Readers sound off on Electric Zoo, ‘Baldo’ and NYC neighbors

Alexandria, Va.: I am writing to bring attention to the Electric Zoo music festival in New York City that took place Sept. 1-3. The event started off on a bad note when its organizers posted that the first day would be canceled due to “supply chain disruptions” that led to construction not being completed.

Day two started with an announcement that the festival would be delayed two hours due to ongoing construction. During the course of the day, people who were required to go to will call to receive their wristbands faced wait times of up to six hours. Some people were only able to enter in time to see the closing acts. When the day concluded, the crowd was forced into a narrow chokepoint where multiple people passed out from exhaustion or had panic attacks from being in tight quarters for hours.

I write this on day three. The issues continued. The will call lines seem to have been corrected, but the main line faced massive backups of more than an hour. At around 6:30 p.m., the festival denied further entry, stating the event was at capacity and claiming that anyone who was denied entry will receive full refunds. Currently, the people still inside can remain and the festival will go on until the scheduled ending time at 11 p.m. There are reports that people who were denied entry tried to rush through the closed gates.

Many details of the terrible experiences faced by many people who traveled to be at this festival can be found on the Electric Zoo Reddit page. Austin Burrow

Bronx: So, we have a debate over the NYPD’s use of drones in the recent West Indian Day Parade and other Caribbean festivities. Supporters say it’s needed for safety and security to ensure no trouble arises, while opponents say it’s racial profiling and a violation of civil rights, given that the spectators and participants are predominantly people of color. Well, one major question has not been addressed: Were there any drones present in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, whose participants and spectators are predominantly Caucasian? If not, where were they, especially in wake of the continuous dangerous, divisive and deadly rhetoric of Donald Trump and some GOP leaders, along with the subsequent deadly violence of many MAGA extremists? Michael S. Wilbekin

Manhattan: You ban “Dilbert” but you print a “Baldo” strip where his little sister quotes the author of “Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness,” in which Charles Bukowski constantly refers to gay men and Latinos with slurs. You don’t see a little hypocrisy in that? Or is your PC-ness decided in a back room? You can either apologize and ban “Baldo” because you apparently love to be part of the cancel culture, or just do the right thing, grow a thicker skin and bring back “Dilbert.” Louie Russo

Yorktown Heights, N.Y.: Please bring back the old-style crossword puzzle in the back of the Daily News Saturday edition. The current one is terrible. Why did you switch puzzles? William J. Griggs

Brooklyn: So, if I live in Staten Island, the Department of Sanitation will accept my flat-screen TV for disposal at no charge. In Brooklyn, I have to take my TV to Best Buy, 50 inches and smaller only, and they’ll take it off my hands for $30. Yeah, I’ll do that, it seems fair. That’s why flat-screens are dumped all over the place! Rocco Conte

Port Jefferson Station, L.I.: To Voicer Justine Chambers: Congratulations on all of your hard-earned accomplishments. When you entered Stuyvesant High School, you had to get a high grade on your entrance exam, which separated you from the merely good students. Along with you were other highly capable students of color who also did very well on their entrance tests. You now decry the lack of students who look like you in the Stuyvesant student body. No one, except maybe your parents, opened the door into this exceptional school — you did it with hard work and dedication. Maybe you should be addressing parents who do not follow what their children are doing in school. Do they make sure homework is done? Are they cognizant of any issues that are preventing their children from succeeding in academia? Please, Ms. Chambers, use your life story and multiple successes to show others the path to becoming a fully accomplished person. Bob Cavaliere

Scarborough, N.Y.: Trumpty Dumpty sat on a wall / Trumpty Dumpty had a big fall / All the king’s lawyers and all the king’s men / Couldn’t keep Trumpty out of the pen. Thomas F. Comiskey

Swarthmore, Pa.: Both Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper say that Trump was planning to pull out of NATO in a second term. Make no mistake about it: If Trump gets back into the White House, he’ll try to pull the U.S. out of NATO, the most powerful and effective military alliance in U.S. history. This would fulfill one of Vladimir Putin’s main goals of weakening our alliance. A vote for Trump is a vote for a weaker and more isolated America, and it is a vote that favors Putin, America’s geopolitical adversary. This is not putting America first, it is putting Putin’s Russia first. Ken Derow

Brooklyn: Doesn’t anyone hear the demeaning silence of Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand as we are overwhelmed with misbehaving migrants? Maria Ciarametaro

Rego Park: Several studies have reported that one in five New Yorkers has a mental health problem. If you live in a typical New York apartment with neighbors above and below you and on either side, that means you have a 60% chance that one of your neighbors will be crazy. Not good at math? This is like Aaron Judge batting .800, only this is not good and this is not a game. You take into account ancient building codes that permit paper-thin walls and floors and you’re in deep doo-doo. The guardians of the Han dynasty could not have devised a more diabolical torture chamber than the New York City apartment. A seasoned real estate broker put it to me plainly: “You have to get lucky.” Jeff Rosenblatt

Cedarhurst, L.I.: Voicer Mitch Kessler wrote regarding the “tax” we pay for the violations mentioned. I don’t disagree, but here in Nassau County it is above and beyond a tax. Aside from the $50 fine for a speed camera violation, the Nassau County Legislature added $100. The tickets are $150. I have asked the county executive, my county legislator, my state senator and my assemblyman to give me the details of when this rule was enacted, who voted yes, why they added $100 and any other pertinent information. No one has answered. Almost any other violation can be mitigated in court, but not this. To the best of my knowledge, the state does not have a set time for the stop before you proceeded. A split second of your tires not moving should be sufficient to void the ticket. The cameras do not take this into account. What is a person of limited means to do? Ellie Weiner

Tarrytown, N.Y.: I drive into the city because I work at various locations daily with cumbersome equipment, so I am a seasoned driver. Voicer Diane Stillman’s letter gives a somewhat erudite opinion defending speeding and complaining about speed cameras. She said she can’t stare at her speedometer while driving, hence she speeds. That would preclude that she constantly speeds as her failure to glance, as the majority of drivers intuitively do, would mean she is a bad driver and should enroll in a driver’s safety program to maintain speed limits in a city where excessive speeding inevitably leads to accidents. Common sense should prevail and you won’t receive camera tickets, whether you consider them taxation or not. Adam Reich

Originally Published: Sep 05, 2023 at 9:00 pm