Weekly Review

By Gemma Sieff

Israel and Hamas agreed to a one-week ceasefire in Gaza, where Gazan officials estimated that 1,300 Palestinians had died.¹ “My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow,” said Sir Gerald Kaufman, a British MP who was raised as an Orthodox Jew. “A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers.”² A Berlin court ruled to allow the display of Hamas flags and paraphernalia at anti-Israel protests, while at a pro-Hamas rally in the city of Duisburg, German police stormed an apartment to tear down an Israeli flag hanging from its balcony.³ South Korea put its military on alert after North Korea announced it had “weaponized” enough plutonium for four to five nuclear weapons and threatened “an all-out confrontational posture.” ⁴ Tom Cruise, visiting Seoul, said “I've always wanted to kill Hitler.”^{5 6} At the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., President-elect Barack Obama greeted joyful crowds gathered in anticipation of his inauguration. Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Jon Bon Jovi, Mary J. Blige, and Garth Brooks performed. “Anything,” said Obama, “is possible.”⁷ The Obama family prayed at the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church. “Martin Luther King walked so that Barack Obama could run,” said one boy. “Barack Obama ran,” said another, “so that all children could fly.”⁸ A Mississippi man was arrested for posting his plans to kill the President-elect on a UFO-spotting website. “It's not because I'm racist that I will kill Barack,” wrote the man, “it's because I can no longer allow the Jewish parasites to bully their way into making the American people submit to their evil ways.”⁹ Vice-president-elect Joe Biden announced that he was “the most experienced vice president since anybody.” He continued: “The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The Bush-Cheney relationship hasn’t tasted very good. Not a single person you can name for me... can tell you that the pudding has tasted good.”¹⁰ More Americans were joining the military,¹¹ and more Missourians were eating raccoon.¹²

In New York City, a plane collided with a flock of “big, dark-brown” birds and crashed into the Hudson River. All 155 people on board were successfully rescued. One passenger cried with relief as he imagined reuniting with his daughter. “When I get home, I am going to take my nose and put it by her ear, her little warm body and give her a nice kiss from Daddy. I'm alive.”^{13 14 15} At a monster-truck rally in Tacoma, Washington, a metal part flew loose from a truck doing doughnuts, killing a six-year-old boy. “You go out for a night of fun,” said Jessie Hizey, the boy's father, “and you lose your son.”¹⁶ Little Debbie snacks containing peanut-butter paste were recalled after they were linked to an outbreak of salmonella,¹⁷ and a study warned that Vicks VapoRub may cause bronchial inflammation and suffocation if used on children younger than two.¹⁸ Allergan, the drug company that developed Botox, announced the release of Latisse, a new prescription medication for growing longer, thicker eyelashes.¹⁹ A judge in New York refused to jail Bernard Madoff, who is under house arrest until he can be tried for securities fraud, saying that the financier was neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community. Prosecutors had argued that Madoff broke the terms of his bail by mailing more than $1 million worth of diamond-studded jewelry to family and friends. Madoff's lawyer, Ira Lee Sorkin, defended his client by telling the judge that many of the items mailed were relatively inexpensive, such as a pair of $200 mittens.^{20 21}

Environmental researchers announced that performing two Google searches generates the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle.²² Andrew Wyeth died,²³ and the former rock star Boy George was sentenced to 15 months in prison for imprisoning a Norwegian escort, handcuffing him to a bed, and beating him with a chain.²⁴ Sri Lanka's army killed eighteen civilians in attacks on Tamil Tigers bases,²⁵ Peru's highest court ruled that workers cannot be fired for being drunk on the job,²⁶ and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof announced his third “Win A Trip” contest, offering college students the chance to accompany the reporter around the world. “If you want to save the world, you first must understand it,” wrote Kristof. “For my first win-a-trip journey I chose a Mississippi student, Casey Parks, who had never been out of the country. In rural Cameroon, we came across Prudence Lemokouno, a mother of three who was dying in childbirth. We gave money and donated blood in hopes of saving Prudence. We failed, and we watched Prudence’s life ebb away.”²⁷ Astrophysicists said that the aural jitters picked up by a German gravitational-wave detector may indicate that we all live in a giant and blurry cosmic hologram.²⁸