Readers hold forth on starvation in NYC, cellular vaccine autos and cops’ photographs

Manhattan: If you open the fridge in your kitchen and see nothing left, do you get out your telephone and order takeout? That isn’t an possibility for almost 1.5 million New Yorkers.

Meals on the desk shouldn’t be assured and COVID-19 made meals more and more insecure. With donations reducing and want growing once more because of inflation and unemployment, we ought to be asking ourselves how we are able to guarantee meals safety on this metropolis. Meals insecurity is described by the USDA as “restricted or unsure potential to acquire acceptable meals in socially acceptable methods or restricted or unsure availability of nutritionally satisfactory and protected meals.” Visits to meals pantries and soup kitchens are up 14% since January 2022, when inflation began driving up meals costs, and up 69% in 2022 in comparison with pre-pandemic ranges, in response to nonprofit Metropolis Harvest. The federal government shouldn’t be responding successfully to the scenario, leaving thousands and thousands in despair.

People who find themselves already struggling financially are additionally essentially the most susceptible in instances of inflation. Bread and eggs, two elementary meals, have seen worth will increase of 16.2% and 39.8%, respectively, over the previous 12 months. Households are pressured to change to lower-cost alternate options which might be much less nutritious. Not accessing wholesome meals will be devastating, particularly for youngsters, who require extra nutrient-rich meals.

Federal vitamin help applications just like the Supplemental Vitamin Help Program (SNAP) are unable to ensure low-income households’ advantages because of meals inflation. Increasing SNAP profit quantities and outreach ought to be a precedence. A rise in charitable applications like meals pantries and soup kitchens ought to be prioritized and consciousness must be elevated to usher in extra donations. Katherine Wang

Bronx: Effectively, nicely, nicely! It seems there have been no waves this 12 months, neither pink nor blue. Donald Trump’s cronies couldn’t make it and the Dems saved the established order. In fact, Trump decries accountability for his cronies’ failures. Then once more, he decries accountability for something that doesn’t go his means. It’s all the time the opposite man’s fault. Hopefully, these Republicans who both gained or saved their positions will open their eyes and see Trump for the psycho he’s. Maybe Mitch McConnell will develop a pair and return at him when Trump insults his spouse or degrades him. Solely a scared, insecure coward takes what McConnell has taken from Trump and backs down. At this time Trump loves you, tomorrow he says you’re crap. The one loyalty Trump is aware of is to himself. Anna Maria McCorry

Edinburgh: Simply to recap: Elon Musk is a genius! British Conservatives are the social gathering of secure authorities and monetary accountability! Trumpism is undefeatable! Vladimir Putin is omnipotent! You want expertise to get to the highest! Individuals care concerning the local weather! It pays to be sincere! (Shall I proceed?) Amanda Baker

Manhattan: As kids, we needed to set up ourselves by doing the alternative of what our dad and mom appropriately instructed us: Take an umbrella for the rain? Nope, get soaked and cry that our sneakers had been ruined. Petulant voters attempting to point out Republicans that they nonetheless don’t like Trump voted for the social gathering that gave them generational crime, inflation and revolving-door justice, although they knew Democrats had been accountable. Tragically, as these voters endure economically and extra fall sufferer to crime on the streets and within the subways, the disingenuous cries you hear will probably be their puzzlement as to why the unhealthy instances solely develop worse. John Brindisi

Ridgewood, N.J.: Traditionally the midterm elections have all the time favored the social gathering out of energy. This 12 months the outcomes general ship a message of neutrality. The check of our route now shifts to 2024, when voters will as soon as once more resolve which social gathering’s insurance policies attraction to a nation that’s changing into more and more various. Ed Houlihan

Delray Seashore, Fla.: The inhabitants of Nevada is simply 3.14 million folks. I can’t imagine that 4 days after the election, they had been nonetheless counting the votes. The casinos in Las Vegas rely extra {dollars} than that day by day. Barry Rudd

