Re “End in Sight for AIDS, New York Declares” (news article, Oct. 3):
I read with joy your report about Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s announcement that New York is on track to end the state’s AIDS epidemic by 2020. This news brought me back to an earlier chapter in my life — one filled with too many funerals for a person in her 20s.
It was the 1980s. I was living in Washington, and just coming out of the closet. I watched, first as a mysterious illness took some of my best friends, and later as the terror of AIDS accelerated the gay civil rights movement with unimaginable force and speed.
In retrospect, the pain from that time is what deepened my gratitude for those who devote their careers to curing disease. Though often derided, the biopharmaceutical industry is full of scientists and researchers whose work has led the way to eradicate or prevent disease.
This is what motivates me and many others to work in health care. So that when you, or I, or someone we love is affected by disease, the conversation is about treatments and cures, not last words and funeral arrangements.
My greatest hope is that the achievement of ending New York’s AIDS epidemic can be replicated around the world.
Sally Susman New York The writer is executive vice president and chief corporate affairs officer at Pfizer.
What Lewis Carroll Might Say About ‘They’
To the Editor:
Re “You Can Look It Up: ‘They’ as a Singular Gets an Entry” (news article, Sept. 22):
I wish I’d been a fly on the wall during the discussions at Merriam-Webster when “they” — the plural pronoun — gave their imprimatur to the use of “they” to indicate a single nonbinary person and thereby endorsed the kind of confusion reminiscent of Humpty Dumpty’s conversation with Alice. As Lewis Carroll wrote in “Through the Looking Glass”:
“ ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
“ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
“ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’ ”
Did any of the master lexicographers wonder how a reader might interpret the no longer simple sentence “They went to the store”? It might mean that two or more people went to the store. (Among them may be some nonbinary people.) Then again, “they” may indicate that only one nonbinary person went shopping. As Alice said, “That’s a great deal to make one word mean.”
To which Humpty Dumpty replied: “When I make a word do a lot of work like that … I always pay it extra.”
Mary-Lou Weisman Westport, Conn. The writer is an author and journalist.
Women Wearing Hard Hats
To the Editor:
Re “A Symbol of Toughness Turns 100” (Business Day, Oct. 2):
I got my start in the labor movement with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, so I was hardly surprised to read your characterization of the hard hat as a symbol of masculinity. The Times isn’t the only one to see it that way. But it’s wrong.
More than 2,500 tradeswomen convened in Minneapolis recently for the “Tradeswomen Build Nations” conference, all of whom wear hard hats while electrifying commercial buildings, operating cranes, welding and pipe fitting.
There’s a reason that more and more women are making the choice to join the building trades unions. I’ve met women whose lives it completely changed, including one woman who went from making $10 an hour to $35 an hour after joining our movement, with health care and a secure plan for retirement.
North America’s building trades unions are leading the way to recruit more tradeswomen, and offering attractive incentives. For example, the ironworkers’ union recently instituted a paid six-month maternity leave for its members.
Liz Shuler Washington The writer is secretary-treasurer of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.
Small-Donor Public Financing in New York
To the Editor:
Re “Working Families Party Says Cuomo Is Out to Get It” (news article, Sept. 25):
In your account of the New York State Public Financing Commission, you focus on only a narrow aspect of the commission’s work.
For several years, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has supported public financing for state campaigns. Three months before the budget negotiations that produced the commission, he had included a small-donor public financing program in his proposed budget legislation.
Albany desperately needs that kind of public financing. I testified to this at the commission’s hearing on Sept. 10. The commissioners asked me and the other experts many questions about how to design a small-donor public financing system that will reduce the control of the wealthiest few over state politics. They did not raise fusion voting with me or with a number of the other experts who were testifying.
Fusion voting is far from the commission’s mandate.
Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr. New York The writer, chief counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, is a former chair of the New York City Campaign Finance Board.
