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I was listening to the English language service from Radio Vilnius the other night and heard a news story that brought me to rigid attention.

It seems that some candidate for a doctor of tautology degree had come to this conclusion: Office workers in Lithuania waste up to the equivalent of one day a month by stepping outside to take cigarette breaks.

Now on the surface that sounds pretty noteworthy. In effect, it says, every smoking worker is using up that much time to garbage up his or her lungs.

But what the story didn't say also struck me, to wit, that when smoking was legal indoors, very little time was wasted because back then people could smoke and work at the same time.

It's sort of like outlawing handguns and later on pointing out that people who don't carry handguns aren't as likely to use handguns in committing crimes as those who do.

Come again?

It was also said in the Lithuania story -- and yes, I'm not joking, I do listen to Radio Vilnius on the Internet -- that smoking workers are out sick more often than non-smokers. Which basically means that averages are averages.

I smoked like a chimney for a long time, and I realized once that out of something like four or five years at the same job, I could point to smoking as the reason for my having been out of work one single day that whole time.

I am reminded of a story on NPR the other day that called into question the "news" you get on CNN, Fox, etc. (I won't refer to Headline News, which has succeeded in turning the banal and trivial into the Seriously Banal and Trivial.)

In this one, a government report by one element of the Bush administration noted that the Iraqi oil industry is chock-a-block with corruption. Oil is horded, sabotage is committed, lies are traded like so many barrels of sweet crude. And the real news is that it may be 10 more years before Iraq straightens matters out and retrenches its oil industry to pre-war levels.

Funny, I haven't heard McCain mention this; all he does is jabber on about how well things are going, which always reminds me of Westmoreland explaining why the Tet Offensive was no big deal. Heck, I haven't heard Bush or Clinton or Obama say anything about it either.

In any case, I don't recall anyone on CNN or Fox News mentioning it. Or for that matter, Radio Vilnius.

* * *

One very nice thing about listening to stations from overseas.

One is not bombarded with the political nonsense that really belongs on Headline News.

Listening to Radio Netherlands or Radio Havana or even the old-line communist Voice of Korea (with its musical paeans to Dear Leader Kim Jong Il and old favorites like "Our Generals Are the Best"), one barely hears a hint of American politics. Havana, which aptly refers to "occupied Iraq," has its own bizarre choices of what to cover.

I remember tuning in the night Fidel's aunt or some such relative ripped her son up and down, but the lead story in Havana? A minor official from Ottawa had been greeted at the airport.

Now that's news!

* * *

As some may know, I'm back on the Channel 30 show, "Best of Pahrump," or as one of the hosts used to call it, "Bop."

It is now hosted by Karisa Gentry, by day a mild-mannered Remax agent but twice a week now the delightful hostess interviewing those who make Pahrump an interesting place.

My thanks to those who have called in to say hi.

Rick Manning, the manager now, has some excellent ideas for the station's future, and I wish him luck in carrying them out. It's possible that now and then we'll make some changes to Best of... as well, so you never know.

For those who may not be aware, this is not my first TV stint.

In the late 1970s I did weather on TV and radio in Juneau, Alaska, a few times a week, and also worked one of the floor cameras once a week.

The moment the red light went on that first evening, I felt, "All right!" It was a lot of fun but also, given Juneau's extreme weather conditions, very serious business.

And we made all the usual foul-ups that occur at any station, especially one like KTOO, where informality was something of a cult. "Want to be a DJ? Sure, come on down, we'll train ya and give ya your own show!"

Later on, I took part in "Vietnam: A Television History." A team from Boston flew for hours and we arranged to meet for a taping session.

All went well until we got the gear set up and turned on the sound as the camera rolled. And inevitably, some clown appeared across the baseball diamond at the Jimmie Rodgers State Park in Meridian, Miss., and started beating the daylights out of a length of iron pipe.

We waited until he had been convinced that we didn't need the clanging accompaniment, then began taping.