Readers Write: Community in wintertime, fraud, data centers, naval warships

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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I love snow cover. There are few things more lovely than a sunny morning after a significant snowfall. Usually I start sending pictures to my relatives in Mississippi and Tennessee as soon as I wake up. I couldn’t be prouder to show off my beautiful state. But there’s something I like even more that isn’t captured in these photos: It’s the reminder of our interconnectedness that means the most.

About the time that I finish breakfast, the city plows are putting the finishing touches on my Richfield city streets. County plows have already opened the main arteries through town. And Minnesota Department of Transportation plows have been on the freeways all night. And so far, all I’ve had to do is finish my coffee.

But I do go outside. The driveway needs clearing. The sidewalk has to be opened up for my neighbors. I clear a path for the letter carrier because I can imagine how hard it is to trudge across hundreds of lawns through a foot of snow. It’s gotta be exhausting, right? And look. The neighbor two doors down is using a shovel while I’ve got this giant snowblower. So I blow out her driveway while I’m taking care of mine.

What if I lived somewhere that it didn’t snow six inches every once in a while? How often would I think about my neighbors? How often would I be thankful for my local government? For my county commissioners? For state employees? These snowfalls are perfect times to remember what good government looks like, how it works when people join together to solve problems. It’s a perfect reminder of shared responsibilities. Like a good libertarian, I take care of the part of the problem that I can handle. I shovel my walk and my driveway. But like a good conservative, I get to monitor where my tax money goes. Yep. Here comes the plow. And like a good progressive, I want to know that people of limited means have the same access to snow removal as the people in the fancy neighborhoods.

Yes. I get that a lot of our problems are trickier than snow removal. But it sure feels good to see everyone pulling in the same direction every once in a while.

The biggest fraud happening now: the fraudulent stories on fraud (“Minnesota’s fraud reckoning enters the influencer era,“ Strib Voices, Dec. 31). It is an easy sale for YouTubers and other influencers to sell a story that millions are eager to gobble up. The supposed use of money taken through fraud going to some radical group in Africa is a tale that lands on the fertile ground of people who delight in the downgrading of others. No confirmation or evidence is required or provided. Sounds just like the situation that led to the fraud in the first place. Talk about pot calling kettle black ... and definitely not helpful. I bet the people who spread these malicious tales, like Nick Shirley or City Journal, stand to make quite a bit of money. Who is swindling who here?

Alan Briesemeister, Delano

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A recent article in the Business section covered the significant refund fraud at major retailers like Target and Best Buy (“Big retailers victimized by online-refund fraudsters,” Dec. 20). These corporations have large fraud and auditing teams, using the latest artificial intelligence tools and other software on the latest, most powerful computers.

How can anyone expect our understaffed Minnesota state employees using decades-old software on ancient computers, with limited access to the relevant data on other privacy-protected state systems, to control fraud by better-resourced criminal gangs?

Timothy Bardell, St. Louis Park

Regarding “Code names, NDAs keep data centers secret” (Dec. 21): Governments should be banned from signing nondisclosure agreements (NDAs), and any such NDAs should be considered illegal. To elected officials: There is a big difference between representing a constituency and being in charge. To decide to hide things from the people who gave you your job shows that you are no longer working in their interests, but your own.

Dean Hutchins, Woodbury

Did the Trump administration replace every competent person in the Pentagon, particularly the Navy, with bobbleheads? If the war in Ukraine has taught navies worldwide anything, it’s that capital ships are little more than giant expensive targets for masses of cheap and effective drones (“Trump announces new ‘golden fleet’ of warships — named after himself,“ Dec. 24). Russia’s flagship in the Black Sea, the Moskva, was sunk by missile fire from shore batteries too far inland to be acquired as targets. The Black Sea fleet has been moved from Crimea to the far end of the Black Sea because the ports and harbors in Crimea have been repeatedly struck by aerial and aquatic drones. Aircraft carriers have to be accompanied by dozens of other ships and submarines to protect them. A single drone can render the flight deck unusable. Even with the covering force, a single diesel-electric submarine was able to score multiple hits on a U.S. carrier in exercises.

But our lame gunboat diplomatist is going to build a new class of big, expensive targets with his name on them. He doesn’t even realize that it will take 10 to 20 years before the ships will make it to builder’s trials. To make the “Trump class” battleships even more pathetic, President Donald Trump wants his image emblazoned on the superstructure. Will this spark fear in our enemies? No. It will give them a clearer target when about $3 million in drones send $10 billion in ship to the bottom.

We can only hope that someone can talk sense into these people before we send a thousand sailors to the bottom.

Daniel Beckfield, New Brighton

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I’ve heard of oxymorons like “awfully good,” “alone together” and “jumbo shrimp.” Now I see a similar phrase coming from the U.S. Navy shipyards: “Trump class.”