Bob CollinsAdmittedly, if I weren’t a New England Patriots fan, I’d be pretty giddy about the NFL’s sudden interest in the integrity of the league, which you’ve probably heard resulted in a big penalty against the team today for domestic assault child abuse performance enhancing drugs removing air from a football. But I understand why the 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.
It’s called bubble soccer and it’s just like real soccer except there’s no goalies, there’s a fair amount of scoring, and players play inside bubbles. Oh, and people don’t take it so seriously. Read more →
The reality is it’s not OK to show people online you’re not OK. The missing discussion is how are we to change that fact? Read more →
Just as baseball is making a comeback in Minnesota, we’ve got another op-ed today mourning its decline.
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There’s some pushback against the video of an otter in Fargo destroying an iPhone encased in an OtterBox protective case.
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Journalist Seymour Hersch is leveling charges that the American story of the killing of Osama bin Laden is full of lies. Read more →
Nothing says ‘America’ like a trash truck in the morning. Read more →
International Space Station astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti came through for us in a big way today, snapping a photograph of the Twin Cities, while tweeting a shout out to its suburbs — well, one suburb anyway. Read more →
You have to have thick skin and some real guts to be a newspaper editor in a smaller community. Jaci Smith, the managing editor of the Faribault Daily News, has both. Read more →
There was quite a display of the night-and-day difference between Wisconsin and Minnesota up north today. Read more →
British elections illuminated a big problem with polls in the first place: People vote based on them. Read more →
Just in time for Mother’s Day, writer Chad Prevost is doing his part for dads. Prevost is a stay-at-home dad who, like many fathers, didn’t notice how poorly fathers are portrayed in pop culture until he became one. Read more →
The Defense Department pays NFL teams to honor service members on game day. The Vikings have pulled in more than $600,000. How patriotic is that? Read more →
NPR has latched onto the biggest Minnesota controversy of the legislative session so far — eye contact.
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Where are all the Minnesota Twins players when they play the National Anthem at Target Field? Read more →