Letters to the editor for Monday, Feb. 9

Your Feb. 3 headline "U study: Corn ethanol no better than gas" is generous. The University of Minnesota study concluded the total environmental and health cost of making a gallon of gasoline was about 71 cents, compared with a range of 72 cents to $1.45 for a gallon of corn-based ethanol. But a gallon of ethanol has less energy content and will propel a car only two-thirds as far as a gallon of gas. So the comparable cost of ethanol is $1.09 to $2.20.

Still feeling green when you fill up with E-85?

The larger point, relevant in Washington today, is that when government uses subsidies to pick winners and losers, it generally picks the losers accurately -- the taxpayer.

JOHN GEROLD, MONTICELLO, MINN.

The Perpich Center for Arts Education is facing the economic realities of 2009 ("State arts school fights to survive," Feb. 2). The staff and students could use their creative talents to come up with innovative solutions to do more with less. This will be a real "improv" exercise.

I don't believe you need to spend $28,580 per student per year for a high school education. However, if they can't improvise when it counts, they should be looking to their alumni for donations, not the taxpayers. A school of this caliber undoubtedly has a long list of successful graduates to call on for financial help.

RODERICK BROWN, GLENWOOD, MINN.

Inspecting boats for zebra mussels is senseless. According to the Wisconsin DNR, the fertilized eggs are smaller than a period. A mussel could be carried in by a duck. Agencies have already found zebra mussels living inside a boat motor. Are boat launch inspectors going to disassemble engines looking for these tiny dots? And what happens when the inspector uses the restroom, leaves for lunch and leaves for the day? The chain goes up and everyone waits. What if you are still on the lake and return to a closed ramp?

The real benefactors of this ridiculous idea are the lakeshore owners, who would see a massive reduction in public use of "their" lake. Once the Lake Minnetonka measure is approved, other lakeshore owners will follow suit and restrict access to "their" lakes, under the guise of environmentalism.

MARTIN R. WELLENS, SHOREWOOD

The first year that Q Comp was implemented, our charter school decided to apply for funding. As codirector and fund development and communications administrator, I spent six weeks writing our proposal.

When the last "i" was dotted and "t" crossed, it was clear to me that according to Q Comp requirements, one of our teachers would get a pay raise only if one particular student passed all of her standardized state tests, because of the small size of our school and our demographics (25 percent special ed and 75 percent free and reduced lunch).

Our charter school, the Village School in Northfield, closed in 2006 because the Northfield school board would not renew our contract. The board had never liked us much. We used portfolios and did not believe in the value of standardized tests to measure students' abilities and potential. We used restorative justice, instead of expelling students and giving them detention.

In short, we bucked the system, which the Q Comp conflagration so appropriately represented.

OLIVIA FREY, NORTHFIELD, MINN.

We in the United States are so obsessed with Roe vs. Wade, and so utterly entrenched on our sides, that we can't have a reasonable debate about what to do with existing reproductive technology. Because of this, private fertility practices are self-regulated, and if someone looks long and hard enough, they can find a doctor who will enable them to try pretty much anything, like adding eight high-needs infants to a fatherless family of six.

A case like this immediately causes conservatives to blame liberals for welfare benefits, and liberals to blame conservatives for every-sperm-is-sacred philosophies. Enough! It is a sin and a crime that we can't take a clear-eyed look at reproductive science and decide as a nation how and when it should be used.

Nadya Suleman and her doctor display an incredible lack of judgment, but have done nothing illegal. And that is the crux of the problem: There oughta be a law!

LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

I read with interest about the U.S. Postal Service considering cutting mail delivery on Tuesdays ("Mail delivery may have to be cut to 5 days," Jan. 29). This makes no sense to me. They should not deliver on Mondays. This would serve two purposes: They would make their cut and not pay out all those federal holidays that seem always to fall on Mondays.

That way, when those holidays come around, there would be deliveries on Tuesdays rather than no deliveries on Monday and Tuesday that week. With credit card companies charging exorbitant late fees, I can see a huge problem looming. (I'm sure those credit card companies are salivating over the idea!)