Word: plight
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Photographs in the main hall at the Labrang Monastery convey Tibet's plight: of five portraits on display, the Dalai Lama is exiled, three others are dead or their identities disputed, and the last, Labrang's abbot, is barred from living with his monks. The local party committee hung a sign calling the spiritual place "a center for patriotic study." Even so, Labrang teems with 2,000 monks and many pilgrims, who are often Chinese. "Older monks feel differently, but I didn't go through the Cultural Revolution, so I welcome them," says a monk too young to remember China...
...start-from-scratch idea, requiring extensive triage and years of benign nurturing by its neighbors near and far. Some of those neighbors, though, may be more inclined to maintain the hollow shell of Congo's sovereignty, while in effect carving it up into regional fiefdoms. A land whose plight once inspired Conrad has long learned the limits of optimism...
...news were this grim, at least we'd know where we stand: just haul out the dreaded R word. But our current economic plight isn't (at least yet) as simple as the two quarters of negative economic growth that define a recession. Instead, the indicators are like a glitchy traffic light, flashing red and green and yellow at the same time. The NASDAQ has plunged a portfolio-punishing 50% from its highs in March. But the Labor Department announced last week that new claims for state unemployment insurance were down sharply last month. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence...
...dramatic incident and giddy camerawork (Schnabel, whose day job is painting, wants to keep this canvas moving, for any or no reason), the film is pretty logy, a trudging catalog of depredations and atrocities. Bardem hasn't the charisma to bring variety to Arenas or his plight. The only leavenings are guest turns by Depp (good in two roles, as the torturer and a drag queen) and Sean Penn, in gold tooth and brownface, as a skeptical peasant. Penn's twisted delivery of the line, "I won't join the rebels"--it comes out "I no yoin thee rebels...
...weathered considerable criticism in the past, most often for its lumbering bureaucracy, but also for its failure to adequately address concerns for the health and safety of aliens in their custody. Some have even raised the possibility that the agency is intentionally broadcasting the refugees' appalling plight in hopes of deterring future potential immigrants from coming to the States...