HARPER'S WEEKLY May 24, 2005 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
WRITE to Harper's Weekly [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * WEEKLY REVIEW North Korea needed food. Wal-Mart announced that it would export $18 billion worth of Chinese goods, and researchers in Singapore developed a system that allows people to pet chickens over the Internet. Pakistan was working to stop bearbaiting, China put a halt to the practice of using naked women for plates in sushi restaurants, and Warren Beatty was wondering whether he should run for governor of California. New York was reviewing a law that allows convicted rapists to obtain Viagra through Medicaid, and a parachutist died in a fall from the Eiffel Tower. Kylie Minogue announced that she has breast cancer. British MP George Galloway went to Washington, D.C., to respond to allegations that he profited from the U.N.-managed Iraq oil-for-food program. "I met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him," said Galloway. "The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns, and to give him maps the better to target those guns." Before he testified, Galloway called journalist Christopher Hitchens "a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay." George W. Bush vowed to veto any bill that eases funding restrictions on stem-cell research, and Donald Trump called on New York City to rebuild the Twin Towers, only taller, and described the city's planned "Freedom Tower" as "the worst pile of crap architecture I have ever seen in my life." In Britain, Ford Motor Company suspended seven workers when they were caught looking at woman-on-octopus pornography on company computers. "Management," said an employee, "didn't see the funny side." A professor of biology at Indiana University claimed that the female orgasm was only for fun, and Laura Bush went to Jerusalem, where she wore a black pantsuit and black shawl to the Dome of the Rock and the women's section of the Western Wall. "We commit ourselves," she said, "to reject hatred and to teach tolerance and live in peace." She was heckled by both Muslims and Jews. On the same day, Ariel Sharon visited New York City, where he was also heckled by Jews. In Chile, Augusto Pinochet's doctors claimed that Pinochet had suffered a stroke; human-rights lawyers said he was just being wily. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez said that he might break diplomatic ties with the United States if the U.S. did not hand over Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA employee who is accused of blowing up a Cuban airplane in 1976, killing seventy-three people. An avalanche in the Andes killed forty-one Chilean soldiers, and in West Virginia, a 1,500-pound camel sat on a woman as she painted a fence. Near Seattle, Mary K. Letourneau, forty-three, married Vili Fualaau, twenty-two, whom she first raped when he was twelve, and a California man was arrested because he lived in a tent for two weeks in order to buy tickets to the new Star Wars movie; his doing so violated a requirement that, as a sex offender, he let police know if he changed lodgings. It turned out that a grenade that landed one hundred feet away from George W. Bush during a recent speech in Tbilisi, Russia, was not a training device but had simply failed to work. Georgian officials offered an $11,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. In Bolotnikovo, Russia, a lake disappeared. People in Zanzibar were living in fear of a sexually rapacious, sodomy-prone goblin named Popo Bawa, and Dr. W. David Hager, the George W. Bush-appointed adviser to the FDA and a vocal opponent of emergency contraception, abortion, and pre-marital sex, was accused by his ex-wife of anally raping her on a regular basis over many years. Hager is the author of the books "As Jesus Cared for Women" and, with his wife, "Stress and the Woman's Body." In Texas a five-year-old brought a loaded gun to school, and in Indiana a three-year-old boy crawled inside a toy vending machine at a Wal-Mart and had to be freed by firemen. He did not receive a toy. The Bush Administration continued to criticize Newsweek for reporting that U.S. soldiers had desecrated the Koran. "People need to be careful what they say," said Donald Rumsfeld. "Our United States military personnel go out of their way," said White House press secretary Scott McClellan, "to make sure that the Holy Koran is treated with care." Since the Newsweek story broke, many other cases of Koran desecration over the last two years have emerged. Apparently, in addition to putting the Koran in the toilet, guards have urinated on it, trampled on it, put it in a urine bucket, and allowed a dog to carry Islam's holiest book in its mouth. Newspapers published photos of Saddam Hussein standing in his underwear, shuffling around, and sleeping. The photos may violate the Geneva Convention, which prohibits "outrages upon personal dignity," and some people questioned whether the photos could incite further violence in the Middle East. "I don't think a photo inspires murders," said President Bush. Hussein threatened to sue. Senators compromised on filibusters, and a new kind of monkey was discovered in Tanzania. It communicates in honking barks rather than in whoop-gobbles. In Georgia a businessman named Hubert Johnson agreed to take down a large stuffed monkey that was hanging from a crane outside his drilling business. "The message to the workers is, 'Don't monkey around with safety'," said Johnson, even though the monkey had its hands and face painted black and was draped in a Confederate flag. In Houston large black grackles swooped down from magnolia trees to attack passersby, including a lawyer, and a man in Holland was being tried on charges that he killed his mother, skinned her, dressed up in her skin, and then went out to direct traffic and recite Bible verses. "He loved her so much," said his lawyer. In Iraq sixteen people were killed when a car bomb exploded outside of a restaurant; at least twelve people were killed in other attacks. Iraq's unemployed were selling their organs at cut rates, and American funeral homes were earning frequent-flier miles every time they shipped a corpse. -- Paul Ford Permanent URL for this column: http://harpers.org/WeeklyReview2005-05-24.html General URL for the latest Weekly Review: http://www.harpers.org/MostRecentWR.html Copyright 2005 Harper's Magazine Foundation * * * * * * * * * Please support the Weekly Review by subscribing to Harper's Magazine. Only $14.97/year. http://www.harpers.org/Subscribe.html * * * * * * * * * SOURCES are available at Harpers.org -- just click the "sources" button in the top right corner. * * * * * * * * * CORRECTIONS The last Weekly Review stated that the mayor of Bremen, Germany, poured wine on a homeless man's head. The official in question was the state economy and culture senator. Also, a Utah high school teacher did not perform a vivisection of a dog in front of his class, but rather took his class on a field trip to see the abdominal dissection of a live dog under general anesthetic. * * * * * * * * * ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/rkgkPB/UOnJAA/Zx0JAA/uTGrlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -- This is ZESTGlobal. 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