Mencken's Ghost zings sports mania JUST right!

H.L. Mencken would be proud of this commentator, whoever he may really be:

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Opinion/150010-2014-02-05-would-a-true-conservative-watch-the-super-bowl.htm
Would a true conservative watch the Super Bowl?

I thought I was the only one who would ever refuse to spectate on some spectacle on principle, i.e. the grounds that the trend it represents is extremely unhealthy for us all. Athlete and team worship are bad enough, but he's 100% on the mark about the crucial need for sober citizen vigilance over every aspect of everything, how it's being done, by whom, why, how financed, etc...... sports not least!

Doing things the Mencken way would mean such things as (1) people spending infinitely more time doing things than watching them; (2) virtually no mass crass commercialism; citizens rooting for and abetting the most moral side of any great moral conflict, not grooving and betting on and romanticizing sports gangs based on having lived in such and such city themselves or attended this or that school.

In short, if we're going to do this "life" thing right, we'd focus on what really matters every day, and our pleasures would be constructive and ennobling, not brutal and vicarious. As far as I'm concerned that cancels the Olympics, and I suspect the first Mencken was no great fan of them either.

He was of course a major societal skeptic and watchdog for the first half of the twentieth century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken

People today love his ironic wit but not its profound meaning or implications for our whole mad, lost society.

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