Bob Collins
The American Medical Association has passed a resolution calling obesity a disease. But some people think that will only make the problem worse, if it’s a problem at all. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Archives for June 2013
I’ve been a sports fan all of my life, but I still don’t get sports fans. The other night, for example, I was watching the Indians-Nationals game in which the Indians were leading 2-1 in the top of the 9th. Cleveland’s shaky closer was on for the save. And fans were leaving. Fast forward to Read more →
Vince Flynn died early this morning. He was a best-selling author and a local kid and a bit of a radio star thanks to KFAN’s Dan Barreiro, on whose show he appeared regularly. There are already plenty of news stories around about his death from prostate cancer, but for a tremendous assessment of his life, Read more →
Quick note: If you’re on Twitter, you’ll want to be following @ChiefHarteau, the account for Minneapolis police chief Janee Harteau, as she rides along with cops in the 2nd precinct, and using the hashtag #NEwithrealcops Turned out to be an Unhappy man getting his car towed. All worked out everyone happy now #NEwithrealcops — Chief Read more →
America moves on after the spying scandal, the great gopher feet caper and other tales from the mean streets of Minnesota, return of the website, the grace of Steve Gleason, and the girl who makes your 12 year old look like a lazy punk. Read more →
We don’t cover the airline-formerly-known-as-Northwest much anymore, not since it got gobbled up by Delta and became the airline from Atlanta. Which is a shame because the airline from Atlanta is pretty much run by the former execs of the airline-formerly-known-as-Northwest. And, of course, it still provides plenty of jobs in flyover country. But this Read more →
Apparently the new threat to air safety is 15-year-old girls whose shirts are not tightly buttoned. Over the weekend, Boing Boing editor Mark Frauenfelder relayed the story about what happened when the girl passed through the TSA security post in Los Angeles: She said the officer was “glaring” at her and mumbling. She said, “Excuse Read more →
When I first started following the story of Daniel Alvarez, the Florida man who kayaked from Minnesota’s Northwest Angle to Key West and who is now paddling back by way of the Atlantic Ocean and Hudson River, I was deeply impressed by the kindness of Canada, Minnesota, and Wisconsin individuals who looked after him, if Read more →
How we teach the teachers. The dog tags go home to a Minnesota native. Remembering Roy Grow. Why are men so fragile? And should we require deposits on cigarette butts? Read more →
Snowden’s “honor” from Dick Cheny, Texas and South Dakota woo the gun manufacturers, the Stillwater Lift Bridge is all out of lift, the new astronaut from White Bear Lake. Here’s the “it always goes smoothly” news conversation with Mary Lucia on The Current. By the way, after we chatted about commencement speeches, Mary acknowledged she Read more →
We have a new entry in our ongoing list of people biking across country, running across country, kayaking across the country and — if you noted on 5×8 today — golfing across country. Nathan Mehlhoff left his parents house in Lakeville this afternoon and started walking to San Francisco. Why? To see what’s between here Read more →
I was worried that we’d get through the entire graduation season without a halfway-decent commencement speech that could hold our attention for longer than 15 seconds. But then Lewis Black gave his first-ever commencement speech to the grads of University of California– San Diego’s Thurgood Marhsall College. “I want you to know that you are Read more →
We’re going to be needing a clever nickname for the person who’s running around the Twin Cities stealing people’s garden planters and plants. Lift Bridge Brewing Co. in Stillwater is the latest victim, but it captured the brazen act on camera. The shock is not only that she seems to be the grandmotherly type — Read more →
You can go an entire lifetime without saving someone’s life. A young man named Delbert Willert of Lake Benton didn’t go more than a few years. An employee of the Hendricks Farmers Elevator fell into a grain bin this morning, according to Steve Hemmingsen, who writes the newsletter in town. Typically, if you fall into Read more →