Bread and circuses

I've been slowly reading a history of Rome, and just read a section on how the plebes were kept placid with food subsidies and entertainments (which grew more and more expensive), and the occasional banning of unofficial organizations. I looked up a blogger I read from time to time, and found him with his underwear in a knot about the offensive way a commentator I'd not heard of on a network I never watch described the death of an actor I'd never heard of. No doubt Mark's description was accurate and the degradation of discourse he complained of is perfectly real, but the blog post illustrated 4 levels of entertainments.

There's the movies, of course, and the reporting about actors, and the commentariat, and the blogging about it all. Luckily the blogging circus is cheap.