is nothing, they imply. Look at me, says a candle on the shelf. I don’t look like much, but I’m only a dollar. A dollar is nothing. You don’t need me but you don’t need that dollar either so let’s help this cashier in the humiliating vest make quota tonight. And look, I have a matching plate, says the candle. It’s only a dollar.

Yes, these are hard times for the dollar but let’s show it a little respect. You can do a lot with a dollar and if you’re smart, dollars beget more dollars. That’s the beauty of the system, the genius of hard work combined with compounding interest. It all works perfectly so long as we have faith in the Almighty Dollar. An illusion perhaps, but the dollars that visit my bank account every two weeks keep my lights on. Shine on, Mr. Washington.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Read more or contact him at www.minnesotabrown.com.

Brown on the Air: "The Almighty Dollar"

My weekly essay for KAXE's "Between You and Me with Heidi Holtan" will cover the value of a dollar as the show topic asks "What can you get for a buck?" My thoughts range from international currency to Zimbabwe to crappy stuff you can buy at the dollar store. Ideally, this will make more sense when you hear it. An expanded version of my radio essay will run as my Sunday column in the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

Tune to 91.7 FM or set your browser to http://www.kaxe.org/ between 10 a.m. and noon on Saturday to hear "Between You and Me" and check out Sunday's Hibbing Daily Tribune for the column.

Drug bus visits Iron Range today; hauls propaganda, drugs

From Wednesday's Hibbing Daily Tribune:

HIBBING — Area residents who are uninsured or having difficulties financially have a way to connect with programs that provide prescription medicines at low or no cost.

The “Help Is Here Express” Bus Tour will stop in Hibbing on Thursday, May 1. From 2 to 3 p.m., the bus will be parked at Fairview University Medical Center-Mesabi, helping area residents access information on available programs.

That's right, folks. Step up to the drug company's solution to rising prescription drug prices and the increasing unaffordability of basic medical care. It's a big orange bus that generates media coverage! I'm sure the folks on the bus have good intentions, but one drug bus just isn't enough to solve the systemic health care issues facing this region or the country at large.

Meantime, more practically, the Iron Range is a bastion for older folks on fixed incomes who at one time or another were part of a labor riot. That drug bus better be stocked to the hilt with free Lipitor or blood will run in the streets.

Losing mind, one child at a time

This is my weekly Hibbing Daily Tribune column for Sunday, April 27, 2008. I archive my columns at my writing site.

Losing mind, one child at a time
By Aaron J. Brown

So we’ve got these babies all over the house. Two actually. Twins. And a toddler. All boys. And while that particular configuration is neither historically significant nor biologically unexplainable this is a pretty big deal in our lives. This babysplosion is why we don’t schedule things at 3 p.m. (baby snack time and big brother’s nap). It’s also why anyone who calls the house between 4 and 7 p.m. hears only a shrill tone, like the sound the nuclear bomb makes when it melts the phone at the end of the Cold War drama “Fail Safe.” Don’t worry. We’re fine. It’s just loud like that sometimes.

We’ve passed the baby twin stage where people mob us in public places. When Doug and George were extra tiny we had to fight our way through crowds of well wishers and general gawkers. Now people mostly stare from afar. But folks who talk to us often ask if we’ve seen a show on The Learning Channel called “Jon and Kate plus Eight.” It’s a reality show that follows the lives of a Pennsylvania couple and their
eight kids – including a set of school-aged twins and a set of sextuplets who are three years old.

Yes, we’ve seen the show.

In fact we watch the program regularly, mostly to admire the family’s ability to
function with 166 percent more children than us. And while our lives aren’t quite as crazy as that of Jon and Kate we do see many familiar struggles on their show. How do you spend quality time with every kid in the house? Where is (name of kid)? What is that? Put that down! You, too! Stop squeezing your brother! Cords are not for chewing! Drop and roll! Drop and roll!

In a voiceover at the beginning of the “Jon and Kate” show, Kate says, “Today, I may very well lose my mind.” We know what she means.

When the twins first arrived all the stress focused on basic life functions like bottles and diaper changes. We would joke about how as parents we were now playing zone defense instead of man-to-man. Well, it’s easy to run a zone defense when two of the people you’re guarding have the physical dexterity of giant aphids. The babies “got game” now, covering ground on all fours faster than a remote control truck. In weeks, perhaps by press time, they’ll be on their feet, expanding their reach, amplifying their destructive (but oh so cute) powers.

There also remains the constant struggle of sibling rivalry. Henry, our oldest, is adjusting slowly to the end of his solo domination of our attention. The side effect of this is sporadic poking, shoving or screaming directed at the increasingly wary pair of newcomers. I warn him that Doug and George are likely to become just as big as him, but he has yet to compute the mathematical implications of this scenario.

