A Lavish Gift in the Face of World Suffering

Re “Welcome to Her Matriarchy” (Sept. 26): I thought, how obscene, when worldwide people are starving, suffering and homeless from earthquakes, civil wars and epidemics. My own mother would never think of such a selfish $75,000 spending spree in light of the above.

I also thought, how unbelievably gauche, when this aesthetically talented son can’t come up with anything more meaningful than throwing a check for Barneys at his 75-year-old mother. To boot, he has to make a big production and call attention to himself at her birthday: “ ‘He told me to read it out loud,’ Shirley Ritts remembers. ‘I looked at it, and it said $75,000, and I thought I wasn’t seeing it properly . . . but then I read it, and everyone screamed.’ “‘ Gee, what if she’d opened it at a birthday lunch for just the two of them, would Herb Ritts have been crushed? Oh well, Herb. It’s the thought that counts.

--MARY SCHLESINGER

Santa Barbara