Patriots...

So the Patriots have completed a perfect season, scratching, scuffling, surging all the way tonight on their way to this historic first. Of course they still have the playoffs and the Super Bowl to get past, but there can be no denying that the level of their accomplishment is extraordinary and energizing. And with the Red Sox the 2007 world champions of baseball and the Celtics on the move for the first time in years, Boston, my home city, is shining on.

There is something pure and reassuring and uniting about these achievements , existing as they do in a context larger than sports itself. Because they allow a real and welcome diversion, a few moments of pleasure, an opportunity to focus on something other than the ugliness that usually leads the newscasts and roars from the front pages these days, and is sure to do so again soon enough.