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{) & O Cu 6 r- CC LW [1s] O g- UO O o J- CC O a {= &C O p U O D L < f- ® o < UJ 3 a. Editorial Imagine if this were snow instead It never rains but then it pours. they say. and that's certainly been the case the last tew months here. Seems Mother Nature has decided to make up for the summer's drought all at once, in about 72 hours. Roads are flooded, hmbs are falling and everyone's soaked. We've wnitten betore about how fortunate we are to live in tem- perate New York -- tew days over 100 degrees or far below zero, no tsunamis. mudsiides or category five hurncanes. wildfires measured by the acre instead of the hundreds of acres - and for us. these past tew days have been remarkably nasty. But it's not all bad. As of Wednesday afternoon, power was out for 470 customers in Huntington Town,. 416 in Brookhaven, 147 in Smithtown and two in Riverhead, accord- ing to the Long Island Power Authority. That's not bad when the scenes outside your window look like footage from a South Asian monsoon. Driving conditions are lousy but people seem for the most part to be taking it easy and avoiding accidents. At least the police have not notified us of any weather-related fatal crashes on the North Shore since the rains started coming down in earnest. As usual, Long Islanders are weathering the storm and going about their business. That's to be expected. Of course, some of us see in this week's downpour something else altogether: the potential for a heavy snow season. Have you begun dreaming of a white Christmas yet? Register to vote Election Day is now less than four weeks away. For most voters, this is the ume to decide whom to support. For oth- ers, it's also time to update home address- ey or to register for the first time. We. along with groups like the League of as soon as possible, or updating your voter registration if need be. We all should vote, and you don't want to be turned away at the polling place come November. should be no edited for libel, clarity and good taste, Please include your town of residence and a telephone: number where you can be reached for & It's easy to reach us! We welcome letters from our readers. They Tonger thas 400 words and may be L4 Ewmb timesnpt@tb japers.com or write to The 'Times of Northport & East Northport, Box 707, WM‘MKIWBS wmmm anonymous letters, -.- ' Youmy mpbymmotficeatmm ~~vishusmamm. k tummy“! Wagmflmamm” ywmmnrflwuwwmuwu avalanche-mg hade toa te of“ Opinion A guillotine next to every Wal-Mart TO THE EDITOR: There 1s something very wrong in a country when a Wal- Mart can get away witheverything bad that it does An average full-time employee at Wal-Mart earns about $17,000a year. A family of four making less than $19,157 [a year} is considered to be living at poverty level A chief executive at Wal-Mart was pard $17.5 mullion. Every two weeks this man was paid what an average employee would earn if he spent his life work- ing in a Wal-Mart. A Wal-Mart heir had a net worth of $18.2 billion and we have a President who doesn't believe in the inheritance tax. Robert Hemsley, a member in the Paper Workers Union. wrote that executive pay has been climbing steadily. In 2001 the average chief executive's pay was more than $11 multion. Two decades ago CEOs were paid about 40 times more than the average hourly employee. Now they make more than 550 times the wage of the average hourly employee. During the French Revolution Marie Antoinette sup- posedly said that if the peasants didn't have bread they could eat cake. The Wal-Mart executives are kinder and smarter. Wal-Mart helps its employees fill out forms so they can qualify for food stamps. The big questszon is this: Did Mane Antoinette have $18 billion when she marched up the steps to the guillotine? Maybe we should build a guillotine next to every Wal-Mart in the country. It would serve as a reminder as to what can happen when ordinary people get angry because they are treated so unfairly. Louis Brandeis said: \We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. But we can't have both.