Weekly Review

By Claire Gutierrez

An American cattleman.

Members of a North African faction of Al Qaeda detonated bombs at the U.N. complex in Algeria and at the country's Supreme Court, killing at least 26 people and injuring more than 170.^{1 2} A top Lebanese army general was assassinated by a car bomb as he was leaving his home,³ and a triple car bombing in southern Iraq killed at least 46 people. “I don't think,” one resident said, “there will be any safe place in Iraq after what happened today.”⁴ The U.S. Postal Service was throwing away hundreds of thousands of holiday cards addressed to “Any Wounded Soldier.”⁵ Archbishop Desmond Tutu railed against the use of detention centers by the United States. “Whoever imagined that you would hear from America,” asked Tutu, “the same arguments for detention without trial that were used by the apartheid government?” ⁶ John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer who participated in the interrogation of an Al Qaeda terrorist suspect who was waterboarded, conceded that waterboarding was torture but asserted that its use “probably saved lives.” ⁷ President Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi to France on Human Rights Day.⁸ Ike Turner died.⁹

In Colorado Springs, 24-year-old Matthew Murray killed four Christians, including two teenaged sisters, and injured five others before Jeanne Assam, a volunteer security guard at New Life Church, shot him. “It seemed like it was me, the gunman, and God,” said Assam. “God made me strong.” During his 12-hour killing spree, Murray paused to post a plagiarized screed to an Internet forum, copying almost verbatim the note left by one of the Columbine High School killers.^{10 11} President Bush pardoned 29 criminals, including carjackers, drug dealers, an election-laws violator, and a moonshiner. I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was not one of the 29 people pardoned, nor, despite being a runner-up, did he win the American Bar Association's newsmaker of the year award; the title went to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.^{12 13} Vífill Atlason, a 16-year-old Icelandic high school student, was taken into custody by the police and questioned after he dialed President Bush's private number and, claiming to be the President of Iceland, asked to “chat” with Bush. “I don't see,” Atlason said, “how calling the White House is a crime.” ¹⁴ President Hugo Chavez decreed that Venezuela would permanently set its clock back half an hour, creating a country-specific time zone,¹⁵ and President Vladimir Putin selected his protege Dmitry Medvedev to be the next president of the Russian Federation. “It's almost a monarchical succession,” said the director of the Moscow-based Center for the Study of Elites, adding that Putin has “nominated his adopted son.” Medvedev, a 42-year-old, 5'4" fan of the band Deep Purple, quickly said that he would make Putin his prime minister.^{16 17} Nearly 300 inmates, most of them communists, escaped from a prison in India.¹⁸

A surprising number of very young actors were among those nominated for the Golden Globe Awards. “If you are old enough to pick up a gun and go to Iraq and kill someone,” explained the chief executive of Focus Features, “you should have the resources to express yourself in the grandest possible way.”¹⁹ The Mexican man arrested for seasoning and eating his girlfriend, and who had been writing a book entitled “The Cannibal Poet,” was found hanging from his belt in his jail cell.²⁰ Researchers in Chicago used drugs and manipulated genes to control the sexuality of fruit flies, making them gay and then straight again within a few hours. “It was very dramatic,” said scientist David Featherstone. “They even attempted copulation.”²¹ Scientists cloned fluorescent cats, developed an antidote for zombieism in cockroaches, and revealed that evolutionary changes in the lower backs and hip joints of females prevent pregnant women from toppling over. “When you think about it,” said Harvard anthropologist Katherine Whitcome, “women make it look so very damn easy.” ^{22 23 24}