Community media is key
To The Editor:
Re “Little Mish kids dig Earth Day!” (news article, May 4):
I want to thank you at The Villager for featuring our kids in the newspaper. I am so grateful. But more than that, I want to thank you for the work you do.
Community media is so, so, so important to the life of a neighborhood. Now more than ever, I treasure the idea of free press and the kind of local reporting you do. In so many ways, The Villager has impacted the community over the years. It’s a really precious and important thing, and the job you do is vital to our lives.
Forgive me for being so impassioned, but more and more, I value this kind of grassroots journalism. The job you do is terribly important and quite endangered and I am behind you all the way.
Thank you for giving a voice to these children, and for all you have done for our little organization over the years.
Eileen Johnson
Johnson is director, Little Missionary’s Day Nursery
Hey, Bill: ‘Bread and Roses’
To The Editor:
Re “Sorry, housing is No. 1: Mayor on garden battle” (news article, May 4):
Thank you for your coverage of my question to Mayor de Blasio, when I asked why he was ignoring the community regarding the Elizabeth St. Garden. As you wrote, the mayor said many people think affordable housing for seniors is the top priority — as if that were an answer to my plea.
At the forum, and therefore in your article, I could not explain that I agree that affordable housing is the top priority, but it cannot be the only priority: Housing is not the sole need human need.
I taught at Sing Sing. Prisons provide a free place to sleep. Humans of every age thrive with community gathering places, growing plants and fresh air — as well as affordable housing. “Bread and Roses,” as the workers’ anthem on YouTube explains.
Keen Berger
Berger is Democratic district leader, 66th Assembly District, Part A
Mayor like G.O.P. on garden
To The Editor:
Re “Sorry, housing is No. 1: Mayor on garden battle” (news article, May 4):
A vote against the Elizabeth St. Garden is a vote against quality of life. Community Board 2 has offered a win-win proposal similar to the one that was approved in Chelsea in Councilmember Corey Johnson’s district, so why not in ours?
Republicans in Washington, D.C., voted against clean air and parks. The mayor is going against the overwhelming wishes of this community.
He does not deserve our support in this election
Susan Wittenberg
Area has a lot of parks
To The Editor:
Re “Must try suing” (editorial, May 4):
You editorial ignores the real issue concerning the Elizabeth St. Garden. There has been a steadily increasing housing crisis in this city since the Koch administration, but apparently it’s more important to have an admittedly adorable little — though “previously not too accessible” — park than make the sacrifices needed to solve this major problem.
Little Italy is not “park starved,” with four parks within a three-block radius — Liz Christy, First Park, Sara D. Roosevelt and DeSalvio — and two more another block away — Petrosino and the NYCHA park — from the Elizabeth St. site. No neighborhood in the city that I know of has a park every three blocks.
People die in this city because of inadequate or unsafe housing, but nobody dies because their neighborhood only has six parks and not seven.
Councilmember Chin and Mayor de Blasio should stand their ground and build housing as soon as possible, or this crisis will continue and, with the new administration in D.C., probably worsen.
Alec Pruchnicki
Hey, nobody’s perfect
To The Editor:
Re “Sorry, housing is No. 1: Mayor on garden battle” (news article, May 4):
I like Mayor de Blasio. No mayor is going to be on the same side as you on every issue. De Blasio is smart, articulate, hardworking and a consistent fighter for the middle and lower classes.
Bob Dal
Chin is a sellout
To The Editor:
Re “Chin is developers’ doormat, must stop down, activists cry” (news article, May 4):
Even her natural allies, the Asian Americans, realize what a disaster and sellout she is.
Frances Cunningham
Atzmon deserved it
To The Editor:
Re “Flirting with the Devil: Gilad Atzmon and the ‘tyranny’ of free speech” (news article, thevillager.com, May 5)
I’m very glad that Bill Weinberg and others picketed the event. It’s critical that supporters of Palestinian human rights have nothing to do with anti-Jewish racists like Atzmon, and the picket makes that clear. If Atzmon hadn’t been born to Jewish parents in Israel, no one would be giving his “philosophy” of contempt against anything Jewish a moment’s notice.
In his book “The Wondering Who?” he writes about a man named Otto Weininger: “Weininger was an anti-Semite as well as a radical misogynist.” In the chapter’s conclusion, he writes, “Otto Weininger was just twenty-three when he committed suicide. One may wonder how he knew so much about women. Why did he hate them so? How did he know so much about Jews, and why did he hate them so?”
If this doesn’t categorize Atzmon as a first-class putz, nothing will. It’s a scandal that the other panelists appeared with him and it’s sad that Otway gave him a forum.
For those interested my review of Atzmon’s “Who?” book, visit https://www.thestruggle.org/review_who.htm .
Stanley Heller
Our eye on Albany
To The Editor:
I was pleased to see “The good and bad: A look at the state budget,” by Brad Hoylman, in the May 4 issue of The Villager.
In this special Progress Report column, Senator Hoylman provides an exceptional view of what’s in and not in the governor’s new budget. Most “ordinary” citizens don’t have an opportunity to examine the ins and outs of documents produced in Albany.
Thank you, Senator Hoylman.
Annette Zaner
Evil mega-dairies
To The Editor:
Last week, The Washington Post published a major exposé of the U.S. dairy industry, concluding that mega-dairies scam consumers into paying extra for “organic” milk that isn’t. The timing, a few days before Mother’s Day, could not be more appropriate. Dairy cows, worldwide symbols of motherhood, never get to see or nurture their babies.
The newborn calves are torn from their mothers at birth and turned into veal cutlets, so the dairy industry can sell their milk. The distraught mothers bellow for days, hoping in vain for their babies’ return. Instead, they are chained on a concrete warehouse floor, milked by machines, then impregnated artificially to renew the pregnancy and keep the milk flowing. When their production drops, around four years of age, they are ground into hamburgers.
This Mother’s Day, let’s all honor motherhood and our natural compassion for animals by rejecting the dairy industry’s cruelty. Let’s replace cow’s milk and its products, laden with cholesterol, saturated fats, hormones and antibiotics. Let’s choose delicious, healthful, cruelty-free plant-based milk, cheese and ice cream products offered at our grocery store.
Nico Young
E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to news@thevillager.com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the Editor, 1 MetroTech North, 10th floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. Anonymous letters will not be published.
