Weekly Review

By Theodore Ross

Runaway Raft on the Tigris.

Thousands of U.S. Marine reserves were involuntarily recalled to active duty to offset a lack of volunteers for the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. ¹ President George W. Bush admitted that the Iraq war was “straining the psyche of our country,”² and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to categorize the fighting in Iraq as a civil war, citing instead “sectarian differences.”³ Three Kurdish women testified against Saddam Hussein in his chemical-weapons genocide trial, describing a “sweet, mysterious smell” that blinded them, killed their relatives, and forced them to hide in caves.⁴ A senior U.S. general said it was a “policy of the central government in Iran” to destabilize Iraq. ⁵ President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at the opening ceremony for a power plant that could be used to manufacture nuclear weapons, said his country was “not a threat to anybody, even the Zionist regime which is a definite enemy.”⁶ A poll found that Americans were becoming increasingly effective at distinguishing between the war in Iraq and the war on terror.⁷ Senator Joseph Lieberman compared the Iraq and the Spanish civil wars, saying both were a “harbinger” of worse conflict,⁸ and the Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said banks that handle money for Iran and North Korea were the same as those that accepted Nazi assets.⁹ The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected the idea that its conduct in the war with Lebanon was “outside international norms or international legality concerning the rules of war,”¹⁰ and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez said “Israel is doing the same thing as Hitler.”¹¹ The Holy Jihad Brigades, a Palestinian militant group, justified the kidnapping of two Fox News journalists by saying that "the powers of evil are united in waging wars against Islam and their people.”¹² Syrian President Bashar Assad called the deployment of international troops along the Syria-Lebanon border a “hostile” act.¹³ French president Jacques Chirac said that sending 15,000 United Nations troops to Lebanon was “excessive,”¹⁴ and Israel said it would gladly welcome peacekeepers from Muslim nations.¹⁵ Eighteen prisoners used “fiery chili peppers” to escape from the Pematang Siantar Penitentiary in North Sumatra, Indonesia,. ¹⁶ and in East Timor, gangs armed with machetes and stones fought in the streets of Dili, the capital, killing thirteen people. ¹⁷ The International Rescue Committee announced that more than 200 women were sexually assaulted in refugee camps last month in Darfur.¹⁸ In Kenya, U.S. Senator Barack Obama agreed to be tested for HIV,¹⁹ and President Bush cautioned against placing too much importance on the upcoming one-year anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.²⁰

A Northwest Airlines flight out of Amsterdam landed twenty minutes after takeoff when several passengers were observed exchanging cell phones and unbuckling their seat belts.²¹ A college student from Connecticut was found with a stick of dynamite in his luggage at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston,²² and at Chicago's O'Hare airport, Mardin Amin, 29, of Skokie, Illinois, was arrested after telling security agents that the penis pump in his backpack was a bomb.²³ Flight attendants on Sichuan Airlines will now be required to learn kung fu.²⁴ The mayor of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, announced his intention to make his city the “toughest place on illegal immigrants in America.” ²⁵ F.D.A. representative Dr. Janet Woodcock said that selling the Plan B contraceptive over the counter would transform it into an “urban legend” that would tempt adolescents to create “sex-based cults.”²⁶ Katherine Harris, a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Florida, told a Baptist newspaper that “if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin.”²⁷ A new survey concluded that half of all evangelical Christian men are addicted to pornography.²⁸ Paul Weisman, a researcher at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that scientists were “anally pursuing” a new designation for Pluto,²⁹ and Advanced Cell Technology, an American biotech company, successfully created embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos.³⁰ Australian scientists announced plans to issue oral contraceptives to kangaroos.³¹ Existing home sales hit a two-year low,³² and Microsoft filed suit against two “typosquatter” companies under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which prevents companies from exploiting suggestively similar domain names.³³ Venezuelan customs officials confiscated twenty U.S. diplomatic mail bags containing airplane ejector seats, explosive charges, and 180 pounds of chicken.³⁴

Chinese law enforcement officials cracked down on striptease performances at funerals in Jiangsu province, arresting five and setting up a hotline where people could report “funeral misdeeds.”³⁵ In Diss, England, Gwen Dorling, 102, enjoyed the services of a stripper for her birthday,³⁶ and Edward Rondthaler, 100, of Croton-on-Hudson, New York, attributed his longevity to cold showers.³⁷ “Super-sized” yellowjacket nests were infesting southern states,³⁸ and in Coushatta, Louisiana, nine black students were sent to the back of a school bus to make room for white children.³⁹ In Sorrento, Florida, a sixty-year-old man was accused of biting a six-year-old boy's genitals after the child refused to stop touching himself,⁴⁰ and an English woman capable of climaxing forty times per day was convicted of benefit fraud.⁴¹ Young people were loitering in the nude in parking lots in Brattleboro, Vermont.⁴²