
Featured

Howie: How Minnesota is quietly rewriting the rules of rural health care
The next era of rural health depends on designing systems that reward results rather than codes, that measure well-being rather than billing.

Howie: The Great Scanlon Data Center caper
We headed down to the bridge for what we called a “feasibility study.” Translation: three guys staring at the water with thermoses. “Looks cold enough to me,” Dale said. “Yep,” Roger nodded. “Perfect for servers.”


Howie: The Amsoil press box feels empty without John Gilbert
They say Herb Brooks was a visionary. Fine. But every visionary needs a translator, and that was John. Herb trusted him enough to actually talk — which, if you knew Herb, tells you everything.

Howie: Downtown Duluth embraces for another long winter
You can’t police despair. You can shuffle people from doorway to doorway, but that’s optics, not safety. The folks drifting between shelters and liquor stores aren’t statistics.
Howie: The Great Duluth Spin Parade: Everyone’s cheering, nobody’s buying it
It’s civic theater, and everyone knows their lines. The officials announce. The media nod. The television anchors beam. The advertisers clap. And the citizens — the actual audience — sit at home wondering if they’ve accidentally tuned into satire.

Howie: Independent. Unbought. Unafraid.
I started building what I call Howie 5.0 long before the world ever heard of ChatGPT or Jasper or any of these so-called AI writing assistants. Long before the tech world decided to disrupt writing, I was quietly building something to restore it.