Word: sword
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...cadet will not "lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do," according to West Point's honor code. "Here in everything we do, we talk of honor," says Colonel James Anderson, the master of the sword (director of physical education). When an instructor orders "Cease work" in an exam, cadets literally throw down their pencils, as if they had become instantly hot to the touch. A cadet tennis-squad player who hurls his racquet in a match is off the team...
...horseback, the warlord had to stand out from the anonymous mass of his footsloggers, archers and pikemen. In full rig, cased like a land crab in the formal armor that was designed to protect him against sword cuts and even the slow-flying lead balls of a matchlock, he was a sight: the armor consisted of hundreds of lacquered leather platelets, like fish scales, bound together with silk cord. But his mask, finial, badge and troops' standard, all in one, was the helmet, on whose design much fantasy and theatrical cunning were expended. Because they were an inviting target...
According to Jenkins, who claims to receive more than a dozen calls a week from aspiring comedians, this can be a double-edged sword, sometimes bringing first-timers who flop on stage during these first performances. But Jenkins also notes that many of the current fan favorites, such as the Walsh Brothers, began as callow comics, rising only gradually to their current status as familiar Comedy Studio acts...
...itself is of the geodesic variety, an open latticework of metal bars on which the crowd clambers and clings, forming a subhuman wall of ecstatically writhing bodies and bloodlusting faces. Scattered about the structure are various objects useful in carnage (a chain saw, a huge mallet, a viciously shaped sword of superhuman dimensions). The gladiators are placed in slings that are in turn attached to industrial-strength rubber bands. Boiing! They bounce off the walls and fly at each other with comic, alarming force. Piing! They are catapulted into the dome's upper reaches, grabbing frantically for whatever weapon comes...
...there was clapping and laughing, and then I mentioned the bombing, something to the effect that it should never happen again--and the light went out of their eyes. All the smiles went. It was as if somebody had [he makes the gesture of cutting the air with a sword]. Like that. Hiroshima was simply too horrible to think about...