March 2007 archive

Fahrenheit 451

(This essay was broadcast on the Saturday, March 31, 2007 edition of "Between You and Me" with Heidi Holtan. The program was dedicated to the Ray Bradbury book "Fahrenheit 451," especially its relevance to modern times.)

Burning Broadband
By Aaron J. Brown

HOST INTRO: Today our subject is the meaning of Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” and the book’s vision of the future. It predicts a world where books are censored. Aaron Brown offers these thoughts.

“Fahrenheit 451” leaves us with questions of just what is “freedom” or “progress?” In a future where books are banned to control the population, we meet a counterculture where people essentially become books by memorizing them. In order to maintain their freedom, they must abandon what society has come to call progress. Or do they?

In Bradbury’s book, abandoning your old life for a life as a classic book is fairly inspirational, but in practice I am left wondering who has to become the Atkins diet book, or the 10,000 page Bill Clinton book where he lists all the people he golfed with, or the many foaming-at-the-mouth Bill O’Reilly books.  I also wonder if people’s personalities would shift to match the tone of the books they memorize. Would book people then avoid other more pretentious book people?

"Hey, ‘Treasure Island,’ turn off the lights. Here comes ‘Atlas Shrugged.’”

I also wonder if the shortcomings of the human mind would create problems for the book people. I have to imagine that the 52nd or 53rd time through “Don Quixote” almost anyone would be skipping a page or two to get to the end, or that paperback book people would only remember the sex scenes and murders (which is why, in the future, the job of being Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather” should never be entrusted to a 14-year-old boy). Perhaps I’m over-thinking it.

Another aspect of “451” that always interested me was the lack of irony in Bradbury’s future world. Firemen are no longer the people who fight fires; they burn the books. Future firemen do not see any irony in this. That seems important as many modern Americans have absolutely no sense of irony. Bombing for peace or re-electing politicians to ensure change are regular occurrences.

“Fahrenheit 451” was a warning for its time, but times have already changed. Though we’re still a long way from abandoning the traditional print version of our books for electronic alternatives, we can imagine such a prospect. Digital information is very convenient to access and easy to store, but it is just as easy to delete or manipulate. The real threat of censorship in the future will come not from a burning book, but from the flip of a switch as someone decides to monitor and control what we now call the Internet and might one day store all our records and, indeed, our books.

So I suppose a modern retelling of “Fahrenheit 451” would include a guy sitting in a corner saying “101100010100111010” until he got to the end of a piece of data. At that point, he’d make that Macintosh “bong” noise and restart the whole process. This doesn’t seem quite as dramatic or sentimental as the original. Maybe we just ought to treat the book for what it is, a warning about the dangers of suppressing free thought and open discourse. If you haven’t read it yet, pick it up. You might not remember every word, but you’ll remember the message the rest of your life.

HOST OUTRO: Aaron Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune, instructor at Hibbing Community College and frequent KAXE contributor.

Weekend tour and radio essay

Big Frog, er, Toad

River Run

The 'Secret'

Freaking N.C.

Minnesota education: many regions, many issues, shared future

(This is my Sunday, March 25, 2007

Meanwhile, to the north, teachers in fast-growing exurban districts are finding that if population growth doesn’t match enrollment projects, they too could be facing layoffs. This is yet another discouraging factor for new teachers considering where to begin their career and invest their efforts, all in an area where there are more and more students every day.

Still farther north, in our area, Greenway schools in Bovey and Coleraine consistently perform well on statewide elementary performance tests, but the entire district is in operating debt and faces peril. And we all know that Iron Range schools in general persist under the enormous cloud of declining enrollment, making teaching one of the most difficult careers to land a steady job for young professionals in the region.

What do all these places and all these issues have to do with each other? Well, these situations show the increasingly strained working conditions of K-12 teachers, regardless of where they work. These situations show that the dollars and cents of public education in Minnesota receive more attention than public education itself. In this, we are far behind in the quest to educate our children for the highly competitive global economy of the future.

