Bob Collins
In his last days, James Wiitamak doesn’t want much. Just a letter from you.
He’s in the VA hospital in St. Cloud and wants so much to hear from people that he took out an ad in the local newspaper.
Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Archives for February 2017
Cody NelsonThe 2016 stabbing was among dozens of incidents the president accused the media of underreporting. But there was plenty of reporting. Read more →
It’s been awhile since we’ve had a good screed against Baby Boomers so today Canada’s Maclean’s magazine takes care of that with an essay by ‘former diplomat and social entrepreneur’ Scott Gilmore, who writes that it’s the one group that people should feel OK to revile. Read more →
Newspapers face a big challenge when the big game goes late. Wait too long to get the paper out, and the people complain when the paper doesn’t show up on time. The Boston Globe scurried to get their Florida edition out in the Naples area — where Boston money spends the winter. It documented the Read more →
What do you do if you get on a New York subway train and finding swastikas on every ad?
In a post on Facebook on Saturday, Gregory Locke, an attorney, said you look uncomfortably at each other, and then get to work. Read more →
The Minnesota Court of Appeals today reaffirmed one of the most ignored vehicle laws in the state: When it’s raining, you have to turn on your headlights and tail lamps. Read more →
For years, Star Tribune legend Sid Hartman warned his legions against the Twin Cities becoming ‘a cold Omaha.’ Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Read more →
Judging by the relative silence in the area, Minnesotans didn’t see the meteor that streaked across the upper Midwest sky around 1:30 this morning. Read more →
He was the voice of the Gophers for generations. Read more →
Three ads extolling American values have got the patriots stirred up. No, not those Patriots. Read more →
Luke Burbank, the public radio guy, found ‘sport stacking’, and finally there’s a sport for your kid that won’t break the bank. Read more →
Dad is a partner in a law firm. Mom is a pastor. Both have college degrees. They’re raising three sons in a “safe” Dallas neighborhood. They’re living the dream and doing, as Frances Cudjoe Waters — the mother — everything America says they should do.
And yet, they suffer from racism in the country that refuses to acknowledge a basic truth: No matter their credentials or accomplishments, they’re still black. Read more →
We are living in a new age of discourse in the United States. Disruption is in; dialogue is out.
This is presenting an increasing challenge to blogs and websites that still allow comments in the belief that individual perspectives add value. Many sites, as has been documented here many times, have simply given up in the recognition that in the age of disruption, it is a lost cause. Read more →
Ray Lund, a mailman, is 79 years old — he’ll be 80 this summer — and still working, or, at last, he was until the end of the week. His supervisors seemed to suggest that when he goes, an approach to working will go with him.
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Gov. Mark Dayton is reportedly going to spend the weekend evaluating his options for treatment of his prostate cancer. The possibilities are surgery or radiation, MPR’s Brian Bakst reports.
What’s to decide? Read more →