Lab animal overkill

I read with horror the story of Colin, the dog bred by University of Florida researchers to be genetically prone to a specific disease. He has lived nearly his entire life in an inadequate UF kennel. (“Nationwide effort hopes to shed light on laboratory dogs,” Orlando Sentinel, Monday).

I understand that some animal testing is necessary in our quest to cure disease. But how essential are the “more than 1,000 experiments” UF has going on at any given time?

The article mentions the veil of secrecy necessitated by “the actions of radical animal-rights groups.” I defy any compassionate human being to read the article about Colin and somehow sympathize more with the UF researchers than with the socalled radical animal-rights groups.

Rose Wilson Parvaz

Regulate bicycles

Regarding all the talk of registration and regulation of drones: It seems to me with all the near misses of bicycles with cars, we should register and regulate bicycles — perhaps include a special license and training for cyclists. We already have this for cars.

Bicyclists and auto drivers are both guilty of ignoring safety rules and laws that increasingly cause deadly accidents. Some cyclists ignore stop signs and IDEAL LETTERS SUBMISSIONS

Mail: traffic lights and ride abreast of each other, causing cars to have to merge to avoid them. Some car drivers come to a complete stop at crossings at the bicycle path when it is cyclists who have a stop sign.

We have many more near misses with cars and bikes than we do with drones and airplanes. The revenues accumulated from registration, training and licenses would more than pay for any programs put in place to decrease the daily accidents that occur, and protect our most precious commodity — our children.

Timothy Keating

Defending Carson

When candidate Ben Carson made several statements that unarmed individuals facing a gunman might be better off by rushing him, he was accused of mocking the victims.

When he suggested that the Jewish victims of the Holocaust might have had a better chance of survival if they had not been disarmed, many pounced on him for “insensitivity.”

What he actually said was, “The likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed.”

Notable Jewish scholars, including Hannah Arendt, author of the book “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” support him. Arendt wrote, “Without the assistance of the Judenrät [Jewish organizations charged by the Nazis with administering their communities], the registration of the Jews, their concentration in ghettos and later, their active assistance in the Jews’ deportation to extermination camps, many fewer Jews would have perished.”

In 1938, the Nazis deregulated the acquisition of firearms and ammunition, but Jews and others hostile to the regime were forbidden to own or acquire them. Jewish civilians under Nazi occupation followed their leaders who preached nonviolence, and following the orders of the Nazis and the Judenrat, these civilians were led to their deportation, and, deprived of any means of resistance, their annihilation.

The most active resistance organizations strove to acquire firearms in the belief that Jewish civilians would be helpless in the face of the Nazi killing machine. In this, they were absolutely correct.

Celebration

Winter Park

Norman Berdichevsky

Orlando