Tiger by the tail

"For the money, I will dance," Richard Burton reputedly said in exasperation to the director of one of his more inane movies during the '60s. What Jack Lessenberry saw as a coerced confession by Tiger Woods ("Tiger, meet Mao," Feb. 24) I saw instead as Woods' petulant, but voluntary, dance of realization that the kind of folks vacuous enough to buy merchandise because his picture is next to it are the same type to take an inappropriate interest in his personal life.

Thus has always been the nature of immense celebrity. It's not about the golf (or the movies, or the music, etc.). It's about people's innate need for a connection — even an ersatz one — to someone or something larger than themselves. —Todd Steven Kindred, Livonia

A bean to pick

I wondered, having seen the cover of the Feb. 24 issue ("Bitchin' kitchen"), if you know that unemployment in Detroit passes 30 percent, and that hunger makes itself known on a daily basis for many. And yet you choose to have two men waste food by pouring it and throwing it on themselves. I know people who need those beans to eat, not to waste.

I also question your role in promoting two men who first throw good food at each other and pour it on themselves, and who have no knowledge of cooking. Certainly Metro Times can do better than this. Please consider our brothers and sisters on the streets the next time you care to waste food. —Fr. Ben Jiminez, Ss. Peter & Paul Warming Center, Detroit

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