Weekly Review

By Theodore Ross

President Obama appeared likely to surge 40,000 troops into Afghanistan, thus adopting the key military tactic that the Bush Administration defined as successful in Iraq. ¹ In Afghanistan, a country with no duly elected president, citizens were turning to Taliban “shadow courts” for justice, and, in a series of unannounced government actions, an additional 13,000 U.S. military engineers, medical personnel, military police, and intelligence officers were already deploying.^{2 3 4} The Pakistani military embarked on its own escalation, sending 28,000 troops into South Waziristan in a failed attempt to defeat entrenched Taliban militants.⁵ The White House was at war with the FOX News Channel.⁶ Rush Limbaugh, who was deemed too racist to own a professional football franchise, publicly thanked the Lord for his enemies.^{7 8} A Baptist Church in North Carolina was scheduling a Bible-burning for Halloween,⁹ and Ellen van Wolde, a noted Old Testament scholar, confirmed that the Bible had been mistranslated and that God did not create the Earth.¹⁰

Health-care lobbying efforts entered a “new, more frenzied stage” with the passage of a reform bill by the Senate Finance Committee. “This is now roller derby. It's very fast, lots of elbows, and people are playing for keeps,” said Nancy LeaMond, an executive vice president of the AARP.¹¹ It was reported that some people in North Carolina liked John Edwards, some didn't, and others were indifferent, and that politicians weren't actually cursing in public more often but media outlets have become more likely to quote them doing so.^{12 13} Conservative protestors in Burlington, New Jersey, heckled eight-year-old schoolchildren as they sang a tune in praise of President Obama,¹⁴ and Steve Wynn, a casino and resort owner in Las Vegas, said that Obama has allowed the financial crisis to persist because he hasn't cut taxes enough.¹⁵ The Dow “flirted” with 10,000 points, comforting the rich.¹⁶ Goldman Sachs reported earnings of $3.19 billion in the third quarter of this year, donated $200 million to its educational foundation, put aside $5.35 billion for salaries, bonuses, and employee benefits, and promised a 35-cent per share dividend to holders of its common stock. ¹⁷ The salaries of American workers were being cut at a rate not seen since the Great Depression.¹⁸

A woman dressed as a rasher of bacon harassed Muslim food vendors in Manhattan. “Don't you like bacon?” she asked. “Bacon is so good. Do you ever put bacon on these hot dogs? 'Cause they'd taste really good wrapped up in delicious bacon. Maybe sprinkled with bacon. Or stuffed with bacon. Come on, don't you love bacon?”¹⁹ Ferran Adria, a molecular gastronomist in Spain, was accused of using poisonous additives to flavor the food at his restaurant El Bulli,²⁰ and sports bars were passing off deep-fried chicken-breast chunks as “boneless chicken wings.”²¹ Researchers in Amsterdam confirmed that living near grass is good for your health.²² A program to plant 1,000,000 trees in New York City continued despite the objections of local residents. “I don't want it,” said a woman who was forced to accept a ginkgo. “I don't like it. It can stay there and die for all I care.”²³ Bunnies culled from public parks in Stockholm were being used to fire a Swedish heating plant,²⁴ and the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state was found to be peppered with radioactive rabbit droppings, all of which must be scooped.²⁵ Reverend and “True Parent of all Mankind” Sun Myung Moon married 10,000 couples in Seoul, in what is believed to be his final expression of “trans-religion, trans-national, trans-racial” harmony.²⁶ A Mayan religious leader declared that the world will not end in 2012, that his religion did not claim that it would, and that he was “fed up” with being asked about it.²⁷ Two thousand box jellyfish swarmed Hawaii's Waikiki Beach, stinging nearly 200 people,²⁸ and fishermen off the coast of Jersey netted a rare parasitic isopodal louse that attacks a fish, eats its tongue, then lives on in the fish's mouth.²⁹ William Wayne Justice, a federal judge in Texas, known as “the law east of the Pecos,” whose rulings integrated public schools, reformed prisons, and helped educate illegal immigrants, died at age 89.³⁰ A justice of the peace in Hammond, Louisiana, refused to issue a marriage license to an inter-racial couple.³¹ China created a small black hole,³² and a glowing halo was spotted in the skies over Moscow.³³