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Brooklyn Daily
To the editor,
Disgraced ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced that he wants to be the next city comptroller.
I believe he should not have resigned, but should have toughed it out. I also believe that Anthony Weiner should stay in the race for mayor.
But I don’t think disgraced politicians should seek a lower office to redeem themselves, and make the city their rehabilitation center.
Presidents Warren Harding, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton all had extramarital affairs. Frankly, it is none of the public’s business. We need to focus on the issues, the priorities, and the economy, and how they will affect the domestic and world scenes, so as to maintain justice at home and abroad.
Politicians need to bear that in mind what Richard Nixon once said: “People in politics live in a fishbowl.”
It is important that constituents know that office holders of the public trust do not always exemplify positive human behavior.
The press is also not blameless for scrutinizing the personal affairs of candidates and incumbents.Elliott Abosh
Brighton Beach
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To the editor,
There was a time, not so long ago, when politicians were first elected, then found out to be involved in some type of scandal.
Nowadays, first you are a known scoundrel, then you run for office. I guess this is good because of all the time, money, and investigations saved finding them out later.
Now at least we know exactly what we are electing.Emilio Puccini
Staten Island, N.Y.
Reader-to-reader
To the editor,
In response to Vicki Wulfken’s letter (“Dizzonors,” Sound off to the editor, June 14), I am also appalled by Anthony Weiner’s behavior. I am not voting for him, but he is entitled to forgiveness and a chance to redeem himself.
Wulfken ignored Bill Thompson, John Liu, Sal Albanese, and Bill de Blasio, who are also running for mayor. She mentioned Joe Lhota as a candidate worth supporting.
Lhota worked for ex-Mayor Giuliani, whose moral failings were worse than Weiner’s. However, that did not prevent him from functioning as mayor.
She also praises John Catsamatidis because he is a successful businessman. We have a mayor, who is a very successful businessman, and I do not believe that we should elect another one.
Mayor Bloomberg, despite his well-intentioned ideas, has problems dealing with individuals as equals. This stubbornness is a quality that helps him become a rich businessman, but is a negative in running a city.
He has destroyed the education system in his war on unions and workers’ rights. I can go on, but it is clearly not in the best interest of the average New Yorker to elect a businessman.
In addition, a mayor can only advise on tolls, as it is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that makes the final decision.Alan Podhaizer
Coney Island
Trayvon verdict
To the editor,
The verdict in the Trayvon Martin murder trial is in, and the world seems aghast at the not-guilty result.
When this case started, it was just another minority-on-minority crime, until the media blew it well out of proportion. At first, George Zimmerman was an Hispanic man who killed the “black kid.” Then, the New York Times started calling Zimmerman a “white Hispanic.” Everything changed from there, as now — in the minds of the minority community — it became a white-on-black crime.
Protesters against the ruling have been blind to the facts. The media has done a disservice to every community by increasing tensions between the races. It has shamefully done everything possible in the past 17 months to erase whatever good things were done to bring us together.
Here in the city, as the verdict was read and the story ended, the local TV news outlets reported on no less than five murders — black-on-black, and black-on-Hispanic — to round out the news. I see no one in the streets protesting about that.
Robert W. Lobenstein
Marine Park
Rovin’ Randi
To the editor,
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten took a summer excursion to Israel, visiting with Palestinian teachers in order to reach some common ground with both groups, instead of coming back to New York and trying to reach a contract deal with the city and the United Federation of Teachers — the same union she managed to leave in a mess, as former president.
Two days after she left the Palestine territories, reports circulated of young Palestinian children reciting the most anti-Semitic poetry on television. To Randi and the other leftists out there: There will never be peace when children at such a young age are instilled with such vehement hatred.
Both the Israeli and Palestinian school systems have to be better, but I am sure the Palestinian teachers don’t put up with the nonsense that New York public school teachers have to endure on a daily basis. Their supervisors likely have taught in classrooms, and are not from the business world.
