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Champagne Charlie Champion

In fixing his attentions solely on an extreme close-up in "Charles, Earl Spencer," I think David Plotz may have overlooked the larger tableau. True, if this "Hugh Grant-y" type's acid remarks toward the press were due to having been caught wearing his pants in "Hugh Grant-y" fashion, Plotz's portrayal of Charles Spencer as just another hypocritical, bratty royal would have resonance.

But that's not the case here. Had Plotz pulled his focus back a bit, he may have noticed that at the time Spencer made his remarks, he was in a church. More importantly, there was a funeral going on. And, rotten luck, The Loved One just happened to be Spencer's sister. Given the setting, one could posit that Spencer's invective was not concerned so much with the convoluted interplay of the press with his past peccadilloes, but rather was more driven by the unavoidable necessity of having to plant his 36-year-old sister in the earth later that day. Plausible, wouldn't you say?

Lacking the sophistry of Plotz's editorial credentials, my interpretation of Charles, Earl Spencer's remarks is fairly basic. What I heard him say was: If the parasite lives, but the host dies, it really can't be described as a symbiotic relationship.

--Brad BowerDallas

The Missionary Position

In your section titled "The Week/The Spin," the caption under the picture of Mother Teresa says, "Hell's Angel." Is this a sick joke or, I hope, a typo, because it is offensive and wrong. With this one slip you lost complete respect and reliability by me, a daily Slate reader. You'd better check this out because I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed it.

--John ShefferlyDetroit

Hear, and Now!

I find myself in disagreement with "Hear Me," by Bill Barnes, about the quality of IBM's VoiceType software. Although I am a poor typist, I find that I am able to type a document much more quickly and accurately than the above-named software can perform. Although I speak with an English accent, my pronunciation can be modified to American English. Whatever I dictate is 50-percent misinterpreted by the program. The correction modification seems to have no effect. My software definitely does not learn by its mistakes!

--Michael T. ShawRamona, Calif.

Bill Barnes replies: "The product I reviewed was IBM ViaVoice. VoiceType is IBM's previous generation of voice-recognition software."

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