JULY 29, 2003
www.harpers.org
A joint congressional committee released an 850-page report concluding that the September 11 attacks could have been prevented; a 28-page section detailing the Saudi Arabian government's links to the terrorists was redacted. The report, which also found no evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, had been slated for release in December 2002 but was delayed due to administrative wrangling over which sections should be classified. After killing Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, U.S. forces circulated grisly photos of the corpses in hopes that the images would help to dispel conspiracy theories, popular among Iraqis, that the United States is still in league with Saddam Hussein. A spokeswoman for the division that conducted the raid declared, "The 101st kicks ass." Four American soldiers were formally charged with abusing their Iraqi prisoners, and the International Red Cross demanded information on the status of three dozen Iraqi scientists detained in unknown locations. Deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz warned Iraq's neighbors not to meddle with the American occupying forces, proclaiming, "I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq." The former head of the U.S. army's Depleted Uranium Project announced that the damage from munitions used in both Gulf Wars will eclipse the Agent Orange fallout of the Vietnam War.
(A ban on methyl bromide would prevent 2 million cases of cancer worldwide. Bush wants to increase its output three-fold)
The Bush Administration was lobbying to amend a provision of the Kyoto Protocol that would phase out methyl bromide, the single most ozone-destructive chemical still used in industrialized nations. Scientists estimate that the ban would prevent 2 million cases of cancer in the United States and Europe alone; the administration's proposed amendment would increase the chemical's use threefold. A Belgian botanist announced that the banana as we know it will be extinct within a decade. British officials instituted a National Foreplay Day after a study found that many Britons were avoiding it. Austrian surgeons conducted the first successful transplant of a human tongue. A mayor in southern Spain banned men from going out on Thursday nights; the mayor, who will deploy brigades of women to patrol the streets and issue fines to errant males, proclaimed that "in future, Thursday will be a day for women." The Malaysian government decreed that a man may divorce his wife via text message; under Islamic Sharia law men are allowed to divorce their wives by uttering the word "talaq" ("I divorce you") three times. Northern Europeans were protesting Greek plans to license more brothels in time for the 2004 Olympics. The Canadian government released a 59-page user's manual for marijuana. Scientists in Rome concluded that pizza prevents cancer. Americans were spritzing their offspring with "ChildCalm," a spray that purports to mollify unruly children. The FDA approved a hormone shot for short kids.
Liberians dumped mangled corpses at the U.S. embassy in Monrovia to protest the lack of American involvement in their civil war. Mortuary workers in Zimbabwe were renting cadavers to motorists who wished to take advantage of the priority given to hearses in gas-station lines. Officials in England unveiled a new system of "restorative justice," in which criminals may avoid court by apologizing to their victims. Japanese police replaced their sirens with the recorded sound of church bells, in hopes of soothing agitated criminals. The NAACP called for an inquiry into the death of a black man who was found hanging from a tree with his hands tied behind his back; local police had concluded that the man, who had been dating the daughter of a white police officer, had committed suicide. Two FBI agents interrogated a bookstore employee who was observed reading an article entitled "Weapons of Mass Stupidity." A folksinger was banned from performing at a Border's bookstore in Fredericksburg, Virginia, after she opined between songs that President Bush has "chicken legs" and would be well advised to lift weights. The Los Angeles Times refused to allow a Secret Service agent to interrogate a cartoonist who had depicted a figure labeled "politics" pointing a gun at President Bush against a background labeled "Iraq." A federal judge in Colorado sentenced three nuns to two and a half years in prison for damaging a nuclear-missile silo during an antiwar protest. Defense contractor Lockheed Martin filed suit against antiwar demonstrators for $41,000 in security costs the company incurred preparing for a protest. A poll found that 74 percent of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip would leave if paid to do so. Officials from Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico changed the name of Highway 666 to Highway 491. A man in Hong Kong set fire to his life savings to protest his bank's low interest rates. German scientists announced that vacation lowers your IQ.
—Elizabeth Giddens
Copyright © 2003 Harper's Magazine Foundation.
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