\ Jane Goldblatt East Northport Energy bill is confounding ... TO THE EDITOR: The energy bill President Bush signed recently might just turn out to be the most confounding deal for New York since the Mets traded away Harold Chiti for him- self. In that fateful trade the Mets sent backup catcher Chit: to the Cleveland Indians for a player to be named later. One month later, Cleveland sent Chiti back as the player to be named later. Like the Mets,. who ended up getting nothing in the deal, New Yorkers may end up getting nothing either as a result of this pork-laden energy bill. That'sbecause, as most experts argue, the energy bill will do nothing to lower gasoline prices at the pump. And, unfortunately, it will do nothing to help clean up water systems in New York and other states that are contaminated with the gasolineadditive MTBE. It didn't have to be that way. But, a provision to establish an $11.4 billion fund to clean up MTBE was droppedfrom the legislation at the last minute. MTBE is sort of a double edge sword. It helps gaso- line burn cleaner, which is good for air quality in places like New York. In fact, our air is probably cleaner today because of the additive that was once favored by the Sierra Club. But, it also has a tendency to make water smell bad and taste funny, if gas leaks and gets into our waterways. Opposing the cleanup fund were a few well-intentioned, but misguided Senators, led by Harry Reid (D-NV) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY). They were more troubled by another provision that would have banned lawsuits secking damages from oil companies that used MTBE. The provision did not ban suits against the \leaker.\ That is, whoever leaked thegasoline - the gas station or the storage tank operator - would still have been liable for cleanup costs. Allthe pmvxsmn would have blocked were lawsuits filed against companies simply because those companies, used MTBE The problem with such suits 1s that the oil compa- nies have a rather solid legal defense: Congress made them do it. That's right. In the early 1990s, Congress passed a law requiring oil companies to add a so-called oxy- genate to gasoline that would reduce tailpipe pollutants. Most orf companies didn't want the requirement. They figured they could reduce emissions without such an additive. But, perhaps more importantly, Congress knew that MTBE was the only practical oxygenate around. Ethanol was not produced in sufficient quantities, was- n't as effective at cleaning the air, couldn't be transport- ed as easily as MTBE and cost significantly more Even then-Senator Daschle of South Dakota acknowledged in a May 1990 statement on the floor of the Senate that EPA predicted MTBE would be the oxy- genate of choice. Not surprisingly in 2003, Califorma Governor Gray Davis delayed a statewide ethanol requirement because. a full 13 years later, ethanol was still not available to meet the needs of the state. Additionally, Congress also knew that MTBE could, if leaked, affect our water systems. But, it believed the clean air benefits outweighed the possible nsks. Indeed, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources when the law was passed admitted that \MTBE's water solubility risks and ability to clean the air were trade-offs we faced.\ So, now the orl industry's high-priced attorneys are geanng up for what's called the \pre-emption\ defense If they win, the courts will simply throw out these cases. And, odds are they will. Of course, if they lose, then oil companies who were merely following the law will have to pay to clean up the water systems, even if they didn't own the gas station responsible for the leak. Either way, Congress and local water systems will have traded away $11.4 billion so that New Yorkers can get the chance to play litigation lotto. Like the Chiti deal, we'll end up getting nothing in the end. Mark Alesse Chairman New Yorkers for Civil Justice Reform More animals have arrived TO THE EDITOR: Thank you for the wonderful article that Kimberly Sferruzzo did about our rescue efforts. We have received many calls about it and I can't thank you enough. Katrina rescuers arrived at midnight on October 11. Thirty dogs and 18 cats were unloaded walked, fed and settled in for the night. On Tuesday they will all be medically accessed, matched with foster homes and adoptive homes, and then spayed/neutered. For readers who need any information please contact Little Shelter in Huntington at 368-8770, extension 230. Amy L. Chaitoff Manager of Business Development Little Shelter Animal Rescue & Adoption Center Disturbed by innuendos TO THE EDITOR: The innuendos explicit in Mr. Warren Arthur's letter printed in The TIMES of Northport-East Northport (September 29) needs to be addressed. I was not privy to the \false gossip\ and am disturbed by the imputing of \certain individuals.\ Specifics, please, including: Who are the \certain individuals?\ Who has determined that they are \opposed to competence and integrity on our school board?\ What is the \local religious organization?\ What criteria supported the accusation of an \elitist atti- tude?\ What are the \false accusations?\ What \pro- posed adherence to religious principles?\ Are \such untruths\ the \work of the devil and a coward\ or an individual opinion? Ely Roll mas a up av en oe oi en ae ones .-m~m,fimm
