Dear Reader,

Today I would like very much to discuss the curious case of one Dr. Ben Carson, a prominent Republican neurosurgeon from Atlanta Georgia, with aspirations for the chair behind the Resolute Desk. In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, he declared that homosexuality “is a choice”. Well! This is hardly surprising coming from an ultra conservative politician. But it is odd coming from a neurosurgeon, who should be well aware of the copious scientific studies that indicate that homosexuality is an inborn trait. Dr. Carson’s evidence that homosexuality is a choice, like choosing to wear a blue suit instead of a gray one, is based on this pungent bit of nonsense: “Because a lot of people who go into prison straight — and when they come out, they’re gay. So, did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question.” Unless I am very much mistaken, Dr. Carson seems to be implying that some victims of prison rape enjoy the experience so much they decide to jump ship. He goes on to opine that restrictions on same sex marriage ought to be decided on the “state level.”

Besides working on my latest novel, whose deadline has slipped so many times I’ve simply given up predicting when it will be done, I’ve been reading quite a bit. I recently finished reading Command and Control by investigative journalist Eric Schlosser. A groundbreaking account of the mismanagement of America’s nuclear weapons from the dawn of the atomic age until our own times, Command & Control is a account of the many near misses, extreme acts of heroism, and sheer idiocy that occurred as the American nuclear weapon stockpile grew from a handful of low yield atomic weapons to massive hydrogen bombs. It was chilling to discover how often some mishandled nuke came close to detonating in the United States. In 1961 a hydrogen bomb came within a hair’s breadth of taking out most of North Carolina. Schlosser goes into agonizing detail about the explosion of a Titan II missile in its silo in Damascus Arkansas in 1980. Had its warhead detonated much of the state would have been wiped out. The author paints a grim picture of the psychopathic General Curtis Lemay straining at the bit to launch a first strike against the Soviet Union, and the many instances when the Strategic Air command almost turned loose its fleet of bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles because of a false alert from the so-called Early Warning System.