Not An Experiment

Stefanie Werner [“Three Village BOE’s costly sleep experiment,” TBR News Media, Nov. 14] is certainly entitled to her opinion that the benefits of moving to later high school start times are not worth the financial cost (less than 1% of the budget).

However, she is not entitled to dismiss the well-established evidence that even a modest delay in school start times leads to significant benefits for adolescent students. Research from dozens of studies has conclusively shown that later start times result in more sleep, improved attendance, higher grades and fewer car crashes. These findings are not a “fantasy belief.” They are supported by extensive scientific evidence. That is why the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends secondary schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. — a standard the new plan still falls short of by 50 minutes. It is also why states such as California and Florida have passed laws mandating later school start times for secondary students.

The Three Village BOE is not conducting an “experiment.” The experiments have already been done, and the results are clear. The only question is whether we are willing to act on this well-documented evidence.

John Hover
East Setauket

Published November 21, 2024 in the Village Times Herald: 

https://tbrnewsmedia.com/letters-to-the-editor-november-21-2024/

in response to letter ("Three Village BOE’s costly sleep experiment") on November 14, 2024

https://tbrnewsmedia.com/letters-to-the-editor-nov-14-2024/

Disingenuous projection

Jim Soviero’s letter “Local Dems put politics first” (TBR News Media, Aug. 15), accusing Democratic politicians of avoiding “substantive talk of policy,” is a classic example of disingenuous projection.

Projection because it is Republicans who are avoiding discussion of their policy plans, from a national abortion ban to mass deportations. The Republican Party didn’t even bother to draft a new platform in 2020, instead officially endorsing whatever then-President Donald Trump [R] advocated on any given day.

The current Republican platform is a vague, self-contradictory manifesto — long on rhetoric but very short on specific policy prescriptions. And Republican politicians can’t distance themselves quickly enough from Project 2025, the very specific federal overhaul playbook that will be implemented if Trump wins. Local U.S. Rep. Nick LaLota [R-NY1] claims to oppose a federal abortion ban, while having voted for multiple federal anti-abortion laws.

All this is unsurprising, given that Republican policy positions are incredibly unpopular. Significant majorities of Americans support reproductive rights, worker and union protections, stricter gun laws, marriage equality and higher taxes on corporations and the very wealthy. All are signature Democratic positions.

The Democratic Party, like all other mainstream political parties around the world, has a detailed written platform with numerous specific policy positions. For example, it supports a $15 per hour federal minimum wage, a 25% billionaire minimum tax rate and expanded Medicare drug negotiation authority, which has already resulted in a $35 per month cap on insulin and asthma inhalers. Mr. Soviero can consult that platform whenever he wants to understand what Democrats, both local and national, propose.

Most importantly, his accusation is disingenuous because this election is clearly not about specific policies. It is about fundamental questions of what government is for and what you think “The United States” should mean. Do you want a white, male, straight, single-party, Christian nationalist state run by a personality cult for the benefit of billionaires? Or do you want a secular, multiethnic, pluralist democracy under the rule of law?

There’s little point in debating detailed policies until we resolve that.

John Hover
East Setauket

Published August 29, 2024 in the Village Times Herald 

https://tbrnewsmedia.com/letters-to-the-editor-august-29-2024/

in response to letter on August 15, 2024 

https://tbrnewsmedia.com/letters-to-the-editor-august-15-2024/

Democratic Party Platform: 

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-democratic-party-platform

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/sites/default/files/documents_with_attached_files/373813/165904.pdf

Republican 2024 Party Platform:
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-party-platform

Project 2025:

https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

Gratitude not complaints

Jen Schaedel’s long, angry letter (“Unjustified dismantlement of West Meadow Beach cottages,” (TBR News Media, Aug. 1) is a classic case of the aphorism, “When you’re used to privilege, equality feels unjust.”

Whether the nearly-free early-1900s waterfront property leases were favors for the politically connected, or just gross municipal malpractice, giving away perpetually renewable rights to valuable public property for private use was always a violation of basic American principles.

Good-faith debates could be had over the proper fate of the buildings. But, the idea that leaseholders deserved to renew the leases forever was always morally indefensible, regardless of how wholesome the community was. So it is shocking to see anyone still defend it, let alone portray themselves as victims.

Rather than complain about public officials reclaiming public property for public use, all the people lucky enough to have been associated with the cottage community over the years should, instead, be quietly grateful for the decades of cheap, exclusive use of land they didn’t own.

John Hover
East Setauket

Published August 8, 2024 in the Village Times Herald 

https://tbrnewsmedia.com/letters-to-the-editor-august-8-2024/

in response to letter on August 1, 2024 

https://tbrnewsmedia.com/letters-to-the-editor-august-1-2024/

Legal immigrants justifiably fearful

If true, it is commendable that George Altemose [“Legal talented scientists are welcomed,” Jan.18, TBR News Media] and Paul Mannix [“The illegal immigration issue,” Jan. 25, TBR News Media] harbor no animosity toward legal immigrants, and only object to illegal immigration. Perhaps 40 years ago one could have reasonably argued that most conservatives felt that way. But unfortunately, they are wildly out of touch with the attitudes that now prevail in the Republican Party.

A 2019 Pew poll found 57% of Republican voters fear “losing our identity as a nation” due to immigration, a 13% increase in just two years. That phrasing gives away the game, as equating our “identity” as Americans to ethnicity or race is inherently bigoted. The leading Republican presidential candidate recently said that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” If they are really a threat to our “blood” it is clearly irrelevant whether they are documented or not. He gleefully separated children from their families and is now promising internment camps and mass deportation for 11 million people peacefully living, working and paying taxes in the U.S. His followers are loving it.

Prospective foreign Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory students and employees rightly recognize that such rhetoric wouldn’t exist if the MAGA faction of the Republican Party was making nuanced distinctions between legal and undocumented immigrants. They understand that this rhetoric, and the normalization of the hatred behind it, pose a real threat to their physical safety.

Let’s be frank: U.S. business loves illegal immigration because it gives a huge pool of vulnerable workers. The farming, meatpacking, construction, landscaping, hospitality, health care and food service industries all heavily exploit cheap, undocumented labor. Republican politicians refuse to effectively punish employers — the only way to actually reduce illegal immigration — because the issue lets them exploit their voters’ racial and ethnic fears in every election. Witness their blocking the recent bipartisan Senate border security bill. MAGA voters, currently driving the Republican Party, are virulently anti-immigrant because they believe the U.S. should be a white, traditional, Christian country.

By all means let’s implement a humane, legal immigration system that actually addresses the obvious workforce needs of the country, punishes illegal hiring, while addressing impacts on infrastructure and services. Let’s pursue a more enlightened foreign policy that helps stabilize and develop Mexico and Central America — by far the largest sources of illegal migration. But let’s not pretend that most Republicans are happy to welcome nonwhite legal immigrants.

John Hover
East Setauket

Published Feb 8, 2024 in several editions of the Times Beacon Record papers, and online: 

https://tbrnewsmedia.com/letters-to-the-editor-february-8-2024/