Jim Austin

His previous columns are archived HERE.

JIM AUSTIN

Super Dull

OK, let's review: the MVP of the Super Bowl was Deion Branch who caught eleven passes tying some arcane Super Bowl record.

Brady was his usual automaton with a talent for never panicking even when four steroid-fueled mutants are charging towards him, bent on pulling his spine out and lashing him with it.

Tedy Bruschi has been lighting up spell checkers all over America this week as sports writers try and deal with the one "d" in his name. He also ruined the running game of the Eagles by thundering into the line and often through it on his way to Donavan McNabb.

The real story of the game was the appalling play of the aforementioned McNabb. He has clearly spent way too much time flogging soup with his mom and not enough study on how this game is played. The score could easily have been much more lopsided but for a few key penalties to the Pats.

McNabb threw passes like a cheerleader throwing rolled up promotional t-shirts into the crowd. No wonder he was picked off twice in the first quarter. There is no trophy for Goat of the Game but, if there was, it goes to McNabb.

Now to the entertainment side of the Super Bowl. I speak of course of the half-time show and the commercials.

No doubt most of the audience wondered who that desiccated old geezer was who dominated the half-time festivities. For those of you under 40, he was Paul McCartney.

The poor old Beatle doddered through some tunes from ancient history originally performed by him and a few long dead companions.

Thank you, Janet Jackson. It was Ms. Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" last year that so enraged the Ned Flanders of this country that the NFL was spooked into offering up a show that would bore the bejabers out of an elderly Amish librarian.

I wonder what they will offer up next year? Maybe the Partridge family will be available or Donny and Marie. Is Rosemary Clooney dead?

The commercials that are always so entertaining at Super Bowl time were dreadful. Only one racy ad flew under the radar.

Godaddy.com had a sexy, funny little ad that appeared early in the first quarter. A busty cheerleader type pops a spaghetti strap while explaining the merits of her web domain company to a committee of horrified Senators, one of whom is forced to put on an oxygen mask.

If you get on the net and find Godaddy .com you will find a blog by the owner.

Apparently, he had another ad teed up for the second half. The NFL, according to him, put in a frantic call to FOX, the lickspittle voice of the GOP, telling them to pull the ad, which they did.

You know, when you squelch everything that could possibly offend anyone you end up with a watery gruel that appeals to no one. In other words, you have the 50s.

It is crystal clear that the fanatics of the Conservative Right are currently in charge of our culture. They have their tentacles all over our politics, our judiciary, and now our airwaves. Apparently we must all worship at an altar of their design.

Anytime you wonder how a society could possibly tolerate misogynistic freaks like the Taliban, just examine what is happening to our culture.

Right-wing neo cons have institutionalized bigotry in seventeen states by their defense of marriage nonsense and are trying to have the constitution altered to reflect their prejudice.

Bug-eyed religious carbuncles like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson have erupted on the body politic and, unbelievably, are denouncing cartoons like Sponge Bob Square Pants and Buster Bunny.

They aren't accusing Sponge Bob and Buster of being gay(sponges actually reproduce asexually) -- they have their chastity belts in a wad because these characters are advocating a message of "tolerance."

We can't have the kids listening to that can we? Our new Education Secretary, Margaret Spellings, was positively elated to stop osculating the derriere of Dobson long enough to recommend pulling Buster Bunny from PBS.

Falwell, Dobson and his ilk are the Ku Klux Klan of the new millennium. They are the enemies of diversity and champions of hatred. They have pounced on the last minority that is vulnerable to legal discrimination and that is our shame.

Like the National Socialist Party, the Klan, and the Taliban they will eventually be purged from our society. But what a long and painful process it will be.