Cardboard

With all the hoopla over CD packaging ("Are CDs Destroying Our Planet?," the April 15 Pop Eye column), I can't believe no one is raising a voice against those annoying plastic CD storage cases. They're heavy, expensive, bulky, hard to open, easy to break and certainly not biodegradable. By switching to cardboard sleeves like those used for vinyl records, retailers (and consumers) could store three times as many CDs in the same space. And, due to reduced weight, stores would save a bundle on shipping.

Re "O.C. Trash Haulers End 5-Day Strike," Oct. 6: Our trash haulers, with overtime, can now make more than many of the teachers in our local schools. (Don't kid yourself, those teachers put in plenty of overtime.) What a message for our young people. Five years of college plus required ongoing credits plus enormous responsibility.... Why bother? Donald Kerns Garden Grove I was amazed when I noticed two pictures in your Oct. 3 California section on the trash strike.

Regarding Jack Clark filing for bankruptcy halfway through an $8.7-million contract (Newswire, Aug. 8), I can see it now: Here's this major league baseball player, standing at a freeway off-ramp, with his Giant sweat shirt, Padre cap, Cardinal bat, and Red Sox sox, holding his hand-printed cardboard sign: BROKE, HOMELESS FREE AGENT WILL DH FOR FOOD OR $3.2 MILLION LARRY BERG, San Gabriel

Re "Reengineering the cardboard box," Column One, Dec. 10 The EDAR mobile shelter is a godsend to the homeless. Kudos to Peter Samuelson, a true humanitarian who cares about his downtrodden fellow. As for the potential for cities banning their use, perhaps city councils can designate certain areas of their cities as EDAR-friendly, where the homeless could camp for the night. This would provide safety in numbers for the homeless and make them less susceptible to being robbed, attacked or otherwise put in harm's way. Allen P. Wilkinson Whittier -- Sadly, American society has come to the point at which we celebrate the invention of cardboard houses.

--K. Ronald Bailey admits that he has handled some unusual cases, but the attorney in Sandusky, Ohio, thinks his civil suit on behalf of a wrestling bear will be hard to beat. The suit deals with a 4 1/2-year-old North American black bear that Bailey claims suffered "serious emotional distress" and required counseling after it was involved in a fracas with a prospective opponent. Smokey Bear, owned and trained by Sam Mazzola, is known professionally as "Ceasar the Wrestling Bear."

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals announced a $1,500 reward Friday for information about the death of a dog that ate poisoned meat placed in a Sylmar field. The dog, a 4-year-old Hungarian Vizsla pointer named Thyme, died about midnight Thursday at a Sylmar veterinarian's office, authorities said. Owner Paul Anthony, 35, of Sylmar was walking home with the dog after dropping off his car for repairs about 5 p.m.

There's a kind of wicked irony around every corner in "The Good Heart," where nothing and everything turns out exactly as it should in this story of second chances and the duck that got away. The film stars Brian Cox and Paul Dano as two mismatched souls who end up in the same hospital room, both having barely cheated death and only one happy about it. But instead of two ships passing in the night, circumstances conspire to toss them into the same lifeboat, metaphorically speaking, of course, since the story unfolds mostly in a New York City dive bar of the seediest sort.