Bob CollinsHistory says the St. Paul effort will fade, and drivers — if they change their behavior at all — will go back to being the inconsiderate oofs they often are in the city. 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.
While we’re consumed — yet again — on whether the public should be footing part of the bill for pro sports stadiums, don’t overlook what’s happening in Duluth, where Cirrus Design, an aircraft manufacturer, is waiting on a public financing package of its own.
Read more →
If one bumbling terrorist with a shoe bomb forced us all to take our shoes off at the airport security checkpoint, then a pilot with a death wish should perhaps be enough to change the math in the cockpit.
Read more →
Minnesota thinks it can compete with the Sun Belt through tax policy. Here’s why Minnesota is wrong. Read more →
Among the great mysteries on the planet, this one must now be added: How is it that Pierre, South Dakota got more votes in a Monopoly contest than Minneapolis? Read more →
The Oil Patch isn’t going anywhere, at least not yet. Read more →
Miss winter, did you?
The mild winter in flyover country might have erased just how cruddy the season can be. Read more →
Buried deep — far too deep — in a Woodbury Bullein story about Woodbury’s Valley Crossing Community School, a school operated by three area school districts — is a different twist on the issue of how a teacher is laid off. Read more →
Can’t we all just get along? Not in two communities in the East Metro, which have become the poster children for dysfunctional government and might provide some insight into why reasonable and talented people don’t want to take on jobs in city government.
Read more →
Though it was incomplete and not entirely factual, last month’s story in The Atlantic declaring Minneapolis ‘a miracle’ is doing wonders for the Twin Cities’ image. Read more →
The Mall of America built dossiers on demonstrators with Black Lives Matter prior to the December protest that resulted in the arrest of about a dozen people, The Intercept is reporting today. Read more →
The Minnesota Supreme Court today upheld Bloomington’s right to deny a permit for expansion of a senior care facility, a blow to some groups who said it gives neighbors of projects too much power. Read more →
A little news from the world of football is just what the doctor ordered.
Read more →
High-speed rail between Rochester and the Twin Cities is never going to happen at the snail’s pace efforts have moved in recent years.
A Rochester group apparently has the solution — cut the government out of it. Read more →
Come and get me, coppers. I’m going to bet on the NCAA tournament if an office pool should be created by unnamed ne’er-do-wells known to inhabit the cubicles of public radio. Read more →