Schools in Minnesota are good, probably better than schools in most other states. But schools in Minnesota – on average – aren’t cutting it on the international front or in preparing students for higher education. MNSCU colleges are finding that even some of our best performing K-12 students are deficient in one or more major skill area, usually math or English. Minnesota has one of the worst high school counselor to student ratios in the country, which might have something to do with the lack of preparedness on the part of our students when they go on to post secondary or technical education.

All of this has to do with the per pupil state funding structure being debated in St. Paul right now. Over the past decade we’ve moved away from state funding of education to local property taxes. This has benefited the rich, especially in areas with large commercial property wealth. At the same time some have been able to trumpet “no new taxes” when in fact the enormous cost of public education has simply been shifted to property taxes, which are more regressive (read: likely to affect middle and lower class property owners) than the income tax. It’s also created the perception that the quality of public education depends on where you live. That shouldn’t be the case. Different regions of Minnesota have different educational problems, but all face the same challenge: prepare our children to preserve America’s creative and economic edge in the world.

Like Minneapolis and the suburbs, we in northern Minnesota face many challenges in our school districts – some local, some common across the state. Minnesota needs an educational system that hires and supports creative teachers who in turn encourage creative students, regardless of socioeconomic background or geographic location. Such a system will cost money, more than most would prefer to spend; however, evidence suggests that the cost will be worth it. A state report released this week shows that Minnesota’s tax system favors the rich and many studies have shown that investment in education, especially early on, pays back in economic benefit.

To the legislature and governor: Pass a per pupil increase in state funding. Pay for it with a tax on the wealthiest Minnesotans, who benefit disproportionately under our current tax structure. No more gimmicks. No more balancing on the backs of property owners. This will benefit students in every corner of this diverse state.

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Brown on the air -- Saturday, March 24

HOST INTRO: This morning we’re talking about comic book heroes and memories. Aaron Brown says it’s high time for a modern super hero.

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I didn’t read many comic books as a kid, but I still knew the big comic book heroes – Batman, Superman, and the recently departed Captain America.

There is no such thing as a superhero. Sure, heroes walk among us – serving others, uplifting the downtrodden, helping move furniture for the herniated – but these heroes cannot fly or shoot flames from their fingertips. Some of them sport love handles, warts, funny looking ears and poor taste in fashion. Some of them are divorced; or annoying; or so full of baggage that dating them is awkward and emotionally perilous, sometimes all three. But heroes they remain, in word and deed, even if they just aren’t comic book material.

The superheroes we read about in classic storyboard format exist as lofty ideals for people to respect, admire and aspire to be like. Trying historical times produced the classic superheroes we remember today. World War II alone created many of the freedom loving, justice seeking superheroes of our time, as a public longed for super human strengths to defeat powerful evil villains in dark times. So, I’m here to suggest that we need a modern superhero.

We live in confusing times, full of foreign policy foibles and rhetorical battles between people who can’t define or even spell rhetoric. We need sincere leadership, ideally from a person with both a healthy understanding of the masses and the ability to inspire the masses to create a better society. So what about a superhero named “President 65?” We all know that Americans break down to about 50/50 on political affiliation come presidential years, so we get leaders that have to appease their most vocal partisans and a handful in the so-called middle. But when a pollster asks a basic question like, “could we do better with our health care system, or public education, or streamlining the federal bureaucracy?” you find that about 65 percent or more say “yes.” The rest, be they liberal or conservative, are generally morons who would make perfect comic book villains. What if we had a president that could unite that significant majority and push the shrill voices of modern politics to the margins? That would be President 65, a fictional but totally awesome president who also can fly and is somehow exempt from term limits. He’d have to come from a planet that didn’t have fascism, but that’s the glory of comic books.

Don’t like politics? How about e-Man who can travel on the Internet, holding up web pages during massive bandwidth demands while capturing sex predators, scammers and spammers. Regionally, we could have Ore-Belly, a giant who emerges from the mine dumps of the Iron Range during bad economic times to stomp Wall Street or port cities that accept cheap foreign slab steel. I’m sure a similar hero could be devised involving wood products, though all of the names I thought of are, well, inappropriate.

The point is that superheroes allow us to believe, at least for a moment, that solving our world’s problems would be easy if we only had an omni benevolent man or woman wearing tights. In truth, the day to day efforts of regular heroes keep our world going. You can be that hero. In fact, that would be super.

