Stack

The Oscars are using a preferential voting system this year to determine the best picture winner. Although attempting to understand the system can sometimes feel a little like trying to divine the secrets of cold fusion, the system is actually logical -- sort of. Whereas all other categories will use the same system used in the past -- every voter gets to pick one of the five nominees, and the nominee with the most votes wins -- the 10-nominee best-picture...

"When Being Best Isn't Good Enough" should have been titled "When a Big Fish Leaves His Small Pond." Yat-pang Au asks what he should have done differently. In a nutshell, he should not have become so convinced of his own infallibility that failure must prompt a lawsuit. He would do well in the future to realize that decisions that seem capricious or discriminatory may simply reflect the luck of the draw. He should stack the odds more in his favor than he did in this instance--applying to a very selective program with an overall record that simply wasn't good enough.

I was horrified and appalled that once again we are testing our bombs. We are supposed to be the most civilized, open humanistic people in the world and yet, somehow, we are unable to put aside these terrible weapons and look for a peaceful, safe solution to our differences. The world has become too small now to continue to risk this kind of "stack 'em up" thinking. It is wrong and terribly dangerous. I'm ashamed to be part of such deplorable behavior. Perhaps it's time to look for someone besides our man from California, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, for advice!

Thoughts triggered by Brett Garrett's April 22 letter complaining about CD plastic cases: Garrett showed a total lack of appreciation for the best packaging design the music industry has ever created. The transparent album of the CD is elegantly functional, simple, compact and durable; and best of all, it's uniform from label to label all over the world, a joy to stack, file and find. It doesn't take a genius to make a product cheaper, if no one cares about quality. The object, which has been the genius of the Japanese, is to reduce costs without reducing the quality of the product or its packaging.

Some Oscar quizzes for the trivially inclined: 1. When "Gone With the Wind" garnered a stack of awards in 1939, what significant person was left out? 2. Only one director has won four Oscars. Who is he? 3. You don't have to be living to get an Oscar. In 1976 the academy gave the Best Actor award posthumously. To whom? 4. In 1943, "Casablanca" won best picture. Director Michael Curtiz won an Oscar, but its stars didn't. Humphrey Bogart finally won his only Oscar in 1951. In what movie?

As an architect building my own home, I have spent many an hour in the Jefferson Boulevard Home Depot [" 'Sky Shelves' Can Be Lethal for Shoppers," Aug. 16] in Los Angeles. A contractor friend (who was knocked unconscious by a falling box in the same Home Depot) told me that I should always wear a hard hat. Recently, I was knocked down by falling merchandise and have taken up the hard hat as the one way to reduce the danger. I was attempting to get a sheet of rigid insulation when the whole stack of 20 sheets fell on me, knocking me back against the pipe rail of the cart and snapping my neck back.

We read with great nostalgia the article April 17 by Michael Arkush about Universal Studios tour guides. In 1975, when Universal Studios Tours was in its infancy, we and our college roommates decided to become tour guides. We simply drove up the back way (behind the studios, where there is now employee parking) and parked in an open field. We were able to walk straight across this field onto the Universal lot and up to a group of trailers serving as personnel offices. We proceeded to tell a confused young lady behind a stack of unsorted applications that all three of us had been called up by personnel to begin tour guide training.

Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, as well as recent fires in Southern California, have heightened public consciousness about emergency preparedness. A look at some precautions: --- Wildfires One of the most effective measures in protecting homes against fires is to clear brush and other flammable vegetation from within 200 feet of your home -- a requirement mandated by the city of Los Angeles. Other measures: - Use fire-resistant building material such as metal and slate for your roof or shutters.

IT can't be an accident that this summer's hit movie features a dish from Provence. No other region of the world has so many potential sequels so suited to the season -- after ratatouille, they could start with aioli or bouillabaisse and keep going through pistou and salade nicoise. And those are just the familiar signatures from a part of France where the cuisine is almost literally sunny.