Sports Mania

A. Unabashed Pacifist:

Every missile represents condensed hatred.

B. Unabashed Christian:

Holy One,

You created a good world. We mess it up, but it remains a good place for us to dwell.
You created humans good. We mess up and get messed up, but there amazing numbers of good people in the world.
May we live with the awareness that you made us to be that way.
Amen

C. Un-quoting Jesus:

“There are enough of us for a polo match. To your camels, everybody!”

[Yeah, right. Before He entered the ministry, He was not a sports figure.]

D. Blog: Wierd Word of the Week-- Hooliganism

[With the super bowl almost upon us, this article adapted from Wikipedia might prove instructive…]

Hooliganism refers to unruly and destructive behavior. Such behavior is commonly associated with sports fans, particularly supporters of professional football (soccer) and university sports. In some countries, the hooligan elements of a group of supporters are known as Category C. The term can also apply to general rowdy behavior and vandalism, often under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

There are several theories about the origin of the word hooliganism. The Oxford English Dictionary states that word possibly originates from the surname of a fictional rowdy Irish family in a music hall song of the 1890s. Clarence Rooks, in his 1899 book, Hooligan Nights, claimed that the word came from Patrick Hoolihan (or Hooligan), an Irish bouncer and thief who lived in London. Another writer, Earnest Weekley, wrote in his 1912 book Romance of Words, "The original hooligans were a spirited Irish family of that name whose proceedings enlivened the drab monotony of life in Southwark about fourteen years ago". There have also been references made to a 19th century rural Irish family with the surname Houlihan who were known for their wild lifestyle. Another theory is that the term came from a street gang in Islington named Hooley. Yet another theory is that the term is based on an Irish word, houlie, which means a wild, spirited party.

The term hooligan has been used since at least the late 1890s - when it was first used to describe the behavior of street gangs in London - at approximately the same time as Manchester's street gangs, known as the “Scuttlers” were gaining notoriety. The first use of the term is unknown, but the word first appeared in print in London police-court reports in summer 1898. The word was immediately popularized by the press. The London-based newspaper, Daily Graphic wrote in an August 22, 1898 article: "The avalanche of brutality which, under the name of ‘Hooliganism’ ... has cast such a dire slur on the social records of South London".
Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in his 1904 novel The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, , "It seemed to be one of those senseless acts of Hooliganism which occur from time to time, and it was reported to the constable on the beat as such". H.G. Wells wrote in his 1909 semi-autobiographical novel Tono-Bungay, "Three energetic young men of the hooligan type, in neck-wraps and caps, were packing wooden cases with papered-up bottles, amidst much straw and confusion."

Later, as the meaning of the word shifted slightly, none of the possible alternatives had precisely the same undertones of a person, usually young, who is a member of an informal group and commits acts of vandalism or criminal damage, starts fights, and who causes disturbances but is not a thief. The word was internationalized in the 20th century in the Soviet Union as khuligan, which referred to scofflaws or political dissenters.

The words hooliganism and ooligan began to be associated with violence in sports, in particular from the 1960s in the UK with football hooliganism, although one of the earliest known instances of crowd violence at a sporting event involved two chariot racing factions, the Blues and the Greens in the Nika riots, which lasted around a week in Constantinople in 532 with nearly half the city being burned or destroyed and tens of thousands of people killed.

[I was relieved to learn that it didn’t originate in the U.S.]