Members of the Minnesota Lynx, thank you for a wonderful season. It was so much fun to watch. You always gave it your all. Key players were injured, but the bench was there, willing and able to step in. You showed pride from the start of each game and always played hard until the end, not giving up.

The series against the Phoenix Mercury was very exciting. You have nothing over which to hang your heads. You are a class act. Thank you, Coach Cheryl Reeve, and the assistant coaches. Hopefully more and more people will come out next year to see this top-class team.

AMY OMODT, Minneapolis

university of minnesota

Lauding Land O'Lakes for Gopher support

In response to a Sept. 4 letter ("When sports trumps academics at the U"), since when have academics suffered at, say, Northwestern (completing plans for a $200 million-plus athletic facility), or Iowa (doing the same), or Wisconsin, Michigan or Ohio State?

As a University of Minnesota alumni and contributor to both academics and the athletic program, I applaud Land O'Lakes and thank them for kicking off this fundraising effort. The state of Minnesota and all Gophers fans deserve to have excellence in sports as well as academics. There is no reason we can't have both, like most of our Big Ten counterparts.

Rob Marx, Maple Grove

• • •

As a long-term southeast Minneapolis resident, I am sorry to see the large amount of couches, mattresses, TVs and vacuums left each fall and spring during the move-in and move-out at the University of Minnesota. Even with letters from the city advertising the reuse store, and signs at many apartment building, the lack of respect seems to grow each year.

ron moody, Minneapolis
ERIC DEAN

Case shows need for increasing resources

So Minnesota legislators are outraged over the death of 4-year-old Eric Dean ("Lawmakers: System failed Eric," Sept. 4). The chairwoman of the House Health and Human Services Policy Committee calls for hearings. The chairwoman of the Senate Health, Human Services and Housing Committee says "there must be something terribly flawed in the system." There is a lack of enough funding to investigate, prevent, divert, ameliorate and, as a last resort, remove children from their caregivers into safe and nurturing foster or adoptive homes.

I have served as a Hennepin County volunteer guardian ad litem (court-appointed child advocate) for neglected and abused children since 1998. In my 16 years of service I have seen the criteria for offering services to children and families become more and more stringent as funding shrunk. I've seen changes in the system that gave social workers less and less time to deal with individual clients. I've heard a very good judge say that he could order a child sent to a treatment center but that it would be futile since the county social service department had no funds for this facility. I have seen excellent social workers grind their teeth in frustration because they know what's needed and can't fund it. I could go on.

A good social welfare system is like anything else you purchase: You get what you pay for. If the taxpayers of this state want children to be safer than they are now, the taxpayers will have to pay for it. And the Legislature will have to take the increased revenue and allocate it to social services.

ELAINE FRANKOWSKI, Minneapolis
SENATE RACE

Hypocrisy regarding party-line voting

Wait a minute. The Sept. 3 article "McFadden eyes space between center, right" says that Mike McFadden is receiving the support of U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., in his election campaign against Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota. The article states that Johnson has been a "reliable party vote" since 2010. Yet the article goes on to say that McFadden "constantly blasts" Franken for voting regularly with his own party. Does anyone else see the hypocrisy here?

DONALD VOGE, Crystal
POLICE

Leave militarization to the armed forces

While only showing the top half of the Sept. 3 front page to 10 of my co-workers, I had them guess where the photo of camouflaged men riding on the back of an armored vehicle was taken. Eight guessed Ukraine, one said Iraq, and another thought Gaza. They, like I, were shocked and surprised to discover it was in Blaine, Minn.

The militarization of today's police has many disturbing aspects, but one question I keep asking is: Why do they wear camouflage? Soldiers on the battlefield wear it to conceal themselves from the enemy. Who are the police trying to conceal themselves from? Who is the enemy? An American public where any citizen can at any time become a threat? I thought the military was responsible for protecting us from enemies both foreign and domestic. As the line between the police and the military continues to blur, the more we look like a police state. But surely that's just paranoid thinking. It's not like black helicopters have been seen zipping through downtown.

ALEX HAVREVOLD, Minneapolis

MIDEAST

Distinct differences between ISIL, Hamas

A Sept. 4 letter claims that Hamas and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant are, in essence, the same. The letter neglected to mention that Hamas was democratically elected, yet ISIL was not, nor that Hamas members are Palestinians who were born and raised on their land, saw it taken by the Israelis, and grew up witnessing their parents and family members humiliated, insulted and beaten by the invading Israelis, while ISIL members include many foreign fighters.

I would like to tell the letter writer that if she were kicked out of her home with force, uprooted from her community, and lived where the neighboring invaders were smothering and starving her and her family with sanctions and closed borders (in the most crowded place on Earth), and if she had a few primitive missiles, I would dare her not to use them.

Please let us put ourselves in others' shoes and see their point so we can be fair judges.

ZENA KHALIL, North St. Paul
SEASONS

Goodbye to summer, or what there was of it

So long, summer. We hardly knew ya. No tornado warnings. No hydration lectures. No prolonged periods of 90-degree days. No air-conditioning cutoffs. No threats of watering regulation enforcement.

Yes, unending rain. Yes, unending forecasts of unending rain. Yes, motorboat wave restrictions. Yes, flooded basements, streets, and clogged rain gutters. Yes, creeks overflowing. Yes, golf course closings. Summer 2014: Disappointing, discouraging, disagreeable.

EDDIE RYSHAVY, Plymouth