Bob Collins
Somewhere potholes are being filled on heavily-traveled roads, but good luck finding where. 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.
WBUR (Boston) blogger Lindsay Goodwin is probably going to cause a dust-up in Puritan country (and elsewhere) with her blog post this morning on how to keep your kids from swearing in public. Let them swear around the house, she says. Read more →
And we have yet another case of the news media ignoring the law and flying drones over news stories. Read more →
Just checking in on the Denver sportswriter who criticized Minnesota Wild fans last week after the Colorado Avalanche appeared on the version of wiping the local team off the playoff map. He said Wild players were bellyachers, calling the coach duller than a fence post, and seemed to mock ‘The Great State of Hockey.’ Read more →
At last official count, there were only 699 residents of Hendricks, Minnesota, aka ‘The Little Town By the Lake,’ so the idea of a “flash mob” isn’t a practical notion, especially given the weather these days.
Our pal in the town, Steve Hemmingsen, gave it a shot anyway today, sending out an e-mail to town residents urging them to head for the drug store. He didn’t say why, other than it would be fun.
He said in a follow-up email to residents that about 5 percent of the “ambulatory population” of the community showed up. Read more →
In upholding the constitutionality of Minnesota’s law allowing a 50-year order for protection for victims of domestic abuse, the Minnesota Supreme Court was sharply divided today on the question of whether abuse or stalking of a mother constitutes abuse of the children when it comes to deciding whether parenting time should be restricted. Read more →
While it considers new regulations on quadcopters, the Federal Aviation Administration is taking on a role of the 2014 version of Prohibition’s revenuers. Read more →
Two news stories today involve people who helped people they’ve never met. As a result, a boy in Kabul is going to school and a two-year-old in Pine City is getting a kidney. Read more →
There’s no nice way to describe what happened in Oklahoma last evening, where for weeks people have been trying to tell a state that attempting to execute two men using experimental drugs was a bad idea .
No doubt, some people will say, ‘good, let ’em suffer,’ but public policy shouldn’t be dictated by people without a functioning soul. Read more →
People were shut out of buying Paul McCartney tickets over the last week and, not unexpectedly, scalpers are in the crosshairs. It’s not fair, they said, that scalpers were able to get their hands on tickets, while they had no chance of seeing the oldtimer from Liverpool. Read more →
The NBA’s punishment for Donald Sterling has to hurt, right? Hardly. Read more →
The other day on NewsCut, you may recall, we discussed the growing number of admonishments to graduating seniors in high school and college to cut the gymnastics and selfies.
Not everyone at Davenport University in Grand Rapids, Michigan got the word. Read more →
A southeasterly wind and breaking ice continue to plague a few homeowners on the west shore of Lake Mille Lacs.
Read more →
What are the odds that a special education teacher would go on a nasty rant about her students, while she ‘pocket dialed’ her phone, and the call went to the parent of a special education student? Read more →
The Hermantown School Board last night caved to the public outcry it prompted by cutting $2,500 from the cheerleading program. The elimination of two elementary school teachers remains in force.
Read more →