Lighten Up   

Dodgers announcer Vin Scully tells of training with Red Barber, who advised him never to have dinner with anybody on the team: It makes it tough to criticize them on the air the next day.

If listeners, viewers and readers had more acute critical thinking skills, I don't think the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner would be the problem AJR Editor and Publisher Rem Rieder (on C-SPAN May 10) believed. Much of the humor was directed at embracing and laughing at some of the caricatures: liberal press, Rush Limbaugh and so on.

In short, I agree there is a problem when things go too far, don't think they did, agree they almost did, and can understand how some folks thought they did. I suppose if the shoes were on opposing political feet I would be outraged. But I doubt it.

All that said, you raise good points, but consider stepping back a bit and realizing it was a nontoxic bit of fun.

Ira Lee Newlander

Los Angeles, California