A real case for fake X-mas trees
Rockaway Park: To Voicer Peter Richards, who felt that not having a real tree at Rockefeller Center will deprive a poor family of a roof over their heads because the real tree is chopped up after the holiday and given to Habitat for Humanity: I’m just picturing Habitat for Humanity saying to a poor family: “We can build you a house, but without a roof thanks to those evil Voicers Mary Anne Cohen, Camelia Casepa Zipprich, Ruth Graves and Jim Hughes, who are opposed to a real tree at Rockefeller Center and now we don’t have the lumber to build you a roof.”
Habitat for Humanity is a well-known, well-funded charity — I’ve contributed to it — and they mostly use farm-raised trees for lumber. It seem like such a pity to cut down an old, stately tree that has provided shade for people and animals and has cleaned the air with its needles and stabilized the ground with its roots, not to mention the pleasure it has provided to the owners, family, and friends who get to admire its splendor year after year, when a fake tree, covered with ornaments, would be just as pretty in Rockefeller Center and could be broken down and used year after year.
More and more people are using fake trees in their homes as well for many reasons, including to stop using up the Earth’s resources faster than we can replace them. Its just one way to be more aware of our environment and the need to preserve it as much as we can. Ruth Graves
SOS from NYCHA
Brooklyn: We need someone to take over the New York City Housing Authority. We residents are not getting any help. How many promises how been broken? How many tenants don’t get what they need, or is it that the city just wants to sell the property? Do we not have any rights? Francine Hershkovitz
Rotten to the core
Hartsdale, N.Y.: To Voicer and Citizens Union Executive Director Betsy Gotbaum: You of all people should know that anyone who seeks from officials transparency and requests honesty in reporting procedures or regarding massive government waste will be creatively replaced/fired/re-organized by a system that must find a scapegoat to blame. There are many cases won in court regarding model civil servants who sought transparency and accountability in their taxpayer-funded positions and refused to compromise their integrity and ethics. They paid a heavy price for refusing to look the other way. Robert Stein
Tragic error
Yorktown Heights, N.Y.: I am a staunch believer in gun rights, but after reading about Adam Lanza’s profound mental disabilities, it is obvious that his mother’s decision to provide shooting lessons and access to guns was unwise to say the least (“Diary of a madman,” Dec. 10). Gabe Pompe
Villains and villains
Bronx: The Daily News, it would seem, is just giddy that its hopes and dreams may become reality (“Sentence, punctuated,” editorial, Dec. 8). But “The force of the law in the hands of skilled good guys” is preposterous. All these damned anti-Trump lawyers and their lackeys in the media and FBI are out for the blood of the President. There are no longer any good guys here. Bob Pascarella
Trigger warning
San Francisco: If people question or investigate Trump, he calls it “Presidential Harassment.” I say that presidential harassment is when a person, who is supposed to be President, tweets out a steady diet of lies, personal insults, and unfounded conspiracy theories against anyone who dares to say that the emperor has no clothes. Jimmy Layton
Dumb College
Cedar Grove, N.J.: To Voicer Betty E. Weisblum: I agree with you that we “do not live in a democracy.” Our government is now a plutocracy, which is an oligarchy dominated by the wealthy. This was also true in the early years of our nation, when only landowners had the right to vote. This is epitomized by the election of 1824, when the Electoral College conferred the presidency onto John Quincy Adams, even though Andrew Jackson won the largest share of the popular vote. From the time of Jackson up until the emergence of the robber barons, in the decades following the Civil War, we may have had a true democracy. You can argue the timeline, but there is no doubt that any semblance of democracy was obliterated by Reagan and his trickle-down economics. Trump is a symptom of this plutocracy, and Reagan made the ascendancy of a Trump possible. The first step toward correcting this mistake is to eliminate the Electoral College. Keith Biesiada
Dog gone
Valley Stream, L.I.: To comic strip writer Stephan Pastis: So sorry for the loss of your buddy and protector, Edee. Please accept condolences from us. Peace. Richard and Penny Goldstein
Wild in the streets
Brooklyn: I hope our City Council members, especially Rafael Espinal, who represents the district where I live, take walk on Fulton St., from Cleveland to Crescent Sts., any day or time. There they are going to see those kamikazes riding, or parking, on the sidewalk, without paying attention to traffic regulations. If they allow to operate in the city they must do under the same regulations and laws applicable to motorcycles. Right now, the traffic in New York is in chaotic situation, so it’s not necessary to add more trauma. Francisco J. Castillo
A tip
Brooklyn: I support Councilman Ritchie Torres’ effort to ban cashless retailing, and I also write to bring to your attention the irony that some of these establishments have tip jars. (I imagine that those are not cashless.) Ira Cure
#MeThree
Coram, L.I.: To Voicer Carlos R. Edwards: How sad it is that you have proven what #MeToo has tried to bring out. Matters of sexual misconduct are considered incidental depending on who commits them. Helen E. Purdes
Sounds of screaming
Bronx: I would like to bring to the attention of John Bolton that laughter is the same in any language. Just so are screams and the response to pain and agony. It does not require a translator to figure out the sound of being killed. Mary Mason
Broadcast joy
Howard Beach: Christmas Day is near. Not a holy song do I hear, but wait the other day. On a commercial for the ASPCA, “Silent Night” I hear; from my eye I feel a tear. So merry Christmas and good will toward men. I hope that commercial comes on again. Louise Price
Stasi reigns supreme
Staten Island: To all the Voicers who write in and kvetch about amazing journalist Linda Stasi: Get your heads outta your rear ends and get a good therapist pronto! The woman hits the nail on the head every time! I’m sooo proud to call myself a true kindred spirit and rejoice in her on-target and funny-as-hell observations! The woman rocks in the best possible way! Janet Baker