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HOST OUTRO: Aaron Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune, instructor at Hibbing Community College and frequent contributor to KAXE.

Range U

Political roundup

Obama is gaining ... 'O,' yeah

HAL* is on my desk

Lessons from a season of septic woes

In the book “Guns, Germs and Steel” by Jared Diamond, the noted geographer details how farming societies overcame hunter gatherer societies to create what we now call civilization. Interestingly, farming societies emerged out of the septic fields of ancient hunter gatherers. Seeds that survived human consumption grew in these fields, the smell of which I can’t even imagine, becoming crops. Those crops allowed bigger tribes to form, new technology, domestic animals and eventual resistance to killer diseases. Many, many, many years later we now have Nintendo and nuclear weapons. In other words, all the social upheaval of the last 15 millennia has generally favored the people who at one time in their history ate where they “went.” I’m left pondering this as I gaze out my office window at my septic pipes.

This winter in Northern Minnesota, we’ve heard more than usual about septic systems. Before last week’s big snow, our winter was very dry and cold. Many rural septic systems froze out, causing in many basements an effect similar to pouring gravy on a giant block of ice. Thus homeowners receive a quick education about the physics and engineering involved in home septic systems. I was fortunate in that our family’s relatively new septic system did not freeze, but I know many who weren’t as lucky.

I’m only in my second year of rural life after several years living in the big city of Hibbing, where public sewers are decidedly less finicky than personal septic systems. Sure, sometimes the aging infrastructure of a small town gives out, but by and large the sewers are quite forgiving. You may have a garbage disposal in your sink, for instance, and wash away old food stuff to a watery grave. There are limits, however. When in Hibbing, we pressure washed old paint off our basement floor down the drain. Later, we had to scoop mealy wads of sewage tainted lime green paint chips into garbage bags when they proved too much for the line to handle. Then we had to call a man with something called a snake. Oops! That learned us good.

If you were to tour a wastewater treatment plant, you would learn that nothing disappears when it gets flushed away; it just goes someplace else. The most memorable detail about a wastewater treatment plant is the layer of tampon applicators that top the holding tanks like marshmallows in hot chocolate. Indeed, flushing doesn’t eliminate anything. City residents may think that, like in “Finding Nemo,” “all drains lead to the sea.” But, in truth, they lead to a tank somewhere, and Nemo would be dead either from Drano poisoning or when the solid waste fan chopped him up. Sorry kids.

Things are different in the country, but only in destination. What you put down the drains of your house stays on your property. If anything goes wrong it is very much your problem. Many people are learning that the hard way this winter.

From an ecological standpoint, a water based system of waste disposal isn’t especially friendly to the environment. In towns you have to treat the water, resulting is highly concentrated and fairly dangerous solid waste. In the country you must store the waste in a tank that needs to be emptied periodically, the same way the Morlocks from “The Time Machine” must come up from underground to feed on the Eloi. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the way things run. A winter like this one is just a rather unpleasant reminder.

So when you next flush, remember, all drains do not lead to the sea, despite what cartoon fish might tell you.

More columns

Brown on the air -- Saturday, March 17

HOST INTRO: We’re talking about the roundabout journey that brings many to northern Minnesota, but contributor Aaron Brown’s perspective is that of a lifelong native who has served as a guide to many Iron Range settlers.

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I was born in Hibbing just a few blocks from the college where I now work, so my commute from Itasca County brings me past landmarks that have always loomed in the backdrop of my life on the Iron Range. Most mornings I see the finger of steam pointing into the sky from the taconite plant on Keewatin’s north side. It used to be National Steel, now it’s KeeTac. The steam is the same. Many of the buildings I see on my way to work have changed since I first saw them. The Old Super One is now a workforce center and daycare. The old Pamida became a party supply store. The new Pamida closed a few years ago. Now it’s the new L&M. The old L&M was just remodeled as a mini mall. And that’s just the stuff off the main highway. Why am I telling you this? Well, these are just some of the things you’ll need to know when you move to the Iron Range.

