To the editor,
Re: Mssrs. Penner, Lobenstein, Greenspan, et. al
Is it my imagination, or do these guys get whatever is on their mind and off their chest editorialized in the “Sound Off to The Editor” page every week?
Some of them opine on the same topic (e.g. education) ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
In certain instances, this paper allows them to carry on a feud between themselves using this page as their podium.
So here’s an idea, Courier Life, just hire them as “assistant” editors and open up some space for some fresh opinions, musings, and views for a change?
I’m confident that this paper’s circulation reaches out to a populous with broader range of ideas and opinions.
Just sayin’.John Lore
Mill Basin
Stop animal testing
To the editor,
I am glad that this will be the final year of Ringling Brothers Barnum–Bailey Circus. Many people are becoming more socially conscious about the cruelty and torture to circus animals.
While this is an important step for human decency, I believe another humane drive should occur nationwide, if not worldwide, by discontinuing torture of animals for medical research and to substitute prisoners of the most violent crimes to volunteer for this type of role in exchange for pardon or other forms of executive clemency by state governors.
Elliot Abbosh
Brighton Beach
Box office flop
To the editor,
Joanna DelBuono’s “Hollywood losers need a new script” (Jan. 20–28, 2017) is an excellent article depicting Hollywood’s fools who live in their utopian bubble, far removed from the reality of the land they only know as America, their cash cow. Madonna was “outraged” and even “thought … about blowing up the White House.”
Some promised to leave America if Mr. Trump was elected. Well, surprise, surprise Hollywood: In the early hours of Nov. 9, 2016, Donald Trump was declared President-elect Trump and at high noon on Jan. 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States.
So leave America already, you hypocrites! Can the Hollywood clueless say, “President Trump”? Not in their script? Oh, script girl!
They and other Democrats boycotted President Trump’s inauguration. For what purpose? Toward what end? We get it: You don’t like America’s President. Why can’t Hollywood admit that the lying crook in the colorful pant suit was not competent of running an election, not only in 2016, but also in 2008 when a virtually unknown candidate with sealed Harvard and Columbia records beat her for the Democratic primary? Remember? That’s the time Michelle became proud of America (and at no other time prior to that moment).
Why did Hollywood want Hillary? Among other things, to maintain Obama’s legacy, which is considered positive in Iran, other “death to America” countries and amongst American fools. To paraphrase FDR “[Obamas’s is] an administration that will live in infamy:” I.R.S., C.I.A., F.B.I., V.A., Libya, Iraq, Syria, Russia, J.V. Team, Fast & Furious, Race relations, Reset button, Red line, Keep your doctor, ObamaCare, Sequestration, AAA to [AA+] Bond Rating, $11 trillion debt in 8 years, 1.5% average economic growth, Open borders, few full time jobs and Democratic Party in disarray. Did I leave anything out? Oh yes…AP recently reported that in the last few hours of his anti-America administration, Obama sent $221 million to Palestine that is governed by Hamas, a terrorist organization.
Joanna DelBuono politely writes “Hollywood, get your heads out of your rears.” I’m sure that’s a physical impossibility, although I know what she means. In my Brooklyn we’re not so polite. We say “Hollywood, get your heads out of you a—-.” I know you wanted to write it, Ms. DelBuono.Elio Valenti
Brooklyn, NY
Protests important
To the editor,
How dare Joanna DelBuono call us “whiners and to suck it up.” I will never accept Donald Trump, who is a racist, bigot, and misanthrope as MY President. I, along with those who shouted “No!” as he took the oath of office know that Trump is not worthy of being called president.
We are not “spoiled destructive individuals acting like toddlers in the terrible twos” but people who care about our country and what is happening to it.
No time out for us, we will continue being vocal and protest whenever we see the injustice brought about by the election of Donald J. Trump.Rosalie Caliendo
Gravesend
In need of shelter
To the editor,
I and Robert Lobenstein have finally found something we both agree on, the lousy bus service in Brooklyn! I can’t remember the last time any bus I use came on schedule. Can anybody please tell me why I have to wait three-quarters of an hour in the freezing cold for a B-68 bus, only to have three busses arrive at one time?
I would also like to know why some stops on a bus route have shelters while other equally busy stops do not. There are sometimes shelters on one side of the street but not the other. Do city officials think that passengers going in one direction need shelters but passengers going in the other direction do not? I am especially appalled by the lack of a bus shelter outside of Coney Island Hospital. Three buses, the B1, B4 and B36 stop at the hospital. Granted, on a warm, sunny summer day, waiting passengers can sit on comfortable benches under shady trees, but often the benches are sopping wet from falling rain and, in winter, covered with snow and ice. When the busses finally come, passengers have to climb onto a stone platform to try and board them. The city has spent a fortune renovating the hospital. Hundreds of outpatients and visitors come to the hospital every day. Can’t they spend some money on a bus shelter and safe access to the busses for the patients the hospital is trying to help?
There is a bus shelter across the street for passengers going in the opposite direction, if they can survive crossing Ocean Parkway. I believe that this is the most dangerous crossing in Brooklyn, because the hospital is located near an exit from the Belt Parkway and the traffic from the parkway keeps pouring onto Ocean Parkway, making crossing almost impossible for pedestrians, especially for hospital patients with canes and walkers. I think the city should assign traffic officers to control the traffic on Ocean Parkway and assist patients and visitors in getting safely across the street.
