Clairol’s old ad asked the tantalizing question, “Does she, or doesn’t she?” posing the Earth-shaking question of whether some woman dyed her hair or not but subliminally asking all kinds of other questions about said woman and what she does and doesn’t do.

The title question, “Will she, or won’t she?” is similarly packed with innuendo but related to significantly more profound import, namely, Will Israel attack Iran before Iran   is nuclear-capable and missile-capable of reducing much of Israel to a glowing, molten puddle.

The stakes are incredibly high, not only for the State of Israel   but for the United States, the Mid East, Western Europe, and much of the rest of the globe.

Should Israel stage a pre-emptive assault on Ahmadinejad’s nuclear and nuclear- delivery facilities, it would face a severely adverse reaction from a world and a United Nations which historically haven’t wildly embraced either Jews or their homeland.  Should Israel not attack Iran and have one or more of its cities obliterated, its retaliation against Iran would surely be far worse than pre-emptive surgical strikes.

What to do?

To say the geopolitical situation is complex and grave would be gross oversimplification.  Israel has often shown it doesn’t conduct its foreign policy with a watchful, cautious eye toward international or American opinion even though the United States is its chief benefactor, arms supplier, and possibly its lone, reliable ally.  However, change is in the air and its new, feisty prime minister, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu seems well aware that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are no George Bush and Condi Rice. 

The Bush administration often demonstrated a total, unflinching commitment to the State of Israel.  Despite the support of the vast majority of American Jewish voters for Obama and despite the very powerful Jewish Lobby in this country, the Obama administration has been less than committed, and Bibi is well aware of that as well.

What to do?

Political considerations are never simple matters.  Even Julius Caesar, backed by the indomitable Roman army, had to placate, cajole, and intimidate when necessary the various factions in Rome as well as in the provinces.  Israel is no Rome and Netanyahu is no Caesar and his options are very few and very limited.

How would the United States react to such a strike?  Israel has acted unilaterally before when it staged successful raids on Libya and at Entebbe . . .
(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com/)

In days of old when knights were bold/ And “gay” was not invented,/ They went along their hidden way/ And seemed to be contented.

That bit of doggerel is simplistic, of course, but it did seem that forty years ago homosexuals seemed happier in the closet.  That may not have been altogether true but prior to co-opting and misusing the word “gay,” they definitely seemed gayer than they seem today. 

Perhaps gays were seething underneath, and it’s true that some may have been bullied and ridiculed, but they didn’t seem violent before the mass outings that began with the Stonewall riots in 1969.  (See Parts One to Five of this continuing series.)  That’s all changed today, ironically, as they push for acceptance and assimilation into general society and as they succeed more and more in that quest.  Perhaps, too, since we unfortunately live in a violent world, they feel violence is the path to travel and they have moved on down that road.

(Another disclaimer is in order here.  In no way do I imply that every homosexual is violent any more than I suggest all violence is gay-inspired, although it has mushroomed of late.)

Paul Cameron, Ph.D., of the Family Research Institute documents the violent behaviors that have occurred in the last few decades in his article, “Homosexuals and Violence,”   http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRI_EduPamphlet4.html, and on his website.  Squeamish readers should be cautioned that what Cameron reports  is graphic and unsettling.  (Oddly, it has also been accorded little media attention.)

HOMOSEXUALITY IN AMERICA: PART FOUR WHAT DO GAYS WANT?

WHEN OUR JOHNNYS AND JANES COME MARCHING HOME AGAIN

I rarely devote this space to anything but political matters but hereby make an exception for a movie review, of sorts.

American Beauty is classified as a comedy by Moviefone, which is ironically comedic in and of itself. Even describing it as a black comedy—a term which will definitely be declared non-PC and banned if Obama becomes our president—doesn’t satisfactorily describe this flick. Films such as Fight Club, Natural Born Killers, the Kill Bill series all plumb the depths of Hollywood’s collective and twisted violent psyche. American Beauty exposes the depths of Tinsel Town’s despair.

This now-8 year old film is truly an exceptional excursion into nihilism, even for Hollywood. It succeeds in portraying a middle class America that is so superficial and devoid of redeeming value that life itself is rendered meaningless. The protagonist is so riddled with angst that he makes angst seem like fun.

The Cast of Characters:

Lester—suicidal middle aged failure in a corrupt corporate world; fantasizes about pedophilia

Carolyn—his cold, distant wife who beds an associate to get ahead, becomes intrigued with pistols

Jane—their depressed, teen daughter who hates her parents and beds her teen neighbor

Ricky—the drug dealing, borderline-Columbine neighbor kid, who offers to kill Lester for Jane

Angela—Jane’s bff, pretty, shallow, promiscuous, airhead whose conceit betrays her self-doubt

Colonel Fitts—Ricky’s dad, brutal gun-loving Marine, latent homosexual

The plot is almost irrelevant and can easily be surmised from the cast of characters: Lester quits his meaningless job, gets another job slapping up burgers, discovers Carolyn’s affair, lusts after Angela, spares Angela from penetration when she says she’s a virgin, gets hit on by the colonel who initially suspected he was Ricky’s homosexual lover, has his brains blown out by said colonel, and dies with a contented smile on his face.

American Beauty manages to denigrate not only middle class America, but corporate life, America’s teens, and even the Marine Corps.

I can’t say American Beauty wasn’t a bad watch. Hey, even my wife called it “good” and it garnered a slew of Academy Awards and Oscars can’t be wrong, right? What always strikes me, though, is the Hollywood penchant for depicting others as dysfunctional when there are more dysfunctional people per square mile in Hollywood than anywhere else on the planet!

When can we expect to see Hollywood Beauty?  Much of it could be shot in rehab facilities.