As the war grinds on, with news of what I hope we won't soon be calling "Camp Tonkin" on the Iran/Iraq border, we turn briefly toward more frivolous pursuits. Which, in New England, are not quite as diverting as they used to be, this time of year.

I speak, of course, of the Patriots --- the formerly feel-good, nice-guy football team which decided, this spring, that Randy Moss was a nice guy. Well, heck --- he wouldn't be the first well-known malcontent who calmed down and succeeded with the Pats. But, but, but...

The Red Sox fan line about Yankee fans is that rooting for a team with a record like that has got to be like rooting for General Motors. I may be a fool for paying attention to this stuff, but I'm not a hypocrite. The Pats have gotten a lot less interesting to me personally lately, because rooting for them has felt like rooting for General Motors. Or, yet more recently, rooting for Enron...

Update: The modern Pats fan explains why the team is annoying. Most people who do find them genuinely annoying would concur...