Bereavement

New York Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain left the team after his father collapsed at home in Nebraska, and the pitcher was put on the bereavement list. Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said Chamberlain's sister called and left the pitcher a phone message during New York's 8-5 loss at Boston on Sunday night. The New York Daily News said the reliever spoke with his sister and broke into tears, and Girardi tried to console him. "I talked to him last night and this morning," Girardi said Monday.

REMEMBER special airfares for children, seniors, the military and the bereaved? They're still available, but in fewer numbers and places than they were 20 or even five years ago. Such fares save you money -- or not. And you may need a detective to find them. Holdovers from a kinder, gentler era of flying decades ago when airlines were trying to drum up business, many special fares must be researched and booked the old-fashioned way, by telephone. Airlines' websites often reveal little.

Re "A Mother's Denial, a Daughter's Death," Sept. 24 Christine Maggiore needs look no further than her own mirror for the cause of her daughter's death. Maggiore's arrogance and denial are incomprehensible. How dare she question why less fortunate children survive and hers had to die. Eliza Jane didn't have to die. Maggoire had access to medical care that the less fortunate do not. She arrogantly chose to ignore HIV treatment and has the nerve to question why "children with far less -- impatient, distracted parents, a small apartment on a busy street, extended day care, Oscar Mayer Lunchables -- will happily stay?"

ON April 1, 1999, Veronica Melendez was in labor at King/Drew when her baby's heart rate began to slow, a possible sign of fetal distress. She was sent to the operating room for a caesarean. En route, however, doctors diverted the 22-year-old to a delivery room for another attempt to deliver the boy without surgery. There, doctors used forceps to try to free him, an analysis of the case by attorneys for the county found. The effort failed.

Argue all you want, Larry Brown says, about the greatness of Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady. Debate for hours about which of those great, young talents, with their lively legs and eye-popping, twisty, turning, slithery moves to the basket, with their fall-away jump shots and rim-bending dunks, should be most valuable player of the NBA this season. But here's what made Brown's heart sink, his stomach knot, his brain go into overdrive.

Former travel industry professional Meghan Corzo complained that it would have cost $2,400 for her family of four to travel from Burbank to Tampa, Fla., to attend her grandmother's funeral ("Airlines' Sad Lack of Compassion," Letters, Dec. 1). A quick check on the Internet had the same routing for $1,316 round trip for a family of four. Dan Mac Millan Newport Coast

Both Israeli and Palestinian societies bestow a special, if undesired, status on parents whose children have been killed in conflict. It is an unhappy collective that has grown tremendously in a war now staggering through its third year. Their status gives these families a moral authority to speak out, and a group of Israelis and Palestinians is using the platform to fight an atmosphere of hate.