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In This Issue

• Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend
• Crazy Pill-Popping Cult Lives On
• A Brief History of the Apocalypse
• Letters to the Editor
• The Newest Ball-Suckin' Tea Craze
• Young Lady Changes Sex, Founds Frat-nerd-ity
• Columbiatron Chatbot Advises For Success
• Reasons Why Those Two Seniors Got Caught Cheating on the GREs
• DVD Features Will Make This World a Better Place
• Thousand-Foot Monsters "Battel" for the Future
• Duuhnuh.... Duuhnuh... Dunudunu... SHARKWALK!
• Dean Quigley: Oracle, Comedian, Swell Guy
• Jesus Freaky Christ and His Many Dopplegangers
• I Done Mediocre
• Future's A-Gonna Be Swell
• Sports Riots Portend Downfall of All Mankind
• The Four Stages of Zombification
• Super Novi Bros.
• Wacky Fun Whitey
• Now With Added Filler!
• The Staff of 18.5
• THEY Watch

Matt Holden

There are lots of reasons to be worried about the future: global warming, the depletion of natural resources, the possible extinction of the three-kneed Asian turtle, nuclear war, ethnic cleansing, dimwit presidents -- you know, stuff like that. But what really scares me is sports fans.

Soccer (or if you're un-American, "football") riots have been breaking out all over the world recently. At this year's European Cup final, the Dutch team won, but their fans rioted anyway. In Russia earlier this year, violence broke out when the Ruskies, once again, got their asses whooped by the Japanese. In 2001, 123 people were killed in a "football" stampede in Ghana, and Chinese fans torched a stadium because of a referee's disputed call. In 1996, "football" enthusiasts nearly destroyed the French city of Marseilles. In the same year, when the British team was beaten by Germany, 400 fans went on a rampage through Trafalgar Square, screaming "Bloody hell!" as police officers ineffectually hit them with sticks, saying, "My good man, stop it with your hooliganism!" But none of these recent flare-ups have anything on the El Salvador-Honduras Soccer War of '69, when a World Cup game gone wrong sparked a war that killed 3,000 people and caused $50 million in damage.

Hearing this, you might think, "Phew, good thing I live in America where people aren't stupid." But you're wrong. It's just like terrorism: It was only supposed to happen to other people, but it turns out that Americans are stupid, too. In 2000, when the Lakers won the NBA Championship, a horde of marauding sports fans went on a violent rampage through L. A. At a pro-baseball game earlier this year, a father and his fifteen-year-old son leapt from the stands to beat up the Kansas City Royals first base coach. This sort of thing is especially common at American Little League games, like when a Staten Island father broke the nose of his son's hockey coach for benching the kid in the last few minutes. That will teach him to be mean and unfair! Man, forget terrorism. I just wanna bring my kids up in a country where they can be safe from sports fans.

So now you must be wondering, what does this have to do with Rome and the future downfall of the United States? Well, it's a little known fact that in sixth century Byzantium, a riot that broke out between the supporters of two chariot teams turned into a revolt when government officers tried to arrest some rioters, and the angry sports fans killed 30,000 people and overthrew the emperor.

Byzantium was basically just an extension of Rome, over to the east, like Europe is just an extension of America today (and so is the rest of the world, for that matter). So, soccer riots in more places than an Englishman can smack with a stick, not to mention brutal warfare at home; chariot fans rampaging through Istanbul -- I mean, Constantinople -- this is history repeating itself, folks. And what's more, these chariot riots happened right around the time that the whole Rome thing was really running out of steam. Clearly this means that America is headed down the toilet. Soon the barbarians will come in and shut down the public baths or turn off all our utilities. Everyone will stink, and we'll call it the "Dark Ages."

"But wait, wait," you say. "These aren't chariot fans. They're fans of soccer and other modern sports. It's different. For example, in soccer people kick a ball at a net. In chariot races there are horses and, you know, racing. Sure we still have races, but we use cars because we're more technologically advanced. We're way cooler than Romans." Well, that may be so, but as it turns out, chariot racing is making a comeback. That's right, on December 5, The Learning Channel will be premiering its special "Chariot Race 2002" in an attempt to "bring the ancient world's top sport back to life." Little do they know that that spectacle of "Living History" is actually the first step toward our doom!

Now it's only a matter of time until sports fans shift their mania from soccer to chariots and from chariots to overthrowing the government. All those people who were talking about the second coming of Christ at the new millennium were way off the mark. It's the second coming of the sports fans that's really a sign of the end.