Zucker Unbound
Though it’s not explicitly stated, Karl Taro Greenfeld’s and Mark Harris’ revealing reports on the state of network TV [“Zuckervision” and “Saving TV,” September] carry important implications about the future of online video channels.

Just like producers in the early days of cable, today’s online producers are too readily dismissed as low-rent
pretenders or cult curiosities. But when the cable channels started cutting into network market share, out came the checkbooks. The networks paid billions to acquire their cable rivals. Have we seen a glimpse of the future for today’s online-video producers?

Mercurius Goldstein
New York, New York

When NBC implemented the wide-screen format for its dramas in 2004, I found the black bars too distracting and stopped watching the network.

Fast-forward to 2008: I have a wide-screen high-definition television, and NBC decides to show continuous, distracting onscreen promotional messages, such as “All-new Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Saturday at 10 p.m. (9 p.m. Central time).” How can anyone watch anything from NBC (or its cable associates, like USA and the Sci Fi Channel) with all the onscreen distractions, such as the NBC Olympics logo, promo messages, and animated popup ads, as well as an interminable bunch of commercials?

Thanks for identifying Jeff Zucker as the font of this evil. I can only pray that his onscreen viruses will not spread to the good channels of CBS, ABC, and Fox.

James E. Adam
White Marsh, Maryland

Blaming your company’s failure on too many choices? Well, that’s a lame excuse, Mr. Zucker. That’s like the film and videogame industries complaining that the only reason their sales are down is because of digital piracy.

If you have a good product, people will flock to it. Network television has lost loyal viewers because of a lack of focus. There’s a reason for the website devoted to shows that “jump the shark.” Once I’ve given up on a show, I don’t return—ever.

Neil Meskauskis
New York, New York

Renault’s Woes
I am sorry for the suicides that took place at the Renault Technocentre, but Jeffrey Rothfeder’s “Speed Kills” [September] proves to me that there are some people who still support the Renault organization. They, along with many others, don’t realize that the world has changed and the automotive industry is under a lot of pressure to reform.

As a Renault dealer in Cancún, Mexico, I have seen incompetent and inept people at top levels of the company. Despite the past three years’ decline in sales, a lack of inventory, a lack of new products, unprofitability throughout the whole dealer network, and the closing of many dealerships, one executive in Mexico just took a six-week vacation. This kind of unprincipled management makes good people want to kill themselves and makes other people just want to kill the time until their next promotion is announced.

Manuel Calcaneo
Cancún, Mexico

Academic Money
Although Harvard has had great success raising money [“The Harvard Economy,” September], another famous university has a distinction that even Harvard does not have. Several years ago, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York, received an unrestricted gift of $360 million from an anonymous donor. This is the largest anonymous gift to any institution of higher education.

While Harvard is the oldest college in the U.S., Rensselaer is the oldest technological university in the country.

Leonard H. Teitelbaum
Maryland state senator, 1995–2007
Silver Spring, Maryland

Looking Across the Pond
We definitely need to restore the good name of regulation, as Jesse Eisinger wrote in “London Banks, Falling Down” [September]. All too many corporations in this country would gladly get rid of the new rules imposed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed by Congress in 2002 in response to the accounting scandals at companies such as Enron and WorldCom.

Many commercial bankers and their customers like federal regu­lations, and they would celebrate if the government were to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, which was put into place after the stock market crash of 1929 to separate commercial banks from investment banks and the stock market.

Why did we ever get rid of the Glass-Steagall Act in the first place? The working middle class would like to know. What’s wrong with good, honest accounting and a single set of books?

LaVern Isely
Monroe, Wisconsin

The Women, Again?
Christina Lynch’s article “Women in Trouble” [September] fails to mention that the original MGM classic The Women was first remade in the 1950s and released under the title The Opposite Sex. The movie starred musical veteran June Allyson as the jilted wife and cast Joan Collins (who many years later would spice up ABC’s Dynasty) as the home wrecker played in the original by Joan Crawford.

Leslie Nielsen (who would later star in Airplane! and the Naked Gun film spoofs) played the wayward husband. There were no men in the original release. The 1950s remake also featured MGM musical star and tap dancer Ann Miller, as well as Agnes Moorehead, who is best remembered these days for playing Endora in Bewitched. Neither of the first two versions offered any ethnic diversity, so maybe Jada Pinkett Smith in the three-make will be the charm.

Ruben José King-Shaw Jr.
Carlisle, Massachusetts

in “Axis of Commerce” [September], Christopher S. Stewart wandered the cargo docks of Dubai and questioned an Iranian boat captain about his load of Hewlett-Packard printers, Coca-Cola, and Goodyear tires. Despite the supposedly ironclad set of trade sanctions against Iran, the goods were all destined for the country, the region’s largest economy. “It’s business,” the captain says, “but please don’t tell your president.”

Our readers responded to Stewart’s third story for Condé Nast Portfolio with a mix of indignation and policy suggestions. “The way to the hearts and minds of the countries of the Middle East is through the cash they receive for both illicit and legal trade,” Robert Henry Walz, a tour operator from Vancouver, Washington, wrote. “The embargoes against the countries we name as ‘rogue states’ or members of an ‘axis of evil’ simply are not working. I worked for 15 years in Cuba and can readily acknowledge that shelves there are full of American goods.”

In spite of international sanctions, the United Arab Emirates hasn’t imposed any limitations on its local distributors. “Over time, that loophole has spawned what many agree is a decidedly murky trade,” Stewart wrote, “operating mainly under the public’s radar.” When he traveled to Tehran to continue reporting the story and asked a shopkeeper selling H.P. printers about their provenance, Stewart was pointedly asked if he was in the C.I.A.

“As astonished as I am to find out about this U.S.-U.A.E.-Iran axis,” an online reader named Breno commented, “it’s interesting that Stewart didn’t mention the C.I.A. among the smugglers he found. Back when Vietnam, China, Korea, and Afghanistan were considered bad guys, the C.I.A. took care of smuggling goods to the enemy.”

“Stewart’s article reinforces the link between a good business environment and a country’s prosperity,” JD noted online. “And who cares about Iran anyway? Russia is a threat to international peace multiplied by hundreds compared with Iran.” Jackafuss responded, “We should care because Iran spends billions to support Hezbollah and various other militias that are blowing up innocent men, women, and children.”