That's just Hitchens, he's a professional asshole; he's not happy if he's not pissing people off.

Yeah, Hitchens can be a real ray of sunshine at times.

Like a lot of well-spoken, crotchety old guys, sometimes Hitchens is very entertaining, and other times you just gotta tune him out.

No matter how much is wrong with you, there's more wrong with Hitchens.

Or picture this: I take a seat in a bar or restaurant and suddenly leap to my feet, face contorted with delight or woe, yelling and gesticulating and looking as if I am fighting bees.

In other words: a typical Sunday brunch in Hitchens world.

Veering away from the ad hominem for a moment, I actually agree with some of the points he makes about how far sports has encroached upon every area of waking life, from the front pages of "hard news" dailies to the very language we use to discuss politics and government.

Of course, he takes it way too far, but as they say: bird got to fly, fish got to swim.

Hitchens likes to get good and drunk and hates that his favorite watering hole is filled with sports fans mesmerized by the plasma.

people are competitive, and assume their preferred "thing" is best, be it sports or anything else. I've seen arguments that rival any sport dispute over 360 vs PS3 vs PC, or d6 vs d20 gaming systems. Or which band is better. Or what store at the mall. or which video game company makes better RPGs (a favorite argument of mine...)
Back in college I once saw an old-school-goth vs industrial-goth debate turn into a fistfight. Seriously. fistfighting goths. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.

While yes, sports do often invoke more violent reactions, they also tend to have a much much larger fanbase. Just given how large a percentage of the general population is into sports the odds alone are in favor of those few violent individuals having that interest.

So while I don't much care for sports beyond hockey (I fully admit I spent the entire superbowl happily playing Mass Effect 2), I can't really say I blame sports for making people violent or causing violent confrontations.

Hitchens is an idiot, and it's from newsweek. Two crappy sources for news that are somehow even crappier when put together. That said, the olympics are a political football and looking at them as "just a sporting event" is a bit naive. It's a whole lot of money and time that could be much better spent elsewhere and while that's just as true for a huge number of things, it's still true for the olympics and maybe more so, as the olympics claim a kind spiritual high ground (the purity of amateur sports). Most of it's claimed virtues are rather dubious and most of it's motives are profit. Like a lot of other things, if someone wasn't making a whole lot of money, the olympics would fold up over night and disappear.

fistfighting goths

Another good user name.

Hitchens provokes such absolutely dismissive responses in people (but some of his most inflammatory positions, like the anti-Mother-Teresa stuff, I kinda agree with. Note that I'm not cosigning anything else). Did he do that to himself on purpose?