Word: ragtag
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Even the number of Iranian war victims reflects the country's political divisions. Iranian troops are split among the regular military, the fanatical Revolutionary Guards and the often ragtag volunteer corps known as the basij. During Iran's moderate phase in the mid-1980s, Tehran reduced the death toll by relying on trained professional soldiers for most of the fighting. Rafsanjani announced in 1985 that Iran intended "to achieve victory with as few casualties as possible." But last year champions of the zealous Guards gained a stronger voice in ruling circles. The Guards have scant concern for casualties and favor...
...release of the dolphins was the work of the Oceanic Research Communication Alliance, a ragtag team of dolphin lovers and scientists. Most previous attempts to release captive dolphins have been ad hoc or ill conceived. In 1977, for example, animal liberationists "freed" two dolphins from a tank in Hawaii. Hours later one of them was briefly spotted foundering on a reef, badly lacerated. Even so, scientists and conservationists are - increasingly interested in readapting captive or injured sea animals to the wilds. Last month the New England Aquarium, with support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, organized a successful attempt...
...designed to avoid the political accountability that is at the heart of American democracy. The authorizations and findings required for the Iranian arms deals either were never sent to the proper officials or were destroyed and conveniently forgotten. Gunrunning to the contras was handled by a network of ragtag profiteers coordinated by a colonel on the National Security Council staff. And the President was, or so his aides say, deliberately shielded from knowledge of the diversion of funds to keep him from being damaged if the operation came to light...
Among the alibis Conner offered and Murray declined were the narrowness of the starting line and the nearness of the spectator fleet. A ragtag armada, 800 remarkable vessels ranging from the Achille Lauro to the Love Boat, tails along in a boiling wash. "They were a factor," insisted Conner, who called for more elbow room. In the second race the wind came up, and while tight quarters prompted a momentary Kookabura protest, Stars & Stripes ran away again and plainly seemed capable of doing it in any conditions...
Those of us who wander across this country -- hard-core itinerants, escapees from a Stanley Elkin fiction, a ragtag of peddlers, truckers, journalists, compulsive tourists -- meet in flyspecked cafes off the interstates and gossip about the cities that are our temporary destinations...