Netlets for Sunday, April 27

Have you heard the latest solution to the lack of funding for Minneapolis public schools? It's Kindergarten Plus -- a new all-day kindergarten "option" being piloted at Hale School in south Minneapolis this fall.

Hale will now offer three all-day classes, in place of the one offered this year. Sounds good so far. These three classes will be available for anyone willing to pay $3,000. Three thousand dollars for a public school?

For those with extra cash lying around this offers a great solution. For those qualifying for reduced or free lunch a sliding scale or free tuition will be offered. And for the rest of us in the middle? One half-day morning and one half-day afternoon class will be offered for free. Am I the only one that finds this outrageous?

With the economy where it is today, how can people be expected to come up with more than $300 extra a month for their public school education? Will class sizes go down for this cost or will $3,000 a year still get you 28 people in a kindergarten class? Will these Hale classes offer anything different than the free all-day classes that are available in at least one form at every other Minneapolis school? The previous one class at Hale was filled every year through a lottery system. Last year 126 families applied for 26 spots. Not an ideal situation for sure, but at least you had a chance for all-day kindergarten and it was free. What this program does is completely eliminate this chance if you aren't willing to pay for the opportunity and don't qualify for free. I guess those of us on a budget and our children should just be grateful with the half-day program. Great, even more stratification of our society.

Oh, and you want to know the best part? This program was announced after parents filled out their school choice cards for the 2008-09 school year. I'm an advocate of public school education and have been writing my representatives, senator and governor regarding the severe lack of funding and its consequences. This proposal, however, is fundamentally unfair.

KARI STERLING, MINNEAPOLIS

Syl Jones' recent rant on Robert Johnson (Opinion Exchange, April 20), regardless of who he is supporting for president (in this case Hillary Clinton), hits on a number of points with which I agree. While I would not go so far to refer to Johnson as a "thuggish mercenary," the violent, misogynistic programing Jones decries on the Johnson's BET network is worthy of criticism that can be pointed at him as an owner.

Was this offered up metaphorically, although I am not sure how that would work, or does Jones believe a violent assault on Johnson is justifiable? And if so, is this the correct response for someone Jones believes has promoted violence in the black community? Even more, is this a response for anyone with whom you disagree?

JEFF PETERSON, MINNEAPOLIS

Americans' obsession with making a quick buck, coupled with greed, has landed us where we are. The rush to take over hectares of land and overbuild inferior, overpriced, supersized, monotonous housing and commercial development filled with disposable furnishings has no "quick fix." Nor should there be.

The time is long overdue for Americans to conduct ourselves in a manner becoming a leading nation -- by moderating our gluttony and treating our natural resources as valuable and finite. Our overbuilding, overeating, overextending behavior isn't a result of anything we didn't see coming, but a predictable result of wasteful and lazy behavior. Rather than conceiving unworkable, poorly thought-out methods of fixing the mortgage crisis that leads only to intensifying our debt, the time has come for thoughtful and careful responses that rely on managing resources, eliminating reliance on shoddy goods and spending only the money we have.

It's truly a tragedy that "living within one's means" has been laughed off for so long, and that we have dismissed the frugal, mindful fiscal management of our relatives who survived the Depression. We are precariously close to reliving their lives, and have no one to blame but ourselves.

My father, Clarence Bates, was a romantic, barnstorming white silk scarf and helmeted pilot in the 1920s and 30s.

He loved flying more than money. In that era the idea of greed did not enter the minds of those who were pursuing their dream. He joined Northwest Airlines as operation manager at Hector Field in Fargo in 1933. He flew the mail run to Chicago and Winnipeg in a plane with skis. Amelia Earhart was stranded at the Fargo airport and he invited her to our home for supper where she regaled our family with tales of her exploits. He was promoted to Minneapolis as co-pilot in 1934. When he became captain he was elected as chairman of the pilots union where the issue was safety, not money. His love of flying was shared by his fellow pilots along with his loyalty to the company under Croil Hunter.

My father was killed testing B-24s for the army on Oct. 31, 1942, while on his vacation from NWA. My mother, Janeau, went to work in the reservation department after Dad was killed. My brother Bob joined them as the youngest commercial pilot in the USA at age 18 in 1943. In 1972, Bob died of a heart attack the day the pilots were to go on strike against his beloved company.

When I read about what has become of this company in recent years I become heartsick. The huge CEO compensation, the lack of concern over the employees' plight, the pending merger of the two failing airlines, apparently based on a misunderstanding of two negatives becoming a positive, is a sad commentary on the greed that has taken over a formerly fine company.

BARBARA BATES SCHOENING, MINNEAPOLIS

The moderator had framed the question by comparing a hypothetical attack on Israel with an attack on Great Britain, a member of NATO. The NATO treaty is unique because it regards an attack on one member as an attack on all. Despite successive administrations' strong support for Israel, we are not part of such a security arrangement in the Middle East. While an attack on Israel may require a strong response by the United States, the notion of massive retaliation goes well beyond the stated policy of even the Bush administration.

If Clinton was as experienced as she pretends, then she would have quickly drawn the distinction between hypothetical attacks on a NATO member versus a nonmember state. Furthermore, a savvy commander-in-chief would have refused to answer such a hypothetical question by merely reserving all options. If this is how she would answer the call at 3 a.m., we are in serious trouble.

LEN KLOEBER, PRIOR LAKE

The recent line-item vetoes of the bonding bill demonstrate that Gov. Tim Pawlenty has no vision or goals for Minnesota beyond, "Keep it cheap." OK, let's go with that: If concern about taxation and public spending is his thing, let the governor use his rising-star status in the Republican Party to protest its fixation with that great gushing national fiscal wound called Iraq.

There is no doubt that our inability to fix schools, transportation, health care, etc. in Minnesota is not due to our lack of wealth. It is due to the massive misuse of that wealth in a war that was fraudulently sold to the country. If Pawlenty is going to devote time to the McCain campaign, he should protest (as a fiscal conservative) the domestic deterioration caused by Bush's overseas adventure.