Forty-six million turkeys surrender their lives so Americans can
celebrate Thanksgiving. It is an occasion where traditionally
families gather together for a scrumptious meal of turkey and trimmings,
numerous side dishes and pumpkin pie, followed by... college
football on TV -- that is American football, a game somewhat similar to rugby.
The
holiday is meant to commemorate the first Thanksgiving when the pilgrims who ventured to America gave
thanks for a good
harvest. It was a time when a poor
harvest could have meant famine in winter. Never now in our
sophisticated world where we import grapes from the southern hemisphere
(Chile) for consumption in winter and many fruits are available year round.
This
year there is the added entertainment of the soccer World Cup
in Qatar,
being
played out in eight purpose-built stadiums, seven new and one
refurbished. Most will be converted for other uses after the event, a change from the past.
The US now has a team that held England, where the game was invented, to a draw. The favorites remain the Latin American powerhouses like Brazil and Argentina but the Europeans can on occasion pull off a surprise.
Why certain games are popular in one country and not another is difficult to explain. India and China, the world's most populous countries, are absent at the World Cup. On the other hand, India is a powerhouse in another British game: cricket. And China remains a top performer at the Olympics.
The
crowd turning out for cricket matches, particularly between arch rivals
India and Pakistan, remain unmatched by other sports played there, even field hockey
where the two countries have also been fairly successful.
Leveraging sports celebrity into a political career is also possible but success on the cricket pitch may not always be transferred to administrative competence. Imran Khan's innings as prime minister led to members of his own party defecting, and ended when he lost his parliamentary majority.
Still attracting large crowds of supporters who are entertained at his rallies before he himself appears, he is asking his supporters to march to the capital -- echoes of another leader this time in the US, Donald Trump, who has just announced a bid for re-election.
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