Readers Write (April 14): Edina Hornettes, GOP debt, voter ID, Katherine Kersten, America's jails

I follow, with incredulity, the brouhaha over the Edina dance line name change from Hornettes to Hornets ("A plea for Hornettes in Edina," April 10). I fear for the future of these high school students (and their worried parents), if they've become so insulated from reality that this is what keeps them up at night. I was once a West High Highstepper. They tore down my high school and put up a YMCA and a high-rise. I lived to tell the tale.

JEAN E. HANVIK, LAKEVILLE

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The recent buzz over Edina's dance team's name change from "Hornettes" to "Hornets" brings up deeper issues about gender. Yes, some are protesting the name change to the point of tears. They see it as a violation of longstanding traditions. But they miss the larger point about semantics and gender. Most dance teams are predominantly female.

Adding an "ette" to the end of a name helps to foster a potentially sexist environment -- or at least one in which females are marginalized. "Ette" is a French feminine suffix meaning "diminutive, little one."

Many dance teams are now considered to be a part of their school's athletic department. One can "letter" in dance. This is huge. But as a proud parent of a former Southwest High School dance team Lakerette, I still cringe when I hear the "-ette."

JULIANN BRUNZELLl, Minneapolis

When the state budget was a mess, Democrats wanted to tax the wealthy, and Republicans scorned them for expecting to balance the budget on others' money. They made it out to be some sort of moral failure to want to turn to those with far greater means to support the state during hard times.

Now, with the Republican Party in a budget bind, the GOP's plan is to raise needed revenues via wealthy donors ("State GOP not making rent," April 10). Republicans are clearly expecting to meet their needs by turning primarily to those with far greater means. What makes asking the rich to pay more morally fine for the Republican Party, but not for our state?

PAUL ROZYCKI, MINNEAPOLIS

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So the Minnesota GOP is $2 million in arrears to its creditors. Isn't this the same party of fiscal responsibility that jeopardizes the credit rating of the entire state by refusing to raise revenues while offering tax breaks to the very wealthy?

STEPHEN FULLER, ST. CLOUD

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I'm appalled at Gov. Mark Dayton's thinking. He so opposes the voter ID proposal that he wasted taxpayer money and time to encourage voters to defeat this important measure ("Dayton decries photo ID push with a 'veto,'" April 10). With voter fraud found in Minnesota on more than one occasion, I'd think the leader of our state would see the importance of such a law.

JO HOFFMAN, PRIOR LAKE

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GRACE WIGGEN, COLUMBIA HEIGHTS

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It never fails to amaze me how willing Kersten is to turn God, Jesus and Christianity into weapons to use against her political opponents. She even did it on Easter Sunday, Christianity's holiest day ("Consider the nation's debt to biblical faith," April 8).

She claims that President Obama is using the contraception issue to attack the Catholic Church, even though the Bush administration had a similar predicament. If the conservatives had a problem with that rule, why didn't they do something about it previously?

Then there's Kersten's claim that Christianity is the foundation of this country and has done so much. Well, the founding fathers would disagree with her. They were pretty adamant that Christianity had nothing to do with the foundation or the government of this country. After all, most of the founding fathers were deists, not Christians.

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When our federal government declares "a war on drugs, terror, WMDs in Iraq or fill-in-the-blank, we are doomed to spend unlimited funds, for an unlimited time, attacking ill-defined problems with very little accountability or real benefit" ("America, the jailing nation -- with little to show for it," April 8).

This is not sustainable. Instead, our president and Congress should:

• Define the problem precisely.

• Define specific solutions to the problem with desired outcomes.

• Evaluate results against goals at set deadlines.

•Make appropriate adjustments to the strategies and tactics used to achieve the desired outcomes.

• Establish clear limits in resources and time to achieve the desired outcomes or cancel the efforts completely.