Funny Business

Oops.

The U.S. Air Force recently admitted that it had begun repairs on an MX missile that last year came loose from its launch vehicle and dropped seven inches into its silo. Officials told how much the repairs would cost (about $5 million) and how long it would take (a few months, maybe more), and said that nobody was in any real danger. Farther down in the report the careful reader discovered that the multimillion-dollar warhead fell because its epoxy glue seal came apart.

That's right. Glue.

Now it takes a lot more than this little mishap to undermine the tremendous faith we have in this country's strategic defense systems, especially the strong positive feelings we hold for the MX, a weapon that we reverently refer to around here as "The Peacekeeper." But it's a little unsettling to find out that the Air Force is using glue when it should be using, say, maybe bolts or something.

So with all due respect for this nation's military scientists, we'd like to suggest a few alternatives to epoxy. Herewith, our Top Ten List of Possible Adhesives for the MX Missile:

1. A lot more glue.
2. A kinder, gentler glue.
3. On second thought, maybe a thousand points of glue.
4. A blend of pork rinds and jelly beans.
5. Rhetoric from negative-campaign expert Lee Atwater, who put the soft-on-crime label on Michael Dukakis and "made it stick like glue." (It holds for a minimum of six months.)
6. Anything not made by Morton Thiokol.
7. Velcro.
8. That stuff that holds together the tops of potato chip bags and opens only when you've reached the point of no return of maximum force so that the chips fly all over the room and you have to go back to the store and get more. (I always use scissors.)
9. Anything not made by Boeing.
and finally,
10. The National Rifle Association. (OK, so it doesn't fit. We just figured a darkened silo was the suitable place for their kind of thinking. Besides, they'd probably figure a way around the glue problem, since they've found a way around almost every other obstacle in their path for the past 30 years.)

Oh, And One More Thing About the Pentagon

Our congratulations go to a Burlington, Vermont civilian employee of the local Army National Guard base. He recently received a substantial cash award from our government for inventing a device for optical scanning. His device reportedly will save the government more than $6 million a year by replacing a more expensive helicopter maintenance tool with his own, home-made, hand-held model. Not surprisingly, we also have a couple of money-saving ideas that we submit to the Pentagon free of charge:

a. Don't kill anybody.
b. Don't build things that do.
c. And don't pay other people to kill anybody.

We expect annual savings to be in the billions.

The Final, Unalterable, Eternal Truth

We're still meditating on the envelope we recently received from a kind reader contributing money to the Nicaraguan Hurricane Relief fund. On it he had stamped the words "CONTENTS ENCLOSED."

Work has come to a near standstill around here as, one-by-one, our staff members have succumbed to the philosophic power of such a statement. We hobble around pondering, eyes dazed, faces blank, speech thick from repeating, mantra-like, "CONTENTS ENCLOSED... CONTENTS ENCLOSED...CONTENTS ENCLOSED...." It is the alpha and omega. The indescribable "wha...?"

It's The Postman Again, Dear. And He Looks Real Tired....

An Anchorage, Alaska building-supply company discovered a loophole in the local postal service regulations and mailed 6,000 concrete blocks and 4,600 bags of cement mix to a remote Alaskan village. Because of the loophole, the company was able to send the parcels at less than normal postal rates. Authorities, no doubt, have quickly rewritten the regulations, and we trust the letter carriers are resting comfortably at home.

Ed Spivey Jr. is art director of Sojourners.