Bob Collins
The genie who won’t go back in the bottle, the ‘D’ word, let the youth sports’ berating begin, blaming the victim in assault cases, and should you tip your pilot? 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.
What will happen to Edward Snowden? What happened in Santa Monica? Is New York City to be the new Birmingham, Alabama? A DFL candidate finally emerges to challenge for Rep. Bachmann’s old seat, and all about the court case of the abused woman who was faced with a choice to take a beating or drive drunk to escape. Read more →
A World War II bomber is raised from the English Channel, more than 70 years after it crashed. Read more →
If you drive a car while intoxicated in order to avoid being beaten by your husband, you cannot avoid a drunk driving license revocation, the Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled. Read more →
The Snowden question, why do tickets at ballparks cost much more than you think, healthy trees and the ‘me generation,’ is it art, and head for the bikes! Read more →
The shooting rampage in Santa Monica, Obama defends domestic spying, the Goldilocks economy, and the secrecy around the Brodkorb trial. Read more →
Is there a more beloved person in Public Radio than Carl Kasell? So it’s not surprising that people have been concerned that the former NPR anchor hasn’t been on his regular spot on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me for weeks. Read more →
A delightful thing happened this week when a flight from Beijing to Macao was delayed on the tarmac for over three hours. A group of musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra, in China to mark 40 years since such cultural visits between the U.S. and China were re-established, broke out the instruments. Read more →
Over the years, I’ve passed along posts from “Sam,” a fully-unnamed regional airline pilot out of Minneapolis who writes the “Blogging at FL250” blog about his life as an airline pilot. I didn’t know his last name until today, when Flying Magazine published Sam Weigel’s article, “A Day in the Life of an RJ Pilot.” Read more →
Kevin Love is happy, again.
For a mess of a franchise that does business at Target Center, that’s good news. Read more →
We’ll have to live without Jon Stewart on the Daily Show for the rest of the summer and the reason why is not at all comedy.
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Free to be spied upon, in search of happy endings at commencements, two by two on day one of same-sex marriage licenses, last night’s Northland lights show, and a visit from Mr. Rogers. Read more →
The first same-sex marriage licenses, heroin’s big comeback, defending the phone spying, an update on the Pennsylvania lung-transplant girl, and is it time to legalize online poker?
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It’s great sport to criticize TV meteorologists for their penchant for hyperbole, but it’s a different kind of grief that’s descending on Oklahoma City meteorologist Mike Morgan. Read more →