At the same time we remain in awe of how cool it is to have three healthy boys growing up in our house, learning to talk, think and ponder the same northern Minnesota sights that filled my childhood memories. Sometimes, when the stars align, we peek around the corner to see the boys playing nicely together. No screaming. No naughtiness. Just good times. Even if momentary, these times sustain us.

One time Henry went to play with some nearby kids, including someone’s new baby. That night when I got home from work Henry told me, “I saw a baby today, daddy.” Pause. “Just one baby.” The bar has been set high for the H-man. In his mind, babies should come in pairs. I must admit, we now scoff just a tiny bit when we hear folks lament the difficulties of bringing home their first baby from the hospital.

“Hmmph’” we say. “Just one baby.”

Sorry fellow parents. Today we may very well lose our minds, so we must find comfort in small triumphs.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Read more or contact him at www.minnesotabrown.com.

Newseum shows that in journalism, puns reign supreme

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, April 20, 2008 Hibbing Daily Tribune. I archive columns at my writing site.

Newseum shows that in journalism, puns reign supreme
By Aaron J. Brown

I love puns. If I were a football player, I’d be a pun-ter. I wake up each day to see the pun rise. If I were an English Quaker born in 1644 who settled a wild continent to create a government that laid groundwork for democracy, I would be William Pun and that land would be called Punsylvania. And in next week’s Punsylvania Democratic primary Barack Opuma would narrowly defeat Hillary Clinpun.

Had enough?

Journalism is a very important, very serious industry. The news is often called the first draft of history and performs an important role in the conduct of public affairs. (And the private affairs of public officials as the case may be). But as serious as the craft of journalism may be you can’t help but notice all the headline puns and wordplay dancing through the content.

You know what I’m talking about. “Snowman enjoys frosty day.” “Judges name local cook’s omelet ‘eggceptional.’ “Bear mauls city councilor.” Wait, that last one wasn’t a pun. In fact, it is deeply tragic. But surrounded by puns the terrible bear story seems much lighter. Even jolly. That’s what puns can do. I wonder if that city councilor voted to tax honey! Ha Ha! (Seriously, in a case like that the bear would surely be euthanized. It is a very sad story. When you get down to it, very grizzly indeed).

In researching journalistic puns, I found that the editorial board of a San Antonio newspaper reprimanded the paper’s own copy editors for producing nine headline puns in one edition, including this one: “Mumps Outbreak Swells.” And TV news is even worse. In TV news, moving images reinforce puns. Instead of developing a gem like “City squirrels nuts for power transformer,” all TV has to do is show video of a squirrel running into the transformer and bursting into flames, knocking out power to thousands. “That’s nuts!” an anchor might say, before transitioning to weather: "Let’s see what kind of forecast meteorologist Rusty Robbins has tucked away in his
cheeks.”

You don’t realize how important puns are to the life functions of television news until you see someone on TV try to use a metaphor. Where puns can be executed in one or two words, metaphors require both substantial setup and abstract thought on the part of both speaker and audience. Once, during MSNBC’s coverage of a primary election, I witnessed Chris Mathews attempt to use the Arab siege of Aqaba depicted in the movie “Lawrence of Arabia” as a metaphor for a candidate’s campaign. Like the movie, the metaphor seemed to need an intermission. Indeed, the short, snappy puns that require only cursory knowledge of language allow TV news outlets to pleasantly transmit tiny amounts of information to large amounts of people.

Well, the puns finally get their own. Last week, something called the Newseum opened in Washington, D.C. Get it! Newseum! A museum about the news industry! Its very name suggests that journalism insiders were involved in the $450 million Newseum’s development. Across the country, readers and viewers saw stories about the Newseum’s opening, partly because of the news value but mostly because the headline pun came prepackaged. If the Freedom Forum (the organization that created this journalism shrine) had called the thing the “News Museum,” the corporations that own all the country’s newspapers would have had to pay thousands of copy editors to simultaneously think of the “newseum” pun on the company dime. That’s very inefficient and dismally out of touch with AP style to boot.

It may be safe to say that most folks enjoy a good pun. But overuse can build tolerance much like a steady diet of beer can expand your alcohol tolerance (What a waist!) Maybe that’s why writers drink so much. Which came first? The puns or the disproportionate rate of alcoholic journalists? We may never know. I just know that if you can spring for the $20 ticket to the Newseum next time you’re in D.C., you’ll have a lot of pun.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Contact him or read more at www.minnesotabrown.com.

Blight Me: the unique aesthetics of the Iron Range

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, April 13, 2008 Hibbing Daily Tribune. I archive my columns at my writing homepage.

Blight Me: the unique aesthetics of the Iron Range
By Aaron J. Brown

It’s spring on the Iron Range. I know this because last week we had to hire a guy with a loader to remove a million tons of snow from my rural driveway. Not a plow. A loader. Hello, spring!

Maybe it’s just a little bump in the road on our way to the real spring. When real spring finally arrives, our thoughts will turn to the stuff that’s been hiding underneath that snow all winter long. The slow recession of winter’s white canvass reveals old cars, rebar, scrap lumber and sometimes even the fate of stray animals we used to see around (but not so much the last few weeks).

