Bob CollinsLake Superior can turn ugly in a hurry but when it wants to be calm and gorgeous, there’s no place better at it. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Arts & Culture
Unlike the ’60s and ’70s, and because of the sharply-fractured media landscape, there don’t seem to be the journalists anymore than can make an entire generation of wonderers want to get into the field. Maybe that doesn’t hurt us much now, but it’s hard to see how it doesn’t hurt us a few years from now. Read more →
A journalist thought she was racing to solve an old woman’s mysteries before she died. Instead, she uncovered the past. Read more →
Guy Clark died today. The singer and songwriter’s career always carried an important message: Don’t waste your life not following your passion. Read more →
She was married off by her family at 18 to a man in Hong Kong she’d never met and didn’t like. They eventually moved to the white, Scandinavian enclave of Minnesota, her daughter, Katie, recalled. And she didn’t even speak English. Read more →
Families who opt for cremation spend 42 cents on the dollar compared to the traditional funeral. That’s inflicted a toll on many in the industry who haven’t adapted.
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After our civilization disappears and the planet eventually recovers and its new inhabitants dig to learn more about the species that once roamed the globe, maybe they’ll find this. Read more →
Because of poems like this, Julia Dinsmore inspires people like St. John’s Prep Student Cullin Egge. Read more →
Marlow Cowan has died at 97. He gave us one of the sweetest moments in the history of the Internet.
This one. It happened in the atrium of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester in 2008. Read more →
What’s done is done. What’s likely to happen is likely to happen. But we’re still left wondering why the area — and, in particular, its local leaders — didn’t appreciate the value of a local newspaper when they had a chance to make a difference.
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Accomplishments have been hard to find so far with the Minnesota Legislature but a law benefiting the estate of Prince is chugging along despite increasing warnings that it’s going too fast and with not enough inspection. Read more →
Jeff Daniels, who starred in HBO’s West Wing, recreated his Will McAvoy role — and the famous scene that launched the series — in a Bloomberg skit on Donald Trump.
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Gene Hanson, a farmer in Edgeley, N.D., is getting some national recognition because he had some time on his hands and decided to go play in the dirt.
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The presidential parody skits in the last White House Correspondents Dinner in a president’s term in office are usually pretty good, certainly better than the stand-up routines that comedians usually miss with at the same dinner. Read more →
Q: What do you call it when a cast member from The West Wing takes over a job in the actual West Wing?
A: A good start. Read more →