Bob CollinsSelf-driving cars are safer than those driven by humans. But they can never be made risk free. It’s like casual sex, Maggie Koerth-Baker says. Accidents happen. 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.
What will be the most creative use of household goods to declare ‘dibs’ at parade viewing routes in Minnesota? Read more →
From now on, if a candidate doesn’t show up for a political debate, the debate will go on without him/her. Read more →
Christopher Ingraham, the Washington Post reporter who started a riotous response to declaring Red Lake County the worst place to live in America decided to move there. And he likes it, the Grand Forks Herald says. Read more →
The New York Times today looks at the country’s welcoming tone, and its potential pitfalls, following up on how some of the refugees are doing. Read more →
Tonight at the Hollywood Bowl, Keillor will step onto the stage as host for the last time. The show is being recorded for broadcast tomorrow night.
It is, a critic says, a more nuanced show than the show’s detractors acknowledge. Read more →
If someone didn’t do a podcast, someone would still be shrugging their shoulders at the suggestion that maybe an innocent person was wrongly imprisoned. Read more →
Mark O. Schultz, of Sleepy Eye, Minn., a bank executive; and Steven J. Schultz, 51, of Brooklyn Center, a Medtronic employee, were killed in the 2014 crash in western Minnesota. Read more →
Perhaps it figures that when a Republican and Democrat finally get together on bipartisan legislation in Congress, it intends to enrich fat cats and stiff people trying to make a living.
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Chris Rosati isn’t the first person with ALS to declare himself ‘the luckiest man on earth.’ Read more →
‘You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child.’ Anyone who’s ever been a parent will recognize that as, perhaps, the most accurate statement on parenting ever uttered.
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Miguel Sano uses his head to get an out in a minor league rehab assignment game. Read more →
We curmudgeonly types live for those moments when a friend or colleague (sometimes they’re one and the same) tells us that we’re right. [Insert cliched reference to it not happening that often here].
The subject: The transportation backwater that is Minnesota.
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If Dick Bancroft hadn’t come down from Saint Paul’s Summit Hill District as a young man, he might never have known the ‘invisible minority’ he champions so fiercely.
A lot of journalists, including a few at a local radio network, have come through the Minnesota Daily, the University of Minnesota newspaper. It will now be printed only twice a week. Read more →