Weekly Review

By Chantal Clarke

Charges of a rigged presidential election triggered violence along tribal lines in Kenya, leading to more than 700 deaths and the displacement of 250,000 Kenyans. Opposition leader Raila Odinga, who lost the election to incumbent Mwai Kibaki, said that his first cousin Barack Obama had called him twice to express his concern, “despite being in the middle of the very busy New Hampshire primary.”^{1 2} Obama and Mike Huckabee were the surprise winners of the Iowa caucuses. “None of this worries me,” said Rudy Giuliani, who came in sixth place in the Republican caucus. “September 11, there were times I was worried.”³ John McCain and a tearful Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primaries.⁴ “You look at me, September 11,” said Giuliani when asked if he would ever cry in public, “there were times in which it was impossible not to feel the emotion.” ⁵ G.O.P. candidate Vermin Supreme picked up 41 votes in the New Hampshire primary, and Dennis Kucinich demanded and was granted a recount.^{6 7} Visiting the Middle East, President George W. Bush urged Gulf state leaders to join him in confronting Iran, “before it's too late.” ⁸ Bush, guarded by ten thousand policemen in Jerusalem, told Condoleezza Rice that the United States should have bombed Auschwitz, and was flown by helicopter to Bethlehem so that he could pass through a tiny Door of Humility and pray at the traditionally venerated birthplace of Jesus Christ.^{9 10 11}

The American Dialect Society voted “subprime” the word of the year,¹² and Merrill Lynch reported that the United States had already entered a recession.¹³ For the first time since the 1800s the average Briton was earning more than the average American, even though the pound was at an all-time low against the euro.¹⁴ Starbucks fired its CEO and announced that it would start to open fewer than its usual six stores per day.^{15 16} The World Bank said that the prosperity of China and other emerging markets would help soften the coming global economic downturn,¹⁷ and Pat Robertson predicted that China will convert to Christianity. “God's going to give us China,” he said. “China will be the largest Christian nation on earth.”¹⁸ The Chinese government expelled more than five hundred people from the Communist Party for violating the country's one-child policy, ¹⁹ South Asia was suffering from severe food shortages,²⁰ and the Australian government refused to provide compensation to Aborigines (who until 1967 were governed under flora and fauna laws) who were stolen from their parents as children.²¹ Keepers at the Nuremberg Zoo, under criticism for allegedly allowing polar bear mothers to eat and abandon their young, announced that they would hand-rear an at-risk cub but also made clear that they do not want a repeat of the Berlin Zoo's Knut-mania.²² Benazir Bhutto's 19-year-old son, Bilawal, asked the media to leave him alone after he was made head of his mother's party, and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf blamed Bhutto for her own assassination. “For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone,” he said. “Nobody else.”^{23 24} Sir Edmund Hillary, who in 1953 became the first person to climb Mount Everest, along with Tenzing Norgay, died at age 88.²⁵

A victim of Hurricane Katrina was suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for $3,000,000,000,000,000 after the Corps admitted that it had done a poor job designing the broken New Orleans levees.²⁶ The Museum of Bogota in Colombia opened an exhibit dedicated to laziness,²⁷ and scientists in Houston discovered a vaccine that makes cocaine no fun.²⁸ It was revealed that a single trader seeking bragging rights caused oil to reach a record high of $100 a barrel,²⁹ and Tata Motors unveiled a $2,500 automobile in India, a potential market of 1.1 billion people.³⁰ A U.S. study found that biofuels could be produced from a fast-growing grass and would emit up to 94 percent less carbon dioxide than gasoline,³¹ a British artist exhibited 55 “beautiful and delicate” canvases of his ejaculate sprinkled with carbon dust,³² and French customs officials seized 224,000 fake anti-impotence pills.³³ Forty-seven U.S. senators were fighting for the return of guns to national parks and wildlife refuges. ³⁴ Soldiers were being sent to Afghanistan wearing high-tech helmets that gather data on how bomb blasts impact their brains,³⁵ and it was revealed that Blackwater dropped riot-control gas on U.S. soldiers in Iraq in 2005. “This,” said Army Captain Kincy Clark, “was decidedly uncool.”³⁶ Scientists from the American Astronomical Society attended their annual meeting and agreed that the universe is bizarre and violent. “This is the glory of the universe,” said the association's president. “What is odd and what is normal is changing.”³⁷