Bayside: To Voicer Chandra Bocci: Earlier than you go praising Mayor Adams for going inexperienced, ask him why the town was working massive vaccination buses for greater than 16 hours per day, seven days per week, for months (most instances with a police escort, additionally idling) in all 5 boroughs. A few of these buses are nonetheless working as I sort. Whereas I perceive the significance of retaining the vaccines on the correct temperature, certainly there’s a safer means than polluting the air close to the homes and colleges they’re parked by. The bus parked by me that ran for months was precisely one block away from P.S. 159′s schoolyard. Karen Sabatini

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Stone Ridge, N.Y.: I’m writing to ask you to cowl the well-coordinated marketing campaign by the gasoline business and its allies to weaken, if not derail, key parts of New York’s landmark local weather legislation, the Local weather Management and Neighborhood Safety Act. The majority of the disinformation issues constructing electrification and phasing out fossil-fuel combustion in buildings as a result of this poses the most important risk to the fossil gas business’s income. It spends billions of {dollars} on lobbying and public disinformation campaigns. Accountable media retailers like yours can not allow them to get away with this. Please totally cowl this vital story — not doing so can be a disservice to your viewers. Daisy Foote

Brooklyn: Can anybody clarify why, on the crosstown shuttle, the place trains come into the station at 5 miles per hour, there are steel obstacles that open and shut to permit patrons to enter and depart by way of the practice doorways? Why hasn’t this resolution been utilized to each practice station to forestall folks from being pushed onto the tracks? Too easy an answer? MTA, give it some thought. Vincent Sandella

Bangor, Pa.: Re Voicer Mildred Manham’s letter evaluating violinists getting fired for lacking 1% of notes to cops lacking 80% of their photographs: I’m wondering what number of notes violinists would miss if somebody was capturing at them or charging them with a knife or bat? It’s simple to evaluate cops from the security of your front room relatively than be put in conditions the place you must depend on intuition since you solely have seconds to react. George DeSanto

Bronx: Hey, Voicer Gladys Garcia de Birkenhead: Ever heard of empathy and compassion? Julie Reitano

Louisville, Ky.: For 50 years, the general public has been suffocated by political spins on abortion that solely make folks indignant. A long time of polls present we aren’t any nearer to a nationwide consensus than we had been in 1973. Do we would like a consensus? In that case, let’s take into consideration the completely different sorts of abortion. I’ve seldom heard objections to abortions that save the pregnant particular person’s life, or abortions of non-viable or horribly deformed fetuses. Rape and incest abortions appear to have widespread public acceptance, too. That leaves non-medical abortions. The general public shouldn’t be so certain about these, nonetheless, there appears to be widespread public acceptance of first-trimester abortions and pretty vast acceptance of second-trimester abortions. Why is there extra uncertainty about second- and third-trimester abortions? It appears to me that the general public desires to know extra about what personhood means or must imply in a democratic society, and particularly desires to listen to views which might be fully separate from faith. Tom Louderback

Staten Island: To Voicer Carol Webb: Are you severe? Sunny Hostin meant simply what she stated. She’s hateful and racist. Some Catholic! And he or she doesn’t deal with Alyssa Farah Griffin very nicely, all the time talking over her and contradicting her — as a result of Sunny is all the time proper as a result of she’s a lawyer and her husband is a health care provider. Like Pleasure Behar says, “So what? Who cares!?” Maria Saporito

Bayonne: It’s attention-grabbing that in his column “Is it sure or no?” (Nov. 13), whereas castigating FIFA for urging World Cup gamers to not converse out towards host nation Qatar’s human rights document, Bob Raissman offers Colts proprietor Jim Irsay a move for his end-around on the Rooney Rule (Irsay fired his head coach and employed a white crony mid-season to keep away from interviewing a minority substitute). And by “attention-grabbing,” I imply hypocritical! Marty Wolfson