Bob CollinsThe West Central Tribune of Willmar reports that a Prinsburg man has been sentenced today to six months in jail (served off and on) because he provided alcohol to a 16 year old girl at a party at his home. She was killed while driving home. What caught my attention is this additional note: …and 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.
Since 2002, Cirrus Design’s SR22 has been involved in 17 accidents resulting in 35 deaths, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Over the weekend, four were killed in Faribault when the plane flipped while trying to land in gusty conditions. When a Cirrus plane crashes, it usually ignites a debate — at least in Read more →
In the world of marketing, you can make something true, just by saying it is. Newsies working on a slow day usually blare, “the day after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day of the year,” except it isn’t. The Saturday before Christmas is. And getting up at 2:30 on Friday to go shopping isn’t normal. Read more →
Late last week, the Wall Street Journal had an idea: clean out the office. (reg. required). The blog, Minnesota Lawyer, has called attention to the leaking of information as a reason not to rush to pick an internal candidate. “The other thing that concerns me deeply is that a person or persons in the office Read more →
This has been a heck of a week for science. Today, researchers at Yale discovered that humans may be born with an innate ability to follow social norms. That follows yesterday’s big news out of Japan and Wisconsin than President Bush might’ve been right. And an end to animal testing — at least for the Read more →
When does this… Mean this… And when does it mean this? When is a noose a symbol of execution, and when is it a symbol of lynching of more than 5,000 African Americans in this country — including Duluth? That is what authorities in Minneapolis are trying to sort out. Gabriel Keith, 23, said, according Read more →
Duluth-based Cirrus Aircraft, probably the biggest success story in general aviation in decades, has been growing in leaps and bounds. But the company has decided not to get into a bidding war against rival Cessna for the assets of bankrupty Columbia Aircraft. “We have done our due diligence, and we think there are a lot Read more →
The naming of Detroit as the least safe city in the United States is causing some consternation in Detroit, oddly enough. But a Minnesota law professor is in the fray, too. The American Society of Criminology discounted the report from an arm of the Congressional Quarterly magazine, calling it “an irresponsible misuse” of crime data. Read more →
No doubt this will sound like sour grapes. No journalist — or blogger — wants to get beaten on any story. And there’s no question that blogger Eric Black “owned” (as we like to say in the news business, but only when it happens to us) the Rachel Paulose story. He did a great job Read more →
Midwest Airlines today is defending a pilot who was arrested in his cockpit at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport last week when someone smelled alcohol on his breath. KSTP reported that is blood alcohol level was .16. It wasn’t. It was .016. That’s not drunk, and it’s not against the law to have a Read more →
My name is 3205 Longfellow Ave. This afternoon, the city of Minneapolis will tack a sign on me that says condemned, despite the unusual involvement of neighborhood residents since the bank foreclosed on the Ecuadoran family that called me home. They’re gone now, but I’m still here. So are my neighbors, who are worried I’ll Read more →
$800 million. That’s how close Residential Capital is to bankruptcy, according to the Financial Times. The Minnesota-based arm of GMAC says its lenders are requiring it to keep $5.4 billion in value. Its latest filing with the SEC shows a value of $6.2 billion. “GM/Cerberus may elect to put ResCap into bankruptcy given its exposure Read more →
Perhaps we, the media, should reconsider what our job is. Perhaps you, the audience, should think about it, too. At the moment, we’re not on the same page. A young lady, Rissa Amen-Reif, was killed in Mankato over the weekend, when she and a friend were struck by a car. Amen-Reif was lying in the Read more →
In a conversation with MPR Morning Edition host Cathy Wurzer this morning (and also on his blog) , MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner painted a gloomy picture of the planet’s oceans and their ability to inhale what we exhale. Paul noted that over the weekend, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that the oceans are Read more →