Readers Write: (Oct. 22): Minneapolis charter amendment, stadium vs. birds, Columbus Day, DFL Party, Catholic Church

There's a vote coming up to change the Minneapolis city charter to allow establishments with restaurant beer and wine licenses to sell unlimited amounts of alcohol. From the way I've described it, you may guess I'm against it, and you're right. This change is being framed as giving customers what they want. It seems what they want is to spend large amounts of money on alcohol, not food. An establishment that does that is called a "bar." Those are heavily regulated, rightly so.

The restaurants to be freed from restrictions are in residential neighborhoods. That's the nature of the specific liquor license — to give people outside of certain areas the opportunity to have a glass of wine or a beer with a nice meal. Many of these restaurants already have been freed from parking regulations, and their customers dominate the surrounding streets. With unfettered ability to sell beer and wine, this will continue further into the evening. The patrons, however they arrived, will leave as bar patrons may: later and intoxicated.

I'm sure restaurant owners are excited by the prospect of making more money. Changing what their liquor licenses mean is an easy approach, but it is a wrong approach.

There is little doubt that the Minnesota Vikings ownership hierarchy has heard the public outcry to minimize the number of birds killed by flying into the new stadium's huge glass walls. They must also know that their image among the majority of the Minnesota population (less the overcharged ticket holders) is as low as Adrian Peterson's. They also know that the same Minnesota glass manufacturer hired to furnish the design glass also produces bird-safe fritted glass. If they would for once set aside their combative attitude, they could improve the team's image as well as the building's.

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One thing I've learned from the ongoing stadium controversy is how dumb the Wilfs and their PR team are. After a long and contentious process to approve the stadium, they are presented with a golden opportunity to dispel at least some of the lingering bitterness. So what do they do? They kick away a public-relations gift. Do they not understand that a photo of the first bird that falls victim to this stadium will be all over the Internet? Do they want to be derided by late-night comics? Show a little common sense and decency, install the bird glass and put an end to this fiasco.

In response to laments over the decline of Columbus Day ("In defense of Christopher Columbus," Oct. 18), the reality is that neither political correctness nor anti-Catholic or anti-European biases have led to the downfall of this holiday. It was the painfully gradual recognition over the past few years that Christopher Columbus was not simply a brave, courageous explorer. Instead, he took the peaceful Arawaks of the Bahamas as prisoners and made many of the people of the Bahamas, Haiti and the Dominican Republic search for gold or face death ("A People's History of the United States," Howard Zinn).

Columbus wrote in his log: "[T]hey would make fine servants … with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want." These were not idle musings, for as he later wrote, "[a]s soon as I arrived in the Indies … I took some natives by force." Upon his return to Spain, he misrepresented to the court that he had found Asia and was provided with even more ships and men to return to the islands. When he returned after a later voyage, he brought 300 men, women and children to be sold as slaves (200 more had died during the journey). In Haiti alone, during the approximately five years that followed Columbus' arrival, the population was cut in half. And by 1550, there were only 500 Arawaks of the original population of 250,000 alive in Haiti.

Why Columbus was ever honored with a holiday is mystifying, even apart from his inability to distinguish Asia from the Bahamian islands. There must be historical figures more deserving.

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Indigenous Peoples' Day is about an honest look at the Doctrine of Discovery, how those who "discovered" for crown and cross were really in the business of domination and colonization — a history that resulted in the deaths of 19 out of 20 indigenous peoples in the Americas. It is the least we can do to change the name and speak the truth about a history with modern-day consequences that we would prefer to forget.

Putting all negative ads aside, this is what happens when the DFL controls the state government in Minnesota:

• A balanced budget and all money borrowed from the education fund repaid.

• $150 million transferred to the state budget reserve, increasing the reserve for the first time in 13 years and bringing it to its highest level in state history ($811 million).

• Fully funded all-day kindergarten.

• $54 million in new education funding, increasing resources for schools statewide and providing preschool scholarships for low-income families.

• A two-year freeze on tuition in state colleges and universities.

• An increase in the minimum wage to $8.50 an hour in 2014 and to $9.50 an hour by 2016.

• Increased time off for mothers to care for newborns.

• A 5 percent pay increase for long-term-care providers.

• A decrease in property taxes for homeowners and renters of modest income.

• Freedom to marry for all Minnesotans.

• Gun laws amended to deny firearms to people under a domestic-violence restraining order.

• New tools against bullying.

• Legalized medical marijuana for chronically or terminally ill patients.

• $20 million to expand access to high-speed Internet in underserved areas of the state.

A vote for DFL candidates in November means more progress in building a better Minnesota.

Normally, I enjoy Steve Sack's editorial cartoons. The one of Oct. 20, however, missed a subtle but important point. It shifted the apparent de-emphasis of the Vatican's welcome to gays onto Pope Francis. In reality, the pope should get the credit for opening the door for official, open and transparent discussion of issues long considered "off the table" for Catholics. This official conversation has just begun and now will be debated throughout the Catholic world, leading up to next October's conclusion of the synod.