The Stark Difference of the Haves and Have-Nots

The juxtaposition of two articles on the front page of the July 11 Times (“Living on Pennies” and “Lakers Agree to Deal O’Neal to Miami Heat”) point out the madness of our world.

The story of the sub-Saharan poverty and the travails of Shaquille O’Neal put into perspective how solipsistic and fatuous America has become.

Adolphe Mulinowa works 12 hours a day and earns 70 cents, with which he feeds his wife and six children. O’Neal works six months a year and makes $12.5 million in salary alone.

O’Neal has endorsements, which may double his income. These articles leave me dismayed as to whether the world perceives us as a nation of O’Neals.

In doing the math, if the Lakers withheld one-half of O’Neal’s yearly salary and channeled that money to those families of eight subsisting on 70 cents a day, 24,510 families, or 200,000 people, could be fed for one year.

It is difficult for me to sympathize with the unhappiness of multimillionaires because they do not control the locker room. My response is, go build your own locker room and don’t let anyone else in.

In the meantime, please send me an address for Adolphe Mulinowa. I should like to forward him $255 to cover his family’s food needs for a year.

Harmon Schwartz

Pasadena

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As I read the front page of Monday’s Times covering the dire problem of starvation in Ethiopia and the “dire problem” of two people of the same gender marrying, I couldn’t help but wonder what might happen if those same people who spent so much time and energy opposing gay marriage focused on something that really mattered.

Instead of preventing two men or women they’d never meet from sharing a life together, they might be able to raise money to feed a child. But I guess first thing’s first.

Ray Lancon

Los Angeles

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Davan Maharaj’s “Living on Pennies” articles (July 11 and 12) no doubt will make our hearts bleed with sympathy, but let us not overlook the facts. Why on Earth does poor Adolphe Mulinowa father six children? I waited until I was 40 to have my first so I could raise it properly. We refuse to even talk about mandatory sterilization; it’s too barbaric and elitist, so we accept the un-barbaric -- mass starvation and disease -- years later.

Why should we send aid when we know rulers and Islamic militants take a huge share of it?

Scott Morgan

Beverly Hills

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The main cause for the human tragedy in Ethiopia is the growth of the population from 11.75 million people in 1900 to 19.2 million in 1950 to 67 million today, and a projected 106 million in 2020.

Too many of the world’s societies have a tendency to let their populations increase to the point where they are living at the edge of their resources.

Only with the massive humanitarian aid they receive will the population increase to the 106 million forecast for 2020. The politically incorrect answer is birth control, which is not likely to happen because of the world (and our government’s) view that birth control, including abortion, is not acceptable.

It seems that it is better to watch children starve to death than to prevent them from being born in the first place.

James Phillips

Torrance