Letter

Last Monday, leaders from Partners HealthCare System Inc. gathered in the dark-paneled office of Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo to lay out their objections to his expansive 278-page plan to tame health care costs. The House proposal, unveiled 10 days earlier, called in part for closer oversight of the prices and operations of hospitals and their physicians groups, especially more costly ones like those owned by Partners, and influential board chairman Jack Connors requested a meeting.

Letter writing is the best writing of all, because it's the purest. Terry Southern WWW.REFLECTIONFORTHEDAY.COM. Collected by Tom Fitzpatrick. All rights reserved.

"American Idol" viewers could be in for a serious case of deja vu if Phillip Phillips wins on the Fox talent contest's 11th season finale next week. While the soulful strummer from Leesburg, Ga., has certainly proved he can be a risk-taking showman by transforming songs like Usher's "U Got It Bad" into searing acoustic covers, a victory for the 21-year-old would prove something that everyone has suspected for a while: "Idol" voters prefer humble Caucasian heartthrobs over, well, anyone else.

NFL players union president Domonique Foxworth sent a letter to his membership Monday outlining the gains they made in the collective bargaining agreement reached last summer with the league. Foxworth stressed safer working conditions and more lucrative contracts. He said the amount of cash spent on players in salaries and benefits increased to about 55 percent of all NFL revenues in 2011. That exceeds any year under the 2006 agreement. Players were paid more than $160 million per team in cash and benefits last season, the first of a 10-year agreement that ended the 4 ½-month...

NEWTON - Dan Kennedy will graduate from Boston College on Monday, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and the recipient of the school's most prestigious prize, the Edward H. Finnegan Award. Winners of the Finnegan, given to the student who best exemplifies the BC motto, "ever to excel," tend to go big - top grad schools, Wall Street, overseas fellowships. Kennedy is planning to give away his computer, recycle his Blackberry, and move to a modest communal house in St. Paul, Minn.

A rare letter from Edgar Allan Poe to the editor of a literary publication has sold at auction for over $164,000. Poe wrote it on Oct. 20, 1837, to Sarah Josepha Hale of Boston. She was the author of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and editor of Godey's Lady's Book. He was responding to her request for a prose article, saying he was "overwhelmed with business" after being ill. He wrote, "To send you a crude or hastily written article would be injurious to me, and an insult to yourself.

By Sara Brown, Town Correspondent Good news for food-truck fans in the Fenway: the neighborhood is slated to receive the trendy mobile eateries as part of Boston's recently approved food truck initiative . In a letter sent out to local property owners and businesses, the city said that 140 Fenway on Hemenway Street has been selected as a food truck site after a city survey, with the area chosen "for the opportunity it potentially presents...

EVERETT, Wash. -- A National Guardsman suspected of trying to share military information with Al Qaeda is a Muslim convert who complained bitterly in a letter to a newspaper about "bigotry, hatred, and mindless rage" in the United States. Specialist Ryan G. Anderson, 26, was arrested Thursday and was being held at Fort Lewis. The tank crew member from the Guard's 81st Armor Brigade was taken into custody just days before he was to leave for duty in Iraq. Long before his arrest, he had made some of his beliefs known in strongly worded letters...

Abigail Adams, wife of the second US president, penned one last letter before sailing home to Braintree in 1788 after several years in Europe. Historians never knew the letter was written, but earlier this year it was found in the family papers of a Boston lawyer. Much of what is known about the Adamses has been gleaned from thousands of letters Abigail and John Adams wrote to each other. In the newly discovered letter, Abigail Adams shares personal news and her thoughts on politics on the eve of returning from her husband’s ambassadorship in London.

EVER AN unwelcome guest: the pharmacy review letter. This one said that the patient, whose name and birth date headed the page, would no longer be covered for name-brand medication he had taken for years. He had a new Medicare Part D insurer, whose formulary carried only generic. Neither the patient nor I knew he had a new insurer, but we had gone through the details of his medication incompatibility many times with the old insurer. When he took generic pills, he became nauseated and dizzy.

