If you're the kind of person who cries at animal movies, you don't want to read this.

In 2004, The New York Times' Stephanie Zacharek negatively reviewed the video for the Beastie Boys' new single "Ch-Check It Out." MCA a.k.a. Adam Yauch, who died today at the age of 47, had directed the video under his pseudonym Nathanial Hornblower. He didn't take kindly to Zacharek's review, and let her know in a letter to the Times demanding, among other things, that she send him a goat.

"Why does the Weather Bureau name killer, monster storms after people?" asks Mark Soifer, son of Irene, poobah of Ocean City, New Jersey. "My kind, loving and devoted mother (perhaps a bit bossy, but nice bossy) should not be associated in any way with a mindless mass of wind, rain, and destruction."

Visalia, California resident Shamci Rafani is worried about the effect of sex scandals on our society. So she wrote a letter to her local newspaper, the Gannett-owned Visalia Times-Delta, to offer a solution:

Bruce Springsteen looks pretty good for 61, doesn't he? Not that it stops him from doing classic old-dude stuff, like writing letters to the editor of his local paper—which he did this week. The Boss' letter was not, however, about how the lady at Wal-Mart said "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" (though give him 15 years)—it was a letter of commendation for the Asbury Park Press' front-page story on poverty and budget cuts:

Because we are Not Afraid to Be Servicey, we frequently receive emails from our out-of-touch-with-reality readers, who expect that we can put them in touch with prominent people. Today, we will. Hearst president Cathie Black: you have an angry reader.

The two topics that have garnered us the most spittle-flecked emails lately have been Sarah Palin and Scientology. We've picked a selection of the finest, juiciest nuts so you can judge for yourself which group is more rabid.

Hamilton Nolan has taken frequent aim at 'pansexual' self-promoter and editor Neal Boulton's public antics, usually with a disclosure that Genre magazine never paid him $250 for a story Boulton assigned. Today, they bury that hatchet. A letter from Boulton:

Julie Engel Manga, an executive coach, is so deeply concerned by Twitter that she wrote to the New York Times. At 194 words, her letter is way too long. Here it is in Twitter-compliant form:

The mayor of Paris actually doesn't care if Caroline Kennedy becomes a Senator, the Times has been forced to reveal. Also if you email them with a famous name they'll just print it.

Senator Orrin Hatch is one of those easily caricatured figures of cartoonishly prudish conservativism, so naturally everyone back home in Utah is now furious with him for associating with black criminals.

Down Under Over the Moon: Variety's panic piece yesterday about Australia's underachievement at home drew a typically polite letter of dissent from an Aussie exhibitor. "I just wanted to say that as a regional independent with three prints of Australia between our two locations, we're over the moon with the results on the film," wrote It's comfortably the largest opening week numbers we've seen in several years outside of school holiday periods, and word of mouth is stellar," said cinema proprietor Peter Howard. OK, great! Can we pleeeeease have our sad ending now, Fox? [Variety]

I recently started subscribing to National Geographic, and its coverage of Stonehenge and jungles is incomparable. But I'm convinced that the sly geography wonks on its editorial staff get their kicks each month by selecting the most insane letters to the editor, and putting them into the magazine. The new issue has letters about a March story on animal intelligence. They must have gotten thousands! So who's represented? Inexplicable dog haters, lamb-whisperers, and schizophrenics:

When Nick Denton took over as managing editor of Gawker yesterday (it feels like an eternity ago!) he "let go" of many, if not all, of our columnists. The cast-offs included Tionna "Tee" Smalls, whose advice column "Ask Tionna" was beloved by most of Gawker's readers, some fervently some tepidly but really most fervently. Anyway, she's steamed she got fired and she's not going to take it lying down. In the early hours of January 3rd, she sent out an "Official Statement Regarding dismissal of Ask Tionna," that is just as raw, moving, insightful and controversial as her advice was.