Like a lot of small localities across the United States, northern Minnesota towns pride themselves on their history; the tiny ways towns have grown or changed over the gentle flow of generations. The Iron Range in particular is slow to accept outsiders, to the point where in some cases one must produce and raise children here to reach full acceptance. There is a word – Packsacker – that most new residents will hear, at least in jest, within days of their arrival. It means outsider; someone not of our red iron-tinted blood. And though you may win friends and earn respect, you will remain a packsacker for many, many years after you move here.

I don’t hold the same feelings for outsiders as many of my parents’ or especially my grandparents’ generation. The Iron Range just wasn’t as isolated when I grew up as it was when they did. Most people in my generation were taught they would have to leave to be truly successful, so few built much resentment. I also married the daughter of packsackers. Though my wife grew up here, she and her parents were born in Illinois farm country. Perhaps because of this, we’ve always made fast friends with people from elsewhere. Some of our best friends were born and raised out East. It takes a while for them to understand our culture, but we try our best to explain the Range. Just think, I tell them, if you spent two generations being hosed by people from one particular coast, what would you think of people from said coast? A beer and boot hockey game usually helps smooth the Iron Range indoctrination.

I hear this kind of story a lot. Tell me if it sounds familiar. Someone from a big city or suburb vacations in northern Minnesota. They just L-O-V-E, love the area. It’s so pretty. Trees. Lakes. Charming little shops and affordable housing in abundance! So they move here. They buy a small business. If they are a skilled expert, they seek a position at one of our hospitals, colleges or professional firms. Now the good life will last all year long. Then the winter comes. Single women realize that no sober man has asked them out since they arrived. Single men realize that the chasm between barflies and church ladies is wide indeed. Young families learn how much hockey equipment costs and what it’s like to spend a weekend in Warroad. Sure, we’ve got the scenery, but you should also expect a eye-opening experience with blue collar virtues, old school politics, and stories you’ll tell your grandkids about. 

Despite our faults, I happen to believe that subtle changes will make the Iron Range and the rest of Northern Minnesota a people magnet in the future. The society here, though highly traditional and parochial, remains colorful and unique. Though I have spent brief times off my native Iron Range, the thought of settling elsewhere remains distasteful to me. So instead I embrace a new role, that of tour guide and cultural immersion expert for those who happen upon this oddly wonderful place. We aren’t what you expect, but then again, you aren’t what we expect either.

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HOST OUTRO: Aaron Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune, an instructor at Hibbing Community College and frequent contributor to KAXE.

I'm a baller

Ides of March

Back from Break: Notes and Notables

My column has 'gone green'

That’s right. You read the headline correctly. As of today, this column has gone completely green. I’d even ask that they print this in green ink if green ink weren’t made from the crushed spines of spotted owls (True story! You don’t even want to know where the blue ink comes from).

What does ‘going green’ mean? Well, it means that this column is now trendy. Sure, I’ve tried to be trendy in the past. Remember all the Y2K columns? How about my ceaseless references to what Regis said on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” Man, those were hip, happenin’ times around here. Well, after watching the Oscars I learned that the best thing – for the whole world – is to shamelessly capitalize on the green trend, thus giving the appearance of resolving major energy, climate and natural resource problems.

If you missed it the Oscars went green this year, which meant that they used recycled paper and soy breast implants. (If you’re curious, they look and feel real, but the smell … oh, the smell). Then, the other day, I saw a story on the news about how wedding planners are now advertising “green” weddings. That means that the origami swans on every place setting will be made from hemp and later be used to make sandals. Or something.

Of course, these green weddings will be every bit as large, showy and expensive as the old weddings. They’ll still feature large delivery trucks idling outside the venue, sprightly women fighting over designer dresses at warehouse sales and price tags that would otherwise be a down payment on a really nice house. But they’ll be green, which means the participants will pretend otherwise.

Pardon the sarcasm. Yes, “going green” is the new AIDS, the new 9/11 firefighters fund and the new anti-fur campaign. In other words: a worthy cause taken up by famous people for a short amount of time before moving on to something else. Anyone who is anyone is going green. Is this helping the planet? The jury is still out on that one.

