Comment 4 for bug 989624

Suggested work-around copied from James Powell on a Netbeans forum page ( http://forums.netbeans.org/post-127693.html ).

Hi guys, you may have noticed that a new LTS been released several hours ago.
It has a bug in a default gtk2 theme "Ambiance".
All java applications menus will have a black font on a black background.
Bug already reported on launchpad, but have no idea when it will be fixed, so here is a solution:
sudo vim /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/gtkrc

Find a row 338 with contents:
style "menu" {

and make it look like this:
style "menu" = "dark" {

save and your java menus will be fine.