LETTERS: Casino, abortion and more
Keep gambling on the reservation
If a casino were placed in Nassau County, the politicians would benefit from another huge feeding trough . The Shinnecock Nation would get a perpetual income stream. Nassau's residents would get the social problems inherent in gambling. Casino gambling should be limited to the Shinnecock reservation, where gambling's negative influences can best be contained.
Lawrence Ryan
Nurses had duty to assist with abortion
As a surgical nurse, I can empathize with the nurses who did not want to assist during an abortion procedure . That being said, as health care professionals, we cannot and must not pick and choose the patients whose care we would or would not like to assist with. If you are a Jehovah's Witness, would you be allowed to refuse to help with a blood transfusion? If you have a religious belief against gays, would you refuse to help a gay person dying of AIDS?
As health care professionals, we are duty bound to do what is not only legal and necessary to save our patient, but to put our own feelings aside and do what we are trained for. Sometimes, just because you can refuse, doesn't mean you should.
Melody DiGregorio
Article ignored years of DEC service
A recent article regarding the role played by Charles Hamilton, Department of Environmental Conservation regional supervisor of natural resources, in developing a nationally recognized wildfire training academy, regrettably ignored Hamilton's more than three decades of dedicated service . The New York Wildfire and Incident Management Academy was created as a result of the wake-up call Long Island received in the sobering and dangerous Sunrise wildfires of 1995. As often happens during a crisis, government agencies and volunteer firefighters pulled together to combat the fires, but it was Hamilton who decided that the main lesson learned - the need to be prepared to respond to future fires - had to be acted upon in a meaningful way.
Over the ensuing decade, the academy has grown to attract hundreds of participants from across the nation and from outside the United States. Special arrangements are made to provide training for the volunteer firefighters who protect life and property in Long Island's pine barrens region, to ensure that we will be better prepared to respond to future wildfires.
The academy has met a regional need, and gained a national reputation of which we can all be proud.
Peter A. Scully
Editor's note: The writer is regional director of the Department of Environmental Conservation.
Sarra Sounds Off, Ep. 15: LI's top basketball players On the latest episode of "Sarra Sounds Off," Newsday's Gregg Sarra and Matt Lindsay take a look top boys and girls basketball players on Long Island.
