Bob Collins
A region stops to honor the dead of Yarnell Hill. 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.
Republicans are more likely to get the majority of their news from TV. Democrats favor newspapers.
Read more →
We welcome the coming riff-raff; our secret is out. The people who care enough not to disappear after covering a story. The next philanthropists? One common hope in Carlton and St. Louis counties, and what will the driverless car do to our cities? Read more →
It’ll be a year before the National Transportation Safety Board releases a full report into what caused the weekend crash of an airliner approaching San Francisco. But there’s not a lot of mystery about the substandard approach, a plane that was allowed to get too slow and “behind the power curve,” the point at which Read more →
Photo: Bob Collins Dear Minnesota: I’m sorry. I got angry with you and, really, it was my fault. For someone who spends most of the winter posting about embracing you, I turned away from you when you needed me most — spring. We all have our little tantrums and when I said in April that Read more →
Daniel Alvarez writes his blog, Predictably Lost, daily, but the daily diary has a two week lag (security reasons, I think), so we had no idea of his harrowing journey into New York until today, when he posted, perhaps, the most breathtaking blog post you’ll read today.
Would you take your dog to the symphony? After his dog — a 15-year-old poodle — died, composer Steve Mercurio wrote a four-movement classical symphony for orchestra, vocalist, and gospel choir. The 80 members of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia will perform it in August, at an event called Woof Fest. Dogs are invited. It Read more →
The U.S. economy added 195,000 new jobs in June, the government reported today. The economy is adding an average of 200,000 jobs a month over recent months. It’s going to take more than that, judging by a check of job fairs around the country in the last couple of weeks. In Clay County, Florida, a Read more →
It had to come to this. People are now paying to go places where they’re forced to unplug/disconnect from the wired world, NPR reports. And, they’re calling it “a movement.” All Tech Considered says people pay, by one example, $350 to be forced to unplug… But for many of the participants, the most exciting activity Read more →
Oh, it’s on now between charcoal and gas, my friends.
Read more →
Why people drown, the amazing climbing airline fee, dispatches from the battlefield, now this message from real life, and free art Friday. Read more →
Here’s the story behind it.
The NewsCut 4th of July tradition… The annual posting of the official News Cut July 4th observation: And here’s why there’s a 4th of July, and why we should be off all week. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them Read more →
On the Fourth of July, and many other times of the year, people love the flag. And they prove it by not loving it, or at least not enough to respect it under the U.S. Flag Code, which is a pretty simple document that explains proper respect for the nation’s icon. Every year around this Read more →
I’m not sure how I missed this and I apologize for posting for those of you who didn’t. But over in Michigan, Johnny and Jeff Agar have been running distance races for a while with dad Jeff pushing Johnny, who has cerebral palsy. Then this happened last weekend. Here’s a tissue.