Don’t mess with hot dogs
I can deal with “transplanted” Chicagoans gentrifying neighborhoods into areas.
I can deal with Mayor Richard Daley and the alderman bleeding me dry with new laws, ordinances and tax hikes.
And I can even deal with someone taking my “dibs” (shoveled parking spot).
But don’t mess with my hot dogs (“The great hot dog safety debate,” News, Feb. 24).
The American Academy of Pediatrics is pushing for a redesign of hot dogs because too many kids under the age of 3 years old are “woofing them down” and choking instead of slowly eating and chewing them.
I suggest the AAP stop messing with my hot dogs and worry more about asthma, autism, car safety seats, ear infections and secondhand smoke.
And I suggest the parents of these children only allow them to eat things that can be sipped through a straw if they have to leave their children alone.
Please stop the “hot dog redesign” madness and don’t threaten the way I eat my Chicago-style hot dog.
Also I don’t want the AAP telling me what’s in a hot dog either!
—Walter Brzeski, Chicago
Scary drivers
When my partner and I first moved here from Miami, we would joke each time we witnessed bad or irresponsible driving by claiming we’d just seen a driver visiting from back home. We don’t make these jokes anymore. We’ve learned that Chicago drivers are incomparable when it comes to driving styles that endanger fellow motorists and pedestrians alike.
Whether in my River North office neighborhood or around the Southport corridor where we live, I’ve endured countless occasions when I’ve come alarmingly close to being struck by a car whose driver chose to take a calculated risk in making a turn as I crossed the street.
Most remarkably, this has happened three times while crossing the street with my 3-year-old son, once in the Loop and twice on Southport. Recently I had a terrifyingly close call on Lake Shore Drive thanks to a woman in an SUV who was clueless to the accident she nearly caused.
While the average human being has no idea when or where his end will come, I’ve come to suspect that mine will come at the hands of a Chicago driver. I don’t relish the prospect.
—Rem Cabrera, Chicago
Not funny
We took issue with the portrayal of the flight attendant profession in Steve Johnson’s article “$8 for a blanket and pillow? What’s next?” (News, Feb. 11).
American Airlines has more than 17,000 hard-working flight attendants who continuously demonstrate their commitment to service and safety and who have dedicated their lives to this profession and have done so very well. We are proud of our flight attendants.
Though we recognize your article was intended to provide a commentary on the changing environment of the airline industry, we felt that your characterization of flight attendants was in poor taste.
—Lauri Curtis, vice president of Onboard Services; Debbie Carvatta, regional managing director, Flight Service Chicago, American Airlines
Close the locks
We need to close the locks and break the connection between the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes to prevent the invasion of the Bighead and Silver Carp now.
The electric gate in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal did not prevent the invasion of the Round Goby from Lake Michigan into the Des Plaines and Illinois Rivers and it may not stop the carp.
We should shut the locks to give us time to find out if the carp have already invaded Lake Michigan as potentially indicated by the environmental DNA. If carp have already invaded, then we could re-open the locks; leaving them open now is unethical.
We need to do everything we can to prevent the invasion because if these carp get into Lake Michigan, then there will be billions and billions of dollars in economic losses throughout the Great Lakes.
All of the arguments presented for keeping the locks open stress the economic losses due to restricted shipping, but these are small and localized economic burdens while the invasion would have ramifications on a much larger regional scale.
These short-sighted and selfish arguments do not make sense. The science indicates that closing the locks would be an ecological benefit.
If we need to keep the locks closed, then build an inter-modal at the last lock to allow transfer of materials among river barges, trains, trucks and lake shipping.
If we leave the locks open now, when we still have a chance to stop the carp, we might as well have taken the $30 million spent to limit the carp and flushed it down the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal along with all the waste from Chicago. Limited opening of the locks is simply playing craps with the carp and the carp are effectively the house because they can wait for their chance.
It only takes one female with eggs to make it through and we will not undo the damage.
—Bill Bromer, Joliet
Great role models
Watching the Winter Olympics with our daughters, ages 9 1/2 and 12 1/2, has been a wonderful experience. The athletes (most of them at least) are inspiring role models and show our children that persistence, hard work and good sportsmanship are essential in order to go far in life. Thanks to all who work to bring us coverage of the Winter Olympics!
—Rasa Fumagalli, Naperville
Never saying I’m sorry
Tiger Woods, John Edwards, Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, Gary Hart, David Letterman, Mark Sanford, Eliot Spitzer, etc., etc., etc. The public and the media declare “It’s none of our business.” Apparently it’s OK to cheat as long as there is an apology.
From now on the groom’s wedding vow should be: “I do. And forgive me for future affairs, relationships and one-night stands that I will have.”
—Phil Haglund, Plainfield
Hold the salt
The city uses excessive amounts of salt that is thoughtlessly poured onto sidewalks after a 2-inch snowfall, hardly one worth fretting over. After the snow melts, pedestrians have to walk all over these tiny rocks that ruin your shoes.
Earlier this winter, I was walking to class in the Loop when I witnessed an elderly women lose her balance on an accumulated pile of salt and scrape her knee.
If salt is meant to avoid accidents, why has the city allowed such a liability to continue?
—Emma Kearney, Chicago
Age matters
My Toyota is so old, it works.
—David Passman, Chicago
Rewrite it
This is in response to the Feb. 14 editorial “Just what we need.”
Using a punctuation mark to signal when a writer is being sarcastic is like explaining a joke. It kills it.
—Rick Ronvik, Evanston
