Mencken, thou shouldst be living at this hour

[Peter K.]

>Cockburn flirts with anti-semitic language. Mencken was aggressively
>anti-semitic. I'm not sure we need him all that badly.
>
>Carrol
>
Why am I not surprised? We need him more than ever. Try to imagine
what Mencken would say about television today. Peter Gabriel has
a new song "The Barry Williams Show" about a daytime TV talkshow
host which reminded me of how Ian McEwan in his novel The Child in
Time describes the experience of watching daytime television audiences
as "the democrat's pornography." I don't see why humor can't be used
to cope with that experience and similarly distressing facts concerning
the majority of our fellow citizens. Mencken was an expert practionner of
that humor. (Just saw Dustin Hoffman's _Lenny_ last night; it's about comedian
Lenny Bruce. He was another good critquer of the majority's hypocrisies.)
But then again Mencken had style of a sort and the Left is allergic to style.
Peter