Readers Write (Nov. 3): Funding priorities, water usage, higher-ed costs, Twin Cities freeways, the Capitol tree

The Star Tribune reports that spending on the Minnesota campaigns for governor and the state House has topped $22 million. The Center for Public Integrity reports that roughly $998 million has been spent on television ads for state-level offices and Senate seats nationally.

To fight Ebola — which has claimed nearly 5,000 lives globally — Congress appropriated $88 million; NBC and CNN report $57.2 million raised by six charities. Ebola funds raised: $145.2 million.

Pulmonary fibrosis (known as PF or IPF) — the disease that is killing me — takes 40,000 American lives a year, the same number as breast cancer. Over the last five years, spending on PF research by the National Institutes of Health has averaged $32.6 million a year (0.11 percent of NIH's budget). Minnesota ranks 17th in PF mortality in the United States.

We must reorder the public's and our government's priorities. $998 million for (senseless?) political campaign spending, $145 million to fight Ebola and less than $33 million ($150 per pulmonary fibrosis fatality annually) to find a cure for PF, which is but 1 of 7,000 so-called rare diseases in the United States. There is a crisis in funding medical research in America. We all need to speak loudly to that clear and present danger.

While the savings from cutting shower time are not insignificant and are well-advised (Readers Write, Oct. 27), the amount is small compared with other forms of conservation. It is generally accepted that 10 percent of water in the municipal supply is lost through leaks, evaporation, etc. In the United States, 70 percent of water consumption is from agriculture, 20 percent from industry and 10 percent from domestic use. To make a significant impact on water usage, one would reduce consumption of items whose production requires the largest amount of water: meat, certain fruits and vegetables, cotton. An equivalent reduction in these vs. shower time would yield a savings far surpassing those claimed in the letter.

• • •

Even though a daily shower is the only luxury some of us can afford, we can agree to save a couple of gallons each day by setting the timer for five minutes instead of eight and turning off the tap while we lather up. But while we're on the topic, let's suggest a lifestyle change that will make a huge, genuine impact. Every day the world's golf courses use 2.5 billion gallons of water, enough to supply more than 2 billion world citizens with a subsistence amount of water. Instead, it is used to create an ideal but artificial environment for rich people to walk on while they take clubs and hit balls into holes. Since we face a genuine global water crisis, why don't we call upon the golfers and landscape architects of the world to redesign that game so that it's played in a natural environment?

The military has practiced the Oct. 27 letter writer's suggestions for a long time. When I was in the Naval Reserve, ships only carried a certain amount of fresh water, so you took a "Navy shower" by using the shower head to get wet. You then turned the water off, applied soap, then turned the water back on to rinse off.

For whatever reason, I've continued to follow this technique for some 40 years after the end of my tour. It seems like such an easy way to save billions of gallons of fresh water, and reduce your water bill in the process.

Andy Brehm ("Student debt: This one's on you, higher ed," Oct. 29) puts the onus of skyrocketing tuition and resultant student debt on the backs of featherbedding college administrators anchoring his argument on the fact that total college costs have increased four times faster than inflation. He does not mention, however, what has happened to the median household income over the same time frame.

The San Francisco Chronicle published a "then and now" piece in 2011 covering, in part, the same topic. It found that in California over a 35-year period the "average in-state UC student tuition" rose by a factor of 17.43 while the "median household income" rose by a factor of only 3.22.

Unless earnings for American workers keep pace with costs, this inequity will continue and will put pressure on governments and taxpayers to fill the void.

As a retired state university faculty member, I don't have much trouble with Brehm's general claim that there are too many higher-education administrators and that they cost too much, but he misses a couple of important points.

Those extra administrators are there not just because of bureaucratic metastasis but because they meet legislative requirements; Title IX requires a Title IX officer, similarly affirmative action and so on. These laws often promote worthy goals but frequently end up being underfunded mandates.

However, at least for public higher education, the major reason for skyrocketing costs is underfunding at the level of state support. When I started teaching at what was then Moorhead State College, I could tell my students that for every dollar they were paying for their education, the state was putting in two. When I retired, the state was paying a little over 40 percent of educational costs.

I lived all my adult life in the Minneapolis area until retiring two years ago to Denver. I love Colorado, particularly because of the warmer weather and because my family lives here. One thing I miss (and that Minnesotans ought to appreciate) is a freeway system that is second to none. Imagine the Minneapolis area without Hwys. 100, 169 and 62 Crosstown, and you have Denver. Replace those freeways with four-lane roads and lots of stoplights.

The two metropolitan areas are similar in size, each with about 3 million people. Traffic congestion is unbearable here. Traffic in the Minneapolis area, because of the freeways, is so much better.

Every year our family saves a tree by putting up a replica that gives us the same enjoyment without the mess and fire threat. A small gesture indeed, but it symbolizes the power and acknowledgment of our origins.