The ruts of state political behavior run deeper and straighter.
The Kurds, who run their own affairs in a swathe of northern Iraq, live by trade with the neighbours, almost all of it illegal: the endless stream of smugglers' trucks has dug eight-inch ruts into the road to Turkey.
The way to Vizuresti is 20 minutes of deep potholes and ruts.
Its owners were "found guilty of harbouring an itinerant printing press".Kyle Durrie aims to follow in these wheel ruts, seditious in her own way, providing hands-on experience in the disintermediation of letterpress printing.
It seems not, but unlike Ethiopians they can complain about it.The next day a driver with muscular forearms steers his lorry over deep ruts on a dirt track.
Side-streets, if paved at all, are peppered with ruts and pot-holes.
Five years of constant traffic, propelled by China's hunger for fuel, has formed deep ruts in the dirt road.
Heavy trucks, laden with wood, have dug deep ruts in the viscous, rust-red soil.
Some reckon that, after such a long period stuck to the floor, rates must rise as growth returns and unemployment falls; others warn more pessimistically that economies can stagnate and get stuck in low-rate ruts.
"They couldn't sign up to the bombardment of Gaza," says Mr Ghanem.The results of this Arab retreat from national politics can be seen in the deep ruts in the streets of Kufr Qasem, the Arab-Israeli town closest to Israel's metropolis, Tel Aviv.
Rival schools were formed, but few writers were able to rise above the ruts of conventionalism.
