Wad

Chicago Bears Coach Mike Ditka, who suffered enough while watching his team flattened, 41-0, by the San Francisco 49ers, won't be grilled about allegedly bouncing a wad of gum off a fan at halftime, police said Tuesday. "We have far worse things than that," said William Kidd, the investigating inspector who revealed that police are no longer interested in interviewing Ditka over possible battery charges connected with the Monday night postgame incident.

People were always telling Bruce Lloyd Kates that the song he had written had a Gershwin-like sound to it. Kates, a piano tuner and composer, took that as a compliment. After all, he's a huge fan of George and Ira Gershwin's work and of 1930s-era music in general. The Los Feliz resident wrote "Some Time to Get to Know You" in the early 1990s and copyrighted it in 2002. It wasn't until later that it dawned on Kates why his tune seems so Gershwin-esque: It came from George Gershwin's piano.

Regarding the issue of paper vs. plastic shopping bags, I would suggest neither ("Big Bear Packages a Worthy Concept," Oct. 29). European shoppers generally bring along their own shopping bags, which are usually made of a lightweight see-through nylon netting. The bags fold up into a small wad in pocket or purse. This practice has got to save the stores a bundle. Perhaps some enterprising company could give away such bags free to shoppers with their logo, and stores might give some coupons to shoppers who bring their own bags as an added incentive.

Gul Nar's new home is a canvas tent on the median of the Peshawar-Islamabad expressway. To get to the grassy shoulder where they can have room to play, her two boys dart across three lanes of 60 mph traffic. Her tent is one of hundreds along the dirt median of the M-1 where victims of Pakistan's catastrophic flooding have taken refuge. They've decided that despite the danger and the din of incessant traffic just a few feet away, the expressway is their best bet. Why? Because every once in a while, a car stops with a handout: a bag of rice, a carton of milk, a handful of dates, a small wad of cash.

Maybe I'm a baseball purist, and perhaps I preach too much about what's good for the game, but I was sickened to hear about the Lenny Dykstra-Darren Daulton incident. You have two guys worth nearly $15 million, arguably two-thirds of the franchise (along with Dale Murphy), and they can't call a cab after a bachelor party? Nice example for Little Leaguers everywhere, right along with Lenny's wad of tobacco. TONY SHEPHERD West Hollywood

Bruce Matthews conceded defeat by the National Football League system Wednesday, ended his holdout and agreed to play four more years with the Houston Oilers for $1.55 million. "If circumstances were different, I wouldn't have come," Matthews said. "I mean, if I had a big old bank wad set away, I think I'd still be fighting it."

"A Hotel's Life" (Dec. 29) put me in mind of a visit to a similar little hotel/pension on the Left Bank in 1960. We were newly married, and this was a dream honeymoon. We stumbled upon the small hotel near the old Gare d'Orsay, between Boulevard St. Germain and the Seine. We had a bare-bones room overlooking Paris' rooftops, and we thought we were in heaven. One evening we strolled a couple of blocks to a cellar bistro where we enjoyed a delicious, affordable meal, accompanied by three different bottles of wine, one for each course.

I'll never forget the time a temporary crown fell out of my mouth on a weeklong trip 3,000 miles from home. Ah, memories: the gross feeling against my tongue of the little stump of tooth; the jolting pain whenever I forgot for a moment and chugged back an ice-cool gulp of water; my futile attempts to push the crown back into place in the hope that this time, this time, it'd stay put--even though it had instantly fallen back out the prior 25 times. . . .

SAN FRANCISCO - The priest will be ordained in a purple Lutheran church. The Communion bread, symbolizing the body of Christ, will be gluten-free. The congregation will pray to "our mother our father in heaven. " But the real departure from Roman Catholic tradition will be evident when Maria Eitz approaches the altar Sunday for the laying on of hands that turns parishioner into priest. Over the last decade, as the Vatican has faced a serious shortage of priests, a small but growing number of women have answered what they believe to be a call from God. California is home to more ordained Catholic women than any other state.

