Bob CollinsTheoretically, you should be twice as safe on an airplane today now that the tax — I’m sorry, “fee” — for providing security is doubling. Good one. It turns out — you might want to sit down for this — that it’s merely a money grab. Comparatively little of the extra money is going toward Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Politics
A new study analyzing reporting of political debates finds that political journalists are more stenographers than journalists, depending on how you view the word “objectivity.” Read more →
Moorhead’s City Council has voted unanimously to oppose housing for the homeless. Read more →
It was a big day this week for potheads in Washington state when the first legalized sales of marijuana took place. In Spokane, Mike Boyer camped out to be the first in line. But Mike provides a great lesson. Even if you’re buying legal pot, ix-nay on the ameras-cay. He’s been fired from his security Read more →
Do newsroom bosses give the audience enough credit for understanding social media? NPR has put the question in the spotlight after an education reporter tweeted on an NPR account that while she tries to provide diverse voices, only the white voices call her back. That’s a typical social media grenade and one of NPR’s news Read more →
Do you suppose this picture is going to sweep across meme-land today? President Obama met with Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other Texas officials on the brewing immigration calamity there in which hundreds of young people are crossing the border, overwhelming the state. No doubt, the picture isn’t about the issue — photographers weren’t allowed Read more →
Shifting the blame to the people is a time-honored tradition of a stagnant country. Read more →
What’s wrong with this document? An academic in New Jersey says a period after the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” appears in the official transcript of the Declaration of Independence, but not on the badly faded original that’s on display. Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, says the Read more →
It is actually somebody’s job in Minnesota to make sure that there is a giant gold state emblem in front of politicians who dress down for a look at the flood problem, though the informality doesn’t neuter the political pretentiousness of the shield’s presence. Dayton, Franken, Klobuchar about to head off to survey S Minn Read more →
Last week, as I wrote in this space, the Pew Center revealed that the polarization of America is affecting where we physically reside. In our increasingly tribal ways, we’re segregating ourselves by our political philosophy. It’s no secret, of course, that if you live in Minneapolis, you’re more likely to be a Democrat than if Read more →
Today’s StoryCorps from NPR offers a vivid reminder that it took more — much more — than freedom riders and and bus protests to advance civil rights in this country.
Fifty years ago next week, for example, several African Americans jumped into a whites-only swimming pool at a Florida hotel. In response, the owner poured acid into the water. Read more →
The interview carries a significant message: Politicians in the coming elections — especially Democrats — are going to have to answer for their past positions on same-sex marriage, the same way politicians of days-gone-by had to answer for their views on race and segregation. Read more →
The Minnesota Lynx were feted at the White House — again — today. The WNBA champions, as is custom, gave President Obama one of their jerseys. The new jersey — no Lynx, all advertisements — never looked more inappropriate.
It’s amazing, really, how one word can dog a person. Newsweek applied the “W word” to former President George Bush in 1987. And people repeated it until it stuck for the same reason characterizations stick today in social media: People often believe what they’re told to believe, and much of politics is marketing. Not a Read more →
Can we call ourselves the United States when we so very clearly are not? This graphics, released today from Pew Research, is a stunning characterization of the polarization of the United States, as evidenced by the politicians we send to Washington. The researchers aggregated every roll call vote back to the 1700s on the two-dimensional Read more →