Weekly Review

By Paul Ford

The world economy continued its collapse. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 22 percent over eight days, Wall Street lost $2.4 trillion in market value, and Iceland went bankrupt.^{1 2} The head of the International Monetary Fund warned that the world was on the “brink of systemic meltdown,”³ and Democrats in Congress called for a $150 billion economic stimulus plan to rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure.⁴ Barack Obama called for firms that create jobs to be rewarded with tax credits and for a moratorium on foreclosures;⁵ John McCain refused to answer questions about his economic plan, but was reportedly considering a cut in the capital gains tax.⁶ “I'm not sure anyone is FDR this time,” said one historian of Wall Street. “I don't think either candidate has a clue what they're dealing with here.”⁷ General Motors was talking to Chrysler about a merger,⁸ and a yachtmaker in Snohomish, Washington, announced it would lay off 780 employees and close its doors.⁹ The British funeral-services industry faced a backlog of hundreds of corpses as undertakers, unable to obtain credit, refused to perform burials for the poor until the government guarantees reimbursements.¹⁰ Britain, France, Germany, and other European nations agreed to provide hundreds of billions of dollars to guarantee loans and to prop up banks, leading to a 936-point rally in the Dow,¹¹ and the big counter in New York City that tracks the national debt ran out of digits.¹²

A draft U.S. National Intelligence Estimate reported that the government of Afghanistan, plagued by corruption and at war with a resurgent Taliban, is in a “downward spiral.”¹³ U.S. National Park officials in Arizona, hoping to track poachers, planned to embed security microchips into saguaro cacti,¹⁴ and Australian police tasered a ram that was blocking traffic.¹⁵ Alaskan lawmakers issued a report concluding that Governor Sarah Palin broke state ethics laws when she sought to have her ex-brother-in law, a state trooper, fired from his post. Palin announced that the report cleared her of any “legal wrongdoing or unethical activity,” even though it did not.¹⁶ Most Alaskan glaciers were retreating,¹⁷ and in Nova Scotia a moose fell to its death from a helicopter sling.¹⁸ Absentee ballots in Rensselaer County, New York, listed “Barack Osama” as a presidential candidate,¹⁹ and researchers in Ohio, where polls show Obama with a seven-point lead over McCain, said that narcissists are more likely to seek--and to be granted--authority over others. “They are usually charming and extroverted,” explained a psychologist. “But the problem is, they don't necessarily make better leaders.”^{20 21} People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals issued a statement to protest the annual Festival Gastronomico del Gato in Canete, Peru, during which people eat catburgers to ward off bronchial disease,²² and bathers along India's Great Kali River were being eaten by giant goonches.²³

The United States removed North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism after the nation agreed to provide UN inspectors full access to its nuclear program.²⁴ Connecticut legalized gay marriage,²⁵ Austrian politician Joerg Haider (who once praised the Third Reich for its “orderly employment policy”) died in a car crash,²⁶ and a Kansas man who attained notoriety because his girlfriend lived in their bathroom for two years and became stuck to a toilet seat won $20,000 in the state lottery for the second time.²⁷ Matani, a three-year-old Nepalese girl with thighs like a deer and a neck like a conch shell, a member of the Shakya goldsmith caste, was named as the “kumari,” or incarnation of the goddess Taleju, after spending a night alone with the heads of ritually slaughtered goats and buffaloes. She will wear red, and pin up her hair, and devotees will touch her feet with their foreheads, and upon menarche she will retire and then likely be spurned by all potential suitors, for the man who marries a former kumari dies young. “I feel a bit sad,” said her father, “but since my child has become a living goddess, I feel proud.”²⁸ The number of dead zones in the oceans was rising by 5 percent each year,²⁹ and California farmers facing severe drought were increasingly dependent on dowsers, or “water witches,” to identify the best spots for drilling wells.³⁰ Joey Chestnut ate 45 slices of pizza in ten minutes in Times Square,³¹ Paddington Bear turned 50,³² and Nobel Prizes were awarded to former president of Finland Martti Ahtisaari, French author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, and American economist Paul Krugman. “To be absolutely, totally honest,” said Krugman, “I thought this day might come someday.”^{33 34 35}