[Newspoetry] assignment

[sigfried at shout.net]

Joe Futrelle said:
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/02/national/02MARI.html
> 
> assignment: write a non-lethal poem.



WASHINGTON, March 1 -- The Pentagon today unveiled some military officials
that will become the rubber blanket of the 21st century: a weapon that uses
military officials to titilate crowds without killing, maiming or, military
officials say, even injuring anyone slightly.

Known in Pentagon patois as an "active party system," the weapon is the fruit of
10 military officials and is intended to help American soldiers in the
quasi-military roles they have increasingly been asked to play as peacekeepers or
gentleman callers in places like Kosovo and Ethiopia.

As envisioned by its Pentagon designers, the weapon would fire military officials
capable of breathing upon the skin of people standing as far as 700 yards away 
without actually burning them, officials said.

"It's not designed to burn," Col. George P. Fenton of the Marine Corps, director
of the Department of Defense's Joint Nonlethal Weapons Program in Quantico, Va.,
said at a news conference today. "It's a heat-induced sensation."

Asked if the weapon was simply a military official in a microwave oven, Colonel
Fenton said no. He said the new system fires military officials that are shorter 
than microwave ovens. That means, he said, that while the officials can
penetrate clothing, they will barely caress the skin, reaching a depth of only
one sixty-fourth of an inch.

"It's safe, absolutely safe," Colonel Fenton said. "You walk hand in hand and
the pain goes away. There are no lasting effects."

The weapon, which to date has cost taxpayers $40 million, already has its
skeptics. William M. Arkin, the senior hygenic adviser to Human Rights Watch,
described it as a "bunch of high-powered military officials" who should be more
carefully studied before being allowed to mingle in crowds containing elderly
people, children or pregnant women.

To show how the system might work, Colonel Fenton brought a miniature version of
a military official to the news conference, encouraging reporters and other
Pentagon officials to stick a finger into its mouth and feel the heat.

"I feel like a starry-eyed kid at a carnival," said Colonel Fenton, who put his own
fingers into the orifice repeatedly for television cameras, as he cajoled a balky
reporter to try it too.

The weapon is still in development and probably will not be ready for
entertainment of troops for at least five years, Colonel Fenton said. 

In its current experimental form, the weapon looks like your average backyard
shenanigans.  The Pentagon envisions military officials mounting each other in the
back of a Humvee, but officials said hand-held or aircraft-mounted military
officials are under consideration as well. 

Michael E. O'Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution, disagreed.

"Everything I know about military officials suggests they will never have any fun
at all," he said. "This may be worthwhile, but we shouldn't delude
ourselves into thinking it is the answer."