BY HARRY RING
Oh - The Pentagon says three-quarters of the chemical weapons logs kept during the Gulf War are gone. Half may have been wiped out by a computer virus in some computer games an officer brought to Gulf headquarters. Additional disks seem to have been lost from U.S. military safes.

Sunday's for praying -California's capital city, Sacramento, is suing a religious charity, demanding that it stop serving meals to the homeless on Sundays.

But not to worry - Nuclear bomb scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico got tired of listening to an alarm signaling a radioactive leak. Assuming - but not verifying - it was a false alarm, they made a silencer out of an empty blueberry muffin mix can, a Styrofoam cup, and a respirator filter. The feds say they're investigating.

Face and wallet lift - Concerned about wrinkles? Check out Estée Lauder's Re-Nutriv intensive lifting creme. Available at Saks Fifth Avenue in a 1.7 oz bottle. $150.

`Friends of labor' - A White House task force has drafted what one report describes as a "pioneer effort" to deal with sweatshops abroad that supply U.S. apparel companies. The group will propose that the regular work week be 60 hours and that overtime pay beyond that be at least equal to the regular rate.

Soft on (some) crime - The Montana legislature gave initial approval to a bill to exempt industries from prosecution if they reveal - with minimum details -that they violated an environmental law and promise to clean it up. Proponents said the measure would ensure that industry would no longer feel guilty until proven innocent.

It's a guy thing - Protest did not abate when the all- male Vienna Philharmonic took harpist Anna Lelkes, a 26-year temp, into full membership, Suggesting that readers see both sides, New York Times music writer Bernard Holland explains that the Philharmonic folks don't think that women will make the orchestra "better or worse, but that they will make it different....There is, many say, a shared sense of phrase and accent that gives this orchestra special qualities."

Now hear this - Holland adds: "Opinions are fine, support is fine, but direct pressure from without is a tricky business. One analogy is the Helms-Burton Act, which has enraged the world by trying to force other countries to think about Cuba the way we think about Cuba. There are, not surprisingly, a lot of countries that think they can figure out their own values without our interference.... Is this the situation we want to set to music?"  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home