Did the cud-munching people know the truth about newspapers? McLeod doubted it. The old name had remained--newspapers--but the function had changed. We give them each day their daily cud. We don't report. We motivate. You didn't find it anyplace. It wasn't written. It happened and it was accepted. Maybe they did know. It might make a good book, if people ever went back to reading books again. Not yellow journalism, but ROY G. BIV journalism, for all the colors in the rainbow. Concepts had changed. How? After the Third World War? The Fourth? People wanted to believe what they read. Each individual existence was precarious, cliff-edged, ready to fall or scramble back to safety. People believed. Almost, it was as if they had forgotten their Western Christian heritage, in which they moved through time from past to future, active agents in a static environment. Now they embodied the old Greek idea. People didn't flow. Time did. They stood backwards in the river of time, with the future flowing up, unseen, behind them, becoming the present, flowing on and becoming the past which lay, decipherable, before their eyes. Only newspapermen had eyes in the back of their heads. Look out, cancer's coming. I read it in the _World_. (The _World_ Medical Corps sows the seed, and the incidence of cancer increases.) Good newspaper, the _World_. Always lets you know what's coming. I see where the _Star-Times_ says the cancer rate is dropping. Hope they're right. (Newspaper Medical Corps battle mightily, offstage, and the _Star-Times_ wins. Temporarily, no more cancer.) What do you know, the _Star-Times_ was right. _Star-Times_ says we ought to have a spaceship on the moon soon. Thrilling, isn't it (_Star-Times_ astronauts prepare to launch a two-stage rocket from their space station, but _World_ astronauts intercept it with a guided missile and destroy it.) Well, looks like the _World_ was right. Space travel soon, but not yet. Senator Blundy's daughter was attacked on the campus of that there college up-state, what's its name? You read about it in the _Star-Times_? You know, it's not so bad, being small time, I always say. Things like that only happen to important people. Yes sir, we're lucky. _World_ says it's a Brinks, one of those unsolved robberies. Three million dollars from the Bank of New York! (But _Star-Times_ detectives go to work and find--or sometimes frame--the criminal.) Hey, it's not a Brinks anymore. Maybe I ought to read the _Star-Times_ more often. That Weaver Wainwright earns six hundred thousand dollars a year, but my kid wants to be a politician. Some kids you just can't figure. McLeod wandered into a bar and got himself mellowed, then found another and repeated the process. When he returned to the street and made his way to the slidewalk, the snow had finally begun to stick. Someone in the bar had recognized him and asked for an autograph. It hadn't stirred him at all. Was he maturing or turning sour?