Word: patchwork
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...have been folded operational arms of the Federal Government like FEMA. That may be a mistake. If there is one thing more depressing than the number of reports on homeland security, it is the unanimity of their conclusions. At present, coordination simply doesn't happen; homeland defense is a patchwork quilt made by an inept seamstress. Some stories would be funny if they weren't being told against a backdrop of tragedy. There was the recent joint exercise of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, during which agents argued for an hour over...
...armed fighters are an alliance in name only. Real control lies with a shifting patchwork of power-hungry warlords, guerrilla warriors and ethnic leaders who came together in the 1980s to fight the Soviet occupation. They make an uneasy blend of minority ethnic groups--Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara--in a predominantly Pashtun country, and include Shi'ite Muslims, despised by the majority Sunnis. As soon as they brought down the Soviet puppet ruler, alliance leaders turned on one another and viciously fought in bloody civil strife. The cosmopolitan capital, once known for its beautiful gardens and monuments, was reduced to rubble...
...people herded from East Timor after its people voted for independence two years ago, about 80,000 are left in West Timorese camps. "They live in atrocious conditions," says Sarmento. Human waste fouls the sites; houses are a sad patchwork of scraps. Medicine ran out long ago. At Tuabukan, near the West Timorese capital of Kupang, and at Metomauk, 3.5 km from the border, refugees in mismatched Indonesian army uniforms farm locals' land. But patience is fraying. "Last year we had land," says Zeraldo Mendoza at Labur camp, near the border town of Atambua. "But it was taken back...
...have long since become inured to the sight of atheletes wearing a patchwork of commercial logos on their shirts and pants. We know that movie-makers take a lot of money to show certain products onscreen, casually. (Advertisers of Shakespeare's day would have rejoiced in the opportunity to have Lady Macbeth, for example, tell her kitchen staff in the first act: "We are having royal guests tonight, and nothing will do for this occasion but Mrs. Browne's Peacock Pies...
...presidents in three years. Hanging over all is the fear that the entire country might descend into a violent disintegration similar to the bloodbath that accompanied East Timor's independence. Separatist rebellions in Aceh and Irian Jaya and inter-communal violence in the Moluccas and elsewhere show that the patchwork of ethnic enclaves that became a nation-state only by dint of their common colonization by the Dutch is now threatening to fall apart...