Bob CollinsOn a horse. Without the sunset. 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.
After awhile, Twitter, like heroin, becomes problematic. Read more →
It was a class act that gripped the gym in Annandale, Minn., on Monday night.
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Scalia’s death has certainly ignited plenty of debate and speculation over factors real or imagined. But it’s the more human question that demands debate, a debate that probably hasn’t reared its head in this country since the death of President Richard Nixon: When is the proper time — if ever — to opine that you’re not sad to see someone dead? Read more →
Not being smart enough to play chess, I have no clue what’s going on here other than this video of a chess grand master hustled a hustler in one of New York’s ubiquitous street chess games is the greatest thing on the Internet today. Read more →
Under Minnesota tax law, if you spend more than 183 days in the state in a year and you have a home here, you’re a full-time resident of Minnesota, with all the tax implications that come with that rule.
Today, a divided Minnesota Supreme Court reversed a short-term victory to a wealthy Lake Minnetonka couple, who moved back to Minnesota in 2007 and were ordered to pay $650,789.38 in taxes as full-year residents under the law.
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The University of North Dakota went to a lot of time, trouble, and expense to get rid of the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo, which some considered offensive to Native Americans. But it’s not really getting rid of it completely. Read more →
Apparently, we’re not going to find out who paid for a Stearns County billboard that criticized Catholic Charities’ involvement in resettling programs, but it’s coming down anyway. Read more →
Nothing can make an American feel prouder of the country than to hear the stories of people who risked lives and left families for a better place. Ours. Read more →
In an otherwise ordinary news release announcing a ‘partnership’ between the University of St. Thomas and Laundry Doctor, which will install drop-and-go laundry lockers, it’s this paragraph that’s gotten the attention of the kids who know how to do laundry after hitting couch cushions for change. Read more →
U.S. Marshals are getting tough with student loan delinquents.
Fox26 in Houston reports armed marshals — there’s probably not another kind — have fanned out over the territory to bring the deadbeats to justice. Read more →
On Saturday night, Sofia Andrade won $200 on a scratch ticket in the Massachusetts Lottery. It’s not a lot of money, of course, but it’s still $200 she could’ve spent on herself.
But Andrade didn’t spend it on herself. Read more →
A former candidate for Minnesota Supreme Court has lost her appeal stemming from a 2013 drunk driving arrest that surprised Republican officials in the state two weeks after endorsing her judicial bid. Read more →
Scott Chiples, of Stoddard, Wis., which is south of La Crosse, thinks Celeste Davis got a raw deal from the Wisconsin lottery.
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