Bob CollinsWhen you consider the brouhaha that eminent domain — the government taking your land because it can do better with it — created as an issue a few years ago, it’s amazing that civil forfeiture doesn’t cause the outrage it should.
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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.
The Court ruled in the case of Robin Hensel, of Little Falls, who was cited for disorderly conduct after she moved her chairs closer to city councilors at a meeting, days after the Council rescheduled a meeting when Hensel displayed signs that depicted dead and deformed children, blocking the view of others in the audience. Read more →
They’re the crews who piled into their trucks from points far away — including from Minnesota and Wisconsin — and drove to Florida for the overtime pay and privilege of touching electric wires and listening to the occasional complaint from some people that their electricity wasn’t restored yet after Hurricane Irma. Read more →
The other day I attended my “interview” with the committee organizing volunteers to put a nice face on Minnesota when the Super Bowl is held in Minneapolis at the end of the NFL season, which started here Monday night when the Vikings played the New Orleans Saints. The goal is to send people away thinking Read more →
I don’t have much choice in this underreported affair; I have to freeze my credit at not only Equifax, but every other major credit reporting firm. And I had to pay for each one. Read more →
If you feel a little bad for what the online world did to Sergio Dipp last night, there’s hope for you. If you don’t, a heart transplant probably won’t help. Read more →
The annual Constitution Day survey of American knowledge of the Constitution was released today. Don’t get your hopes up; it’s as depressing as ever. Read more →
After almost being killed by a bull, Jim Carter, of Duluth, lost the use of a leg. He joked to a friend that since he couldn’t ski anymore, he’d become a dancer instead. It turned out to be no joke. Read more →
An encounter with a University of California Berkeley cop may end up being the best thing that ever happened to a man selling hot dogs illegally before a football game.
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The fans of the University of Iowa football team started a wave during their game against Iowa State on Saturday Wyoming last week, and this new tradition should stick. At the end of the first quarter, the fans turned and waved at the building next to the stadium, particularly those assembled on the 12th floor, Read more →
In southwestern Minnesota, a Hills- Beaver Creek High School football player was paralyzed while playing in a game against Mountain Lake on Friday night. Read more →
For our occasional series — The Beauty of Disasters — we give you this before-and-after shot from space of the water surrounding Florida. Read more →
Michelle MacDonald had claimed she was endorsed by the Republican Party’s Judicial Selection Committee in her bid for the Minnesota Supreme Court. She wasn’t,even though she was the party’s only candidate in the race to ask for it. Read more →
The TV coverage of Hurricane Irma has renewed the long debate over whether journalists have a responsibility to lead by example, or whether we need the showbiz aspect of their work to understand the story they’re telling. Read more →
Farhan Abdi, a Muslim who works with Somali youth in St. Cloud, has a coffee shop that needed some help, the St. Cloud Times says.
Enter the Lutherans of Sartell. Read more →