Letters

Hearing Aid Coverage
To The Editor:

Our legislators in Albany are playing hide, but not seeking, a resolution to a hearing aid insurance bill S5692 (Alesi)-A8896 (Morelle). This bill would have health insurance companies provide some small coverage for the purchase of hearing aids up to $1,000 every three years depending on the age of the person. Middle-class family members and seniors often cannot afford to pay the expense necessary for reasonable hearing.

There are an estimated 28 million Americans who have some form of hearing loss and only 20 percent purchase hearing aids. The one major problem preventing these people from correcting their ability to hear is the extreme high price of hearing aids, which can range anywhere from $1,200 to $6,000 plus.

The passing of such a bill would help take a small amount of the dollar burden off our middle-class working families and elderly. Hearing is not a luxury. Let us get this bill out of the insurance committee’s "lose it and forget it closet." They supposedly represent the people who vote them in, not the dollar contributors.

Fred Wiener

Self Help for Hard of Hearing Persons, Inc., Lexington School for the Deaf Chapter

Hiding Housing Crisis?

To The Editor:

On Sunday, Oct. 13, 2002 at 11 a.m. on Channel 7, a very good debate was held among seven candidates, from seven different parties. I found this to be enlightening and truly Democratic.

However, while many important issues were discussed, not one of any of those candidates mentioned the housing crisis which appears to be a well-kept secret by all of the candidates from every political spectrum. While one of the candidates had spoken at a tenant rally about the housing issue up at Garrison, New York, a few weeks ago, where the Governor [George Pataki] resides, he along with all of the other candidates missed a great opportunity to mention our housing crisis and what solution they might have to offer. Speaking about educating our children is important, but many children are living in the shelter system because of a homeless situation. How can children that are moved around to various shelter situations get a decent education?

While I commend ABC for having this debate I am disappointed that none of the candidates addressed this urgent issue. I do hope that there will be more debates such as the one held on October 13 and that at least some of the candidates will talk [on] the housing issue.

Adele Bender

Forest Hills

Get Out Of UN

To The Editor:

Many people are upset over the ruling of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals where the words "Under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance are considered unconstitutional. Many other references to God and Christianity have been taken out of the public sphere.

The United Nations and its supporters plan to indoctrinate our children with a mixture of paganism and secular humanism. A symbolic tool used to advance this new world religion is the Earth Charter" which is a blueprint for a reordering of societies and governments worldwide, under U.N. authority. It is to become the Holy Writ of the U.N.’s new global spirituality. The Charter is to become a universally adopted creed that will psychologically prepare the world’s children to accept the necessity of world government to save the environment.

The Charter is housed and transported in the Ark of Hope, a blasphemous mimicry of the biblical Ark of the Covenant, which held the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses. The Ark of Hope is designed to look like the Ark of the Covenant. Accompanying the Charter in the Ark are the Tenemos Books, containing aboriginal Earth Masks and "visual prayers/affirmations for general healing, peace and gratitude."

Former Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev states, "The Earth Charter is supposed to be a kind of Ten Commandments, a Sermon On The Mount, that provides a guide for human behavior toward the environment in the next century and beyond."

The Ark of Hope will be carried to local communities to spread its propaganda. Anyone who appreciates our heritage, and sees the threat that the U.N. presents to the traditional bedrock of faith upon which America is built, will see that this is another reason to get us out of the United Nations.

Yours truly,

Janet McCarthy

Flushing

4-Letter Overtones

To The Editor:

Litter is a short six-letter word—but it has successfully managed to stage a rebellion in the borough of Queens. It simply refuses to stay put in the designated trashcans. [Re: "Let’s Clean Up Queens, 26 Sept. 02.]

As a 12-year resident of Glendale, I find the span of Myrtle Avenue to be quite unattractive. For example, this morning I came across an old newspaper lying casually on the ground at the 67th Street Q55 bus stop. Accompanying it lay an empty coffee cup, a partially finished bag of sunflower seeds and other various paper garbage. Less than three steps away, stood a trash can. I wasn’t surprised to find that it was empty—what was supposed to be in it lay [at my feet] beside me.

Tomorrow, that same garbage will be lying a few blocks down. And more and more passers-by will drop their gum wrappers and their brown bags, and leave their newspapers and their half-finished food on the streets of our community. They do so because after they drop it, there is someone there to clean it up. Neither private businesses nor residents should have to be burdened with disposing of other people’s garbage.

A lack of trash cans is not a problem; neither is overflowing trash cans. If we have the facilities to place our garbage in, what makes it so difficult to dispose of our trash? Money cannot solve this problem. It is the mentality of Glendale residents, and of residents citywide, that one would need to change in order to clean up our streets. It will only be through public awareness, if even that, that the Glendale community can help suppress such a modern-day revolution among its people.

Sincerely,

Anna Kozanecka Glendale (Junior at Townsend Harris H.S., Flushing)

Capital Improvement?

To The Editor:

I live at 31st and 29th Street in Astoria. We have a new landlord, who is busy "improving" the building. His improvements are classified as "Major Capital Improvements" under the city’s rent stabilization law, and he can charge tenants the cost, according to complicated rules set out by law.

This morning, I came downstairs to discover he has demolished the beautiful decorative plasterwork ceiling in the lobby. It had lovely interlocking vines and flowers that a previous landlord had carefully painted himself. One small corner of the ceiling had leaked a few years ago and needed repair. The new landlord had told me several months before that repairing it would be too expensive, and he planned to gut it eventually. I suggested he cover it with a lowered ceiling so that perhaps in the future it could be repaired. I also wondered if grants were available to cover the cost of historic repairs like this one. In any case, without any notice to tenants at all, he gutted this historic feature. An architect friend explained that decorative plasterwork such as was in my lobby for some 75 years until a few days ago was crafted by skilled artisans. This level of detail, she said, is considered a valuable luxury in today’s market.

It’s too late for my building (I left the building crying this morning), but now that Astoria has become such a desirable neighborhood, I imagine many landlords are eager to get higher rents and will do so no matter what the aesthetic damage to the character and beauty of their buildings. Especially galling is that the tenants are expected to bear the cost of these so-called "improvements."

I am writing this letter to bring attention to the fact that the law governing rent stabilized apartments seems to encourage landlords to destroy historic and extremely beautiful features of their buildings—lobby ceilings but also all the lovely detailing in individual apartments, too. I can’t imagine this is what legislators intended when they passed these laws.

Respectfully,

Name Withheld On Request