Letters to the editor for Friday, Dec. 14

In the newspeak of CIA and administration apologists, waterboarding is not torture, it is "enhanced interrogation technique."

With similar creative wordsmithing, theft may become "enhanced capital acquisition technique," murder "enhanced life attenuation technique" and the Bush administration's continuing litany of lies, secrecy and deception "enhanced obfuscation technique."

What's in a name? A rose (or torture) by any other name....

THOMAS O. SWALLEN, GOLDEN VALLEY

CIA is doing its job Why the big deal about the destroyed CIA tapes? So we can prove we were a little harsh with terrorists?

Ask the relatives of the people who died in the World Trade Center Towers if this was cruel. Let the government do its job and the less known the better. The CIA is acting in our best interest.

LARRY WITTMANN, ST. CROIX FALLS, WIS.

Private colleges' higher graduation rate benefits both our families and the state; these students are financing their education for fewer years and they are able to move more quickly into the workforce or graduate school.

DAVID B. LAIRD JR., STILLWATER; PRESIDENT, MINNESOTA PRIVATE COLLEGE COUNCIL

The news media have given Mitt Romney and the Mormon story more coverage than it needs. The fact that young Mormon men (Gov. Romney included) spend two years of their lives as missionaries all over the world is amazing.

As a non-Mormon, young man from Minnesota, I spent two years going to graduate school at Utah State University in Logan, Utah (1947-1949). I was in daily contact with an exclusively Mormon faculty and an almost exclusively Mormon student body for those two years. Given the Mormon missionary zeal, I was always amazed that no one during that time ever said one word to me about the Mormon religion, my religion or any other religion.

BOB WIEMAN, ST. PAUL

I have worked for the airlines for nearly 20 years and have over 12,000 hours of flight time. While I understand that a passenger's initial concern about an older pilot may be whether the pilot might "die in their seat," such an occurrence would be readily handled by the other pilot.

Of grave concern to me is the age 60-plus pilot who is in command of the aircraft and whose judgment has begun to deteriorate. This cannot be easily assessed so these pilots can not be screened out, but they pose a much greater threat to the daily operation of the airlines.

I have flown with many pilots who were nearing age 60. While some of these pilots remain healthy and competent, I have found that many may be healthy but have "lost their edge." Their situational awareness of what is going on around them narrows, and they take longer to recognize and react to new or unusual circumstances as they occur.

Although experience is a valuable asset, flight experience beyond a certain point adds nothing to the safety of a flight or the smoothness of the airline operation.

The Oberstar bill does not benefit the traveling public. Its primary benefit is to help the airlines manage reduced and insufficient pensions as well as alleviate an impending pilot shortage by accepting greater risk to the traveling public.

I just bet the Bush administration has further information for the George Mitchell Baseball Steroid Report implicating Iran as the source for all illegal steroids.

PAT PROFT, WAYZATA

As a lifetime educator, Charlie Weaver in "Funding isn't everything" (Opinion Exchange, Dec. 10) is right that reform does need to come to education. Education reform remains difficult when so many politicians without any educational training control the system. Simply having students take more tests is not educational reform.

He is wrong when he says that teachers cannot be fired. During the first three years of teaching, teachers can be fired for any reason. After that time, a teacher must be shown to be not performing up to district standards.

This can be done if and when administrators take the time to document the assessments. The issue is that district administrators are not willing to take the effort to complete this process. It is easier to complain that the unions are too strong.

What if we collected school funding the same way phone companies tack on expenses to our bills? You know -- the add-ons at the bottom of the bill with asterisks that say, "Fee we collect to help cover our costs related to funding and complying with government mandates, programs and obligations."

The phone companies argue that these fees aren't part of their regular per-line costs. The schools could say the same about their government mandates, programs and obligations that aren't funded in the normal per-student formula.

So instead of costly, divisive referendums or state legislators arguing over school funding, the bottom of your property tax bill would read, "Federal Universal Student Fund" or "School Regulatory Programs Fee."

We didn't need a referendum to fund a stadium, so isn't this the next logical step?

JOHN BRECZINSKI, GOLDEN VALLEY

I ask smokers to please move far away from doors and areas through which others must pass. Cigarette smoke injures everyone who breathes it. For some of us the injury can be immediate.