Letters to the editor for Thursday, June 12

I guess I am not surprised that Dick Cheney would sneak into Orono to find 100 friends who could amass "six figures" in four hours (Star Tribune, June 10). This is the crowd that has benefited from the Bush/Cheney policies for the last eight years. I wonder how many of them have health care, good jobs with benefits or have children or grandchildren who attend public schools.

Too bad Cheney didn't want to stop over at my house. I would have told all of my friends -- it would have been no secret.

Maybe he didn't want to stop because he would have been hard-pressed to raise enough money for cab fare back to the airport!

CHARLENE TALLEN, MAPLE PLAIN

The rising cost of gasoline is clearly affecting all aspects of our life. Not only is it more expensive to own and drive a car, but the price of everything is going up because of rising transportation costs due to costly fuel. It seems to me that subsidizing fuel costs for the transportation of goods within our country would help stabilize the economy.

By subsidizing fuel prices for truckers, the price of food and other necessities would not be rising at such a rapid rate. If the government can keep food prices down, people will have some money left over to invest in the economy by purchasing things they couldn't otherwise afford because they're trying to keep food on the table.

ANNABELLE JOYCE, EDINA

Why should any metro community, even one with lower asthma rates, accept legions of additional pollutants into neighborhood air when our entire metro is already overtaxed with vehicle exhaust, wood smoke, scented dryer sheet exhaust and a host of other chemicals?

Chronic low levels of exposure to fine soot particulates is capable of causing asthma and other health problems in previously healthy citizens. Wood-burning incinerators, if they can be justified at all, should be restricted to areas of zero population.

JULIE MELLUM, MINNEAPOLIS;

MIDWEST DIRECTOR, CLEAN AIR REVIVAL

If I'm not mistaken, the state flag of Mississippi features the Confederate flag. Would the students have been suspended if they were waving the flag of Mississippi? I am appalled by such a knee-jerk reaction from the Bloomington Kennedy High School administration, and hope that one day students will have what the First Amendment guarantees for all citizens.

Just punishment Students need to understand that every decision they make has a consequence, be it positive or negative. How refreshing to see building and district administrators react swiftly by providing a meaningful consequence for an unacceptable behavior. It was immediate, just and deserved.

One can only hope that the last lesson these boys learned on their final day of high school will stay with them the rest of their lives.

PAUL G. BADEN, OAKDALE

There has been much Republican criticism of Al Franken's background as a humorist, satirist and Playboy contributor. Most of the criticism centers around questions of his fitness to serve as a Democratic U.S. senator from Minnesota because of this background.

Perhaps those extremists should look at their own incumbent candidate's background as an SDS radical and as a liberal Democratic mayor of St. Paul. I think you will very quickly discover that people can make dramatic changes in their persona.

On May 21 I went to the Target store in Brooklyn Center and purchased two small refrigerators. A young employee wheeled them to the car and we proceeded to try to load them. We struggled a bit but they would not fit in the trunk or the back seat. I then asked if I could leave them and call a friend with a pickup.

Unbelievably, a young man parked in the aisle ran over and said he'd seen me struggling and offered to take the boxes home for me in his van. I asked if he was serious and he said absolutely.

He lugged the refrigerators to his van and discovered they would not fit, so he asked his wife and three small children to get out of the car; he then lowered the back seat and loaded the boxes. He sent his family into Target to get lunch for them all. He followed me to my home, backed into my garage and unloaded the boxes. I tried to pay him and he refused. I told him he must be an angel from heaven sent to help, and so ends the story of a good Samaritan.