To the editor,
I have enjoyed many excellent meals for decades when frequenting local diners, and over the years, we have seen the demise of many.
Diners have been part of my life from my teenage years to today. Eating out is a periodic ritual with either friends or family. Portions are generous. Who hasn’t taken a doggie bag home with leftovers to eat the next day? Between the customary soup, salad, rolls, coleslaw and pickles along with the main course, dinner could satisfy the heartiest appetite. Many times, we bagged our desserts to go.
Neighborhoods all over Brooklyn have seen changes over time. Many new immigrant groups sometimes favor their own ethnic foods and restaurants. Diners have also lost customers over time to numerous fast food restaurants. Many of their menus have expanded to also include breakfast items and a greater variety of items to select from for lunch or dinner.
Remember these people are our neighbors. Our local entrepreneurs who own and operate diners have continued to invest in our community creating new employment opportunities without the assistance of federally-funded taxpayers’ stimulus dollars. They work long hours, pay taxes and provide local employment. If we don’t patronize our local restaurants, they don’t eat either.
Why not honor the fond memories we had at diners which have come and gone by continuing to patronize our handful of remaining diners? Here’s hoping that the remaining diners don’t go the way of the dinosaurs into permanent extinction.
Larry Penner
Great Neck
Recalling Robin
To the editor,
When I heard the other week that Robin Williams took his own life, it was a shock. For all his talent, I guess his demons were so much stronger that he finally gave in to them. As we know, he was not the first comedian-actor to take his own life. My first memory is of seeing him on TV as Mork from Ork from “Mork and Mindy.” That was at the beginning of his career. I remember seeing him in “Good Morning Vietnam,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” his and HBO special. I once did a movie scene with him, and after we wrapped for the day he came out and started giving back massages to a number of actors. And he took pictures before he needed to go.
Just before he got into his limo, I asked his him when his next HBO special would come out. “In a year or two,” he answered. He surely will be missed by all who knew him or saw his movies or comedy acts.
Jerry Sattler
Brighton Beach
Money bags
To the editor,
The City Council’s proposal to impose a 10-cent charge on plastic bags used in food stores reveals how out-of-touch these elitist Democrats are with the economic pressures facing most New Yorkers in a sputtering economy.
Food is the one indispensable necessity for all human beings, but consumers face reduced portions at higher prices. For example, the 16 ounce can of vegetables that was $1.39 last year is now 14 and one/half ounces and a $1.79 this year. Supermarkets pass all of their increases in energy, transportation, taxes, amercements, etc., onto the consumer.
Therefore to further brutalize the beleaguered consumer with a 10-cent tax per bag is perversely wrong.
Supermarkets already pass along the cost of plastic bags to customers. Only a Pollyanna would think they would reduce prices commensurately if allowed to charge directly.
The City Council is displaying — take your choice: naivete, stupidity, venality — in failing to delimit parameters.
Stop & Shop has flimsy bags that must be triple-bagged if you don’t want heavy bottles or packages to rip the bags asunder. Silver Star has plastic bags double the strength of those at Stop & Shop. Does Letitia James and company even consider requiring Stop & Shop to upgrade their plastic bags to equal that of a pricey Silver Star bags if they charge 10 cents each?
How hypocritical it is for democratic City Council members who pretend to be so progressively and inclusively in the corner of the working class, poor people, and retirees on ever diminishing meager fixed incomes to soak the most vulnerable New Yorkers, while they sybaritically feast on their generous per-diem City Council food benefits or have their opulent restaurant tabs picked up by lobbyists, flunky not-for-profit appointees, or any party currying their favor such as real estate magnates, computer-information technology consultants, or finance service plutocrats.
It is quite true that discarded plastic poses a tremendous threat to our environment. So here is a truly progressive proposal that the mercenary brigands at the City Council would never think of. Make the 10 cents per bag a deposit.
In addition, why not have a recycling center where needy citizens could cash in plastic bags? Since these bags are so light and easy to transport I can envision an army of collectors picking them up at parks, beaches, along highways, and all public places. Every penny earned would help a poor person. Every plastic bag recycled that didn’t wind up in the bay, ocean, sewer, or soil would greatly benefit the ecosystem.Joseph McCoppin
Sheepshead Bay
Lincoln loggerheads
To the editor,
I have to take issue with several of Dennis Middlebrooks’ statements about President Abraham Lincoln and Judge Andrew Napolitano. The Civil War started when the southern states seceded from the Union. The reason Lincoln mobilized the Union forces was to preserve the Union. Not until after the Emancipation Proclamation did the nature of the war change from a war to preserve the Union to a crusade to end slavery — and preserve the Union.
