Cute

Our children are slaughtering each other in our schools and on our streets; more and more Americans are expressing hate and intolerance for other Americans who belong to different ethnic, religious, gender or lifestyle groups; and every day, this society becomes more and more enmeshed in the self-righteousness of narrow beliefs and interests. So how does a professor of literature respond to the situation? With a little tome about categorizing appearances. Of all the things that tyrannize us, "cute" is not near the top of the list.

Most of the fashion world is focused on New York Fashion Week and the ingenuity of high-end designers this week. But we found some fashion ingenuity closer to home in the person of Miss Lillie Laing, 10, who used her father's paper shredder, glue, a ballet tutu, needle and thread to make an outfit from a Sunday print edition of the Los Angeles Times. She wore the ensemble to a school event awhile back, earning the nickname Miss L.A. Times. Lillie started her budding fashion career by making toilet paper clothes for her Barbies, according to mom Martine Laing.

Robert Hilburn's review of the Paul McCartney concert ("McCartney: A Lot More Than Nostalgia," May 6) was right on. I was lucky enough to have seen the Beatles perform at the Hollywood Bowl in '65 and again in '66 at Dodger Stadium. McCartney has not changed one bit. He is still "the cute one" even though he is almost 60. The concert at Staples Center was the best of the best. I have never heard so many fans singing along and knowing all the words. It didn't matter if you had front-row seats or the last seat of the top row. After all that has happened in the last few months, it was wonderful to step back into my youth, even if only for 21/2 hours.

Things promise to get ruff Sunday as Animal Planet's "Puppy Bowl IX" goes snout-to-helmet with the Super Bowl for ratings gold. Last year the show, which pits pound puppies against one another in a dangerously cute game of faux football using chew toys, set records for the basic cable outlet, with 8.7 million total viewers during the 12 hours it aired. True, that's nowhere near the more than 100 million viewers the Super Bowl tackles each year, but for a day when most television channels throw in the towel and admit defeat, it's pretty good.

Re "Crazy for Cute" (Nov. 18): The first time I saw an Anne Geddes book with photos of infants dressed up as animals, etc., I almost dropped the book. If this isn't exploitation of helpless, beautiful infants, I don't know what is. And as for Geddes dressing up a little baby in a bird costume, it seems a bit sick to me. ELINOR LYNCH Palm Desert

It occurs to me that Samantha Bonar's difficulties with "Blake the Flake" have as much to do with her choices as his personality -- or lack thereof ("Men's Brains: Unplugged?" May 15). She describes him as "kind of dimwitted but really cute" -- the "really cute" part apparently being the operative reason she decided to give him another chance despite his cavalier treatment of her. It's been a long time since I've been single and I doubt I ever set any records on anybody's "cute" meter.

Although I concur with Bob Oates' pro football column ("When They're Telling Us the Story, Why Can't They Tell Us the Score?"), I feel he did not go far enough. He should ask the same question of The Times sportswriters. One must often wade through paragraph after cute paragraph before getting to the facts. JERRY SEGAL, Woodland Hills

You can tell by a cute title like "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss" that you're going to get a lot of cute. And "Ollie etc." delivers 90 minutes of cute tonight on PBS' "American Playhouse" (9 p.m. on Channels 28 and 15). It's from the pen of humorist Jean Shepherd, whose "A Christmas Story" feature film is something of a cult favorite. As a chronicler of Americana, Shepherd, who also plays a couple of characters in this adventure, must be drawing on his old family vacations from back home in Indiana.

Lately I've noticed a lot of news stories that seem to focus on someone's age, and I'm not sure I like it: A 90-year-old woman votes, a couple with a combined age of 181 get married, two men in their 80s get in a fistfight on a tennis court, a 92-year-old goes to the World Series and a 101-year-old man buys a new Camaro (I wonder if he got the extended warranty). I guess what's annoying me is that the only thing that seems to make these stories newsworthy is the person's age. What's next -- a 91-year-old man eats a Big Mac?

