DETROIT - What crime-ridden, boarded-building, automotive-industry-ravaged, snowy Detroit couldn't do, an NFL officiating crew pulled off with relative ease in front of plenty of bored-silly football fans inside beautiful Ford Field. Sports' and television's most indestructible beast - the Super Bowl - met its match in the 40th playing of the game the world stops to watch. The inevitable finally happened. A group of middle-aged executives trying to keep pace with a group of highly trained 20-something athletes destroyed America's sports holiday. Pittsburgh's one-for-the-thumb Super Bowl will be remembered as the game when physically overmatched referees and heads-buried NFL executives...
William Tecumseh Sherman, the terrorist and firebug, famously said, "War is hell," but he hadn't seen the worst of it. He never had to take a trip on a holiday weekend in America, circa 2000. Not every turkey winds up on a dining-room table.