Word: grueling
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...refugees at Sakaew, 40 miles west of the Cambodian frontier. Most of the refugees had taken shelter from blinding rainstorms in huts constructed of poles and plastic sheets; small blue tents had been set up for dozens of orphans. Field kitchens were preparing high-protein rice gruel for the starving, while field hospitals tended to the sick, some of whom were laid out on mats on the muddy ground. Women were bathing their babies in mud puddles. Though latrines had been dug, most of the refugees were too ill or too weary to use them. "They defecate where they stand...
...rich literature from the human drama that takes place at the center. We had a touch of it with Bert Lance, a bit more in Carter's talks with Begin and Sadat, then a jiggle or two in the Cabinet firings, but beyond that it is thin gruel...
...Adventures of Robin Hood. Erroll Flynn's greatest romantic performance is Captain Blood--but Robin Hood is preferred by many transexual classicists because of the cute breeches. None of the Disney gruel here. Second greatest soundtrack to Days of Heaven. Some filmic dryasdusts dredge up the 1914 seven hour version with Belgian director Lionel Von Rennselaeaer's lighthearted experiments in figure/ground confusion done on highly explosive nitrate stock, but the lead was played by a stolid burgher whose sword work looked something like Boog Powell trying to bunt. Flynn, the great rakehell, leaves no doubt that he knew...
...have survived; of these 90 are women. To compensate for the sharply lowered productivity of the village, the Khmer Rouge controller drives the survivors out into the fields at 4 a.m. for a twelve-hour workday. The daily food ration per person is seven spoonfuls of boiled rice gruel. Since last July there have been four suicides. Other peasants have gone berserk in the fields or have retreated into total, pathological silence. One Ko Tayou villager who fled to Thailand last month was Kim Am, 42, a Canadian-trained physician who survived the purges by masquerading as an illiterate peasant...
Cambodia has become a net exporter of rice. There is food available, but so much is reserved for export that the standard meal has become fish gruel and banana leaves. Even that is served in communal dining halls, which helps accomplish two government aims: to break up family life and limit opportunities to hoard food, which is needed for escape. Family names are being wiped out in the new order. Cambodians are now referred to by their controllers and the government simply by surname, with the term met (comrade) in front. Comrades are expected to do what they are told...