Desert

To most Americans, the desert that links Kuwait and Saudi Arabia seems a dreadful place indeed. Television shows us a desolate landscape, seemingly bereft of vegetation. The region appears to be an endless swath of sand, punctuated only by trenches and tank tracks.Surely flora cannot exist in such a wasteland.Oh, but it can.Spring is nigh in the Persian Gulf. Despite all the bombs and missiles, much of the desert is coming to life.The changes may be startling.Imagine allied troops marching through colorful pockets of wildflowers, grasses and flowering bulbs.

Gardening held little appeal to Stacey Watkins, a Baltimore special-education teacher, until an organization that helps keep her classroom in books put out a call for help with an urban planting project. She soon found her manicured hands could do wonders with dirt. Within a few hours last week, Watkins, who dug unencumbered by garden gloves, had planted straight rows of broccoli, kale, cauliflower and all manner of herbs in a vacant, long-neglected lot along Park Heights Avenue.

The wildfires that exploded across Southern California this week were spread by Santa Ana winds, a dry-weather phenomenon that can produce gusts of up to 100 mph that often leave people gasping.The devil's breath, as the condition is known, begins as a high-pressure system whose cool, sinking air sweeps across the Mojave Desert, then flows downward to the ocean.The winds must squeeze through mountain passes and canyons, causing the air to heat and move faster -- commonly exceeding 40 mph as they burst out across coastal lowlands, meteorologists say.On rare occasions, the winds briefly blow up to 100 mph, making the Santa Ana condition as powerful as a Stage 2 hurricane.

More than a third of Baltimore neighborhoods don't have ready access to healthy foods, leaving one in five residents to rely on high-fat, high-calorie meals from corner stores and carryout restaurants, a new assessment shows. City, academic and nonprofit officials have worked for years to eliminate so-called "food deserts," but they say the latest data from Johns Hopkins University researchers shows the scope of the problem and where good food options are most urgently needed. "You can see on the ground that a lot of areas are lacking," said Holly Freishtat, who became Baltimore's first food policy director about two years ago. "The next step for the map is to use it for policy.

Las Vegas.As the public dialogue moves toward ''rebuilding the Gulf,'' consider the tales of two deserts.One desert contains the most valuable of treasures. The other holds few resources. One succeeds. The other fails, famously.The successful desert is the American Southwest, the most rapidly growing part of America. Nevada, which grew by 50 percent from 1980-90, is the fastest growing state. Las Vegas grew by 60 percent.What makes the American desert so livable that so many more people want to live there?

Washington--NO, THIS isn't the latest Dan Quayle joke. It's true.On New Year's Day, according to a White House announcement, U.S. troops in the Saudi Arabian desert will receive a visit and a pep talk from Vice President Dan Quayle.It's no joke, but sending Quayle to exhort troops to battle is one of Desert Shield's more bizarre ideas. Somehow a gung-ho, hit-'em-hardspeech to the troops by a vice president who used his wealthy family's clout to sit out the Vietnam War does not strike me as a morale builder.

TEMPE, ARIZ. --There was a tense 15-minute period during the third quarter yesterday when the Ravens' season was in limbo as team officials awaited results of an X-ray of running back Jamal Lewis' shoulder. The X-rays came back negative. Within the next 60 minutes, the Ravens had defeated the Arizona Cardinals, 26-18, and almost everything was right with their world. A few minutes later, coach Brian Billick checked the injury report, and the Ravens came out clean. He smiled and wiped the sweat off his forehead.

GEICO Corp., one of the largest automobile insurers in Maryland, said three of its auto insurance subsidiaries will give a 25 percent refund to policyholders who are serving in the Desert Shield operation in the Middle East.The refund will amount to an estimated $1 million, said GEICO, which is based in Chevy Chase."While our Desert Shield military policyholders are facing increased personal risk in the Middle East, the risk factors for their cars back at home have gone down," said Edward H. Utley, president of GEICO.

TOMBOUCTOU, Mali -- A low, wailing song reaches from the mosques of this ancient town of mud houses and sand dunes to the tent of Adama Alhadan, who sits in the flicker of a campfire, talking of rebellion."

GUZILIANG VILLAGE, China -- With a mighty roar, the tractor laboring outside Xue Yongquan's house shoveled sand off the road that was once the main route south. The road is blocked, yet again, because the desert is coming closer.When Xue was a boy, Guziliang was a prosperous oasis on the eastern fringe of China's Gobi Desert. But a huge increase in population as well as overuse of the naturally available water has caused the desert to besiege the town, with huge dunes looming in the distance.

