Bob CollinsThere’s some contention from the experts that we may be harmed by the great lie of the season. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
This or That
It’s a step forward that the Mall of America has hired its first black Santa Claus, but the news today also comes with a question: Is there nobody of color in Minnesota who can be Santa Claus? Read more →
Dealing with the crowds at the airport during the Thanksgiving travel period isn’t a lot of fun, unless you’re the type who likes to watch reunions at the baggage claim. It can be a good tonic for what ails you.
Read more →
The Russian/Ukranian freighter landed during a snowstorm in Duluth yesterday afternoon for refueling after being diverted from its original Winnipeg destination. It had departed earlier in the day from San Bernadino.
It left Duluth before sunrise this morning.
Read more →
It was 53 years ago tomorrow that an American president was murdered in public.
Let’s consider how much has changed since then by noting that in 1963 there was exactly one video of the killing of President Kennedy in Dallas. One. And it took 12 years before the American people saw it. Read more →
No matter how bad you might think things are, we’ve still got little kids and cranky old men.
Read more →
Things seem to be going so well for Ingraham that we’re starting to wonder whether things were be the same if he weren’t a celebrity, if he hadn’t once called Red Lake Falls the ‘absolute worst place to live in America’, whether the people hadn’t invited him to see it firsthand, and whether his decision to move his family to the community hadn’t been so widely publicized? Read more →
By around this time next week it might not seem like it, but those of you traveling through MSP International Airport are walking on the hallowed ground of one of the nation’s best airports, a new study claims. Tenth-best, to be exact. Read more →
‘The farmer wave is a cultural institution woven into the very fabric of ‘Iowa nice’ that helps rural and small-town folk casually remind each other that they really do care,’ a columnist writes. Read more →
A few weeks ago in this space, we discussed whether “seat belt shaming” is an appropriate response in the wake of car crashes in which someone is killed. Some of you debated whether there’s “shaming” going on at all. A fair enough point. So we call your attention to a story from WCCO today in Read more →
There’s a beautiful symmetry in Boyd Huppert’s KARE 11 story last night about the final goodbyes between Erling and Emmett, the now six-year-old boy and his former 91-year-old neighbor. Read more →
Drink up, people! We’ve got some serious uniting to do, still. Read more →
It’s hard to say for sure why Boyd Huppert’s story of Emmett and Erling struck such a nerve with most of us when it first aired a few years ago. Read more →
In this space yesterday we critiqued how one news organization chose to cover a World Series without offering a proper alternative.
Here’s the proper alternative. Read more →
Here’s what I learned from yesterday’s radio show on obituaries: Quite a few people have obits of people they didn’t know taped to their refrigerators. Read more →