Word: sanding
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...will commemorate his birthday, speak of it, but the word "happy" won't be put in front of it. We are, after all, marking another year of distance, of slow departure, of eyes that look beyond us now more often than at us. Another year of sifting sand. Celebration was left behind years ago--a part of other birthdays. But I think a mysterious sense of contentment has moved into its place. As we lean toward him and kiss his forehead, there is a feeling that we are exactly where we are supposed...
...perhaps, just a line in the sand, but the change of the calendar year gave the country a chance--an excuse--to shake off the somber shadow cast by the events of Sept. 11. The war in Afghanistan has subsided, we've had our holiday breather, and life is returning--as much as it can--to something closer to the way it once was. At least it is trying to, judging from a few recent signs...
...Baghran is along a dry riverbed; with vehicles negotiating fields of rough river stones, inconvenient boulders, dusty sand banks and pools of cold water. It's slow, slow going. On either side sheer mountains glare down like surly sentinels. Villages are few. At times we drove up from the river and across low folds of hills where endless gullies and draws make for good ambush. No wonder the Russians could never capture Baghran. A Soviet tank, ruptured by rockets, rusts at one turn; a scant reminder of a failed campaign...
...After Tenet briefed the team on his infiltrate-the-spooks operation, General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, laid out four military options for Bush. A quick cruise-missile response was ruled out as ineffective; White House chief of staff Andy Card called this the "pound sand" alternative. Another was more or less a full-scale invasion. Two other options called for different combinations of cruise missiles, bombers, tactical air strikes and special forces, one heavier than the other. "It was pretty clear that cruise missiles and bombers we're gonna do," recalled someone who attended. "There...
...replaced the hardy Mongolian ponies of the khans' cavalry, and camels carry as many tourists as traders over the dunes of A-la Shan. But the storied deserts of the region?the Gobi, the Tengger and the Badain Jaran?still offer a staggering variety of landscapes. Flat stretches of sand and rock alternate with Sahara-like dunes, dramatic canyons and plateaus covered with hardy shrubs. The extreme austerity makes you marvel that the Mongol hordes managed to survive, much less conquer all of Asia...