Bob Collins
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 →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Politics
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 →
‘We’re a civilized community living in 2015,’ Megan Bartholomay, a 38-year-old Fargo resident, says. But she says a plan to prevent beavers from cutting down trees in the city is ‘barbaric.’
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There are still a few weeks left in the Minnesota legislative session, but there’s a frontrunner in the gaffe-of-the-year competition who may be difficult to beat. Read more →
The city’s most controversial billboard, which currently says nothing and hasn’t for quite some time, is coming down, Fred Melo at the Pioneer Press reports.
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NPR broaches the next step in privatization: turning the entire air traffic control system over to a private company to run. Read more →
Given the climate in this country, it might not be a bad idea to keep politics out of an obituary. Read more →
We could stare for hours at the faces in Pioneer Press reporter Fred Melo’s tweet/photo from Mayor Chris Coleman’s State of the City speech last night.
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We like to bike slowly and found fairly quickly that Minneapolis bike paths aren’t for the likes of us. We were scolded for being slow.
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People don’t appreciate the value of local radio until it’s gone. And once gone, it never comes back. Read more →
Some people, it’s safe to say, cheat on their returns. Some choose not to file at all. What should be done to these people? Two researchers say they should be shamed in public. Read more →
Theoretically, the Twins stadium tax would expire as soon as the stadium was paid for. But the theory ignores the physics of politics: Taxes don’t expire, even though the tax is taking in more money than expected and the stadium will be paid off early. Read more →
Though we’re always suspicious of headlines that suggest something may happen — because it may not, but how newsy is that? — we’re at least tempted to consider the consequences of legislation passed in good faith. Read more →
With its familiarity, space is boring to many Americans today, which makes us wonder whether today’s commemoration can ever adequately be appreciated by future generations. Read more →