Hail Minnesota
Sir / Your rah-rah piece on the North Star State [Aug. 13] evokes memories and nostalgia—principally for those marvelous lakes. Surely you stirred a million of us expatriate Gophers to sing one chorus of Hail! Minnesota. But there was one grievous error about the Minnesota mosquitoes: it is the dive bombers that are half the size of the native anopheles, not vice versa!
HOWARD M. KAPLAN
Greenwood Village, Colo.
Sir / People think I am crazy when I refer to my home state as "God's country." Thanks for letting everyone know that Minnesota is truly all about the good life.
STEPHANIE PADGETT
Chicago
Sir / Camelots have fragile ecologies. I cherish the vision of my home state. Would you please rerun the part about the mosquitoes, and as an added favor throw in the January low-temperature figures and snowfall counts? Then maybe Minnesota will have the chance to remain the beautiful, tolerant, hearty state that I remain homesick for.
JOHN SHERMAN
Arlington, Va.
Sir / Except for New York City, for which I take no responsibility, New York is a pretty good state too!
DANIEL R. DWYER
Jamestown, N.Y.
Sir / I spent 21 years of my life waiting to get out of Minnesota. True, the lakes are blue, the sky is big, the air is fairly clear. But God, the place is unutterably dull.
It's a nice place to visit—in the summer —but I wouldn't want to live there.
M. THOMAS HINKEMEYER
Bayside, N.Y.
Sir / Maybe the reason Minnesota works is that the Governor goes fishing and lets private enterprise run things.
ART PHELPS
Davis, Calif.
Incisive Analysis
Sir / Stefan Kanfer's "Words from Watergate" [Aug. 13] is the most incisive analysis of the Watergate mess that I have yet read. How right he is in realizing that those tidy adjectives, nouns and verbs can soften the grossest indiscretions and crimes.
DENNIS M. DALMAN
St. Cloud, Minn.
Sir / Stefan Kanfer's Essay exposed another bit of hard truth concerning the Watergate mess. All the beating around the bush in the Watergate hearings so perfectly symbolizes the unfortunate breakdown in communication that has been paralyzing the real function of our Government—representing the people by means of a general understanding of truth. I, like other proud Americans, have been disillusioned by this large scandal, but hope that the outcome of the hearings will only mean a great improvement in our Government's involvement with the American people.
KENNETH VANDERBEEK
Williamsville, N.Y.
Sir / By setting the mighty linguistic engines of Shakespeare and the Bible against the bankrupt slang and pusillanimous euphemisms of the witnesses, Ervin is admittedly using cannons against sparrows. But he is also constantly reminding us that the gap between language and truth has not always existed—and need not continue to exist.
J.E. RIVERS JR.
Lausanne, Switzerland
Lessons of Watergate