Bob CollinsToday’s Story Corps segment from NPR provides that unusual blend of sweetness and horror.
Horror over the way we treat people we profess to love. Sweetness from the strangers who take our place. 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.
Julie Ovenhouse is part traffic cop, part therapist, and part handyman. Her actual title is Special General Adjuster for Farmers Insurance Group. Ovenhouse, who flew in from her home in Michigan this week, specializes in large-loss catastrophes. North Minneapolis more than qualifies. Her job is answering the question that is always the first one victims of disaster ask: ‘Where do I start?’ Read more →
Bernie Ockuly, of Cleveland, fairly well bristled last January when he read an MIT professor’s suggestion (by way of News Cut) that people who have been unemployed for 99 weeks probably aren’t trying hard enough to get a job. He knows better. Read more →
Many veterans of World War II aren’t veterans at all. They were volunteers. And they’d like to be remembered too. Read more →
CEO John Paton has sent a memo to employees that a sale ‘is not in the best interest of shareholders at this time.’ Read more →
Herb Morrison was the guy who covered the Hindenburg disaster in New Jersey. Nobody heard his real voice that day. Read more →
“The Women of Algiers” is a Picasso masterpiece. A Fox News station apparently felt differently. Read more →
Today’s sports news comes from the Department of Lipstick on a Pig.
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The New England Patriots are pushing back — and hard — against the independent investigation of whether and how footballs used by the team in last season’s AFC Championship Game were deflated. Read more →
You know the type. You reach out your hand, grab the one extended to you and give it a firm shake, only to be met with the limp fish version.
Now a study suggests you’re shaking hands with a dead man walking.
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Somewhat quietly, Washington County has acknowledged that you don’t have to believe in God to marry two people.
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Two news stories today are requiring a fine microscope to find logic.
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For a man with a Texas accent, Johnny Gimble sure screamed ‘Minnesota’ to a lot of people.
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I’ll be with you in a moment, I’m just checking ‘post a Prince concert without getting served with a court order’ off my bucket list. Read more →
Have we seen the last of Janel McCarville, the Stevens Point, Wis., native who starred at the University of Minnesota and eventually made her way home to the Minnesota Lynx? Read more →