But these religions and ideologies seem to reflect something deeper: frustration at the humiliating choice faced by once-great civilizations heartsick at the pressure to discard bits of their own cultures to catch up with the nouveaux riches in the West.

During the first week, Mr. Feld continued to invent new movement sequences, discarding bits and pieces as he began to pinpoint the images he was seeking for the first segment, which ultimately would amount to less than three minutes on stage.

Remove and discard any sinew or green-ish bits on the chicken livers before cooking as they will make them taste bitter if left on.

Remove star anise and garlic and return to marinade, discarding rosemary bits, as they will turn bitter during reduction.

Small platoons of computer programmers write what are known as algorithms, mathematical instructions that define how to discard bits in a video image.

I went top, to the pegs where the cooks had discarded bits of uniform as they worked in the heat of the kitchen.