Venceremos—Oltuski to BBC: “It’s many times better than it used to be. Perfect? No. We don’t claim that we have reached a perfect society. We are a bunch of crazy Cubans who believe that a better world can be built. We have dedicated our lives to this, and now we are training our young generation to continue our work.”

Haunted for crimes?— “SHELBYVILLE, Kentucky—Stumped by mysterious sights and sounds in their headquarters, who did the Shelbyville police department call? Ghost hunters. A team from Louisville plans to seek logical explanations for unexplained knocks, jiggling doors and other phenomena in the 19th-century brick building”—News item.

Virtually perfect—Underfunding of pensions could exceed $80 billion; U.S. finds the viability of the agency that insures plans for 44 million Americans is at risk”— Headline, Los Angeles Times.

Oops—“Scientists at Johns Hopkins University, who last year published a controversial report suggesting that a single evening’s use of the illicit drug Ecstasy could cause permanent brain damage and Parkinson Disease are retracting their research in its entirety, saying the drug used for their experiment wasn’t Ecstasy at all”—News item.

DVD—Short of musicians for military funerals, the Pentagon has approved a push-button bugle that plays taps by itself as the operator holds it to his lips.

Which reminds us—A time back, GIs had it that military music was to music as military justice was to justice.

Don’t splatter it - The Pentagon spent some 15 hours burning Sarin, a lethal nerve gas, in a new incinerator. They had hoped to burn a stockpile of 800 gallons in less than a day, but 270 gallons remain unfinished at Anniston, Alabama. Getting burned will be postponed while they “fine-tune” the incinerator. A single drop of Sarin on a person’s skin can be fatal.

They can’t do everything—Washington has asked the UN for a delay on its agreement to scrap less than a half of its declared inventory of 31,000 tons of mustard gas, Sarin, and other killer chemicals. For assorted environmental concerns and incinerator problems, the Pentagon now wants a delay until 2007, not the initial 2004.  
 
 
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