A Moment in the Life of Jacob, the Writer

Ok, my sister is over visiting tonight and tennis practice was after school today so I didn't have the time to work on this one like I had planned on. So instead, I'll do a behind the scenes special and show you what it's like to be me writing this blog. The text in pink are my notes to myself written at the time of the writing. If it's in green, it's a comment I made about my writing after the fact. You'll notice that I didn't edit my work because that's all a part of the behind the scenes thing.

Link to Detroit sport riot and soccer hooliganism. Make this funny or something.

I was reading about the Nika riots in Constantinople during the reign of Justinian the Great (yes, I actually peruse history and science articles on Wikipedia to pass the time when I'm bored), and I got to thinking about how this would never happen in the modern era, or at least not in the US. The riots involved the supporters of competing chariot racing teams in the city, but riots among sport fans are nothing unusual, as any European soccer hooligan or citizen of Detroit (there was also another riot after the 1990 NBA championship, but I can't find it) can verify for you. The unusual part is that these fans actually rioted for political reasons.

At the time, Justinian hadn't earned his "The Great" moniker and having been born a peasant and spent much of his time to this point appointing unpopular ministers based on merit and rewriting the entire legal system, he'd made some powerful enemies, and it's natural for people to resist change, even when that change is amazingly superior to the old way left behind. (I know there's a joke here. Find it.)

First off, both of the supporters of the two most successful teams in chariot racing, the Blues and the Greens, banded together against Justinian and set off riots in the city, supported by the wealthy aristocracy that opposed the emperor. They even got so far as holding the coronation of a new emperor in Hippodrome before Justinian sent in a eunuch (Again I feel like I'm missing the obvious joke.) to remind the Blue fans that the emperor was one of them (Does't Bush pull for Texas?) and that the guy they were crowning was a fan of the Greens (Boo, Greens! We don't like vegetables!). Sure, he handed out a few gold pieces along the way, but it's kind of telling of the nature of sports fans that the Blues soon walked out of the coronation, leaving the Greens behind to watch in shock.

Then Justinian sent in his soldiers to massacre the Greens. (I'm thinking the Greens were like the Yankees, but then again, the BoSox have gotten annoying too).

To put this in modern terms, this would have been like the fans of the Red Sox and the Yankees banding together to topple Bush over the Iraq War or some other criticism of his administration. First, I'm shocked that the Byzantine fans were able to find common political ground considering the entire basis of fraternity was loyalty to a group of allied athletes. I'm not so sure you could get modern fans of a sports team to agree on any political issue not directly affecting their sports team in that way. (I'm also shocked that the Byzantine fans were intelligent enough to know anything about their political system. Wasn't bread and circuses supposed to make the masses stupid? I'm sure it wasn't meant for them to organize politically. That's dumb.) But more importantly, I'm shocked that the rival fan bases were able to get along for as long as they did. Could you imagine diehard Red Sox fans teaming up Yankees fans willingly? And seriously, had anyone read the comment boards on ESPN.com any time a columnist even mentions politics? Sports fans apparently hate even the suggestion of intelligent thought. (At this point I mailed it to my blog and called it a day).

Yes, I realize this was a total copout. I posted a selfish piece that only I will find interesting, didn't waste my time evaluating or editing (sorry, Mickey, but you suck), and just tacked on some writing notes in a vain effort to make this vaguely entertaining, so to make it up to you, I'll leave you with a video of a British soccer fan playing slip-n-slide in a trough urinal. Sweet.