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Readers Write, for Tuesday, June 23, 2009
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SKYROCKETING TUITION
Students should view it as an investment
"Those pursuing grad and professional degrees are hidden victims of budget plan" was the subhead on a June 22 front-page Star Tribune article.
Victims? Students pursuing masters and doctorate degrees are now victims if they are faced with picking up more of the cost of their education? Has the Star Tribune ever called taxpayers the "victims" as they subsidize the cost of higher education, or any other government program for that matter?
These students should think of paying more as an investment in their future.
PERRY NOUIS, LITTLE FALLS, MINN.
THE EMPTY SENATE SEAT
Enough already! Let's have a ruling, justices!
It is important who our senator is. But it is more important that we have a working senator. The Minnesota Supreme Court decision is overdue. It should be announced without further contemplation. Decide now, and certify within the hour.
ROBERT PERSCHMANN, CHASKA
LETTERMAN VS. PALIN
Do protesters want his head on a spike?
I'm sorry I missed David Letterman's offensive remark in regards to Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter. Gee, it must have been really bad. But excuse me, this is late-night political satire. Perhaps an apology is in order; Letterman's removal, I think not.
What is really offensive, scary for that matter, is this shrill public intolerance. Politicians are fair game in a free society. Let's hang a fatwa over Letterman's head while we are at it.
MICHELE KESSLER, PLYMOUTH
IRANIAN REVOLT
Country's leader using language of terrorists
On June 20, the Star Tribune quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying opposition leaders who failed to halt protests "would be responsible for bloodshed and chaos."
I have heard that rhetoric before. It always comes from kidnappers and terrorists.
DAVID M. PERLMAN, NEW HOPE
•••
The multiple articles and opinions expressed regarding the Iranian elections are largely missing the point. To suggest that the election was rigged or stolen is to legitimize the concept of democracy in Iran. Iran is not a democracy. There is no free press; opposition parties and the mullahs pick all the candidates, including the so-called "reform" candidate.
There are no "democrats" involved. We should ignore this farce and call it what it is -- a corrupt sham within a morally bankrupt totalitarian society. The irony is that the hubris that motivates the leadership to steal their own rigged election may be their downfall. The Iranian people are the winners.
RICH WINKELMANN,
MARINE ON ST. CROIX
political rhetoric
Hearing real hate as opposed to imagined
It was quite telling in the June 20 commentary "Bad behavior all around" that Karl Frisch gave specific, ugly, direct quotes from eight prominent conservatives to prove his case.
Jay Ambrose, on the other hand, had vague claims about university professors' opinions of former President George W. Bush, and what he called "hundreds of examples all over the Web" of comparisons of Bush to Hitler.
If Naomi Wolf, an obscure former Clinton administration official, asserted that Bush "was leading us into fascism," it doesn't mean Wolf was saying that Bush was an admirer of Hitler or Hitler's opinions on race and religion, as Ambrose implied.
GERALD K. HOPKINS, ROSEVILLE
CLEANER ROADWAYS
Highway ditches are not nature's ashtrays
I had the pleasure of joining a group of friends for an "adopt-a-highway" cleanup. We had fun, and it was very satisfying. We picked up all sorts of odd trash, but what I found most disturbing was the sheer number of cigarette butts; thousands littered the two-mile stretch of road.
The world is not an ashtray, and how anyone can justify throwing a cigarette butt out the car window is beyond me.
Cigarettes do not biodegrade. Even Philip Morris admits this is a problem. This rude, littering behavior is not winning smokers any fans.
Think about it. Is there any valid reason to toss a butt? I am pretty sure the answer is "no."
RACHEL DRUKER, MINNEAPOLIS
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Win tickets to The Midnight Movie Society's screening of cult-classic film "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" at Red Stag Supperclub.Vita.mn and DJ Jake Rudh present the first meeting of The Midnight Movie Society at Red Stag Supperclub on Feb. 19, with drinking, dancing and a midnight screening of cult-classic film, "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." |
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