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Wednesday's letters: World's supply of nuclear weapons a threat

 
Published July 21, 2015

Iran deal curbs nuclear pursuit | July 15

World's nuclear stockpile a threat

The Iran nuclear agreement should make us all breathe a bit easier. Iran not having the capability of producing nuclear weapons is a good thing. Now we need to work on the nine nuclear-armed countries that possess more than 15,000 nuclear weapons, many on hair-trigger alert and capable of launching within minutes.

Thankfully, we have not had another nuclear event since the United States dropped two nuclear bombs, one on Hiroshima and the other on Nagasaki, 70 years ago next month. In an age of cyberwar and terrorism, these weapons, once perceived as a source of security, have become our greatest liability.

Science shows us that even a very limited nuclear war could cause a climate catastrophe that would disrupt agriculture across the globe and produce a global famine that could kill 2 billion people. And the United States plans to spend $348 billion over the next 10 years to maintain and modernize weapons we must never use and do not need? It makes no sense.

At the recently concluded Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review, 159 countries (82 percent of all nations in the world) demanded that the nuclear-armed countries agree to totally eliminate their arsenals. Queen Noor of Jordan has it right when she says: "The sheer folly of trying to defend a nation by destroying all life on the planet must be apparent to anyone capable of rational thought." There is no place for nuclear weapons in our global home.

Lynn Ringenberg, Tampa

Iran deal curbs nuclear pursuit | July 15

Better than the alternative

The Republicans in Congress and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu need to look up the meaning of compromise. They will learn that in negotiations, compromise means neither party walks away with everything it wanted.

The prime minister should also not lecture President Barack Obama on how to negotiate. Israel has failed miserably over the past 50 years to negotiate a settlement with the Palestinians.

Although the Iran nuclear agreement is not perfect, I believe it stops Iran from building a nuclear weapon for at least 15 years. If Iran breaks the agreements or decides to build a nuclear weapon after 15 years, then the return of sanctions — or God forbid, war — would become an option.

Joe Cirillo, Apollo Beach

Criticism follows MOSI's new boss | July 12

New leader's assets

This article included unwarranted scolding of the MOSI board and uninformed faulting of the search process, and belittled Molly Demeulenaere's real-life experiences, suggesting that because she has no college degree, she has no leadership capabilities. This ignores the job qualification requirement of a master's degree or equivalent experience.

Would the "equivalent experiences" of Bill Gates or Markus Persson, the lead designer of Minecraft, qualify them to lead technology teams? Without a college degree, John Glenn was tapped by NASA to become an astronaut. Were his "equivalent experiences" sufficient? Without the many people with "equivalent experiences," our world would be very different.

I retired from MOSI in February as vice president for research, evaluation, grants and government relations. If you want a model leader who understands and is helping to shape the science museum world, has the ability to inspire, knows the power of saying "thank you," can negotiate and bring donors to the table, invests in people and acknowledges the value that they bring to an organization, is fiscally accountable and can bring financial stability to an institution, is committed to making MOSI the best science center in the world through transformational ideas, and knows she doesn't have all the answers but isn't afraid to learn and grow, there is no better selection than Molly Demeulenaere.

Further, I know, as I stand with doctorate degree in hand and having taught and worked with many a college graduate, that a college degree is no proof or guarantee of having the skills needed to be a successful leader.

However, no leader ever accomplishes positive change and triumphs standing alone. We all, including the Tampa Bay Times, need to and should be supporting Demeulenaere and MOSI. They are an asset to Tampa, the entire bay area and the whole state of Florida.

Judith Lombana, Land O'Lakes

2-year-old's foot severed by mom's riding mower | July 19

Add safety measures

Why is it not required by law that mowers have "dead man switches"? This is a safety requirement for industrial machines like forklifts. It's not expensive and it works. The minute the operator takes his or her foot off the power pedal, the machine stops. Period.

After we saw Ireland Nugent and her family struggle with the devastation of her having both legs severed in a similar accident, it seems that manufacturers would have jumped on the bandwagon to make these mowers safer. This mother will be haunted for the rest of her life. She tried to turn off the mower, but couldn't in time to save her child from being run over.

Now it's our turn to get on the bandwagon and demand that the makers of power mowers install dead man switches or a similar device to immediately turn the machine off when danger looms.

Judy Batson, Tampa

Failures force driver's test tweak | July 19

Florida needs safer drivers

We certainly should not make driving tests any easier than they are now. We have enough bad drivers on the road; why would we want more?

We should raise the passing grade to 90 percent and make all the testing companies rich if they can get just half of the people on the road driving in a sane manner.

Driving on public roads is a privilege, not a right; that is why you have to take a test to do it. About six people a day are killed on Florida's roads. The last thing we need is to dumb down what little testing we already have.

Jeremiah Rohr, St. Petersburg