A book about Nixon?

I am looking forward to reading John Rothmann and David Dalin’s book “Icons of Evil” (“Hitler’s Arab wingman,” June 20).

Maybe they can be induced to write a book involving three well-known people at that time — Golda Meir, Henry Kissinger and President Richard Nixon, the latter an avowed anti-Semite who saved Israel’s derrière in its war with Egypt.

Alvin Z. Tucker | Walnut Creek

Save your paper

OK already — enough. I think most of us aren’t stupid or blind. For years your articles clearly support your position on gay marriage, but enough is enough.

I open my mail today and receive j., which has five separate articles favoring gay marriage and the gay agenda. Believe me, we get it though not all of us agree, but that too is fine.

Now that the issue is mostly solved and marriages are being performed, can you start to focus on issues the rest of us care about? If you can’t think of anything interesting, why not get behind another popular movement and be green and save some paper?

Gary Neuman | Walnut Creek

If you eat meat, do it right

My partner and I gave up kosher meat some years ago.

Regardless of the current outcry (“Slaughterhouse owner: ‘We are ethical people,'” June 6), the fact remains that with current advances, kosher slaughter is not the most humane way to kill an animal. I always thought it was. I was always told it was. But it simply isn’t. Any amount of honest research on the subject will lead to this conclusion.

Additionally, the kosher-meat process is concerned with how the animal is slaughtered — not how it lived. Was it given endless hormones and antibiotics? Did it spend its entire life in a small cage, or in a pen with slatted floors? Did it have all vegetarian feed? Kashrut doesn’t care. Well, I care!

We buy our meat at Whole Foods. We have personally met with the ranchers who raise the beef sold there and discussed their practices in-depth. Those conversations left us with the conviction that we could eat their products with good conscience.

Vegetarianism is not for everyone. (Although any reduction in meat eating is a positive thing.) But if you’re going to eat meat, do it right.

Mike Bromberg | San Jose

Leave meat behind

The many recent abuses of people, animals and the environment at the Agriprocessors kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa should be a wakeup call for the need to consider many issues related to animal-based diets.

It is essential that we consider that such diets are contributing significantly to:

An epidemic of heart disease, several forms of cancer and other diseases;

Global climate change, since, according to a 2006 U.N. report, animal-based agriculture emits more greenhouse gases (in CO2 equivalents) than all the cars and other means of transportation worldwide combined (18 vs. 13.5 percent);

Widespread hunger, since more than 70 percent of the grain produced in the United States and more than 40 percent produced worldwide are fed to farmed animals;

Increasing water and energy scarcities, since animal-based diets require up to 14 times as much water and 10 times as much energy as vegan (all plants) diets.

Also, the consumption of animal products is projected to double in 50 years, making the situation even worse.

Hence, a major shift toward plant-based diets is essential to move our precious, but imperiled, planet to a sustainable path.

Richard H. Schwartz | Long Island, N.Y.

Barack ‘a mensch’

Eugene Voskoboynikov (Letters, June 13), if Baruch Cohen were the Democratic candidate for president, attracting “almost 100 percent” of the Jewish vote, should that arouse suspicion? Or Baruch Kaganovich attracting almost 100 percent of Russian émigré voters? Why is it surprising when a unique candidate (Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton) attracts voters thrilled that someone like themselves could be a serious presidential candidate?

And why is Obama’s support from black and Muslim communities (many American Muslims are black) any reason to doubt Obama’s sincerity about Israel? I don’t follow that logic. All of us have a stake in Middle East peace. Even if he had no empathy for the plight ofJews in the world (which I doubt), Obama surely recognizes the importance of Israel as America’s only reliable ally, and only true democracy, in that critical region.

The “white guilt” statement is just offensive. I support Obama because he is, in brief, a mensch. He could be earning millions at a law firm, but instead he followed his heart and his value system by going to Chicago after law school to do community organizing. We are lucky such a good man is willing to expose himself and his family to national politics.

Marsha N. Cohen | San Francisco

Obama is not an anti-Semite

I absolutely disagree with your letter writer Eugene Voskoboynikov (Letters, June 13) who thinks that Obama isn’t good because he is African American. I respect each opinion. But let me tell Voskoboynikov that racism isn’t appropriate and not acceptable. Ethnicity and background have nothing to do with his personality and skin color. I believe Obama is the best pro-Israel candidate. He isn’t an anti-Semite.

Not all African Americans are bad. There are some good and some bad people. That is what we need to understand. We can’t mix bad and good people together. But to think that he is bad and anti-Semite and pro-Israel only because he is African American is immoral. Also, his first and middle names have nothing to do with Osama and Saddam. He is pro-Israel.

Paul Shkuratov | San Francisco

Security clearance for Obama?

What has been revealed about Barack Hussein Obama thus far:

• His high school mentor was a member of the Communist Party.

• He launched his state senate campaign from the home of an avowed terrorist and killer.

• While serving as state senator, he was a member of a socialist front group.

• He was married by a pastor whose church he attended for 20 years, a pastor who has delivered blatant anti-American and anti-Semitic sermons.

• He has been publicly endorsed by Louis Farrakhan.

• He has been praised by Hamas.

• He has a relationship with a Syrian-born political fundraiser who is under federal indictment.

If Barack Obama was to apply for a job that required government security clearance, the likelihood is excellent he would not get the job, yet America is leaning toward electing him to the most powerful position in the world.

Has anyone noticed there is only one letter that needs changing in his name for it to be Osama?

Dan Calic | San Ramon