Netlets for Tuesday, April 21

In "It's not just Somalis who are anxious" (Counterpoint, April 15), Matt Drew stated, "Is Minnesota better off today than it was 15 years ago? Because the well-documented clash of cultures, the strain on our health care system, the costs of housing, feeding and educating Somalis, all told, lead to the conclusion: No." To this I must take offense and wonder if the writer has ever met any Somali immigrants? In my experience as a teacher of adult English Language Learners, as a neighbor and as a school parent, I have a different perspective.

During the 10 years when I taught English to many Somali immigrants, I worked with people who were determined to learn English, who often worked all day before coming to class full of enthusiasm. They cared deeply about community involvement, politics and education. When I gave birth to my fourth child, many of the women in my class delivered bags of baby gifts and food to my home -- an act of kindness unlike any I have ever experienced.

As a neighbor of Somali families, I witnessed a family, who in the short time they had been in Minnesota, had worked their way up the job ladder and were able to move out of subsidized housing and buy their own home, all while raising six children. And another family, where the mother went to school, worked in a factory part-time, raised five of her own children and five of a deceased relative's children, while her husband drove a bus for the Minneapolis schools. This same family also attended school with my children. They were very involved in what was happening in school and so generously provided trays of Somali meat pies (sambusas -- far more delicious than your typical potluck fare), at school picnics.

A student once told me that her relatives in Holland were given a lot more government aid but that they lacked opportunities to advance. She was a bank teller in Minnesota, her cousins in Holland, unemployed -- a testimony to what happens when government provides the right balance of aid and opportunity to new immigrants. The Somali community values education, they are involved in their communities, politically engaged and working for a better life. This is a wonderful thing, and Minnesota is indeed better off!

SARAH STREITZ, MINNEAPOLIS

Exposing kids to cigarette smoke should be a crime Last Friday, I came across a father standing next to a newspaper vending machine. On the machine sat his infant, facing him. He was smoking, blowing the smoke straight into the infant's face.

I confronted him, he asked what I was going to do about it. Here is what I am doing.

HAVILA PETERSON, ST. LOUIS PARK, PEDIATRIC NURSE

Paying for what we need Your April 12 editorial, "Use many tools to fix state budget," opposes increasing taxes on income greater than $250,000 because "it would include many small-business owners who report business profits as well as their own salaries on their personal tax return." As someone who owned a small business for more than 25 years, I should like to point out two things.

1) The decision to pay business profits as personal income is a choice made (I hope) with the help of an accountant who knows that it will reduce tax payments in the long run. I did not do this when I had a business with employees. I did do it when I retired and became a consultant.

2) The only complaint I ever had about taxpaying was that I did not have enough income to pay more. If the only difference between a quarter-million-dollar income and a full million were to pay 50 percent taxes on the extra $750,000, leaving me only an additional $375,000, I would gladly have suffered the loss. I suspect that the 95 percent of all taxpayers who don't face such a problem would agree.

FRED E. HAHN, GOLDEN VALLEY

Last Year's "City of Ember" and February's "Coraline" have heroines who resemble tomboys. However, the tomboy film king is Japanese-Animation director Hayao Miyazaki. Although fantasy-based and sometimes scary, his films usually deal with young women or girls who might be a princess or witch but are in essence tomboys who go on quests, battle metaphorically or physically, and save the male interest.

Titles include "Kiki's Delivery Service," "Howl's Moving Castle," and the Oscar-winning "Spirited Away." "Ponyo," his latest, will be in theaters this summer.

WILLIAM CORY LABOVITCH, SOUTH ST. PAUL

Afghan women are the true 'sons' of liberty ... I was struck by the juxtaposition of two articles: 300 Afghani women protesting the new marriage laws, and the 10,000 Tea-baggers protesting their taxes. These women endured stone throwing and death threats because they believed that as human beings they had the right to determine when they should leave their homes, and that they should not be raped. In contrast, the Tea-baggers risked a sunny Tuesday afternoon to protest the one thing their country asks of them in return for all the benefits of being an American.

I humbly suggest a trade. Afghanistan's top tax rate is 15 percent lower than America's. Let the 10,000 Tea-baggers go and live in a low-tax country, and we will take the 300 Afghani women who understand what liberty means, and the sacrifice it is worth.

... and the U.S. must stand up for them There is simply no justification for a law that removes a woman's right to refuse sex to her husband or requires women to get their husbands' permission to leave their homes. And yet a repugnant new law quietly signed by President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan includes such provisions.

Observers say President Karzai was playing for the votes of extremist Shia clergy, who pushed the law, which applies to the Shia minority. The final version has yet to be published but women activists in Afghanistan fear the law will open the door to other religious leaders seeking equally repressive and dangerous laws that in effect legalize rape and other sexual violence against women.

Amnesty International has received reports that segments of the law violate women's and children's human rights relating to freedom of movement, guardianship of children, child marriage and domestic violence. Globally, violence against women is an epidemic that affects an estimated one in three women. A coalition of human rights groups in the United States is campaigning to pass the International Violence Against Women Act, which wields the power of U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid to help stop the violence and protect women. One key provision would support local efforts to establish and enforce laws that prevent and address violence against women and girls.

Readers who want to see the U.S. government stand up for victims of violence around the world should urge Sen. John Kerry, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, to reintroduce this bill in the Senate. The world applauded when girls in Afghanistan went back to school after years of repression under the Taliban. We must continue to support Afghan women and girls so they do not again lose their hard-fought rights.