Word: patchwork
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Jersey landmark was not binding in other states, of course, and laws on the right to die remain a confused patchwork. Courts have generally but not uniformly ruled that a competent patient has a right to refuse medical treatment (34 states and the District of Columbia recognize "living wills" that forbid extreme treatments). The incompetent and comatose present complex problems. If doctors and families agree to withhold treatment, doctors often quietly practice what they call "judicious neglect," but disagreements still end noisily in court...
...fact, Amis is quite the scold. His Rabelaisian comic gift cuts savagely at the patchwork of relativism and materialism that passes for modern social fabric. The novel's loutish hero, John Self, is a grotesque victim of life in the fast lane: "I hate people with degrees, O-levels, eleven-pluses, Iowa Tests, shorthand diplomas," says Self. "And you hate me, don't you. Yes you do. Because I'm the new kind, the kind who has money but can never use it for anything but ugliness...
...which provided much higher price supports than anyone would advocate now (all subsequent farm laws, including the one passed in 1981, technically have been amendments to the 1949 act, passed usually for four years at a time). But it is entirely possible that Congress will settle for a temporary, patchwork extension of the current...
...From the air," reported TIME'S Andrea Dabrowski, the only journalist on the mission, "the ravaged area looks like a surrealistic patchwork, with a few brick and adobe houses still standing defiantly erect alongside the skeletons of completely scorched buildings. Down on the deserted streets, a choking gray dust now covers everything. A stray dog searches for its owner and snaps at anyone who tries to peer through what was once a window. The destruction seems haphazard. A completely undamaged kitchen with a green refrigerator opens into the hulk of a demolished bedroom. Fragments of lives are scattered everywhere...
Many Protestant denominations now admit women to the ministry. But the English decision to move in the same direction will have broad influence within the Anglican Communion, which has something of a patchwork priesthood. Some bishops refuse to recognize women ordained by others, and some branches, including England for the moment, do not allow the women to perform priestly duties when they enter as visitors...