Readers sound off on Italian-American culture, centrism and Hurricane Fiona

Solidarity is the way to honor shared heritage

Smithtown, L.I.: To Voicer Carminuccio Cosimo Palladino: The Daily News was kind enough to give my letter about the Italian-American condition the headline “Populism can turn a community against its own.” In doing so, they perfectly captured my point. Unfortunately, you missed it by recasting my comments into a dissertation about Christopher Columbus. I mentioned Columbus Day to illustrate the hypocrisy we display as Italian-Americans by celebrating our heritage one day a year and using the other 364 to do stupid things like impugning Dr. Anthony Fauci’s character for political expediency. Such behavior degrades us as a culture.

While I agree that dumping Columbus Day is appropriate, I must reiterate that it won’t make a dent in the damage Italian-Americans do to themselves the rest of the year. Conducting ourselves with dignity as a culture is the only way to undo the stereotypes that fools like Rudy Giuliani have cast upon us. Here are some suggestions:

1. I implore Mayor Adams to move the Italian-American Day parade to Labor Day. Our brothers and sisters in Italy proudly celebrate International Workers’ Day every year.

2. Don’t spend your money with union-busting shops like Starbucks and Amazon. Frequent the multitude of small businesses New York has to offer, many of which are owned by honest, hard-working Italian-Americans.

3. Don’t donate to the National Italian-American Foundation or any other bogus affinity groups. They did nothing to censure Rand Paul for his attacks on Dr. Fauci, they don’t use enough of their budget to provide scholarships for deserving Italian-American students and they feature Donald Trump-loving panderer Maria Bartiromo on their board of directors. Karen Cirillo

Left unprepared

Brooklyn: Riffing on another letter I wrote for the Daily News, if we really care about children and the future of NYC and the Jewish community in general, we should make sure that children in Hasidic schools receive a decent secular education. When children aren’t seriously taught subjects of literacy (reading and writing, math, and also civics, history, basic science and health), they are deprived and kept ignorant. How can they navigate directions on medicine containers? How can they take and pass driving tests? How can they vote in an informed manner? They are left bereft of societal basics, and that’s unfair to them and to society. Ellen Levitt

Mets mush mouth

Corona: Is it me or is Keith Hernandez more annoying than ever? Especially on Sunday, Sept. 4. Someone should shellac his mouth shut (if you listened to the broadcast that day, you know what I’m talking about). I thought Ron Darling was the pitching expert. Keith thinks he knows everything. Gary Cohen is always correcting him. Keith, just keep to what you know, not what you think you know. Mitzi Belsky

A bone to pick

Kew Gardens: If anyone should have recused themselves from investigating Donald Trump, it is clearly Letitia James. She has been stalking him for years and has publicly denounced him prior to her allegations against him now. Of all the real estate moguls in this city and state, she was obsessed with him. She was also driven by partisan party politics like so many others. My question to her is simple: How many other over-evaluations have you conducted in your tenure? In legal jargon, there is a strong case for selective prosecution and abuse of statutory powers on her part. I will bet that an honest public survey would concur with the aforementioned. Phil Serpico

Crime family

Highland Falls, N.Y.: So it turns out that all the writers and historians of NYC crime had it wrong. There are not five criminal families, there are six! Add the name Trump to Gambino and Columbo, with the Orange Don as the Greedfather. His line to Vice President Mike Pence — “I’m not going to be your friend anymore if you don’t do what I ask” — could have come straight from Mario Puzo. Since Ivanka Trump is the only one of the children who appears to have any brains, it will be a 21st-century first for American crime, a female don (to be). A donette? Crime writers, to your laptops! Joe Cyr

More appropriate

Staten Island: Shouldn’t Mar-a-Lago be named Mag-a-Lago? Douglas Baker

Spectrum perspective

Bronx: Your “Primary colors” editorial (Sept. 16) claims the “center” is more popular with Democrats than the “far-left.” Is that why Hillary Clinton won less than 50% of the vote in 2016, even against Donald Trump? She supported her husband’s signing of NAFTA, welfare reform that reformed recipients into homelessness because the minimum wage was (and still is) not livable, and she urged her husband to bomb Serbia. These are right-wing positions. While some left-wingers advocate nonsense such as defunding the police, many want a livable minimum wage, health insurance that covers everybody, clean energy to curb climate change, cutting our bloated defense budget and an end to our belligerent foreign policy. As for that last one, if it weren’t for sanctions on Venezuela imposed by Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden, we wouldn’t be having all those immigrants coming here from that country. When people talk left, center and right, they usually avoid issues. Richard Warren

Dog ding

Flushing: The Sept. 22 “WuMo” comic strip makes the Chihuahua look bad. That’s not fair to the animal world. Robert Kitay

A little levity

Bronx: The best part of your paper is “Red & Rover.” It shows the warmth and love that we need today. I’m so glad that it’s back! I’m tired of death and murder in the paper. Maryanne Schulhoff

A perfect storm

Brooklyn: Re “The wind and rain this time” (editorial, Sept. 22): Yes, Puerto Rico’s Hurricane Fiona pain could have been curbed had it ditched fossil fuels for wind and solar power. Hurricanes are getting more dangerous because of the emissions-fueled climate crisis. Addressing that crisis can also bring more reliable and resilient energy to the island. New York has a lesson to learn. The gas industry here is conducting an organized disinformation campaign to slow our climate progress and subvert the legally binding Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act in order to build more dirty plants and pipelines that will lock us into an increasingly expensive and destructive cycle. We need New York’s Climate Action Council to provide a strong final scoping plan that will halt gas infrastructure in its tracks. Ella Ryan

Dumped on

Bronx: The Bronx has become the city’s penal colony. It has more group homes and homeless shelters than any other borough and now the only public beach in the Bronx will be home to illegal immigrants. Poor education and poverty are the main causes of crime, and we lead the city in both those areas. I guess Mayor Adams forgot his campaign promise to help revive the Bronx. Al D’Angelo

Missing the message

Staten Island: “These Catholic GOP governors are not pro-life” (op-ed, Sept. 22) brought to mind the Nativity story, which Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis and Doug Ducey will be reminded of when they attend, I assume, Christmas Mass in their respective parishes. I wonder what they will be thinking when the Gospel is read: “And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:7). Michele Corelli

It deserves more

Richmond Hill: To Voicer Paul Gross re your negative statement about memorializing 9/11 with a so-called holiday: I feel you are gross for commenting that people would only want this as another day off for the beach and would say “Happy Sept. 11? on that date. Maybe that is how you would see this very sad and difficult-to-forget event. I pray you are the only person who would ever think this way! Voicer Barbara Haynes is not even from New York yet has more empathy than that poor lost soul Mr. Gross, who is a New Yorker. It’s a sin that they closed the 9/11 Tribute Museum, which I believe was due to losing revenue from visitors due to COVID-19. The federal government should assist in its reopening. Ene Kelly