Bob CollinsIt’s pretty hard to learn auto repair when you’re a woman. Just ask the students at Bemidji High School, where a mixed-gender class is pretty much dominated by the guys. Auto repair? Girls? Please. You know how it goes. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
By Bob Collins
Bob Collins retired from Minnesota Public Radio in 2019 after 12 years of writing NewsCut and pointing out to complainants that posts weren’t news stories. A son of Massachusetts, he was a news editor 1992-1998, created the MPR News regional website in 1999, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started several blogs, and every day lamented that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.
Admit it, fans of the NBC series, “This is Us.” You spent part of Wednesday wondering if your Crock-Pot is a death trap. We know now that a faulty switch on a Crock-Pot is what killed Jack, the heroic father. Next week’s episode will contain all the details as he rescues his family, as the Read more →
A hazard of making a living in popular culture that when you go, your life’s achievement is Tinky Winky. Even your name is excluded from the headline.
His name was Simon Shelton Barnes. He was a dancer.
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The Lord loveth a cheerful plower. Read more →
Our hearts are always warmed when we see the boys of summer giving winter a good go. Read more →
Here are the topics and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
Where football is concerned, it’s getting to be that charity begins on the road.
A week after Minnesota fans inundated a New Orleans Saints player’s charitable foundation with cash in admiration for his sportsmanship, Philadelphia fans — some of them, anyway — are pouring money into Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Zimmer’s charitable foundation, too. Read more →
In the span of just two weeks, there have been two high-profile cases of people being dumped in their hospital gowns on the street outside.
The latest is in Milwaukee where workers of the Aurora Sinai Medical Center put a homeless man out on the street after he was discharged.
Pictures showed he had a hospital gown, sweatpants, no shoes and one sock.
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We can learn a lot from squirrels. Today’s lesson: Everything in perspective.
Take this week’s big snow dump, for example. It was horrible, what with buses being stuck and gridlock keeping people from happy hour and all. Read more →
If there’s one radio listener complaint that’s as predictable as rain, referring to the person in the Oval Office as ‘President’ or ‘Mr.’ is it. Read more →
Everything is forever on the Internet, so there’s a pretty good chance you’ve seen a post like this in your Facebook or Twitter feed and perhaps you’ve even dutifully followed the instruction to repost it without questioning anything about it. ‘Make her pay,’ the instructions say, and people online are only too happy to spread the hate in return.’ Read more →
It’s probably only a coincidence that it happened just after a big snowstorm in the host city, but the price of Super Bowl tickets at US Bank Stadium are sliding. Read more →
Here are the topics and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
The annual controversies surrounding yearbook photos are off to an early start this year with the school board in Crookston deciding to back away from a policy announced earlier this month that bans guns from yearbook photos. Read more →
Jigar Desai said he wasn’t trying to catch the train when he ran into a concrete pole. He just saw a bunch of Eagles fans and wanted to get them pumped up.
Alcohol was involved.
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