Word: patchwork
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...root of this looming crisis lies the still unresolved question of how the world's largest democracy ought best to govern itself. Independent India was at first a patchwork of former British provinces and princely states threaded together into a federal republic. Some of its states remain huge and unwieldy - for example, the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, with its estimated 190 million people, would be virtually tied with Brazil as the fifth most populous country on earth but it would also possess 8% of the world's population under the global poverty line. With a country of India...
...being there won't be easy, either, due to daunting technical and other challenges. Iraq's oil industry has limped along for years on creaking old equipment, patchwork pipeline networks and decayed, rusted port facilities; Saddam-era sanctions largely prevented the industry from upgrading to state-of-the-art equipment. The country produces just 2.5 million barrels a day, down from 2.8 million barrels before the U.S. invasion and a sharp drop from its high of 3.7 million barrels in 1979, when Saddam boosted production to finance his calamitous war with neighboring Iran. A government adviser recently told Britain...
...same goes for the rest of Europe. The patchwork of nations that make up the European Union sports a combined population of half a billion people - hardly a small Gallic village forced to defend itself against the onslaught of an economic empire. In ways both obvious and less so, the E.U. is now a superpower...
Thankfully, the cinematography and set provide ample relief from the humdrum plot. A whirling and occasionally unfocused camera heightens the camp of the freak show, filled with the patchwork tents and car parts that form the wandering circus’ home. This cozy shantytown contrasts perfectly with the imposing black car of the evil Desmond “Mr.” Tiny (Michael Cerveris), whose license plate, “Des-Tiny,” is one of the film’s many ingratiating flourishes...
...Western side, before returning home to the East (and even refusing, on one occasion, a direct offer to stay). Anyone who has visited the Berlin Wall’s remains will know that this story is rather fanciful, but its inclusion is an interesting insight into the patchwork portrait of life behind the Iron Curtain that “The Wall in My Head” is attempting to build...