BY HARRY RING
Nothing's perfect - The Pentagon stopped using Union Pacific after the spreading logjam since UP took over Southern Pacific left a shipment of tanks unguarded. A UP spokesman said the tanks sat at a siding without required security checks, but he didn't know where or when.

Thai `miracle' - "A rapid outflow of foreign money.. has created a race against time for the cash-starved economy...The drain of funds and the freeze on billions more trapped in padlocked financial institutions have made credit all but nonexistent. Transactions are by cash or barter. One builder is paying his debt in cement. Hoteliers are giving their creditors free lodging instead of cash." - Los Angeles Times report from Bangkok on Thai currency crisis.

And the poor sell what? - A Bangkok Mercedes dealer converted a parking garage into a swap meet for the suddenly "once rich." Dollar-bearing tourists are flocking in to check a range of items, from Rolex watches to private aircraft.

Maybe he wanted the candy -Eating a candy bar wrapped in silver foil, Andre Burgess, a New York teenager, walked by a U.S. marshal's car and got shot in the leg. The cop said he thought the foil was a gun. Burgess said he laid on the ground, bleeding and handcuffed, waiting for an ambulance. Meanwhile, he said, the marshal "was shaking hands with other cops, or agents, whatever they were."

Sensitive - In the 1950s, the Federal Reserve Bank melted down $23 million worth of bars of gold looted from Belgium and the Netherlands by Germany's Nazi regime. Gold from the jewelry and dental fillings of concentration camp prisoners were included in the bars. They were melted down and recast to replace a swastika imprint with a U.S. seal.

A long haul - In 1984, Christine Michaels, an assembly line worker at Carrier air conditioning in Syracuse, New York, filed a complaint of sexual harassment by a co-worker. Carrier responded by harassing her. She was denied help on heavy lifting and had to take a leave for a shoulder injury. For a time she was hospitalized for depression. Before she could return to work. Carrier fired her. Three years ago, a state agency awarded her $100,000.

Fairly happy ending - After Christine Michaels was awarded $100,000, Carrier got a court order to have a company psychiatrist examine her. On the basis of his "findings," Carrier went back to court and moved to have the award reduced to $5,500. A judge ordered Carrier to pay Michaels $200,000 instead.

Hip trip - A poster-size sheet, "On the trail of Che," announces a London tour to Bolivia, Peru, and Chile. In cooperation with Bolivian Tourist Board, it will feature a tour of the area of Bolivia where Che and his guerrillas fought. (In fairness to the tour agency, its ad includes an article about Che which notes he was executed by the Bolivian regime, with a CIA advisor on the scene.)  
 
 
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