By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO-Ninety-seven percent of the voters in the referendum held in Crimea this weekend voted to join the Russian Federation. Today the 3 % who voted against joining the Russian Federation were expelled from the province.
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The Boston and New York St. Patrick Day parades barred openly gay groups from marching in them. According to the legend of St. Patrick, he drove the snakes out of Ireland and the gays followed them. After all, it was a snake that persuaded homosexuals to engage in deviant sexual behavior in the first place.
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Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disappeared almost two weeks ago. It is long enough for search craft to be recalled from the Indian Ocean and redeployed to Area 51.
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Mahmoud Abbas rejected Benjamin Natanyahu’s demand that the Palestinian Authority accept Israel as a Jewish state. Natanyahu responded by refusing to recognize Saudi Arabia as an Islamic state.
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President Obama imposed sanctions on 11 Russians and Ukrainians who have supported Crimea’s secession from the Ukraine and questioned the legitimacy of the revolutionary government in the Ukraine. He plans to ratchet up the sanctions 11 people at a time for each week Russian troops remain in the Crimea. Since recent polls indicate that 70 percent of Russians think Putin is doing a good job, Obama might want to calculate how many millennia it will take before most Russians feel the pinch of sanctions.
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Baron is a professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted atlawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com
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