Letters to the editor for Wednesday, Dec. 5

Racism destroys communities. Racism against African-American police officers within the Minneapolis Police Department will destroy the communities we are all working to build in this city.

Mayor R.T. Rybak, City Council President Barbara Johnson and the Police Department are obligated to find a fair and equitable solution to the lawsuit filed by five of Minneapolis' black officers. The Civil Rights Department failed to handle the matter. The city deserves a more courageous response from the mayor and the City Council. Racism in our police force undermines justice in our communities.

BRIAN WACHUTKA, MINNEAPOLIS

Mistreatment of Adams Thank goodness for honest, decent Minneapolis police officers like Charlie Adams for being brave enough to speak truth to power (though Adams is now suffering the consequences for that display of integrity).

Adams had the courage to speak out and say there was no evidence of a drug deal in Mark Loesch's brutal death, and now he's fair game for a demotion within the Minneapolis Police Department.

According to Spike Moss, members of the black community should be outraged. I am not a member of the black community, but I am outraged just the same because I know injustice when I see it.

NANCY GALAS, MINNEAPOLIS

We can't fund education, but St. Paul has enough money to put AstroTurf on an outdoor soccer field. We don't have enough money for roads and bridges, but we can pave 60 miles of bike path through central Minnesota.

And you think the state should reach into our pockets and grab another $400 million. If the Legislature shows a little fiscal discipline, I'll consider raising its allowance.

SCOTT SKEESICK, ST. PAUL

Regarding Katherine Kersten's Dec. 3 column, I can't believe that a Hennepin County social worker would advise the Frasers that corporal punishment "was OK so long as it left no marks or bruises." That's tantamount to a how-to manual for spousal abuse, child abuse, or any other form of domestic violence -- just make sure that you leave no marks or bruises, and you'll be fine. The allegation alone should trigger a departmental investigation.

Most parents have spanked their children, and most adults were spanked as children. I know of no parent who needed to use a paddle 12 times, then repeat the spanking two more times in just over an hour.

RICHARD ERICSON, ST. LOUIS PARK

Changing her tune In many previous columns, Katherine Kersten demands that our state and federal governments be intimately involved in our lives by advocating bans on same-sex marriage and civil unions. Yet, in her most recent column, she decries government involvement when the subject is spanking (Star Tribune, Dec. 3).

You can't have it both ways, Katherine. Either government intrudes in our lives or it doesn't.

STEVE MILLIKAN, MINNEAPOLIS

Where does it stop? Columnist Katherine Kersten wrote a defense of the father who hit his son 36 times with a board over 75 minutes, saying that government -- that is, Hennepin County Child Protection Services -- had no business interfering with what parents do to their children.

ROBERT E. FATHMAN, DUBLIN, OHIO

They're at it again -- the president and vice president who, using the threat of weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist, got us in a war in Iraq that we still haven't found a way out of.

And now, after many months of Vice President Dick Cheney, the neocons, Fox News and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman -- even former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer -- lobbying to start a war with Iran to stop its purported nuclear aggression, we find out that there is no such nuclear aggression.

The National Intelligence Estimate, long delayed but finally released, tells us that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program four years ago. What's more, the president knew what it said months ago and still tried to stir up fear with talk about "World War III."

This is all we need to know. The first time, they'd like us to believe, was an "oops." The White House claims it got some bad intelligence on Iraq.

This president cannot be trusted, and Congress has an obligation, both moral and constitutional, to restrain him.

JIM BOOTZ, MINNEAPOLIS

How is that there are so many people who have their cars towed to the impound lot every time there is a snowfall? A snow emergency isn't rocket science. It is the same every time we get a big snowfall. I have no compassion for these folks.

GORDON R. PETERSON, MINNEAPOLIS

I am wondering if anyone has the courage to answer that young man's question as to why the "opposing theory" of creationism can't be taught alongside the theory of evolution in his public school (Readers Write, Dec 1).

Now it is time for my question to the taxpayers of Eden Prairie: Why is it that a student from the Eden Prairie school system doesn't know the difference between science and religion?