To the editor,
Hey, Joanna DelBuono, what’s up with the “Genie Bra?” (“My research shows the ‘Genie Bra’ is not magic,” Not for Nuthin’, Nov. 17).
I fell for the hype and purchased three of them for about $50. They truly suck — unless you are a size 34B!
I happen to have bazangas, and they made it seem like that’s okay. Well it’s not. There is no support and these bras suck!
Thanks for addressing this issue.
Rita Nanes
Sheepshead Bay
‘Thanks,’ Shav
To the editor,
Thank you, Shavana Abruzzo for the great column about Thanksgiving (“Give thanks for being American,” A Britisher’s View, Nov. 24).
I copied it and have it hanging on my office door for all to see. Too often people forget how good they have it.
Susan Caprio
Sheepshead Bay
‘Cutthroat’ Shav
To the editor,
If you are like me, you read this newspaper with great interest, believing it is interesting and factual.
As soon as I sit down to read it, I turn to Shavana Abruzzo’s column (“A Britisher’s View”), for she always seems to hit the nail on the head, in my opinion, when it comes to politics, religion, and the like. Stan Gershbein (“It’s Only My Opinion”) holds my interest too, for he is topical in a newsy, down-home, interesting way.
Shavana is a wonderful cutthroat! She has no fear!
Her column this week (“Hey, Museum: Show Muslim art,” Dec. 1) piqued my interest, for I had scanned an article about Brooklyn Museum’s latest sacrilegious slap in the face of Catholics in a daily paper. Shavana, however, went into detail about the “Christ” exhibit, and reminded me about Brooklyn Museum’s past blasphemous anti-Catholic exhibits: “a painting of a dung-embossed Virgin Mary” in 1999, and a 2001 exhibit that showed Christ as a nude woman.
Enough already! Slap all religions or none at all, please, Brooklyn Museum! I mailed Shavana’s column to Brooklyn Museum Director Arnold Lehman with a short note, for I want him to realize how much he has hurt me. Why the heck isn’t he blasphemous toward other religions in his museum’s showings? Why only the Catholic religion? It’s got to stop!
Fellow Brooklynites, I wish you would follow my lead and mail Arnold Lehman a copy of Shavana Abruzzo’s column; let him know we are angry for his repeated Christian tauntings and insults. It’ll take only a few minutes of your time and a 44 cent stamp! Do it now. Move your tush!
Want the address? It’s Arnold Lehman, Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Pkwy., Brooklyn, NY 11238. The museum’s phone number is (718) 638-5000.
Joan Applepie
Mill Basin
‘Mental’ note
To the editor,
I agree with Marybeth Smith-Affe (“Bare rage,” Letters, Nov. 24) because I’m also outraged at your coverage of a woman’s psychotic meltdown (“Her Naked Rampage,” Nov. 17).
I am appalled that you would make fun of her and mentally ill people in general. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one in four people have a mental illness some time during their life, though most of them don’t do anything like this woman did.
The media makes fun of the sick. They make fun of our friends, family, and neighbors who suffer from these illnesses. This image causes bigotry, hatred and discrimination in employment and housing.
Jerome Frank
Coney Island
Newt-tastic plan
To the editor,
I am in favor of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s plan that allows students the right to choose a personal, privatized Social Security account over the current system because young Americans have little chance of cashing in their Social Security contributions as the funds are estimated to run out by 2035.
We would be free to choose where to invest our money. Studies show that for an average-income, two-earner couple, standard, long-term, market investment returns could accumulate to several hundred thousand dollars, even a million dollars or more, depending on how much tax is paid into the accounts. Even lower-income workers could accumulate close to half a million over their careers. Another positive? After death, the money can be left to family and loved ones in your estate, while currently there is zero estate accumulation.
These accounts will allow people to choose their own retirement age and the benefactors of their estate — free from controlling politicians on Capitol Hill.
These systems have proven to be successful in Texas and Chile, where employees pay 10 percent of their monthly salary into their privatized account, and can choose to invest in 20 different funds managed by private sectors. All funds are required to provide a minimum return on personal account investments, and the government provides a guarantee that every Chilean retiree who opts for the personal account will earn at least about 40 percent of his average wages — slightly more than Social Security pays average income workers here. If the personal account for any individual falls below this level, the government makes up the difference.
The biggest backers of this system only expected a 4 percent return on the accounts, which would be about 70 percent of their pre-retirement income (our system pays out only about 40 percent of pre-retirement income). By 2004, the actual rate of return on these accounts was a surprising 10.2 percent, and Chileans are on pace to retire with 80 percent of their pre-retirement income. The economy also grew and there was a drop in the unemployment rate.
This system has spread throughout Latin America, and Great Britain and Australia have begun their own personal accounts programs. Such a system here would benefit our retirees and boost our economy.
Michael Longo
Windsor Terrace
Afghan lawlessness
To the editor,
The U.S. has been in Afghanistan for 10 years fighting for that country’s democracy, but its archaic government and laws are so insane that President Hamid Karzai is pardoning a young woman who was raped by a relative — as long as she marries him! In this country, she could have killed him and no jury would convict her, and she would deserve a medal.
The victim’s sentence was 12 years in prison for being raped because she had “sex” before marriage according to their law.
This woman was raped! It wasn’t a sexual affair, but an act of violence against her and she’s the one in prison?
Even if it was consensual sex, is a prison sentence warranted?
Let’s get our troops out of there. It is impossible trying to bring democracy or any kind of human rights there because they have no idea what it is.
Peter Orsi
Marine Park
More traffic problems
To the editor,
I find that there are many shoppers in supermarkets who don’t understand the meaning of “excuse me,” causing traffic jams with in the aisles with their shopping carts.
Why not put a bicycle bell on every cart — maybe a rear-view mirror, too. Then there will no excuses!
Ernesto Cavalier
Flatlands
Smut rights
To the editor,
The enjoyment of good pornography is ageless (“Dirty, Filthy Brooklyn!” 24/7, November 25).
Pornography came out of the closet long ago and is now part of mainstream America. The attempts of cops and the moral majority “social police” to stop it is a total failure.
Just view the Internet, cable television, or visit your local adult bookstore or neighborhood newsstand to see for yourself.
What consenting adults consume, inhale, perform, read or view in the privacy of their own home, another person’s home, hotel or private social club isn’t the concern of government. Individual economic and civil liberties prosper best when government stays out of both the bedroom and marketplace.
The free market place will always provide whatever products citizens desire, regardless of government approval. Consumers have voted with their dollars to make pornography a multibillion dollar enterprise!
Our tax dollars would be better used if police and judges spent more time prosecuting those who commit real crimes against individuals or property than going after those who publish and distribute pornography. Citizens have more to fear from murder, arson, muggings, robberies, auto and identify theft or burglaries — and from the increasing levels of confiscatory taxation and debt by our government.
Larry Penner
Great Neck, N.Y.
Cash ’n classes
To the editor,
It comes as no surprise to me that the principal charged $30 for parking spaces at a Bronx school where students received bogus credit for courses they never took.
Years ago, I taught at a Brooklyn school where the new principal demanded $10 a month from teachers for use of the refrigerator in their lounge, even though the refrigerator had been there long before.
Some administrators are on par with Boss Tweed!
Ed Greenspan
Sheepshead Bay