What is the point of having a beautiful, redesigned hospital if patients and visitors can’t get to it safely? Not everybody wants to depend upon Access-A-Ride, which is also notoriously undependable, nor on cabs or car services to get to medical appointments. Aren’t we all entitled to reliable bus service and safe street crossings? Elaine Kirsch
Gravesend
Repeating history
To the editor,
Mr. Raisman was totally correct in calling Mr. Trump a Hitler. His ban on Muslims entering this country shows that he is a Hitler-in-training. What’s next? Will he make Muslims wear armbands with a Muslim symbol? The people on the Mayflower came for freedom of religion, and immigrants built this country. What he is doing is unconstitutional and certainly un-American.
We, as Americans, cannot stand by and let this happen. If the cowards in Congress who hate him had any backbone, they would stop this travesty immediately. Is it too early to start an impeachment process? Mr. Halpern, look around you and see the truth of what’s happening.
God bless America!
Elaine Berger
Trump Village
Take back the trains
To the editor,
There may be a better alternative to deal with concerns raised by recent Letter to the Editor “MTA schedules” (Robert W. Lobenstein, Jan. 26). If only NYC had direct control of both bus and subway service. Buried within a 1953 master agreement between the City of New York and NYC Transit is an escape clause. NYC has the legal right at any time to take back control of its assets.
If Mayor DeBlasio feels he could do a better job managing the MTA — man up and regain control.
Larry Penner
The writer is a transportation historian and advocate.
To the editor,
I love the incessant bantering between myself and other kindred spirits who see the glass as half full, while others sourly declare the glass is half empty and broken.
Coming from Olde Brooklyn Germanic-Christian stock, we grew up in a time and under guidance of those who took pride in their accomplishments, their country and had a fair amount of enjoyment out of life.
Looking at the comments of the “other side” makes me fear, more and more, that the future of this country is an imperiled and neutered society. I can only say to everyone across the spectrum, “LIGHTEN UP.” There is so much good to be had if amateur lawyers and liars stop nit-picking every point to death.
Maybe protesting without the knitted vaginas on their heads, spouting every profanity in the book would send a more potent message and have a better outcome. Maybe idolizing rock stars mindlessly screaming for the burning of the White House and killing of the “pigs” isn’t the way to go. Ghandi and King seemingly had it right when they set out to accomplish their goals, and they did, without violence and hatred.
I am nearing the end of my time on the green side of the grass and I know that in my hearts and the hearts of others, we tried our best, maybe not perfect, but we tried. I only hope and pray that we somehow become a unified country, and not under wartime conditions, where friends of differing views can shake hands and move foreword. Failing this, we would slip into anarchy and the cities and towns of America become like the rubble-strewn countries of the Middle East where extremism destroyed all aspects of societal life. It is a sad point to ponder for all.
Robert W. Lobenstein
Marine Park
To the editor,
It’s nice to have a smart phone to plot your bus time. The main thing it supposed to give you the time your bus will arrive BUT — how many times have I seen at times two to three buses pass by not in service or take the next bus. How would I know that the next bus would be in service? So instead of getting to my destination I must now leave earlier just to make sure the bus that I see is in service.
Of course the worst part is waiting in the winter months with the cold, rain, or snow even with those bus shelters, it won’t keep anyone warm. It’s no wonder that the MTA will mention less people are using the bus. Gee, one does not have to be a rocket scientist to figure that. So with all of this technology the MTA still can’t get there act together and who suffers the riding public.
Jerry Sattler
Brighton Beach
To the editor,
Once again NYC drivers are getting screwed. Let me get this straight, the MTA has kept the base fare at $2.75 for the buses and subways, and tweaked the discounts for weekly, monthly passes and the bonus for adding a certain amount of money to the everyday Metrocards. Then bragging about the lowest and fairest increases ever. That’s fine. Now to the bridges and tunnels. A 50 cents each way increase, or $1 on a one-way toll collection system, over a 6 percent increase. Why didn’t the MTA leave the base tolls the same, they way they did the transit fare? And tweak all of their discounts, EZ pass, resident discounts for Staten Island etc. I haven’t heard a peep from any of our elected officials on this, unlike the outrage they would have displayed if transit fares had been increased. The only thing some officials are clamoring about is tolling the free bridges and congestion pricing, dead horses they keep trying to revive, that Albany, thankfully, keeps shooting down. So I guess this means us drivers will continue to contribute way more than our “fare” share to subsidize modes of transit we do not use.
Richard Hecht
Bay Ridge
Wonderful to see all those demonstrators out there fighting for the rights of immigrants, both legal and illegal. Yet, some of these people are the biggest hypocrites ever. Why? While they’re always out there to protest injustices to minorities, they are the first people to move out of a neighborhood when the demographics begin to change. Even when they do this, they persist in fighting for the so-called “rights” of others. If they’re so dedicated to these people, they should not be moving to suburbia and other so called “safe havens.”
I don’t see former President Obama moving to the loop area in Chicago or Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. That is why I always admired former Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne. When she became mayor of Chicago, she moved into the projects there to get a feeling of what life was like there for the inhabitants. That’s what I call true courage. Of course, Ms. Byrne was rewarded by losing the following primary to the late Harold Washington.
If you want to believe in liberal causes, that’s fine with me. However, be prepared to stay with the downtrodden and not move out over night.
Ed Greenspan
Sheepshead Bay
