It isn’t easy reading what our police chief and mayor have to say in our local papers about crime and the lack thereof and that according to their “stats” nothing’s wrong, while all of us taxpayers are either lying or making up the crime we are experiencing on our streets and neighborhoods.
The fact that everyday I open up our local newspapers and the headlines are “Three People Shot in Less Than a Week,” “The Gangs Are All Here,” “25 Years for Ordering Hit” and “Banger on the Loose,” with several editorials being written asking our elected officials to do something. Our mayor’s response is “nothing’s wrong; we stay course,” “it’s just your perception and it’s wrong,” even though crime is up 12.7 percent.
Meanwhile, our elected Common Council decides on matters such as kitty-cat committees, garage sale signs and no smoking in parks.
What’s wrong with this picture? People are getting shot, people are selling drugs right outside my door at 5 in the morning when I go out my front door to get my paper, at 2 a.m. as I leave for work, prostitutes surround my car at the stop sign at Broadway and Downs Street as the police cars drive by? As hits are being made on people from prison?
Mr. Mayor, police chief Keller, this is my life in Kingston, not a perception. Ask my family, ask my kids, ask my neighbors, why would we all lie?
Please tell me how high the percentage of crime has to grow before it is a concern to the both of you. Fifteen percent? Twenty percent? Twenty-five percent? Remember, our police chief didn’t perceive that his right hand man would have 13 felony counts against him, so that shows his sense of perception.
So my question to our newspapers is could one of you do a public approval rating of our mayor, police chief, superintendent and our Common Council? I would like to know what the taxpayers’ perception of them is right now and does most of the public agree with their perceptions or do they feel their way off course?
Matthew Ryan
Kingston
Some solutions
Having never been a fan of peas — too starchy for my taste — or heard the expression, “Eat your peas,” before, I thus had no idea what President Obama meant by issuing an order like that to lawmakers in Washington, last week. However, what I do know regarding the sorry state of the American economy is that the use of technology and all the outsourcing in recent years constitute major differences between the current recession and those of the past, not to mention a primary reason the recovery — what recovery? — has been so pathetic.
How, then, can our country pull itself out of the ditch, back from the brink?
Okay, according to recent reports, U.S. aid to Pakistan may be reduced by $800 million. But how many millions-billions will continue going there? Where else could cuts in foreign aid be made? Why should hordes of people, here, be walking around without food, shelter or shoes?
Rather than worrying about Election 2012 already, Washington needs to call a halt to politics, for a change, and do what is best for the U.S. as a whole. That means, as former mayor Koch has been unequivocally opining on Bloomberg Radio, “Our troops need to be brought home from Iraq and Afghanistan immediately!”
Besides the billions-trillions presently pouring out the bottom of the federal bucket to pay for the senseless conflicts, more American families continue being blown apart by the relentless loss of loved ones or by the men and women who — supposedly in the prime of life — come home visibly, seriously wounded or deeply, emotionally scarred. Then there are the fortunes in medical costs to care — often inadequately, to boot — for such veterans for the rest of their lives.
How about the scores in the military, or back home, who commit suicide, stressed to the max, having concluded life is no longer worth living? Simply stated, unless American military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is halted in the very near future, no total tax revenue on earth will suffice to deal with the national deficit, likewise, with the dire fiscal problems plaguing our 50 states.
To help curb ballooning health care costs, first and foremost, each of us — young or old — needs to do his/her part. That’s right! Getting off the couch, going to bed at a reasonable hour, kicking alcohol, nicotine, refined sugar, and addictive drugs out of our lives for good would work wonders for each of us. But doing so would also help save the public coffers from bankruptcy, now and for decades to come.
Secondly, to improve the quality of health care nationwide, President Obama should urge those states — New York is one of them — deliberating licensing the practice of naturopathic medicine to expedite approval. Of course, the American Medical Association [AMA] and other such wealthy groups would like to see the status quo maintained. But, as common sense dictates, carefully considering each patient from head to toe, in combination with environmental, lifestyle, and nutritional factors, is truly the only way for primary care physicians to go.
Well-trained naturopathic physicians are furthermore far better suited for addressing chronic conditions, e.g., obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome, and teaching patients how to live in a healthful manner than are traditional [allopathic] MD’s or DO’s, typically adept at treating patients with acute illness, e.g., stroke, heart attack, orthopedic fractures — a teamwork approach, combining the best of both worlds, being the ultimate goal.
On the employment side of the equation, Congress ought to offer incentives, encouraging corporate outsourcing to cease, and jobs currently abroad to return home as much — and as fast — as possible. Finally, those infrastructure projects, discussed “ad infinitum” by Washington politicians, simply have to be brought to fruition.
Susan Kross
Dairyland
Sticking up for buses
How way out of touch Mr. Rose is with reality (Letter to the editor, July 14 Kingston Times). People do not ride UCAT because it is practically invisible.
What is actually needed is more buses and a tighter half-hour schedule for all routes to encourage people to stop being arrogant pigs and get out of their one to a person poor replacement for the horse, and travel by mass transportation to work, to shop and to play. Buses are green.
Helen Zerlin
Kingston
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