Word: aridities
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Fall of the Cattle Culture, Rifkin manages to blame the world's burgeoning population of bovines for a staggering spectrum of ecological ills. In the U.S., he charges, runoff from mammoth feedlots is despoiling streams and underground aquifers. In sub- Saharan Africa, cattle are contributing to desertification by denuding arid lands of fragile vegetation. In Central and South America, ranchers are felling tropical rain forests and turning them into pastures for their voracious herds. "The average cow," claims Rifkin, "eats its way through 900 lbs. of vegetation every month. It is literally a hoofed locust...
Pack-rat middens are found in arid regions of North and Central America and take shape when the acquisitive rodent, like its human namesake, collects and carries home virtually all the trash it can find. It piles the debris in its den, where it becomes saturated with urine. As the urine evaporates in the dry climate, it crystallizes, gradually enveloping the collection and forming a large, hard clump. Protected from the elements, the pack rat's trophies, like insects entombed in amber, are preserved for millenniums...
...destiny brought Erwin Rommel face to face with the man who would prove to be his nemesis: Bernard Montgomery. By July 1942 the Germans had pushed the British out of Libya. All that stood between the Nazis and Alexandria was the strongpoint at the arid village of El Alamein, 70 miles to the west. A worried Churchill sent Montgomery, an eccentric, bullheaded disciplinarian, to head the Eighth Army. In spite of frantic pleas from London, Monty -- as the Ulsterman asked his soldiers to refer to him -- took his time, rebuilding troop morale and stocking up on ammunition. Churchill wanted...
Never mind that trying to grow grass in hot, cold or arid regions is almost as silly as trying to grow kelp. Americans have belawned 25 million to 30 million acres, an area larger than Virginia. Lawn is our connection to the English manor houses to which most of us cannot trace our ancestors; it is the decent, respectably dull necktie we knot around our houses...
...Moresby (John Malkovich), the protagonist of Bowles' story and of the swank, sexy, bleak and very beautiful film that Bernardo Bertolucci has made from it, is traveling with his wife Kit (Debra Winger) and an upper-class twit of a friend (Campbell Scott). He lands in Algeria, a hot, arid country where each hotel is more primitive than the last and the transportation, when there is any, is mostly by truck and camel. There are pestilential insects everywhere; the breakfast tray comes with a DDT spray can. When Kit isn't complaining about the heat or the stupidity...