Bob Collins
Here are today’s topics, guests, and stories you’ll hear on MPR News. 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.
Construction is already underway. The Twins open the season on March 28, against the Cleveland Indians, who have become an entirely beatable team in the off-season. Read more →
It was opening day of Congress today and while the attention is on the new members, our favorite part about opening days — as we’ll see in a week in the Minnesota Legislature — are the kids of congresspeople who get to sit with their parents and see them one last time over the next two years.
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Our soft spot for Connolly comes primarily from this fact: he’s one of the world’s great storytellers. In 2011, he got on a trike and rode the old Route 66 across four fabulous episodes, stopping along the way, of course, to reveal that once you peel away the politics-fueled nonsense, we’re a pretty absurd people.
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Hustisford, Wis. starts each year with the toilet bowl, a chance for people to throw cheap rolls of toilet paper at each other. Read more →
China intends to establish a human base on the moon by late in the next decade, and to send a probe to Mars that can return to Earth.
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Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today if you listen to MPR News. Read more →
If you’ve spent any time online in the last day or so, you probably haven’t missed the bovine drama of athletic competition when the mascot of the University of Texas — a longhorn — ran roughshod over photographers who, for reasons not yet explained, were overly enthralled by a dog, in this case the mascot of the University of Georgia at the Sugar Bowl.
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If some Minnesotans are fleeing the state for whatever reason, it’s OK. There are people to replace them.
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The Angle, for those of you who’ve not studied maps of Minnesota, is a spit of land in Lake of the Woods County that is north of the line that generally defines the U.S. border and belongs to the United States. It is — other than Alaska — the only U.S. territory north of the 49th parallel — i.e. the border.
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Every new year should start off with the type of letter to the editor that Seng Vang got published in today’s Star Tribune. Read more →
Mitt Romney still wants to be president some day and if it comes to pass, he will be the first windsock ever elected to the office. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
Warren MacKenzie died Monday morning at 94 years old. There aren’t a lot of people who are both potter and hero. Read more →