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Recipients’ email addresses (Up to ten, separated by commas.)

To the editor,

Regarding Councilman Simcha Felder’s bill to make feeding pigeons a crime (“Pigeon war on Eighth Avenue — and our reporter is there!” The Brooklyn Angle, Nov. 17), I think we all need to just let pigeons be pigeons.

Poisoning, killing and maiming pigeons are just cruel, inhumane acts by people who just have no respect for life. Of course, the pigeon-feeding woman should feel guilty for what appears to be creating this situation for her own personal cause.

But making pigeon-feeding a “crime”? Please! That’s the biggest absurdity here!

And yes, I feed my birds, including the pigeons. Sandra Dowling, Boerum Hill

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To the editor,

Pigeons are the most disgusting creatures on the Earth and people who feed them should be thrown in jail.

Alex Holdsworth, Park Slope

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To the editor,

Councilman Felder should be ashamed of himself. These birds helped win both World Wars by flying messages behind enemy lines. They are curious, like to hang out and eat.

Yes, they poop. But take a look around your neighborhood. Who causes more dirt and trash: we or the pigeons?

Wayne Johnson, Brooklyn Heights

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To the editor,

Felder would make it illegal to feed pigeons?! The guy seems to exhibit fascistic inclinations, not admirable in someone working for the public. He always seems to be backing laws on subjects that bother him personally. Thanks, but no thanks.

G. Miki Hayden, Manhattan

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Editor’s note: In last week’s paper, we printed a picture of the so-called “Pigeon Lover” that she believes revealed her identity. We decided to run the picture only after she started a fight with her neighbor on a public street and urged our reporter to take the picture.

Barclays disgrace

To the editor,

Regarding your article, “More Blood Money,” and your editorial, “End Barclays deal now” (Nov. 17), about Bruce Ratner’s connection to Barclays and the company’s involvement with Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, with South African apartheid, the Nazi regime in France and the trans-Atlantic slave trade — a bit of investigation on the Internet shows that Barclays is also currently a large investor in corporations that are involved in racial discrimination practices, the war economy, union-busting and activities detrimental to health.

Barclays is the fourth largest institutional shareholder in the Coca-Cola Company, with more than $3 billion invested. The beverage company, only a few years ago, had to pay out a $192.5-million settlement to their African-American employees for racial discrimination practices. There are currently other lawsuits against Coke for racial discrimination. And Coca-Cola continues doing business in the Sudan, despite an embargo because of the Darfur tragedy.

In addition, Barclays is the largest institutional shareholder in price-gouging oil giant ExxonMobil with more than $21 billion invested. And Barclays has $6 billion invested in Chevron.

And then there’s $5 billion in union-busting Wal-Mart.

On health? Coke’s products help fuel the obesity epidemic in our youth with their sugar-laden products. And Altria/Phillip Morris ($6 billion) sells cigarettes.

The list goes on with large holdings in war profiteers Boeing ($2 billion), General Dynamics ($923 million), Lockheed Martin ($2 billion), Halliburton ($1 billion) and General Electric ($14 billion).

This is a company that could, if it desired, use its financial clout and have an effect on improving our societies, but it chooses not to; the only criterion is maximizing the bottom line and serving the shareholders. Barclays’ past — and its present — is sordid.

Barclays’ name should not be allowed on any building in Brooklyn. As Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries said in your story, “Enough is enough!”

Lewis Friedman, Park Slope

Monte a mensch

To the editor,

My husband and I lived in Montauk for over 30 years and developed a friendship with Nick Monte (“Nick Monte, 90, beloved restaurateur,” Nov. 3).

A few years after we bought our home, the pipes froze and burst. Everything was ruined, and we couldn’t stay there until they were repaired. Nick offered our family a cottage by the sea — on him — for a few days.

It was wintertime, and when we arrived, there were flowers from Nick and a fire going to welcome us. What a gift!

I will never forget his kindness. Nick Monte was a great man! He contributed to my passionate feelings for Montauk and was part of my inspiration to write the song, “Old Montauk.”

Bonnie Lee Sanders Shimkin, Montauk

Sisters strike back

To the editor,

Your article, “Good ol’ days? Not so much” (Sept. 8), got it wrong. We had graciously agreed to recall some childhood, teenage memories of living and growing up in Fort Greene/Clinton Hill during the 1930s and ’40s. We did not label them “good ol’ days.” Our ideas, as recollected over a period of years, certainly were not intended to contrast those innocent recollections of family, church, neighborhood, etc. with today’s rapidly evolving, changing neighborhood and society of the 2000s — social issues of “oppression of women, African-Americans, homosexuals, etc.” did not color our thinking nor those of the adults in our young lives.

As all residents — both young and old — of our area realize, times will never be, nor should they be, the same.

We take particular exception to your columnist’s comment that our “depiction of the idyllic days of yore made me gag.” Our recollections were intended as a light-hearted chat, not a social commentary to deal with heavy issues. We weren’t eliciting your reaction to what we recalled. Remember, this was 60 years ago. And neighborhoods, attitudes change with the more complex times.

We really regret [that] the simple purpose of our presentation — to reminisce about life in our neighborhood — was completely misconstrued.

Your assessment seems to reflect your own narrow-mindedness. … We enjoyed living those wonderful, carefree Clinton Hill/Fort Greene days in the park, with our schools friends (of, by the way, all denominations, nationalities, and races). Now in our senior years, [we] take delight in our ever-evolving, dynamic neighborhood.

Sorry that you don’t have the memories we share and hold dear.

Joan and Margaret Vincent, Fort Greene

©2007 Community Newspaper Group