Loyalties in Border War sometimes cross the line to extreme [View All]

Circuit Judge Owens Hull has a unique perspective on Saturday’s epic Missouri-Kansas football game in Kansas City. That is, if you can call his, um, one-sided stance unique.

The 64-year-old lifelong Missourian wants KU not just to lose, but to be humiliated. To be routed. To be burned to the ground, if you will.

Seriously.

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Hull leans back in his chair and looks at the rendering on his wall of Lawrence burning. He laughs, then says with some shock, “You know, some people celebrate the day.”

“Attorneys will come in here for conferences, and a lot of them know about that print,” he says.

“Sometimes we get them (KU grads) in here, too. So the other attorneys will say, ‘Check out the judge’s painting. Read the plaque.’

“So they’ll lean in really close, because it’s really hard to read.”

Mizzou 183, Kansas 0. As in people killed.

http://www.kansascity.com/751/story/365953.html

Some historical background: In the years leading up to the Civil War, Missouri was a slave state and Kansas was free. Vigilantes rode from MO into KS and kidnapped slaves and abolitionists and brought them over to MO and executed many of them. There were also vigilante abolitionists, like John Brown. These border wars started over 150 years ago and now they fight over sports. This judge in MO celebrates the history with this painting in his office.

I so want to go away this weekend. Or maybe I should stand in the street with a sign:
IT'S JUST A FOOTBALL GAME, PEOPLE!!