Weekly Review

By Roger D. Hodge

Liberian civilians were starving in their homes as rebels and government fighters, some wearing women's wigs and blue painted toenails, continued to fight for control of Monrovia; a small number of Nigerian peacekeepers arrived in the country, and a United States official said that American forces would provide "communications assistance" to the peacekeepers and might even go ashore.¹ President Charles Taylor resigned, blaming all his troubles on the United States, and compared himself to Jesus Christ;² Vice President Moses Blah was sworn in as his successor.³ Scientists in New York found that kind people are more likely to yawn when someone else does.⁴ Democratic lawmakers from Texas were still on the run in New Mexico.⁵ Two workers at Los Alamos National Laboratory were accidentally exposed to plutonium, and the⁶ Army denied that depleted uranium was causing the mysterious outbreak of pneumonia among American soldiers in Iraq.⁷ At least 16 people died and more than 150 were wounded in a car-bomb attack on a Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia.⁸ Seventeen people died in a car-bomb attack on the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, and President Bush told reporters down at the ranch in Crawford, Texas, that his men were making "good progress" in Iraq.⁹ L. Paul Bremer, the American overseer of Iraq, said he thought the bombing was carried out by "outside" forces because he wasn't sure the "ex-regime people" who have been shooting U.S. soldiers had the know-how to make a car bomb.¹⁰ Engineers from the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that the mobile laboratories found in Iraq were probably used to make hydrogen for weather balloons, just as Iraqi scientists have claimed.¹¹ General Richard Sanchez said that he was scaling back aggressive roundups of Iraqis in the search for Saddam Hussein and Baath Party loyalists because he was afraid that "maybe our iron-fisted approach to the conduct of ops was beginning to alienate Iraqis. I started to get those sensings from multiple sources."¹² A mob attacked a brothel in Basra and smashed cases of beer in the street.¹³

It was reported that Florida police are building an "antiterrorism" database called Matrix that will be used to detect patterns of suspicious activity among the citizenry; the system, which will be partially financed with federal funds, is remarkably similar to the Pentagon's Terrorist Information Awareness program. Mayor Anthony Williams of Washington, D.C., said that District police are working with police in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York to build a similar data-mining system.¹⁴ Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and announced his candidacy for governor in the California recall election; other candidates include the former child-actor Gary Coleman, the pornographer Larry Flynt, a porn star named Mary Carey, and Arianna Huffington, a newspaper columnist. “This is America,” said Carey. “I am just as dignified as Arnold Schwarzenegger, and I can speak English.”¹⁵ Jerry Springer, the talk-show host, decided not to run for the Senate in Ohio.¹⁶ It was discovered that the spittlebug can jump more than 100 times its body length.¹⁷ A recent Powerball lottery winner recovered more than $500,000 that was stolen from his pickup, which was parked outside a strip club in West Virginia.¹⁸ A man in southern Illinois was charged with raping one horse and killing another.¹⁹ Mike Tyson declared bankruptcy.²⁰

Leaders of the Episcopal Church approved a gay bishop and said that individual churches could choose to bless same-sex unions; a group of conservative bishops called for the creation of a new Anglican province in the United States where homosexuality would remain a bona fide sin.²¹ A Roman Catholic bishop in Canada warned that Jean Chrétien might burn in hell for legalizing gay marriage.²² The Archdiocese of Boston offered to pay $55 million to settle the lawsuits of 542 people who were sexually molested by priests, and a²³ forty-year-old Vatican document was discovered that commands "perpetual silence" and secrecy in dealing with priests who have sexual contact with "youths of either sex or with brute animals."²⁴ The United States Army began incinerating millions of pounds of chemical weapons in a small town in Alabama; nearby residents, who have been assured that the process is completely safe, were issued protective hoods.²⁵ A congressional report recommended eliminating the government's color-coded terrorist alert system, and it²⁶ was reported that the Pentagon has awarded a $500,000 grant to researchers to develop genetically engineered trees that will change color in the event of a biological- or chemical-weapons attack.²⁷ West Nile virus cases in the United States tripled in one week,²⁸ and atleast 12 whales died off Cape Cod, possibly from red-tide toxins or from damage caused by naval sonar.²⁹ New evidence suggested that men who wear tight neckties are at greater risk of eye disease and blindness.³⁰ Thailand announced that it will start using lethal injection to execute prisoners instead of shooting them with a machine gun while they hold a stick of incense and a lotus blossom.³¹ Australian and American researchers created a robot, located in Perth, Australia, that is controlled by a rat brain in Atlanta; they called their creation a "semi-living artist."³² Astronomers said that a ten-year galactic dust storm will soon envelope the Earth.³³ An Italian woman died of mad cow disease.³⁴ It was hot in Europe, and wild³⁵ fires were spreading across western Canada.³⁶ Scientists discovered that the sky is rising.³⁷