Lincoln has been quoted as saying that if he could preserve the Union by freeing all the slaves, he would do it, and if he could preserve the Union by NOT freeing any slaves, he would do that. Judge Napolitano stated, rightly, I believe, that there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent a state from withdrawing from the Union.
The plain fact is, that Lincoln kept the southern states in the Union by force of arms, which he had no legal authority to do. So, as Napolitano stated, there IS a comparison to Stalin, Mao, and Hitler. Since he had no authority to wage a war against the south, I agree with him that Lincoln is responsible for 750,000 deaths.
Rather than slandering anyone Napolitano is simply and correctly stating that Lincoln launched an unjust war. Simply because Napolitano fails to mention the horrors of slavery doesn’t mean he approves it. The whole discussion was about states’ rights versus federal powers — not slavery. Napolitano also said Lincoln was not the pristine character we were all taught he was, back in grade school. Lincoln was a consummate politician, and he did trample the Constitution more than once in his presidency. He jailed a number of newspaper editors who attacked him in the press, without charges, and he also suspended Habeas Corpus. These are all documented facts. So, the question is not, does Napolitano support slavery which is insinuated, or was Lincoln the saint we were all brought up to believe. The questions should be, did Lincoln usurp Constitutional powers he did not have, did he wage an illegal war, did he act unlawfully, and most importantly, did the south have the right to secede from the Union? I believe the answers to all these questions is “yes.” It is painfully clear to anybody who has been paying attention, that over the years there has been a steady usurpation by the executive branch, of power not granted or authorized by the Constitution. Lincoln was probably not the first president to do this, and I know he wasn’t the last. This is an ongoing problem that will not stop unless and until Congress and the Supreme Court make it stop.
David F. Podesta
Marine Park
Ed won’t COPE
To the editor,
For years the United Federation of Teachers has asked for voluntary contributions from its membership to support its Committee on Political Education, which tries to influence elected politicians to favor the union. In many instances this has been good, but when this money along with dues is used to co-sponsor an anti-police rally, this is crossing the line.
I am a retired teacher who soured on COPE after the 1980 senate election, when the union endorsed the incumbent Sen. Jacob Javits who had lost the Republican primary to Al D’Amato but was running on the Liberal line. As a result, lots of COPE money went to Mr. Javits who had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease and had no business running.
Two days before the election, the UFT rescinded its endorsement of Javits and instead threw its support behind Democratic candidate Elizabeth Holtzman. One had to question what had happened to the COPE money given to the Javits campaign. With Javits and Holtzman splitting the liberal vote, D’Amato won. Right after this fiasco, I withdrew my COPE contributions and am happy to say that I never donated a cent for it again.
In recent years, elected officials readily accept COPE and then turn around and spit in the faces of our membership. The creation of tier 6 for city employees is a perfect example.Ed Greenspan
Sheepshead Bay
Never forget
To the editor,
The 14th anniversary of 9-11 will be here in less than two weeks, and when I look at my daughter I am reminded about how the years have flown by.
She was a year old when my husband and I were visiting family in Brooklyn from Florida on that sunny Tuesday, which anybody who was here at that time cannot forget even if they tried to. The soul-numbing images of people leaping to their deaths from the blazing Twin Towers are burned into our collective consciousness forever.
Today my daughter is a beautiful young woman of 15, and I thank God every day for her. She is a reminder about how lucky we are to be alive because we had been planning to go into the city that morning, but decided to postpone it because she was teething and fretful.
I am saddened each time I think about how many people lost their mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, friends, and other loved ones that day. Americans discovered how much hate exists out there, but we also found out the healing power of love, as people from everywhere rushed to help and support New Yorkers, who came together like a family.
But it was also just the beginning of a reign of terror that is engulfing the world, and we cannot let up on our vigilance against terrorism, some of it homegrown. I truly hope that all the 9-11 families have somehow found the strength to cope with their unimaginable losses during these past 14 years, and I pray that we will never again see a day like that one. Stay strong and never forget.
God Bless America.
The Weinbergers
Tampa, Florida
