Gross

The Dodgers failed again Wednesday to convince U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross that they need documents about other Major League Baseball teams. "To open this up at this point to all of baseball, to the other 29 teams, would be more burdensome than is appropriate," Gross said, "and perhaps not even relevant to the issue of bad faith. " Gross said he would issue a formal ruling in a day or two but said he did not anticipate reversing his previous order denying the Dodgers access to confidential financial data involving other teams.

Douglas Aircraft President William T. Gross acknowledged that labor problems at the company's Long Beach plant have resulted in late delivery of nine commercial airliners this year and that the company remains behind schedule on four aircraft. "We don't have a disaster but we have something that, if not cured, could impair the long-term health of the company," Gross said in an interview this week.

Do you suppose after the reports (" 'First Wives Club' Chalks Up Biggest Debut Ever in Sept.," Sept. 23) that in its first weekend "The First Wives Club" nearly tripled the gross of "Last Man Standing" that studio executives will be saying to themselves and each other, "Gosh, this means that audiences want to see films about women and not about men killing each other"? Not likely. But you can easily imagine that if "Last Man Standing" had out-grossed "First Wives Club" they would be saying, "Women's pictures just don't gross as much as action flicks."

Re "Movies Ad Nauseam" (by Amy Wallace, May 12): If any Hollywood big shots are reading this, here's a word to the wise: The last thing people want or need is more on-screen vomiting. Believe me, movie audiences are quite capable of leaping the gap from the character who looks sickened to his or her off-screen retching, and figuring out what exactly is happening, without your having to show us every last viscous drop. What's next, on-screen defecation? Of course, sometimes in-your-face heaving serves a legitimate artistic purpose, as did Linda Blair's memorable pea soup geyser in "The Exorcist."

Gary Hart is a quitter who blames the press for doing him in. We've had enough weaklings in high office who never grew up or learned to accept responsibility for their own actions. We don't need another crybaby! MARJORIE H. GROSS Laguna Hills

Re "Estimating innocence," Opinion, June 11 In this article, Samuel R. Gross refers to an analysis I wrote in 2006 in the New York Times that was cited by Justice Antonin Scalia as "nonsense." In that analysis, I pointed out that Gross and his team of researchers were able to document something less than 400 cases of what he called "exonerations" over a 15-year period. As a district attorney, my worst fear is not losing a case, it is convicting an innocent person. I pointed out that in the 15-year period of his study, there were literally millions of rapes, murders and other serious crimes out of which Gross' team was able to identify less than one in a hundredth of 1%. In his June 11 article, he gets his math wrong.

Since advertisers want good will of all viewers, TV showed gross lack of sensitivity ignoring Hanukkah, although it was celebrated this year during Yuletide. Repeatedly there were Christmas greetings but never a mention of Hanukkah. The thoughtlessness was an affront. Liz and Tyler Burt, Los Angeles