Readers sound off on safer nurse staffing, Gouda cheese and ICE abuses

Hospital executive salaries deprive nurses and patients

Manhattan: “The Real Reason Behind the New York Nurses’ Strike” (editorial January 16) was all about money. I had to go to the emergency room of a large hospital because of an asthma attack. I needed an extra dose of epinephrine to breathe properly because I was not properly monitored. The only nurse on duty had so many patients to watch over that I had to go unnoticed. Nurses are right to demand safe staffing levels. It will cost money, but lives are at stake.

One solution is to tax these giant private, nonprofit hospitals, whose CEOs and other high-level staff receive multimillion-dollar salaries where nurses are on strike. These institutions make huge amounts of money from wealthy donors and Cadillac insurance plans, but they pay no income or property taxes. A study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that nearly a quarter of nonprofit hospitals receive more tax exemptions than they provide in community services. New taxes and cutting CEO salaries can generate the money needed to pay more nurses! If directors of small, safety-net community hospitals and CEOs of the public hospital system can live comfortably without earning anything close to what administrators of large institutions earn, it can be done. Ten years ago, Congresswoman Deborah Glick authored legislation in Albany that would have limited the salaries of CEOs of hospital empires. It got nowhere thanks to the fact that they used millions of dollars to lobby against it.

Finally, these nurses deserve a decent salary. As President Trump’s administration has reclassified nurses as no longer professionals, their salaries have become a target. Recruiting nurses would be easier if they were better paid. Ralph Palladino

Nuclear power is not a godsend

Brooklyn: If you ever hear Governor Hochul mention the four additional gigawatts of nuclear power she wants to see developed in New York, remind her that nuclear power comes with deadly costs. This is an astronomically expensive project, both for construction (over $80 billion) and for taxpayers’ monthly bills. It’s very slow to start (the latest one in Georgia just arrived 15 years late). And while we wait, toxic fossil fuels are polluting our air. When finally operational, nuclear energy produces infinitely dangerous radioactive waste. Do the housework? None of these deadly costs are borne by solar or wind power. In the 21st century, we can have safe, clean energy while paying less for it. Laurel Tumarkine

Sale Offers

Bronx: In the voice of Wendy Jackson: Offers for a Palestinian state were rejected because they were worthless. Richie Nagan

Say cheese correctly

Commack, LI: I was amused to see Monday the comic strip “The Argyle Sweater” refer to a popular Dutch cheese as pronounced “gooda.” Gouda cheese originates from the town of Gouda in the Netherlands, and both are correctly pronounced “Gowda.” Just like the English words “Loud”, “Proud”, and “Out”, the vowel combination “ou” is pronounced the same way in Dutch, not “oo” as in boutique, which is French. Starbucks, which prides itself on authentically presenting its menu items, has long continued to mispronounce Gouda cheese as gooda. And surprisingly, so did culinary queen Martha Stewart. Imagine if Americans pronounced the popular Italian pie called pizza as “piz-zah,” or the French delicacy, foie gras, as “foy herbe.” They would make fun of us and call us ignorant boors! Yvonne Fitzner

Valid refusal

Scarsdale, NY: To commenter Mitch Kessler: It’s possible that the reason your ex-neighbor, despite looking Scandinavian, never got his citizenship after 25 years, has to do with his drug charge. Many illegal immigrants have been denied citizenship due to past indiscretions and face deportation. I have an extra winter coat to keep him warm in his new digs in Texas. Please provide their new address. Stephen Robinson

Saving reactions

Petaluma, Calif.: I hope the wicked witch of “60 Minutes,” Bari Weiss, doesn’t censor viewers’ letters because they haven’t read one on the air in a while. I’ll be damned if she and her flying monkeys will shut me up about their Minneapolis history. Since “60 Minutes” has lost a lot of credibility because of its story on CECOT detainees, I’m sharing my response to the program as a safe bet: “ICE Acting Associate Executive Director Marcos Charles had the absolute nerve to tell viewers, ‘Find out what we do and how we do it.’ I suggest that his masked thugs do the same. Some cannot read at an 8th grade level. Some people don’t know how to take an open book writing test. Some drug tests failed but were still accepted. And some are suspected of having participated in the January 6 insurrection. I suggest he learn about the laws of the country. Bob Canning

Dictator in good faith

Manhattan: Voiceman Bradley Morris chastises Voiceman Fred Portoff for confusing federal law enforcement with history’s most prolific dictatorships. Without a doubt, Morris is a raging anti-Trumper, given Trump’s support for a mob storming the Capitol in 2020 and ICE stormtroopers violating citizens’ rights today. Marc H. Laviètes

Cut them

Manhattan: Even voters who once favored stronger immigration policies are horrified by images of federal agents in military fatigues manhandling women and children. The Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill is headed to a vote, and Senate Democrats — if Sen. Chuck Schumer does his job — have real power to impose restrictions on ICE and the Border Patrol before DHS funding runs out on January 30. Democrats must draw a hard line: Not one cent more for DHS unless ICE stops targeting people based on their race and accent and forcibly collecting biometric data on people. The Border Patrol must return to the border and DHS must stop spending money on creating new detention centers. Michelle Burke

Several fronts

Forest Hills: Won’t our military be put to the test by fighting wars in Greenland and Minnesota simultaneously? Alain Hirschberg

Another bluff

San Francisco: Well, the TACO king is at it again. After once again frightening the markets, President Plump seems to have given up on taking Greenland by force. Of course, Europe takes this with a grain of salt, because no one has any reason to believe in His Fatality when he speaks. His crazy approach seems not to be working, as the EU seems unwavering against him (while here at home, President Gordo’s madness is still very evident). Maybe it’s time to re-release Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water.” Jimmy Layton

Hollow trophies

Windsor, California: Four-year-olds are filled with pride as they receive their end-of-season participation medals. They are too young to understand that medals are meaningless, given that every child on the team receives one. Like them, our 79-year-old president is stuck in a euphoric world of tee-ball. Last year, Trump expressed his joy when he received the “FIFA Peace Prize”. There was never a peace prize in football until Trump got his. More recently, María Corino Machado, the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, awarded her Nobel Peace Prize to you know who! Let us consider ourselves lucky that our medal-seeking commander-in-chief is not a student of history. If he were, Trump would know about Idi Amin, the brutal dictator of 1970s Uganda. Amin had a penchant for strutting around in public wearing a military jacket full of flashy but undeserved accolades. Shh, don’t tell him! Dan Schmitt

Lots of victories

Peekskill, NY: Why is voice actor Peter Sulzicki complaining about what the Giants are paying their new head coach John Harbaugh!? He claimed Harbaugh only won one Super Bowl. There have only been 15 coaches in NFL history who have won more than one, and 10 of them have won two! Harbaugh’s record in 18 years as Ravens coach was 180-113 with multiple division titles and an average of 10 wins per season, far better than Giants coaches Pat Shurmur, Joe Judge and Brian Daboll, to name three in the last nine seasons. During those nine years, the Giants won 44 games, less than five per year! They were worse than horrible. Harbaugh should be massively welcomed by all Big Blue fans! Steven Bevacqua