Word: vermin
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...infantrymen. Others stumbled to keep in step. But whether wearing face masks, field jackets or street clothes, all displayed orange armbands inscribed with the words FOR GOD AND ULSTER. Thundered Paisley from a makeshift reviewing stand: "My men are ready to be recruited under the crown to destroy the vermin of the I.R.A. But if the crown refuses to recruit them, then we will destroy the I.R.A. ourselves...
...prison yard. They sent a few new prisoners to the execution squads before my time came for interrogation. One of the clergymen asked me whether I remembered where my brother was. When I replied that I didn't know, the mullah said to his colleagues, "Why keep such vermin alive anyway?" They nodded. My interrogator came for me and waved a paper under my nose. "Well, it's all over, this is your writ of execution," he said. "By the way, if you change your mind about your brother, let me know. Maybe I can get the judges...
...conditioning pretty often, and far more sheltered space than anyone in the world (except for the most imperial and ostentatious) has ever had the luxury of rattling around in. Even the American poor fall victim to a bizarre profligacy. Neolithic villagers periodically burned down their huts to incinerate their vermin; in the South Bronx people burn out their own apartments to obtain the welfare moving allowance, or landlords torch their buildings for the insurance: life among the ruins. Americans who feel sorry for themselves about their housing, middle-class Americans at least, have not explored the alternatives on the down...
...crowded Tehran courtroom, five frightened defendants faced the empty bench. The judge, a scowling, bearded figure who was also acting as prosecutor, circled behind them and cursed, "I shall exterminate you vermin!" Then, without permitting a word to be spoken in their defense, he meted out the sentences. "Those two-execution," he barked. "This one -life imprisonment. The other two-100 lashes each." As Islamic guards led out the two men to be whipped, the judge called out after them, "Remember, every lash must draw blood...
Philadelphia's tough-talking Democratic mayor, Frank Rizzo, has long been as hard on syntax as he is on the "vermin" he blames for his city's problems with crime and decline. During his campaign for a second four-year term in 1975, for instance, the blustery former police chief offered Philadelphians a typically unpunctuated promise: "Just wait after November you'll have a front row seat because I'm going to make Attila the Hun look like a faggot...