Netlets for Tuesday, Sept. 16

Let team owners and media pay for a new Vikings stadium Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, says the Vikings need a new stadium (Star Tribune, Sept. 15). Why doesn't he build it? After all, Irsay and Vikings owner Zygi Wilf are rich enough; it shouldn't be that difficult.

The local sports media should also chip in since they directly benefit; or they should at least stop suggesting that taxpayers foot the bill.

It's criminal what the government did with the Twins stadium. They basically stole from hardworking folks to profit a wealthy few. It should not happen again.

ANDY CILEK, EDEN PRAIRIE

Krauthammer piece on Palin left out quite a bit Charles Krauthammer's column on the Bush doctrine(s) ("Media falsely tries to claim a 'gotcha' on Palin," Sept. 15) is a lesson in things left unsaid.

First, he spends almost an entire column defending Sarah Palin's response to a question about the doctrine(s), by stating that there are many such doctrines and that Palin couldn't know which to respond to. Left unsaid is the thought that if there are many Bush doctrines, then a "ready to lead" vice-presidential candidate would have listed a few to Charles Gibson and asked which one he meant or -- more likely -- picked the doctrine she knew best and made points with it.

Krauthammer then renders his main point irrelevant and states that "Palin didn't know what it is" but that's OK because Gibson didn't know either. Left unsaid by Krauthammer here is that the person running for vice president is Palin, not Gibson! Our lives may depend on the first knowing foreign policy; our choice of TV news station may depend on the second.

ROBERT K. GALKIEWICZ, ROSEVILLE

Government help for constituents of anti-government pol I have sympathy for the victims of Hurricane Ike, but I would have more if the congressman for many of them was not Ron Paul. Think about it. Here we have an anti-government politician who has promoted smaller budgets for national programs and ran a recent presidential campaign on this. Personally, I can't wait for this guy to ask Congress for assistance for the millions of dollars in damage done to his district.

WILLIAM CORY LABOVITCH, SOUTH ST. PAUL

McCain demonstrated 'change' cred with his VP pick Obama Chief Strategist David Axelrod recently stated, "I don't think there is going to be a person in America who, by the end of these next weeks, will not understand who represents change and who represents more of the same." I, too, feel Barack Obama represents change, but at this point John McCain has demonstrated change by choosing a woman as his vice-presidential candidate while Obama, who had a much better option in Hillary Rodham Clinton, failed to do so.

I don't understand why Obama didn't comprehend the advantage Clinton would have given him, or why he failed to understand that he was leaving a perfect opening for a savvy rival. He'll have to do more than talk soon -- he'll have to provide some significant gesture to move ahead in this campaign. We're waiting, Barack!

Bush opportunists exploited abortion issue Michael Gerson's Sept. 12 column stated that it's "insulting when the argument is made that 'pocketbook' issues will somehow override a man or woman's deepest beliefs. Guess what, Michael: Here's a "somehow."

Any serious study of medical abortion, a study based on ethics and not social convenience, concludes that killing unborn babies is evil. For eight years President Bush has criticized abortions, but his view has had no practical effect. In the meanwhile, he and the moneyed class that put him in power have continued to cynically use abortion and other religious issues to manipulate Americans. At the same time, Bush's opportunists have promoted policies, like tax cuts for the rich, that fill their own pockets at the expense of the rest of us. That all qualifies as evil too, and is the biggest "insult" of all. Are we going to be duped, and vote those same people back into power? Heaven forbid.

JIM BARTOS, BROOKLYN PARK

Human reason and abortion A Sept. 12 letter writer defends a non-religious opposition to abortion based on human reason. However, that reason has historically been formed by theological views about the ensoulment of a fetus and the status of women as its vessel -- and a disposable one at that.

As Pope Pius XI said in Casti Connubii: "However we may pity the mother whose health and even life is imperiled by her natural duty, there yet remains no sufficient reason for condoning the murder of the innocent."

Human reason, for those of us who have abandoned religion in favor of morality, now gives women more respect and tells us that women know best what to do about a pregnancy that has serious problems. While some women may devalue their own human rights in deference to a particular church's teachings, our reason-based secular Constitution guarantees to women that pregnancy is their private business, not the government's. To do otherwise would be to consign women once again to being disposable vessels.