Netlets for Monday, Aug. 25

In other countries, 'underage drinking' is no big deal I and my daughter share a history of having drinks together in public -- abroad.

Drinking age in Germany is 16. Years ago I took her to a Turkish Doner Kebab place in Berlin, where we had our first beer and Jaegermeister together. We enjoyed it; it was no big deal.

As of now, at the age of 20, she can have an alcoholic drink in public while she is in college in Canada (drinking age in Quebec is 18, in Ontario 19), but not when she comes home.

Since drinking alcohol in public has never been a big deal for her, I am pretty much assured, that she will not be one of those kids who drink themselves to death on their 21st birthday. Something to be relieved about!

ALFRED HANNEMANN, ST. PAUL

Here's how liberals can correct their selective vision Garrison Keillor ("Ideological purity may be due for a good scrubbing," Aug. 17) states that "Liberals hold that the test of a civilized society is how it deals with the weak, the sick, the powerless." How ironic that the left can claim to be a champion of the most vulnerable in our society, yet at the same time trample on the rights of those whom they claim to uphold.

Can somebody please tell me who is more weak and powerless than an unborn child in a mother's womb? Or how about the weak and powerless disabled person such as Terri Schindler Schiavo, who had her life forcibly ended by her husband through a court order? It is mind chilling to think that people can be so erroneous in their judgment as to not see that human life at all stages is precious and valuable and should be protected.

TONY BARBATO, COON RAPID

Should U mission include Golden Gophers? Your Aug. 17 profile of University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks noted that a new football stadium is rising on campus. Elsewhere in that day's Star Tribune, Sid Hartman noted the cost of the stadium has risen by considerably over its originally planned $248 million.

My question to Bruininks, the governor and those legislators who approved public funding for the stadium: What does it (and the entire U intercollegiate athletics program) have to do with education?

WILLARD B. SHAPIRA, MINNEAPOLIS

Improving Minneapolis public schools The Minneapolis levy referendum will appear on the ballot in November and bring sobering thoughts to mind on the serious costs of public education. In the Aug. 17 Opinion Exchange section, Bill Blazar and Lynnell Mickelsen offered differing opinions (maybe and yes, respectively) on the question: Can schools improve on $60 million each year?

A child is not merely a commodity, a product into which a prescription for education is implanted solely by a succession of classroom teachers. A child has parents and family traditions that provide him/her with not only a name, but also an identity of self that needs to be kept intact and nourished. This ontological dimension in public education may include race, religion, etc. It finds expression also in music and the arts. And it should be neither disparaged nor should it be made exclusive, nor actively promoted in a pluralistic society. But the child without self-esteem is surely a burden to any classroom teacher.

Adolescent growth/education must also include a concern for others: ethics. Appropriate conduct is learned not only in school but also in families, in sports, through entertainment/TV, and in the community at large. Fairness practiced in school can be a model for life. Egotism and hubris are contagions of the mind that leads to an ugly sickness that cannot be sustained. Public schools have a role to play in maintaining social standards, but they are not alone. It takes a village to raise a child.

What yardstick should we apply to public schools? Only measures that can be used objectively? Reading, writing and math? I suggest that schools get into the business of helping to grow the whole student: one with a thinking mind, one with an identity in balance with his/her own life-story, and one with a sense of fairness to others, at home and in the world at large.

The $60 million referendum is enough I think to get the Minneapolis public schools started improving whole-person-student outcomes in all three dimensions (identity, ethics, knowledge of subjects). But it will take more than schools with these dollars doing it alone.

GEORGE ANDERSON, FALCON HEIGHTS

What have the spending trends been over the last 10 years, broken down into the following categories -- general fund spending per student in both actual and real (adjusted for the cost of living)? This could then be compared with student performance over the same period to observe the past relationship between the two.

On the other hand, I was troubled by Lynnell Mickelsen's proposition that we should "Just Do It" (approve the referendum) because she said we can't apply a business model of success to "something as deeply human and complicated as kids, families, and learning." Mickelsen clearly doesn't understand the business planning process. No matter how complex the business, business planning goals are the means to the end of the process -- not the end. They are the catalyst for honest, genuine, relevant and evolving discussion and analysis of what makes sense. Mickelsen would have us believe that if something is hard to measure, we shouldn't even try. That's hogwash. Although I don't subscribe to the erstwhile notion that it's not worth investing in something whose benefits can't be measured, we should at least try. And yet, we shouldn't spend too much time analyzing something that's difficult to measure if it intuitively makes a lot of sense to fund.

JOHN NERDAHL, LAKEVILLE

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There is nothing more deeply human than business. The business model epitomizes the organization of human endeavor. All business is organized to do tasks for the good of the group in an efficient and diligent way. It isolates the tendencies to theft, laziness, foolishness, vanity, hubris, decent and lack of focus in order to minimize their negative effect and maximize the common good. Yet business can tolerate these individualistic traits when they need expression in spite of the common good. Chimps can't do either.