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.
On his Facebook page,Brimfield Ohio police chief David Oliver said he was sending thoughts and prayers to the community, an innocuous enough post. But many of his readers used it to do what online readers often do: have the same argument they had yesterday and the day before. The used the event to further their own agenda — political and otherwise. Read more →
An acting company that performs short plays to teach college students about date rape, racism, and substance abuse sees firsthand that there’s no shortage of kids who have a lot to learn. Read more →
Here’s Target Field during the first pitch of today’s Twins-Oakland game. It’s not the fault of the Minnesota weather, apparently. The official attendance was announced as 20,650, which is a lie.
This scene is no more. The most famous wallpaper in the world has been relegated to the ash heap now that Microsoft has walked away from its Windows XP operating system.
The image is called “Bliss.” Is it real? Microsoft has released this video with the answer.
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There are two ways to look at today’s national controversy over the gaffe on Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ backside: (1) How dare they says John Hancock signed the Constitution? or (2) Hey, Americans are reading the Constitution! Read more →
Harvard Theological Review is reporting today that a text, written on Egyptian papyrus is likely real, including its reference to a married Jesus. Read more →
This sweet KARE 11 profile of Steve Gallivan, who left his hotel job to become the ‘ice cream man’ full time leaves us with a difficult question: Are we racing off to work today to do something we love? Read more →
Seventy-two years ago today, 12,000 Americans and 63,000 Filipinos soldiers were walking and dying on their forced march to a prison camp on the Bataan peninsula, one of the worst atrocities in modern war. Japanese guards shot or bayoneted any man who fell or stopped.
So yesterday, again, Walt Straka of Brainerd was thinking about the men who didn’t make it. One of them, Bryon Veillette of the Brainerd area, was his best friend, the Brainerd Dispatch said: Read more →
When you listen to members of Congress talk about the Internet and matters of technology, it can make your grandmother with the flashing ’12:00′ on her VCR sound like Steve Jobs. It’s not an act. Read more →
In The Atlantic’s and Marketplace’s partnership effort, James and Deb Fallows have been flying around the country, dropping down to see who lives there and what they do.
And therein lies today’s question — What Do You Do? — which they’ve found out has different meanings in different areas of the country. Read more →
Rita Sztukowski’s family members are fighting the cemetery over her remains. Read more →
The story about archivists at a university is, ostensibly, about handling the big collections that famous people leave, but it could just as easily be the stories of every family in coming years.
The hard drive full of photographs may serve as the digital pile of old pictures, it says. But who’s to say that 60 years from now, the hard drive will work? Or even exist? If they don’t, now what part of you is still around? Read more →
‘Princess Lacey,'” Lacey Holsworth, suffered from neuroblastoma, a fetal-nerve cell cancer. She wore a blond wig because chemotherapy took her hair.
Adreian Payne, a basketball player at Michigan State, met her during a players visit to the cancer ward at a hospital. Those visits are usually brief and then everyone moves along. But Payne didn’t. Read more →
Meet Derrick Gordon. He’s one of a kind. He’s the only NCAA Division I men’s basketball player to announce that he’s gay. Read more →
Your parents must be so proud, Iowa State students.
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Bob Collins