Advertising men and politicians are dangerous if they are separated. Together they are diabolical.

Today, words. Tomorrow, sticks and stones. And the day after that?

Marx was wrong. Religion is not the opiate of the people. Opium suggests something soporific, numbing, dulling. Too often religion has been an aphrodisiac for horror, a Benzedrine for bestiality. At its best it has lifted spirits and raised spires. At its worst it has turned entire civilizations into cemeteries.

Unless you are willing to try, fail miserable, and try again, success won't happen.

Sport provides the spectacle, the metaphor, the religious ritual, the putty to fill the cracks in countless lives.

Advertising men and politicians are dangerous if they are separated. Together they are diabolical.

While sticks and stones break bones, words can never hurt? Manifestly untrue. Politics everywhere are holistic, interconnected, and the rhetoric of right or left can produce toxic atmospheres in which lunacy thrives.