Readers Write: Digitalization, election security, women’s safety, Trump’s cabinet picks, winter

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 continue to love the addition of Aaron Brown to the Strib Voices team, and his latest piece about the beauty and nostalgia of hunting licenses was a joy (“Hunting licenses will soon go digital. I get it. And I hate it,” Nov. 8). While I’m not a sportsman, I share his affection and preference for less-than-convenient but sentimental paper ephemera — especially when it comes to concert tickets. There is something inherently depressing about having to jockey with your smartphone for five minutes to bring up an ugly QR code before you can enjoy live music. Music geeks of yore would keep personal scrapbooks of their paper tickets — proof that they were there when, say, the Grateful Dead debuted “Jack Straw” at Northrup auditorium in 1971. A screenshot of an old email is hardly something you’ll want to show your children one day.

Nicholas Rea, Minneapolis

I find it difficult to believe that Meghan Hesterman and Ryan Kyle don’t see any irony in their apparent envy of Uruguay’s elections and political discourse (“Where an election happens in an atmosphere of collective pride,” Strib Voices, Nov. 14).

The writers describe Uruguay’s election process as a joyful experience that includes extended family reunions and a population that has a great amount of trust in the election process. They then go on to blame much of our division on those who “cast doubt on the integrity of our elections.”

What they fail to mention is that election laws in Uruguay are far stricter than here in the United States, and that is why the election process is trusted and celebrated. In Uruguay, all voting takes place at a polling station, and a voter’s ID is verified before they receive a ballot.

Here in the U.S., it is largely considered too great of a burden to need identification or to travel a short distance to a polling station in your area. Meanwhile, as the authors pointed out, in Uruguay voters must travel to their birthplace to vote, which could easily be a distance of 100 miles or more.

We will not have a joyful and confidence-inspiring election by blaming those who question our current election process. We might have both if we followed Uruguay and most Democracies by requiring voter ID and a single-day election. We could do this while still making sure that those who cannot get to a polling station will have their vote counted.

Brad Hutchison, Mountain Lake, Minn.

Yes, Sheila Wilensky: Women are afraid that men will kill them (“Misogyny amplified,” Strib Voices, Nov. 14). But do you know what? Once you’re afraid and submit to that fear — once you go inside and don’t want to come back out in public, once you become submissive, once you stop asserting your rights — then you have lost. Once you ask men to please respect your rights, to please respect the physical exigencies of being a woman, rather than simply asserting your rights as a human being and as someone embodied as most women are, then you have lost.

Do not submit to that fear. Do not allow yourself to be objectified or subordinated. The only person who can prevent that from happening is you. No one under the incoming federal administration will help you. Even Minnesotans might not help — we couldn’t even pass a state Equal Rights Amendment in the last legislative session despite having the trifecta. So help yourself. Be brave. Assert your rights; don’t demand or ask for them. The coming years will likely be bad for many of us, but if enough of us are tough enough, we can stand stronger.

Laura Hermer, St. Paul

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I had a strong emotional response when I read “Misogyny amplified” by Wilensky. I am grateful that all the men, young and old, in my circles are good men, i.e., respectful of women. I shudder when I read about men who are the opposite. Unfortunately, our societal norm is that men can often get away with the sexist, cruel behavior we all know about or experience. We even have a president-to-be that models misogyny.

I am passionate about the issue of domestic abuse. The only way that this will change in our society is if we work proactively to educate boys and young men to respect and acknowledge the value of women. I would challenge men to stand up to inappropriate behavior toward women when they see and hear it and to speak out against it in gyms, locker rooms, bars and on the street. Be vigilant and confront it in your sons, brothers, fathers, friends and neighbors.

Women shouldn’t become more fearful; men should become less feared.

Mary Lu Jackson, Edina

Matt Gaetz for attorney general. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence. Pete Hegseth for defense secretary. One can only sympathize with Donald Trump for having to fall back on these obvious second choices. How disappointing it must have been for the president-elect to learn that his favorites for these positions, Larry Fine, Moe Howard and Curly Howard, were no longer available.

Peter Hill, Minnetonka

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In choosing Gaetz for attorney general, Trump continues the pattern.

People like Trump and Gaetz revel in their impunity as they flaunt their disdain for what we used to call decency and humanity. We are all flawed, but we have typically chosen representatives who seek to promote what’s best in us. Trump has fundamentally changed this paradigm: We now promote leaders who embrace and amplify humanity’s worst qualities: lying, cheating, bullying, cruelty, egomania.

Trump will continue to Gaetzify all he touches until our better angels take a stand.

Ben Seymour, Minneapolis

The closure and decreasing safety of outdoor rinks in Minnesota is frightening and disheartening. I moved to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area from Missouri in 2021. As a competitive figure skater who had never skated on wild ice, I was ecstatic to combine my passions for skating and nature during my first Minnesota winter. However, as the number of skateable days decreases year by year, I become saddened and frightened of what this means for our planet and ways of life — especially in a state prided by its skating and winters.

As a result of warmer winters, the closure of these rinks is a microcosm of the larger issue of climate change. Across the world, severe weather (like hurricanes) destroys villages and takes victims of climate change. In Minnesota, we haven’t faced this fate ... yet. However, if our industrialized world continues on this path of mindless carbon dioxide output, oil mining and deforestation, Minnesota will soon face a similar fate — let alone have lakes to skate on.

To allow us to continue to skate on wild ice, we must severely decrease our worldwide carbon dioxide output by prioritizing clean energy. We can individually take action by, for instance, participating in solar farms. On the industry and government level, we can (must) divest in Big Oil.

It is difficult to realize the gravity of climate change when Minnesota has faced few effects. Yet, hopefully, the closure of these rinks highlights the imminence and severe nature of climate change in Minnesota and beyond.

Sage Filmore, Bloomington

Regarding the resignation of the archbishop of Canterbury (“Church of England leader resigns over sex scandal,” Nov. 13): Can anyone point me to even one example of any religious organization ever promptly and voluntarily — i.e., without prior outside pressure — informing criminal authorities that one of its priests, reverends, imams, rabbis, members of the clergy, lay ministers, teachers, volunteers, etc., may be guilty of sexually abusing children?

I am no religious scholar, but the Bible and, I assume, the Quran, the Book of Mormon and pretty much every other religious text are pretty clear on this one:

“But whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6). See also Jeremiah 22:3 (the Lord says that no one should do wrong or be violent toward innocent children and orphans); Isaiah 1:17 (God calls his people to do everything in their power to stop those who try to hurt, abuse or oppress children).

Why should (or would) anyone put their faith in organizations whose first instinct and first response — proved out time and again — are to protect their institutional selves instead of children?

Why should (or would) anyone accept such organizations as credible moral authorities on anything?

Tom Vollbrecht, Plymouth