Word: fiefs
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...substitutes, too many of them thrown into the difficult schools that veterans are allowed to avoid. Yet to get a regular teaching license in New York City requires not only a state certificate but also a special city exam given by the powerful board of examiners, a fusty fief run by nine old-minded men. "An Einstein who was also a Professor of Educational Methods at Harvard University could not get a regular position as a teacher of science in New York City without taking the examination," wrote Cleveland's former School Superintendent Mark Schinnerer in a 1961 appraisal...
...unsullied blend of lush meadowland and soaring Alpine peaks, the nation nestles so unobtrusively between Austria and Switzerland (since 1924 it has shared currency, customs services and foreign service with the Swiss) that vacationers driving through are often unaware that they are even in Franz Josef's fief. This bothers Liechtenstein's government not at all, for, as Prime Minister Alexander Frick once observed, the sight of idle tourists could prove unsettling to the country's hard-working peasants...
...North America Act Quebec's inalienable right to its own language, Roman Catholic religion and cultural identity. Just the same, Quebec's citizens believe that their status is still second-class. Partly, French Canadians can blame themselves. For nearly two decades, Quebec was ruled as the personal fief of Premier Maurice Duplessis, who held the province in corrupt, paternalistic thrall. Only after he died could French Canada see clearly where it stood in relation to the rest of the country...
...classified as "B Grade" by the U.S. embassy. The U.S. attitude seems to be that greater emphasis would only serve to provide a larger target for Morelia's Communists to throw rocks at. This may be practical wisdom, but the result has been to ignore a fief the size of West Virginia, and to have little effect on a university that calls itself the second oldest* in the New World...
...Count Sigfroi, a Wagnerian warrior from the Ardennes, raised his banner over a fortress on a formidable rock above the Alzette River in the eastern Frankish empire. Though Sigfroi's wife soon vanished-she turned out to be a water nymph-and his fortress crumbled, the fief he founded proved as durable as it is diminutive. It is formally known today as the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and, though international surveys often omit its statistics entirely, it is a thriving charter member of the European Coal and Steel Community and the Common Market, as well as the smallest country...