Word: ruralism
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...Hitchcock's thriller North By Northwest, in which Cary Grant gets chased between Chicago and Indianapolis. In Chicago, Cary does suave, urbane things like thwart the bad guys at a high-rent art auction; in Indiana he gets attacked by a crop duster in a scene that makes the rural fields I used to run in look like a benighted dust bowl. Frank Sinatra sang about Chicago's Union Stockyards - but never about the Indianapolis stockyards I worked at in the summers with my grandfather...
...somewhat glamorous even in Communist China, but those who worked in it did not receive higher pay or enjoy better working conditions than factory workers or teachers. The function of an actress was primarily to entertain the masses, so besides appearing in films, she often gave performances in factories, rural communes, coal mines and oil fields, traveling with her unit all over China. It was an arduous life, but she believed she was rendering service to her country and its people. Now, as she munched her sandwiches, she told me about the day's events at her film studio...
...claim to be basking in life apr?s coup. But his mere shadow-even an ostensibly retired one-is enough to cause jitters among Thailand's ruling junta. Thaksin presided over a deeply divided nation. Even as the citified middle class rallied for months to dislodge him from office, rural masses clung to a leader whose populist policies were seen as evidence of his devotion to the poor. If general elections were held today, Thaksin might very well win, courtesy of a silent majority rising up from their paddies and mountain villages. Just ask rice farmer Mukda Phardthaisong, who lives...
...Yubari is a very Japanese story: Since the postwar era, Tokyo has channeled massive subsidies to its underperforming hinterland. That formula secured the government reliable votes, but it also enabled rural people to enjoy higher income levels, sparing Japan from the social inequality that has beset such rapidly growing neighbors as China. But the policy was sustainable only as long as Tokyo had budget surpluses to burn. Today, Japan may be the world's second-richest nation, but its public debt that is more than 1.5 times the size of its GDP, the highest in the developed world...
...this environment, migrants from the city of Hilla bought the land near Najaf and built a miniature community complete with bakery and infirmary. It also included a school where the sect taught its beliefs. The arrival of this new group raised few eyebrows. It's not unusual in rural areas of Iraq for extended families to buy property and then bring their more distant relatives to live in the area. Even as battle drew near sect members were waved through local checkpoints as a neighborly courtesy...