In the summer of 2012, Randi rang doorbells for President Obama’s re-election in Missouri. Though he lost the election, Gov. Romney carried Missouri by 10 percentage points. Now, the following summer, she visits Palestinian teachers. Need I say more?Ed GreenspanSheepshead Bay
Candid Bloomy
To the editor,
Mayor Bloomberg is fortunate that he isn’t running again for mayor because like Mitt Romney, he made a very bad mistake politically, when he spoke the truth about stop-and-frisk, stating, “We disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little.”
Romney’s statement was also correct — that 47 percent of Americans, who don’t pay taxes or are on some type of assistance, will vote for Obama, so why bother to try to get their votes. He never meant that he didn’t care about that 47 percent of Americans.
Mayor Bloomberg’s facts are correct about the stop-and-frisk numbers for various reasons. But of course it is taken out of context and misconstrued to demonize him.
He may not be perfect. But I, for one, am worried about the state of this city when he leaves office.Cronin Miller
Midwood
Fightin’ words
To the editor,
That drunk who harassed the couple while eating in a Greenwich Village restaurant got what he deserved — a punch in the nose for calling that diner the n-word.
No big deal, no racial or hate crime involved here, no civil rights violation, just a good, old-fashioned punch in the nose.
Stop this lunacy about making it a federal case for using any derogatory word to anyone of any race, nationality, religion, or anything else. Don’t pretend the word doesn’t exist.
But people should think twice before using words or names that are offensive and degrading. If you do use them, you do so at your own risk.
Maybe a punch in the nose, and a few minutes in la-la land, while unconscious, is just the remedy to stop using the n-word.Jung He Keun
Queens, N.Y.
Wreckhia
To the editor,
Council Finance Committee Chairman Dominick Recchia allocated $2.7 million of $11 million from his share of councilmembers’ annual, pork-barrel, member-item funding to groups in Staten Island — outside of his Brooklyn council district.
This might make sense to him, but not to taxpayers and intelligent voters. Everyone knows he is attempting to make friends and win votes on Staten Island, when he runs in 2014 for the 11th Congressional District seat currently held by Rep. Mike Grimm.
Recchia’s justification for these expenditures was his desire to assist Staten Island residents impacted by Hurricane Sandy. If Recchia’s motivation was authentic and not politically driven, why didn’t he also allocate funding for residents of Gerritsen Beach and other neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens outside of his district, who were equally devastated by Hurricane Sandy?
Recchia’s nose is longer than Pinocchio’s!Larry Penner
Great Neck, N.Y.
Paula on platter
To the editor,
It’s a big deal that TV chef Paula Deen used the ‘n-word many years ago — not!
She’s an old timer from the south. That cannot be denied. But for newspapers, television, and radio to vilify her is outrageous, especially when I hear that word so often these days on songs on the radio, and from teens walking home from school in their saggy pants.
Remember when Jesse Jackson referred to Jews as “Hymies” and to New York City as “Hymietown,” in Jan. 1984, when talking to a black Washington Post reporter? That incident, those nasty words, were hardly ever mentioned negatively, and Jackson was given a pass.
Al Sharpton and the Tawana Brawley case was a big falsehood from the get-go, but Sharpton marched and stole the media spotlight for all it was worth. He never apologized, when it was discovered the whole incident was a hoax. Yet he has never been discredited or taken down.
Now that white Paula Deen said she used the n-word in the past, she was fired from her job, ostracized, and verbally beaten up. This screams of pure reverse racism for Caucasian Paula Deen. Apparent and very sad!Name withheld upon request
Doggie bubblers
To the editor,
The new water fountains in Prospect Park — being installed by the Prospect Park Alliance and donated by the company Smart Tap — are a great idea.
If only they would add a spigot below for Rover to drink from, they would even be better. I also wonder if the city could retrofit existing water fountains with a lower spigot for dogs to drink from.
Peter G. Orsi
Marine Park