It Isn't Money Itself That Causes The

The Survival Of American Democracy Depends Less On The Size Of Its Armies Than On The Capacity Of Its Individual Citizens To Rely... On The Strength Of Their Own Thought.

Unlike Any Other Business In The United States, Sports Must Preserve An Illusion Of Perfect Innocence. The Mounting Of This Illusion Defines The Purpose And Accounts For The Immense Wealth Of American Sports. It Is The Ceremony Of Innocence That The Fans Pay To See - Not The Game Or The Match Or The Bout, But The Ritual Portrayal Of A World In Which Time Stops And All Hope Remains Plausible, In Which Everybody Present Can Recover The Blameless Expectations Of A Child, Where The Forces Of Light Always Triumph Over The Powers Of Darkness.

Wars Might Come And Go, But The Seven O'clock News Lives Forever.

Tardiness Is Next To Wickedness In A Society Relentless In Its Consumption Of Time As Both A Good And A Service--as Tweet And Instagram, Film Clip And Sound Bite, As Sporting Event, Investment Opportunity, Tinder Hookup, And Interest Rate--its Value Measured Not By Its Texture Or Its Substance But By The Speed Of Its Delivery, A Distinction Apparent To Andy Warhol When He Supposedly Said That Any Painting That Takes Longer Than Five Minutes To Make Is A Bad Painting.

Love Of Country Follows From The Exercise Of Its Freedoms, Not From Pride In Its Fleets Or Its Armies.