Don’t get too angry. Most people know that I’m pretty green and pretty liberal. I buy into the notion of conserving energy and trying to halt or slow global climate change. I’ve invested in measures to reduce energy usage at my house and have always supported efforts to increase renewable energy production. But using a small amount of recycled paper or changing a few small parts of your life, especially if you’re only doing it to be stylish, is just a cover. Scientists are finding that some popular hybrid cars aren’t as gas friendly as advertised. Using recycled materials will only slow down our resource shortages if you don’t change how you consume materials. By next year there will be a new “in” thing, a new hook. If, then, everyone goes right back to consuming resources at ridiculous rates then the green trend will be as useful to society as the Zubaz pants trend. It’s all about how we use resources and where we derive our energy.

There is now widespread agreement that global climate change is happening because of human activity. A cold day in the winter isn’t evidence to the contrary. Even if you don’t accept that as absolute fact, it just makes sense to use our current economic strength to convert our energy usage to renewable resources. It’s smart for both business and the environment. I don’t think anyone imagines a future in 100 years where we aren’t using new technology to create efficient, renewable energy. That’s where we should be spending our time, effort and money. That’s a way to “go green” and have it count.

More columns

Brown on the air -- Saturday, March 10

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In “Guns, Germs and Steel” by Jared Diamond, the noted geographer details how farming societies overcame hunter gatherer societies to create what we now call civilization. Interestingly, farming societies emerged out of the septic fields of ancient hunter gatherers. Seeds that survived human consumption grew in these fields, the smell of which I can’t even imagine, becoming crops. Those crops allowed bigger tribes to form, new technology, domestic animals and eventual resistance to killer diseases. Many, many, many years later we now have Nintendo and nuclear weapons. In other words, all the social upheaval of the last 15 millennia has generally favored the people who at one time in their history ate where they “went.” I’m left pondering this as I gaze out my office window at my septic pipes.

This winter in Northern Minnesota, we’ve heard more than usual about septic systems. Before last week’s big snow, our winter was very dry and cold. Many rural septic systems froze out, causing in many basements an effect similar to pouring gravy on a giant block of ice. Thus homeowners receive a quick education about the physics and engineering involved in home septic systems. I was fortunate in that our family’s relatively new septic system did not freeze, but I know many who weren’t as lucky.

I’m only in my second year of rural life after several years living in the big city of Hibbing, where public sewers are decidedly less finicky than personal septic systems. Sure, sometimes the aging infrastructure of a small town gives out, but by and large the sewers are quite forgiving. You may have a garbage disposal in your sink, for instance, and wash away old food stuff to a watery grave. There are limits, however. When in Hibbing, we pressure washed old paint off our basement floor down the drain. Later, we had to scoop mealy wads of sewage tainted lime green paint chips into garbage bags when they proved too much for the line to handle. Then we had to call a man with something called a snake. Oops! That learned us good.

If you were to take a tour of a wastewater treatment plant, your tour groups would learn that nothing is gone when it gets flushed away; it just goes someplace else. The most memorable detail about a wastewater treatment plant is the layer of tampon applicators that top the holding tanks like marshmallows in hot chocolate. Indeed, flushing doesn’t eliminate anything. City residents may think that, like in “Finding Nemo,” “all drains lead to the sea.” But, in truth, they lead to a tank somewhere, and Nemo would be dead either from Drano poisoning or when the solid waste fan chopped him up. Sorry kids.

Things are different in the country, but only in destination. What you put down the drains of your house stays on your property. If anything goes wrong, it is very much your problem. Many people are learning that the hard way this winter.

From an ecological standpoint, a water based system of waste disposal isn’t especially friendly to the environment. In towns you have to treat the water, resulting is highly concentrated and fairly dangerous solid waste. In the country you must store the waste in a tank that needs to be emptied periodically, the same way a the Morlocks from “The Time Machine” must come up from underground to feed on the Eloi. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the way things run. A winter like this one is just a rather unpleasant reminder.

So when you next flush, remember, all drains do not lead to the sea, despite what cartoon fish might tell you.

Spring Break with a toddler

Legislative 'progress'

Hot shows jump shark(s)

Talking or writing about pop culture is a double edged sword. In a year, maybe less, pop culture news is completely irrelevant, if it ever was relevant at all.

