Readers Write (Oct. 2): Harvest Prep, BWCA, Lynx, Vikings

Harvest Preparatory School deserves all the kudos that Kersten accords it. What she implies is that other schools could do the same if they were smart enough. She mentions that this is a charter school and that 70 percent of the students have single parents. The critical variable for this school's success that she does not touch upon is what kind of parents we are talking about.

Research and common sense agree that kids do well in school if they have a full-time person in their lives who consistently cares for them 24/7. School personnel can attempt to be this person in limited ways, but most burn out after a year or two. Before we fund replication, let's have a home visit.

FLOYD KELLER, BAYPORT

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Kersten's commentary should be transcribed onto fine parchment, framed and hung from the office walls of every legislator, school board member and superintendent who represents high-cost, low-performing schools in Minnesota.

Hopefully, this would act as a constant reproach that more money does not necessarily buy desired results. Minnesota has a school funding problem. This problem will not be solved by more money but by using the money we currently have more effectively.

BOB BARRETT, SHAFER, MINN.

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Greg Breining's description of wilderness as a romantic construct makes me wonder whether he has ever actually been in the Boundary Waters ("Nature as human theater," Sept. 25). People go there because it's hard and wild, not because they have some ethereal 19th-century world view.

People go there because they want fresh air, exercise and the chance to see wildlife that isn't dodging traffic.

The Wilderness Act doesn't say or intend that wilderness must be absolutely virgin and pristine. "Untrammeled" is often misinterpreted; it means uncontrolled, not untrod upon. People visit the wilderness, and they leave some marks at campsites and portages, but that does not mean that protecting wild landscapes is thus pointless.

As an ecological baseline, as a carbon sink, and as a place where people can study and enjoy nature without the noise and distraction of contemporary gadgets, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is priceless.

Not all Isabella-area landowners are furious at the U.S. Forest Service; to the contrary, some realize that the forest needed what just happened.

REID CARRON, MINNEAPOLIS

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Breining paints himself as the lone voice of reason bobbing about in a sea of fuzzy-minded romantics. This, it should now be eminently clear, is his schtick. Allow me to say a few words in favor of the romantics and the transcendentalists that he so disparages in his piece.

Without people like Thoreau, Muir, Sigurd Olson, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey and others, there would be no National Park system, no Wilderness Act, no National Wildlife Refuges, and on and on.

JOHN STRAND, MINNEAPOLIS

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I was happy to see the column on the Lynx by Nancy Barnes, the Star Tribune's editor ("The most exciting team in town," Sept. 25). But the statement attributed to the sports editor took me aback. "In a city starved for a sports winner, we are treating the Lynx as a big story," he said.

Really? Let's see ...

The front page over the masthead read: "Can Twins bounce back?" On the front page of Sunday's sports section, there was an above-the-fold story about the Gophers' loss (including four color pictures). There was also a "Star Tribune Exclusive" about the Twins losing 98 games.

BARBARA H. BRADFORD, MINNEAPOLIS

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In making the case against a referendum on the public funding of a new Vikings' stadium, the Star Tribune Editorial Board ignored a fundamental difference about this decision: The Vikings are a privately owned business ("Dodging liability in the stadium game," Sept. 30).

Subsidizing a privately owned business by as much as $650 million is a huge financial windfall to the Vikings' owners.

To allow elected officials to decide which private companies get this type of largess establishes a disturbing conflict of interest that should concern all citizens of this state as well as the Star Tribune. It should not take much imagination to figure which candidates these publicly enriched companies will favor in the next election.