We are the two development professionals working pro bono for the Newton School Foundation's capital campaign ("Naming rights campaign sparks series of questions," Globe West, May 6). We have taken this job on because it is our belief that this campaign must happen, and be successful. Our backgrounds make us uniquely suited for this undertaking. Why is this campaign so important? ■   We live in a world of technology. Our schools must prepare our children for this world.

As cities naturally grow, new construction is inevitable, but the Globe missed a bigger and more worrisome problem — urban sprawl ("Teardowns on the rise," Globe West, May 6). When McMansions proliferate, the less affluent are moving farther and farther out, extending roads and devouring open space. Municipal authorities don't know how to stop this process, because owners of small homes want to sell their properties for profit. These people have a choice: Either buy a larger house in exurbia or a condominium in an urban center.

Vermont's two U.S. senators are joining four others from New England and New York in calling for better labeling of sunscreen. Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders were among the signers of a letter to the federal Food and Drug Administration urging it not to delay new regulations that were to take effect in June requiring that sunscreen labels be clear, accurate and informative for consumers. The FDA announced this month it was pushing the new regulations back by six months, which the senators say means they won't be in place for the summer season.

REAL ESTATES Gee, Comm. Ave., Brookline, Weston, Hingham, etc. are the "Top Spots to Live" (May 6). Wow, what a news flash. This is such an offensive article. So the Top Spots to Live are only available to about 2 percent of the population? The price of a home does not necessarily make a street a great place to live. I'm a Globe subscriber, but I do find the paper to be elitist at times and in this case downright clueless. Jim Daddona / Pepperell GLOUCESTER BECKONS Note to Billy Baker ( Perspective, May 6)

A rare letter from Edgar Allan Poe to the editor of a literary publication has sold at auction for over $164,000. Poe wrote it on Oct. 20, 1837, to Sarah Josepha Hale of Boston. She was the author of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and editor of Godey's Lady's Book. He was responding to her request for a prose article, saying he was "overwhelmed with business" after being ill. He wrote, "To send you a crude or hastily written article would be injurious to me, and an insult to yourself.

Palestinian officials on Sunday dismissed a new Israeli proposal for restarting peace talks, saying the document falls short of their long-standing demands. The cool reception bodes poorly for hopes the resumption of peace talks between the Palestinians and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who fortified his ruling coalition last week by bringing in the main opposition party. Netanyahu's alliance with the centrist Kadima Party raised speculation that he might make a more generous proposal to the Palestinians now that he no longer has to rely on hardline nationalists to keep...

To the Editor: This past spring we experienced a slice of Henry Shukman’s walk (”Hiking Into History,” Nov. 1) along England’s ancient Ridgeway National Trail. Climbing straight uphill to the Uffington White Horse became an outdoor heart exam and victory for us 70-somethings. It was easier 40 years ago. Our reward was a great lunch at Woolstone’s White Horse pub just below. Mr. Shukman’s lyrical poem to the Ridgeway path should inspire Anglophiles to put on their boots and get going while they’re able.

To the Editor: Geraldine Fabrikant’s Heads Up column “Hotel Upgrades: You’re Giving Me That Room? No Way” (Aug. 31) was a laugh. As a bell attendant at a four-star hotel in Boston, I have daily interactions with people who always try for upgrades. Take it from a pro; the example of the guest who tries for upgrades with a tip works best. Desk agents have incredible discretion with room types and can easily get you a better view or a bigger room. There is one important thing to remember.

Frieze frame Sebastian Smee's piece on Frieze New York was most enjoyable ("Pondering an art world awash in wealth," Page A1, May 8). I was there; how right he is. It has become the contemporary equivalent of Art Basel. The role of these international art fairs has grown. They are a real cost to the galleries, but an essential one if a gallery wants to spread its wings and its goods to a global market. Too bad that Smee was not able to cover Pulse, the smaller show in the meatpacking district, which has traditionally displayed emerging artists or underrecognized artists from around the world.