For those of you who missed last night’s pseudo-superbowl, let me catch you up to speed. It was the “historic return game” of the New Orleans Saints in their newly renovated and hopefully Febreezed Superdome. Predictably, New Orleans won 23-3, trouncing the Atlanta Falcons. But come on, the Falcons couldn’t really try to win this one could they?

The night began and ended with New Orleans. The buildup surrounding the symbolism and meaning of this game for the City of New Orleans started weeks ago. And what a great show they put on! It certainly did live up to the hype. The Superdome looked great. The players returned to their home turf with the over blown attitude of victory we would all expect. A sense that, ‘Even if we lose, we’ve already won tonight’ prevailed. The spectators played their roles as the triumphant testaments to the human spirit. They smiled and laughed, got wasted and then…went back to their FEMA trailers.

I know that a lot of you haven’t been down to New Orleans, or even the Gulf for that matter, in the past year, but the place is still a giant MESS. The recovery effort is moving at an alarmingly slow pace and much of New Orleans is still a disaster area.

For an event that turned into a public relations nightmare for the administration, you would think they would be all over that shit--getting everything in New Orleans nice and shiny and new. But the Powers That Be understand that we the masses respond to symbols more readily than we respond to truth. So they got the symbol of Katrina nice and shiny and new. And that symbol was the Superdome.

The NFL and City of New Orleans invested millions of dollars in the Superdome, 125 million to be exact, with 25 million coming from the NFL alone. Here is the natural leap most people will make in their minds: “If the Superdome is nice, then New Orleans is nice! If the Superdome is shiny, then New Orleans is too!” This is still very far from the case.

ESPN satisfied all of our collective guilty consciences by running one night of TV ads and public service announcements reminding us that the victims of Katrina still need help; maybe some of us will even donate money. And everyone from the bigwigs of the NFL, to the announcers on ESPN down to Spike Friggin’ Lee justified all of the smoke and mirrors by repeatedly calling it a demonstration of “The Power of Sports.”

The announcers asked anyone they interviewed all night the same question. “Isn’t the power of sports amazing?” We, the delighted viewers indulging in our warm fuzzy regarding the happy situation in New Orleans, ate that line right up. Ah…the power of sports…that’s what this is…. I mean, come on! U2 and Green Day are playing! If Bono is there, we know it’s a night filled with meaning. Wow. This makes it all acceptable. This makes perfect sense.

Let the glare of the lights, the shimmer of the cheerleaders pom-poms and the roar of the crowd help us forget the fact that there were starving, desperate humans filling those very seats not too long ago. Where are those people now? Forget that just a little over a year ago this Superdome was trashed beyond recognition and covered in human feces. Never mind that this very location was the scene of horrific acts of rape, murder and other atrocities in the days following a devastating natural disaster. And we can just turn a blind eye when it is pointed out that the reality of a full recovery or “comeback” isn’t even close to being real on the streets of New Orleans.

Don’t get me wrong; I love sports as much as the rest of us, maybe even more than most. Sports can be a powerfully unifying force and an even stronger metaphor for illuminating inspiration. Sports easily portray notions of “beating the odds,” “overcoming adversity” and “championing the underdog”. But the true Power of Sports being demonstrated here is not the power of inspiration, but rather the power of distraction. The power to make us forget those ugly little truths that make us uncomfortable and turn our focus to the big, shiny new Superdome. And after the millionth reference to the “power of sports”, it was beginning to feel less like a warm fuzzy and more like indigestion stemming from the consumption of too much propaganda.

The part of the game that best illustrated this power of diversion, aside from the overall spectacle of the whole thing, was when they interviewed director Spike Lee regarding his thoughts on the New Orleans “comeback”. Monday Night announcer Tony Kornheiser basically lobbed Lee a golden opportunity to speak some truth about the ridiculously slow clean-up progress being made down in the Gulf. When faced with the question of whether or not he felt enough was being done, Kornheiser himself implying that there was clearly not, Lee was very quiet, looking at Kornheiser with wide-eyes, his silence speaking apparently what he would not. After a very long pause, Lee responded, laughing “I’m not gonna pull a Kanye tonight!” To which Kornheiser quipped, “A PC Spike Lee!! I never thought I’d see the day!!”

Spike Lee was of course referring to Kayne West’s now infamous departure from the script during a live concert fundraiser for the American Red Cross Katrina Disaster Relief that NBC put on last year, September 2, 2005. Instead of reading what the script provided, Kanye used the opportunity to rage against the slow federal response, went on a tirade about the obvious hypocrisies in the media portrayal of blacks versus whites and finally concluded with the statement, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people!” His remarks stirred controversy, adding fuel to a fire that was already raging among an increasingly disgusted, disturbed and most importantly divided public opinion regarding the government handling of the situation. Kanye was subsequently burned at the stake for it. Eaten alive by the very media that made him.

But despite the fallout, at least Kanye had the balls to speak his truth. And Spike, in a move that seems so un-Spike, tiptoed around the subject like he was a fuckin’ politician. What—are you running for office somewhere Spike? Are you afraid to offend the lords of the Academy? I bet you really want an Oscar for that documentary you did called When the Levees Broke. What was that about again? Oh wait, Hurricane Katrina. Way to go Spike you fucking pussy. You would have been better off alienating the people who don’t know you and your work, than the people like me who were fans expecting you to stand up and say something.

I agree with Kornheiser, I never thought I’d see the day either Spike. Not only are you going to wuss out and not speak your truth, you are selling your boy Kanye out in the process too. Without even realizing it, Spike perfectly summed up the powerfully distractive nature of sports when he diplomatically went on to comment “this is all [the people of New Orleans] have.”

In an attempt to return the focus to the game, announcer Mike Tirico, continued with, “Yes when we talk about Katrina there are a lot of issues to be raised….a flag has been thrown on the play…” How effortlessly their velvety voices tie it all together! In one flawless move we have gone from the topic of an ugly national tragedy to a tiny yellow flag that just got thrown in a football game. Buried deep within this seamless transistion it is implied that Hurricane Katrina and this game are on exactly the same level of importance—so much so that the announcer doesn’t even need a segway when going from one topic to another.

The problem is not what these announcers are doing—they are just doing their jobs. The problem is what it signals to us, the viewers, the masses, sitting on our couches, taking it all in, absorbing it all. It signals, hey, they aren’t really listening, why should we? And when people with actual power, like Spike Fucking Lee, deny a chance to speak their truth, we are silently reminded that we shouldn’t even bother speaking ours.

Spike, you let me down last night. And despite what you did or didn’t say, your actions let a lot of other people down too. When the time comes to give an Oscar for a winning documentary, my vote won’t be going to When the Levees Broke, it will be going to last night’s broadcast of Monday Night Football for revealing the true “Power of Sports.”