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.
There was a particular danger when Brittany Maynard announced in early October that she would kill herself in November, rather than suffer the agony of the brain tumor that is growing inside her head. What if November came and she didn’t want to die? Read more →
There isn’t anybody in the radio business who is going to give Rikk Wilde a hard time.
Most of us have been there. You’ve just run up a flight of stairs, or you’re nervous to begin with, and when the microphone goes on, there you are unable to remember whether it’s time to breathe in or breathe out, and slowly suffocating. Read more →
No doubt, the creepiest part of the video I posted a day or so ago featuring the woman walking in New York, is the person who walked alongside her for several minutes. Read more →
The absurdity of the fear about Ebola reached a new milestone today when a woman went for a bike ride Read more →
A twin-engine plane crashed into a building in Wichita, Kansas, this morning, shortly after it took off. Here’s a little of what I know about the situation. Read more →
It was another metaphorical moment for the greatest game ever invented. There is is risk in reward and, sometime, failure in playing it safe. Read more →
A Minneapolis ad agency has rolled out a commercial to build support for banning use of the word ‘Redskins’ from the regulated over-the-air broadcasts. Read more →
On more than one disaster, we’ve asked in this space ‘where do you begin to pick up the pieces?’
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A Green Bay alderman is piling on after his gaffe earlier this month in which he responded to a woman who’d asked about bus service by inquiring whether she embraces terrorism. Read more →
What? A guy needs a reason to post a video of a dog’s view of being let off a leash and heading for the good times while the rest of slave away in the cubicle farm? Read more →
Canadian filmmaker Omar Albach took to the streets of Hamilton, Ontario — hometown of the soldier who was shot to death last week in Ottawa — to conduct what he says was a ‘social experiment’ in which a white man appeared to confront a Muslim man. Read more →
Chengyi Pan, 97, has a big day planned next week. She’ll vote. Read more →
A man cried during a political debate last night. Does it make a difference? Read more →
It’s hard to imagine a more damning assessment of a sacred cow than ProPublica’s expose of the American Red Cross.
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Sioux Falls will not be painting over snowplows that displays the words ‘Jesus Christ’ and a Biblical passage. Another says, ‘Happy Birthday, Jesus.’ The mayor says the city will keep them the way they are despite an earlier decision to the contrary. Read more →
Bob Collins