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Letter in today’s Herald: backyard pools are a safety hazard

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

In a recent tragedy, twin toddlers drowned in their family’s backyard in-ground pool.

Two articles in a row in the Boston Herald mentioned that the authorities were investigating how the twins drowned despite the fact that the pool had a cover.

There seems to be a widespread misconception, which the Herald articles exacerbate, that pool covers are a safety device. In my letter in today’s Herald, I tried to set the record straight:

Safety hazard

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

A pool cover is not a safety device; it is intended to keep the pool clean, not prevent drownings. In fact, pool covers make pools less safe for children (“Police to study security tape in tots’ drowning,” July 19).

My heart goes out to the parents, but it disturbs me to see officials claiming they did everything right. If that had been the case, then it would have been impossible for the children to access the pool unsupervised. There is a reason why many insurance companies refuse to issue policies to homes with pools.

- Jonathan Kamens, Brighton

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Posted in Boston, Journalism | 3 Comments »

Boston Herald as cog in the vast right-wing anti-global-warming conspiracy

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

In a February 10 column printed in the Boston Herald, Jonah Goldberg repeats the anti-global-warming canard that severe snowstorms are evidence against global warming.  In response, I sent the following letter to the editor:

To the editor:

Jonah Goldberg’s recent suggestion that severe winter weather disproves global warning shows an alarming ignorance of basic science. In particular:

  • When the air is warmer, more water evaporates into it.
  • When there is more water in the air, it snows more.
  • Once you get below freezing, colder temperatures actually decrease snowfall.

In short, the simple truth is that global warming causes more snow, not less.

Of course, ideologues like Goldberg rarely let something as inconvenient as the truth stand in the way of their agenda.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kamens
Brighton

Not only did the Herald not print my letter or any other letter or opinion piece making a similar point, they have run at least two idiotic editorial cartoons mocking the idea that more snow supports global warming theories.  (more…)

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Posted in Boston, Journalism, Politics | 11 Comments »

Boston Herald’s Joe Fitzgerald aspires to be the next George Orwell

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

To: letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com

To the editor:

I enjoyed Joe Fitzgerald’s recent satire of the pro-life movement. I laughed so hard coffee came out my nose when I read that “the only choice [the pro-choice movement] will tolerate is its own.” It was obvious that he was joking, since it’s so patently absurd to suggest that people protecting a woman’s right to choose are trying to deny her a choice.

Wait, what’s that? He was serious? Are you sure? Oh, in that case, never mind.

Fitzgerald is right that pro-choice extremists sometimes say stupid things, but I’ll take them over the extremists on the other side who think it’s God’s work to assassinate doctors performing legal medical procedures.

Jonathan Kamens, Brighton

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Posted in Boston, Journalism, Politics | No Comments »

Family “Letters to the Editor” Score: +1

Monday, January 11th, 2010

In today’s Boston Herald:

Learn from Israel

Monday, January 11, 2010

The Israelis do not use racial profiling for airport security (“European response mixed to new U.S. security demands,” Jan. 4). They use profiling, which includes patterns of behavior, coordination of intelligence and sophisticated modeling of which country of origin as but one factor. Interviews at the airport are by trained army personnel and they are watching and listening to everyone, even Florida snowbirds. They are just doing it right.

Of course the U.S. should be profiling instead of harassing passengers and crippling the industry, but our technique of rounding up suspicious black men won’t catch Nigerian bombers, and it certainly won’t catch British ones.

- A… Kamens, Brighton

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Joe Fitzgerald’s token Christmas-loving Jew

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

To: letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com

To the editor:

On Dec. 10, Joe Fitzgerald wrote about Irina Koltoniuc, his favorite Christmas-loving Jew, for the sixth time (“Jewish immigrant champions Christmas”).  Does he keep writing about the same woman because he’s too lazy to find someone else, or because he can’t find any other Jews willing to talk about how nice it is to have a religion they do not believe in shoved down their throats?

We can talk about the “conspiracy against Christianity” when Fitzgerald can write about a public school system which marks Christian kids with unexcused absences for observing their holidays, which is what the Boston Public Schools did to to a student recently for the Jewish holidays, or a city soccer league which prevents Christian kids from playing by scheduling all of its games on Sunday morning, as opposed to the all-Saturday-morning schedule which kept me out of the league.  And when was the last time Fitzgerald was unable to attend the Herald’s holiday party because he had to go to Mass?  To the detriment of my career, I will (once again) this year be missing my employer’s Friday-night party.

