Ohhh Interesting!!

A peninsula ON ANOTHER PENINSULA!

So, I was a little caught off guard when it was announced that Qatar would be hosting the the 2022 World Cup. Now I believe I was ahead of roughly 70% of the Earth's population, given that I knew that Qatar was a country, one of those small oil rich Arab peninsula countries . Oh, and conservative in a way that would give the right wing of the Republican party a three hour erection.

As I am always at least making a token effort to expand my admittedly pitiful base of knowledge before I am flung from this life with the force and disgust of French chef disposing of some low grade American hot dogs that had recently turned, I ventured onto the Wikipedia page for Qatar to give myself at least a superficial idea of what the country is all about.

Okay I also checked CIA Factbook. 




First, the most important facts:
1.) Alcohol is legal in Qatar (HOORAY), with a permit (errr...okay) and drinking public is forbidden (shit.)
2.) The law in Qatar is a mixture of civil law (phew) and sharia (uh oh) which mainly is involved with matters of family and inheritance
3.) Compared to it's neighbor Saudi Arabia, Qatar is very liberal, women are allowed to drive and vote (the latter of the two was granted in 1999, on the bleeding edge of womens rights these chaps)
4.) modest dress, while not enforced by law, is the social requisite. Which means straight men from ages 15-55 can say good-bye to this:

*sigh*

while straight women of the same age bracket can get used to Qatar men in their thwobs (traditional dress)

Come to think of it, I know a lot of women whose response to this gentleman would be "Rowr"

5.) 50% of Qatar's GDP comes from oil, they have been doing their utmost to to diversify and managed to overcome the recession quite well blah blah blah we have generally covered most of the juiciest stuff. In all I have to say, I can understand FIFA's reasoning for choosing Qatar. South Korea/Japan have so far been the only countries in Asia to have hosted the tournament and this year South Africa was the first African nation to get the chance. Excluding those to instances the tournament has been the exclusive purview of Western European or South American countries. Russia will be the first former Soviet country to host the event and Qatar will be the first Middle Eastern country to have that honor. It is only fair they be given the chance to put their best face on, and thereby improve their image in the world. It worked wonders for Germany and South Africa. In spite of all the initial consternation about playing football in the 50 degree centigrade weather I think it could work out well if a little clever math is applied to the scheduling (games in the early morning and the evening). Also, lets be honest with ourselves, FIFA was a little starved for choice in this region in terms of security and financial wherewithal.*

In all I think we are in for a plucky underdog story of the country no one thought could do it, rising to the challenge, TKO-ing the Ivan Drago international opinion and making the event a huge success. This little nation of one million...

Wait, there are only one million people in Qatar? A good chunk of them are migrant workers? Sponsorship system akin to modern slavery??

Oh balls.
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* I am deliberately excluding Egypt and Turkey. Egypt is part of Africa and in my opinion Turkey is a part of Europe.