Readers Write: “Danksgiving,” political division, dropped Trump cases

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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I could not believe what I was reading in the recent column about cannabis and Thanksgiving (“How cannabis can help bring harmony to Thanksgiving gatherings,” Nov. 26). Such an article is more appropriate for April Fools’ Day than Thanksgiving. But no, the tone was serious. Apparently there are people who want to add the odor of weed to the smell of turkey and pumpkin pie. For our “mindful consumption,” the article even gives us THC dosage amounts. But I thought Thanksgiving was always the time most people overindulge. Thanksgiving and overindulgence go together. What will the safe dose be for the children at the feast? How will anyone keep the little ones away if everyone is so mellow? What will be the safe dose for the designated drivers driving, or staggering away, from grandmother’s house? Please tell me your paper is trying to be humorous.

David Wiljamaa, Minneapolis

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Wait, you mean “How cannabis can help bring harmony to Thanksgiving gatherings” wasn’t a joke? The author, and this newspaper, are seriously providing recipes so we can drug our guests into having a more mellow postelection Thanksgiving? We can spike the appetizers, sprinkle the turkey with cannabis seasoning, pour cannabis oil into the gravy, flavor the carrots with THC honey and even have cannabis in the pumpkin pie. Yippee! Once Grandpa and Uncle George are sufficiently loaded, we can have an intergenerational conversation freely debating divisive politics and have “an opportunity to discuss [cannabis’] evolving legal status and medicinal benefits.”

Fortunately, the author provided his dosing guidelines, from 1 mg for beginners to over 100 mg for experienced users. But what if one of the beginners eats too many appetizers, loves those specially flavored carrots, and has several pieces of pie? Remember, it takes a couple hours to feel the effects. The author admits that too much could be overwhelming, with risks of anxiety or paranoia. But, not to worry, just stock up on cannabidiol, CBD, to counteract the effects.

Admittedly, many Thanksgiving celebrations have guests “dosing” themselves with alcohol, which certainly has its own share of problems. But for most people, the effects of alcohol are almost immediate and they have learned their easily measurable limits. However, dosing guests with indeterminate quantities of cannabis in food seems irresponsible. Please do not let me be on the highway anywhere near those revelers.

Chelle Eastman, Savage

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Today is the day I finally call the Minnesota Star Tribune and drop my lifelong subscription, replacing it with the New York Times. After Andy Brehm’s preachy diatribe (“Here’s one way we can help heal our divided country,” StribVoices, Nov. 25) and Clemon Dabney’s irresponsible column, I’ve accepted that there’s no longer anything in the paper for an 80-year-old liberal white woman. Even the food sections are geared toward people unconcerned about diet. I’m particularly offended by the pro-marijuana columnist (whereas Brehm is just a pedant with a platform) because what he spouts is dangerous. Yes, we legalized marijuana, and I support that, but with legalization should come warnings about the harms of marijuana, not a blissful endorsement of another drug for an overmedicated society. People deserve to know the pros and cons of marijuana. It is irresponsible to tout lacing people’s food at a celebration of thankfulness without regard to the effects on children. How are you going to keep this from children? There are always those parents who say, “I want them to have just a little so they’ll know how to handle it when they grow up.”

In an overmedicated society we share the table with people taking blood thinners, blood pressure medicines, antidepressants, cholesterol-lowering meds, weight loss medications and other drugs. Finally, Dabney is a marijuana entrepreneur, meaning that he has a conflict of interest in writing this column. The Star Tribune is giving him what appears to be a respectable platform to enhance his interests. That’s it. I’m done.

Karen Storm, St. Anthony

As a longtime, certifiably conservative, now Trump-supporting Republican, I’ve got to say I’m disappointed to hear of folks of my ilk ending their subscriptions to the Star Tribune. That’s not to say I haven’t given it a thought, every once in a while. But I think it’s exactly the wrong thing for people to be doing right now. And maybe especially for the indignant reasons they are giving.

I renewed my subscription — again — for my health and my soul.

My health, because every morning I get the paper delivered in my driveway, grab a coffee and turn right to the editorial page. I can consistently count, usually several times a week, on getting intense jaw muscle exercise as I grimly grit my teeth, as well as a reassuring reminder that I still have a pulse. For this to happen, of course, I need to read things that I find, well, disagreeably wrong.

More important, though, is the second reason. John Milton nailed it almost 400 years ago, talking about free speech in “Aeropagitica,” when he wrote about evils of silencing or avoiding ideas he disagreed with:

“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.”

In other words, never be afraid of having your ideas challenged, or challenging in the same way the ideas of others. This by its very nature requires listening and understanding and, in the case of a newspaper, reading. And arguing. And, once in a while, spitting out your coffee.

Segregating ourselves into clusters of people we agree with is, as noted recently by Brehm, exactly what we shouldn’t be doing these days. We need to seek out and talk to each other. Hear what the other side, poor restless creatures that they are, have to say about things. Defend our ideas. Hold our ground. And be willing to admit, horror of horrors, where we might be wrong.

Selfishly, if the Star Tribune is sincere in its declared effort to be a forum for all voices in Minnesota, I will need to find another source for unexamined, in-your-face progressive vitriol. At least in the amount and intensity it offers to me, as a reader, for the discounted price of a simple subscription. I do think though, overall, we should welcome the change and keep reading the paper.

Fritz Knaak, St. Paul

With special counsel Jack Smith forced to drop his two cases against Donald Trump as time runs out to wrap up prosecution before the inauguration, at least one question still needs to be aired in public regarding the documents case (“Smith ending 2 Trump cases,” Nov. 26). Former President Trump allegedly removed top-secret documents and refused to return them until law enforcement forcibly returned them. The question remains: Why would he want the documents in the first place, including highly sensitive national secrets? Let’s hazard a guess: To sell them. Once a grifter, always a grifter. It’s a tragic miscarriage of justice that America will never learn the truth, never mind Trump’s role in the appalling scheme to overturn an election he did not win.

James P. Lenfestey, Minneapolis

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I was quite alarmed when I read that both of the most important cases against Trump have been dismissed by Smith. Does this mean that Trump will face no consequences for what, on their face, appear to me to be treasonous offenses? What has our country come to? I guess we need to face up to the reality that we have elected a lying, cheating bully to our highest office — and I’d bet he’s selling classified documents to foreign governments, will continue to do so, and intends to overthrow our democratic government by any means possible.

Eileen Collard, Minneapolis