Essentials

The Roman satirist Juvenal said "the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now meddle no more and long eagerly for just two things — bread and circuses." Juvenal wrote this passage at a time when the republic's memory had faded into the glorious past, succeeded by a string of dictatorial emperors. The Roman Senate had lost relevance. All there was left was the riches of empire and a huge mass of poor ignorant city dwellers to be kept in order. To keep them from revolting, the emperors took to giving away bread, to keep them fed, and staging huge gladiatorial contests (WWF, NBA, NFL) to keep their minds off of their ignorance, poverty, and therefore misery.

However, today, with the enormous power of the television screen to keep people pacific and even willing to vote for their own undoing, the Republicans and the Media don't even bother with the bread part of the equation anymore. Our current president, in fact, gained what votes he did get from people who think WWF wrestling is a real sport. At least the Romans provided real blood, death, and dismemberment with their circuses. American ignoramouses get fake blood and also have to settle for weak beer. The violence and criminality among professional athletes is now being echoed by the fans, as they hurl insults at the athletes and goad them into physical attacks, but the fans are behaving no differently than they behave at their kids' little league games. They scream obscenities in front of the kids. They attack each other. Overall, setting a fine example.

There used to be a thing called sportsmanship, back before the demise of the Roman, er, American republic. The sports field was a place to teach and learn morality and fair play. What do we learn now? I monitor television--I use the term monitor because I don't want it to sound like I watch television--every now and then, and I tuned into a Carson Daily show the other night. There was some athlete being interviewed and being taken seriously about the recent incident wherein professional basketball players ran into the stands and attacked spectators. The thing kids should learn from all of this, he suggested, was that these men would lose millions of dollars because of this incident. There was no moral lesson at all, in fact, only a financial one. He said--and here I wish I could remember his name, but feel proud of myself that I didn't pay attention--that you aren't going to change the culture. It has to be handled by better enforcement. Spoken like a true sportsman whose brain has spent the last few years in a perpetual state of roid rage. Carson Daily, ever his mild and inoffensive self, simply nodded his head... because Satan's cock was lodged in his throat at the time.

It is not surprising to find this kind of amorality in sportsmen these days when virtually every one of them at the professional level must take illegal potions to allow them to compete at the artificially pumped level of their peers (Lance Armstrong.) Daily cheating and lawbreaking can add up. Here, kids. Here's a hero for you! He succeeded the old fashioned way, by cheating his way to the top with illegal drugs. By the way, they ALL take illegal drugs regularly! They all cheat! You have to, to succeed! Learn to lie, son, it's the American way! Have a beer! Oh, and don't do drugs, mkay? Drugs are bad.

Listen. You jerk-offs are obsessed--OBSESSED--with sports. NOBODY SHOULD GIVE A DAMN WHO WON THE GAME WHEN WE ARE ABOUT TO LOSE OUR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC! NOBODY SHOULD CARE WHAT THESE CRIMINALS DO! THEY ARE NOT HEROES! THEY ARE DEGENERATES! MOST OF ALL, THEY ARE DECOYS! Oh, wait, I think I might have offended some people. Never mind. Sorry. That was all a typo. Like the last five paragraphs. Go back to the game. Have a weak beer and a Viagra so you can manage to jerk a rancid load out of your necrotic peckers later. Typos again! Damn. I did it again. Typos. I swear. Lance Armstrong and the NBA do not cheat by taking illegal performance enhancing drugs.