Top Unsecret

Sometimes the Pentagon's censors are too clever by half. Or by whole. Take this excerpt from the transcript of closed-door testimony on the 1981 defense budget that was released after sensitive information had been snipped out by the Defense Department: "On Jan. 14, there were 110 F-14s at Miramar [a naval air station near San Diego]. Of these aircraft, a total of [deleted] F-14s, or 47%, were classified as mission capable. The remaining [deleted] F-14s, or 53%, were grounded for parts and maintenance."

Said Democratic Representative Les Aspin of Wisconsin, a longtime foe of military mismanagement: "A fifth-grader could fill in the blanks on that one.If the Pentagon assumes that the KGB cannot, I guess the entire Western world can breathe a little easier."

See You in Court, Dear

When Shirley Brown, 53, slipped on her icy sidewalk in 1978, breaking two pelvic bones, she did not just get angry with her husband William, 58, she sued him in Massachusetts superior court for $35,000. She claimed that he was "careless and negligent in his maintenance of the sidewalks" in front of their house in Wakefield, a suburb of Boston. His lawyer, who was also representing Brown's insurance company, argued that under the state Equal Rights Amendment, it was just as much her responsibility as his to clear the sidewalks. The lawyer added that Mrs. Brown's injuries arose in connection with the "very purpose of the marital relationship, the founding and maintenance of the family home." The court dismissed her suit, citing the ancient legal principle of "interspousal immunity," which bars husbands and wives from suing each other.

But Shirley Brown appealed to the state's supreme judicial court, which last week held that it is high time to change "the antediluvian assumptions concerning the role and status of women in marriage." Shirley now is free to press her suit for monetary damages, and fully intends to do so. If she wins, the courts then may have to sort out who must pay--her husband or his insurance company.

Mr. and Mrs. Brown, having opened a legal Pandora's box, continue to live together with the two youngest of their five children. Says Mrs. Brown of her spouse-defendant: "We get along."

Robbery by Reptile

It was no dream. Antonio Zavala, abruptly awakened in his Chicago apartment, was really seeing the head of a boa constrictor pointed menacingly toward his face. The rest of the snake, all 6 ft. of it, was being held by a teen-age acquaintance of Zavala's who hissed, "Give me your money." Zavala prudently handed over $6. The intruder, wreathed in the coils of his accomplice, fled.

The police were intrigued by the thief's modus operandi. Said Sergeant Arthur Nielsen: "This is only the second armed animal robbery case I've seen in 21 years. We once caught a guy who was using a big German shepherd to scare money out of his victims." The snake, which police found sleeping under a nearby porch, was turned over to the Lincoln Park Zoo. The snake was thus freed, after a fashion; only its master must still face the scales of justice.

-For fourth-graders: 52 could fly, and 58 could not.

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