Re "Struggling Valley Greens Are Proud of Their Votes for Nader," Nov. 20. This article had a slightly superior air. For me, a between-the-lines read was "aren't all these old folks cute?" Cute, perhaps--but a growing force in politics! LES COLE Ventura

The South Korean import "Whatcha Wearin'?" is as sweet and silly and, at times, raunchy as any Hollywood-hatched romantic comedy. Still, even if it's not all that distinguishable from its stateside brethren, the film manages enough sparkly charm and warm comedy to offer a few hours of featherweight fun. The meet-cute here between the recently dumped Hyun-Seung (Ji Sung) and the long-partnered Yun-jung (Kim Ah-joong) involves an accidental phone sex session that's contrived, but also amusing and sexy.

My colleague Carla Hall and I see eye-to-eye on many things, but on some issues, we see something more like drumstick-to-lentils. That is to say, we couldn't have disagreed more on the Los Angeles City Council's call to residents to go meatless on Mondays as a way to lose weight, eat more healthfully and help the environment. She loved the idea -- see her blog post below -- I rolled my eyes, and we agreed on dueling blog posts. Gentle resolution or not, from my perspective, the council went over the line on this one. Yes, this is just a suggestion . But you have to wonder where the council members get the idea that their particular view of diet, nutrition and the environment is the one to put forth as official if voluntary policy.

Septuagenarians give communal living a go in "All Together," a comedy that manages to avoid many of the predictable pitfalls and pratfalls that such a scenario suggests. Until it surrenders to them. The feature involves five longtime friends with a shared history of leftist politics, and features Jane Fonda's return to French movies after 40 years. Writer-director Stéphane Robelin's setup, and the unsentimental performances, promise something tougher than the usual twinkly eyed-oldsters routine.

See these tiny, adorable kittens, their eyes so wide, their tiny ears so perky? Your boss probably thinks they're a distraction, but they actually may have boosted your concentration and productivity. Turns out that puppies, baby harp seals and other Knut-like creatures aren't just good for winning points on the “Aww” index. Beyond the uncontrollable surge of affection they inspire, cute animals may also influence behavior, according to researchers from Hiroshima University. Tests showed that an image of fluffy little critters “not only improves fine motor skills but also increases perceptual carefulness.” They could be used “to induce careful behavioral tendencies in specific situations, such as driving and office work,” according to the report.

OK, we can admit it, we've picked up a strange obsession with the whirlwind romance of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. Maybe it's the matching outfits, the songs, the constant paparazzi shots of their jetsetting, or maybe it's just the anticipation of an over-the-top wedding (televised in a two-part series on E!, of course), divorce and resulting breakup album full of epic beats and pining lyrics courtesy of Ye -- too soon? The cute pair got even cuter -- and matchy-matchy, of course -- in a promo for the upcoming Video Music Awards.

Rabid sports fans love to wear their allegiances on their sleeves -- or  T-shirts, caps or  sweats. But up until a couple of years ago, pickings were slim for the fan who also happened to be a fashionista. The National Football League saw this lack of cute, feminine fan gear as a problem that needed to be solved -- or as a marketing opportunity -- and two years ago launched an initiative to offer and promote some chicer options.  Starting Tuesday, the NFL Women's Apparel Campaign gets off to its third season with ads in September issues of women's magazines showcasing the latest collection.

I will never, ever, vote for a politician who uses in a speech the most unappetizing of all the current "cute" expressions, "Read my lips." MARCIA EDWARDS Orange

In "Falling Overnight" a wealthy, socially awkward young man is preparing to undergo brain surgery when he meets a girl and they embark on an evening's adventure, occasionally bumping into her friends, a crew who "get a little crazy. " The group drinks, hangs out and chatters about cheese, kangaroos and outer space. The film - directed by Conrad Jackson (who also served as cinematographer and editor) from a script he co-wrote with Aaron Golden and male lead Parker Croft - seems designed to have a love-will-find-you serendipity about it, but instead comes off as formless and inane.

"The Babymakers" starts out as an agreeable, playfully off-color comedy of contemporary domestic manners and loses course to become a slack, tacky slapstick. After months of trying to get his wife Audrey (Olivia Munn) pregnant, Tommy Macklin (Paul Schneider) is told by a doctor that his sperm are "confused. " While reeling from this blow to his masculine identity, he hatches a plan to steal back a batch of semen he had donated to a fertility clinic years before. On their own, just talking at dinner or alone in bed, Schneider and Munn are a winning pair, her high-energy type-A vibe playing well off his low-key delayed responses.