Readers Write (Oct. 30): Early voting, Ebola, team names, higher-ed costs, Minneapolis ballot question, federal planning, political parties

The Oct. 29 article on early voting nationwide ("More than 8 million have voted") got my vote. I took my first visit to Minneapolis City Hall this week to vote in a friendly, no-line setting in outstanding surroundings … beautiful rotunda housing stunning sculpture. I may never vote in a crowded schoolhouse on voting day again.

So the Obama administration's policy is:

1) No quarantine for Doctors Without Borders personnel returning to the United States who have had direct contact with Ebola patients.

2) A 21-day quarantine for the more than 1,000 U.S. troops who are in Liberia and Senegal supporting efforts to combat the virus, whose numbers could grow to 3,900, none of whom are intended to be in contact with Ebola patients.

And the difference in treatment is because the civilians volunteered to go and the military personnel did not. In what universe does that make any sense?

• • •

It is great that people take their professional skills to aid those less fortunate outside of the United States. Whether it is through Doctors without Borders, Lions International or a private church group, these charitable people need to understand that when dealing with an area with an outbreak, certain protocol needs to be adhered to upon return to the United States. Any quarantine or other protocol put in place is there not just for the protection of the people returning; it also is for the general welfare of the population they are coming back to.

• • •

In the early 1940s, two of my brothers and I were quarantined in a room for a month, confined behind a sign on our rural mailbox proclaiming, "Keep out — Scarlet Fever." Twenty years earlier, one of my sisters died from the disease.

During World War I, an influenza epidemic was killing thousands, not only in the United States, but also in France, where our troops were also dying from the pandemic. A letter from my mother to her little brother fighting in France dated Dec. 15, 1918, is filled with the names of those who had died from the disease in their little town in western Minnesota. Her brother was in a French hospital, himself recovering from the disease.

Fast-forward to today. Medical advances have been breathtaking. One Ebola death has occurred in our country. Two or three others who have contracted the disease have recovered with the aid of a medical community that is on top of the problem. Also give credit to a president who is acting calmly despite pressure from those who are itching to make this a political issue before an important election.

I am placing my bets on calm leadership grounded in sound medical practice, not on politically driven hysteria.

The Hennepin County Board passed a resolution Tuesday calling on the NFL team from Washington, D.C., to drop its "Redskins" name, calling it "racist" and "derogatory."

Board Member Jeff Johnson, who is the Republican Party's endorsed candidate for governor, cast the only "no" vote on the resolution, arguing that the issue has nothing to do with Hennepin County and that the board's addressing of it is part of "what frustrates people so much about government."

Exactly.

Andy Brehm's Oct. 29 commentary ("Student debt? This one's on you, higher ed") was absolutely right on. Being an avid sports fan, I see no problem raising millions for additional sports facilities. They do increase revenues for universities, but when does that revenue help the average student?

The commentary states that since 1978, fees and tuition have increased 1,120 percent. I was employed in government for four years, and it was common to see budgets spent unnecessarily from year to year just so they would not be cut the following year. I believe this is also very common in education, and in the unnecessary addition of staff in the bureaucracy of educators. It has to be stopped.

It is a bigger problem to have too few candidates running than too many. How many candidates will we get to run against Mayor Betsy Hodges in 2017 when the filing fee is $500? Not enough, in my opinion. And the City Council filing fee increase is even more problematic, since no one has ever complained about having too many candidates for the council. The incumbent council representative in my ward had no challengers last year. So why do we increase that fee?

The whole point seems to be a response to one case of having too many candidates in a mayoral race. We are overreacting to this one case. We need more data first.

Vote "no" for the filing fee increases in Minneapolis.

As an example in her commentary about how some services that are best provided publicly ("What if America already has the right allocations?" Oct. 29), Marian Turner says that having each state manage its own highways would be "crazy." Does she think that D.C. understands Minneapolis best, such as when the Interstate 35W trench was cut through our city? She remembers "what things were like before" — presumably contiguous, quiet neighborhoods. If interstate cooperation were too burdensome, then Europe would be paralyzed. How could it be any more bother than democracy itself?

Election Day is approaching again, and it seems my choices are between the "Party of Corporate Welfare" and the "Party of Corporate Welfare and Social Welfare." Though, I suppose with this new "ranked-choice" business, there's the "Party of No Welfare of Any Kind for Anyone" to consider as well …