HARPER'S WEEKLY REVIEW

[Kire]

WEEKLY REVIEW

A warrant was issued for the arrest of Congressman Tom
DeLay, who turned himself in and was released on $10,000
bail. It was reported that in 2003 Senator Bill Frist was
told (in writing) that a significant amount of HCA, Inc.,
stock had been added to his blind trust; two weeks later
he said he did not believe that he owned any stock in
HCA. "I have no control," said Frist. "He could have been
more exact," explained Frist's spokesman. A 14-year-old
Washington boy was charged with sexual harassment after
hanging around outside a school homecoming dance dressed
as a penis, and President George W. Bush nominated his
economic advisor Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal
Reserve Board. Hurricane Wilma struck Florida and left
millions without power, and tropical storm Alpha caused
floods and mudslides in Hispaniola. In the UK a
quarantined parrot died from the H5N1 strain of avian
flu. Croatian swans were dying of flu, and pigeons in
Australia were under close observation. A Canadian named
Gordon Chin was sentenced to 18 months probation for
owning cartoon porn, including naked Pokemon images.
Babies were up for auction on eBay's Chinese subsidiary,
Eachnet. Boys were going for $3,450, while girls cost
$1,603. In Brooklyn, New York, a man was getting an image
entitled "Last Rites" tattooed on his right arm when he
passed out and fell onto a counter; glass shards cut his
throat and killed him. The Amazon rainforest was being
destroyed at double the rate previously estimated.

A panel of researchers called on NASA to think through
issues of astronaut sexuality as it plans a trip to
Mars. "If there are instances of sexual conflict or
infidelity," said a medical anthropologist, "that may lead
to a breakdown in crew functioning." William Shatner
passed a kidney stone. Scientists released a brown Norway
rat on a deserted, rat-free island off of New Zealand in
order to find out why rats are so hard to kill. Even
though they fitted the rat with a radio collar, used traps
and bait, and pursued the rat with sniffer dogs, the rat
was not caught for four months. It was finally captured on
a nearby island using a trap baited with penguin meat. A
two-year-old in Ohio was recovering after he got his arm
caught in an electric meat grinder. A burglar in Spokane,
Washington, broke into a house and stole golf clubs, but
left a pile of feces arranged in the shape of male
genitalia. Lamb and Lynx Gaede, thirteen-year-old twin
sisters who perform as the band Prussian Blue, were under
criticism for singing songs that praise Rudolph Hess. "We
just want to preserve our race," explained Lynx. A
Louisiana barber, tired of telling African-American
customers that he doesn't know how to cut their hair, put
a sign outside of his barbershop that read "whites only."
Rosa Parks died. An Oklahoma man, sentenced to 30 years
in prison for his role in an armed robbery, asked for
three more years of prison time to match Larry Bird's
jersey number, 33. In the United States 2.3 million
people were in prison.

A jet crashed in Nigeria, killing all 117 people aboard.
An Oregon man won $340 million in the Powerball lottery.
At least seventeen people died in bombings and shootings
in Iraq, and a poll found that 82 percent of Iraqis oppose
the continued presence of foreign troops. Saddam Hussein
was on trial, and President Bush was said to be angry and
bitter. "He's like the lion in winter," said a friend. An
Ohio woman was found guilty of killing her four-year-old
son by setting him on fire. She also burned his puppy. A
video recording was released that showed U.S. soldiers in
Afghanistan shouting insults through a loudspeaker after
setting alight the corpses of two Taliban fighters. "Wow,
look at the blood coming out of the mouth on that one,"
said a soldier. "Fucking straight death metal." A Pentagon
study found that 28 percent of U.S. troops returning from
Iraq require medical or mental health treatment; nearly
20,000 returning soldiers reported nightmares. A
93-year-old Florida man driving a Chevy Malibu struck and
killed a pedestrian, then drove three miles with the body
on his windshield. "Obviously," said a traffic
investigator, "he was confused."

-- Paul Ford

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Copyright 2005 Harper's Magazine Foundation

[SlipperySlope]

1. What frigging order are these news stories in?

It all seems so inane. I hope William Shatner is ok.

[WhiteTara]

2. just another week in paradise n/t