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.
Today we renew our call that the airline safety briefing include instructions on how to be quiet on an airplane.
In the latest ‘unruly passenger’ video, a woman decides that sitting in an aluminum tube with a couple hundred strangers is a fine time to yell at her seatmate because of his politics. Read more →
The Minnesota Court of Appeals today overturned a lower court ruling that refused to dismiss a class action lawsuit that contends Minnesota’s unclaimed property law is an illegal seizure under the Constitution.
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If you want to see the decline of rural America, look no farther than high school football. As small towns continue to empty out, it’s becoming impossible for schools to continue football programs without significant changes to the sport. Read more →
To find out about America, Politico senior writer Michael Kruse headed for the banks of the Mississippi River in Wisconsin. Pepin County — Stockholm, Pepin, Durand etc. — voted for a Democrat in every election since 1972.
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The Hibbing School Board and the Hibbing Rifle and Pistol Club intended to give a new deal to use the Lincoln Elementary gun range a year’s test.
It lasted not quite two weeks after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration reported elevated levels of lead at the gun range. Read more →
If we’re going to make America great again, maybe we can start with getting rid of rain ponchos. Read more →
Minnesota DFL U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar brings Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain and Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders together for a little photographic unity. Read more →
A custom rifle manufacturer has apparently decided to halt the sale of a Mankato-themed rifle after complaints that it used a noose to depict the Dakota Conflict. Mankato was the site of the largest mass execution in history when thirty-eight Dakota men were hanged.
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Today’s must-listen/must-read story comes — not surprisingly — from StoryCorps on NPR this morning, which is the story of John Marboe, who picks up trash for a living. That’s in addition to being a Lutheran pastor in St. Paul and an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota. He got his Ph.D. in 2011. Read more →
The students who run the school’s newspaper and news website at St. Louis Park High School are making a stand for their right to data they say they need to tell the story of a November incident in which a senior boy allegedly pulled a hijab off another student. Read more →
I don’t do the Monday Morning Rouser anymore, nor its occasional offspring on Friday.
Today seems like a good day to make an exception.
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The Twin Cities got a shout out from the International Space Station during its pass on Thursday. Read more →
If you know how artists are, perhaps you can understand the sort of thing that drives Pete Souza crazy. Souza, the official White House photographer during the Obama administration (he also was the photographer during the Reagan years), took these two iconic photographs.
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Angie Arnold’s picture tells the story of Wednesday’s bomb scare at the Sabes Jewish Community Center in St. Louis Park far more poignantly than any news story about the assault could.
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Unless there’s a miracle, a big part of our condimental heritage could soon disappear. Wisconsin’s Mustard Museum is in trouble, the Wisconsin State Journal reports.
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Bob Collins