Word: ragtag
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Neto's most dangerous opposition is in the south, where UNITA not only fights on but even seems to be gaining a little under the bearded Savimbi, 43, a onetime philosophy student at Switzerland's University of Lausanne. He commands a ragtag army of 5,000 regulars and 12,000 auxiliary bushfighters that includes women and boys barely in their teens. Supported by the Ovimbundu tribe, which makes up about 40% of Angola's population of 6.2 million, Savimbi's forces now control a third of the country. They have gained an advantage by staging successful hit-and-run raids...
...echoes of Angola are unmistakable: a prolonged and bitter civil war, a Soviet airlift of arms in support of an unstable military regime, increasing numbers of Russian and Cuban advisers, ragtag battalions of tribesmen bloodying each other with modern weapons supplied by outside powers. Now the battlefield is Ethiopia and the high-stakes pawn is the strategic Horn of Africa, which commands the shipping routes through the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean...
Though gone from the papers, many of Capp's creations will live on. Li'l Abner and Daisy Mae long ago slipped into American language and folklore, together with the other denizens of Capp's hillbilly heaven, where Mammy Yokum defended her ragtag family and shaky log cabin against the likes of zoot-suited Evil-Eye Fleegle and his triple whammy. Joe Btfsplk and his perpetual cloud rained down bad luck on almost everyone, and the unluckiest ended up in the hands of Freddie the undertaker. The shmoos rolled over dead and oven ready for hungry hoomins...
...month ago, Mobutu's well-equipped but poorly motivated soldiers were in disgraceful retreat, refusing to fight and often simply running away from a ragtag band of Angola-based Katangese rebels. Now the rebels were on the run. The secret ingredient in the turn-around was mostly psychological: the presence of 1,500 elite Moroccan troops who had been airlifted in at Mobutu's desperate request. The Moroccans shamed Zaïre's 4,000 troops in the fighting area into showing a little backbone. This persuaded the 2,000 or so rebels and, presumably, their Angolan and Cuban supporters...
...scene is the ragtag headquarters of a Boston underground paper. A staffer takes a kinky sex ad for the personal column over the phone, then politely asks the caller whether he wants to pay by BankAmericard or Master Charge. Question: With credit policies like that, how underground can the paper or its readers really...