RIVER CITY JOURNAL: THERE'S BIG NEWS FROM EAST TIMOR, BUT I'M NOT SURE I'LL READ IT

When newspapers publish stories from far-off places, editors wonder if anyone reads them or if they mean anything to anybody in Southeast Missouri.

As the editor of this newspaper, I probably shouldn't tell you this.

But, as most of you already know, that won't stop me.

Every day we put stories from faraway places in this newspaper. Places like Chechnya. If I'm reading the stories right, terrible things are happening in Chechnya. I guess if the military was dropping bombs on Kansas City, I'd be very interested. Our younger son lives in Kansas City.

Kansas City, by the way, is in good old America, so I don't spend a lot of time worrying about whether government troops are going to take Kansas City by force. There are parts of Kansas City that could probably stand a military takeover. But that's not the way we do things in this country.

Maybe if I had relatives in Chechnya, I would read all those stories a little more closely. Fact is, I don't know a single soul in Chechnya.

I force myself to read stories from Chechnya and Bosnia and New Zealand because I think there must be a good reason The Associated Press goes to all the bother to write the stories and send them to us. On top of that, I figure I ought to know what those stories say when some reader calls and wonders why a certain photo from Scott City didn't make it, or why a news item from Frohna still hasn't been published.

"Don't tell me it's because you don't have the space," callers frequently remind me.

The callers are right. Dead right.

It's awfully hard to tell a reader from Scott City or Frohna that their news isn't as important as that AP story from Chechnya. But it still seems like we publish a lot more news from Chechnya than we do from Frohna.

I mention this because I was reading some international news in this newspaper one day this week and saw a story from Zimbabwe. It caught my attention for a very good reason: Our older son has spent a lot of time in Zimbabwe. He is likely to spend a lot more time there.

Zimbabwe is in southern Africa. Most of us who remember geography classes can recall Rhodesia. Well, Rhodesia is Zimbabwe. Has been for years. Currently, Zimbabwe is nominally ruled by a democratic parliament, but in fact the country is under the control of a virtual dictator. This dictator forced a vote on a new constitution that would have given the dictator more power. It also would have permitted the government to seize, without payment, property owned by descendants of British settlers in Rhodesia.

I know all of this because older son is as much in tune with what's happening in southern Africa as he is with the politics of Massachusetts, which is where he lives. A former college classmate and good friend of his is from Zimbabwe. Her family is Dutch, having settled in Rhodesia when it was a British colony. Her father was an official in the agriculture ministry.

Over the years, older son has spent an enormous amount of time in Africa, a continent he loves and respects. He has, for months at a time, hitchhiked thousands of miles, mostly with troop convoys. Most African nations have at least two warring military factions that are constantly moving troops around. Both sides are happy to give 6-foot-2, blond, blue-eyed Americans a lift. On occasion, he has bummed a ride with a Russian gun smuggler flying arms into Mozambique. Maybe you've heard that story already.

Older son turns 30 this weekend. He says it's no big deal. That's what I said when I turned 30. And 40. And a bunch of others. He does medical research in the Boston area when he isn't traveling somewhere in the world. He has friends in Chechnya. He reads those AP stories.

I am barely old enough to have a 30-year-old son. My wife certainly isn't old enough. But he's going to be 30 anyway. Currently he is doing more research and working on a degree in brain and cognitive science.

In a phone conversation this week, his mother asked, "And what, exactly, does one do with a degree in brain and cognitive science?"

His quick response: "One hitchhikes all over Africa."

With one son in Boston and another in Kansas City, we pay attention when we see stories from anywhere near there. Like good parents, we called right after we heard about the tragic interstate pileup near Kansas City during the New Year's ice storm. Good parents do not rest until they know their son wasn't driving on I-29 that day.

When winter lashed out at Boston a couple of weeks ago, there was one mother in Missouri who couldn't rest until she knew if her son was staying warm. That's what good mothers do: worry.

Younger son has been making frequent trips to Greece and Egypt in recent months, partly because of his job and partly because of a young man's wanderlust. Whenever he's there we pay attention to the news. He called from Athens the day of the big earthquake last year. He was really put out that we didn't know about it and hadn't been frantic with worry. Good sons worry too much ... that their parents will worry too much.

I am trying to convince myself that a lot of our readers have similar reasons to wonder what's happening in Albania or East Timor. I hope AP isn't wasting its time. I hope we aren't wasting this newspaper's space.

I know one thing for sure: The world is much smaller than it was when I was a young man. When I was a young man I didn't know anybody in Pennsylvania, much less South Africa.

Now I'm old and crotchety. I still don't know anybody in South Africa. But our sons do. I'd like to think some of you know somebody in Pakistan or Thailand or any of those other places we get stories from.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.