Letters to the editor for Thursday, Sept.20

STATE EMERGENCY MANAGER

Absent from the job

I am outraged that the state Department of Transportation official in charge of emergency management would not deign to return to Minnesota until 10 days after the Interstate 35W bridge collapse ("Auditor launches travel probe," Sept. 19).

This disaster is precisely what Sonia Kay Morphew Pitt was away in training for. Is class time more important than an actual event?

I am also outraged that Commissioner Carol Molnau and Gov. Tim Pawlenty did not demand that this paid government official return to her post and demonstrate her proficiency of emergency procedures.

The tax dollars spent for Pitt's junkets seem to have been wasted or even misappropriated. Perhaps, following an independent investigation of Pitt's expense and travel reports, the depth of this malfeasance of office may be revealed.

JOANN TJEPKES, DELANO

On the taxpayer dollar

I would like to submit for that $84,000 a year job. As a person who argues often for a single-payer health care system, my conservative friends warn me of a new government bureaucracy. This surely makes their point.

BRIAN BACKES, SAVAGE

BICYCLISTS AND DRIVERS

Cite them both

In Nick Coleman's Sept. 16 column, "Painful crash turns bicyclist into activist Critical Mass convert," the injured cyclist asks, "When are drivers going to learn?" As a motorist, I wonder, "When are cyclists going to learn?"

I am always sad to hear of cyclist-motorist collisions and I sincerely hope that Patrick Guernsey recovers completely. I travel every day along the river parkway, but my experiences of driving in Minneapolis suggest that cyclists are as much a part of the problem as motorists.

The river road was narrowed many years ago to accommodate a two-lane bicycle path that many riders have deemed unworthy in spite of the fact that it is well maintained and, imagine, safe from motorists! As a result, motorists are forced, by law, to share a very narrow road with cyclists and the three-foot leeway required for passing a bike simply does not exist without crossing into the oncoming lane of traffic.

On other city streets, cyclists fly through the stop signs I must observe. They cruise through lights and turn left in front of stopped cars. Rarely do I see a turn signal from cyclists. They come sailing off the Midtown Greenway, ignoring the stop sign placed there, and zoom onto the roadway. I am often faced with two or more cyclists riding side by side and chatting, oblivious to traffic behind them. I get vulgar hand signs when I toot the horn to let them know I am passing. And every day I see riders on cell phones mindlessly cutting across intersections and between cars.

I do not wish to harm a cyclist, ever. I am happy to share the road and will do everything in my power as a motorist to be mindful of the presence of bicycles. However, this is a two-way street, and cyclists must also follow the rules of the roads on which they ride.

Police should enforce the rules for both motorist and riders, and if a bike path is present, bicycles should be required, by law, to be on it.

KATIE BEERY, MINNEAPOLIS

Cyclists are worse

Perhaps bicyclists would get more respect if they deserved it. I'd like a dollar for every time I've seen a cyclist in downtown Minneapolis shoot up the right side of the street past a line of cars and then get outraged by a driver ahead of him who had the temerity to make a clearly signaled right turn, as if the cyclist had some divinely endowed right of way (although I am mindful that in a designated bike lane they do in fact have some kind of right of way, which I think is dangerous for all involved.)

And don't get me started about the Lance Armstrong wannabes in racing silks cruising on the edge of a highway lane -- they create the same sort of hazards as a car going 30 miles per hour on the interstate. Drivers do a lot of stupid things, but on balance it's the cyclists themselves who need a little lesson in respect.

JON BRUSVEN, MINNETONKA

AMERICAN ARROGANCE?

Like it or ...

Regarding Syl Jones' Sept. 17 column, "America the arrogant": The easiest thing to say would be to leave if you don't like it. But I suppose that would also be arrogant. I can think of a few other countries quite close to us in the competition.

America is not just a government, so when Jones asks "us" to pat ourselves on the back for winning the arrogance award while at the same time offering weak praise for our citizens, he shows some of his own arrogance to think that people won't see through it.

Hey, if America doesn't work out for him, there is always Canada.

JAMES HOUSTON, MINNEAPOLIS

Freedom's price

One wonders if Syl Jones realizes that without America's "arrogant" attitude in protecting her citizens from enemies foreign and domestic he would be unable to write a piece such as he did. So many people who blame America for everything wrong in the world forget that there would not be freedom of speech or the press without our military superiority; this stretches back all the way to the Revolutionary War.

Look around you, Mr. Jones, and tell me if you'd be given the freedoms you have here in another country. I doubt it.

MARY GIBBONS, BURNSVILLE

A striking distinction

First, MoveOn.org gives us "General Betray Us." Now, Syl Jones with "America the arrogant" (Sept. 17).

Distortion and bitterness like theirs isn't what made the United States the great nation it was, and even with its many flaws, still is. Contrast their words with those of great leaders whose mark on our country endures:

"Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return." -- Colin Powell

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty." -- John F. Kennedy

"After 200 years America still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places." --Ronald Reagan

Tom Hagen, Plymouth

Bridge politics

Rise above it

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and all Minnesotans are right to be embarrassed about the handling of the aftermath of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse. Sometime in the past we apparently elected David Strom governor, and appointed Tim Pawlenty to do his bidding.

If we want to avoid future embarrassment, as well as tragedy, then Minnesota needs to be run by pragmatic necessity rather than blind ideology.

ROBERT ALBERTI, MINNEAPOLIS