Cardboard

Boxed alcoholic beverages tend to receive a gimlet eye from discerning drinkers. Wines purveyed from cardboard boxes go south quicker than their bottled brethren and often come from vintners with low marks from connoisseurs. But what about boxed beer? Why hasn't the populist sudsy brew, already an everyman's refreshment, entered the boxed beverage realm? Because it's simply more difficult to keep carbonated beer pressurized and oxygen free in large, four-liter containers, according to Thomas Hussey, a recently graduated industrial design student from Australia's University of Technology Sydney.

A fire roared through a slum that is a stronghold of support for exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, destroying about 200 dwellings Monday. A private radio station reported 10 people dead. Stunned residents of the Cite Soleil slum said the blaze was set by members of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, which supports the military that ousted Aristide in a 1991 coup. But the group denied responsibility.

Scott Williams' commentary on "Star Trek: Voyager" (TV Times June 11) was a masterpiece of contradictions. Complaining about a lack of rebellion among the crew, he also complains when an officer disobeys the captain. To expect more than a "halfhearted mutinous conspiracy" is (dare I say) illogical since the crew must congeal to get home. To say Kate Mulgrew as the captain "seems unmindful of her dire tactical and logistical plight" is to show lack of attention. She puts on a brave face for her crew, which is her duty, showing us how mindful she really is when she is alone.

The deepest partial solar eclipse in a generation is headed to Southern California this weekend. What's the best way to view it? Where are the best places to go? Check out this Q&A below. Q: What's the best place to view the eclipse in Southern California?  A: The partial solar eclipse will occur late in the day in Southern California on Sunday, beginning at 5:24 p.m., reaching its maximum coverage at 6:38 p.m., and exiting the sun's path at 7:42 p.m., just 10 minutes before sunset.

NOTE:  This is a blog about two guys attempting to lose weight over a six-week period.  They kicked off their weight loss "strategies" on Jan 10. 'So easy, a caveman can do it.'  Not only one of the greatest slogans when the ads first came out a few years ago, but also my new motto on my quest to lose 25 pounds in 12 weeks. I don't want to think.  Many people think I've achieved that goal already (long ago).  But when it comes to dieting, I don't want to guess.

In response to the April 15 Pop Eye column on compact-disc packaging as an environmental danger and to subsequent letters: The record companies should throw out the oversize cardboard container, retain the jewel box with its (small) inside art and include coupons that customers can send in if they wish to obtain posters or record-album-size artwork or lyric sheets by mail. In the stores, have the CDs in jewel boxes on a shelf or, if security is a concern, behind the counter.

Daryl H. Miller wonders "how a show as wildly uneven as "Queer as Folk" can be so compulsively watchable" ("Return of Showtime's Gay Soap," Jan. 5). Some of the rest of us wonder: If it weren't for the frontal nudity and the explicit sex scenes, would anyone put up with this show for five minutes? Perhaps viewers enjoy "Queer as Folk" because, like other soap operas (which also offer cardboard characters, contrived situations and bad dialogue), it's so silly. KEVIN DAWSON Sunland It seems to me that the rampant media glorification of the "Sex and the City" women is sadly misplaced ("A Love Note to New York," by Howard Rosenberg, Jan. 4)

Re "Please, 'go outside and play,' " Opinion, May 15 Rosa Brooks is right about parents and the media overestimating the "dangers" facing today's children. Thirty years ago, I opened the door and went outside and played. True, we lived in a fairly rural area. Still, I rode my bike three or four miles to the local village without a helmet. My sisters and our friends slid down the hill across the street on cardboard boxes and played tag on a street paved with loose gravel. For a while, we had a mean Shetland pony that threw me twice and bit my sister on the ear. We had a great time.