Bob CollinsHow is it that coffee companies — we’re talking Starbucks and Minnesota-based Caribou here — can build stores on just about every block and make a buck doing it? We’re finding out today, they can’t. America’s love with “big coffee” may be over, and we’re finding that out by peeking into the financials the companies Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Archives for November 2007
On Monday, Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced a 35-point legislative initiative for veterans, including a new cemetery in Duluth, and money to study their mental health needs. If some investigative work by CBS News this week is all accurate, there’s valuable data Minnesota can use. No federal agency has tracked suicide rates among veterans, including those Read more →
In Mesa, Arizona, Engligh teacher and cheerleader coach Cristina Mallon has been forced to resign after a YouTube video showed her performing a “seemingly harmless cheer with pompoms.” She got suspended and then bounced after a complaint that a book she assigned — Jake Reinvented — was inappropriate. So, she’s gone. In Huntsville, Arkansas, teacher Read more →
Judge Roy Pearson is out of a job. He’s the guy who sued a dry cleaner in Washington because they lost his pants and had a sign in their window that said “satisfaction guaranteed.” Pearson wasn’t satisfied, so he sued — for $67 million, or roughly the value of 83,750 new pants. After months of Read more →
Catholic bishops issued a statement today that made it pretty clear how Catholics should vote in the 2008 elections: Catholic. This isn’t exactly new; it repeats similar instructions made every election year since 1976. When you think Catholic and politics, one often thinks “abortion.” But it’s not that simple. Operating under the directive that a Read more →
I’ve wanted to do a piece for some time about the effects of the legalization of ticket scalping in Minnesota, but KSTP beat me to it a few weeks ago, when the Hannah Montana fans got worked up because all of the tickets to a concert were gone within minutes, but the scalpers had ’em. Read more →
Steve Olson pens an item forcing us to look at ourselves. And the time we waste… or not. For the last month I have been trying to schedule two hours of unstructured play for my son and his best friend from school and we still haven’t found a time that works. The realization that we Read more →
All of it, apparently. On Thursday, the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission will release a report on stadium financing that, it says, “details both the public costs and the revenues derived from supporting professional sports in Minnesota.” “This report shows that – contrary to what some people think – professional sports has been a financial winner Read more →
In our political culture, we’ve become accustomed to a myth, partly because of the way news is covered. There is a good guy and there is a bad guy. There is white and there is black. There is liberal and there is conservative. There are only two flavors to anything and one flavor per side. Read more →
In the wake of the suspension of a group of Hamline University football players for dressing up in blackface for Halloween, someone had to ask the question. What exactly is the problem with blackface? Oddly, it was asked in Boston, where Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr picked up a DVD of The Jazz Singer Read more →
Among the environmental puzzlers we’ve had to deal with this year, the low water levels in Lake Superior is among the most curious. A few months ago, we heard the drop in the level of some Great Lakes was due to gravel mining in the ’60s. There’s rainfall patterns, of course. Chemicals, pollution, and global Read more →
So now we know. Sonia Morphew Pitt, the emerency manager for MnDOT, who didn’t have the good sense to come back to Minnesota (if for nothing else, the appearance of doing her job), was running a con on the state, according to documents released with her firing today. Pitt took off for various places without Read more →
On Thursday, the National Transportation Safety Board issued its “most wanted” improvements in the transportation system. Usually, runway incursions at airports, are high on the list and this year is no exception. Perhaps the most famous incursion was in Tenerife, when two 747s collided on the runway, killing 583 people. In the latest report, the Read more →