No, I didn’t watch the Super Bowl again this year.

Well, okay, mostly didn’t watch. I caught about the last five minutes by the game clock–call it the last quarter hour of real time–which was, for those of us rooting for anyone other than San Francisco, the best part.

And I did once again hunt up a recording of the halftime show. Have to keep that record intact, right? Still haven’t missed one this century.

Let’s be blunt here: the FCC and the NFL owe Janet Jackson an apology.

For the sake of the argument, I’ll temporarily accept the dubious premise that sex and sexually explicit television will scar the psyches of the youth of Amurrica.

Over the course of nearly fifteen minutes, Sunday’s halftime show featured (a) Shakira and J. Lo in a succession of outfits that would give a bikini delusions of adequacy, (b) a plethora of panty shots, (c) an American flag accidentally(?) dragged across the stage, (d) pre-teen singers and dancers in short skirts and short shorts, (e) too many naked male nipples to count without freeze-frame, and (f) a bona fide stripper pole.

In high definition.

How is that less psychically and psychologically damaging than a couple of seconds of grainy, standard definition exposure of what might have been a bare nipple?

Nor did Fox cover themselves in glory with the closed captions. The lyrics of the songs in English were displayed, but the others? “[Singing in Spanish]”. I guess they couldn’t afford a bilingual closed caption writer. Watch for the cost of an ad to go up again the next time Fox has the rights so they can again fail to provide equal access.

All sarcasm and sniping aside, it was a good show. Arguably the best since at least Lady Gaga’s outing in 2017. Less explicitly political, but implicitly? Oh, yes!

(And the music itself was good, too. I find I’m enjoying the “throw a bunch of songs in the blender” approach to creating a Super Bowl medley. I suppose it reflects a shortening of my attention span, but perhaps there’s a more innocent interpretation.)

Am I going to gratify the artists’ record labels by rushing out to buy their albums? Nope. But I might support a local business by picking up a CD next time I see one on the shelf.

Looking forward to next year’s Super Bowl Halftime Show, when Ms. Jackson will have the opportunity to revitalize her career. Ah, happy dreams.