Weekly Review

By Miriam Markowitz

The Cloaca Maxima, 1872

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hailed by his countrymen as the “Socrates of the Third Millennium” for “disarming other speakers through his sharp reasoning,” gave a speech on Monday in which he claimed that Iran had no homosexuals and disavowed reports of his nuclear ambitions. “Let me tell a joke here,” Ahmadinejad said. “I think the politicians who are after atomic bombs, or testing them, making them, politically they are backward, retarded.” On Tuesday he met with Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, addressed the United Nations (where he announced that he would disregard any resolutions adopted by the Security Council), and hosted a reception at the Intercontinental Hotel that was attended by Brian Williams and Christiane Amanpour.^{1 2 3 4 5} President George W. Bush skipped all events related to the U.N. discussions on global warming, except for dinner, because he was holding his own summit later in the week; reporters covering the Bush conference received a pocket-sized handout aimed at dispelling “myths” about the administration's environmental policy, including the myths that Bush refuses to admit that humans are a factor in climate change, or that climate change is real.^{6 7} A February 2003 transcript of a meeting between Bush and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar surfaced showing that Bush had knowledge that Saddam Hussein was prepared to go into exile. In the transcript, Bush complained about former French President Jacques Chirac, who “thinks he's Mr. Arab,” and the European attitude toward Hussein. “Maybe it's because he's dark-skinned, far away and Muslim,” said the President, “lots of Europeans think everything's okay with him.” ⁸ The annotated text of Bush's address to the U.N. General Assembly appeared briefly on the U.N. website. The speech included phonetic spellings for the name of French President Nicolas Sarkozy (sar-KO-zee), Kyrgyzstan (KEYR-geez-stan), Mauritania (moor-EH-tain-ee-a), and the Zimbabwe capital Harare (hah-RAR-ray).⁹ A White House transcript of Bush's Wednesday speech on education was amended from “children do learn” to “childrens (sic) do learn,”¹⁰ and British researchers studying intelligence announced that men were disproportionately represented in both the top and bottom two percentiles.¹¹

Protesters in Burma, which tied Somalia for the 2007 title of Transparency International's most corrupt nation, taunted soldiers in the country's largest anti-government demonstrations since 1988. “Fuck you, army,” jeered some protesters, “we only want democracy.” “May the people who beat monks be struck down by lightning,” implored others.^{12 13} Rwanda, which will soon be paid a humanitarian visit by Paris Hilton, was named the most improved country in sub-Saharan Africa,^{14 15} former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was extradited to Peru and is expected to become the first head of state to be tried by the country he once led,¹⁶ and former South African President Nelson Mandela opened a shopping mall in Soweto.¹⁷ James Razsa, who cleaned the Kennebunkport pool of former President George H.W. Bush, told a reporter that “if every American had to pool-boy for these people for a day, you'd have a revolution on your hands.” ¹⁸ Both the Magna Carta and pearls that once belonged to Marie Antoinette were being readied for auction,^{19 20} and a Rudy Giuliani supporter in Palo Alto, California, charged guests $9.11 per person to attend a fundraiser.²¹ The board of the World Trade Center Survivors' Network voted to remove its president after doubts were cast as to whether she was a survivor at all.²²

The Department of Homeland Security announced that the completion of a $20 million “virtual fence” pilot project along the Mexican border near Tucson would be delayed because its cameras and radar were unable to distinguish people and vehicles from bushes and cows. ²³ Nike unveiled the Air Native, a sneaker that has a larger fit for the distinct foot shape of American Indians and features several “heritage callouts,” including sunrise patterns, feather designs, and stars representing the night sky.²⁴ The Mexican shoemaker who made the pair of ostrich-skin cowboy boots that former President Vicente Fox gave to President Bush was indicted after the contraband skins of sea turtles, caimans, and other endangered species were found in an associate's warehouse. ²⁵ Riverside, New Jersey, joined the list of towns across the nation that were rescinding anti-immigrant ordinances because they were hurting local economies. “The business district is fairly vacant now, but it's not the legitimate businesses that are gone,” said former mayor Charles Hilton. “It's all the ones that were supporting the illegal immigrants, or, as I like to call them, the criminal aliens.” ²⁶ A bus company on the Isle of Wight planned to teach visiting foreign students how to wait in lines,²⁷ an Austrian judge refused to declare a chimpanzee a person,²⁸ and the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled women must return engagement rings should their wedding be canceled, even if the ring was received on Christmas Day.²⁹ A 14-year-old boy was reported to be the sixth American to die this year after contracting a brain-eating amoeba that thrives in warm-water lakes. ³⁰ Miss Moneypenny died,³¹ and two women dressed as ninjas and armed with a sword and dagger robbed a Pennsylvania gas station of cash, cigarettes, and lottery tickets.³² Officials in Peru said that collective psychosis, rather than a meteorite, was to blame for an epidemic of sickness in a Peruvian town,³³ and the Navy made plans to alter the barracks at Naval Base Coronado in California after satellite imagery showed the buildings were arranged in a swastika.³⁴ Shannon Whisnant, a North Carolina man who found a leg in a barbecue smoker, was hoping to share custody of the leg with the man from whom it was amputated. Whisnant has been charging adults $3 and children $1 to look inside the empty smoker. “It's a strange incident and Halloween's just around the corner,” he said. “The price will be going up if I get the leg.”³⁵