Letters

(2 of 2)

No Laughing Matter

RE Bruce Handy's tongue-in-cheek memoir "I, Too, Remember John" [CARTOON, June 3]: Although I was not a particular fan of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s, I found this treatment of his memory to be appalling. It trivializes and undercuts the life of someone who was basically a good person and who tried to accomplish something with his talents. The comic strip, totally unfunny in itself, must have been incredibly offensive to those who truly knew Kennedy and cared about him.
DAVID R. GOODRICH
San Antonio, Texas

Forget About a Quick Fix

I'm tired of articles that tell how a gastric bypass is the answer to losing weight and keeping it off [HEALTH, June 3]. I had a bypass more than two years ago and have lost only half the weight I was supposed to. I am constantly battling hunger and think about food all the time. It is such a struggle, and the guilt is overwhelming, since I went through so much pain, not to mention the $45,000 the surgery cost. Maybe I have an overabundance of the gastric hormone called ghrelin that you say may be involved in triggering the desire to eat, but I don't think it has anything to do with the bypass. I only wish that when I was investigating this surgery, the information I got had not been so sugarcoated. If I had heard some horror stories, I would have reconsidered. It is not a cure-all!
ROSIE GERDEMAN
Lima, Ohio

Experts are frantically looking for genes, hormones, chemicals and anything else to explain the sudden explosion of obesity, but the fact is that we simply eat too much of the wrong things. As a child, when I went to the circus, I paid 25[cents] to see the fat lady. Now I can see a dozen or more in any mall without charge, and they are heavier than the ones I used to pay to see. So much of what people eat is high in fat, carbohydrates and sugar. That and a food addiction worse than nicotine will present a health-care nightmare very soon.
ROBERT N. RADER
Moore Haven, Fla.

Caught in the Cross Fire

I can't believe the vatican news service had the gall to publish an editorial chastising celebrities for spreading the fashion of wearing crosses decorated with precious stones and reminding them that people are dying of hunger [PEOPLE, June 3]. The Roman Catholic Church's coffers are filled with bejeweled "symbols of the Christian faith," but I have never heard the church suggest that it could liquidate a few of those assets to help victims of hunger. Why is it that the people who are sitting on the biggest chunk of change are always so eager to have other people help the needy?
NANCY L. MORRIS
Walnut Creek, Calif.

Bad Rap

Classical musicians who early on criticized rock 'n' roll could never have imagined that things could decline so far that Eminem's rapping and ranting [MUSIC, June 3] would be considered music. The ability to rhyme does not make you a poet any more than swinging a bat makes you a major league ballplayer. A cynic could imagine young Marshall Mathers, a.k.a. Eminem, at summer camp: while the jazz kids were down the hall practicing their scales, Mathers was working on his delivery of obscenities and staring menacingly into a camera. To label rap as music suggests that all you need to be an artist is a big mouth and a microphone.
FRANK RANSLEY
McFarland, Wis.