Sensationalism

While I ordinarily find Rachel Abramowitz's prose to be unduly arch, I feel I must defend her against the ridiculous charge of racism leveled at her because of her recent story ["Not a Fair Comparison," Letters, Oct. 26] on Clint Eastwood's new film, "The Changeling." Abramowitz was comparing the sensationalism surrounding the real-life events upon which Eastwood's film is based to the sensationalism surrounding the O.J. Simpson murder trial, and it's a fair comparison. The Simpson case was in the national spotlight for months, as was the case of the missing Collins child.

Deanna Durbin, the singing starlet with the bubbly personality and the jewel-tone voice whose enormously popular movies were widely credited with saving Universal Pictures from bankruptcy during the Depression, has died. She was 91. Her popularity peaked by her late teens and by her mid-20s Durbin had left Hollywood forever, made wealthy by her relatively brief career. She died in April in France, said family friend Bob Koster, the son of Henry Koster, who directed Durbin in films early in her career.

The lovely, heartbreaking "Fly Away" benefits from superb performances and a gripping story managed with simplicity and grace by writer-producer-director Janet Grillo. As sensitive and affecting as this mother-daughter drama may be, the film skillfully bypasses its genre's potential pitfalls, opting for intimacy over sensationalism, poignancy over sentimentality. Jeanne (Beth Broderick) is a single mother devoted to the care of her daughter, Mandy (Ashley Rickards), an autistic teenager soothed by repetition — songs, food, phraseology — but prone to uncontrollable outbursts and rages.

If you have ever arrived at a hospital writhing in agony and had the six faces of the "Wong-Baker Pain Assessment Scale" thrust in front of you, you know that the medical profession's understanding of pain is, shall we say, in a rudimentary state. But a new study suggests there may be a more revealing way to communicate the experience of pain than pointing to a grimacing stick-figure face with furrowed brows and some tears. A group of scientists at the University of Michigan have succeeded in using functional magnetic resonance imaging to tease apart the brain's consistent response to physical pain from its very similar response to emotional pain.

Headlines with a born-again fatalist view of our future ("Red Hunt . . . Armed for Armageddon") are plain sensationalism. A sad comment. Is this what some in religion and politics hope to bring about? Glenn Nash Los Angeles

Kudos to the production team and the actors for the wonderful CBS TV movie, "Go Toward the Light." The story was touching; it was television at its finest. Our family will continue to support programs such as this which emphasize content and enlightenment over the sensationalism and shallowness that is prevalent in most movies today. John J. Brammer, Covina

Katerine Chalkidou ("Don't Raise Fears -- Quell Them," Letters, Feb. 3) complains about the "sensationalism" of comparing today's real estate prices to those of a year ago, which she feels frightens people into feeling that things are getting "horribly worse every day," with the end result being a recession. I wonder how often Chalkidou, a real estate agent, complained about the sensationalism of reporting on rising prices during the previous few years, before the market's recent turnaround.

The Supreme Court made the right decision in striking down the Washington law that gave grandparents and any other interested party free rein in seeking court-ordered visitation with children (June 6). The courts will always be available to assist in matters of troubled family dynamics and flat-out bad parenting. However, there is no place for a blanket law dictating how extended family members interact with each other. By ignoring the emotionalism and sensationalism of the Troxel case and letting the families work out their own problems, the courts will hopefully keep kids from becoming helpless Ping-Pong balls in messy visitation cases.

A mother's agony over the death of her 18-year-old son: Surely a picture like this does not deserve to be printed on the front page of The Times ("Gunman Kills 2, Injures 4 in Garden Grove," Aug. 31). I am appalled to see this newspaper choosing sensationalism over common decency, shock value over newsworthiness. This photograph adds nothing to the story that it accompanies. Moreover, it is completely distasteful and inappropriate. Perhaps when deciding what photos to pair with your stories, you should consider how you might feel if you were that grieving mother.

In the first sentence of your description of Dashti's background, you tell us that "pictures of Islam's holiest places were on his living room wall and guns were in his bedroom." I can't understand why you feel the need to imply that all Muslims share Dashti's tendencies. As a Muslim student here at Berkeley, I have been asked by many to "explain" his actions. Many innocent people were hurt or killed by Dashti; innocent people will continue to suffer as a result of your prejudice and sensationalism.

