Lodges ludicrous charge over apt image of NFL owner Plus violence continues, Mubarak's supporters, and more in the news On the unusual transliteration, 'ElBaradei'  | |  The short-lived American Football League, merged into the NFL after Super Bowl IV, invented the modern media spectacle that is pro football. And three Jews invented the show that was the AFL. This Sunday, you will watch Super Bowl XLV. You will watch because the Super Bowl is among the American religion's biggest holidays. You will watch because professional football is the national pastime (last Halloween, more viewers watched a regular-season National Football League than a simultaneous Game 4 of the World Series). You will watch because at some point during the game, Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers or Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers will hike the ball, drop back to give his receivers precious seconds to zoom down the field, maintain focus even as the pocket collapses, pat the ball once and chuck it 40 yards down the field as one of the fastest men alive runs to meet it. For a little under three seconds, the ball will travel through the air, hovering onscreen against the backdrop of the blurred masses, and more than 100 million Americans will hold their breath, waiting to see what happens. More | Faced with a story I wanted to start but felt certain I couldn't, I turned to the literary gods. Now Harold Bloom owes me $213.27. More |
 | In An Exclusive Love, Johanna Adorján tries to make sense of how her Hungarian Jewish grandparents took their own lives—together—decades after having survived the Holocaust MoreBY DAPHNE MERKIN |
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