Readers Write (Sept. 7): Protecting grouse, Eric Dean's death, more pay for all, the Walker ramp, James Lileks

I'm pleased that the Obama administration is leading the effort to conserve the greater sage grouse, one of the most iconic and imperiled bird species of the American West. However, according to a scorecard released by conservation groups, the administration's plan for grouse in Wyoming does not comply with the best available science or with standards necessary to protect grouse populations.

The Bureau of Land Management and the USDA Forest Service need to follow the measures called for by agency scientists to conserve the species. These include recommendations to limit future oil and gas drilling and mining, to promote better grazing practices and to create protected areas.

Conserving the greater sage grouse will require protecting large areas of habitat. Most priority habitat is already heavily degraded, and grouse are only persisting in large, relatively undisturbed blocks of habitat. Protecting the remaining large expanses of important habitat will also help stem the decline of many species of wildlife and preserve the wide-open spaces of the American West for future generations.

We in Pope County are devastated about the abuse and murder of Eric Dean by the girlfriend of his father ("The boy they couldn't save," Aug. 31).

Our county residents and Minnesotans at large should know that our human services department works very hard to protect children at risk in accordance with state law. Should state law be changed to improve Minnesota's child protection system? We'll leave that question for others to debate and answer.

For our part, we regret that we couldn't do more. Because of this case, our social workers and management staff continue to re-examine the way we handle cases like his.

But we also know this: Abusive caregivers, uncooperative family members and investigations after the fact all combine to make our work to protect vulnerable children a difficult, heartbreaking and very often imperfect job. Even facing that unpleasant reality, we hope to serve abused children better in the future than we were able to serve Eric Dean.

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In the Sept. 4 article "Lawmakers: System failed Eric," state Sen. Torrey Westrom's solution is to create another law. We don't need another law or more reporting. Minnesota child protection law is already strong enough to have saved Eric.

The failure has been to adequately fund child protection so that it can investigate every credible report. The women and men on the front lines want to help every child and family who needs help. But each worker only has so many hours in a day. The ones not yet burned out by the crushing case­load work many more than 40 hours per week. For too many years now, every time a social worker left, hiring was frozen and no replacement was hired.

Eric Dean was screened out multiple times in Pope County not because his case didn't merit attention but because the county did not have the funds to investigate the call. A new law won't provide more social workers to do the work, only more work.

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However, Eric's case contains factors that are all too common in child-abuse cases — namely, assigning cases to inexperienced social workers, referring abusers to ineffective programs like parenting classes, having biological parents who worry more about losing their significant others than they do about the welfare of their children, and finally, all too often not having the budget to place children out of the home.

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The most effective change resulting in increased domestic-violence arrests happened when Minnesota law was amended to require police to file a report explaining why no arrest was made during a domestic-violence call. Perhaps the same measure should be passed in cases of child-abuse reports. Accountability is a powerful incentive.

President Obama was quoted recently as saying that "America deserves a raise." Perhaps he is right, perhaps not.

I think the only way he could find out would be to visit every American business and meet with every employee to do a complete evaluation of that employee's work performance. Until he does that, he and every other government worker should stay out of that private transaction between a business owner and its employees.

Thank you for running James Lileks' columns. He's a masterful humorist who makes writing well look easy. He takes a basic subject such as the weather, the State Fair or some other issue of the day and races with it in unexpected directions. I can't help laughing out loud at his seemingly effortless blend of humor, snarkiness and incredible imagination. Thanks, James. I don't know how you do it, but I'm glad you do.

• The map published with the Aug. 31 commentary "The influence of religion" misidentified the locations of some countries. To see a corrected version of the map, go to www.tinyurl.com/pr8wc2w.

• Because of a production issue, the last paragraph of the Aug. 31 commentary "After-hours work e-mail devotion need not be" was cut off. The full paragraph is as follows: