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Speaking of brutalism: James Lileks trashed the downtown YWCA building in his article that ran with the online headline, "One of the ugliest buildings in downtown Minneapolis will likely be demolished. Should we care?" Yes, we should, and we do.
My family cares. My wife spent 20 years working at the YWCA of Minneapolis, loved the interior environment, and both of our sons spent all of their preschool years in the early education program. Lileks drools: "A boring first floor that turns its back to the street?" We thought the floor plan was gracious and innovative. The innovative, cascading interior ramp to the upper level brought joy to our toddlers each day as they raced to their classrooms. "Abstract shapes that give no indication as to their function?" Huh? The spacious roof deck with playground equipment was a wide-open respite within a city environment, which is sorely lacking for urban kids.
"Holes in the wall to indicate where the concrete was pumped?" As an architect, I wonder why Lileks has been tasked with architectural criticism while clearly not understanding basic construction practices. Concrete is not pumped through "holes." The little circles are called form ties. Look up how Pritzker prizewinning Tadao Ando uses them if you want to continue in this line of work. I think this building has great bones and great potential for adaptive reuse. Need some ideas? Call me.
You can dislike the building and still agree that Lileks should have done his research on this important building before trashing it.
Christopher A. Strom, Minneapolis
MINING
With a parent like that ...
Let us once and for all put an end to environmentally hazardous mining in Minnesota ("Mining firm again threatens the BWCA," editorial, Oct. 15, and "Mine foes are the ones staging an 'end run,'" Oct. 19). The executive director of MiningMinnesota, Julie Lucas, has failed to drill more deeply and expose an exploratory big hole in the historically untrustworthy parental guidance of Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagasta.
In the past, this transnational corporation, parent company of Twin Metals, has hit rock bottom with its unscrupulous lack of ethical environmental principles. It totally devastated its surrounding mining environment of an earthquake-prone zone in northern Chile. That includes creating toxic tailings and contaminating water, of which it was found guilty by the Chilean Supreme Court, and rupturing the community's social fabric.
Like father, like son.
Richard Laybourn, Bloomington
JUSTICE SYSTEM
Prison sentence won't bring back the dead
So Judge Michael Burns rejects the plea deal which would have saved the rest of the life of Husayn Braveheart following the death of Steven Markey ("Judge throws out no-prison plea deal," Oct. 24). The thirst for revenge expressed by the Markey family found resonance with this judge, who in turn echoes the persistent assumption that punishment will "fix" the problem and bring "justice" to the Markey family. Anyone who has experienced various forms of punishment knows that no such outcome is possible. We live in a grim fantasy world where the more draconian the sanction, the less likely the crime will be. At best the Markeys and readers of this story may feel some visceral satisfaction knowing that Braveheart will suffer. His underdeveloped 15-year-old brain, saturated with hormones, has no place in the narrative where fallen sinners are righteously damned to hellish existence at the hands of omnipotent visionaries. The moral transgressions rapidly devolve into sadistic, institutionalized modes of legal torture. Reform and rehabilitation is a "nice to have" but far too costly and inherently dissatisfying program compared with the anxious, endocrine-induced rage that we substitute for true justice. So we are about to lose a second life, to the prison-industrial complex that feeds on the minds and bodies of the victims — both of them.
George Hutchinson, Minneapolis
POLARIZATION
The power of the narrative
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer offers powerful insight for our current reality ("'Unwavering support' fuels cycle of violence," Opinion Exchange, Oct. 11). We live in an up-down, either-or culture. You are either right or wrong, my friend or my foe. Each side has its unique narrative. I lived in Bethlehem in occupied territory for two years and experienced the two-tale phenomenon. Two opposing descriptions of the same event — each story is true in the mind of the teller.
We are all experiencing this binary thinking when a Black youth is shot by law enforcement, when our elected government is immobilized by partisan politics, when fake news and real news are interchangeable and when book banning is on the table. Maybe our world is multifaceted and our task is to look beyond our truth toward building healthy world communities.
Mary Ellen Foster, St. Paul
