Weekly Review

By Claire Gutierrez

An American cattleman.

As the war in Iraq stretched beyond its fifth year the U.S. death toll rose to 4,000, and a national conference intended to reconcile sectarian groups was boycotted by Sunnis. Senator John McCain visited Jordan and told reporters that it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran.” Senator Joe Lieberman was seen whispering into McCain's ear, after which McCain apologized. “The Iranians are training extremists,” he explained. “Not Al Qaeda.” Later, in Jerusalem, a fistfight among photographers, soldiers, police officers, and tourists erupted at McCain's Western Wall photo shoot, resulting in damage to several pairs of sunglasses. In response to fury over a handful of remarks made by Reverend Jeremiah Wright over the course of his 36 years as a pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, Senator Barack Obama delivered a nuanced and serious speech about race in America. “I think it's an obligation of any opponent to use this issue,” said Congressman Peter King (R.-NY), “to make Reverend Wright a centerpiece of the campaign.” The National Archives released more than 11,000 pages of Senator Hillary Clinton's daily schedules as first lady, providing proof that she once read If You Give a Moose a Muffin out loud to a group of children. Scientists concluded that destroying information by throwing it into a black hole was not effective, because the information could leak from the hole at 1,000 bits per second, the same speed as a dial-up Internet connection.

The Dalai Lama said that he would resign as the spiritual leader of Tibet if violence in the area escalated. Francisco Duque III, the Philippine Secretary of Health, encouraged Roman Catholic worshippers who planned on flaying the skin off their backs or crucifying themselves on Easter to get a tetanus shot first and to use clean whips and nails. Mikhail Gorbachev admitted that he is a Christian, and Michael Stipe, lead singer of R.E.M., announced that he is gay. “I thought it was pretty obvious,” said Stipe, who has been explaining that he is not heterosexual for nearly a decade. Playgirl invited former New York governor Eliot Spitzer to pose nude in its pages; Spitzer's replacement, David Paterson, became the first black governor of New York and promptly admitted that he had in the past frequented a New York City Days Inn hotel to have sex with “a woman other than my wife.” Theodore Pederson, once an aide to former New Jersey governor James McGreevey, said that for three years he, McGreevey, and Dina Matos (who would later marry McGreevey) would have dinner and drinks at T.G.I. Friday's and follow that with sex as a threesome. “Friday night specials,” Pederson said, “developed into Saturday mornings.” Researchers found that a diet that includes lots of folate will keep sperm healthy.

The cubicle turned 40, Viagra turned 10, and Hotel Luxor, the oldest whorehouse in Germany's red light district, announced that it would close for lack of business. Marvin Richardson, an organic strawberry farmer in Idaho who is challenging Senator Larry Craig for his Senate seat, had his name legally changed to Pro-Life. An 81-year-old Australian committed suicide by building a robot that shot him four times in the head, and ABBA's former drummer Ola Brunkert accidentally cut his neck on a piece of shattered glass at his Mallorca home, walked outside, collapsed in his garden, and died. Horst Rippert, an 88-year-old former German fighter pilot, told the biographer of Antoine de Saint-Exupery that one of the 28 planes that Rippert gunned down during World War II was piloted by The Little Prince author. “If I had known,” Rippert said, “I wouldn't have fired.” President George W. Bush spoke with soldiers in Afghanistan. “I'm a little envious,” he said via a remote video link. “It must be exciting for you—in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger.” An elderly German woman filed a lawsuit against a hospital in Bavaria after she checked in for a leg operation and was instead given a new anus. A study concluded that 95 percent of all Native Americans in North, Central, and South America descended from six “founding mothers” who lived 20,000 years ago; researchers discovered a hidden ocean underneath the crust of Titan, Saturn's largest moon; and a NASA probe revealed that Mars may be covered in table salt. It was reported that Petra, the German black swan who fell in love with a swan-shaped paddleboat two years ago, has moved on to a new relationship with a live white swan. The two are now building a nest together.