Word: farrago
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
What can be done to solve the crushing farrago of problems? Nationalist governments could expropriate every American business on the continent, and the region's economic destiny would still be inseparably intertwined with and dependent on the U.S. Washington could funnel huge amounts of money southward, and little would be accomplished for the people of Latin America if the funds were siphoned off, as so often in the past, by the ruling classes. Neither extreme scenario, of course, is likely to be chosen-especially not the latter. The Nixon Administration's options are too limited by other crises...
...meeting after their return, held as usual in the old Hotel Majestic, Hanoi's top representative, Le Due Tho, and the Viet Cong's showcase lady, Nguyen Thi Binh, opened for presentation a repackaged set of Communist proposals. In many respects it was the all-too-familiar farrago of impossible demands, but it contained sufficient changes in content and nuance to persuade the U.S. negotiating team that the Communists might finally be ready to talk serious business...
...Huks had an estimated 20,000 well-organized men under arms. A concerted government drive led by the late Ramon Magsaysay, then Defense Secretary, whittled that number down drastically, but did not succeed in stamping out the insurgents. To thousands of peasants, the Huks, an odd farrago of idealistic reformers, nationalists, Communists and mere bandits, are still Robin Hoods who mete out swift and bloody justice to cattle thieves and heavy-handed officials. To the government, they are dangerously politicized criminals who must be eradicated...
Such diligent documentation also characterizes Trageédie's rich farrago of Gaullicisms. De Gaulle may indeed disavow everything in the book, but nearly every acerbic quip and egocentric rumination has the ring of authentic Gaullist hubris. The general emerges as imperious in private as he is in public, but he seems even more petulant and petty. A sampling of his views...
Trivia. A major consequence of the new amity in Annapolis will be a constitutional convention to rewrite the state's 100-year-old charter, a farrago of archaisms and amendments so cluttered with trivia that it even spells out regulations for off-street parking in Baltimore. The legislature also adopted the state's first billion-dollar budget and passed a long-needed tax-reform measure, replacing the flat 3% state income tax with a graduated levy of from 2% to 5%, which will give Maryland a much-needed revenue boost of $120 million a year...