LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Don’t hate game, hate the player

Posted

To the editor:

(re: “Stop with the propaganda,” Jan. 13)

I have never received a mailer from Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, and therefore cannot comment on it one way or another.

This is what I will comment on, however: Assemblyman Dinowitz has the right to print his push for vaccine mandates in his mailings. And Willy Ramirez is free to accept what Dinowitz is saying. Or ignore it.

Likewise for his constituents.

Not commenting on the actual content of the mailings, Mr. Ramirez obviously has the critical thinking skills to not blindly accept what Mr. Dinowitz is saying. If Mr. Dinowitz’s constituents blindly accept what he is saying, whose fault is that?

Larry Penner is a retired federal transportation official whose letters can be seen in every publication between Portland, Maine, and San Diego — including this one. He wrote a letter to another publication urging people to go maskless on the Long Island Rail Road. I responded that Larry Penner is not an epidemiologist.

If people choose to blindly listen to what Mr. Penner says, whose fault is that?

As far as Dinowitz being re-elected again and again is concerned, don’t blame him — blame the voters. I am making no comment as to if Dinowitz does or doesn’t deserve to be re-elected. Voter turnout, aside from elections in which the very polarizing Mr. Trump ran — no comment on Mr. Trump — stands at a dismal, abysmal 20 to 25 percent.

I waited more than two hours to vote in 2016, and a half-hour to vote in 2020. Every other election, I was in and out in 10 minutes. Federal law prohibits me from running for partisan paid office, but I can run for an unpaid party position. I am an associate district leader in my party of choice.

Last March, while petitioning, four doors were slammed in my face for every petition signature I obtained. If people do not get involved in the process, do not vote, and won’t take 10 seconds to sign a petition, again, who is to blame?

Piggybacking on my previous thought, 14 years ago, I awoke to the morning news. It was December, the first day the temperature dipped below 20 degrees, and the day season tickets for the Yankees went on sale. Some 20 people camped out in dangerously cold weather for 24 hours.

At the time, I lived near the 4 train, which rolls by Yankee Stadium. When my train went by the stadium a couple hours later, the line was at least a hundred.

In Summer 2012, the temperature one day was 104 degrees. There was a game at the stadium that evening. When my train went past the parking lot two hours before game time, the roof was half-full of people having tailgate parties.

A Foot Locker is between my house and the subway. Saturday morning, I would pass the store at 8 and see 15 people on line for the latest basketball sneakers. Likewise for GameStop and the Apple Store.

When Derek Jeter got his 3,000th hit, the fan who caught the ball looked as if he needed to be playing ball himself — or at the gym, instead of in the stands, scarfing down hot dogs and soda.

This is precisely why people from other countries look at Americans with scorn, contempt and ridicule. When Oprah Winfrey was instrumental in opening a school in South Africa and explained her reasoning for not doing it in America — Americans care more about sneakers than school — the sad but unfortunate fact of the matter is that she was correct.

Don’t hate the player, Mr. Ramirez. Hate the game.

Nat Weiner

letter, Nat Weiner, Jeffrey Dinowitz, politics, Larry Penner, Willy Ramirez

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