TW3

That Was The Week That Was … confusing; there was a lot of cross-talk last week, and talk is good … but making our way through the majority of it gave us the sense that most everyone is living in their own little egocentric universe. We’re “bubbled” in our own circumstance and opinion, all of which [judging from ours, and the news of the day] is very intense. It would be productive if we could agree on a little something. Obviously, we need a bigger picture. Quick — somebody get a pin!

Jude

ps — Jennifer Aniston????

HARPERS WEEKLY REVIEW

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at the
United Nations in New York, proclaimed his love for all
the world’s peoples, and suggested that the United States
halt domestic fuel production and buy its energy from him
“at a fifty percent discount.” Venezuelan president Hugo
Chavez objected to the smell of sulfur in the U.N.’s
General Assembly hall, and offered to relocate the U.N.’s
headquarters to Caracas. Ted Turner called the Iraq war
one of the “dumbest moves of all time,” and a spokesman
for the Iraq Study Group, a think tank created to analyze
events in Iraq, announced that it had “made no judgment of
any kind at this point about any aspect of policy with
regard to Iraq.” The judge in the trial of Saddam Hussein
was removed because “he hurt the feelings of the Iraqi
people.” In Afghanistan, Marine General James L. Jones
claimed to have killed as many as a third of the Taliban’s
“hardcore” fighters, leaving only the “weekend warriors.”
A British major described the Royal Air Force as “utterly,
utterly useless.” In Thailand, General Sonthi
Boonyaratglin staged a coup d’etat, dismissing the prime
minister and revoking the constitution. “Democracy has
won!” said one coup supporter. Hungarian prime minister
Ferenc Gyurcsany admitted that his campaign was based on
lies. “We lied in the morning,” said Gyurcsany. “We lied
in the evening.” British Home Secretary John Reid declared
that England’s “fight is not with Muslims generally,” and
in Jordan, a failed suicide bomber was sentenced to be
hanged. Israeli tourism officials circulated a sightseeing
pamphlet bearing the slogan, “Jerusalem–there’s no such
city!” Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya said that
Hamas would never recognize Israel. Pakistani president
Pervez Musharraf said it was “very rude” for former Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage to threaten to bomb
his country “back to the Stone Age.” Hezbollah leader
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah attended a rally in Beirut to
commemorate the “divine and historic victory” in the war
with Israel, and President George W. Bush said he now knew
that the stability he believed to exist in the Middle East
was a “mirage.”

The United States Justice Department claimed Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales “had his timeline mixed up” when
he denied the United States had deported a Canadian
citizen to Syria, where he was tortured. The Food and Drug
Administration announced that it had found the “smoking
gun” of bacteria-infested spinach in a refrigerator in New
Mexico. The Federal Emergency Management Agency made final
preparations to demolish the town of Elkport, Iowa, and in
Fernald, Ohio, the Environmental Protection Agency was
planning to cart away 5,800 tons of contaminated soil so
that a former nuclear production facility could be turned
into a “natural” park. In California, accused pedophile
John Karr was described by his lawyer as a “southern
gentleman with a sense of humor,” and Virginia Senator
George Allen acknowledged his Jewish ancestry. The Boeing
Company was awarded a congressional contract to build a
6000-mile “virtual fence” along the U.S.-Mexico
border. Fruit farmers rallied in Washington, D.C., to
protest a shortage of low-wage, uninsured, illegal
immigrant laborers. In Maryland, the National Black
Republican Association ran radio ads claiming that Martin
Luther King was a Republican and that Democrats founded
the Ku Klux Klan. Nawar Shora of the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee said that “the average
Yousef” thought of an FBI agent as a “middle-aged white
guy talking in their sleeve.” In the basement of the
Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld unleashed
his deadly squash drop shot.

President Bush predicted that, given the opportunity,
Democrats would raise taxes. Bill and Hillary Clinton both
agreed that they were “sick of Karl Rove’s bullshit.”
Researchers in Boston successfully gave a mouse a tan
without exposing it to the sun; other scientists partially
restored the sight of blind rats. A man believed to have
ingested four glasses of draft beer jumped into a pen at
the Beijing Zoo and bit Gu Gu, a six-year-old
panda. Hybrid lions were dying from a mystery disease in
northern India. The recipient of a penis transplant in
Guangzhou, China, requested doctors remove the organ after
he and his wife began experiencing “severe psychological
problems.” Australian researchers determined that lesbian
women were 10 percent more orgasmic than their straight
female counterparts. A survey showed that rap music fans
are unlikely to recycle. Businessman Richard Branson
pledged to donate $3 billion to alternative energy
development, Paris Hilton gave a homeless man $100, and
Michael Jackson was considering opening a
leprechaun-themed amusement park in Ireland. Television
sets outnumbered people in American homes. Katelyn Kampf,
19, of Yarmouth, Maine, accused her parents of hog-tying
and gagging her, forcing her into a car, and taking her to
New York for an emergency abortion. Anousheh Ansari, a
communications entrepreneur from Texas, became the world’s
first female Muslim space tourist. Big box retail stores
were employing anthropologists to help sell their
products. A poll conducted by the American Academy of
Cosmetic Surgery found that 46 percent of American women
wanted to be surgically altered to resemble Jennifer
Aniston. A pedigree bull mastiff deefer from Nottingham,
England, underwent emergency surgery to have two pairs of
ladies’ underwear removed from his small intestine, and
scientists announced that breakfast may not be the most
important meal of the day.

– Theodore Ross

http://www.harpers.org/WeeklyReview2006-09-26.html

What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there’s one candle in your hand.
~ Bill Moyers

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Add comment September 27th, 2006