To the editor,
Patricia Levine likes what your columnists — Stanley Gershbein (“It’s Only My Opinion”) and Shavana Abruzzo (“A Britisher’s View”) — say (“Courier writers tell it like it is,” Letters to the Editor, Dec. 16).
Gershbein attacks liberalism, which gave us Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, comprising a safety net. All of us will need one or another of these sometime during our lives. Abruzzo keeps attacking Muslims and their mosques.
Jews, Irish and other groups were victims of hatred and discrimination. Now they discriminate against Muslims. There are thousands of Muslims in the city, and mosques in various boroughs. Are bombs exploding all over the city? I don’t think so. The Muslims are already in the Sheepshead Bay area, they just want a place to pray, like other groups have.
In another column, Abruzzo says to the Brooklyn Museum, “Hey, Museum, show Muslim art,” (Dec. 1. 2011). The Brooklyn Museum has a large hall of historic and beautiful Islamic art. This is an ancient and interesting culture.
She’s also said, “thank God for Christianity.” Christians have been persecuting Jews for centuries. Christians killed six million Jews in the Holocaust. Should we thank God for that?
Jerome Frank
Coney Island
Shucks, Chuck!
To the editor,
Sen. Charles Schumer (D) is the personification of the “nanny state.”
His latest cause is requesting that the Transportation Security Administration hire “passenger advocates” at hundreds of airports around the nation to assist those who may have problems with airport security. A handful of people each day may have problems, while millions of other Americans put up with this inconvenience in the name of our national security.
Schumer, as usual, never mentioned how many millions of dollars will have to be found to pay for training and reassigning hundreds of employees. The next step will be to hire hundreds more who can speak foreign languages.
Voters need a “taxpayer advocate” assigned to Schumer around the clock, considering the frequency of his standard Sunday news conferences, and introduction of congressional bills which continue to pick our pockets for even more money to fund his many useless proposals.
A $15 trillion long-term debt at $48,000 per citizen — or $134,000 per taxpayer — proves that we have suffered enough!
Larry Penner
Great Neck, N.Y.
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Corrupt clubhouses
To the editor,
Unfortunately, the political corruption exemplified by ex-state Sen. Carl Kruger and many others in New York is far from ending.
What obviously is needed is for the FBI to investigate the political clubhouses and bosses that allow people like Kruger to remain in office, gain power, and continually recycle “good old boys” as candidates, so that ethically questionable-types remain in office.
The Occupy Wall Street movement should consider picketing these clubhouses, as well as the real estate developers who provide their major funding for their candidates, and who may be as corrupt as some Wall Street bankers.
Ed Jaworski
The writer is president of the Madison-
Marine-Homecrest Civic Association.
Bam’s sham
To the editor,
President Obama has been accused of many things since he took office. Some are hard to believe, some are just ridiculous, but if I didn’t see it with my own eyes I would never have believed it! I’m talking about the kid whose fingers he bit. I would expect that behavior from Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi, but not our president!
That little kid was tough — he didn’t even cry like the House Speaker John Boehner!
Bob Bach
Bay Ridge
Bill’s slumlords
To the editor,
Nice to see that Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio posted the 10 worst kept buildings and the 10 worst landlords.
What is going to be done with these renegade owners? The problem is that next June they will automatically get their rent increases under rent stabilization.
I have suggested over and over that any landlord who has a violation in his or her building be denied any such increase until the violation is fixed. At that point, the increase in rent should NOT be retroactive.
We have allowed landlords to get away with murder in this city. Some of the buildings shown, and others, look like places you would find in a third world country. Why aren’t inspections made of these death traps?
Landlords must be made to open their books when it comes to increasing the rents. We cannot continue to allow these automatic increases. Obviously, conditions do not improve with higher rents.
Ed Greenspan
Sheepshead Bay
Brit’s Muslim ‘truth’
To the editor,
Haydar Elawad (“‘Forgive’ Shav, ‘Allah,” Letters to the Editor, Dec. 29), exactly what apalled you about what Shavana Abruzzo wrote (“New Yorkstan? Don’t rule it out,” A Britisher’s View, June 22, 2010)? She writes the truth.
There are many of you all around us. There is no denying your presence. You are the elephant in the room because some misguided people feel that we are supposed to tiptoe around Muslims — no matter what we feel — and never say anything untoward about them.
Most Americans my age feel the pain and uncertainty which Muslims have imposed on us and our country. The constant threats from Muslims all over the world are the problem.
We will not rejoice over mosques that are trying to be — or being — built in small neighborhoods where there is no parking. The sounds that come from a mosque are foreign and disturbing. Why should we be wakened or disturbed at all hours of the day or night? Don’t Muslims wear watches? Nor would we rejoice over a church or synagogue being built under these circumstances. As for building at or near the World Trade Center, if you don’t understand that sentiment, then you are part of the problem.
You seem like a decent, if misguided, person, and I’ll tell you the same thing I told a Muslim gentleman I was speaking with recently. I am 66 years old and because of Muslims, on Sept. 11, 2001, my entire world was turned upside down. Then, I learned that Muslim terrorists had been doing this to us for years (just Google Muslim terrorist activities against the United States to see what I mean).
Those born after that horrible day may be able to move past these types of feelings, but those of us who were here — and shocked into a horrible reality on that awful Tuesday — will never forget. I, myself, was at the World Trade Center on that day. I went into shock at seeing the second plane explode into the South building, and was rescued by a police officer. If she had not seen my frozen form on that bus, I would be dead now!
We can live with you among us. We can be friendly with you, but we can never forget what Muslims did to us on that day. Never.
And all the complaining from Muslims about everythig under the sun just ticks us off even more. You’re living in my country — the greatest one in the world!
Why do Muslims keep trying to shut us up? We can’t speak our minds? Well, you are not going to shut us up. We will continue to speak our minds.
You may come from a brutal society, but we didn’t and your brutal society is trying to inch up on us daily. We will never accept it.
Hopefully, we can prevent being overtaken, which seems to be the goal of Muslims. For me, the good news is it won’t happen in my time. What happens to this country going forward depends on the young.
And, instead of asking your god to forgive Shavana (you have some nerve!), how about asking him to forgive the Muslims who did this to us and turn their paths to good, huh? How about asking the trouble-making Muslims to knock it off, and just to live and let live?
And you, Haydar Elawad, how about just going to your home, closing the door, stop complaining and thank God that you live in the United States of America!
Diane Hunt
Bay Ridge
Full of Mitt
To the editor,
Mitt Romney is making a big deal about President Obama not leaving any troops in Iraq. He’s angry that as soon as Obama withdrew the troops, the bombings increased.
Perhaps he should check the bills that President Bush signed just before he left office in 2009. Bush signed a bill that mandated the U.S. be completely out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Obama was just following the bill.
That’s what Romney gets for missing Congressional sessions!
Ronald Cohen
Sheepshead Bay