Someone I know who moved to the Iron Range from a small farming town once told me about her first impression of the Iron Range. The first thing she noticed was the rather eclectic collection of cars and other metal goods in people’s yards. I suppose as an Iron Range native I could have feigned outrage over this observation, but I know better. We Iron Rangers are a proud, noble people … who leave things in our yards.

One could argue that my perspective is skewed. I grew up on an Iron Range family-owned salvage yard out in Zim. (I have to be careful. My wife thinks I mention this more often than former presidential candidate John Edwards talked about “the mill). As a kid, if I saw an old car up on blocks in someone’s yard my response was, “what,
just one?” We lived in a trailer house just a few dozen feet away from another trailer house that was packed to the ceiling with hubcaps. We would walk back to grandpa and dad’s shop along a path that wound through piles of aluminum cans and hulking dead machines of uncertain purpose. And this was all very normal to us, like oak trees and picket fences of Rockwell’s America.

That’s how it is on the Iron Range. I’ve heard theories that the Range’s love affair with junk has to do with our working class demographics or the fact that early miners weren’t able to own their own land, so they didn’t mind leaving junk out. Heck, maybe we just like junk. After all, the junkyard where I grew up was just a dozen miles north of the now defunct Sanitary Harry’s bar in Kelsey. The late Sanitary Harry ran for governor several times under the promise of “a car in every yard.” His drinking establishment gained a reputation for the odd junk that would be piled both inside and outside the building. In its last years, a friend told me the bar’s owners had literally shellacked random junk to the tabletops.

The first controversy I ever encountered in Iron Range journalism had to do with a county blight ordinance. Folks in the countryside wanted the right to keep spare cars on their property so they could harvest parts when needed. But big government was getting in the way. Cabin owners were complaining and deputies were writing blight tickets. Letters were exchanged. Public outcry against the policy ran surprisingly hot. The blight ordinance is still on the books today, but I don’t see any fewer cars on private properties out in the woods. I assume something of a junk car détente took place behind closed doors.

Junk defines the Range and that’s not all bad. Along the Mesabi Trail near Hibbing, tourists from all over get a good look at rusted pieces of mining equipment that were simply abandoned near their final resting places. Some might question why that stuff was left there. The answer is clear to me. All who see these scrap metal specters know that the Iron Range is a place where people shaped the land and their children long outlived their machines. And that’s who we are.

I don’t mean to diminish the work of so many Iron Rangers in sprucing up their yards, property and homes. Many places around here look like the very picture of Americana. But I have to bear the truth that what many folks remember when they visit the Iron Range is the colorful, blue collar cornucopia of metal that adorns so many other yards. This sharp, rusted world is just coming into focus this time of year. Hey, I don’t mind. It gives the place character.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

Pre-spring warm-up

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, April 6, 2008 Hibbing Daily Tribune. Appropriately there is more than a half foot of wet, heavy snow on the ground in northern Minnesota this morning.

Pre-spring warm-up
By Aaron J. Brown

In northern Minnesota there’s a fifth season, one that doesn’t really have a name and that most folks who live south of the Great Lakes couldn’t understand. For the sake of argument today I’ll call it “Pre-Spring.” This season peaks right now. It’s sort of like spring in that things are melting. But it’s also like winter in that the lakes are still frozen and if you send your kids outside for too long you might find them frozen to the side of your garage. It’s not just a season. I contend that it’s a test written specifically for the people of the North to ensure that our souls are worthy of our mailing addresses.

This past week I went for my first run in three months. In previous years I have maintained a disciplined (in that it could be measured) running regimen that spanned the full calendar year. When the weather got cold, I would dress warmly. When our road got slippery, I would wear these fancy chains on my sneakers. But that was all a long time ago (OK, a year), before I went from being a father of one to being a father of three. This year we have baby twins at home, a toddler and a crazy dog, so all my willpower collapsed to the floor where it was probably eaten by an infant crawling too fast to properly identify.

So my running had been on hold. That is, until I realized that it was pre-spring and that I wouldn’t need the foot chains or extra layers. There’s something about that level of involvement that kept me from running when there was so much going on inside the house. When you have to suit up, strap chains to your shoes and then run, stretch and shower you’re talking about 45 minutes at the least, probably an hour. In that time, our children may have possibly caused the house to implode due to the sheer force of their vibration. It really makes sitting on the couch a viable alternative to running.

Looking out the kitchen window one morning this week, however, I saw bright sunlight, flowing water on the concrete garage apron and patches of brown grass replacing the white canvas that had until recently been our yard. I wouldn’t need the shoe chains. One polar fleece and a pair of sweatpants would suffice. The babies were napping and the toddler was otherwise occupied. I could run and probably get away with it. So I did.

