Letter: Threats are no way to run country

I join Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) in the apparent misapprehension that the way we change laws in this country is to have them repealed or modified by a majority of both houses of Congress and signed by the president or by overiding a presidential veto ["Warnings on crisis," News, Oct. 4].

It seems, according to House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), that the president should agree to modify existing laws in order to prevent a government shutdown. That would, thereby, support Boehner's contention that the Democrats forced a shutdown of the government.

Gary Zucker, East Meadow

Our Supreme Court has ruled that Obamacare is the law in this great country. Congress took an oath to defend and uphold the laws. Its members do not have the power to pick and choose only the laws they like.

They took a pledge when they were elected. If they cannot live by it, they should resign.

Sy Rosen, Port Washington

Smithtown opposes the Common Core

Kudos to the Smithtown school board for taking leadership in the worthy fight against standardized educational practices and unfair and unfounded teacher evaluation methods .

In a time when many school districts on Long Island are selling the well-being and passion for learning of their students and teachers for federal Race to the Top funds -- much of which will never make its way to Long Island -- a handful of strong and proud districts is speaking out against the state and federal education departments that are trying to bully them into compliance.

Smithtown has built a school culture of which it can be proud, and it has a right and an obligation to preserve it.

We need more school districts to follow the lead of Smithtown to show the federal and state governments that our children and our teachers are not for sale, and our communities cannot be fooled or bought.

Eric Shyman, Bohemia

Editor's note: The writer trained as a special education teacher.

Kids not at fault in Glen Cove cheating

In "Use scandal to fix testing" [Editorial, Sept. 30], Newsday asks, "What will happen to those teachers and administrators accused of helping kids cheat on tests in the Glen Cove school district?"

To imply that these fifth-graders intended to cheat is wrong. The teachers, if found guilty of the accusations, are the cheaters. Don't blame the children for some educators' highly questionable motives and lack of good judgment.

Dan Gribbins, Levittown

Concern over manganese in water

Thank you for the informative and interesting series of articles on Long Island's groundwater. In "Composting and water" [News, Sept. 27], you presented evidence that composting sites are adding toxic levels of manganese to our drinking supply.

I'm concerned about the Islip Town compost facility situated south of the Ronkonkoma railroad station. This town-run facility had a high reading of 8,840 parts per billion, when 300 parts per billion is the accepted safe maximum.

I hope that Newsday follows up on this series, and lets the voting public know how Islip's officials deal with this situation.

Mark Galligan, Ronkonkoma

U.S.-Iran history goes back further

Newsday recently ran a timeline of the history of the relationship between the United States and Iran ["Breaking the silence," News, Sept. 28]. The timeline was good, as far as it went.

However, readers might be excused for thinking that this whole fractious history began in 1979, and wonder why the hostage crisis happened in the first place.

Newsday should have provided a fuller picture by beginning its timeline in 1953, when the CIA, with the assistance of Great Britain, fomented a coup that ousted the legitimate leader of Iran, Mohammed Mosaddegh, and installed the shah as ruler of the country. As we know, the shah went on to alienate his people, acting as absolute monarch and using his repressive secret police, the Savak, to root out dissenters.

Of course, the Iranians were not happy, and rightly blamed the United States and Great Britain for interfering in their internal politics. When the shah was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he fled Iran and found temporary asylum in America, turning the Iranians against us even more.

Knowing all this explains a great deal.

Peter Larkin, Bayside

Don't go to war again in the Middle East

When will we realize that fighting wars in the Middle East is futile? We lost more than 4,400 fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers in the Iraq war. Plus, how many thousands of maimed soldiers will never be the same?

What does "we won" mean? What did we win? Isn't it time we started to care about America? Shouldn't we stop being the world's cops?

Harvey Stanger, Merrick