Clueless

Well, well, well--what exactly is the problem with Alicia Silverstone's $10-million deal ("Carrey! Schwarzenegger! Stallone! Silverstone?," Calendar, Aug. 12)? Perhaps people are naively confusing Silverstone with the character she plays in her most recent movie, "Clueless." They certainly seem to have forgotten her previous work in "The Crush," a very different type of vehicle. Is the problem that she's 18 years old, female, Jewish or all three? Does her demographic status mean that she can't open a picture?

Among the many aftereffects of the popped housing bubble is the perception that many young adults have been spooked into doubting that they'll ever own a home — or even aspire to own one. Not true, says a new survey from a major real estate company, which contends that 18- to 35-year-olds do indeed like the idea of owning homes, and they've learned a thing or two from watching their parents struggle with the housing market. And by the way, that young adult child of yours, the one who has moved back home and established residence in your basement?

Re "Spoiled Americans Here; Big Bad World Out There," Commentary, May 21: Norah Vincent claims that "stupidity has always been the unfortunate side effect of too much privilege." While that proposition is doubtful as a general one, in Vincent's specific case it seems to be accurate. Thus, in all seriousness, she claims that unless a person stops using lightbulbs, computers and paper, he has no right to demand that the government protect the environment. According to Vincent, if you don't see the obvious logic in this observation you are "utterly clueless."

In a postmortem of his campaign, Mitt Romney blamed his loss on President Obama's "gifts" to key voting groups, thereby demonstrating, one last time, how he does not understand the country he hoped to lead. Meanwhile, Paul Ryan's poor showing in his own hometown indicates how out of touch he is with the community he claimed to know so well.  Maybe that lack of perception is one reason why these two aspirants for the highest offices in the land fell short of their goal. As many pundits have noted, Romney's characterization of government programs as gifts was an echo of his earlier disparaging remarks about the 47% of Americans who pay no income taxes.

Brittany Murphy, the actress who broke out with the teen comedy "Clueless" and gained critical acclaim for her role as rapper Eminem's love interest in the hip-hop drama "8 Mile," died Sunday morning of sudden cardiac arrest, police said. She was 32. Los Angeles firefighters responded to a medical call about 8 a.m. at the 8,000-square-foot home Murphy shared with her husband, British screenwriter Simon Monjack, in the hills above the Sunset Strip. There were conflicting reports as to whether Murphy was discovered by Monjack or her mother.

Does anyone but me see the irony in the cases of the idealistic but clueless 21-year-old John Walker Lindh, who just got a stiff federal prison sentence for fighting for the Taliban, and the equally idealistic and clueless 16-year-old Bahram Rahman, who left his home in Pakistan to fight for the Taliban and is now being held indefinitely in appalling conditions in Dasht-i-Shardian by Afghan warlords (July 21)? It would seem that their grieving parents have a good deal in common. Georgiana F. Coughlan Gardena

Re: "How I Made It: Mario Batali," Sept. 20: It's appalling for celebrity chef Batali to say, "Our check averages are under $100 . . . and you can always get a bowl of pasta for $15 to $18." He is obviously clueless about what the rest of the nation is experiencing during this recession. Vicky Hoffman Los Angeles

So, they have taken that Alicia Silverstone movie "Clueless" and turned it into a miniseries called "Emma," set in England in the early 1800s, and, what's more, they've issued a novelization by someone named Jane Austen. There is a lot more talking in the book, but it is really quite well done and covers all the major points of the miniseries, which is also excellent. They really capture that original "Clueless" spirit. Or perhaps I have that backward. Hang on while I Wikipedia that.

Re "Why we're clueless," Current, Feb. 18 Michael May almost hit the nail on the head. He said: "Someone in intelligence has to put himself in the enemy's shoes." We need people in our foreign embassies who at least speak the language. The Senate should not approve any person for ambassador unless the person speaks the language and traces his or her ancestry to that nation. There are people in the U.S. who came from every nation on Earth. Yet we send political hacks who were in the campaign of the newly elected president to fill a slot as ambassador.

Having made two of the most insightful, affectionate films about teenagers with "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and "Clueless," Amy Heckerling jumps on the most recent youth bandwagon with "Vamps. " Written and directed by Heckerling, "Vamps" isn't quite the low-hanging logline of "Clueless" meets "Twilight" though in some respects it is about the twilight of cluelessness - or how age and maturity do not necessarily equal the onset of fogey-dom, but rather offer a sense of greater understanding and seeing beyond oneself.

