Bob CollinsFor the most part, parents can be pretty over-the-top when it comes to protecting their kids from risks real and imagined. So why are they letting them play youth football? NBC reports on a study being released today that shows the brain changes after just one season of suiting up, even if the player doesn’t 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.
I’m filling in for Tom Weber at 11 a.m. today on MPR News (91.1 in the Twin Cities). Here are a couple of links I’ll be referring to during the broadcast on obituaries. This is the post I wrote about Stuart Schumacher and his wife, Melissa, who started an effort to help people write obituaries Read more →
Most fans of the Cleveland Indians had never heard of Ryan Merritt, until he pitched his team into the World Series. Now they’re rewarding Merritt and his fiancee, a Rochester area native. Read more →
No pressure, Boundary Waters, but the New York Times this afternoon is telling the nation you’re the cure for the political cesspool gripping the nation right now.
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What’s happening to the nation’s big websites today is yet another reminder how vulnerable we are. Read more →
St. Paul is about to lose one of its most distinctive and quirky downtown landmarks. Read more →
Wells Fargo has taken actions to rid itself of the stench surrounding a scandal in which it pushed products on unsuspecting customers as part of its employee sales goals. But it has done nothing for the working stiffs who were also victims as scapegoats while the company execs tried to keep the scandal from claiming themselves. Read more →
The latest New York Times’ op-doc features Yankovic and The Gregory Brothers teaming up to try to make us feel better, just as the dance band on the Titanic did. Read more →
In September, Arapahoe County (Colorado) sheriff’s deputy Tom Finley responded to a call of a black man carrying a rifle in a 7-11 parking lot. It wasn’t a man at all. It was a woman. And she was carrying golf clubs. Read more →
What are the ethical implications in reporting on stolen information without reporting where it came from and why it was leaked? Read more →
When we talk baseball, we pull our past with us — our brothers, our grandmothers, our aunts, our sons and daughters — as we hang on for one more season, one more game, one more chance to dream that salvation will come, if not in this life, then surely the next. Or the one after that. Read more →
The Ada-Borup game against Cass Lake was supposed to be just a football game. A young man’s death transformed it into something more. Read more →
Since presidents and vice presidents are not allowed to drive, will either one of them remember how to do it after eight years away from the wheel?
Let’s check in with Joe Biden who, thanks to Jay Leno, had a road test the other day.
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I’m probably in the minority given that I was disappointed — again — when the final Clinton-Trump debate ended. I’ve never seen anything in the American experience that’s quite like this, of course. And yet, I can’t look away. Read more →
Football is knee-deep in hypocrisy when it comes to alcohol. Beermakers are major advertisers, teams play up tailgating and drinking, it’s a tremendous source of revenue at the concession stand, and when the game ends, only a fool would deny that a fair number of fans are getting in their cars hammered Read more →