A plan for Minnesota's North Country

This morning we stumbled onto an essay that we believe has a whole lot of relevance for the Iron Range and the rest of Minnesota's Eighth Congressional District: THE BIG PICTURE: RESOURCE EXTRACTION. The author provides what we find to be a very telling analysis of the problems facing places like the Iron Range, and offers what we find to be an excellent core for any solutions [we would include Minnesota as a "...purple, resource-rich state..." along with the four specifically mentioned]:

To show up with a plan, I think, means this: Blue voters and politicians in the cities, state governments, and federal delegations of purple, resource-rich states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Colorado have to seize the political moment to issue a vocal, organized demand for three things: (1) ambitious, transformative investments (including for tuition relief) in community colleges and universities in declining urban and rural areas, (2) capital investments in small businesses as a foundation for economic development, and (3) a jobs program (expanded from the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act model) that meets urgent needs in these regions: such as rebuilding decaying water and wastewater infrastructure, thinning the overstocked western forests that threaten rural counties with wildfires, decontaminating waterways and land sullied by fossil fuel extraction, and treating the opioid addiction crisis.

not all treasures are underground

Photo by J. Harrington

As the Democrats move through their candidate nominating process this Spring, we hope they'll query those running to represent MN CD 8 in  Congress about what kinds of solutions they envision for the economy of northern Minnesota. We think they'd be well advised to compare answers with the plan outlined above. Then, come November, vote for the candidate, DFL or GOP, who they believe is most likely to pursue a course of better access to better education; providing small business better access to capital; and, funding for infrastructure improvements and better management of our remaining natural resources.

Although not specifically mentioned in "The Big Picture," we would also strongly recommend a two-fold approach for those who wish to see resource extraction jobs continue as at least a limited part of the economic base of the area. First, resource extraction industries should be required to implement their industries best practices, and do so in a third party certified program. This is not a complete solution to environmental impacts, but it is a more transparent solution than provided by Minnesota's underfunded, politically whip-sawed regulatory agencies. Second, the Minnesota legislature could go a long way to improving both the economy and the environment or northern Minnesota by requiring that materials used in publicly funded projects come from sustainably-sourced providers, mines, wood, and maybe even agriculture, some day. No one wins a race to the bottom, most of all those with the fewest resources to begin with. We need an economy for the rest of us.

                     Once the World Was Perfect

By Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.

Then we took it for granted.

Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.

Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

And once Doubt ruptured the web,

All manner of demon thoughts

Jumped through—

We destroyed the world we had been given

For inspiration, for life—

Each stone of jealousy, each stone

Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.

No one was without a stone in his or her hand.

There we were,

Right back where we had started.

We were bumping into each other

In the dark.

And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know

How to live with each other.

Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another

And shared a blanket.

A spark of kindness made a light.

The light made an opening in the darkness.

Everyone worked together to make a ladder.

A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,

And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,

And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

A week for the birds?

This week included National Napping Day on Monday and, in Minnesota, Township Day yesterday. It would have worked out better for us if Napping Day came after Township Day. Today is when we actually celebrated Napping Day. Our township's Annual Meeting was last night. It ran later than we expected, and then we had a family conversation about it when we got home. There had been a lengthy presentation and discussion at the Meeting about a Road Committee proposal to pave all the 39 miles or so of gravel roads with either chip seal or hot mix asphalt, mostly the former. We have some continuing reservations about the advisability of the proposal, particularly from an economic perspective. If any of you have experience with the conversion of local roads from gravel to chip seal, please use the comments to let us know how it went.

blue jay under the front feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

This coming Saturday is not only St. Patrick's Day, it's also the day for the Senate District 32 DFL convention. Obviously, Senate District 32 is inhabited by many more Scandihooligans than Irish, unlike Boston where we were raised. We continue to be concerned about the degree of opposition many Democrats are exhibiting to their more progressive brethren, so we'll see if our participation in the convention turns out to be part of the problem or part of the solution.

oak under which blue jay feathers were scattered

Photo by J. Harrington

These are strange times, and not only in politics. For better than a week we haven't seen any birds at the feeder out front. It used to attract blue jays, cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers and squirrels. Not a one have we seen recently. While walking the dogs yesterday we may have come upon a hint of what's going one. We discovered a number of blue jay feathers scattered in a circle under a roadside oak tree. Perhaps a hawk has moved into the neighborhood? We haven't seen one but that hypothesis is the leading candidate for why there are no longer birds seen where they used to abound. On the other hand, in the past we've seen hawks soaring above the feeder behind the house. Everything and everyone goes very, very quiet for a bit, and then returns to normal. Maybe the birds have just taken a hint from the tRump administration and left in great numbers for better opportunities. Would that help support a hypothesis that the current administration is for the birds?

a scattering of blue jay blue-gray feathers

Photo by J. Harrington

Blur

Andrew Hudgins

Storms of perfume lift from honeysuckle,
lilac, clover—and drift across the threshold,
outside reclaiming inside as its home.
Warm days whirl in a bright unnumberable blur,
a cup—a grail brimmed with delirium
and humbling boredom both.  I was a boy,
I thought I’d always be a boy, pell—mell,
mean, and gaily murderous one moment
as I decapitated daises with a stick,
then overcome with summer’s opium,
numb—slumberous.  I thought I’d always be a boy,
each day its own millennium, each
one thousand years of daylight ending in
the night watch, summer’s pervigilium,
which I could never keep because by sunset
I was an old man.  I was Methuselah,
the oldest man in the holy book.  I drowsed.
I nodded, slept—and without my watching, the world,
whose permanence I doubted, returned again,
bluebell and blue jay, speedwell and cardinal
still there when the light swept back,
and so was I, which I had also doubted.
I understood with horror then with joy,
dubious and luminous joy: it simply spins.
It doesn’t need my feet to make it turn.
It doesn’t even need my eyes to watch it,
and I, though a latecomer to its surface, I’d
be leaving early.  It was my duty to stay awake
and sing if I could keep my mind on singing,
not extinction, as blurred green summer, lifted
to its apex, succumbed to gravity and fell
to autumn, Ilium, and ashes.  In joy
we are our own uncomprehending mourners,
and more than joy I longed for understanding
and more than understanding I longed for joy.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.