Bob CollinsJudging by the news of the last few days, it’s clear that — at least for the moment — humans are incapable of providing our daily dose of sweetness, so we’re turning to Kratu, the rescue dog, who was entered in Crufts, billed as the ‘world’s greatest dog show’ in the UK. 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.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was short and to the point in ruling this week that giving the finger to a cop is free speech and you can’t be pulled over for doing so. Read more →
Behold the sweetness of a guilty conscience!
Someone crossed the border — apparently from the Minnesota side — into Ontario near the Pigeon River border checkpoint and didn’t declare an item to customs.
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The current field of 15 Democrats is the most diverse in history, it notes — two African-Americans, five women, a Latino, an Asian-American, and a gay man.
But those white guys. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics and guests you’ll hear on MPR News today. Read more →
Baseball doesn’t quite understand — or isn’t willing to understand — why many people have given up on it. Read more →
Dr. McGreggor Crowley, who once was on the selection battleground at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, speaks a truth that many people don’t want to acknowledge in the wake of the scandal this week that the rich and famous are buying their kids’ way into elite schools: you don’t have to be rich and famous to be overinvested in the college selection process. Read more →
It was a puzzling moment for me a few years ago at Mayo Clinic when I walked into a waiting room, only to see Fox News on the TV. You either love the channel or hate it — just like MSNBC — but it’s inarguable that businesses who insist on a channel for political partisans risk alienating customers who are not of that faith. Businesses taking sides seems bad for business. Read more →
3.14. It’s “Pi Day”. Perhaps you’ve heard. We look forward to this day so much because Vi Hart hates Pi Day, and annually rails about it with a video.
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Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
Imagine a baseball game with no pumped-in music, and no announcers. Just baseball. Read more →
A divided court declined to find unconstitutional a provision in the state’s vehicle forfeiture law that lets police confiscate a car in a household where someone has three or more DWI convictions. Read more →
It’s the sort of thing that could have put Park Rapids on the map, but the Planning Commission learned this week that artist and developer Arch Simonson has pulled the plug on the project, basically because people love gigantic loons so much they could get hit by a car.
Beer is a religion in these parts so maybe Del Hall, of the Cincinnati Halls, is onto something. Read more →
A little over a year ago, Jamie Baker, a lunchpail NHL player for the Quebec Nordiques, Ottawa Senators, San Jose Sharks and Toronto Maple Leafs back in the day, had a few moments with his own thoughts during his current job as a TV analyst for the San Jose Sharks. That’s when he decided that he would kill himself. Read more →