Letters to the editor for Saturday, Nov. 15

The evidence is clear. Minnesota's vote counting has become far more efficient and accurate under Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. The Coleman camp is raising an awful stink about the net increase of 550 or so votes for Al Franken during the canvassing period. But in 2006, Amy Klobuchar gained a net 2,854 votes. In 2000, Mark Dayton gained a net 2,369 votes.

And in 2002, under a Republican Secretary of State, Norm Coleman lost more than 10 times more votes in the canvassing period, a net of 8,920, to former Vice President Walter Mondale than he's lost to Al Franken.

DAVID MORRIS, MINNEAPOLIS

At least now we know what Sarah Palin's campaign song will be if she decides to run for president in 2012: "Don't Know Much About Geography."

That was quite a disclosure last week from some McCain campaign aides that Palin didn't know that Africa was a continent, not a country. Nor could she name the countries involved in NAFTA. Apparently she could see Mexico when she visited Texas during the campaign. She just didn't know what it was called.

This, remember, was the veep candidate who had been thoroughly vetted by John McCain's team before he signed her on. They gave her a 70-question quiz, but apparently they skipped geography as one of the categories. It brings back memories of Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford, after being thrown a complex debate question including lots of numbers: "I was told there would be no math on this quiz."

So what did they ask her? "What is your favorite color?" "If you could be a tree, which one would you like to be?"

No, there are two groups that bear much greater responsibility. One, of course, is the circle of advisers around McCain, including McCain himself, who were more interested in winning an election than choosing a qualified vice presidential candidate.

The other is the media, who agreed to withhold the story until after the election. When you stop to think about it, this is by far the greatest horror of the entire incident. The people whose job it is to give us the information to make intelligent decisions deliberately withheld facts that might have influenced those decisions. By the time we learned the truth, it would have been too late.

It's stories like this that confirm people's suspicions that the media elite can't be trusted. As a former newspaperman myself, I'm afraid I have to agree with them.

BOB LUNDEGAARD, MINNEAPOLIS

Thank you to Dr. Gregory A. Plotnikoff for offering some perspective and a common-sense analysis of the recent study of the benefits of the heart drug, Crestor ("What price prevention?" Nov. 12).

A article in the October issue of the AARP Bulletin states: "In two years half of all drugs approved by the USDA will be specialty drugs." Many of these drugs cost unbelievable amounts of money for each prescription. We must also ask how we can justify the large usage of these drugs for a relatively small number of people when thousands of people have no health coverage at all for basic health needs. I commend Plotnikoff for suggesting that we take seriously "the study of low-cost, low-toxicity, self-care interventions." The path we are on now in health care will bring the next economic disaster.

DARLENE M. OLSON, ST. LOUIS PARK

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Your somewhat pessimistic overview of statin drugs in the management of cardiovascular disease seemed somewhat one-sided. Certainly, most drugs carry the risk of side-effects, and these must be weighed against the potential good they offer in the management of disease. But let us consider the side-effects of the American lifestyle. Obesity, inappropriate diet, tobacco smoking, inactivity, alcohol abuse, unmanaged stress, to list a few.

Unless these can be managed by lifestyle modification, statins don't look too bad.

The recent attack on the white Augsburg college student by four black women is an example of the double standard that exists in our society regarding racial issues. If the roles were reversed, black leaders would have been so outraged that this incident would have led to a major confrontation with college representatives and other civic leaders. While this attack was covered by the television and radio media, it certainly was not headlined like it would have been had four white women attacked a black female student.

Let's apply equal attention to the fact that bad behavior can come equally from both sides of the color spectrum.