IJMC - Denver Slams on Atlanta

Here in America we have this wonderfully silly game where lots of men all 
get together to beat each other up over a little football. Granted, 
that's a lot better than any reason for any war I've ever heard of, but I 
don't want to discuss that tonight. Instead, here's someone being silly 
just because of _who_ is playing in a football game. This one slams on my 
hometown and residence, but it doesn't really say anything I disagree 
with, other than perhaps the perspective. However, we all know that up in 
Denver they don't get enough oxygen for their brains, so we'll forgive 
them for this one.                                                  -dave


From the Denver Post

Jan. 28 - MIAMI - Please explain why the Denver Broncos are playing the
Marthasville Trailer Trolls in the Super Bowl. 

What's the world championship coming to? 

The Super Bowl has sunk to a new low. The game is supposed to be Denver
vs. San Francisco, Green Bay, Minnesota or Dallas. Teams with meat on
them. Teams with tradition. Great teams. Teams that don't have Gladys
Knight and the Pips doing their end-zone choreography. Teams you've heard
of. 

Is this ever a tuxedo and brown work boots affair? Atlanta in the Super
Bowl? What's next - Paulie Shore nominated for best actor at the Academy
Awards? Monica Lewinsky winning the "talent'' contest in the Miss America
pageant? The Unabomber's shack featured in "Better Homes And Gardens''?
Augusto Pinochet being knighted by the British government? Saddam Hussein
being chosen as B'nai B'rith Man of the Year? Pamela Anderson and Tommy
Lee being invited to "perform'' at the annual Stratford-on-Avon
Shakespeare Festival? 

And you thought Dennis Rodman wearing rouge and a dress to the NBA Finals
was as debased as sports could become. 

The denizens in Atlanta don't even think the Ospreys belong in the Super
Bowl. According to a poll of 50,000 in that city's local newspaper, 65
percent favor the Broncos, 11 percent believe the Falcons will win, 20
percent didn't know the Falcons were in the Super Bowl, and 4 percent were
too illiterate to understand the question without pictures. 

The Broncos have sold out 232 straight home games; the Falcons have zero
consecutive sellouts. The Broncos have been to six Super Bowls since 1977;
the Falcons have had only eight winning seasons in 33. 

Professional football does not rank at or near the top of the sports
priorities in Georgia. 

The list goes something like this: 

 1. College football. 

 2. Spring college intrasquad football games. 

 3. Pro Rasslin' (although there is some dispute that the National
Wrestling Association should be ranked No. 1). 

 4. Stock-car racing. 

 5. Ku Klux Klan rallies. 

 6. Tractor pulls. 

 7. Quail hunting. 

 8. The sport of hijacking canoes and making the tourists "squeal like a
pig.''

 9. Re-enacting the Civil War battles with the South winning. 

10. High-school football. 

11. Pop Warner football. 

12. Georgia Tech basketball. 

13. Georgia Tech cheerleaders. 

14. "Massages.''

15. Atlanta Braves baseball. 

Also receiving votes: Hawks basketball (6), soon-to-be NHL expansion team
(2), golf (2), soccer (1) and Jack Daniel's (1). 

The city originally was called "Terminus'' because the train tracks
stopped there by accident. It was changed to Marthasville (somebody's
mistress) and later to Atlanta so that it would be known as a city by the
Atlantic Ocean, which would be like changing Denver to Pacifica. 

Atlanta hosted history's tackiest Olympics, and every street in the city
is called "Peach'' something. Gen. William Sherman did Atlanta a favor by
burning it down in 1864. Atlanta has been home to such fun couples as
Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara, Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, Dikembe
Mutombo and Andres Galarraga, and Matlock and District Attorney. 

The toothbrush was invented in Georgia. 

If it had been invented anywhere else, it would have been called a
teethbrush. 

Their idea of a big Friday night in Atlanta is to go to "The Varsity'' and
see who can eat the most chili-cheese dogs. 

The whites and the African-Americans get along beautifully. The blacks
live in Atlanta and celebrate "Martin Luther King Day'' and the whites
live in Alpharetta and Marietta and celebrate "Confederate Memorial Day.''

And the Atlanta Falcons are something they all agree on . . . to pay no
attention to. "In the past few years we've had troubles giving tickets
away,'' says a luxury-box holder. Yet, the Falcons have the cheapest
tickets in the league. 

If there wasn't that "Reeves thing,'' the game wouldn't matter to an
entire nation. Isn't it about time to relocate some AFC teams in the NFC
to level the playing field? 

And is it too late to schedule a real professional team from some place
other than Marthasville for the Broncos? How about the University of
Miami? 

[ed. note, yep, it's too late... -dave]