For instance, I remember when my wife told me that Brittany Spears shaved her head. At that precise moment I was VERY interested. WOW! I can’t believe she’d do that. Now, after seeing a few dozen news reports and hearing educated people speculate on Spears’ mental well-being, I am no longer interested. It’s the news equivalent of a meat and cheese tray. When a party starts, everyone loves the meat and cheese tray. Later, around midnight, the cheese has that chalky crust on it and the meat is a solid 72 degrees at its center.

Despite the inherent risks, I will raise a pop culture point and hope that this column has a longer shelf life than discount mayonnaise. Has anyone else noticed that many popular television shows have been jumping the shark lately?

Pardon me if you’re not familiar with the term “jumping the shark.” A well-known web site – www.jumptheshark.com – describes the term this way: “It’s a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite program has reached its peak. That instant that you know that from now on … it’s all downhill. Some call it a climax. We call it jumping the shark.” The term comes from the moment in “Happy Days” when the Fonz is water skiing and, while doing a jump, avoids a leaping shark. Even for a sitcom like “Happy Days,” the shark jumping moment totally abused the thin layer of trust still held by the audience.

Two highly-rated shows in particular have been shark jumping lately, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Desperate Housewives.” It is important to note that I don’t watch these shows, but my wife does and I happen to be in the same room. Right.

Anyway, the recent “Grey’s Anatomy” plotline depicts the show’s namesake Dr. Meredith Grey falling off a pier, floating dramatically underwater for what appears to be three hours, before being fished out and given CPR for another three hours, miraculously surviving. All this in a series of episodes so full of implausible trauma scene situations that those nerdy kids who pick out continuity errors on TV shows would have strokes if they paid too close attention. Of course, the “Grey’s” doctors could cure their stroke with witty dialogue at inappropriate times.

Then, on “Desperate Housewives” we’ve recently seen even more murders and accidental deaths on Wisteria Lane. I have but one comment. If Wisteria Lane is such a high class suburban neighborhood, why aren’t people moving away? There have been a half dozen murders on this tiny little cul-de-sac in three years, including an old lady who got run over with a car, a poisoning, a lady falling off the roof, a lady who got strangled and buried, another who was shot at the supermarket. I don’t know what metro area Wisteria Lane is in, but this exclusive suburb would probably be considered its highest crime area. And yet the real estate lady keeps moving properties to new rich people, even though the new ones almost always die first. They’re like red shirts in “Star Trek.”

Is it too much to ask, TV? If you’re going to lull us into a state of stupor, jeopardizing citizen-led democracy and the human development, could you at least make the woes of fictional characters somewhat plausible?

No? Well, OK. But I will continue to make snide comments as you flicker away my brain cells. You can’t stop me.

More columns

AB on the air -- "Iron Range Travel"

(This essay was broadcast on 91.7 FM KAXE's "Between You and Me" with Heidi Holtan on Saturday, March 3. I'm working on an extended version of this piece for my yet unnamed book project which is due out next year.)

HOST INTRO:          We’re talking about travel destinations today. The Iron Range is a collection of towns and locations along three different iron formations in Northern Minnesota. If you haven’t been to the Range before, KAXE contributor Aaron Brown has some good reasons to give it a try.

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Like many Iron Rangers under the age of 40, I have hipster friends who live in the Twin Cities. Between sips of $5 latte, they will sometime call me on their $300 cell phones just to ask “what is there to do up there?” Sometimes, this is followed by chortling and references to something from the A&E section of an alt weekly.

Well, I’ll tell you the same thing I tell them. The Iron Range is full of excitement if you’re willing to cast off your black turtleneck and get elbow deep in nature, human drama and working class pleasures. Join me, friends.