And it was great, except that it was deceptively cold. Despite the bright spring sunlight, a bitter north wind iced my hands. The melting snow on our dirt road was still slippery, which forced me to run in the sludgy mud along the roadside. The whistling wind forced me to turn up my iPod to an unsafe level, at least according to some doctor who said something that I couldn’t hear. (He looked very concerned. It was probably important). Though I enjoyed the first good run of the season, I couldn’t help but notice the strange season we all endure, but that few from down south (you know, Iowa) would understand.

We northern Minnesotans now live in a world where a pretty girl in shorts and a tank top could walk by moments before a blizzard buries our entire region. This is a difficult place to live. It’s hard for the human mind to comprehend such a place or such a season. Fortunately, we’re used to this around here. It’s just Pre-Spring, or Sprinter, or Winting, or whatever you want to call the weird time before temperatures, and perhaps our very existence, can be predicted.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Read more or contact him at his blog www.minnesotabrown.com.

The future of small town media in 1,000 words

A really interesting comment about local newspaper websites crossed the blog yesterday morning. As you may know, the ACM family of newspapers on the Iron Range now require readers to sign up for a free account to use its newspapers’ websites. A MinnesotaBrown blog reader responded to the change in this way:

What the hell are they thinking with this "free account" crap? I refuse to register. I find their sites difficult to use, and damned annoying in that they don't include all the articles. In fact, I've pretty much quit going to the sites at all because they try to make it hard for me to use their sites, in the apparent hope that by doing so, I'll buy a paper.Well. I don't. I am not a newspaper reader. I don't buy newspapers, and I'm not about to start buying them. I DO go to websites to read news. Presumably they derive ad revenue from the advertisers on their website who count on me to buy their goods and services just like those who advertise in the paper assume there is a connection between readers and sales.

I feel the Range papers are marginalizing their online readers. They are marginalizing the potential of their online business. And they are marginalizing their future existence.

The comment prompted this thought on my part. If and when the storied “e-Media Revolution” that people keep talking about happens (the time when the Internet finally and fully absorbs the functions of "old media" like newspapers and broadcast TV) the first wall that crumbles won't be the big city daily papers or CNN, but the small town newspapers and local TV news affiliates. This massive change will happen from the ground up.

These are my own thoughts based on my experience as a college communication instructor, former Iron Range small town daily newspaper editor and current writer and blogger. I still write for the Hibbing Daily Tribune, so it's important to note that I'd like to keep that job and that I'm not picking on that publication (or its parent company and affiliates), nor can I reveal any trade secrets (if I ever really knew any). But I can talk generally about the struggles that small town papers face in the Internet Age.

Here’s the problem. Let’s consider a hypothetical small town newspaper that had a circulation of, say, 15,000 in 1988. This paper has probably lost half its readers since. Today’s circulation, 6,000-7,000, consists of people disproportionately older and less Internet savvy than the population at large. Meantime, new readers were learning that they could get a good deal of what they wanted from this hypothetical paper’s website. Papers without a website were openly mocked by the Web-proficient members of their community, to the point where all papers adopted websites. As these websites developed, enthusiastic news people realized that the Internet is a really great medium for the written word and the websites grew in popularity.

But web readers got the product for free, advertisers weren’t willing to pay much to get on the website and the whole effort was costing the industry gabuldyjillions of dollars (an approximation). Newspapers were well aware this was happening and their leaders held numerous meetings (believe me). Some tried password protecting their web versions, but few would pay to read the papers online. Others tried making their web versions so awesome that they could entice advertisers to buy online ads. Some customers did, but this still didn’t make up the revenue.

Let me crystallize the problem: More people (and most young people) are using the Internet to receive news, but no one has figured out how to make as much money operating an online news site as newspapers USED TO be able to make before the Internet. Because media consolidation has driven up the debt service on your average small town paper to well above what is financially prudent, the old revenue figures are crucial to maintaining company stock prices. Unless this problem is figured out (and that ship may have sailed) we are trolling toward a total media realignment that will begin not with the New York Times, but with all the small papers about the size of the Anytown Whig-Observer. When these weeklies, small dailies and mid-sized papers in competitive markets realize that their revenue has fallen so low that it is equal to what they could make off the Internet alone AND when a majority of their readers are already on the Internet (two things not yet true, but coming), they’ll reconfigure. Add in the fact that many newspapers are now either owned by or in some kind of partnership with a local television network affiliate, and we’re talking about united, multi-media news operations functioning with the same editorial staff and disseminating news on TV and high-end websites, or perhaps a yet unknown combination of the two.

Oh, but there will be hundreds of bankruptcies and tens of thousands of layoffs before this occurs, so let’s not get too excited.

