Bob CollinsAn investigation by ProPublica and NPR into the damage inflicted by even the smallest release of private health information provides a good opportunity to re-examine a Minnesota case over who’s liable when a health care provider’s loose lips inflict damage. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Health
‘The people of Congress are not as good people as the people who are first responders.’
With that brick, Jon Stewart showed again last night why his voice has created such a vacuum of moral authority in the national dialogue.
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We all have those times in our lives when we recall a moment in our past and shake our head over our stupidity. If we’re lucky, we don’t have many of them. But we all have them.
Collectively, the nation’s AIDS epidemic is one of them. It wasn’t that long ago when our ignorance, fear, and lack of compassion conspired to condemn thousands of people. Read more →
Today’s obit section reveals another poignant piece of writing. This time, unlike some of the other obituaries we’ve highlighted over the years, the compelling part is just a single line at the end of an obituary for a gentleman who died of Alzheimer’s.
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Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank learned what thousands — maybe millions — of other Americans have already learned recently: Getting help for mental illness is an impossible task. Read more →
Three stories in the news today reveals that some realities of war don’t fit on bumper stickers:
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An Eau Claire farmer planted sunflowers in memory of his wife, who died of cancer a year ago. Now the seeds he’s harvesting will help other cancer patients. Read more →
When it comes to TV news personalities, the viewers often have a difficult time understanding their boundaries. Read more →
It’s Veterans Day, of course, so everyone is saying all the things they should be saying on a day to honor people who served in the military, many of them forced to do so by the threat of prison time if they didn’t.
It’s also a day when we might remind ourselves that are words are empty in the face of reality contained in a recent investigation this week from Colorado Public Radio that didn’t get anywhere near the attention it deserved.
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We’re only two episodes in but the Star Tribune’s series this week — A Matter of Dignity — has already provided some of the most compelling journalism we’ve seen in awhile, as long as you don’t bother reading the comments, which are shamefully hateful even by newspaper comment-section standards.
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In the annals of Minnesota Public Radio, perhaps only Michael Barone has a beard more worthy of historical note than our former colleague Mark Heistad.
He’s had it since June 1975. He stopped shaving the day after he graduated from high school. Read more →
By all accounts, Misty Leonida’s son, Eli, 13, was looking forward to Halloween last weekend when he could help pass out candy and celebrate the day as family. He was going to trick-or-treat with his West Side St. Paul friends. Then he had a seizure and ended up in the hospital. Read more →
Last night’s 60 Minutes report on heroin was certainly an eye-opener in an area of the country that often feels it’s insulated from many ills: the suburbs. Read more →
Maybe it wouldn’t kill you just once, ‘pathletes’ to take a lesson from the — ducking here — ‘burbs. Read more →
Jerry Kill is fair game for the typical judgments of media, which needs to keep a hot story going somehow. But who are we to declare how other people live? Read more →