Word: congressed
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Those lines are written on a map of the world on display at the Library of Congress in Washington through April. The map is so rare - only six copies are known to exist - that to a fan of cartography, its exhibition is a bit like giving a devout Christian a chance to hold the Holy Grail. Prepared for the court of Emperor Wanli of the Ming dynasty by Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary in Beijing, the map places China at the center of the world, just where Chinese scholars thought (and think) appropriate. It was purchased last year...
...those who live there. That's how we can be sure that Ming China knew about hammocks. In parts of South America, Ricci wrote, "men sleep without beds or mattresses, but make nets of knotted cords. These they suspend from trees and recline in them." (The Library of Congress does not offer a translation of the text, but you can find a good one in the 1918 and '19 issues of the Geographical Journal...
...puzzle, because there's no way the engineers can make a single Amazon shipment to the far reaches of, say, Alaska economical. The answer might surprise you: UPS and FedEx are now outsourcing delivery to a longtime rival, the U.S. Postal Service. "The postal service is already mandated by Congress to stop at every house," Caldwell says. "So why not outsource that last-mile delivery?" In other words, let USPS handle the money losers...
...More often, Congress is where investigations...
...Congress does little better - and probably worse - at overseeing itself. Democrats promised to overhaul ethics oversight in Congress, but failed to deliver. Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, championed limits on lobbying by family members of members of Congress when Democrats were out of power in 2005, but once they took over in 2007 the promised restrictions never materialized...