I teach blogging seminars for the KAXE Community Journalism Project. I’m not speaking for them either when I say this. But there is an efficiency argument that the Internet is a much more cost effective way to gather and share news in small towns. Over time, I could easily see community news websites that combine video, audio and print content replacing the old media. We definitely aren’t there yet, but nonprofit community journalism operations like KAXE are way out ahead of commercial companies in small towns. Streaming media on the big sites like http://www.cnn.com/, http://www.msnbc.com/ and http://www.foxnews.com/ is great – and will remain the standard into the future. But the “revolution” won’t really be at hand until the dams break in small and medium markets. When it happens, the results will be part chaotic, part fascinating and most assuredly remarkable. And while people in today's media industry will be affected negatively at first, it's important to remember that we will still need journalists, editors, technicians, graphic designers and photographers in this new media.

Now, there’s no reason that my current employer (I hope still current after speaking this heresy) and its sister publications on the Iron Range can’t survive or even thrive through all of this, but doing so will require a nimble approach when the majority of their readers make the leap to the Internet. None of this will happen next year, but I expect that it will happen before long. And it will happen in every corner of the world.

Even, perhaps especially, here on the Iron Range of Northern Minnesota (U.S.A., the World, the Universe).

PS: And for those who prefer political posts, I'll leave you with this: the biggest uncontrollable variable in the budget of a small town paper is the cost of employee health care. Guess what happens as a result? Layoffs and a gradually crappier health care plan.

Iron Range editor pens fascinating Obama speech analysis

Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race, "A More Perfect Union," was designed to open a national dialogue to chart a way past the racial bitterness of the past. It was also, from a practical standpoint, designed to put out the flames of controversy that had engulfed Obama's campaign after inflammatory video of hateful comments by his former minister were widely circulated. On both counts I believe the speech has been a resounding success. Obama leads by 10 over Hillary Clinton in today's Gallup tracking poll, his biggest lead ever in that poll. In addition, the speech has prompted an amazing column today from Hibbing Daily Tribune editor Mike Jennings. (Disclosure: I write a column for the Tribune and technically report to Mike, but I am not contractually bound to say nice things about him on this blog).

Jennings is in his first year at the head of the Tribune newsroom after a long career in the newspaper business in several southern states. His perspective of growing up in a family with roots across the South channels the themes Obama addressed in his speech. Here's an early paragraph to provide some foreshadowing.

A few weeks ago Barack Obama gave a speech in Philadelphia that some have called the most probing and deeply truthful speech in a generation about race in America. Others have called Obama’s speech an adroit but unconvincing effort to explain away his adherence over many years – and beyond that, his professed love and loyalty – to his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who has uttered vicious, racially divisive views from the pulpit.

I don’t know which of those perspectives on Obama’s performance contains the greater truth. I do know that both contain a measure of truth because, like every white Southerner of my generation, I have spent my life swimming through the intricate cross-currents of race. Reading Obama’s speech, I often felt he was giving clear voice to a muddled narrative that has been going on in my own head since I was a child. My family straddled two versions of Southern racism, the genteel version and the open, vicious version.

Giving you the ending and Jennings' conclusion wouldn't do the column justice. I really must recommend you go to the Tribune site to read the whole thing. You might need to create a free account to read the whole article, but it's worth it. Though Jennings doesn't apply his argument any further than his experiences in the South, I share some of the same thoughts about growing up on the Iron Range where racial and ethnic resentments also have a long history.

Weathering the economic storm, Range style

Here is my weekly Hibbing Daily Tribune column for Sunday, March 30, 2008. I archive my columns at my writing homepage if you're interested in reading more.

Weathering the economic storm, Range style
By Aaron J. Brown, for the Hibbing Daily Tribune

So we’re in a recession, or a correction, or some other kind of “…tion” word indicating how two decades of buying SUVs with credit cards was kind of a stupid thing to do. Point is, the economy is going through a rough patch. People across the country are sitting around dinner tables wondering how to pay the bills. Today, Americans clip more coupons, fix their lawnmowers instead of buying new ones and select cheap domestic beers instead of expensive imported brews. In other words, Americans are learning what it’s like to be Iron Rangers.

I’m sure one could find evidence of how the nation’s credit crisis, excuse me, CREDIT CRISIS (Lasers! Lasers! Graphics! Lasers!) affects the Iron Range, too. We need to figure out how folks can borrow money responsibly without jeopardizing the country’s all-important banking sector. But frankly things are pretty much the same on the Iron Range, maybe even a little better than usual. We’ve got a few of them fancy strip malls and the tear-to-beer ratio at local bars is down to comfortable pre-globalization levels. We all assume that we could get laid off tomorrow but are bolstered by the hopes that the big new Whatever plant will begin hiring soon.

(On a related note, our son Henry has begun wearing a metal measuring cup on his head like a helmet and telling us, “I’m building a factory factory.” I always reply, “A factory that builds additional factories?” to which he replies, “Uh-huh.” So my question is when do I put him in a suit to lobby for government financing? Perhaps I digress).

