Weekly Review

By Paul Ford

Runaway Raft on the Tigris.

Bombs went off in Baghdad and Kirkuk, gunmen killed three people in a Baghdad barbershop, then blew it up,¹ and suicide bombers killed thirty-three people in Mosul.² Twenty-one thousand people gathered at Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice.³ The United Nations turned sixty.⁴ Seventy-six insurgents were killed in Afghanistan, although the United States said that number might only be fifty-six, and that they were having trouble keeping a tally of the dead.⁵ It was revealed that North Korea had approached the United States in 2002, offering to “resolve the nuclear issue” if North Korea's sovereignty was acknowledged; the Bush Administration rejected the offer.⁶ The United States was negotiating with Iraqi militants, including members of the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which is responsible for the attack on a U.S. dining hall last Christmas that killed twenty-two people.⁷ “The reality,” said Senator Chuck Hagel (R., Nebraska), “is that we are losing in Iraq.”⁸ “Insurgencies,” said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, “tend to go on five, six, eight, ten, twelve years.”⁹ “I think about Iraq,” said President George W. Bush.¹⁰ The University of Connecticut was planning to offer a master's degree in homeland security,¹¹ and the United States admitted to the United Nations that U.S. prisoners have been tortured in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at Guantánamo Bay.¹² Canada appointed an ambassador to Iraq,¹³ and judges in North Carolina were preparing to deliberate over whether the Koran can be used instead of the Bible to administer oaths.¹⁴ At the U.S. Justice Department, the $8,000 modesty curtains used to cover the bareness of the statues of Majesty of Justice and Spirit of Justice were removed, once again exposing an aluminum nipple.¹⁵ It was revealed that the Defense Department, in violation of the federal Privacy Act, has been building a database of thirty million sixteen- to twenty-five-year-olds. “If you don't want conscription,” said the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, “you have to give the Department of Defense, the military services, an avenue to contact young people.”¹⁶ The U.S. Navy sent a letter to Fola Coats, an eighty-year-old Arkansas woman, asking her to join the Seabees.¹⁷

Italy sentenced ten former Nazi SS officers to life in prison in absentia,¹⁸ and ordered the arrest of thirteen people linked to the CIA on charges of kidnapping a terror suspect.¹⁹ Swiss railways shut down due to a power failure, ²⁰ and gnawing rats shut down telephone, mobile, Internet, and electronic-banking services for 100,000 New Zealanders.²¹ Zimbabwe bulldozed some children,²² and in Kenya forty-eight people were killed and many others blinded by illegally made alcohol.²³ A second case of mad cow disease was found in the United States.²⁴ A monkey in a diaper attacked a fast-food worker in Kentucky,²⁵ a shark killed a fourteen-year-old girl in Florida,²⁶ a very large clam was discovered in Maine,²⁷ and a two-headed kitten died in Oregon.²⁸ In Spartanburg, South Carolina, a man was caught molesting a dog. “He had his pants down,” said the owner of the dog, “and he was doing sexual activity with the dog like a man would do to a woman.” The dog, Princess, later died of related injuries. ²⁹ British taxpayers were each paying the equivalent of $1.12 yearly to support the royal family. “We believe,” said the keeper of the privy purse, “this represents a value-for-money monarchy. We're not looking to provide the cheapest monarchy.” It was reported that Princess Diana once had an affair with John F. Kennedy Jr., but did not pursue the relationship further because they were astrologically incompatible.³⁰ President Bush announced that he would visit Vietnam in 2006.³¹

The Supreme Court ruled that the government can take property under eminent domain for private development. “Under the banner of economic development,” said Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, “all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded.”³² A car belonging to the police chief of Washington, D.C., was stolen.³³ In India a fourteen-year-old girl was granted an annulment of her two-year marriage,³⁴ and in Ethiopia a twelve-year-old girl was abducted and was about to be forced into marriage but was rescued by lions, which ran her captors off and guarded her until police and relatives came to her rescue.³⁵ The president and CEO of Formula One racing, discussing racer Danica Patrick, said that “women should be dressed in white like all the other domestic appliances.”³⁶ In Mississippi, Edgar Ray Killen, an eighty-year-old former Baptist preacher, was sentenced to sixty years in jail for organizing the killings of three civil rights workers in 1964,³⁷ and the NAACP named former Verizon executive Bruce S. Gordon as president.³⁸ Bill Clinton appeared at a Billy Graham rally in New York City. “God bless you, friend,” said Clinton.³⁹ American evangelist Benny Hinn flew to Nigeria in a private jet to hold a three-day crusade, but only a fraction of the expected number of people came out each night. “Four million dollars down the drain,” he shouted from the pulpit.⁴⁰ The Jordan River was filled with sewage, forcing pilgrims to bathe in special pools with treated water.⁴¹ An Irish man covered himself with 200,000 bees, still 150,000 bees short of the world record,⁴² Bangladeshi doctors removed a dead fetus from the abdomen of a teenage boy,⁴³ and a Florida man on an oxygen machine died when the electric company turned off the electricity to his son's home.⁴⁴ Tigger died, as did Piglet.⁴⁵