Bob Collins
How the Vikings owner got out of a bad deal, Aaron’s last wish in Fargo, supporting the homeless troops at Fort Snelling, the Titanic violin debate, and quitting jobs to go do what you want to do instead. 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.
Case “sort of” closed in the killing of Officer Decker, the latest on the Mideast terrorism panic, more proof of climate change, the python incident in Canada, and the man who escaped a falling coffin. Here’s today’s news conversation with Mary Lucia on The Current:
Are comment sections tools for good or evil? Talk it out at the next Policy and a Pint. Read more →
It’s a rough year to be a business owner depending on tourists around Mille Lacs Lake.
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Despite there being no witnesses, no gun, no evidence, and no charges, police authorities and the media covering the killing of Cold Spring police officer Tom Decker last year all but indicted Larson for the killing. Read more →
Selling bikes or gender stereotypes? Read more →
The safety net you don’t know you have, after the attention disappears for ‘heroes’, the cancer game, writing your own obit, and why he can’t quit A-Rod. Read more →
Scott Simon, host of Weekend Edition Saturday on NPR, is a master essayist and storyteller. He’s telling a compelling story now on Twitter: the imminent death of his mother.
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Evidence suggests that for many young parents, smartphones and iPads are the new babysitters. Read more →
The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled today that a guardian can authorize the disconnection of life-support systems without the intervention of the courts in Minnesota.
The court ruled in the case of Jeffers Tschumy, a 53 year old man with no family who suffered from diabetes, effect of a stroke and partial paralysis from a spinal infection. A profession guardian was appointed in 2009 and when Tschumy suffered irreversible brain damage in April 2012, his guardian directed Abbott Northwestern Hospital to remove life-prolonging treatment. Read more →
More than 22 percent of people living in Winona live below the federal poverty level. But exclude the number of college students in the college town and the number drops in half. The same is true for Mankato, another college town in the state. Read more →
Whatever happened to the sequester, the loudmouths at kids’ baseball games, a fortune in assisted living, should Reddit be held responsible for a smear, and what Northfield’s got that your town doesn’t. Read more →
The old Cottage Grove drive-in theater sign went up at the museum in Hastings this week where it will represent what Cottage Grove used to be before it worked hard to become everywhere else. It sits right next to the Porky’s drive-in building that used to be on University Avenue in Saint Paul. What’s at Read more →
Christina Clusiau says a lot of her friends were leaving northern Minnesota and heading to the oil fields of North Dakota when she came up with the idea of joining them. Her friends were mining oil. She was after stories. She’s a filmmaker and has released Black Rush Life. She found it’s more complicated than Read more →
Did you pay attention to the news this week? Prove it! Read more →