Readers Write (Nov. 27): Twin Cities brand, politics, Minneapolis schools, Katherine Kersten

Alas and alack! Steve Berg implies that "Minneapolis/St. Paul" has blended into "Minnesota" and become invisible compared to Seattle, Chicago and Atlanta ("Which is of these is not like the others?" Nov. 20).

He surmises that we're culturally deficient compared with these cities and have ceased to be "up-and-coming." Berg and his "East Coast children" seem to be ashamed of what time-warped Minnesota has to offer.

Frankly, I don't care about being cosmopolitan. Seattle, Chicago and Atlanta have more serial killers, which Berg failed to mention.

MICHELLE PETERSON, PLYMOUTH

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I enjoyed Berg's piece, but would like to point out an error. The Vikings announced their "Minnesota Vikings" name on Sept. 27, 1960 -- a full month before baseball's Senators moved here from Washington and a full two months before that team announced that it would be called the Minnesota Twins.

KEITH GRINDE, BLOOMINGTON

Let's get over the regional-barrier thinking and think big. Articles like Berg's build resentment. The Twin Cities aren't superior to other communities in Minnesota, though that's what the article implied. The fact is that we're all Minnesotans and we need a unified branding message that promotes the entire state.

DAVID E. BRODEN, ORONO

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Lori Sturdevant didn't offer one explanation given for the decrease in household income from 1982 to 2009 for the under-35 age group ("Today's issues are breaking along a generational divide," Nov. 20).

Could it be that the increase in the number of single-parent households has grown significantly due to the fact that 40 percent of children are now born out of wedlock in the United States, up from 18 percent in 1980?

CAROLINE MACWHERTER, DEEPHAVEN

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I question the phrase "silent generation" as used in Sturdevant's column. I'm a member of what I prefer to call the Roosevelt generation, born between fall 1932, when Franklin Roosevelt was elected president, and April 1945, when, still president, he died of heart failure. Why are we "silent," and who says so?

I remember demonstrating for civil rights, marching against the Vietnam War and campaigning for the equal rights amendment. If the baby boomers have outshouted us because there are more of them, that doesn't mean we were (or are) silent.

KATHRYN CHRISTENSON, ST. PETER, MINN.

It's refreshing to see that a coalition of parents and civic leaders is insisting that the two sides in collective bargaining begin to consider the interests of a very important unrepresented party: the public school students of Minneapolis ("Reject status quo in Minneapolis schools," Nov. 22.)

Clearly, in states that lack right-to-work laws, this process is almost entirely about how far school boards will go to meet teacher-union demands for seniority-based guarantees of job security.

As the Minneapolis coalition pointed out in its cogent "Contract for Student Achievement," this closed process hurts children when tenured teachers are exempt from meaningful performance evaluation, thereby preventing principals from adding the best and brightest to their faculties.

Parents and local taxpayers should have a seat at the table when these critical decisions are made. Taking a cue from Minneapolis, other such coalitions well may be forming around the country to challenge monopoly power in public education.

ROBERT HOLLAND, CHICAGO

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As much as we like to blame both parties for everything that goes wrong in divided government, the failure of the not-so-supercommittee was not equal failure of both parties. Let us remember the Democrats were the ones who offered to compromise with a plan that involved half spending cuts and half tax increases (through ending the Bush tax cuts).

What about the Republicans? They were the ones who said no to any plan in which they would have to sacrifice anything (Bush tax cut repeals). They were the ones who would rather see the committee fail than to give in to any part of the deal in the name of civil compromise.

To blame the Democrats for this situation is simply ridiculous.

PATRICK FREESE, ST. LOUIS PARK

Katherine Kersten pines for the good old days that, as it turns out, weren't that good after all. Her most recent column ("Eden Prairie had to suffer a foolish plan," Nov. 20) contained one interesting, albeit surely unintended, decoded kernel: "Superintendent Melissa Krull and her administration railroaded through a plan to bus students on the basis of income -- a proxy for race."

So if income is a proxy for race, as she states, then the inverse is also true. Could it be that income as a proxy for race thinly veils the modern-day ultraconservative viewpoint across the spectrum of political issues, from not taxing "the wealthy" to not busing "the poor"?

NICK DOLPHIN, MINNEAPOLIS

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Because we have segregated our neighborhoods on the basis of wealth and class, we have created de facto racial segregation. We are among the most economically and racially segregated cities in the nation. Fifty percent of Minnesota's children arrive at kindergarten unprepared to learn, largely due to poverty and low parental education. Heaven is not segregated based on income and race. We ought to demand affordable housing, equitable education, jobs and health care for all.