If you go off of what the media says about us, all we have here on the Iron Range is taconite, hockey, beer and sexual harassment. Well, we also have museums. From west to east, the Iron Range celebrates its unique past – when we kick started the labor movement, when we kept the country alive with steel, and when a little taxi service began to grow into the nation’s largest bus company. In Calumet, Hill Annex is the only state park dedicated to an abandoned mine. In Hibbing, the Greyhound Bus Museum, America’s only bus museum, details how a little Hupmobile that chugged between a mining location and Hibbing eventually became the nation’s elite Greyhound Bus Company. Many towns have small historical museums or displays. And, of course, Ironworld and the Iron Range Research Library is a one stop location for Range history. This isn’t like some of the historical museums you might find in flat land places where the highlights are the year they figured out how to grow wheat and the year they got a stop light. Range history is decidedly more complex, like the backdrop of a good novel. Writers, poets and thinkers would find much to consider between the lines of our historical markers.

Not a history buff? That’s fine, because we have plenty to do on the Range. It’s true; we tend to eschew night clubs and dance halls for bars and … additional bars. And while some social elitists might scoff at the many ma and pa greasy spoon diners dotted along the Range, we have several restaurants that I’d take over any big chain or fancy fare. In my native Hibbing we have Zimmy’s, which is probably the world’s only Bob Dylan themed bar and restaurant. And identifying their entrees is much easier than identifying songs at a Dylan concert. In Gilbert, the Whistling Bird provides a high class Jamaican dining experience to an Iron Range clientele. To go there is to see a paradox. I never get tired of it. Another interesting twist on our mining towns is that most have at least one Chinese restaurant. I learned from a history teacher once that Asian immigrants often followed mining booms and, as a result, small mining towns often had more Oriental dining options than other larger towns. Now, many authentic Mexican restaurants are cropping up. Point is, it’s a mistake to think the Range only offers burger and beer joints. Though, if you like burgers and beer, we’ve got you covered.

Our arts and cultural activities aren’t quite as vibrant as those of big college towns or classy urban downtowns, but they exist with a great sense of earnestness. Also, because we’re a working class area, where entertainment dollars are limited, you’re more likely to see arts experiences that are accessible, as opposed to sculptures made of frozen goat urine or anything involving Yoko Ono. The quick growth and shady political dealings of most of our towns left places like Hibbing with enormous and expensive auditoriums that other working class locations could never dream of acquiring. So the arts on the Range usually exceed expectations if you’re willing to watch the papers and find things to see and do.

Then, of course, the Iron Range offers fast access to the outdoors. Home of the best part of the Mesabi Trail, you can cycle or ski along the spine of the Mesabi Range, between the skeletons of old mining equipment that was literally too big to throw out. We’ve got lakes for fishing, woods for hunting and even if you don’t want to kill critters, there’s something outside for you.

As a native Iron Ranger, I know my homeland often carries a reputation as a rough and tumble industrial area that’s on the decline. Our many chambers of commerce try to combat this with statistics about our growing medical community or vast tracts of tax free land. In truth, the Iron Range is as human a place as I’ve seen in all my travels. It’s a place where people and the land converge, and history happens. Come on by and see what happens next.

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HOST OUTRO:         Aaron Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune, an instructor at Hibbing Community College and frequent contributor to KAXE.

Snow Day ... Boo Ya!

Midweek observations

• Henry got a "Thomas the Tank Engine" video from my mom around the same time my dad gave him a Thomas the Tank Engine train set. Now he loves trains. The video has a song at the end about accidents. "Accidents happen now and again," the lyrics go. The accompanying video features Thomas and his friends crashing into things. It's a cute video, but I'm alarmed at the laissez faire attitude shown by the humans at Thomas' rail station toward this series of major rail yard accidents. If this were a real switching yard, one of these plastic guys would be splayed out on the tracks with no legs. Also, I think the following line in one verse of the "Accidents" song is "People and trains get smashed." That reminded me of a story I heard from an old Iron Range railroader. He said sometimes when the trains slowed down going through a particular town the crew would jump off the train, run into the liquor store and hoof it back with a case of beer before the still rolling train sped back up. Indeed, people and trains do get smashed. Times have changed since then, I hear.

• Dylan Days has more updates. Bob Dylan is getting a lot of attention in Minnesota right now with the opening of the biographical Weisman exhibit in Minneapolis. WDIO did a piece on it last night. We in Hibbing hope that translates into attention for Dylan Days this May. Spread the word! We actually have a pretty cool events lineup this year.