Hail the new generation’s voice

Bayside: Bravo, Daily News, for printing a voter registration form rather than our usual blathering on Wednesday! “Millennials” describes those born between 1982 and 2004. I ask my fellow Voicers to suggest a different name for our current high-school age men and women because it’s clear they are the starting point of making serious, positive changes to our culture and government. I’ll call them “super millennials” for now.

The older ones may have tried but never really made such an impact as these high school kids are doing now. They are focused and fired up. I don’t think they needed a reminder to register to vote, but maybe some older folks could heed the need! Carolyn Minerly Brooklyn: There is something fishy about the student protests regarding school shootings and I can’t seem to put my finger on it. Why have these youngsters not similarly expressed outrage in connection with gun violence and consequential murders in the “inner cities” throughout the country over the last many years?

Perhaps my fellow Daily News readers can enlighten me! Please do so. I eagerly await being educated. George F. McIntyre

Not grown up yet

Poughkeepsie, N.Y.: High school kids are protesting for gun control for their safety in schools and college students are partying during spring break. Only a year or two from now the high school students will be partying hardy like these college students, trust me. None of today’s kids know anything about life and this is who will be running our country. Parents start parenting and bring back the basics in life and teach our kids the true facts of life, responsibility and respect. I still can’t understand how that young man in Florida was able to get his arsenal in that school with only a tee shirt and jeans on. You mean no one saw him carrying in his arsenal? Wake up, America. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Maryann Siero

Rite of passage

Bayside: I remember “walk-outs” when I was attending Francis Lewis High School in Flushing (“Cuomo joins die-in at Zuccotti Park,” March 14). I can’t remember the ostensible reasons, but I do remember the excitement at being so rebellious, and getting a chance to smoke a cigarette. Walking out en masse stoked and underscored whatever self-righteous, half-informed thoughts we had. Overall, they were just immature, emotionally charged exercises by secularly pietistic teenagers. Now we have politicians joining in. Gov. Cuomo, get off the ground and act like an adult. Spare me the “noble children” trope. Just like its cousin the “noble savage” it is simply selfserving vainglory, an insult to the very kids who are being installed on the pedestals. Eva Hughes

Danger from above

Brooklyn: Yet another deadly helicopter crash proves that NYPD bosses Ray Kelly and Bill Bratton were threats to public safety (never mind the public purse) when they repeatedly had NYPD helicopters pointlessly hover over crowded streets. Okay, it wasn’t pointless: Usually done during Occupy Wall Street or Critical Mass bicyclist rallies or other peaceful protests, the intent was to menace and intimidate Americans to avoid marching against police and Mighty Authority. We’re not the land of the free. The Taliban and Kim Jong Un are no threat to us. We’ve met the enemy and it’s our Democratic and Republican leaders. There should be a statue in Zuccotti Park of Meathead Ray Kelly. It should forever remind the world that the NYPD blocked news helicopters from the sky so they couldn’t film the police beating up the Occupy Wall Street kids when they were evicted. Good helicopters bad. Pointless copters good! Jack Dickenson

Keep an eye on the skies

Manhattan: The loss of lives in the recent helicopter crash is indeed sad. Scary, though, is that the pilot told police he had considered an emergency landing in Central Park. We sometimes forget the dangers of a helicopter crash over a densely populated city (Liberty Helicopters has had other crashes). I am surprised that tourist flights are permitted at all and that many fly out of the downtown heliport. A crash some years ago at the Pan Am (now Met Life) Building resulted in the closure of that rooftop heliport. It is time to reevaluate the role that helicopters should have in New Yorkers’ lives. John Ost

Safety before take-off

Smithtown, L.I.: As with commercial plane and ship travel, a business or sightseeing helicopter company should conduct a pre-boarding safety drill, including how to extricate oneself from the aircraft. Plus, any “heli” company that flies over water should be required to have aqua pontoons, which may save the machine and all passengers in a sea emergency. Ronald Gendron

More precautions, please

Cliffside Park, N.J.: I must credit the pilot for attempting a water landing instead of Central Park since the weather was nice and people may have been in the park. The harness system needs modifications, maybe a quick release that would enable a passenger to exit the aircraft in an emergency. If in fact the fuel shut-off switch was inadvertently pressed causing the engine to stop, just like a automobile engine would stop on an empty tank, then that device should be equipped with a clear plastic protective switch cover, along with a flashing strobe visible to the pilot. An audible alarm may have been muffled due to the engine noise especially if the doors or windows were open. This tragedy may have not been avoided due to an unusual circumstance, but I’m certain with modifications focused on passenger safety, emergency landings may allow passengers to quickly exit to safety. Vincent Porrino

Legal eagles

Virginia Beach, Va.: It’s ironic that the family is suing because the harnesses did their job (“Chopper suit,” March 14). They kept the passengers secured because it was a no-door helicopter. If the harnesses failed to do their job and a passenger had fallen out of the helicopter, the family would be suing anyway. Steven Elman

Crazy times, crazy talk

Forest Hills: The Republican candidate in Tuesday’s congressional election in Pennsylvania tried to procure votes by claiming Democrats “hate Trump” and “hate God” (now, there’s an equivalency!). Rational discourse in this country has been dumbed out of existence. Alan Hirschberg

Dangers everywhere

Manhattan: This longtime advocate for safe streets sends heartfelt sympathy to the loved ones of 51-year-old Elise Ellinger, who was killed by a mini-schoolbus in Queens. Reportedly, the driver was making a left turn. Failure to yield by drivers is the foremost cause of pedestrian injury and death. And yet this law is minimally enforced, and this bus driver was not charged. Also, in the interest of justice and traffic safety, surely every traffic victim, regardless of age, must receive significant media coverage. Bette Dewing, founder

Safe Travel First

Pathetic parole

Staten Island: Nothing this cop-killer murderous scum Herman Bell could ever do in prison can atone for the coldblooded killing of Patrolmen Joseph Piagentina, Waverly Jones and San Francisco’s Sgt. John Young. Bell’s lawyer says his client expressed remorse and has helped other inmates, thus deserves parole. He not only gunned down three fine officers but divested their families for a lifetime. Who cares what a goodytwo-shoes he might have been in prison? He lived out his miserable life at taxpayer expense. Now he gets his freedom? What now? Does he go on a book tour? He deserved the death penalty just as he unleashed on those three cops.

Joseph F. Valente

Cruel teacher Erin go bragh

MARCUS SANTOS Manhattan: The callous teacher who fed a live puppy to a snapping turtle should be fired and never allowed to work in a school again (“Science teacher accused of feeding puppy to class snapping turtle,” March 13). I would not want that individual around my young ones, that’s for sure! No wonder there is so much violence in the schools. What a great example of compassion that was! Shame! If that puppy was indeed sick, he could have been humanely euthanized. That “teacher” should be euthanized and not humanely. Just horrendous.

Laurie Jordan Lindenhurst, L.I.: St. Patrick’s Day is the Irish way. As heritage allow, the celebration is now. I am not be Irish, Yet as a Catholic I cherish all the saintly ways. As we join in the party to celebrate and say, “Bless St. Patrick’s Day”

Susan and Robert Davniero