Readers Write (Dec. 27): Nuclear weapons, smoking and rental housing, violence against animals, gender bias, business ethics

President-elect Donald Trump wants to increase our nuclear arsenal ("Trump: Expand nuclear capability," Dec. 23)? This from a guy who asked during one of the earliest briefings as the Republican nominee: Why can't we just use them?

Does he not understand the massive destruction they would cause? There's no such thing as smart bombs that only kill the leaders we don't like. We would have to kill millions of innocent people if we used these weapons. We would have to sacrifice trillions of dollars that could help Americans struggling to get a decent education, jobs and health care, and the environmental impact would be devastating.

Has Trump never heard of the internet? Does he not realize that anyone could bring this country down by hacking into our power grid, our banks, our health care? They don't need a stinking nuclear warhead. They just need a computer. Look what boxcutters did to our national psyche on 9 / 11.

He's in denial that the Russians hacked us during the election, presumably because it delegitimizes his presidency, and he has surrounded himself with fellow billionaires who don't seem to care. I pray that he looks past his own situation, and looks at the bigger picture — at what is really threatening our democracy.

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Democratic politicians are in a frenzy over Trump's recent tweet that the U.S. should expand its' nuclear capability. This frenzy is being fed by the cable and print media that plays down the event that triggered Trump's comment. It was in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's warning the day before that Russia intends to increase its nuclear abilities in order to "reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defense system."

The Star Tribune's report did mention that Trump may have been responding to Putin's statement, but isn't Putin's stated intent to increase his countries' nuclear capacity in order to penetrate our missile defense system the real news event? Why isn't Russia's threat to our safety the real story? We faced this threat in 1982 when Ronald Reagan came into office. In response to Gorbachev's threat to restart the arms race, Reagan said that our policy would be "we win, they lose." That policy led to arms-control negotiations and ultimately to agreements and treaties reducing the nuclear capacity of both countries. Let's hope President-Elect Trump's response to Putin's threat gets the same result.

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So, Trump and Putin want to revive the nuclear arms race. As I understand it, the U.S. can destroy the world one and a half times and Russia once. Other than burning up a lot of money, what is the point? Certainly not a margin of safety.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently announced a new rule requiring all public housing to adopt a 100 percent indoor smoke-free policy by midyear 2018. Fortunately, our own Minneapolis Public Housing Authority adopted a smoke-free policy in 2012. As a result, thousands of residents in 42 high-rise buildings are free from secondhand smoke exposure in their homes. Resident surveys found that six months after the smoking ban, weekly or daily exposure to secondhand smoke dropped by 50 percent.

Unfortunately, many low-income renters are still exposed to secondhand smoke on a daily basis, putting them at higher risk for cancer, heart disease and asthma. In fact, low-income residents are exposed to secondhand smoke at a higher rate than other renters. Part of the problem is the difficulty securing smoke-free housing in the private sector. The Minneapolis Health Department recently surveyed 888 Minneapolis rental property owners, and gathered information on 1,300 properties. The survey found that only 45 percent of properties with subsidized units are smoke-free, compared with a 71 percent smoke-free rate in the properties that do not accept low-income subsidies. This means that thousands of low-income residents have fewer options for safe and healthy housing.

The Health Department routinely receives calls from tenants experiencing secondhand smoke entering their home. They are concerned about their health and want assistance talking to their property owner about a smoke-free policy. Property owners stand to gain more than satisfied, healthier tenants. Smoke-free properties are safer from fire and far cheaper to clean and maintain. The Health Department is ready to help tenants and property managers create smoke-free housing so all Minneapolis residents, regardless of where they live, can breathe free.

The writer is Minneapolis' commissioner of health.

A woman breaks and enters into a house and takes the owner's small dog. She stomps on the dog, wraps him in a pillowcase, and drowns him ("Charges: Spurned love spurs dog killing," Dec. 20). What is her charge? Burglary. That's right: the torture and killing of an animal is a lesser offense than burglary.

If this fact doesn't disturb you, it should. Extensive research over the last 20 years shows a clear connection between animal violence and human violence. A University of Michigan study found a strong correlation between animal abuse, family violence and other forms of community violence. Research by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals concluded that animal abusers are five times more likely to commit violent crimes than are nonabusers.

Simply put, those who abuse animals rarely stop there. The abuse of any living being endangers everyone. State lawmakers must strengthen our pathetically inadequate laws that treat animals as mere "property," and courts must order psychological evaluations and aggressively penalize animal abusers, not only for the sake of our animal companions, but for the sake of us all.

I enjoy reading the "On The Wing" columns by Jim Williams. I have learned a lot about birding from them. But I was so disappointed reading "Give kids the present of nature" (Dec. 21) when he described one of the people who had given him that present of nature as "an old-lady aunt." He had described her, his great-aunt, earlier in the article feeding the birds outside her kitchen window and driving him to Crex Meadows to watch deer feeding.

He was also gracious in telling the stories about his father and "an occasional uncle." I noticed he did not call his uncle an old-man uncle. It is time to stop disparaging older women with unkind labels.

To continue operating independently, said General Mills Chief Financial Officer Don Mulligan, what matters is "how we perform for our shareholders" ("Difficult quarter for Mills," Dec. 21).

A long time ago when I was in business school, there were four stakeholders: customers, employees, owners and the community at large. Now all you ever hear about is one — the owners. How about changing the product focus to better serve the customers and thus increase earnings. Sounds like General Mills is participating in a headlong race to the bottom.