(as seen on MNF a few nights ago, a muscle-flexing, trash talking young thug)

Though there’s no shocker in learning the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick and Jason Whitlock are ideological twin brothers from different mothers, even a veteran Phil-hater like myself is taken aback at the columnist’s shameless, sloppy attempt using Sean Taylor’s death as a socio-political football. “If Sean Taylor died at the hands of young thugs,” asks Mushnick “how many NFL players are now willing to kick their thug-centric lifestyles and their backwards-headed, doomed trappings?” I dunno, why don’t you just call Sebastian Janikowski and ask him, straight up?

How many will reject a thug culture that can be found in hate-filled music that leaves a trail of mayhem and murder, a culture that travels by posse and behind tinted windows? How many will now reject the objectification of young women, the kind of entitled mindset that makes abandoned mothers out of teens while the father sustains a mindless devotion to gold, silver, diamonds and the collection of high-priced rides named for the days in the week?

How many will cease their boastful, preening, posturing public displays? Will Taylor’s murder prevent the addition of another tattoo further declaring oneself Superman, the baddest man in the whole damned town?

Throughout Monday night’s Pats-Ravens, the game played hours after Taylor’s funeral service, nothing looked different; nothing appeared to be better. The game still seemed as if it were between bloodthirsty, hate-filled gangs. It still looked as if it were being played by muscle-flexing, trash-talking young thugs who held no high regard for anything or anyone except one’s self.

If that’s not bad enough, I have it on good authority one of the coaches involved is really iffy when it comes to shaking hands, too. But surely a musical expert like Phil knows that Bad Leroy Brown was the baddest man in the whole damn town?