By Tim Sanders

I am sure that sometimes late at night, when all is quiet, and even the plaintive mewling of the neighbor’s tomcat seems far, far away, you’ve asked yourself: "Should I turn on the light and read a newspaper, or should I just lie here in the dark, making armpit noises?" And if you’re like me, you’ve never really answered yourself, because your wife has rolled over and smacked you in the forehead with one of the hard-soled slippers she keeps at her bedside.

In the olden days, before the advent of 24-hour cable news channels, newspapers played a critical role in our society. Every household had critical stacks of newspapers on the back porch, critical newspapers lining bird cages, and critical newspapers to wrap fish in. Kids built paper hats out of critical newspapers, and crumpled critical newspapers made excellent fireplace kindling.

And on occasion, people actually read them. But that was only because we had no options. Yes, newspapers were dull, colorless things (except for the Sunday Funnies), but if we wanted to know what was going on in the world, they were all we had. Newspaper editors were elderly curmudgeons wearing green eyeshades and smoking cheap cigars, with curmudgeonly spittle running down their curmudgeonly chins.

Now all that has changed. Modern day editors are often youthful, highly appealing individuals who (the editor of the Post told me to say this) "exude a certain animal sexuality." Today’s newspapers are colorful, fun, and exciting. They are stimulating.

Except, of course, for the Des Moines Register. If you watched this month's Iowa primary debates, sponsored by the Register and moderated by that paper's editor, Carolyn Washburn, then I have this to say: YOU CAN WAKE UP NOW!! Consensus has it that those debates, both Republican and Democrat, were the very worst debates in the history of Western Civilization. Editor Washburn exuded all the warmth and charm of a menopausal 2nd grade schoolmarm wearing sensible, high-topped shoes and carrying a riding crop. Several pundits referred to her simply as "Nurse Ratched." I endured a portion of the Republican debate, and nearly choked on a Cheez-It when she said: "I’d like to see a show of hands. How many of you believe global climate change is a serious threat caused by human activity, and how many of you would rather stay inside and think about your answer while the rest of us go outside for recess?"

Talk about a golden moment in presidential campaigns. At that juncture Fred Thompson stomped his foot and said he didn't want to play hand games, several others began to fidget and John McCain started shooting spitballs at the moderator. So I turned to something more interesting––the Weather Channel.

Which is not to say that nothing interesting ever happens in Iowa, or that the Des Moines Register never gets wind of it. On Christmas Eve, for example, they got wind of 77-year-old Robert Schoff. Schoff tried to dislodge a clog from his septic tank and got himself wedged in the tank opening. He screamed, hoping his wife would hear him, but she paid no attention until an hour later, when she walked past a window and noticed his feet kicking in the air. She called 911, and two sheriff’s deputies came and extricated her husband. That’s a wonderful, heartwarming Christmas story, and the Des Moines Register dutifully reported it.

And on that very same December 24, intrepid staff writer Clark Kaufman of the Des Moines Register reported the sad but entertaining tale of 35-year-old Tanja Shelton. Shelton had lost her desk job as a production control scheduler at Sioux Automation in Sioux Center, Iowa, after her boss noticed that she was constantly typing at her keyboard. Working up a real sweat at it, apparently. Tanja lost her job because a computer technician examined her computer and found that ... it was not plugged in. No, actually he found that she’d been writing a steamy novel on company time.

After the company fired her and denied her unemployment claim, Tanja said that she’d only been honing her typing skills, and wasn’t exactly writing a novel at all. A state hearing was held and excerpts from her non-novel were entered as evidence. The story "focused on the summertime activities and desires of a teenage temptress named Taylor." In one scene the main character was relaxing on a lifeguard’s chair at the pool (WARNING: Excerpt contains the A-word and the B-word, and several other words which begin with a wide variety of other letters, but are not bad words):

"Robert came out to the guard chair and offered Taylor a cold cola and a piece of pizza.

"He was looking good. She hadn’t seen him since last summer, but he somehow looked even more built in his bright blue tank top.

"She accepted the pizza and watched his tan surf shorts hug his ass as he walked away. He was hot –– but very much taken by bitchy Darla.”

So I mention all of this only to prove that Iowa is not just your regular, dull old Midwestern state like, oh for example, Kansas. Stuff happens in Iowa, and if the Des Moines Register couldn’t hire an editor with a little fire in her belly, maybe they could’ve used the services of Tanja Shelton. If Tanja couldn’t spice up presidential debates, at least she could toss some purple prose into a front page editorial. You know:

"Hillary's lilting, airy laughter filled the room. Her eyes glistened, her lips were moist and inviting. She took no notice of Edwards' tousled hair and clear complexion, nor of Obama's clean, articulate ears. No, her mind was elsewhere. Her girlish bosoms heaved, yearning to burst the bonds of her constrictive pantsuit. As she leaned forward, she gasped ever so lightly, and breathed those words manly men everywhere longed to hear: ‘I want to create a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund to jumpstart research and development of alternative energy sources.’ Then she accepted the pizza from Kucinich, the delivery boy, and watched his tan surf shorts jiggle as he walked out to the truck. He was hot –– and oh, so glandular!”

And if you think that’s a bad idea, then let’s see a show of hands. No hands? Aha, just as I thought.

Now we can all go outside and play on the monkey bars.