Bob CollinsThere are likely two schools of thought on a South Dakota school’s decision to deny a degree to a senior who is six credits short of graduation. There is the ‘rules are rules’ caucus, and there is the ‘have a heart’ party. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Health
Periodically through the various health care debates, someone inevitably talks about people getting free health care. Who are these people?
They’re not the people on Medicare, a new study says. Read more →
In the list of people in Minnesota who are suffering, can anyone top the smoker of premium cigars?
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Harvard researchers have confirmed what just about any parent of a child with mental health issues can tell you: Getting help is nearly impossible. Minneapolis was one of five cities in the researchers’ study. Read more →
Royce White, Hopkins native and a former Mr. Basketball in Minnesota who was drafted in the first round of the NBA despite revealing mental health issues, flamed out in his chance at basketball stardom in the pro game. He and Kevin McHale, then the boss of the Houston Rockets, never saw eye to eye and White’s anxiety issues kept him out of games. Read more →
Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel was back on the air last night, defending last week’s plea for health care coverage, after his newborn son was able to get treatment for a heart problem.
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School officials in Minnesota and around the country have warned parents to talk to their kids about the Netflix series, ’13 Reasons Why.’ A Catholic school in Canada has warned its students not to talk about the series at all.
In Michigan, some students have a better idea.
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Nora McInerny, who now hosts the American Public Media podcast, “Terrible, Thanks For Asking” brings us back to an earlier time in the health care debate — when it was more disconnected from the political calculus than it is now. When people didn’t toast the misfortune of the sick. Her Twitter thread today is a good dose of the reality that exists outside the Beltway. Read more →
In Springfield, Mass., Bob Charland, 44, is dying. He’s a mechanic with a neurodegenerative brain disease. Read more →
Guru Mahendra Trivedi claims his remote energy transmissions have the power to heal the sick, grow more crops, cure cancer, and make money for those who receive them, and for $900-$2,000 a month you can receive them, according to his website. He says he’s created 70,000 miracles so far. Read more →
Apparently, the House will have to vote on its revamped health care bill before we can find out what’s in it. Read more →
The Americans with Disabilities Act didn’t just make it easier for people with disabilities to move around. It literally changed the way we think about the worth of people. Read more →
Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why” is a popular series that is getting some credit for at least bringing up the issue of teen suicide, which is a sad testament to how unable or how unwilling parents are to talk about the second-leading killer of young adults.
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ay what you will about Obamacare — and you will — but it was a fine declaration in it that put members of Congress and the federal government under its provisions. If we had to live with it, they had to live with it.
Vox reports today that a new plan to repeal and replace Obamacare will protect members of Congress, their families, and their staffs from being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. The rest of America? You’re on your own. Read more →
Isabella Nicola Cabrera wants to play the violin. That’s difficult when you’re born with no left hand and a severely deformed forearm. A music teacher at her school had tried to build her a jury-rigged prosthetic, but it was never going to allow her to do what a violinist really needs to do.
So it’s a good thing that the first project idea that a group of students at George Mason University needed in order to graduate failed.
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