The real reason Janet Jackson story is still in the news is that all America heard and felt the same crack of the neck as they double-taked to make certain they saw what they thought they saw. It just took us a few days to sort through what was troubling us. According to the folks on NPR, two dour-voiced women and one mumbly old sot, it wasn't so much the final moment — the "reveal" as it's come to be called — as all that preceded it on stage. It was like a revue, or an advertisement for something these ladies and this sot preferred not to talk about (s-e-x).

Parents generally don't watch MTV. The halftime segment was produced by MTV for MTV's people, our children. And this is how we parents came to learn how our children are learning about sex. Shocking. Shocking!

Maybe it's hard for us to admit how spoiled our children are since we are the spoiled grownups who spoiled them. Maybe it was a mistake to let them have their own cable connect in their own rooms.

If NPR is right, American parents are just now beginning to realize their children have developed the social mores of pimps and whores.

These must be the same parents who worked so hard not to react to their children's tattoos and body piercings and tongue spikes. And a nipple shield woke them up. You would think the nipple piercing would wake them up. Anyway, the parents are up and they suspect there's sex going on somewhere in the house.

All this over another Jackson family body part. Michael's chin, lips, eyes, Janet's breast. It never occurred to me the breast might be real. What celebrity has a real body anymore anyway? What Jackson?

Note to Michael: Look into a nose shield.

CW