Ups and downs are normal on the Iron Range. In this, nothing has changed since the Great Depression. Yes we see many nice potential developments and yes, I am a big proponent of modernizing this region. But let us not gloss over the fact that Rangers survive whether their leaders are competent visionaries or slack-jawed hacks. Survival is just what we do. So pardon my glib attitude when I yell at my TV, “How does it feel, Suburbia? Why don’t you rent out the top level of your McMansion!” This isn’t very empathetic of me, but I feel we Rangers have earned it.

Sometime around 2003, back when the domestic steel industry was suffering and the Iron Range economy languished, I accompanied my wife on a business trip to southern Minnesota. We were walking through the Spam Museum (yes, a tribute to the ambiguous meat product) in Austin, another town that knows hardship when meat sells low. One of the Spam guides, upon hearing where I was from, told me, “I’m sorry to hear about your economy.” He said this the way you might tell someone you were sorry about their dog dying, or that they had an inoperable tumor. Around the state one of the few things non-Rangers know about the Range is that our economy is probably bad and that they presume we have taken to eating the slowest and least productive of our uneducated children. Rangers know better but just once, for a moment, it’s nice to see that coin flipped.

I know that if the national economy slips further than it already has that the Iron Range will suffer too. We always do. If steel prices drop or biofuel projects don’t pan out, we know that the traditional sectors of our local economy will shrink as they have before. But at least we know that a little ingenuity can get us through to the other side. That’s something that a media-driven economic panic can’t teach you.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist at the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Contact him and read his blog at http://www.minnesotabrown.com/.

Closing gender gap in Range leadership a worthy goal

This is my weekly column for the Sunday, March 23, 2008 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. My columns are archived at my writing page.

Closing gender gap in Range leadership a worthy goal
By Aaron J. Brown

Anyone familiar with the news these days knows that the issues of race and gender play a big role in our political climate. The first African-American and first woman presidential contenders are currently vying for the presidential nomination of the oldest major party in the United States (the same party that once opposed women’s suffrage and civil rights legislation). Thus it’s exciting to experience this historically significant election, regardless of the outcome.

But if the buzz word of 2008 is change, we should be reminded that history has shown that real change only occurs from the ground up, with the support and, most important, actions of everyday people. As Barack Obama said in his groundbreaking speech on race this past week, no one candidate for national office can fix all our problems in one election cycle. But a lot of people working together can make huge strides.

I’ve written before that the Iron Range needs change, especially in the traditional, parochial attitudes that have held us back in recent decades. Not everyone likes to hear this, but the evidence is apparent in the leadership of our communities. I don’t mean to make a broad swipe at local and state leaders. But if there’s a unifying demographic that overwhelmingly dominates the Range leadership structure it’s the number of middle aged or older men who lead our towns, townships, counties, and local boards. No, not exclusively and there are outlying public bodies that feature gender and age balance, but they are the exception, not the rule.

Many middle-aged men are great leaders and continue to serve our community well, but one wonders what could happen if Range leaders reflected the Range population, which isn’t as old as people think it is, nor as male-dominated. In fact, if you spend time in the hearts of our communities, at the charity fundraisers, the arts events or the school activities, you see that men and women, young and old, contribute more or less equally to the health of our local society. Why isn’t this then reflected in our public offices, where most Range city councils and county boards have one or two women serving at most? (The notable exception is the Itasca County Board, where women hold three of five seats).

One encouraging sign is an upcoming event sponsored by the nonprofit White House project, called the “Go Run” women’s leadership conference. This leadership training helps women better understand their opportunities to take leadership roles in their communities. It’s been conducted all over the country and will be featured for the first time on the Iron Range, April 11-13 at Fortune Bay Resort and Casino in Tower. The registration is full, but the group is creating a waiting list for this or future sessions.

I spoke with one of the members of a steering committee that brought the Go Run conference to the Iron Range. Liz Kuoppala won a seat on the Eveleth City Council in 2006. As she prepared her campaign, she initially feared that she would have a hard time convincing some to vote for her because of her gender.

“Ultimately, I found that my gender was really a strength, not a barrier,” she said. “I think that the real barriers to seeing more women elected to office exist in their own minds. That’s what this is about.”

Kuoppala’s inspiration came from suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s observation that it’s remarkable how well America has done since it only used half its resources. Indeed, one wonders how things would be different, and perhaps better, if the Iron Range women (and I’ll add young people) were represented in public committees, boards and councils – no matter how high or low the office – at a rate equal to their numbers and significance in our society.

“We have a strong history of women’s leadership,” said Kuoppala. “We are still a place of fairly recent immigrants. People have had to work hard to get what they have and women have played a central role in our communities. We just want to see that reflected in our political structure, too.”

Indeed, the goal is not radical or discriminatory. The goal is simply to encourage more people to get involved in the hard work of running the everyday business of our Iron Range communities. When more people are included, progress is achieved. The same is true throughout history.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Read more or contact him at his blog, www.minnesotabrown.com.

