Tom Rukavina’s reply to my last Timberjay letter managed to squeeze both an error and an insult into two sentences.

The error was claiming that I receive a pension from the mines. Between vesting rules and bankruptcies, a lot of us got screwed out of some or all of our mining company pensions. I pulled shift work at Minntac when it was fifty below but I never got a mining company pension.

The insult was to refer to my letter as babbling. My claim was that mining promoters are throwing out unbelievable numbers or concealing embarrassing numbers. I put those numbers in my letter and signed it. If my numbers were wrong, Tom could have documented my error. You should interpret his lack of documentation as confirmation of my analysis.

He also chose not to respond to my challenge to list thriving mining communities we could use as models for mining as economic development.

We certainly won’t find any in his district. After his 26 years in the Legislature promoting mining, the big debate is about closing schools in his district.

The Rick Nolan campaign organization should be a little disappointed that Tom would put so much energy into insulting likely Nolan supporters and so little into debating Nolan opponents.

Bob Tammen

Soudan, Minn.