Bob Collins
Norm Coleman recommended that a task force study why people become terrorists, hardly an innovative idea.
Here’s one: Stop writing offensive headlines when framing the issue. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Archives for April 2015
It’s very nearly drive-in movie season again, another opportunity to reflect on what we’ve lost.
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Charles Gladden is 63. He makes $11 an hour keeping the marble of the Capitol clean, and he takes home about $360 a week. And by ‘home’ he means the subway station. Read more →
Maybe high school is getting to be a less mean place. Read more →
Mary Doyle Keefe of Simsbury, Conn., has died. She was 92. Read more →
In Shakopee last weekend, Mackenzie Moretter turned 10, and it looked as though nobody invited to her party would show up. Nobody that was invited RSVP’d, so her mother, Jenny Moretter, posted a message on Facebook sites for the Shakopee community. Read more →
If every major sport were on a sinking ship and I could save just one, I think I’d opt for hockey. Read more →
That which threatens to kill us can sure be beautiful.
This is video sweeping the Intertubes today, said to be yesterday’s eruption of the Calbuco volcano in Chile. Read more →
Sen. Amy Klobuchar had an answer ready for local journalists who asked her this week about the fiasco in a human trafficking bill that held up the confirmation of attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch because of an abortion provision.
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Raise your hand if you thought it would be soccer that would unite Republicans and DFLers in the state? The proposal for an 18,000 seat soccer stadium in downtown Minneapolis, with most of the bill footed by Minnesota United, has been mostly panned because the ownership group wants some tax breaks in the deal. Soccer, Read more →
Molly Park’s family was in a terrible position when they wrote words to live by for the rest of us. They had to write the Maine 24-year-old’s obituary and decide just how honest they had to be about her life. She was addicted to heroin. Read more →
Apparently, prosecutors believe that whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man who murdered people at the Boston Marathon in 2013, should live or die hinges somewhat on a photograph. Read more →
Alice Barker was a chorus line dancer during the Harlem Renaissance of the the 1930s and 40s. She danced at clubs such as The Apollo, Cotton Club, and Zanzibar Club, with legends including Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson. Until recently, she’d never seen video of herself dancing. She’s 102 now. Read more →
A Star Tribune letter writer today wondered how it is a young man suspected of running off to join the Islamic State was able to withdraw $5,000 on a debit card for financial aid at his college. Read more →
The great Spotted Cow threat is over now that authorities have put a quick stop to a Maple Grove bar’s bootlegging operation. Spotted Cow beer is supposed to only be sold in Wisconsin. Read more →