Word: augusts
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Despite the name, summer recess is often as much work as it is play: Congress's members must press flesh back home to remind voters of all the good work they've been doing and to raise vital campaign funds. The Legislative Branch has made a tradition of taking August off, going back to the first Congress, in New York City in 1790. Back then, the break lasted until December (it often took weeks to travel between New York and some Southern states). Throughout much of the 19th century, Congress adjourned in June or July to escape the heat...
...what do members do when they're not legislating? Any time not spent on the Hill can be spent fundraising, although outside of election years, August is a slow month for events. Some members go on official trips, visiting troops or joining fact-finding missions or trade delegations. This year several lawmakers will spend their time stumping for (or against) President Obama's health-care plan. Once that's all done, though, many take actual vacations: Arizona Representative Raul Grijalva plans to spend four days in a cabin near the Grand Canyon. There he will "read a book that...
...voice coming through the public-address system was familiar yet strange. I had not heard it in at least 27 years, not since I had traveled to the sacred Madhu Shrine in northern Sri Lanka in August 1982 when I was a child and on pilgrimage with my family: "Aandavane" ("Oh, Holy Lord" in Tamil), "Aandavane." The words spread through the church compound where half a million others had made the same journey to see Madhu Matha, the Mother of Madhu, in her sacred precincts...
UPDATED Sunday August...
...rong was one of the lucky ones. "I watched my village get buried," says the aboriginal farmer in southern Taiwan, one of hundreds in the mountainous region caught in the island's worst floods in 50 years. On August 8, Yin and 300 others in the township of Namasia fled their homes and climbed up a nearby mountain to higher ground. They spent three stormy days and nights under makeshift tents before the weather cleared enough for them to make smoke signals for help. Finally, after more than 72 hours, military helicopters spotted and rescued them...