Word: thick
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...poor Xiang Xiang. Pampered from birth, his every need anticipated by a loyal band of caregivers at Sichuan's Wolong Giant Panda Breeding Center, the baffled bear received the shock of his young life soon after his fourth birthday. Last April 28, he was driven into the middle of thick bamboo forest and abandoned, making him the first giant panda bred in captivity to be released by Chinese scientists into the wild...
...have risen to the top of the Vatican hierarchy, Bertone must have had to develop steel under his outward affability. Vatican insiders note that in the new job--for which part of his task is to fend off those who want to derail the Pope's agenda--that thick skin may count more than Bertone's good humor. A Vatican official who has worked with the Cardinal in the past says, "I've never seen him betray his principles--but he's had to do everything just short of it." Adds the official: "He knows how to operate within...
...centuries-old mud brick shrine of Abu Feisal, more than a hundred men push into the tiny prayer room. Outside, the temperature is below freezing, but inside the air is thick and pungent with the heavy scent of perspiration. A small microphone is turned on, and a middle-aged man with a face creased with grief began chanting a mournful dirge. The penitents, sitting in rough circles, begin to pound their chests in a powerful rhythm amplified by a hundred chest cavities. Deep and as resonant as a heartbeat, the sound gradually changes tenor as thin cotton shirts split with...
...flails are tipped with razor-sharp blades the shape of elongated hearts. This time, it's public. The penitents march through the streets in orderly rows and pause in front of the shrine. Again the mournful chanting, and the whipping begins, blades flashing in the sun. The air is thick with the metallic edge of fresh blood. It is as much a public spectacle as a demonstration of faith. "Everyone who watches is mourning for Hussein as well," says Ali Hosseini, an 18-year-old who has just pulled a black T-shirt over his lacerated back. Slowly the faded...
...Otto Frank file measures at least half an inch thick, and page by page tells how the Franks tried desperately to escape from Nazi-occupied Holland. By the time Otto wrote his letters, the U.S. consulate in the Netherlands had closed, so he made attempts to arrange passage for his family to the United States or Cuba. He also explored possible escape routes through Spain that would ultimately lead to exit via neutral Portugal and sought visas to Paris...