Bob Collins
Cody Parkey missed a field goal (officially a blocked kick) on Sunday night that would have sent his team deeper into the NFL playoffs, and people wanted him dead. They literally wanted him to die. 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.
No, we don’t know who this is skating on Lake Minnetonka and casting fate to the wind.
But we like your spunk, kid. Read more →
The family, understandably, is ecstatic. Reporters will do their job and document the joy. You will do yours and — despite the occasional public declarations otherwise — consume as much as you can. That’s how these things work.
And yet, we need to keep the imagine of a ghost uppermost, of a girl whose parents are dead and whose emotions are flat. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
What year is this? 2019? And we still think it’s funny to put people in this horrible, awkward space? Read more →
It’s unlikely we’re going to find out who the grumps are in Richfield who complained about the memorials at a bench built to honor a man who was killed in 2017. But from the sound of KARE 11’s report, there are plenty of them. Read more →
There was a time, whippersnappers, when we couldn’t go shopping on Sunday in these parts. The churches ruled retail, at least on that day. Basically, we were then what North Dakota is now. Read more →
A growing trend on the slopes makes so much sense, it’s surprising nobody thought of it before: chairlift speed dating. Read more →
Given the grief that parents at youth games give officials on behalf of their little charges, why would anyone want to be a referee or umpire anymore? In Wisconsin, as elsewhere, they don’t. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
TSA agents, deemed essential, are still not being paid during the government shutdown.
According to reports, many are simply not showing up for work. Read more →
With the benefit of hindsight, Jane Lowe, of Halifax, N.S., realizes that she shouldn’t have asked her husband, Jim, to hide her good jewelry in case someone broke into their house while they were away.
In hindsight, Jim probably shouldn’t have stashed it in a bag of clothing. Read more →
A minimum wage hike makes for a convenient punching bag for managements that just can’t figure out why employees aren’t more loyal these days. Read more →
The price of insulin tripled between 2002 and 2013. Since 2008, drug companies have increased the price 10 times. Now, a group that tracks prescription drug prices says companies are starting the year by increasing prices on almost 300 medications. Read more →
The frightening part of what happened to Apple’s stock yesterday is how much the U.S. economy depends on the cultists of Apple, who religiously have bought products that are overpriced even though the updates are hardly so impressive that people should shell out ridiculous amounts of money for them.
Read more →