HEAR the name "Eames," and you probably picture bent plywood "potato chip" chairs, or midcentury tables resting on "paper clip" legs -- iconic home furnishings that shaped the legacy of their designers. Less celebrated is Charles and Ray Eames' 1949 Pacific Palisades home, though it has profoundly influenced how Southern Californians nest, even to this day.

Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites and the VSS Enterprise Rutan has been working with Richard Branson on the Virgin Galactic VSS Enterprise project -- also known as SpaceShipTwo -- racing to be the first commercial airliner to launch travelers into orbit. They unveiled the completed spaceship, which will take off from Spaceport American in New Mexico sometime next year, at a grand production in the Mojave Desert this winter. The first model of the aircraft, known as SpaceShipOne, won Rutan and the team at Scaled Composites the $10-million Ansari X Award for creating and launching a spacecraft that could carry three people 100 kilometers above the Earth's surface twice within two weeks.

Tight wad rant fest

Dominik Dinkha and his buddies were just grabbing some grub from a local Subway restaurant this spring when the 13-year-old spotted something mysterious: an abandoned Washington Mutual envelope that had been left on the store's counter top. "At first, I wanted to keep it," Dominik said of the envelope, which held $3,000 in cash. "But I knew I should turn it in." So he did the right thing and headed over to San Gabriel City Hall, where the money was later claimed by a music producer.

A bank robbery suspect was arrested after he strolled to a bar across the parking lot, ordered a beer and started counting "a wad of money," Huntington Beach police said Thursday. Ronald Langdale, 58, of Los Angeles had taken only a few sips of his beer when officers walked into Mario's Restaurant, tapped him on the shoulder and led him to a waiting squad car, police said. Minus the tab for the beer, all the money was recovered, police said.

"A Hotel's Life" (Dec. 29) put me in mind of a visit to a similar little hotel/pension on the Left Bank in 1960. We were newly married, and this was a dream honeymoon. We stumbled upon the small hotel near the old Gare d'Orsay, between Boulevard St. Germain and the Seine. We had a bare-bones room overlooking Paris' rooftops, and we thought we were in heaven. One evening we strolled a couple of blocks to a cellar bistro where we enjoyed a delicious, affordable meal, accompanied by three different bottles of wine, one for each course.

Mexican President Vicente Fox acknowledged Tuesday that his presidential mansion is furnished with $400 towels and remote-controlled curtains, a revelation casting doubt on his promise of austere government. The towel spat started when Mexican daily Milenio published a list of household goods, carrying a total price tag of about $400,000, acquired by the president's office since Fox took office in December.

Tight wad rant fest

"The Ellen DeGeneres Show" has been renewed through the 2016-2017 television season, distributor Warner Bros. has announced. The talk show, now in its 10th year, has seen its ratings swell 13% this season compared with the previous period. It has steadily been moving up the hierarchy of daytime television since Oprah Winfrey retired nearly two years ago. "Dr. Phil" continues to beat "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in overall viewers, but DeGeneres' program now jockeys with "Dr. Phil" for the lead among women ages 25-54, the demographic typically sold to advertisers in daytime television.

Like Aspen, Martha's Vineyard and the Co^te d'Azur, this lovely old town in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains has a ritzy reputation. After all, it's a favorite movie-star haunt, and Santa Fe's galleries are full of pricey fine art. Then, too, without a major airport, the city is a little hard to reach, and it's a seller's market when it comes to accommodations. About 1.2 million people visit Santa Fe a year, yet it has just 4,700 rooms.

Pro football players make hundreds of thousands, sometimes million of dollars. Their fortunes, their reputations and their endorsement possibilities depend on the success of their teams. A trip to the Super Bowl can make a career. So it is truly amazing that, time after time, players will point to a newspaper article as their source of inspiration for a big game. Such was again the case Saturday.