Commentary on the great starvation(s), preparing the groundwork for a war with Iran, same sex marriage and the end of an established religion, and thinking about assisted suicide.

This is the shadow that hangs over Europe.

New York Review of Books -- Stalin & Hitler: Mass Murder by Starvation
In 1932 and 1933 a few starving Ukrainians made their way to Leningrad, where they had family connections.

Just like 1940.

The National Interest -- Iran: Pearl Harbor Redux?
Yesterday, Robert Merry drew some provocative parallels between the American approach to negotiations with Iran and the failed diplomacy that preceded the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Breaking point.

Telegraph -- Will gay marriage end in divorce for church and state?
Government plans to permit homosexual couples to marry could hasten the end of established religion. But Church and state have been drifting apart for years.

Rising divorce rates and single parent (ok, female) households is destroying the economy.

City Journal -- American Caste
Family breakdown is limiting mobility and increasing inequality.

Margaret Somerville and Arthur Schafer debate assisted suicide. Someone who tells it like it might be.

Globe and Mail -- The death debate: Is the assisted-suicide ruling a victory or a dangerous step backward?
Striking down, as unconstitutional, the Criminal Code provision prohibiting assisted suicide, as the Gloria Taylor case does, in effect legalizing physician assisted suicide, is a very bad idea and a step backward for Canada and Canadian values, ethics and law. Not least because it will, inevitably, lead to legalizing euthanasia.