Bob CollinsMaybe Sunday’s efforts will be a wake-up call to law enforcement and politicians. If so, it should give us pause to ask why it’s slept on the problem to now. 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.
A key to making fanny packs cool again, New York Magazine says, is calling them ‘waist bags.’ Read more →
Does this scream, ‘Rochester, Minn.,’ to you? It’s the winner in the public voting to replace the city’s official flag. Read more →
Elin Ersson’s Facebook video, which is racing around the internet, is an invitation to ask ourselves, ‘what are we willing to stand for?’ Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
At Target Field, there are no more openings this year to be the veteran that raises the American flag — the moment which sparks loudest cheers at a Twins game these days. The games are all booked up for the rest of the year.
It’s a nice moment, for sure, but does the continuing exposition of the military have some exploitation involved? Read more →
Researchers from Stanford looked at data back to the ’60s, and factored in confounding things like air conditioning, income level, and gun ownership, and it has found that a monthly rise in temperature of 1 degree Celsius leads to about a 1 to 2 percent increase in the suicide rate. Read more →
A discussion about a splash pad set the two to brawling. Read more →
We have two bucket lists: One we have a chance of completing; one that is unlikely. On the latter is the RAGBRAI, the great annual bike “race” across Iowa, which is now underway. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
An update from Chicago, via the Chicago Tribune, settles the story of the guy at a game at Wrigley Field yesterday who appeared to take the ball from a kid in the first row. Read more →
We know a little something about the process of finding and booking guests for shows on TV and radio but we still can’t figure out how, assuming a minimal level of competence, Fox News ended up booking a Massachusetts opponent of separating immigrant children from their parents when it thought it was lining up an Arizona supporter of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement policies.
Read more →
The Lopez family has been stranded in Costa Rica because 3-year-old son Axel was injured during the trip and is in a cast, unable to fly on a commercial flight. Read more →
Half of the newspapers reporters and editors are being eliminated in an oh-so-American-workplace way today. They’ve been told to go back to their cubicle farms and wait for the email which will tell them whether they’re staying or going. Read more →
The big aviation fly-in in Oshkosh opened this morning over in Oshkosh, Wis.
For one week each year, the airport becomes THE busiest airport in the world. Read more →