Having made two of the most insightful, affectionate films about teenagers with "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and "Clueless," Amy Heckerling jumps on the most recent youth bandwagon with "Vamps. " Written and directed by Heckerling, "Vamps" isn't quite the low-hanging logline of "Clueless" meets "Twilight" though in some respects it is about the twilight of cluelessness - or how age and maturity do not necessarily equal the onset of fogey-dom, but rather offer a sense of greater understanding and seeing beyond oneself.

Are men fast becoming obsolete? Are women seizing the reins of power in the nation, becoming the major breadwinners and decision-makers? Are women naturally suited for the new economy while old-fashioned males thrash about, clueless? Today, the idea that men are fading and women rising frames the latest scary story of the sexes in newspapers, magazines, on the Web and in bestselling books. Hanna Rosin writes in "The End of Men" that the U.S is fast becoming a "middle-class matriarchy" as women become the major breadwinners.

In their dissenting opinion Thursday, four of the Supreme Court's conservative justices wasted little time in revealing their exceedingly narrow view of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The first sentence by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. reads, "Congress has set out to remedy the problem that the best health care is beyond the reach of many Americans who cannot afford it....

"Clueless," "Mission: Impossible III," "Forrest Gump" and several hundred other older films are now available on Amazon.com's Netflix-like subscription video service as part of a new deal with Paramount Pictures. Amazon has been continually beefing up the content in its Prime Instant Video service, which lets users stream unlimited movies and television shows on computers and digitally connected devices. It's part of the $79 per year Amazon Prime subscription that includes free two-day shipping on many items sold by the Web retail giant.

It isn't just that some of the candidates for the GOP presidential nomination occasionally seem divorced from modern reality; it's that they're determined to re-fight battles that most of us thought had ended roughly a century ago. A case in point is newly inaugurated front-runner Newt Gingrich, who in a talk Monday at Harvard University denigrated federal child labor laws that date back to the 1930s. "It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods in trapping children … in child laws which are truly stupid," Gingrich said.

Interrupted only by a pie-throwing incident and a press conference by President Obama, the appearance of Rupert and James Murdoch and former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks before members of the British Parliament dominated all the American news channels for more than four hours on Tuesday morning. Even Fox News, which has in recent weeks been criticized for willfully ignoring the ever-growing scandal that threatens to engulf its parent company, News Corp., made the trio's appearance before the committee on culture, media and sport its morning centerpiece.

The article "Arbitron Poll Will Seek to Clarify Who's Listening" (May 28) was factual as far as it went. What the article fails to discuss is how archaic the Arbitron methodology is in a market as diverse in population (racially, ethnically, culturally) as Los Angeles. The upcoming Hispanic language test is one small step in the right direction, but it came about only because of extreme pressure brought by local broadcasters. Arbitron's concern has been to properly represent minority groups in its samples.

Re "All hail the clueless American," Opinion, April 24 Here's a sentence I never thought I would utter: Jonah Goldberg is right. The voting public has indeed been clueless. How else could George W. Bush have been elected president twice? Why else would people have bought into the absurd belief that we were doing the right thing in Iraq, that it was actually part of the war on terror, that victory was indeed at hand the day Bush declared it on the deck of that aircraft carrier? Who but the truly clueless would have given up the rights of citizenship in the interest of thwarting the boogeyman?

What do "tea party" beauty queen Sarah Palin and U2 guitarist the Edge have in common? Nothing, aside from the fact that I have something to say about each of them today and can't bear to let either one off the hook. So think of this as two columns for the price of one. Actually, Palin and David "the Edge" Evans do have something in common. Each is selling something I'm not buying. Palin would have you believe she's the second coming of Ronald Reagan, and the Edge would have you believe his proposed mountaintop compound near Malibu is a monument to environmental sensitivity.

It's a fact: Some people are really bad at gift-giving. And by some people I mean me. The traditional gift for every wedding anniversary I've been party to has been paper ? as in hastily scrawled IOUs for Palm Springs vacations, weekends at the Beverly Hills Hotel and landscaping. Widen the circle beyond my spouse and it only gets worse. One year my brother and I exchanged the exact same gift (a DVD of Pink Floyd's "Live at Pompeii" performance). And for three years running, I've inadvertently given my sister-in-law things that have ended up back in my possession, either because she already owned the same item or because I'd subconsciously bought her something I'd wanted for myself in the first place so she turned it back over to me. There is the occasional truly inspired gift ?