By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO — Bashar al-Assad has gained an unexpected ally in the debate over the American response to his use of Sarin gas. While expressing its sympathies for those killed or wounded in the attack, the NRA defended Assad’s Second Amendment right to own and employ weapons of mass destruction. In a related development, Assad has agreed to the concept of placing his chemical arsenal under the control of another country, preferably Iran or North Korea.
The International Olympic Committee has selected Tokyo as the site of the 2020 summer games. Japanese officials guaranteed that the cooling tanks of the Fukushima Reactor will be safe enough to hold the swimming competitions there. A new event will pit athletes against other to see who can glow the brightest after swimming in the cooling pools.
The new Iranian president and foreign minister extended Rosh Hashanah greetings to the world’s Jews. When asked if this represented a policy shift from the former’s president’s anti-Semitism, their press secretary replied they weren’t worried because the story would be suppressed by the international Jewish media conspiracy.
To encourage cordiality, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators played a game of monopoly before one of their sessions. It had to be stopped when the Palestinians insisted that Israel issue more get out of jail cards and the Israelis responded by building more houses on the properties they occupied.
George Zimmerman is in police custody again for a domestic violence incident. According to him, he pulled a knife on his wife when he mistook in the dark for an African American male teenager.
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Baron is professor of history emeritus at San Diego State University. He may be contacted at lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com