Word: barrens
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...mother instructed him and his seven siblings to tell people was owned, not rented. The lie fostered an illusion of affluence, but behind the façade, says Mullan, "we didn't even have any furniture. We were dirt poor." The family's emotional landscape was even more barren. Mullan's father, an alcoholic World War II veteran, was an abusive and distant figure who seemed actively to court his family's contempt. When Mullan was 14 - by this time, he says, his father "had been serially raping my mother for a number of years" - the boy decided to take...
Back at ground zero--16 barren acres, including the footprints of the towers--the debate continues about how best to commemorate the loss. There are many competing pressures and different viewpoints. I am convinced that ground zero must first and foremost be a memorial. All other decisions should flow from that goal. If anything else is added to the site, it should complement and not overshadow the memorial. People a hundred years from now should be able to grasp the enormity of this attack by visiting this sacred ground. Ground zero is a cemetery. It is the last resting place...
Imagine a future of relentless storms and floods; islands and heavily inhabited coastal regions inundated by rising sea levels; fertile soils rendered barren by drought and the desert's advance; mass migrations of environmental refugees; and armed conflicts over water and other precious natural resources...
...said of its surrounding coral reefs. It only takes a quick peek below the surface of the island's tranquil waters to see the devastating consequences of unfettered local fishing practices. The sea floor off the coast, once heralded as one of Sulawesi's richest reefs, is now a barren, white wasteland of shattered coral, eerie stillness and craters the size of a child's inflatable wading pool. The effects of dynamite fishing are hard to miss...
Liaoyang's streets wear the scars of economic devastation. The avenues of this Manchurian city of 1.8 million residents run past abandoned plants and ghost factories. Cities like this were once the industrial backbone of China's planned economy; at the now barren complexes, factory windows are shattered or caked with dust. In the center of town listless workers line crossroads with wooden placards strung across their chests reading "carpenter," "electrician," "plumber"?an army of unemployed laborers that locals say makes up 80% of the workforce. City Hall, a dingy building on Democracy Road, is where workers used to grovel...