Weekly Review

By Paul Ford

George W. Bush in Vietnam (White House photo).

In Hillah, Iraq, a man promising work lured day-laborers into a minivan, then blew it up, killing 22 people. “The ground was covered with the remains of people and blood,” said a laborer, “and survivors ran in all directions.” Thirty people were killed in attacks in Mosul, Baquba, and Baghdad, four American security contractors and an Austrian were kidnapped in Basra, and a deputy health minister was kidnapped in Baghdad. “Where is the government?” yelled a woman in Mashtal, after multiple bombs killed 11 civilians. “Women and children were killed. God is great, God is great.” ¹ Senator John McCain said that American troops in Iraq were “fighting and dying for a failed policy”; Henry Kissinger said that he didn't believe a military victory in Iraq is possible;² and Army Specialist James Barker admitted that he had raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and helped murder her family in March 2006.³ Tony Blair told Al Jazeera that western intervention in Iraq had been “pretty much of a disaster,”⁴ and 40 firefighters in the United Kingdom carried out a two-hour rescue operation to bring a sheep down from a ledge.⁵ Syria's foreign minister visited Iraq to discuss renewing diplomatic relations between the two nations,⁶ and a researcher in Germany claimed that the swords of Damascus, which were made from a type of steel known as wootz, have a microstructure of carbon nanotubes.⁷ Economist Milton Friedman died⁸ and the price of oil stabilized;⁹ football coach Bo Schembechler died and Ohio State beat Michigan 42-39.^{10 11}

Forests were expanding in Spain, Ukraine, Vietnam, and China.¹² A sea lion in San Francisco bit 14 people,¹³ and, despite the best efforts of Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland was elected House Majority Leader over Representative John Murtha.¹⁴ Senator Trent Lott was elected Minority Whip,¹⁵ and a study found that people with vicious dogs, like pit bulls, have more criminal convictions than people who own nice dogs, like beagles and collies.¹⁶ It was reported that a Brazilian cat named Mimi had mated with a dog and birthed hybrid kitten-pups,¹⁷ and Tom Cruise married Katie Holmes in a Scientology ceremony in Italy.¹⁸ Actor Michael Richards, who played Kramer on the TV show Seinfeld, was videotaped repeatedly screaming a racial epithet at a heckler,¹⁹ and the city council of Greenleaf, Idaho, passed an ordinance that makes it mandatory for most residents to own a gun so that the town will be able to protect itself from refugees from natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.²⁰ Parents in Illinois were lodging complaints against an elementary school library for carrying And Tango Makes Three, a children's book based on a true story about gay male penguins.²¹ In response to widespread public criticism, Rupert Murdoch announced that he would not publish If I Did It, a book by O. J. Simpson in which the former football star describes how he carried out the 1994 killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.^{22 23} A British man testified that he picked up his ten-month-old niece by the ankles and smashed her to death because there was within him a “beast that shows his ugly head every now and then.” The beast, he said, told him to make her feel “a little bit of pain.”²⁴

Across the United States, violent fights broke out among people waiting in line to buy a Playstation 3, even though reviewers said that the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii were better gaming consoles.^{25 26 27} There was a fistula epidemic in Congo; doctors said this was because after gang-raping women, men were shoving sticks, pipes, or gun barrels into their victims' vaginas.²⁸ Floods in the Horn of Africa had affected 1.8 million people; in Somalia crocodiles that washed into villages killed at least nine people.²⁹ Some women in Japan were reportedly experiencing constant orgasms; their condition, known as persistent sexual arousal syndrome, or PSAS, is colloquially known as iku iku byo, or “cum cum disease.”³⁰ Deep-fried American flags were removed from an art exhibit in Tennessee,³¹ and a Danish artist named Kristian von Hornsleth was giving animals to Ugandan villagers who agreed to take his name. “Africans adopting European names for gifts—that's nothing new,” said George Sabadu Hornsleth, who received a pig. “We've been doing that since colonial times. Why do you think I'm called George?”³² President George W. Bush visited Vietnam and avoided all contact with regular Vietnamese citizens. “The president has been doing a lot of waving,” said National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley, “and getting a lot of waving and smiles.”³³ Democratic Representative Charles Rangel called for the reinstatement of the draft.³⁴