Bob CollinsWho among us hasn’t wanted to pour something on the head of the boss? 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.
In Michigan, parents are allowed to avoid having their children immunized if it conflicts with their religious or personal beliefs.
But Rebecca Bredow is going to jail anyway because she reneged on a deal with her ex-husband to have their 9-year-old son vaccinated. Read more →
By most accounts Thomas Sonnenberg was a Good Samaritan; that’s how Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman characterized him at a press conference, and that’s how most media in the Twin Cities characterized him.
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City Pages today has the story behind this photo, posted to Twitter last week, of a man hitting the hottest new club in the Twin Cities: an empty I-35W. Read more →
‘I’m a Second Amendment person. The weapon didn’t do it. It was the person behind it,’ the man said at his daughter’s bedside.
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A Prairie Home Companion and its various guests and stars would’ve been mere marooned nobodies without Russ Ringsak; he drove the truck, known to hard-core APHC fans as ‘Hank’. He was one of the original members of the troupe, and in many ways the only thing that distinguished his talent from Garrison Keillor’s was a CDL.
Ringsak died today, Prairie Home Productions confirmed. Read more →
Louie Spray, of Rice Lake, Wis., once owned the Wisconsin musky record — three times. His picture disappeared from a Milwaukee diner where it had occupied a place of honor over a urinal. Read more →
Fewer words ever written were more accurate than these: Life is not fair. Read more →
The Minnesota Vikings are playing the Cleveland Browns in London later this month, presenting a challenging question to the team’s fans: Is it OK to start drinking at 8:30 in the morning? That’s when the game starts here. Read more →
Here’s your moment of bittersweetness, courtesy of Jerry Gale, of Brooklyn Park, Minn., who, like a lot of people, marks the passage of time via the game of baseball. Read more →
The CEO of Wells Fargo, Timothy Sloan, appeared before the Senate Banking Committee this morning to answer questions about the bank’s culture of ethical shortcomings.
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Here’s a free tip for teachers: If you’re going to dress down a student for her attire, don’t do it in front of the class. Read more →
We are only allowed so many memorable moments in our relationship with the stuff that comes out of a radio, and there can only be one at the top of the list. Read more →
The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday ruled that a spouse is not entitled to a share of military disability benefits, even if the two agree to it in their divorce settlement. Read more →
We have a problem and on talk shows throughout the nation so far today, we’re having another discussion about the constitutional rights of Americans, a week after another debate about the constitutional rights of Americans in a different context. Again, the irony fairly hurts.
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