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.
If you’re sick of all the political campaigning and the dueling letters to the editor, it’s only because you haven’t yet met Michael Holmes, a former Red Wing resident, who suggests you pay attention to what he has to say about the race for mayor in the city. Read more →
In this space yesterday we critiqued how one news organization chose to cover a World Series without offering a proper alternative.
Here’s the proper alternative. Read more →
In the temples of baseball — the old stadiums full of tradition — it can be a fulltime job keeping fans from spreading the ashes of the dearly departed. Read more →
One of the reasons parenthood is so hard is because there are so many people in the business or pleasure of telling you how you’re doing it wrong. And there’s no greater expert on how to be a parent than the ones who’ve been doing it for a couple of years, tops.
Read more →
Like any 4th grade boy, Jalue Dorje enjoys soccer, swimming and Pokemon cards. But unlike most 9-year-olds, he is believed to be — and confirmed by the Dalai Lama himself — the reincarnation of an eminent senior lama who died nine years ago. Read more →
Sam Cook of the Duluth News Tribune, who has a way of putting his couch-anchored readers out in the woods, asks in his column today, ‘Do you want to know how the hunting has been this fall?’ Read more →
Perhaps no jury verdict since O.J. Simpson’s has sparked such a discussion on race and the judicial system as yesterday’s surprise “not guilty” verdict against the armed protesters — all white — who took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, protesting what they said was government overeach.
Read more →
This picture, from the Morton County, N.D., Sheriff’s Department, from the scene of the Dakota Access Pipeline protest should spark another discussion about that equipment the U.S. government gave away to police departments with all the money it had to fight terrorism. Read more →
When reporters parachute in to provide sports coverage to an audience which hates sports, you get the kind of story NPR provided today in a blast against the fans of the Cleveland Indians. Read more →
The best way to understand Dylan’s silence is to understand Sartre’s concept of ‘bad faith.’ Read more →
The social media generation has given us a new type of criminal; the type to break into buildings just to take video of breaking into buildings. Read more →
Baby Boomers, the same crowd that put ABBA in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, thank you very much, will probably put up some sort of spirited defense against a column by the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank. . But there’s one problem with trying: Milbank has a point.
Read more →
The last time the people of Edina knew what it was like not to win the girl’s state tennis tournament, there was a Clinton in the White House, the Dow was breaking through 6,000, Princess Diana and Prince Charles were still married, and the DVD player had just been introduced. Read more →
Jim Schlegel, the 97-year-old veteran of Pearl Harbor whose daughter wanted him to see one more Chicago Cubs World Series game, is going to see one more Chicago Cubs World Series game. Read more →
Bob Collins