Why Sirhan murdered Bobby

San Francisco: Thank you for Blake Fleetwood’s Op-Ed “Robert Kennedy and what might have been” (June 5). Note that everything good that Sen. Robert F. Kennedy might have accomplished as President was destroyed because of one man’s hate for Israel. Before Kennedy went into politics, he covered the Middle East in 1948 as a reporter for the Boston Post. In a series of dispatches, he noted the Jews’ plight as besieged underdogs and praised them for their determination as well as their efforts to help their Arab neighbors.

As a senator, Kennedy staunchly supported Israel. For that, a Palestinian man, Sirhan Sirhan, decided Kennedy must die. During his trial, Sirhan said that he had killed Kennedy “premeditatedly with 20 years of malice aforethought,” referring to the 20 years since Israel’s independence in 1948.

After Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, Kennedy soothed a crowd by quoting the ancient Greek poet Aeschylus, calling on his supporters to “tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.” Two months later, Kennedy, too, was murdered by someone motivated by hate. Stephen A. Silver

Defining excellence down

Riverhead, L.I.: And when the standards are lowered in order to allow more black and Hispanic students into the better New York City high schools, will the teaching standards be lowered as well to ensure that many, if not all, students graduate from these high schools? Thomas Smith

Go big

Manhattan: Really want to desegregate New York City? Let’s do this: All companies should hire 10 whites, 10 women, 10 blacks and 10 Latinos regardless of their qualifications. Scrap SATs for college and scrap résumés for hiring. Let’s get rid of NYPD tests and firefighter tests. Let’s go farther and let people become doctors at the age of 18 with no schooling. Ardina Cerra

Earn it

Manhattan: I feel compelled to respond to Errol Louis, who wrote about desegregation of elite NYC high schools which require a test for entry; and Mayor de Blasio, who is proposing eliminating the tests (“Desegregate these schools,” column, June 5). With no test prep at all, I easily passed a test at age 6 to get into Hunter College Elementary School and another one at age 12 to enter Hunter College High School, which back then was an all-girls school. As a poor black girl growing up in Harlem, I had neither expensive test prep nor tutors. I didn’t even have a mother or father. What I did have was a gift and a kindergarten teacher who spotted my gift. Gifted children can be found in every race and nationality. If these elite public city high schools didn’t require a test for entry, they would be the same as every other NYC high school. Louis asks what’s the harm in letting in lower-scoring students. How about the frustration of these students when they can’t keep up with the fast pace of these schools? Leave the tests alone and let the elite high schools do what they have been doing for years: providing a place where gifted minds can flourish.

Pamela Carter

Island of lost souls

Westbury, L.I.: Nassau County is an accident waiting to happen. And I’m not exaggerating. Drivers here, and I’m sure in many places, are impatient, unkind and some are just plain stupid. Someone blew the light while I was making a left turn. I’m so thankful to God that it didn’t turn into an accident. What I don’t understand: If people are in such a hurry, don’t they realize if they cause an accident, they may never get to where they’re going?

Alice M. Boccia

Worm at the top

South Wellfleet, Mass.: Apparently former NBA star Dennis Rodman will be in Singapore during the Trump-Kim Jung Un summit. There’s a joke in there, somewhere. Maybe three. Mike Rice

A huge cop-out

Brooklyn: Instead of giving a cop a lifetime of disability payments, for such things as minor as a knee injury, hand injury, back pain, which the rest of the world lives and deals with, instead of a check, why not a desk, a broom, or make them 911 operators? This is ridiculous. Work 10 years as a cop, hurt your knee, and get $3,000 a month pension payments for life, some as long as 25 to 30 years. Are we kidding? Cops say “the public doesn’t trust us.” Now you know why. If they can’t fire a gun, I hope they can hold a broom. Reform this now!

Patrick Doyle

Busy signal

Manhattan: Voicer Diane Moriarty is lucky she has her landline service back. My service was knocked out on Jan. 30, most likely by the same accident that knocked out hers. On that day, on the corner of 17th St. and Seventh Ave. in Manhattan, a construction worker with a pile driver severed several cables, knocking out hundreds of phones. I’ve gotten that little device she mentions that Verizon sent her, but I never use it. I use my iPhone to make calls, but I miss my landline, which is still out. Every time I call Verizon, I get a tale of woe and a different date. First it was the end of February, then April 30 or so, now it’s June 28. The representative and I both laughed the last time I called and agreed it wasn’t worth betting on. They say it’s a complete mess under the street; it’s hard to figure out which lines go where; and sometimes they have trouble getting access because it’s an active construction site. Verizon owes me a large refund. Carol F. Yost

No way out

Manhattan: I have no sympathy for people who commit suicide. They are cowards leaving behind many unanswered questions. Kate Spade, you didn’t even think about your daughter who will forever have to live with what you did. You could have sought help of which there is plenty of out here. Instead, you took the easy way out to deal with your issues.

Gladys Zenon

Real prison reform

Brooklyn: Are we ready to be adults yet and talk about why America has the world’s largest prison population? As good as it feels to have evil people like ex-NYPD Commish Bernie Kerik or Rod Blagojevich go to prison, it couldn’t be dumber: You mean their victims have to pay their food and rent bills and free health care, etc., while they read books and watch movies in the giant YMCA we call jail? That’s idiotic! Unless the criminal is violent, and I count pedophilia and sexual assault with that, they should instead do 20 hours of community service a week for the rest of their lives, and pay 25% of their salary to their victims and taxpayers. Jail doesn’t cure crime. In fact it increases it, because it’s a criminal college! This no-brainer saves taxpayers trillions of dollars, and earns taxpayers trillions of dollars (in free labor)! Winwin! Jack Dickenson

Word of the Lord

Astoria: To Voicer Gladys Garcia de Birkenhead: By speaking one language, the Tower of Babel was about the pride of mankind plotting to build a tower and city to reach the heavens, so they could be their own gods; and because of their pride, which is a sin, God scattered them throughout the Earth, making them speak different languages (no one is above God). There is no official language in the United States, due to the different cultures who came here, forcibly or not. Please, when referencing the Bible, have knowledge. Yvette D. Kemp

King Trump

Bronx: It is now official. Donald Trump really does think he is above the law. During the campaign, at one point he said that he could shoot someone on the street and he would not be convicted. Now his lawyers are claiming that the President is above the law. If this is true, why is there a process for impeachment? If all people are created equal and all citizens have the same rights, why should the President, who must be a citizen, have rights that no one else has? Is Trump also above God’s law? This is conceit and narcissism to the max. Anna Maria McCorry

Dog’s worst friend

AP Manhattan: Happy as I am to learn that the dog Zoey was returned to his Park Slope couple, I am compelled to ask whether they had arranged for a vigilant and responsible caretaker/pet-sitter to ensure his safety, and provide him food and water and walks to relieve himself, while they were away. Or had they left their beloved pooch in the apartment all alone while they blithely gallivanted around Georgia for an undisclosed number of days? f they had, indeed, deserted the dog, they should be held accountable for his trauma, caused by unconscionable neglect — which is a punishable offense under the law. Aviva Cantor