Letters.

• Position: Letter to the Editor

Auden to Algorithms

Mr. Peters chides the National Commission on Terrorism for monitoring the activities of foreign students who might, as an example, switch their majors from English to nuclear physics ("Tilting at Windmills," July/August 2000). He is quite right to object to such frivolity. Anyone who has ever pondered the ways of students in American colleges and universities knows that, although there are plenty of English majors who once declared themselves to be science or mathematics majors, there are none who made the switch in reverse order.

JACK A. PIERCE Goshen, N.Y.

Sin City

Your article "Sex in the Digital City" in the July/August 2000 issue, made my stomach turn a few knots. I don't find this sexual business alluring. AOL and the Internet need to clean up their act. Why? Because when my son goes on the chat lines to discuss everything from Harry Potter to Digimon, there is some pervert out there recording his email address. They send subject line messages that read: "Why are You Mad at Me?" and when I open up the email it's some kind of disgusting sex message aimed at minors. Sure the Super Information Highway is considered to be the Wild, Wild West, but this kind of nonsense created by the sex industry needs to stop!

PAUL DALE ROBERTS Elk Grove, Calif.

"E" gads!

"Frances X. Clines"? With an "e"? ("Who's Who," July/August 2000) It was bad enough when Shelly Binn, the old [New York Times] night city editor, used to call us all Frankie (Clines, Lynn, Prial). But this is taking the gender thing too far.

Maybe I'll set up a Website for people who have been similarly dissed.

FRANK PRIAL (FRANCIS J.) New York City, N.Y.

Interstate Money

I've read The Washington Monthly for over 20 years, love the magazine, and especially enjoy "Tilting at Windmills." I tend to agree with your critiques of American politics. This is the first time I've been moved to take serious issue with you. The subject was the influence of out-of-state money on politics ("Tilting at Windmills," July/August 2000).

While your logic on out-of-state money may be correct for state legislative campaigns, it does not hold for Congress. Members of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives determine not only the specific provincial interests of their home state constituents but also the interests of the nation as a whole.

Citizens of West Virginia might technically be represented by Sens. Byrd and Rockefeller and Congressmen Mollohan, Wise, and Rahall, but their...