Fire damages landmark Iron Range pizza joint

Perhaps not big news to everyone, but the original Sammy's Pizza in Hibbing was damaged by fire yesterday. (Well, actually the original was in Keewatin before moving to a different location in Hibbing and then to this spot, but that's just the sort of local local history tedium that you don't need).

The Hibbing Daily Tribune has the complete story (and great photos in today's print edition). This was kind of like batting practice in spot news for them, as Sammy's is just two blocks from the newspaper.

The owner says they'll be back up and running in a couple weeks. Let's hope so. Sammy's is one of the great classic pizza places in northern Minnesota. For non-Rangers, picture your favorite non-chain pizza place, the place where you take people you like. Picture it on fire. That's what a lot of us are going through right now.

The Iron Range's global connection

Though not providing any new information, regional editor Charles Ramsey has an informative piece in today's Mesabi Daily News explaining how the Iron Range is plugged into the global economy. A good refresher or backgrounder for those unfamiliar with Iron Range current events.

PS: Perhaps you've noticed, but you need to create an account if you wish to read full articles at the MDN, Hibbing Daily Tribune or any of the papers from the old Murphy McGinnis empire now owned by American Consolidated Media of Texas (actually Australia, but that's another story).

I am a cooking fraud (the column)

This is my weekly column for Sunday, March 16, 2008 published in the Hibbing Daily Tribune. I archive my columns at my writing page.

I am a cooking fraud (and almost got away with it)
By Aaron J. Brown

If you missed it, I recently appeared on “WDSE Cooks” on Channel 8, northern Minnesota’s public television station. For a lot of people, the image of me in an apron on the TV came as a shock. An encore of the show, titled “C is for Comfort Food” will run again today. I baked fudge bars. More specifically I baked Beatty Zimmerman’s fudge bars, which were dubbed “Bob Dylan fudge bars” on the show in honor of the late Hibbing woman’s famous son.

It was a strange, winding road that brought me to the world of televised cooking. See, I’m involved with Dylan Days in Hibbing, an annual event celebrating Dylan and the arts community of northern Minnesota. (Disclosure: Dylan Days will be held May 22-25, with more information available at www.dylandays.com.) (Disclosure Disclosure: That last disclosure was an inappropriate excuse to plug Dylan Days … May 22-25 … d’oh!).

So when I was e-mailing a producer at Channel 8, “The Ocho” as the kids call it, I told her that the Dylan Days group had some of Bob Dylan’s mom’s old recipes. Maybe the cooking show would want them? (Har-har-har, small talk, is what I was thinking). Well, not only did she want Beatty’s fudge bar recipe, she wanted me to bake it … on TV. Apparently, they wanted to fight two widely held stereotypes: 1) that only women can cook well and, 2) that you have to know something about cooking to appear on a television program devoted to cooking.

Since the marketing department of Dylan Days can’t afford to buy a used Kia, much less air time in Duluth, I figured I’d do the show to mention the event. (Oh, is that too honest? Does that break the PR code of silence? OK, then I did it because I love to try new things).

The show went well, and my thanks and kudos go out to host Juli Kellner, all the good people at Channel 8, and the many skilled “real” cooks who shared their recipes. In the week that followed the original airing of the show dozens of folks told me they saw the show and even tried making the bars themselves. Hey, the bars were pretty good.

If the crushing fame of appearing on a local TV cooking show wasn’t enough, I also ended up in the “Taste” section of the Duluth News-Tribune. (Disclosure: The Duluth News-Tribune is a competitor of this newspaper and thus, you should never ever read it. Not even as a joke. Not even if an old copy gets stuck to your leg on a windy day and the front page story is about your long lost father. Not even then). The story featured several of the cooks who appeared on the program talking about their comfort foods. Now, remember, I was there to bake something that we presumed to be Bob Dylan’s comfort food. I had only learned the recipe a few weeks before the show. So when I was asked about MY comfort food, here is what was quoted in the Duluth story by Candace Renalls:

“For Aaron Brown of Bovey, comfort food is Kraft macaroni and cheese, just like he had with hot dogs as a boy. ‘Not the good homemade stuff,’ he said of his preferred macaroni and cheese, ‘but the cheap stuff from the store.’”

I have to imagine that real cooks and bakers – and I know there are thousands of you reading this right now – see a quote like that and shudder. Hibbing Daily Tribune publisher Wanda Moeller shook her head when I stopped by the office afterward. She said something, too. I don’t remember the words she used. I think “travesty” was one. “Assault on justice” may have in there, too.

Anyway, I’ve fessed up now. I am a cooking fraud. I do enjoy fudge bars though, and it feels good to bring more of them into the world.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

The arts, the Iron Range and the resulting dilemma for many young people

The Hibbing Daily Tribune, like many local papers, is running its "annual edition" this month. The edition spans four consecutive Sundays and includes large feature sections that, back in the day, were huge advertising revenue builders for the paper. They're not as big as they used to be, but the paper still puts a lot of work into these sections. The topic for this year's Tribune annual edition is "Iron Range Generations," featuring stories of people of many different age groups and how they contribute to our local culture.

