Rodney Tine's samizdat dossier

Even the head of state has to be physically talked down from choosing this master. The "Famous Crooner" is President Johnny Gentle himself, and the detail is quietly enormous: told of an object that annihilates whoever views it, his impulse is to want a "personal review" of its qualities — to see for himself what all the fuss is — and it takes "the strongest possible language" to stop him. It's the temptation Steeply probed in Marathe (098) confirmed at the very top: the pull to take one look is not a weakness of the undisciplined but a nearly universal reflex that reaches even the President. Nobody is exempt from the curiosity the Entertainment counts on, which is exactly why it needs no coercion — the powerful want to look too, and only restraint by others keeps the leader of O.N.A.N. from walking into the same ward as the intern.