Inbox

The List Issue: Best and Worst

I enjoyed your list issue but was dismayed that as a print subscriber, I was generally given short shrift [Dec. 22]. Instead of allowing your critics, journalists and commentators the space to back up their decisions, you gave us some lists along with cutesy drawings and clip art. [See box for more comments on the issue's design.] You forced your bread-and-butter subscribers to sift through dozens of pages at TIME.com to read a few lists. I understand that a) you need to make money from ads on your website and b) you could not have printed all your lists in the magazine. But at least give us the chance to hear out your TV critic instead of printing his list in microscopic type on the cover. Also, in "Top 10 Religion Stories," your writer neglected to mention that the Mormon Church could lose its tax-exempt status if it is found to have substantively influenced legislation in its efforts to ratify California's Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage. Jeff Sinclair, SAN FRANCISCO

I was surprised that your "Top 10 Scandals" did not include Taiwan's former President Chen Shui-bian, a vocal advocate for Taiwan independence who has been indicted for alleged money-laundering and misuse of public funds. Such an apparent case of "absolute power corrupting absolutely" should be a lesson to all politicians. Cy Chen, TAIPEI

Richard Corliss needs to get a life! A Romanian horror film among his best of the year? If I want to get depressed, all I have to do is watch CNBC. Seriously, we are in a deep recession, and the world is suffering. Please get out of those artsy theaters, visit the multiplex, have some popcorn and find us a funny movie. Edward Shute, GULPH MILLS, PA.

Thank you. I am a movie snob and very critical of everything I see, but I thought Speed Racer was simply brilliant entertainment from top to bottom. It's been at least a decade since I've seen a movie more than once in the theater, but I saw Speed Racer three times. It was sad to see it flop and be critically savaged, but I appreciate--and wholeheartedly agree with--your adding it to the "Top 10 Movies" of 2008. Denny Zartman, ATLANTA

Top 10 list of items I need: 1) Magnifying glass to read the tiny print in TIME's List Issue. 2) Stronger magnifying glass to burn holes in those lists that are still too small to see, even with help from a magnifying glass. 3-10) I'm good. Happy New Year! Jeffrey Kaufman, BELFORD, N.J.

Getting out of Afghanistan

Re Joe Klein's "The Aimless War": all the soldiers pictured with the article have the same haunting, tired, stressed, bewildered, questioning, faraway look [Dec. 22]. There is a saying, "The eyes are the portals to the soul of man." It is evident by the look in these soldiers' eyes that they are all asking, "What the hell is going on, and why are we here?" A better title for this story couldn't have been found. C.D. Rinck Sr., MISSION, KANS.

Paying More for Gas, Voluntarily