Word: scabbard
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...Nishis gather as we prepare our vessels at the water's edge. "Is it elephant skin?" asks a boy, poking our raft. A Nishi unsheathes his sword from a monkey-fur scabbard, and waves it over his head, dancing. In broken Hindi, he calls out: "Hey! Next time, you bring me a foreign woman!" The Nishi has been impressed by the posters of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera in a tea shop up on the road, and believes they may be worth a few wild cattle in trade. As we head into the current, a few younger Nishi gather...
...Tokyo, is an exercise in polite disappointment, as the master deflects and deflates all questions, making it clear that the meaning of his craft, like the ability to handle his swords, can't cross cultural borders. "We would not know the etiquette, how to sit, how to hold the scabbard or the hilt, how to slide the blade out by the back surface only. We were gaijin, capable of only hurting the swords or ourselves." An interview with Yoshiyuki Tomino, creator of Mobile Suit Gundam and Charley's personal hero, devolves into a virtual stalemate, each side just missing...
Politics and morality often make interesting bed-fellows, and the Clinton administration has not been able to avoid this phenomenon. Consider Bosnia, Rwanda and North Korea. In one instance, Washington rattle saber in scabbard threatening embargoes, air strikes or outright intervention; in the next peace offerings are sent with ex-presidents, who dole out hugs and handshakes. And yet the seemingly ever-present spectre of a protracted military presence in Haiti looms large on the Clinton foreign policy horizon...
...Wander upstairs. Contemplate telling Work Abroad Counselor Bill Klingelhofer that you're interested in working as a pirate in the Caspian Sea, and would a leather thong and scabbard be appropriate dress for the interview...
...filled with unrefined gas for flushing the snakes from their dens. This is the snake-hunting-as-a-sport group, and its members come from as far away as Canada. Hunting garb ranges from Reeboks and jeans to paramilitary Indiana Jones attire, including boots with a side knife and scabbard, camouflage flak jackets, molded plastic snake-proof leggings. "Some of these folks are really into serpents," says Wayne Wilson, a Jaycee and hardware-store owner...