Idolizing any fellow writer is a dangerous habit for a journalist. To get up on your high horse when an author's personality doesn't jibe with your willfully idealized vision of him or her strikes me as foolish in the extreme.

-- Michael Berry

Donna Minkowitz should be held up as an example in journalism schools -- a bad example. Her interview with Orson Scott Card is all about herself. While I realize that's partly the point, I find it self-indulgent and much less entertaining than a serious talk with Card by a less prejudiced writer would have been.

-- Sean Brodrick

I find it ironic that Minkowitz repeatedly accuses Card of the worst moral deficiencies, all the while wishing that she could "blast Card into tiny fragments whose DNA will never bother [her] again" and finishing up the article by wishing him "a very lousy rest of his life." That's very admirable coming from someone who proclaims that "the foundation of all ethics, for me, is always whether something hurts anyone." The rhetoric sounds very empty indeed after such a juvenile display of name-calling and demonizing.

-- Paul Christian Glenn

Reading the interview, I grieved along with the author for the loss of a hero. I never respected any author as much as I did Orson Scott Card, and damn but it hurt to find my ideals crushed. Kudos to Donna Minkowitz for sticking to her guns, at least as much as possible.

-- Meera Bhat

Hollywood maggots eat dead ideas
BY CINTRA WILSON
(02/03/00)

I work for a film production company in Hollywood. I read Cintra Wilson's column with glee and immediately walked into my boss's office. I dropped the article on his desk and said, "This is exactly how I feel about Hollywood."

He read half of the article and said, "What she doesn't seem to understand is that it takes genius to make a movie like "The Best Years of Our Lives." I said that's not the point, the point is that we should ASPIRE to make movies like "Best Years." I told him to finish the article and left for lunch feeling quite righteous.

When I came back an hour later there was the article with a note attached which read, "Contact the writer, see if she writes screenplays."

-- Xander Maksik

Cintra Wilson's rage-filled article about what's wrong with contemporary Hollywood made my day. She is absolutely right! A couple of years ago I attended the Maui Writer's Conference, a gathering of Tinseltown players and hordes of desperate, wannabe writers hoping to make a contact and sell their screenplay. At least once in every panel discussion, some poor sap would ask pleadingly: "What kind of stories is Hollywood looking for?" And some Hollywood smugmeister would say -- with the placid "Don't-you-wish-you-were-me" mien of the truly self-satisfied, and the cold, dead eyes of a serial killer -- "What we're all looking for are good stories. Plain and simple. Just good stories." There was so much bullshit coming out of these people's mouths, even the tradewinds couldn't blow it away.

-- Noble Smith

While I respect Cintra Wilson's longing for better movies, I think she is pointing the finger of blame in the wrong direction. The audiences vote for the kind of movies we get.

Hollywood won't start making "quality" until people line up and pay for it. We can't blame the "elites" for foisting crap on the public when that same public -- those people all around you drinking Coors Lite and watching "Baywatch" -- is screaming for more.

-- Harry Connolly

Cintra's complaint isn't really about the movies. It is about the realization that art -- good art of any kind -- cannot be produced by the bucketful to fill every hour of the day and night. In current American society, with its ever-hungry need for "entertainment," the demand for product simply outstretches the supply.

Cintra's column is really about making choices about your emotional needs. Hollywood cannot make these choices for you. It is an impersonal factory of film. How the films relate to you is up to you and the choices that you make. Perhaps we should remember that Hollywood only puts the entertainment in front of you, it doesn't force you to feed on it unless you let it.

-- Daniel Loebl

Do airlines ever cut corners on maintenance?
BY PHAEDRA HISE
(02/03/00)

How often is anyone held liable for the catastrophe that ensues from lack of judgment? Whether it's a mechanic OK'ing a faulty part or someone at the FAA writing lax standards, there should be accountability. Travel might be less risky if everyone associated with the safe passage of an aircraft knew his negligence would be prosecuted.

-- Kevin Tudish

All engineering and maintenance involves some tradeoffs in economics. Probabilities of failure always exist. The idea is to reduce that probability of failure to an acceptable risk, and do so at a cost that allows you to continue in business.

There's nothing wrong with choosing condition monitoring versus invasive inspection; indeed, condition monitoring is more effective in reducing the possibility of catastrophic error. Reliability is reduced any time you take equipment apart, maintain it or replace components. Have you noticed your car sometimes breaks down right after you took it in for repairs? It's not because your mechanic is an idiot, it's because every turn of the wrench introduces new possibilities of error.

It's therefore perhaps not surprising that the downed airplane just went through an in-depth, invasive inspection. It was more likely right after in-depth maintenance than at practically any other time.

-- Bill Hatton

Won't it be quite a shame if it is discovered that the Alaska Airlines tragedy could have been prevented by a healthy shot of WD-40 on the horizontal stabilizer hinge?

-- Charles Stanford