Bob Collins
It’s time for the Last Man Club of Luverne, Minn., to drink up. Warren Herreid, one of its most noteworthy members, died yesterday. He was 96.
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MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Archives for October 2017
You can do a lot worse than being a 91-year-old man in Erhard, Minn. (pop. 149), at least if your name is Windy Ferm. Read more →
All the usual elements are there in the latest twist in the ongoing debate in this country over protest and expression: the kid who sits during the Pledge of Allegiance, the one who stands while wearing an American flag T-shirt, the assumption of authority to teach a little respect, as the person who posted the video from Winter Mills High School in Westminster, Md., characterized it. Read more →
Every now and again, we need a recalibration of our consideration of things that are important. Usually it involves a story about how outrageously unfair life is.
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In Marshfield, Wis., a 38-year-old man went to the local Kwik Trip shortly before midnight to buy beer but somehow locked himself inside the cooler. He decided to spend the night drinking beer. Read more →
Residents of a 30-unit apartment complex are being thrown out because too many police calls came from residents there. Not all residents, probably, but everyone goes because the city has yanked the rental permit of the building owner. Read more →
Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland released more research in Nature that provides further evidence that the universe shouldn’t exist, which, of course, only makes the question ‘why are we here, then?’ all the more confounding. Read more →
The rules are the rules and it doesn’t matter if Emily Nash, 16, of Lunenburg, Ma., beat all the boys by four strokes in a high school golf tournament. She doesn’t get the trophy for winning the tournament, nor the right to advance to a state tournament for winning the tournament she won, but didn’t. Read more →
Typically, reporters and news organizations are reluctant to turn over unpublished notes and recordings when the justice system demands they do so.
But in the case surrounding the death of a man in a fight outside a bar in May, the Fargo Forum is making an exception. Read more →
Bara Raa Gregoire was throwing out some trash at the dumpster in Lutsen yesterday morning when she discovered two pretty happy bears. Read more →
It’s not easy talking to grieving loved ones when someone dies and I’ve made a good living doing it. There’s not much you can say and it’s pretty easy to say either the wrong thing, or something that sounds insincere. Read more →
There was a moment last night when baseball fans watching the World Series were reminded that baseball stadiums are basically studios for a TV production. What you see isn’t what’s really there. Read more →
As fewer people are likely to have access to health care for their illnesses in the future, we’d expect more discussion ahead about laws to allow patients to die with dignity with medical assistance despite the uncomfortable nature of the topic. Read more →
There wasn’t much a Green Bay cop could do to make things better other than what he says cops usually do.
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There’s little chance that Ken Stern, who once headed NPR as its CEO, actually knew much about the news process, the decisions, the writing, the political leanings of its staff, and maybe even the names of a large number of people who worked for him. Read more →