WESTBROOK: Ha ha. Well, things weren’t nearly as bright on the sports scene, were they, Genial Sports Personality Jim Johnson? JOHNSON: No, Wilson, they certainly weren’t. The Three-County Community College Cutlasses lost their fourth consecutive game today. Here you see actual color footage of me watching the game from the sidelines. The disgust is evident on my face. I intended to have actual color film of me interviewing the coach after the game, but the team bus crashed and everyone was killed.

WESTBROOK: Thank you, Jim. And now, here is Basil Holp, the General Manager of KUSP-TV, to present an Editorial Viewpoint: HOLP: The management of KUSP-TV firmly believes that something ought to be done about earthquakes. From time to time we read in the papers that an earthquake has hit some wretched little country and knocked houses down and killed people. This should not be allowed to continue. Maybe we should have a tax or something. What the heck, we can afford it. The management of KUSP-TV is rolling in money.

ANNOUNCER: The preceding was the opinion of the management of KUSP-TV. People with opposing points of view are probably in the vast majority.

WESTBROOK: Well, that wraps up tonight’s version of the On-the-Spot Action Eyewitness News. Tune in tonight to see essentially the same stories.

If you don’t listen to radio talk shows, you really should, because it gives you a chance to reassure yourself that a great many people out there are much stupider than you are. Here’s how these shows go:

HOST: Hi, this is “You Get to Talk on the Actual Radio,” the show where You Make a Difference. I’m your host, Hubert Spankle, going under the radio name David Windsor Castle, which sounds better. Today I thought we’d talk about President Reagan’s economic plan. What do you think about it? Let’s go to the phones and find out. Hello, you’re on the air.

CALLER: Hello, David?

HOST: This is David. Go ahead.

CALLER: Am I on the radio now?

HOST: Yes, you are. Go ahead.

CALLER: Go ahead and talk?

HOST: Yes. Go right ahead and talk.

CALLER: I’m so nervous.

HOST: Don’t be nervous. Go right ahead and talk. Right now. Just talk.

CALLER: Well, I just wanted to tell you what happened to my husband. He was riding the lawn mower, which we just got at Sears—can I say Sears?—well, let’s just say we just got it at a major department store, and believe me it wasn’t cheap, and he was driving it near the kitchen window, and all of a sudden he crashed right through the septic tank, and he disappeared right into the ground, and the firemen had to come and get him out, and I spent three hours going over the lawn tractor with Lysol—can I say Lysol?—and it still doesn’t smell what you’d call attractive, not to mention my husband, and I think they ought to make those septic tanks stronger, because a lot of people have lawn tractors, and ...

HOST: I certainly hear what you’re saying. What do you think of President Reagan’s economic plan?

CALLER: President Reagan’s what?

HOST: His economic plan.

CALLER: Well, I really haven’t been too involved in it, because we live in the suburbs, which is why we got the lawn tractor, but we had no idea that our septic tank ... HOsT: Thanks for your views. Let’s see how some of our other listeners feel about President Reagan’s economic plan. Hello, you’re on the air.

CALLER: Hello, Frank?

HOST: No, this is David Windsor Castle, and you’re on “You Get to Talk on the Actual Radio.” What’s on your mind?

CALLER: What’s on my mind is I’m trying to get hold of Frank, because I just found out that Denise ...

HOST: Excuse me, but this is a radio show, and there is no Frank here. CALLER: Well, when he gets there you better tell him that Denise found out about what’s been going on at the Jolly Goat Motel. Somebody sent her pictures of Frank, Louella, Preston, and the trained snakes, and the last I heard Denise was buying a gun, so he’d better ...

HOST: Okay, let’s see if any of our other listeners have anything to add about President Reagan’s economic plan. Hello, you’re on the air.

CALLER: Yeah, I’m calling about that lady with the septic tank. It just so happens I make septic tanks, and there’s no way u can make one collapse with just a lawn tractor unless the guy who’s riding it weighs about six hundred pounds. Why didn’t you ask her how much her husband weighs? I bet he’s a real lard bucket. You see these guys out on their lawn tractors, flab hanging down almost to the ground, and it makes you want to puke.

HOST: Let’s go to another caller. You’re on the air.

CALLER: Hi. I’d like to talk about President Reagan’s economic plan.

HOST: Thank God.

CALLER: It seems to me that people are being too quick to criticize the President’s plan, before it has had a chance to ... Oh no!

(In the background is the sound of a door lock being shot open with a .35 7

magnum.)

CALLER: Denise!

(More shots, screams)

HOST: Well, that concludes today’s version of “You Get to Talk on the Actual Radio.” Tune in tomorrow, when we’ll explore the situation in the Middle East.

I keep reading these stories about these towns that want to ban video arcade games, as if these games were part of the International Communist Conspiracy. You know:

POND SCUM, ARKANSAS—The town council in this small pig-farming community voted tonight to ban video arcade games on the grounds that they are a threat to the moral fiber of the town’s youth. “The youths in this town barely got any moral fiber left to speak of, and I blame these here video games,” charged Council President Lionel B. Sparge. “When I was a youth, Pond Scum didn’t have no video games, and we found plenty to do. For example, we’d stand around and spit.

I agree with the people who want to ban video games. These games definitely destroy your moral fiber. At least they destroy my moral fiber. I have this video game that I play all the time on my personal home computer, which I keep back in a back bedroom. I don’t allow my two-year-old son to get near it, because it might destroy his moral fiber, and also he tends to pull the plug right when I’m in an important phase of my game, such as when the aliens materialize out of hyperspace.

So what has happened is that my son has been going through all these critical stages of growth and development out in the living room, and I’ve missed most of it. Not that I mind all that much, really, since if you want to participate in my son’s growth and development you have to read him these profoundly dull children’s books with names like Let’s Go to a Condiments Factory and Tommy the Toad Vacuums the Carpet. So I’ve left his development pretty much in the hands of my wife, with instructions that she should call me if he reaches any new developmental stages so I can come out to the living room and watch him for a few minutes.

And I’m not the only one whose moral fiber is being destroyed. It is a proven scientific fact that video games are also corrupting American youth. In a recent experiment, scientific researchers exposed a group of teenaged boys to an arcade game, and found that all of them had unclean sexual thoughts. Of course, the researchers got the same result when they exposed the boys to coleslaw, an alpaca sweater, and “The MacNeil-Lehrer Report,” but that is beside the point. The point is that we should all write letters to our elected officials and urge them to ban video games.

And while they’re at it, they should also ban golf. Golf is similar to video games in that it is a monumentally useless activity that people become obsessed with and waste a lot of money on, but it has the added drawback of encouraging people to wear really stupid clothing, such as pants that can be seen with the naked eye from other galaxies. I strongly suspect that if our nation’s youth continue to play video games, many of them will eventually graduate to golf, so I say let’s kill two birds with one stone and ban them both.