Opinion: The Letters Top Five

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Letters reacting to the debate over the economic stimulus package continued to lead the Top Five tally last week.

During the week ending Feb. 14, The Times received 795 usable letters, 434 of which were in our Top Five Topics.

• Economic stimulus: 183 letters, including thoughts on President Barack Obama’s clashes with Republicans on Capitol Hill;
• Octuplets: 122 letters;
• Rush Limbaugh: 55 letters, responding to this story about the radio host’s pull with the GOP;
• California’s budget: 42 letters, reacting to this column by George Skelton as well as news stories about California’s bond rating and budget negotiations; and
• Gaza: 32 letters.

How the Top Five is tabulated: Each week, your letters maven receives thousands of e-mails, dozens of letters through the good old U.S. postal service, and even a few faxes here and there.

After she cuts out spam, obscene mail, letters addressed to more than one recipient, letters that seem to be the fruit of letter-writing campaigns and letters with attachments (which gum up our computer systems,) she is usually left with several hundred eligible items, represented in the Letters Top Five tally. From these, she selects the somewhere around 100 that get published in the newspaper. Faxes and snail mail are not reflected in the chart.