What gay problem?
Dear Editor: Just when we thought that issue was being put to rest, parts of Africa and Russia and even a number of our Southern states discover that being gay is just not acceptable.
Contrast that to the general human condition around the planet. I see the continued expansion of our species to the degree that most all other biological systems are being stressed to unsustainable degrees. Our excessive numbers are pushing the world's fisheries toward dangerous decline. Clean water supplies are diminishing, human-created carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere to prehistoric levels. Africa and South Asia are at the forefront of the continued population expansion, yet the wildest reactions to homosexuality appear to be springing from the cradle of our human beginnings.
Nature has controlled our numbers in the age-old way of mutual murders (also called war), famines, plagues and whatever other mass die-offs we have endured. But maybe we have before us an additional and plausible way to deal with our out of control reproductive issues? Sounds like thinking way out of the box? You can point to green revolutions and other clever ways of extending our limited lease on this space rock we call home, but not facing reality and looking at all alternative ways to harmlessly limit our numbers in a humane fashion is to simply fiddle while Rome burns. Oh, and while the Pope is a really nice guy ...
Dear Editor: Menlo-Atherton High School invited the Rev. Jesse Jackson to speak to its students on Feb. 20. This man of the cloth had an out-of-wedlock child with an employee who worked for him when he was in his late 50s and married to another woman.
He was found out, and the response from this paragon of virtue was that he was "taking some time off to revive my spirit and reconnect with my family." So evidently, the administrators and faculty of Menlo-Atherton High School are non-judgmental in the extreme. But what was their intention in placing before their adolescents such an example of moral elasticity?
Dear Editor: Anyone paying attention can see the tectonic shift in the Middle East involving the second largest military power, Egypt. At the beginning of the Obama presidency, our fearless leader made a speech at Cairo University in which he implied he knew what he was doing and would change things.
The Islamic winter (formerly known as the "Arab Spring") has now set in, and no amount of ducking and diving by the Obama administration can avoid the conclusion that the White House's foreign policy in the Middle East failed badly. There may be some dispute about whose fault that is, but one result is undeniable. Egypt, which used to be our ally and relied heavily on U.S. military support, has turned to the Russians.
The most significant U.S. ally left in the region is Israel. Jordan is important but too small to direct things. That's why President Barack Obama should pay close attention to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Iran. If he doesn't, with the Iranian centrifuges spinning while our president fiddles, it looks more and more like he is in bed with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei than promoting U.S. interests, which is, after all, his number one job in foreign affairs.