Word: swording
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...matter how innovative Virgin's Airlines are, no matter how loudly Branson trumpets biofuel, every plane in the sky runs on the same stuff. The price of jet fuel has risen 69% in the past year, and Virgin's executives, like their rivals, lie under its sword. "Other than the recession and $110-a-barrel oil, I see nothing but opportunity," CEO Cush deadpans. He can't cost-cut his way out; the limits of that strategy are obvious. The big carriers have taken $15 billion in costs out since 2001 but are paying $17 billion more for fuel...
...high standards are a double-edged sword. Even as McCain railed against the system, he worked it, sometimes creating unseemly appearances of his own. As with many other Senators, some of McCain's biggest corporate donors were invariably the companies that sought his favor - firms like FedEx, AT&T and Qwest Communications. At one point, he even allowed Fred Smith, a friend who ran FedEx, to sponsor a book party for McCain's memoir Worth the Fighting...
...BATMAN In the past, a katana, a Japanese sword, was a samurai's soul. The warriors may be long gone, but the samurai spirit lives on--particularly among Japanese professional baseball players. Take the Seattle Mariners' All-Star center fielder Ichiro Suzuki. Between games, Ichiro gives his bat the katana treatment: keeping it protected in a sealed aluminum case. After every game, he takes it to his locker and shows his gratitude for its service by going through the ritual of cleaning...
...Where the seal seems to run into further trouble is in the two elements added to the 1780 design: the sword brandished above the Native American’s head and the truculent Latin motto added to the seal. The sword and the motto, bounding the Native American, seem to be visually duplicating the violent hegemony which the European colonists held over the natives. The vertical superiority of the bent white arm reinforces the ugly racial superiority that characterized early Puritan history of Massachusetts...
...doubt this troubled past makes up the stock of the concern expressed in HB 3412. But is it a legitimate interpretation or a case of signs taken for wonders? Historically, the sword and motto have little to do with the image of the Native American. They were both tacked on to the seal during the Revolutionary War, at a time when Massachusetts was at the center of a bloody political struggle against monarchism. The Latin motto is lifted from the English rebel Algernon Sydney, a vehement opponent of the Restoration who was executed for conspiring to kill Charles...