Sinsull, you describe exactly the people I was referring to, the readers and writers (sometimes the same person)out at the network headquarters. I can't tell on the radio if they also have pretty faces. Over the years I have heard similar references to Bismark, South Dakota and North Dakota's great tourist attraction, Mount Rushmore. Years ago Ann Reed, a Minnesotan, wrote a song about geographic inompetence that starts out, "Where the hell is Boston, and who said I should care."

A bit of geographic pedantry. The Nelson River flows out of Lake Winnepeg and into Hudson Bay in Manitoba. The James Bay portion of Hudson Bay is much further east on the border of Ontario and Quebec. There is a Winnepeg River that also flows north. It goes out of Lake of the Woods (that little bit of Minnesota that juts north into Canada and disrupts a nice long straight border) and also goes into Lake Winnepeg.

The dot that Jim left unconnected is that if the Mississippi were threatening North Dakota, Minneapolis and St Paul et al. would have long since been totally submerged.

rich r