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.
Yesterday afternoon, thousands of volunteers for the upcoming Super Bowl week attended their training on how to put the state’s best foot forward for visitors to our fair state, many convinced that we’re just nicer and more polite than people in the rest of the country. Read more →
Today’s 1,000 Words comes with words.
It’s the voice of Jae Hong, a photographer for the Associated Press, whose assignment was to document the homeless crisis in the West.
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‘I want to tell you about my grandmother Charlotte, or as her friends called her, Chuck. Chuck was an Army nurse during World War II. She was trained in physical therapy and stationed in Belgium until the end of the war. ‘ Read more →
‘In a rural area outside of Arcadia, Florida, my partner and I ended up on a winding country road with a flat tire on the rental car we were driving. We pulled on to the shoulder (such as it was) and got out of the car. My partner, Bob, got the jack and spare out of the trunk and I started to call the Red Cross transportation coordinator volunteer to let him know what had happened.’
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Without someone to give a rip, this buck, stuck in the Gull River would be a goner.
That’s where Eric Sullivan, a DNR conservation officer, comes in. Read more →
‘It doesn’t take much more than kindness and a little music to turn disappointment into an unexpected gift. That’s what a group of young men did for two little boys and their mother on Thursday at the State Capitol.’
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The Green Bay Packers paid tribute to veterans during their game on Monday night, giving away American flags to everyone streaming into the stadium.
Many of the flags ended up on the ground. Read more →
‘My dad had been going through cancer treatment since March (thank you tobacco industry, agent orange and asbestos). Usually, on a lovely spring, summer or fall day you could find him sitting outside my parents’ garage watching the traffic, yelling at speeders or waving at friends, especially the local ambulance crew. ‘
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My grandmother, Margaret Terry Trowbridge, was 82 when I moved from Alabama to Minneapolis in February 2000 to join the mighty Minnesota Orchestra. A native Minnesotan and lifelong fan of classical music, she could not have been more proud for one of her grandkids to be joining the ranks at Orchestra Hall. I was pretty darn proud, myself, and couldn’t wait to welcome my grandma in person at one of the Thursday morning concerts she’d been attending for years.
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The theme for Friday’s Theft of the Blog: Tell me a story of decency. Preferably it’ll be about someone you know, but at this point, we’ll settle for decency where we can find it. Read more →
In the aftermath of the attack on Sen. Rand Paul, allegedly in some sort of dispute over landscaping between neighbors in their gated community, we have no choice but to give the benefit of the doubt to unnamed political analysts who see a more sinister situation. A war of leaf blowers. Read more →
A Texas reporter thinks the news media owes Sutherland an apology and says there must be a better way to cover stories like this. Read more →
World War II veteran Harold Zilmer of, Minot, N.D., was walking around the World War II memorial in Washington this week. He was on an Honor Flight, which flies veterans to the memorial and back on the same day.
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There are still too many people who believe the myth that showing you this picture and talking about what’s happening will lead more people to want to jump from a bridge. Read more →
Everything that’s wrong with bro-talk radio can pretty much be summed up with a Boston sportscaster’s rant against Roy Halladay on the day after Halladay — about as decent a person as ever existed — crashed his plane into the Gulf of Mexico and died. Read more →
Bob Collins