As we all learned with last week’s Britney Spears meltdown, it is important that you have people — those mysterious creatures who make life run smoothly — to halt the growing epidemic of foot-in-mouth disease. We believe that if John Updike’s people would simply step forward and whisper something like “John, you sound like an ass” in his ear, it would be very helpful. Because a revered American writer is sounding like a doddering fool. It ain’t an age thing — Kurt Vonnegut recently did a book tour and managed to sound like he’s in touch with the modern world.