Word: kite
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...kite," an angry housewife snarls at her husband-but imagine her surprise if he actually went and did. There was Ben Franklin, of course, with his handkerchief, his key and his lightning bolt, and if Orville and Wilbur Wright had not been kiting enthusiasts, a Russian might have invented the airplane after all. But the adult U.S. male who shows up at the park with kite and twine is certain to be suspect unless he has a passel of kids in tow. And there is something definably foreign about the doughty Somerset Maugham hero who preferred to rot in jail...
Perhaps it is just that Americans have no sense of the sublime. "My kite rises to celestial regions," wrote a 9th century monk. "My soul enters the abode of bliss." On Formosa, the ninth day of the ninth moon is the Day of Ascending Heights, a holiday in honor of kites. In Japan, kite flying is so popular that it was once legislated out of existence, so that people could keep their minds on their work. And nowhere is kiting pursued with more passion than in Thailand, where legend has it that a young lover found his lady fair...
...telephone company executive, Poon, 55, is the kite-fighting champion of Thailand-and in Thailand, kite fighting is a big-league sport. It has its teams (sponsored by private companies, like U.S. bowling teams), its league, its rules (72 of them), its umpires and its World Series, the All-Thailand championships, held each spring in Bangkok's Phramane Grounds. In India, where kite fights are also common, strings are coated with ground glass; in South America, frames are studded with razor blades...
...early 1948 concluded that the Chinese Communists were genuine Marxists and not merely "agrarian reformers," warned that only active U.S. intervention could save the Kuomintang, but still held out hope that the Chinese Reds would in the long run refuse to be merely "a tail to the Russian kite"; of a heart attack; in White Plains...
...kite was tangled in the power line behind his home outside Houston, and the impatient youngster tried to unsnarl the mess by poking at it with a rake. Zap, crackle, pop. The line short-circuited, burned through and fell, sparking and whipping, onto a chain link fence. That was a job for Superman -but he didn't show. Fortunately another stellar hero lived next door, and Scott Carpenter, 38, came to the rescue. While a second neighbor held the wires down with a board, the astronaut laid into the 120-volt cable with a wooden-handled ax, soon...