Word: soils
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...hostages last week. There was a sense of relief too. And scorn for Iran. But above all the initial dominant mood was one of continuing celebration, from the moment the first plane carrying the former captives cleared Iranian airspace to the climactic touchdown on U.S. soil of Freedom One just before 3 p.m. on truly Super Sunday at Stewart Airport, 50 miles north of New York City. There in privacy that not even the longest lens of press and TV cameras could penetrate, the returnees from Iran at long last were tearfully reunited with their families to begin two days...
...Midwest, temperatures were normal, but precipitation was not. The drought that plagued crops all last year is continuing, with little snow on the ground and low moisture content in the soil. Winter wheat needs the snow both for protection from cold and, come the spring thaw, for water. Even the Mississippi is hitting new low-water marks. The Army Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg has dredged the river at 18 locations this month. Still the river banks south of Memphis are a graveyard of grounded barges, and captains are lightening their loads by as much as a third to avoid...
...Viktor Kulikov, commander in chief of Warsaw Pact Joint Armed Forces. Western observers interpreted Kulikov's visit as both a gesture of support for the Kania regime and a warning to the restive workers. Some analysts speculated that Kulikov may have discussed plans for joint maneuvers on Polish soil-an operation that could serve as a cover for Soviet intervention...
...WORKS because Doig manages to compress meaning into the details of the natural surroundings. Rooted in the soil, always sensitive to weather and view, Doig evokes the Northwest with such an intimate touch that we actually re-experience it. His words and thoughts are religiously down to earth. Nothing can be understood without knowing the land, hugging it, runnings one's fingers over it, as he does at the end when he locates a swan and the initials "JGS" which his "winter brother" had carved in the sandstone at Neah Bay. If he reads Swan's dairy about the place...
Ciskei is an even less likely candidate for self-reliance. Its barren, eroded soil supports few crops or even trees. The pastoral people subsist on beans, maize, goats and a few dairy cattle. A drought last summer was so severe that it took $9.28 million in emergency aid from Pretoria to avert mass starvation. Though the territory is already densely populated, the government, under a "resettlement" program, sends in truckloads of unwanted blacks from urban areas. Once in Ciskei, many of the new arrivals live in stark tent towns with no schools, shops or running water...