Word: sprout
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Gnarled, green olive trees cling to the arid slopes while vineyards thrive in the valleys watered by the Jordan River. Donkeys and bony oxen pull ploughs to cultivate laboriously terraced hillsides where farmers for generations have carefully cleared away rocks from the sere soil. Yet television antennas sprout incongruously from the roofs of houses in Arab villages, while women in colorfully embroidered dresses still gather to wash and gossip at the central well. In Jewish settlements that dot the sun-drenched landscape, youths in jeans and yarmulkes dance the hora after school is let out. Their parents leave guns...
...ghetto contribute to the spreading scourge of youth crime. But the reverse is also true: the ripple effects of crime eventually overwhelm a city and destroy its élan. People are frightened away from downtown, reducing business for stores, theaters, restaurants. In their place, thick as weeds, sprout porno houses, massage parlors and gambling havens, where criminals thrive...
...fast-food outlets, typically emphasizing limited menus and rapid turnover, sprout on highways, city boulevards and small-town streets like mushrooms (which they often architecturally resemble). For every dollar spent on food eaten away from home, an estimated 40? goes to fast-food emporiums. The total sales this year are expected to reach $20 billion. McDonald's, the giant of the industry, will very soon sell its 23 billionth hamburger. A Texas chain called Church's Fried Chicken uses up 37 million pickled jalapenos per year. In 1976 the 700-plus units of Taco Bell consumed 1 million...
...logging companies were cutting near by, but slumped to 100 by the time a wealthy Los Angeles widow named Elizabeth Lapple bought the place in 1973. She wanted it as a commune for her hippie children and their hangers-on. As the former residents moved out, marijuana began to sprout in the yards and rock music echoed through the forests. Within a few years, Bridgeville had turned into a rural slum in the middle of God's country. Wrecked cars now lie forlornly about. The main water system and septic tanks are broken, as are the toilets in apartments...
Washington's Sheraton-Park Hotel will never be the same. Braille plates now appear next to elevator buttons. Wheelchair ramps curve down from entrance doors to parking lots. Telephones, in lowered booths, sprout oversize dials; buried inside them are enlarged amplifiers. Upstairs, 396 rooms come equipped with safety bars in the bathrooms; downstairs, the kitchen caters to Seeing-Eye dogs...