Trust a middle-aged yippie?
To The Editor:
Based on one of the mottos of the yippies — that you can’t trust anyone over 30 — I had some difficulty believing the promise expressed by aging yippie pie man Aaron Kay in his Letter to The Editor (“No plan to ‘riot,’ “ March 5 -11) that the 2004 Republican convention in N.Y.C. this August will not be a replica of the infamous 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.
Arnold Korotkin
Montclair, N.J.
What’s good for Gansevoort
To The Editor:
I love seeing water fowl as I walk along the Hudson River. I am particularly fond of a large white goose that I have been seeing for several years on the north shore of the Gansevoort sanitation pier. First I observed a bowl of water near her usual spot on shore, then vegetables and grain appeared, and, by wintertime, a little cage shelter. The shelter has become more elaborate — it is now a three-sided wooden house, open on the sunny south side, with straw bedding.
One Sunday afternoon last spring I passed by at feeding time, so I introduced myself to the sanitation worker who was feeding her, whom I recognized from service on my block. He explained that when “Goosey” appeared, one of the men took her to a vet and learned that she had an injured wing. They believe she is a New England goose. She does not eat garbage — the trucks collect vegetables from local produce stores for her.
She has been sitting pretty, looking satisfied all this time. Flocks of geese and ducks come and go, looking enviously at her domain, but do not threaten it.
In late January, when the river was frozen to within yards of New Jersey, I did not see Goosey and felt worried about her fate. She has not reappeared since, and I do not have the heart to ask about her.
Mallarme wrote a haunting sonnet” Le Cygne”— of a swan trapped in the ice because it did not flee. If this was Goosey’s fate, I’m glad that she was given these good years by the Gansevoort crew.
Barbara Chacour
Don’t blame Bush
To The Editor:
John Kerry is misleading America. It is egregiously dishonest for Kerry to politicize the employment issue and blame President Bush for job loss that began under the Clinton administration and was exacerbated by 9/11 — an issue that John Kerry refuses to acknowledge or discuss.
The recession that John Kerry blames President Bush for began in the third quarter of 2000, on Bill Clinton’s watch. According to the Joint Economic Committee, severe job loss began in July of 2000, also on Bill Clinton’s watch. Bill Clinton did nothing to remedy the situation, and it is blatantly dishonest for John Kerry to blame president Bush — and for the media to happily repeat this fallacious charge.
John Kerry is lying, and the media must stop perpetuating this lie. An honest, objective media would question Kerry’s assertions instead of repeating them, unchallenged.
Jonathan M. Stein
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