Word: passionate
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...stranger sights of this sporting year occurred in New Delhi on the sixth stop of the Olympic torch's world tour. The eternal flame's five-week trip was meant to ignite worldwide sporting passion. India awarded the event appropriate pomp: television networks ran blanket coverage and main roads in the Indian capital were closed off, causing world-record traffic jams. But once the relay started, a look at the torchbearers revealed a surprise. Aside from a handful of lesser Olympians, India had chosen Bollywood stars and cricketers as the guardians of sports' supreme icon. The crowds were huge...
...only meeting; they're also sitting down and breaking bread together. The unearthly success of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ helped movie execs recognize that fervent Christians, who spend hundreds of millions of dollars on religious books and music, are worth courting. Publicists hired by studios feed sermon ideas based on new movies to ministers. Meanwhile, Christians are increasingly borrowing from movies to drive home theological lessons. Clergy of all denominations have commandeered pulpits, publishing houses and especially websites to spread the gospel of cinevangelism...
...garden, the imposing grave of Richard and his wife Cosima is unmarked. Who else could be buried here, after all? After a day of failing to share the passion, I head back to my pension with a sense of disgust. The connection between Wagner’s son and the Nazis is particularly appalling, and makes me discount the whole musical phenomenon as folly, an incomprehensible collective mistake...
...China's Olympic prowess, though, is hardly a reflection of a nationwide passion for sweaty competition. Unlike Americans or Australians, the vast majority of Chinese are not sporty people who tote racquets or join gyms. China's international athletic success is about nationalism; it is the physical expression of a resurgent country, a rebuttal to its history as the "sick man of Asia" exploited by colonialists during the waning days of the Qing dynasty. The average Chinese?for whom supporting the motherland in athletic competition is one of the few instances in which mass, spontaneous celebration is allowed?is conditioned...
...selfish side, I wanted a chance to be part of the action, hopefully catch a glimpse of the candidates and the Clintons, etc.” he wrote in an e-mail. “More importantly, this election and party have become my passion. Other than working at the convention, I’m spending my summer working for the Kerry campaign in my hometown in Pennsylvania. I wanted to play a small part in the convention and help out in some way, wherever they decided they needed...