"Contagion" hits theaters Friday, so we asked staff: Which end-of-the-world scenario do you most fear? •••• Human cloning + Kardashians.  Luke Broadwater, managing editor,  b •••• I think I would most fear an invasion by aliens who use us as appetizers, employ us as shuttlecocks for games of badminton, or otherwise cramp our style.  Anne Tallent, editor,  b •••• The one where everyone gets...

It just don't get much better than this. Commercially prepared chili fixings are loaded with salt, spices/herbs and (often) other additives and preservatives. Salt desiccates everything and transparent packaging allows the spice mix to oxidize, delivering a product that is less than optimal in flavor profile. This I learned from Jane Butel, renowned cookbook author and expert on all things Tex-Mex and New Mex (www.janebutelcooking.com), while attending a private cooking class in New Mexico.

Water still draws Amy Alcott. The LPGA Hall of Famer, famous for sparking a women's golf tradition by jumping into a greenside lake after winning the Nabisco Dinah Shore tournament, is often found churning laps at Southern California swimming pools. "I'm not a good swimmer," Alcott, 55, says, "but I enjoy being in the water and exercising. " Nor has the winner of five major championships and 24 other LPGA Tour events ruled out another leap into a lake. On April 2, in conjunction with the Kraft Nabisco Championship in Rancho Mirage, Calif., she'll host the inaugural Fresh & Easy Dinah Shore Charity Pro-Am, featuring legends such as her, Nancy Lopez, Pat Bradley and Patty Sheehan.

It was a small victory, sure, but you have to start somewhere. Tiger Woods and "big brother" Mark O'Meara reunited to capture the Dubai Desert Classic's Challenge Match — a par-3 undercard to this week's European Tour stop that never lacks for the game's brightest jewels. Whether that translates to flashier headlines remains to be seen. If there's a place on the golf map where Woods has enjoyed a comfort zone, it's the Emirates Golf Club. In five trips to the desert haven, he has won twice and never finished outside the top five.

Efforts to shore up the base of the cliffs on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay could trigger problems for the area's freshest fossil beds - and turn the bay floor into a silty "desert," an expert on the region's geology says. Lauck Ward, a geologist at the Virginia Museum of Natural History who has studied the Maryland and Virginia cliffs for more than 30 years, says the best fossils, laid down as much as 18 million years ago, would be buried by riprap and slumping sand. "Scientifically it would be a wipeout," he said.

G reen Zone," a political adventure movie from the "Bourne" franchise dream team of star Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass, says that nation-building in Iraq has been a struggle partly because the United States based "regime change" on the spurious notion that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. With Damon as an idealistic Army officer who wonders why he can't find any WMD and Greg Kinnear as a ruthless political operative in the Coalition Provisional Authority, the movie depicts the authority's futile attempts to speed the formation of a democratic Iraq as "fruit from the poisonous tree.

Jessica Michelle Child of love and joy and belief in life Conceived in victory over death and desert Struggling through pangs of birth And pain of military parting Your smile and touch told everyone Life was given to be lived As you graced all with peace and love While infant heart beat weakly stronglyDarwin's war, God's peace, Jessica Yours the spirit girded for battle Yours the epic struggle Yours the birth-weakened heart of courage Yours no coward soul...

A year ago today, T. Ann McElroy sat shivering on a cot in the belly of an Army plane headed for Saudi Arabia. She was unaware that she would spend Christmas morning guarding the perimeter of a desert camp with an M-16 rifle in her arms.This Christmas, the 24-year-old Maryland National Guard specialist also will be on duty -- making cannelloni, manicotti and lasagna at the Columbia restaurant where she works."I can make 60 pounds of cheese mix sleeping," quipped Specialist McElroy, among the dozens of guardsmen attending the 290th Military Police Company's annual Christmas party at the Towson Armory yesterday.

Pfc. Christopher Pfeiffer, 20, a Westminster soldier accused of deserting his Army unit, is slowly making his way home after paperwork problems threatened to strand him in Kuwait a second time. Pfeiffer's superiors notified him last week that he might be discharged from the Army. They said he failed to return to his unit after coming home over the summer on authorized leave to take care of his sick wife and newborn daughter. Pfeiffer's family said he did everything he could to contact his chain of command and either further extend his leave or make travel arrangements back to Afghanistan.

Progressive, health-conscious people up in Michigan launched an effort to bring fresh fruits and vegetables to Detroit's "food deserts" - large sections of town with plenty of liquor stores and fast-food places but few or no supermarkets or farmers' markets. A small fleet of vendor-style trucks now bring produce to people who have neither well-stocked food stores in their neighborhoods nor cars for schlepping groceries from distant markets. A $75,000 loan from the Michigan Economic Development Corp.