How tired and trite is the use of sports as a microcosm for (insert human, social or political event)? But, at the same time, how fitting. Forgive us for kicking a dead metaphor, but maybe that's the appeal of professional sports -- how something so trivial can still be so profoundly relatable to almost anything.

The Super Bowl is easily the most confounding and paradoxical event in popular culture. Seated at the epicenter of American mass media, the game struts the entire bell curve of virtue and vice upon its glossy stage. No one spectacle is more morally polarized, simultaneously embodying all that is good and bad about this country. That the game is titled in Roman numerals is an insult to the Romans -- at least they had the good sense to separate their sex, violence and toasts to Bacchus into different occasions. Maybe if Christians were fed to lions while gladiators had a demolition-chariot derby while a mass orgy occurred in the Coliseum bleachers while Nero set fire to the rioting, drunken streets and then struck up a tune on his fiddle -- then, maybe then, the Roman analogy would be appropriate.

On one hand, the Puritan work ethic upon which this nation was founded is shown for all to see. No game better displays the ethos of teamwork, with 52 men forming a collective unit and pushing toward progress. People of all races and orientations will be brought together in celebration. And, in this particular game, two of America's most iconic symbols were on display: the eagle, an embodiment of our freedom, pride and power, against the patriot, the very definition of courage, defiance against tyranny and the quest for tax cuts.

On the other, we have the aforementioned sex, violence and drunken debauchery. Women were fetishized, the Ministry of Information (colloquially known as the FCC) protected us from the dangers of free thought and nipples and Budweiser and Miller donned the marketing gloves and beat each other bloody for the right to sell alcohol to children. There isn't a better parallel for globalization to be found -- the event is broadcast in countries that don't even play the game! They claim that the game is played for a coveted trophy inscribed with a now mythical name, but we know that all it's really about is money, money and more money. And, sadly enough, the Super Bowl really does embody the current American idea of hard work -- sustained effort that lasts 6 seconds only to be interrupted by the need for contemplation of the next move, re-contemplation, commercial breaks and scrutinizing reviews the move just made.

But enough cynicism already. Yes, the Super Bowl is rather imperfect, as is our country. Yes, it should probably be called the Greed Bowl. And yes, we lay false nomenclature on the game itself -- while the "warriors" do "battle" in the "trenches" of Jacksonville, there are very real warriors doing real battle in foreign trenches.

Regardless of who will be celebrating until next September and who will be heartbroken, we hope that last night America was able to become consumed in all of its moral conundrums and relish in them, if only for one day.

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