Join us for a live video chat with Hugh Howey , author of the sensational dystopia "Wool. " First self-published as an e-book -- as a single short story, even -- "Wool" gained its own momentum and is now a 528-page print book published this month by Simon & Schuster. Yes, Howey wrote a little bit more after the initial short story was finished. "Wool" is a dystopia in which a community lives in a 100-story tube, connected by a narrow spiral staircase at its center.

If you're joining in on Lonely Hearts Clubs this Valentine's Day, the physical feelings of a broken heart may be familiar. "The idea that people experience pain after rejection may be more than just a metaphor," said Ethan Kross, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who has studied the merger of physical and psychological manifestations after such loss. In his 2011 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Kross found that the areas of the brain that are activated when someone experiences physical pain are the same areas that are affected by emotional loss or heartbreak.

NEW ORLEANS — There's no more sudden a superstar than San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick. A few months ago, he was all but anonymous. Now, he can't walk through a hotel lobby without 49ers fans spotting him and making a beeline for him. It doesn't help matters this week that there's a movie-screen-sized photo of him throwing a pass directly opposite the front desk of the team's hotel on Canal Street. "I've watched him go from us going to Wal-Mart or gas stations with no one noticing us, to we can't get out of the car, or we have to pull off at the red light because people are following us," said his roommate in the Bay Area, Ricardo Lockette, a practice-squad receiver for the 49ers.

Robert Griffin III might start for the Redskins this Sunday against the Browns in Cleveland. The dual-threat rookie quarterback for Washington has a mild sprain of the lateral collateral ligament, which is on the outside of the knee, after his leg was whiplashed quite violently when he was hit by Baltimore Ravens defensive tackle Haloti Ngata after a 13-yard scramble late in the game Sunday. “When I looked at it on film, I thought it would be worse than it was,” Redskins Coach Mike Shanahan said during his news conference Monday.

UCLA may have a shot at stopping Stanford running back Stepfan Taylor in the Pac-12 Conference title game Friday. But Kulabafi, that hip guy with the dark glasses and leopard print sweater, could be a handful. Taylor, you see, can come at you out of multiple offensive sets - and with multiple personalities. There is the running back with tree-trunk legs who is 36 yards from setting Stanford's career rushing record. He is a soft-spoken Texan, a senior who is majoring in science, technology and society.

Once on a flight to Warsaw in the 1990s, when the Polish airline LOT was still trying to get the hang of market economy, I requested a vegetarian meal. For the first course, I was served the same salad of iceberg lettuce and thousand-island dressing as everyone around me. But my hot entrée, I discovered as I peeled away the foil, was another helping of that salad zapped in the microwave. It took a minute or two for the Pole sitting next to me to stop laughing and wipe his tears away, but he then described how fabulous Polish vegetarian cooking could be. He suggested several dishes I try once I landed and told me where to find them.

I am shocked, disgusted and totally disappointed by the irresponsible, inflammatory statements issued by Mayor Bradley, Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner and other so-called leaders of the Los Angeles area regarding the results of the trial of the officers in the King case. These totally irresponsible statements show that these people had already convicted the officers based on the sensationalism of the news coverage. None of these people heard the entire testimony and their public statements after the verdict was announced are totally indefensible.

For a long time I viewed murder on film as a morbid oddity at which you might sneak a look under a sideshow tent. That was until it took someone close to me. Let me assure anyone who's slightly curious that there's nothing remotely glamorous or fascinating about an experience that's so completely cold and devastating as homicide. It bothers me that the American public is so preoccupied with murder. But what's more unsettling are the producers who feign sympathy about "those dreadful days we all shared" as they take their blood money to the bank ("Murder Most Glamorized," by Peter H. Brown, April 2)

James Bond has raked in nearly $300 million at the box office before even opening in the U.S. "Skyfall," the 23rd entry in the Bond spy series and the third starring Daniel Craig, grossed a massive $156 million this weekend in 81 countries, bringing its total box office after less than two weeks overseas to $287 million. Among the countries where it had big openings this weekend - significantly bigger than the last two Bond movies, "Quantum of Solace" and "Casino Royale" - were Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, Austria, India, Taiwan and Mexico (though it was beaten by Disney's animated comedy "Wreck-It Ralph" in Mexico)

Motown's Frank Wilson wrote and produced hit records for such big names as the Supremes and the Temptations, but he was best known for a single recorded in Los Angeles that featured his own voice - and was never released. Copies of his "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)" had already been pressed in 1965 when Motown founder Berry Gordy asked him to choose between being a performer or writer-producer, Wilson's family said. When he decided on the latter, almost all of the singles were destroyed.