Word: ragtag
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Exactly 100 years ago next week, a ragtag group of tradesmen and industrial workers met in Pittsburgh under the leadership of Samuel Gompers, a cigarmaker from London, to form the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. Ahead lay many battles against obstinate employers as unions fought for recognition: the Homestead and Pullman strikes in the 1890s, the bloody 1937 Battle of the Overpass in Dearborn, Mich., when Walter and Victor Reuther were attempting to organize auto workers. But now, as the U.S. labor movement enters its second century, it faces equally serious problems: eroding membership and fading public support...
...subjected each make-believe soldier to a metal detector's scan. No matter: the glory of re-created victory was undimmed. Over the sunny Virginia meadows marched 2,200 ersatz Revolutionaries. There were French infantry of the Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment in their gleaming white uniforms; authentically ragtag colonials, including the Barnstable Militia of Cape Cod, some in burlap and bandages; and, of course, 750 English redcoats and Hessians, gallant in their mock defeat...
Dayan embarked on his meteoric career in the military during World War II, when he served with British forces. After Israel gained independence in 1948, he became a protege of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. By 1953, Dayan had risen to chief of staff and soon transformed the ragtag Israeli defense force into one of the most aggressive armies in the world. He gave priority to the development of Israel's air force, and his recognition of the effectiveness of fast-moving armor led to the Israelis' rapid advances in the 1956 Sinai campaign. Dayan was justifiably hailed...
Castillo, who was serving a 33-year prison sentence in Cuba for arson, is marking his first anniversary in the U.S. He is one of the 125,000 Cubans who clambered hopefully aboard a ragtag flotilla bound for the U.S. from the harbor of Mariel, 27 miles west of Havana. Most of them were ordinary seekers of liberty. But the Cuban government supplied some of the passengers, including inmates like Castillo, who were taken from prisons and asylums and ordered aboard for the 110-mile trip to Florida. Whatever brought them to the U.S., the Marielitos have one shocking discovery...
...camp it up this time, with Ringo Starr as a misfit caveman and sultry Barbara Bach as his Stone Age Circe? Why not, indeed? Writers Gottlieb and DeLuca have risen-no, lowered themselves-to the challenge. Instead of screaming at prehistoric monsters, the audience squeams at a ragtag parade of sight gags and slapstick. And has a wonderful time...