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | New York’s Fight Against AIDS
Opinion | New York’s Fight Against AIDS
More from our inbox:
To the Editor:
Re “End in Sight for AIDS, New York Declares” (news article, Oct. 3):
I read with joy your report about Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s announcement that New York is on track to end the state’s AIDS epidemic by 2020. This news brought me back to an earlier chapter in my life — one filled with too many funerals for a person in her 20s.
It was the 1980s. I was living in Washington, and just coming out of the closet. I watched, first as a mysterious illness took some of my best friends, and later as the terror of AIDS accelerated the gay civil rights movement with unimaginable force and speed.
In retrospect, the pain from that time is what deepened my gratitude for those who devote their careers to curing disease. Though often derided, the biopharmaceutical industry is full of scientists and researchers whose work has led the way to eradicate or prevent disease.
This is what motivates me and many others to work in health care. So that when you, or I, or someone we love is affected by disease, the conversation is about treatments and cures, not last words and funeral arrangements.
My greatest hope is that the achievement of ending New York’s AIDS epidemic can be replicated around the world.
Sally Susman
New York
The writer is executive vice president and chief corporate affairs officer at Pfizer.
What Lewis Carroll Might Say About ‘They’
To the Editor:
Re “You Can Look It Up: ‘They’ as a Singular Gets an Entry” (news article, Sept. 22):
I wish I’d been a fly on the wall during the discussions at Merriam-Webster when “they” — the plural pronoun — gave their imprimatur to the use of “they” to indicate a single nonbinary person and thereby endorsed the kind of confusion reminiscent of Humpty Dumpty’s conversation with Alice. As Lewis Carroll wrote in “Through the Looking Glass”:
“ ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
“ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
“ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’ ”
Did any of the master lexicographers wonder how a reader might interpret the no longer simple sentence “They went to the store”? It might mean that two or more people went to the store. (Among them may be some nonbinary people.) Then again, “they” may indicate that only one nonbinary person went shopping. As Alice said, “That’s a great deal to make one word mean.”
To which Humpty Dumpty replied: “When I make a word do a lot of work like that … I always pay it extra.”
Mary-Lou Weisman
Westport, Conn.
The writer is an author and journalist.
Women Wearing Hard Hats
To the Editor:
Re “A Symbol of Toughness Turns 100” (Business Day, Oct. 2):
I got my start in the labor movement with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, so I was hardly surprised to read your characterization of the hard hat as a symbol of masculinity. The Times isn’t the only one to see it that way. But it’s wrong.
More than 2,500 tradeswomen convened in Minneapolis recently for the “Tradeswomen Build Nations” conference, all of whom wear hard hats while electrifying commercial buildings, operating cranes, welding and pipe fitting.
There’s a reason that more and more women are making the choice to join the building trades unions. I’ve met women whose lives it completely changed, including one woman who went from making $10 an hour to $35 an hour after joining our movement, with health care and a secure plan for retirement.
North America’s building trades unions are leading the way to recruit more tradeswomen, and offering attractive incentives. For example, the ironworkers’ union recently instituted a paid six-month maternity leave for its members.
Liz Shuler
Washington
The writer is secretary-treasurer of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.
Small-Donor Public Financing in New York
To the Editor:
Re “Working Families Party Says Cuomo Is Out to Get It” (news article, Sept. 25):
In your account of the New York State Public Financing Commission, you focus on only a narrow aspect of the commission’s work.
For several years, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has supported public financing for state campaigns. Three months before the budget negotiations that produced the commission, he had included a small-donor public financing program in his proposed budget legislation.
Albany desperately needs that kind of public financing. I testified to this at the commission’s hearing on Sept. 10. The commissioners asked me and the other experts many questions about how to design a small-donor public financing system that will reduce the control of the wealthiest few over state politics. They did not raise fusion voting with me or with a number of the other experts who were testifying.
Fusion voting is far from the commission’s mandate.
Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr.
New York
The writer, chief counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, is a former chair of the New York City Campaign Finance Board.
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