Pawns of Hamas
It is extremely saddening to see the trauma that continues in Gaza as shown on the front page of the Thursday, Sept. 18, edition. The people are pawns used by Hamas to generate strife. If the terrorist organization that is Hamas cared one bit about the suffering it has bestowed on the civilian population they would free the hostages.
Tom Bates, St. Paul
Meet neighbors? Good. But clean up after slobs?
I am responding to the letter on Sunday Sept. 14 about neighbors organizing to clean up streets.
I think he has a great idea to get out and meet your neighbors.
However, I don’t think we should have to have clean-up clubs. I think people need to be responsible for their own trash.
It’s disgusting to see bottles and cans floating in our lakes and rivers. McDonalds bags full of trash tossed whereever you happen to be when you finish your happy meal. Your old couch does not go in the ditch. Your old sink and toilet don’t belong in a park.
Dispose of your junk yourself. Then people would have time to meet their neighbors instead of picking up garbage.
Penni Hergert, Maplewood
Burden crooks before they get worse
Thursday’s front-page reported: “Consensus on gun proposal elusive.”
I wonder why?
When I was a youth, a few years ago, Minnesota had a simple statute that stated it is “illegal to discharge a firearm on or upon any Minnesota street or highway” as it was publicly stated. Subsequent modifications have burdened that simple statement with scenarios, caveats and definitions with the result that the state legislation now contains a million words of gibberish — with efforts to add more. Municipalities have added their own ordinances barring the discharge of a firearm within their boundaries without a permit.
Yet, all of this is apparently being ignored by those charged with prosecution because recent articles on these pages have reported shooting followed by no charges filed.
Illegal firearms use is at the bottom of the crime food chain. It is the street-level entry into that world. And it is too often being ignored by prosecutors as a minimal or “not worth the effort” crime. Wouldn’t common sense indicate that we stop something at its source? And why wouldn’t further charges be added to any obviously applicable charges? It’s time to always burden the criminal with everything possible before they graduate to bigger things.
Art Thell, West St. Paul
The good old days?
Wow, “Make America Great Again” could mean, bring back the “old days of America” without all of those “bad childhood vaccines.”
Yes, in the old days when I started my pediatric training and then private pediatric practice, we didn’t have all those shots to prevent pneumonias and brain infections. Hah, I was doing “spinal taps” (needles into the spinal cord spaces) to detect early brain infections etc., at least four times a month. Those were deadly diseases. Wow, then the “Hib” and “Pneumococcal” vaccines came out and “POOF” those diseases literally disappeared.
Now we have Robert F. Kennedy Jr., our new Secretary of Health and Human Services, declaring all of those vaccines are dangerous and should be voluntary for parents to use. Hmmmm, I guess he has some research that proves epidemics causing deaths are a myth, and the measles vaccine causes all of those autism cases, and therefore can’t really trust those doctors who only want to make money?
I’m surprised he hasn’t declared tap water as poisonous. I put some kids in the hospital for drinking only water for several days when they got sick and their blood-sodium levels dropped to near deadly levels causing their heart rhythms to stop.
So, I guess it is time to bring back the measles, chickenpox, brain infections etc., etc., just like the old days. Well, the measles cases are now coming back and expect a few more deaths. Yes, we are making America “Great Again” and of course expect to see many more deaths and thousands of more infections, which apparently are better for the country than the vaccines?
Mark Nupen, Anoka.
The writer is a retired pediatrician.
Lock up the people who pull the trigger
Very shortly after the horrific murder of Minnesota sate Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Gov. Tim Walz moved swiftly to ensure the safety of all state politicians by closing a majority of the doors into the State Capitol, installing metal detectors on the three remaining doors left as public access and exploring methods to ensure the safety of elected officials. With the equally horrific murder of two children and the wounding of 20 others attending church in South Minneapolis, Gov. Walz calls for a ban on assault “style” weapons. During the 2024 legislative session, a bill was introduced to place School Resource Officers (SROs) in public and private schools. The bill was rejected by the Democratic majority.
