Word: fiefdoms
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...remote and primitive Portuguese fiefdom of East Timor in the Lesser Sunda islands may have been the closest thing ever to a colony that no one really wanted. Discovered by the Portuguese in the 16th century, it has been theirs by default ever since. A mountainous wilderness roughly half the size of Maryland, East Timor has 650,000 inhabitants, mainly illiterate natives. Colonial mastery, such as it was, lay in the hands of an appointed governor, several hundred Portuguese militiamen, and a handful of coffee planters...
...exploitation of Angolan resources if it came to power. President Mobutu of Zaire plays the largest interventionary role. Despite the commitment of all three Angolan factions and the OAU to the territorial integrity of Angola, Mobutu has continuously fomented secessionist tendencies in the oil rich enclave of Cabinda, a fiefdom of Gulf Oil separated from the rest of the country by a piece of Zaire...
...quite so perfect. Crooks is a man who seems the tiniest fraction of a beat out of synch with Harvard, a man who describes himself as "sort of on the edge" of things here, as "not quite in the main stream." He is director of a substantial fiefdom--but one very much apart from the rest of Harvard in time and in its basic assumptions and standards. He was a House master--but of the non-resident, catch all House. He graduated from Harvard, gaining a bona fide Ivy League background--but at the age of 31. And the particular...
Everyone on the street calls Cooper the "key man" because he carries a great many around on a large ring and because he seems to be at the very center of all the action. His is, in any case, a poor fiefdom, a small hunk of downtown territory in an unnamed city that is clearly Los Angeles. Cooper holds court in bars, keeps a small, dusty office in which even the sunlight is encrusted. He is a fixer and a mover: he puts up bail bond, regulates the steady flow of petty crime in the neighborhood. Cooper also has eyes...
...about 30 years. Vito (Robert DeNiro) takes the first steps on the ascent from petty thief to capo di rutti capi in a series of flash-backs interspersed in the main action. Here, Michael (Al Pacino) has to deal with the legacy of his father--an extra-legal fiefdom doing business on a scale Exxon wouldn't sneeze at--and try to adapt it to changing times. If the film has anything to say about this, it is that he is imprisoned by his heritage. He marries an upper-class New England girl (played by Diane Keaton, who apparently hasn...