There is no “conspiracy against Christianity” in this country. There is, rather, a long overdue recognition that it’s not nice for the majority religion in this country to impose itself on everyone else.  Unfortunately, there’s a long way to go before non-Christians will truly be treated equally in the public sphere.  Maybe Fitzgerald should write about that.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kamens

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Posted in Boston, Journalism, Judaism, Religion | 3 Comments »

Better handcuff those weapons so they can’t get away!

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

From today’s Herald:

“Comeaux, 49, took the officers’ weapons and handcuffed them together in the back of the vehicle…”

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Posted in Boston, Grammar and Spelling Police, Journalism | No Comments »

And this is why we wouldn’t let anyone interview our daughter this summer…

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/10/16/colorado.balloon.media.spotlight/index.html

’nuff said.

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Posted in Consumer activism, Journalism, Kids | 1 Comment »

King Richard’s Faire in the news

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

Well, she made it sound like I’m the only King Richard’s Faire patron who ever complained about it, said nothing about the fact that more importantly than the Kosher thing, the Faire’s policies discriminate painfully (literally) against people with medical conditions, let stand unchallenged a statement from the owner of the Faire that her policies are meant “to be fair to all visitors,” and said nothing about the fact that there is widespread hatred among the cast of the faire for the way the owner treats them and the vendors (of course, it’s possible that she was unable to get anyone to make such statements on the record, given that it would guarantee that they’d never work at the Faire again).

Nevertheless, Erica Noonan’s story in today’s Boston Globe does mention briefly what happened to us, and mentions that the Connecticut Faire is significantly cheaper, lets people bring in their own food, allows people to leave and re-enter the Faire, and has several acts that defected from KRF.  So it’s not a total loss.

Click here to read the article if you’re curious.

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Posted in Boston, Consumer activism, Journalism | 1 Comment »

The Obamas’ date in NYC: letter to the editor the Herald didn’t print

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

I sent this letter to the Boston Herald on June 8.  Unfortunately, they declined to print it.  Although I wasn’t reading the entire paper every single day around that time, I don’t recall the Herald printing a single letter, column or article defending the Obamas against the attacks on them for their “date night” in New York City.  Shame on the Herald.

(more…)

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Posted in Barack Obama, Boston, Journalism, Politics | 4 Comments »

Another letter in the Herald

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Here’s what I wrote:

To the editor:

Donnie Feener’s willingness to take time out of his own life and undergo painful surgery to donate bone marrow to save the life of a stranger is truly admirable.

Unfortunately, many patients who need transplants are unable to obtain them because a matching donor cannot be found.

Finding donors is particularly difficult for patients in certain minority groups, such as African Americans or Hispanics, because those groups are tragically underrepresented in bone-marrow registries.

There are frequent registration drives in the Boston area, and the cost of joining the registry is waived at many drives (to locate a drive near you, visit www.marrow.org and click on “Join the Registry” and then “Join in Person”).

Although some donations require surgery, many are instead accomplished through a virtually painless apheresis procedure that requires little, if any, recovery time.

Many tragic stories published in the Herald have had happy endings because your readers reached out to lend a hand. Surely if Joe Fitzgerald explained how easily your readers could save a life, they would jump at the chance.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Kamens

Here’s what they published:

Donnie Feener’s willingness to undergo painful surgery to donate bone marrow to save a stranger’s life is admirable (“Ex-sailor puts teen stranger’s life first,” May 4).

Unfortunately, many patients who need transplants are unable to obtain them because a matching donor cannot be found. Finding donors is particularly difficult for certain minorities who are underrepresented in bone-marrow registries.

There are frequent registration drives here, and the cost of joining is often waived (www.marrow.org). Although some donations require surgery, many are accomplished through a virtually painless apheresis procedure that requires little, if any, recovery time.

Many tragic stories in the Herald have had happy endings because readers have lent a hand. If readers knew how easily they could save a life, they’d jump at the chance.

- Jonathan Kamens, Brighton

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