An assault weapons ban would take months to pass and perhaps years to demonstrate a realistic effect on the possession of assault “style” weapons. Considering this fact, the Hortman murders were carried out by one individual armed with a semi-automatic pistol containing 17 rounds of ammunition. Many of the Minneapolis “shootouts” involve handguns with a capacity of 30 to 50 rounds of ammunition, capable of firing all 30 rounds in less than five seconds.
We don’t need new laws or a ban on assault “style” weapons; we need the long-term incarceration of those people who “pull” the trigger.
Jim Feckey, Mendota Heights
‘You have to be carefully taught’
In the words of the song from “South Pacific,” “You have to be carefully taught.” Babies enter the world quite ready to love everybody. It is only when they start interacting with “society” that they begin to be concerned about “the other.” On Sept. 3 we saw the Annunciation community demonstrate how they taught their children to take care of each other.
I read once about a country in Europe in which empathy was part of the school curriculum from kindergarten to graduation. The children are taught at school, never mind what is happening at home, to honor and respect each other. I suggest that empathy can and should be taught in our schools. We need to change the culture around the “them vs. us” attitude so many people seem to cling to.
Also we need to insist that schools have mental health counseling available at all times. These individuals and teachers can spot the “loners,” the children who have a hard time cooperating, who need to feel included and noticed. Most school shooters seem to be kids who felt excluded, not noticed, isolated.
I am all for banning guns, background checks, etc., but teaching children to love and care for each other, and that kindness is better than bullying, may show better results in ending the gun culture we currently experience
Evelyn V. Lawyer, St. Paul
More departments of war
Self-proclaimed “peace president” Donald Trump wants to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. But why stop there? Since policies and actions taken by other federal departments seem to have turned away from their intended missions, no longer protecting our Earth and health, for example, why not create more accurate names for those, too? Maybe the Department of War on Environmental Protection, or the Department of War on Health and Human Services, and on and on …
Steve Masson, St. Paul
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What we have now isn’t working
The police are tired of arresting the same “bad guys” over and over. We have far too much plea bargaining, too many legal loopholes, weak laws and soft consequences. So many times we read “that is all that the law allows.”
Solution: Our legislators must change the incarceration guidelines.
Eliminate much of the plea bargaining and bail. This would mean that the “bad guys” would be incarcerated before their trials and not on the streets.
We have lost our moral compass. There will never be a perfect system, but obviously what we have now is not working. Tough love is needed or things will only get worse.
John Heller, North St. Paul
It’s not carbon-free
Amidst all the chaos in the country, I want to draw people’s attention to a bill on the docket that seems to me to be a potential bipartisan betrayal of Minnesotans. The bill wants to redefine biomass, “renewable” natural gas, and trash burning as “carbon free” when they simply and factually release more carbon than coal or natural gas. That would be placing straightforward lies on our books for the sake of appeasing corporations. People who don’t stand to profit from this deception generally accept that “carbon capture” and so called “lifecycle” carbon concepts are misleading half-measures at best, and dangerous at worse.
Call me cynical, but I can’t help connecting this and recent initiatives to try to attract AI data centers into Minnesota. Each center can easily use the same amount of power as all of Minneapolis if they’re not depleting the groundwater well dry. We’re already seeing that, where they’ve been built before. I’m not excited about the idea of drought or $600 electricity bills, and the thought that attracting these centers will “create jobs” is painfully shortsighted.
Firstly, because it’s in support of an industry that openly advertises itself as a way to lower wages and lay people off. And secondly — surely I’m not the only one who remembers the dot-com boom and bust? It seems like Minnesotans could end up with low jobs, a carbon-pumping power grid, and no way of enacting the very popular climate goals we were promised and that we fought for.
Teri Blauersouth, St. Paul
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