Mike Jennings, the Tribune editor, wrote an interesting piece about the how the Iron Range inspires artists and writers of all ages. This is something I've talked about for a long time and is part of the book I'm working on for next fall. It's also a big part of why I have dedicated so much time to Dylan Days. I really think the Range, though a flawed region, is a great place for writers in particular. You don't get much more human than this place.

Jennings' headline says a lot in itself.

"Is Hibbing a town that breeds rare achievement, a town that spurns its talented young, or both?" March 9, 2008, Hibbing Daily Tribune

Excerpt:

Certainly there’s nothing remarkable about young people whose ambitions are out of the common run deciding that if they don’t escape their native small-town environment, their potential will wither and die.

What may be uncommon about Hibbing, though, is the number of its young who turned out to be correct about the rare nature of their talent. Bob Dylan (who, when he was still Bobby Zimmerman, had his microphone switched off by his principal during a high school talent show) may head the list. But it’s a lengthy list, and one that includes a healthy complement of literary and musical talent.

...

“I mean, there could be something about the landscape,’ [Hibbing High School drama director Chuck Viren] said. “There could be something about the makeup of the community, where you have these blue-collar roots, and yet now we have ... a mixture of people from various backgrounds.”

...

“People always question how Bob Dylan could come out of a place so barren, as it were,” [retired Hibbing English teacher Dan Bergan] said. “Well, how did Shakespeare come out of Stratford?”

Small germs, big impact

This is my weekly column for the March 9, 2008 Hibbing Daily Tribune. I archive my columns at my writing homepage.

Small germs, big impact
By Aaron J. Brown

I could cite many credible news stories about the impact of the cold and flu this winter. I could quote a local doctor, read you a report with a really important-sounding acronym, or even draw an amusing, but insightful, editorial cartoon depicting the importance of washing your hands.

But by now I’m sure you know well the wrath of this year’s germs, including the odd smell your house takes on when everyone’s been sick for two days. You might even be at this very moment curled up on your bathroom floor praying for a merciful death as I was two weeks ago.

Germs marched through our house like Sherman to the sea. They hit baby George first. We thought the germs could be isolated in one tot, but we live in a house with three boys under age three. Every flat surface or physical object is moist almost all of the time.

So the germs freely passed between us, first to George’s twin brother Doug, then to their older brother Henry, then to Christina. For about 24 hours, lethargic, diseased children littered the house. Metal bowls were situated all around for purposes I need not describe.

Through all this – the crying, the retching, the crying, “get the bowl,” “get more jammies,” and “we need to run the wash, now” – I remained alarmingly healthy. I was like the guy who thinks he may have been bitten by a zombie, but has not yet begun to crave human brains.

Naturally, I had business in Duluth the next day, which is a full two hours drive from my home, itself located a half hour away from nearly every Iron Range town west of Chisholm. (Our place is a little like the island on “Lost”). I drove down feeling fine, drinking coffee and quietly enjoying my escape from Germ Valley. My morning engagement went fine, but by the time I sat down for my afternoon meeting I was experiencing biological foreshadowing, early symptoms previewing “the sickness.”

In horror movies this where the wily old small town mayor says, “Reckon I see a light on at the old Hadley place. Haven’t seen that since the incident. Wouldn’t worry, though, since the only folks in town tonight are those promiscuous teenagers staying at the old ax factory.”

The drive back north was getting rough by the time I was back on the Range. At one point, I felt so sick I had to pull over to the side of the road so that I could swoon and look pale without endangering the lives of other drivers. My pale swooning was all going to plan, until a highway patrolman gave a loud knock at my driver’s side window.

“Are you sick or drunk?” he asked.

For a moment, I wished I was drunk. Because if I was drunk, the officer would have brought me to a nice square room with a bed and no food anywhere in sight. But alas, it was 3 in the afternoon; I was stone-cold sober but still sick as a dog. The officer was very sympathetic and let me go without any hassle. (It was the first time I was ever stopped by law enforcement for being pulled over). I got home alright, only to later join the family parade of viral maladies.

It’s been a couple weeks now, and I feel fine. The kids are bright eyed and keep their partially digested food on the inside. But I will never again underestimate the mighty power of microscopic germs in a home with tiny people incapable of blowing their own noses.

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Read more or contact him at www.minnesotabrown.com.

Brown on the Air: Germs

I'll be on KAXE with my weekly essay for "Between You and Me" Saturday between 10 a.m. and noon. The show's topic this week is germs and I'll be talking about a particularly nasty set of germs that leveled my family a couple weeks ago.

Fun fact: my flu story involves the Minnesota State Highway Patrol.


Tune in between 10 a.m. and noon on 91.7 KAXE in northern Minnesota or streaming online at http://www.kaxe.org/.

An extended version of the essay will also run as my Sunday column in the Hibbing Daily Tribune. I'll post that over the weekend as usual.