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FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com APRIL 21, 2016 • THE QUEENS COURIER 35 oped  Seventy-seven years ago this week, the doors opened on the 1939-40 World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. What was once a notorious ash heap had been transformed into a futuristic theme park featuring an array of exhibitions featuring international culture and technological advances that would soon become part of everyday American life. The two symbols of the 1939-40 World’s Fair are pictured here: the towering Trylon and round Perisphere, which featured the futuristic exhibit known as “The World of Tomorrow.” While the fair got off to a joyous start, the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 cast a pall over the rest of the fair. Once America entered the war in December 1941, the Trylon and Perisphere were dismantled, and their steel were reused for the war effort. Share your historic photos of Queens with us on our Facebook and Twitter pages, email them to editorial@qns.com or mail print photos to The Queens Courier, 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361. All mailed pictures will be carefully returned upon request.  letters & comments TIME FOR TURNING LIGHT AT MASPETH INTERSECTION Regarding last week’s school bus accident in Maspeth: When will they put turning lights at that intersection? When someone actually gets killed? Making a left onto 74th Street is a case of “bless yourself and go.” What is with this city? Hope the woman fully recovers. QNS user Pat DiSalvo HAMSTRUNG BY A FREE TRADE MARKET It doesn’t take a genius to understand that a global “free-trade” market means that workers making $25/hr will have to compete with workers making $1/hr. An equilibrium must ultimately be achieved just like in any system and, in this case, that essentially means that American workers will be working for no more than the minimum wage set by law when all is said and done. Unfortunately, countries without minimum wage laws will still offer lower labor costs than us, which means that America will not produce anything and will not provide services to anyone outside our own border. Anyone who says anything else concerning free-trade is either lying, or is completely clueless. “Free-trade” comes at a huge cost to workers in developed countries. American workers can only survive and thrive with fair trade. QNS user Gary Smith STOP SAUDI TIES IF 9/11 LINK IS TRUE Saudi Arabia, which has been an ally of our country for many years, also may have a role in the funding of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against our country, in which 3,000 innocent people died. If this is found to be true regarding their involvement, then the U.S. government should immediately take steps to break off diplomatic relations, expel the Saudi ambassador and others who work at the Saudi embassy in Washington, close that embassy and immediately cease sending any kind of aid, military or economic to that country. The surviving families of 9/11 victims have every right to sue Saudi Arabia for damages due to the attacks. President Obama and Congress must not enact legislation on the table that would forbid relatives of victims of terrorist attacks from suing the country or countries where they originated from. Remember, 15 of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, were from Saudi Arabia. Shouldn’t that major fact alone have been sounding alarm bells in Washington at the time? John Amato, Fresh Meadows MAKE EVERY DAY EARTH DAY Let us celebrate Earth Day April 22 all year long. Besides recycling newspapers, magazines, glass, plastics, old medicines, paints and cleaning materials, there are other actions you can take which will also contribute to a cleaner environment. Leave your car at home. For local trips in the neighborhood, walk or ride a bike. For longer travels, consider many public transportation alternatives already available. Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York City Transit, Long Island Rail Road, MTA Bus, Nassau Inter County Express (NICE) Bus, Staten Island Ferry along with other private transportation owners offer various options, such as local and express bus, ferry, jitney, subway and commuter rail services. Many employers now allow employees to telecommute and work from home. Others use alternative work schedules, which afford staff the ability to avoid rush hour gridlock. This saves travel time and can improve mileage per gallon. You could join a car or van pool to share the costs of commuting. Use a hand-powered lawn mower instead of a gasoline or electric one. Rake your leaves instead of using gasoline-powered leaf blowers. The amount of pollution created by gasoline powered lawn mowers or leaf blowers will surprise you. A cleaner environment starts with everyone. Larry Penner, Great Neck TIME TO SUPPORT WORKING FAMILIES BY HILLARY CLINTON Megan Sennett lives with her three daughters. Like thousands of moms, she supports her kids with a parttime job. In fact, she has three of them. It’s a high-wire balancing act. The slightest bump can knock her right off. For Megan, that blow came last summer when she was diagnosed with a kidney infection. Her doctor said that, with treatment, it wouldn’t be a serious illness. There was just one catch: She would need 10 days off to recover. But none of her employers offers paid sick leave. Megan simply couldn’t afford to take that much time off. As a result, she went back to work before she was better, and that made her sick all over again. She ended up in the ER. These days, too many parents are forced to make impossible choices. Do they go to work injured? Send a sick child to school? Let an aging parent fend for themselves? Or do they take a day off to care for their loved ones? In America, taking care of yourself and your family can mean losing a paycheck or even a job. Megan — who’s now fully recovered — thinks that’s unfair. She’s right. It’s time we did something about it. Working parents deserve the security of knowing they won’t lose income for taking a few days off to recover from their own illness or to care for an ill family member. That’s what paid leave provides. This is about more than fairness. It’s about economic competitiveness. As American women have moved into the workforce over the past 40 years, they’ve driven a huge amount of growth — more than $3.5 trillion. But even as women have transformed our workforce, our workplace policies have not kept pace. Right now, women are breadwinners in two-thirds of families with children. That’s why paid leave is so necessary. Without it, it’s a lot harder to both work and have kids. It’s no coincidence that the United States — the only advanced economy in the world that doesn’t guarantee paid leave — has dropped in the ranking of women’s participation in the workforce. We’re now 19th among advanced economies. Many American women — including plenty who want to work and whose family could use the income — are running into all kinds of invisible barriers that make working much harder than it should be. As a result, we’re leaving a lot of talent on the sidelines. And in a global economy, that’s just not smart. We need to do more at the national level. Something this important shouldn’t depend on what state you live in or what employer you have. I’m running for president to make sensible policies like these available to all Americans. As president, I will fi ght to make sure that every American has the right to earn up to seven days of paid sick leave each year. And I’ll also fi ght to make sure that working Americans are guaranteed up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave to care for a new baby or sick family member, or to recover from a serious illness or injury. Paid family leave won’t cost middle class families or businesses a dime. We can fully fund this by asking the very wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share of taxes. Then, let’s fi nally ensure equal pay for women. That would go a long way toward helping working families. Right now, women are paid only 78 cents for every dollar men earn. African American and Latina women make even less. We’ve got to close that gap. I’ve been fi ghting for paid leave and equal pay for my entire career. As First Lady, the fi rst bill my husband signed as president was the Family and Medical Leave Act, which I fought to expand. In the Senate, I co-sponsored the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act as a key step toward equal pay. I believe when we shortchange women, we shortchange entire families. Let’s make America a place where hard-working people don’t have to choose between doing their jobs and being good parents — and where folks like Megan Sennett don’t have to sacrifi ce their health to keep their jobs. We can and should do better than that. If I’m elected president, I’ll fi ght to make sure we do. Hillary Rodham Clinton is a former fi rst lady, U.S. senator and U.S. secretary of state. She is a democratic candidate for president of the United States. A LOOK BACK


QC04212016
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