Reply #9: No offense,...

[NoGodsNoMasters]

..but what does it matter? (Incidentally, I'm from the Boston area.) I will never understand the fascination with this activity, without which the American people might...actually PAY ATTENTION to what they're government is doing. Sports, like religion are a tranquilizer that draws ones' focus from the real world. Hey, everybody has pastimes and likes to be entertained, but for a vast segment of sports fans it takes on a reverence on par with a religious experience. If people watched CNN like they watch ESPN, we wouldn't be where we are today. As Chomsky said, sports "are a training course in irrational jingoism." Marx said religion is the opiate of the masses, in his time i've no doubt this was true, in this country, today, I'd say it's sports. And I don't think it's any coincidence that athletes and sports enthusiasts (Though obviously, none here.) are, in the majority, conservative/republican. I don't oppose entertainment, but at least films or music have some measure of artistic and thus intellectual value. I guess I'll never understand this fixation.