On May 14, I asked LIRR president Helena E. Williams at the Long Island Rail Road Commuter’s Council 2008 Presidential Forum when she was going to implement the LIRR’s “new” policy of not requiring engineers to sound their horns as their trains pass through the LIRR Forest Hills station. (Before August 2007, LIRR trains passing through the Forest Hills station did not sound their horns unless there was an emergency condition or people working on the tracks. It was only when Helena Williams came on board as the president of the LIRR that a once quiet neighborhood sounded like a train yard.)
She said to me that the railroad was busy collecting data to address the problem and that there was good news. The horns on the trains, which now blast in all directions, were being recalibrated and in two years would only blast in one direction.
When I told her that it was not the direction of the horn blasts that were bothering us, but rather that the engineers were sounding their horns contrary to the stated “new” policy of the railroad I was told to document the trains that were doing this and report it to the railroad so they could remind their engineers of the “new” no-horn blasting policy.
It seems to me that the citizens should not have to do the work of the railroad. Ray Kenny, the director of LIRR operations, should have his people do the monitoring and if the engineers keep sounding their horns unnecessarily as they pass through the Forest Hills station they should be disciplined. Apartment residents who live nearby the Forest Hills station have suffered for eight months from pointless and abusive horn blasting. Enough is enough.
Martin H. Levinson
Forest Hills
Keep Medicare fair
Screenings to detect early signs of prostate cancer, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes are provided for seniors free of charge through Medicare Part B insurance. Influenza shots are also administered free.
Thanks to these early detection and preventive screenings, the quality of life of seniors has improved tremendously. While seniors benefit from services through Medicare, there are out-of-pocket expenses that must be paid.
Doctor visits, hospital visits, doctor-ordered prescriptions, glaucoma screening and bone density measurement testing are examples of such out-of-pocket expenses.
The Medicare physicians and suppliers who service Medicare beneficiaries are being continually underpaid as health care costs continue to skyrocket. Yearly increases in Part B premium payments are expected to compensate for loss of physicians’ fees. Unless Congress addresses the issue of how to pay Medicare physicians fairly by June 30, seniors will again be burdened with unfair premium increases. Older Americans realize the importance and value of the services available through the Medicare Program and they are willing to pay their fair share. Older Americans on fixed incomes are struggling already to pay for necessary medical treatment and care.
If premium payments continue to increase, older Americans will lose access to vital services. It is not fair to continue to force Medicare beneficiaries into paying more money into a system that is not working for them. Seniors should rightly have access to affordable prescription drugs, medical screenings and preventive services. It is unfair to deny them that right. Medicare must be kept fair.
Juanita Washington Rier
Long Island City
National identity rebuttal
I am writing with reference to Ed Konecnik’s letter on national identity. Konecnik equates national identity with our English language and culture. He repudiates foreigners speaking another language who have come here illegally. He does not remember that we speak English because the majority of the first settlers in America were English. Were they German, or from somewhere else, we would be speaking another language. English is not an American language. The original inhabitants of our country, the native Americans, did not speak English.
He does not remember that our “founding fathers” came here illegally. They received no permission from the original inhabitants. They came and stole the land, butchered millions of natives and drove the remaining people from their homes, put them on barren reservations and told them to eke out a living. They received little compensation for their land that was stolen. Did Ed Konecnik’s ancestors get permission from the original inhabitants to settle here?
As to our culture, it is not American. It is a diverse conglomerate of peoples from all continents and that is the beauty of it — the more varied it becomes, the better it becomes.
We should welcome our brothers and sisters who risk their lives in crossing borders to come here. These are the strong, ambitious, hard-working people who will eventually make our country a better place. They must be legalized to become tax-paying citizens instead of working in the underground economy.
As for making English an official language — whatever that is — we should put Spanish on par with English, because it is the language of the largest minority group and will continue to grow. Our children are so deficient in foreign languages that it puts our people to shame. If all children were taught Spanish at an early age, they would grow up bilingual and would have an easier time learning another language, which most Europeans do.
Bernard Weisenfeld
Laurelton
Don’t cut school funds
As a New York City public school teacher, it just blows my mind that the mayor would want to cut nearly $624 million from the city’s public schools.
Who is he kidding? How does he expect teachers to maximize instruction with minimum disruption when he is proposing these draconian cuts to our education system?
Someone better tell him that we need every bit of that money, right down to the last dollar! Where are all the voices of our illustrious politicians?
Our teachers, principals and superintendents work very hard to give our students the best, but without the necessary funding, all of this work will just go right out the window.
DO NOT CUT THIS MONEY FROM OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM!
Parents, we need your support as well — we all need to work together to fight against any further cuts.
John Amato
Fresh Meadows
Dems play it smart in primaries
Don’t dismiss the Democrats – they’re craftier than you think. The longer they drag out this primary process, the longer they avoid a head-to-head with John McCain, who couldn’t catch a headline these days, even if he were arrested. It’s unfortunate that we’ve had to endure a two-year primary process, yet we will have to decide the next president in a general election campaign that will last a mere two months. The Democrats know that if they had to defend their candidate longer than that, they wouldn’t have a prayer.
Michael Chimenti
Bayside
Letters To The Editor
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