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Among Chuang-tzu's many skills, he was an expert draftsman. The king asked him to draw a crab. Chuang-tzu replied that he needed five years, a country house, and twelve servants. Five years later the drawing was still not begun. “I need another five years,” said Chuang-tzu. The king granted them. At the end of these ten years, Chuang-tzu took up his brush and, in an instant, with a single stroke, he drew a crab, the most perfect crab ever seen.
—Italo Calvino1
Despite the show of force, military officers conceded that they did not have full control of Dili (a city in East Timor) and that it would take far longer to enforce security in the rest of the territory.
“How long is a piece of string?” one colonel said when ...
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