Bob Collins
Around the time Robert T. Smith, the Minneapolis Tribune columnist, gave him his nickname, Plut began to realize he wasn’t just a college professor; he was a beloved college professor. 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.
If history is any guide, these school students mocking a Native American elder on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial will be identified and claim they were just joking and, hey, what’s the matter with you that you can’t take a joke in America anymore? Read more →
Peter Cox’s excellent story on the perfect ice conditions on area lakes has a life lesson to it: you can’t always get what you want. And one’s man’s trash… and all that. Read more →
The obituaries editor of the Louisville Courier Journal was just looking out for the danger posed to the nation by a dead 87-year-old woman who didn’t much care for the person who is president of the United States.
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The school’s principal called the sign ‘deeply offensive’ but won’t talk about any punishment for the students because of privacy concerns.
It might not be a bad idea to go over the history curriculum, though. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
This might not be the sort of photo you’d value unless it’s your father who died last year and it was on a cellphone that was in your breast pocket and it fell into the water when you were ice fishing the other day and you never got around to backing up what was on the phone. Read more →
Metro Transit is one of the few transit agencies that still uses fabric seats, the Star Tribune’s Tim Harlow reports. But maybe not for long. Read more →
It is somewhat comforting that the nation can still be united enough to marvel at a chunk of ice in a river. Read more →
If the people of Maplewood ever lament the loss of a locally-run market, they have only themselves to blame if they don’t step up in some fashion to help a couple victimized by bad luck and bad people.
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Tyler Johnson, the University of Minnesota receiver, is the kind of star athlete that more people should notice — not because of his football skills, but because he knows the value of an education. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
Is there some Minnesota passive aggressiveness at work in the displaying of a Trump campaign sign at a basketball game between a predominantly white team and a predominantly black one? Or is it just a love a politics? Read more →
‘If we could all slow down, take a moment and understand each other, we would see others for who they really are,’ film producer Emad Rashidi says. Read more →
In the category of people are horrible, we give you this from the Douglas County, Wis., sheriff Read more →