YOUR VIEWS

Norfolk Tides

The Norfolk Tides threaten to win the International League championship series for the first time since 1985. The team, a cultural asset to the community, benefits from our attendance at the games. A sold-out stadium represents a tremendous advantage to the home team and will help secure the elusive International League championship for the first time in 38 years.

The league championship series is scheduled to run from Tuesday through Thursday (Thursday if necessary). Given this is a rare community event, to see the home team win the league championship, we should take this opportunity to celebrate as a community. If we cannot get together on something easy, like rooting for the home team to win a rare championship, how we will get together on more meaningful public policy issues like poverty, homelessness and addiction?

Park at light rail stations and ride

The Tide for free with your game ticket (depending on the date). Those driving should consider the Dominion Tower Parking garage for ideal parking. Gates open at 5 p.m. for pregame entertainment including happy hour specials. The first 3,000 fans will receive a rally towel to encourage the home team and commemorate the rare community event. Please consider celebrating our community as represented by the success of our baseball club.

— Joe Sherman, Norfolk

Alzheimer’s bills

Close to 40 years ago, my father was diagnosed with midstage Alzheimer’s disease. At that time, there was very little information, support or hope for the affected individuals and their caregivers. And there were definitely no treatments.

Today for the more than 6 million Americans living with the disease, including 150,000 in Virginia, the landscape has changed as we enter an era of treatments. Much progress has been made in the fight against Alzheimer’s over the past decade thanks in large part to Congress passing the National Alzheimer’s Project Act and the Alzheimer’s Accountability Act, each making Alzheimer’s a national priority.

With NAPA and AAA set to expire in 2025, updated legislation is urgently needed for people living with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers.

The NAPA Reauthorization Act would continue the work of the national plan and help address health disparities among underrepresented populations. The Alzheimer’s Accountability and Investment Act will ensure that Congress will continue to directly hear from National Institutes of Health scientists what is needed to advance research to develop new treatments.

Thank you to Sen. Mark Warner for leading the bipartisan effort to extend both acts. Please join me and the Alzheimer’s Association in encouraging Rep. Jen Kiggans and Sen. Tim Kaine to renew our nation’s commitment to the fight against Alzheimer’s and other dementia by supporting the NAPA Reauthorization Act and the Alzheimer’s Accountability and Investment Act. To learn more and join the fight, visit alz.org.

— Gino V. Colombara, Alzheimer’s volunteer advocate, Virginia Beach

Federal budget

It takes courage to serve in the military, and it requires leadership skills and the ability to make command decisions. Given her successful 10-year career in the U.S. Navy, Congresswoman Jen Kiggans must have possessed those qualities.

However, we shall soon learn whether she still has the courage, leadership and decision-making ability to move away from the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party and vote to approve a federal budget than can also be approved by the Senate and accepted by the president. Or, will she join the spineless followers who are more concerned with staying in Congress than they are with the well-being of the country?

— Steve Alcorn, Virginia Beach

Nuclear weapons

Tuesday is the 10th annual International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. As nuclear-armed states face off over Ukraine, Taiwan, Kashmir and the Korean Peninsula, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ metaphorical Doomsday Clock is set closer than ever to midnight, warning humanity that it must deal with this existential threat before it deals with us. It also marks 40 years since Russian missileer Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov saved the world. On Sept. 26, 1983, in his underground missile silo outside of Moscow, the early warning system blared that the United States had launched a handful of nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles toward the Soviet Union. As reported by the BBC, Petrov said, “I had all the data

[to suggest there was an ongoing missile attack]. If I had sent my report up the chain of command, nobody would have said a word against it.” And he said, “All I had to do was to reach for the phone; to raise the direct line to our top commanders — but I couldn’t move. I felt like I was sitting on a hot frying pan.”

That you are reading this today is thanks to his deciding that the wailing sirens and the huge screen flashing “launch” were false alarms. He was right. A satellite had mistaken the sun’s reflection off of some high clouds for a world-ending attack.

That nuclear weapons even exist in a world filled with children is blasphemy. It is urgent that the nine nuclear-armed states not rest until the last nuclear warhead is dismantled.

— Steve Baggarly, Norfolk

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