Bob Collins
A town ball state of mind, county fairs and cat video season, New York says mosques are terrorist organizations, eyes on lake homeowners, and the liquor store drive-thru lanes. 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.
Cherice Moralez, who was 14 at the time her high school teacher had sex with her, isn’t able to react to a Montana judge who sentenced the teacher to only 30 days in jail because the girl “was older than her years.” She killed herself shortly before her 17th birthday when the case became a Read more →
How do you measure success when the curriculum is the ability to dream? Read more →
We have a dream that people stop abusing the expression, “I have a dream” Read more →
A. Philip Randolph has faded from the memories of the Civil Rights Movement. He shouldn’t. Read more →
What would you do if you owned the MLK speech, whose house will MSP jets fly over, why Millennials hate the telephone, the ‘mind meld’ is real, and why you could be liable for texting someone who is driving. Read more →
Some photos of the State Fair in snow to keep you cool. Read more →
CNN’s managing editor get slammed for trite coverage but she doesn’t mind Read more →
The world’s oldest wild bear has died without the benefit of ever having a name.
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Social networks can sometimes — more often than we’d like, really — illuminate just how uninformed people are.
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Are you sending your kids to school, how not to get attacked by a wolf, pawn shops are the new banks, the man with no arm meets the girl with no hand, and this one is for the lovers. Read more →
Minnesota native Karen Nyberg took am amazing photo of the Yosemite wildfire from her perch on the International Space Station. Read more →
Sindy Hooper, 50, finished the Ironman Triathlon in British Columbia yesterday, just under the maximum time allowed in the race: 17 hours. She finished in 16 hours and 24 minutes. While undergoing chemo. Read more →
Other than 9/11, I can’t recall a sadder day in the Twin Cities than the one that happened 19 years ago today. Police received a call around 7 a.m. that a man was sleeping in a car in the parking lot of Sacred Heart Church at E. Sixth and Hope Streets. Ron Ryan, a 29-year-old Read more →
Being mentally ill will not get you a break under the mandatory five-year prison term for illegally possessing a firearm. Read more →