MISSOURI WATCH: WARNING: KEEPING INFORMED CAN BE FATAL -- CONSIDER F. DANIEL DOOLIE

From time to time I like to update a little series called "True Life Stories of Fictitious People." And today I'd like to present the sad true life of Mr. F. Daniel Doolie, a well-informed person by trade.

In the halcyon days of the 1930s and 1940s, Mr. Doolie became a well-informed person on world affairs. He subscribed to 11 daily newspapers, 43 periodicals in 13 languages, read the Sunday New York Times from cover to cover and listened to radio newscasts as long as stations were on the air. Which left him Friday mornings free. He felt he knew all there was to know about world problems and he was happy.

But on Jan. 12, 1962, which happened to be the interregnum between the Korean war and the conflict in Vietnam, tragedy struck. While he was trying to remove an economic treatise on the Turkestan national debt from beneath a stack of New Republic magazines, the whole pile toppled, fracturing his skull in three places. He lapsed thereupon into a coma from which he was aroused only last Tuesday.

His faithful wife, Evangeline, was at his side as his eyelids blinked and raised. His first words were: "Have we crushed our wily Oriental enemy?"

"Do you mean Japan, China, Vietnam or Korea, dear?" asked Mrs. Doolie hesitantly.

"Vietnam, of course," snapped Mr. Doolie. "We have made peace with Japan, China is helping the world oppose the Russians and we have peace in Korea. I do wish you'd be better informed."

"Well, things have changed a little, dear," said Mrs. Doolie gently. "We are engaged in economic war with the Japanese, Korea could be engulfed in civil war at any time, China refuses to guarantee human rights and we're just now starting to open Vietnam to U.S. business corporations in order for them to create new customers."

Mr. Doolie's eyes glazed slightly. "Japan's our ..." he muttered. "Well, what about the Russian front? Are we gaining on those godless Communists, the Evil Empire that is determined to dominate the world economically, culturally and militarily?...Now why do you look like that? The Russians are our enemies, aren't they?"

"Not any more, dear," said Mrs. Doolie. "They are our friends. We're aiding them every way we can think of, from loaning them billions of dollars to establishing as many McDonald franchises as the Russian capitalists can afford. Just the other day we sponsored their entry into the most powerful economic consortium in the history of the world. I think you'd better rest now."

"What do you mean, 'Russian capitalists'?" Mr. Doolie said, sitting upright from the pillow to confront his wife. "Don't you know the Russians kill capitalists?"

"Not any more, dear, these days they only kill their former Soviet Union allies. You really must rest now,'; his wife said nervously.

"Well, never mind," said Mr. Doolie. "With the Russians on our side, we'll still be able to defeat the rest of the Soviet Union."

"No, dear," said Mrs. Doolie, "we've already defeated the rest of the Soviet empire, granting them economic aid and sponsoring their entry into the United Nations. They are our staunchest allies now. But they're a little perturbed with us at the moment as they feel we are not wholeheartedly prepared to back them militarily to save them from the Russians. But fortunately the Russians are having a quarrel with their former allies, the awful Chinese, who in turn have been quarreling with our wonderful friends, the Japanese. And they, in turn...."

Mr. Doolie went rigid. "Our staunch Russian enemy is angry because our fiendish Japanese allies..." And with that he lapsed right back into his coma.

Occasionally since then, he's been heard to mumble: "Japan-China-Vietnam-Korea-Soviet Union-Russia?" But that's all. The doctors hold out little hope he'll ever recover. They say he's lost his will to think.

Mrs. Doolie, however, is content. She figures he's happier that way. Besides, if he regains his strength, she'll have to explain what has happened in the Middle East, South America, Bosnia and Africa. The strain would be fatal.

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