Cool TV Screens Out The Tough Stuff

A majority of Americans say they now get most of their news from television. To see how the world looks to this majority, your correspondent spent six months glued to his TV screen. Following is the typical American view of the world:

The two most important people on Earth are Newt Gingrich and President Clinton. O.J. Simpson, who used to be No. 3, has slipped badly and is not even in the top 20 anymore. The new No. 3 is Deion Sanders.

The other 17 are Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Eisner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Bond, Stephen King, Howard Stern, George Stephanopoulos, the Dallas Cowboys, the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Larry King and the first five Americans mentioned on tomorrow’s edition of “Entertainment Tonight.”

The fact that all 20 are Americans not only shows how little of consequence happens outside our own country, but it also proves the truth of that old theater saying, “When you leave the United States, every place else is just Bridgeport.”

Most of the world outside the United States is composed of Bosnia and Israel.

The only important foreigner is Boris Yeltsin. He drinks too much vodka and is sick a lot. Yeltsin holds a very important job somewhere in Russia.

The most important street on Earth is the Beltway. What goes on inside it is just terrible.

The most important event in the world is our own American presidential campaign. Some of the people running include Sen. Bob Dole and Sen. Phil Gramm, as well as several others whose names don’t stay with you the way names like Jay Leno and David Letterman do.

Letterman is making either $12 million or $14 million per year, and even if it’s only $12 million, it’s a nice piece of change to collect for just being a wise guy, isn’t it?

Italy, Spain, France and Germany still exist, but nothing ever seems to happen there except the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Sometimes new women’s dress designs are shown in Paris.

Somebody named Kohl is in charge of Germany. He is a big fellow - as big as Clinton maybe, judging from seeing him standing next to the president on television.

Somebody is also running Italy, Spain and France, probably several different people, in fact. England, too. They all stood together for a photo op somewhere a while ago at a meeting to talk economics, and they were all a lot smaller than Clinton and Kohl.

America’s troubles all stem from family values. There just aren’t any anymore - family values, that is. They have been destroyed by modern life, which most of our political leaders want repealed so we can get family values back and save the country.

Television, the Internet, liberals, affirmative action, the Mexican peso and the terrible things going on inside the Beltway all are destroying family values, too.

The crime that’s going on is simply incredible.

Yes, firing another 35,000 workers every few days is sure hard on fired folks who are a little long in the tooth, but it’s how we’re making America competitive once again with Japan.

Speaking of the mysterious East, Singapore is a great place to live if you believe your character can be improved by having the police whale the tar out of you with bamboo canes.

No, and neither can anybody else tell you who’s running China. Chances are it’s somebody whose name rhymes with “lung,” “shin” or “wow.”

Brad Pitt is hot, having replaced Hugh Grant in the hotness ratings after Grant was arrested for doing something scandalous but not especially remarkable by Los Angeles standards with somebody who wasn’t famous in the film business there.

Canada is boring beyond belief, but there was a brief flurry of excitement when Quebec voted on whether to secede and it came out just about even. After that, Canada immediately resumed being as boring as ever.

South America? Yes, it’s down there someplace where all the old Nazis used to go. Yes, yes, south of the Panama Canal, that’s where it is. Hasn’t turned up on the telly in years and years.

Have we overlooked anything? But of course! Those French nukes off Tahiti. Awful, wasn’t it? It’s hard to say why, though.

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