Readers Write for Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Now that President Obama has made his selection of a Supreme Court nominee who he suggests "may have saved baseball," will Sonia Sotomayor's next task be to save apple pie and Chevrolet -- or is it too late for Chevrolet?

BOB JENTGES, NORTH MANKATO, MINN.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty keeps saying that this is not the time to raise taxes. Has anyone ever asked him: When is a good time? In times of prosperity we hear that we can't risk stopping the Good Times Express. We refund tax money when we have a surplus. Yet my property taxes have swollen more under this governor than any other.

The Minnesota Miracle of the 1970s has, under Pawlenty, turned into the Minnesota Train Wreck.

DANIEL R. KRUEGER, MINNEAPOLIS

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People should stop criticizing Gov. Pawlenty for doing his job to balance the budget. Mayors cannot get angry at him because they are receiving less money for their cities. There is a state budget deficit, so they cannot expect the same amount of monetary support as in years past.

RACHEL FREY, ST. LOUIS PARK

I just finished a yearlong battle with stage 4 breast cancer, and won, using a combination of alternative treatments and chemo. I found that you have to stand up for what you believe, but you can't be "locked" into an alternative mindset, either.

I had cancer in my breast, neck, lymph nodes, liver and backbone. Today, I am cancer-free, with both breasts intact, and five weeks after treatment, I glow with health and can run circles around anyone and everyone.

It was a wild ride but, at the end, I found out the same thing as Dorothy: "There's no place like home." You don't have to chase cures all the way across country to find help. All we need are more openminded oncologists and experienced alternative health care providers and for them to work together.

And it would be nice if insurance would pay for it too, but then it really would be a storybook world. Pinch me when doctors and insurance companies start putting common sense above all other prejudices and concerns.

While watching Dick Cheney's speech on torture last week, I sensed something both familiar and wrong. Cheney is preaching -- preaching a doctrine that safety comes from force and power. I'm sure he really believes this. But this is obviously the wrong doctrine for today's world.

What do our opponents want from us? Respect. By destroying the World Trade Center, our opponents gained respect throughout the part of the world important to them. What do we want from our opponents? Business. Business made possible by peace and prosperity throughout the world.

Force and power will not defeat an opponent who is eager to die. The force and power it would take to destroy them would destroy us as well. This was the message of President Obama. The only solution is to make our opponents eager to live, and the only way to make them eager to live is for them to have a realistic hope that respect, peace and prosperity are within their reach.

All decent people have the same goal: respect, peace and prosperity. The only doctrine that can win the war on terror is to enable all people to have a realistic hope for attaining those things.

This is not a pie-in-the-sky approach. The resources are there; only the will is missing.