Bob CollinsWhat if you could call a phone number and find out if you have a — so far — incurable illness?
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.
Parents, kids, sex, and spaghetti
Let’s just take a break from the news of the day for a moment to acknowledge more people who do their part to make life a bit better.
A congressional candidate renews a long-time feud with the governor by alleging he popped pills during a meeting.
A musical assault on muggers, good morning Mars, reunited brothers in North Dakota, science and the traffic light
If there is one thing that should’ve gotten President Obama’s speechwriter canned, it’s the quote about ‘you didn’t build that,’ when referring to American business.
The caption supplied with this Getty Images photo of a protest at the U.S. consulate in Hyderabad India said these Idian Sikhs “shout anti-US slogans.” Other pictures from India also make reference to “anti-U.S. slogans,” but none indicates what would constitute an appropriate slogan in the aftermath of the killings in Wisconsin. Manjit Singh, president Read more →
Getting a giant rover to Mars? Easy. Getting more women on the front line of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory? Hard.
The (likely faked) Cheerios protest
The lure of human achievement, special education, the headache that won’t go away, Duluth to Duluth via the Great Lakes, and the MP3 olympics.
Having light-rail construction outside the window has given many of us the World Headquarters of NewsCut an unparalleled opportunity to ‘eavesdrop’ on people living their lives in interesting ways.