Recap for the sports-impaired: last Sunday the Minnesota Vikings (a former favorite of mine) played a first round playoff game against the Green Bay Packers in Green Bay. The Packers are a storied team, rich in tradition and backed by a legion of ultraloyal fans. They also have a daunting home record in the playoffs. The Vikings managed the upset, in large part thanks to two touchdowns by star receiver and frequent troublemaker Randy Moss. After his second touchdown, he pantomimed mooning the crowd, during which he rubbed his behind on the goalpost. The media reaction? Sacrilege! Impudence! He just doesn't get it! In fact, so deep was the media outrage that i still haven't seen video of the incident because all the sports shows have deemed it too indecent to rebroadcast.

Let's put this in perspective. Unlike Janet Jackson's breast which actually was exposed, Randy Moss did not pull down his pants. He acted out a mooning. No exposure of flesh. And we're not talking about a sexually-charged act here, this was a prank. Apparently the Packers fans have made it a tradition to moon the visiting team's bus after they've been defeated by their beloved Pack, but for some reason this fully-clothed on-field reversal of the tradition is the real crime. Is our society so fearful of so-called obscenity in the media that this is what we've come to? I'll admit that Moss's disciplinary record is far from examplary and his attitude stinks, but in this case his post-game commentary was uncharacteristically wise: "I was just having some fun". If present trends continue we can expect a ban on babies on TV and film by 2010 because they are symbolic of the shameful sexual act that produced them.

The results of a poll on ESPN.com thankfully suggest that the American people are not as indignant about obscenity as the media figures who railed afterwards. 58% of those polled said the incident was funny, while only 15% said it was disgraceful and a paltry 2% found it insensitive. 54% are opposed to the NFL fining Moss for his alleged disgrace, while 87% would rather focus on the Vikings' unexpected victory over the Packers than Moss's antics. Part of the problem is we've created a culture of sports journalists who make a living raving about this and that, so a lot of media personalities see episodes like this as a paycheck. Apparently it pays to get pissed off.