Readers write: Nuclear options, heartbreaking but illuminating, adults’ guidance

Letters to the editor for the Aug. 14, 2017 weekly magazine.

Readers Respond

Nuclear options

Regarding the July 5 article “North Korea missile test: How big a technological breakthrough?” (CSMonitor.com): Rather than impose tougher sanctions on North Korea, perhaps the United States should undergo a complete nuclear disarmament. The US could demonstrate a new direction to take in an attempt to promote world peace. North Korea’s efforts to become a nuclear state are their way of “keeping up with the Joneses.” They want to show the world that they are just as good as everyone else. But getting along with our “neighbors” is more important than flexing our nuclear muscles. As long as the US remains a nuclear state, it should not have jurisdiction to cherry-pick those nations allowed to have nuclear weapons. Nuclear accidents can occur in “responsible” nations as well. 

JoAnn Lee Frank

Clearwater, Fla.

Heartbreaking but illuminating

Regarding the July 5 Monitor Daily article “In Ethiopia, lives and traditions disrupted by drought”: This was a heartbreaking but illuminating story. The piece helped me understand the enormity of the problem in Ethiopia through writer Ryan Lenora Brown’s focus on how climate change, poverty, and traditional cultural mores collide in ways that are devastating to communities and individual destinies. The Monitor should definitely come back to topics such as these. We learn so much from journalists like this.

Christine Chao

Denver

Adults’ guidance

Regarding the June 14 Monitor Daily article “Support for teens’ mental health”: I am grateful for the spiritually grounded thought expressed in this article and the way the author uses it to support and guide her children. I appreciate her recognition that we, as adults, have a responsibility to all teenagers – to guide them from a higher perspective than that offered by pop culture.

Ann Brown

Elsah, Ill.