MISSOURI WATCH: ONE WORLD, TWO VIEWS

If an alien from outer space were suddenly to land on Earth and pick up a newspaper, he/she/it would no doubt infer that today's Americans are suffering from a variety of major problems, a list of which includes:

1. Beastly, uncomfortable temperatures that seem to have been created by some far-off god or goddess with the strange Latin-sounding name of El Nino;

2. An overriding fear that current economic records, low unemployment rates and the virtual disappearance of disastrous inflation have infused the nation's populace with the belief that all of this will disappear overnight in a whiff of dust and that we will all be plunged into a sea of financial despair and insecurity;

3. A national leader who may or may not have engaged in a lascivious manner toward several celestial virgins, all of whom were deflowered by a male posing as a southern gentleman who is now being pursued by morally correct jurists;

4. A loss of public confidence in such established national institutions as a free press, an evangelizing ministry, all forms of government, a free educational system, highly overpaid professional athletes, an overweight populace, a national epidemic of baldness, impotence and cellulite, an entertainment system that brings something new to its audience only 13 weeks out of 52, and a court system that is populated only by money grubbing trial lawyers;

5. A pervasive feeling that sports fans are somehow being cheated by athletes who receive salaries that are 100 times greater than what we pay our national leaders.

Did I leave anything out? I feel certain I did, but after all, who wants to read endless lists of the faults we Americans are perceptive enough to discover in our daily lives? I know I don't, although it's wise to allow for that human characteristic buried deeply within each of us. You know the one I'm referring to: the ability to find fault, regardless of how well hidden, in every aspect of our sorry lives.

This newly arrived space alien would undoubtedly gather all of the complaints listed above, and many more after hanging around just a few days anywhere in America, maybe even here in Missouri. I'm content to admit that our alien could fill several notebooks, or discs if he came equipped with a computer, on things that are wrong with today's social/political/economic society. It does have its faults, although I confess they seem a tad less threatening when they're listed on a sheet of paper instead of hanging around in the back of our minds, just waiting to spring forth at some low point in our lives.

Before that alien goes back to his mother ship, I'd like to give him another list, one that includes others he might have missed during his temporary residence in our country. The list would include persons I know and some I've never met. These persons would balance a visitor's view of the society in which each of us, like it or not, is confronted.

Here's my second list.

-- I'd like our alien to meet a relative of mine, a lawyer in Kansas City who recently learned that all the cigarette smoking he has done over the years does have consequences. He now finds himself in a critical stage, and although doctors have told him not to plan any vacations in the future, he hasn't changed his outlook on life or altered his daily work schedule one iota. He still goes to his firm's office, still works for clients and maintains the kind of courage I once believed only existed on battlefields.

-- I have another friend who lives in the central part of the state whose son has been tormented for years with an unfortunately common mental illness and which has taken its toll not only on the victim but his parents and relatives. The cost in misery, expended life savings and emotional trauma has been paid not only by the son but every member of the family. These good people have lived with the threat of total psychosis, suicide or violence seven days a week, 12 months a year, decade after decade, ruining all the emotional equanimity and stability they once possessed. They exist inside a living nightmare, but never once complain, never once mention their living hell.

-- Recently I read a report, written by someone I know, on conditions within an undeveloped, impoverished African nation. Torn by civil strife, ravaged by drought and devoid of natural resources, this country has witnessed the deaths of 18 percent of its population in the last seven years, almost equally divided between civil war and starvation. The report noted the despair felt as one chanced upon a scene of hundreds of dying humans experiencing starvation, their bodies grotesque from the lack of even minimal calories, their eyes and mouths hidden by swarms of flies that were instinctively staking out their share of human flesh. The stench of this almost unimaginable human suffering was enough to take away the breath of any witness.

-- More Americans donated more dollars to private and public charities last year than at any time in our nation's history, with this year's pace thus far ahead of 1997.

I would hope my second list for the visiting alien would be received with much greater significance than the first one, and perhaps it will if his society has learned the difference between what is truly important and that which only seems so at the moment. We earthlings have an impression of visitors from outer space, believing they have long antennae sticking out of their heads, speak in tones resembling a record played backward and are green all over. That's just how we view them, not how they might really be.

I guess it would be all too human to hand over the first list and discard the second one. But I keep forgetting: the odds are pretty good aliens are intellectually superior to earthlings. So maybe they won't invade our world after all.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News & Editorial Service.