Weekly Review

By Margaret Cordi

Caught in the Web.

Car bombers, suicide attackers, and kidnappers in Iraq were exceptionally busy, killing dozens to protest the country's impending election,¹ and a video showed two Iraqis being beheaded for delivering food and supplies to an American base in Ramadi.² The interim government announced that to minimize insurgent attacks, curfews would be extended, traffic restricted, national borders sealed for three days, and the locations of polling stations would be kept secret until the night before the vote.³ The Iraqi government arrested an ally of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was responsible for more than thirty car bombs since the invasion.⁴ Al-Zarqawi released a tape declaring war on anyone participating in the election and noting that democracy is a "big American lie" incompatible with the rule of God because it allows adherents to choose their religion. He worried about the lost honor of the Iraqis: "Have you accepted oppression of the crusader harlots and the rejectionist pigs?"⁵ George W. Bush was sworn in again as president, and threatened to bring "the untamed fire of freedom" to the world. In his 20-minute speech the president used the words "free," "freedom," and "liberty" 49 times, but never said "war" or "Iraq."⁶ Protesters threw snowballs.⁷ Norwegians were shocked to see the president and his family repeatedly give the University of Texas "hook 'em, 'horns" sign, which they interpreted as a salute to Satan, during the festivities, and sign-language users pointed out that the sign means "bullshit."^{8 9} A reverse-speech expert played Bush's inaugural address backwards and heard the messages "Hero's gonna shell Iran" and "Bombs will make laws."¹⁰ A poll of thousands of people in 21 countries revealed that just 26 percent consider Bush a positive global force. Three quarters of respondents in France and Germany and 64 percent of Britons felt that U.S. actions would have a negative impact on the world, and for the first time it appeared that an international dislike of Bush is metamorphosing into a dislike of Americans in general. The three countries that approved of Bush's reelection were the Philippines, Poland, and India.¹¹ German police were searching for the those responsible for sticking miniature American flags into thousands of piles of dog excrement in public parks over the last year.¹²

A survivor of the Indian Ocean tsunami was found in his underwear eating coconuts on a tiny island 25 days after the tsunami hit.¹³ The number of deaths attributed to the tsunami increased to 220,000, with about 3,500 corpses still being recovered daily in some areas.¹⁴ Looters were running rampant in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.¹⁵ Both Al Qaeda factions¹⁶ and American evangelical groups were exploiting the ensuing chaos to recruit new members,¹⁷ and Condoleezza Rice was thinking that the tsunami presented a "wonderful opportunity" for the U.S. to make friends in Asia.¹⁸ Rice, the presumptive secretary of state, began her Senate confirmation hearings, during which she refused to say whether such acts as "water boarding," in which an interrogation subject is made to believe he will drown, can be defined as torture.¹⁹ The military confirmed that 23 Guantánamo Bay prisoners attempted mass suicide in August 2003 to protest their detention.²⁰ Three British soldiers were court-martialed for mistreating Iraqis who were detained for stealing food and powdered milk, and photos emerged showing naked prisoners forced to feign sex acts and soldiers simulating beatings; one captive was wrapped in netting and suspended from a forklift, and one was forced to lie on the street as a soldier stood on him, pretending to surf. The images were discovered by a British photo lab technician after a soldier dropped off the film for processing.²¹ Thai officials were planning to set up a webcam in a notorious Bangkok prison to broadcast prisoners' daily lives and the moments before their executions as a deterrent against drug crimes, but Amnesty International pointed out that most criminals are poor and without Internet access.²² Twelve thousand people fled their homes in Concepcion, Chile, after three pranksters ran through a beach shouting that a tsunami was approaching.²³ A 66-year-old woman gave birth in Romania.²⁴ Hours after an Italian man killed himself because his wife had been in a coma for four months, she woke up.²⁵ Johnny Carson died.²⁶

The day after he was sworn in as president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas asked militants to refrain from violence so as not to "provide excuses to Israel" to attack Palestinians. Two hours later a suicide bomber killed one Israeli and wounded seven, and Ariel Sharon ordered a new crackdown on factions in Gaza.²⁷ Israeli researchers found that ultra-Orthodox Jews are three times as likely to jaywalk as those in secular communities.²⁸ Scientists learned that it sometimes rains liquid methane on Saturn's moon Titan, and a probe penetrating the moon's thin crust revealed that the chemicals, pebbles, and ice within it is akin to creme brulee in texture. The researchers speculated that after life becomes impossible on Earth, temperatures will rise on Titan and its ice will melt, releasing oxygen that might support life.²⁹ Scientists theorized that instead of an asteroid, global warming caused by volcanic activity precipitated the Great Dying, the most extensive mass extinction in the planet's history 250 million years ago.³⁰ Hundreds of jumbo squid were washing up on beaches in California.³¹ The World Health Organization warned that the bird flu virus endemic in Asia was mutating in such a way that it could cause a major, overdue human influenza outbreak with a "best case scenario" of 2 million to 7 million deaths.³² British scientists announced that they had developed a printer capable of producing human skin to supplant traditional skin grafts: after skin cells are taken from a patient's body and multiplied, the machine prints out a perfectly matched strip of cells onto a dissolvable plastic surface, which is then surgically attached to the patient's wound.³³ Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, spent the week apologizing for publicly musing that women were innately less capable at science and math than men.³⁴ A cartoonist was sentenced by a Greek court to six months in prison for depicting Jesus as a pot-smoking hippie.³⁵ Christian groups warned that SpongeBob SquarePants was an insidious weapon being used to promote acceptance of homosexuality in a music video made for elementary schools. The video teaches children cooperation and tolerance and also features Barney, Winnie the Pooh, and Bob the Builder.³⁶ Thousands of nocturnal frogs were shrieking loudly in Honolulu.³⁷