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163. PASSAGES. Washington, DC. Being an inveterate traveler develops some unconventional measures of the world. For example, I have long believed that a good measure of a region’s wealth is the amount of electric light it can afford to waste on decoration. I have seen small towns in the developing world where a sole flourescant bulb in the village square after dark is the extent of it. One reads statistics about the USA being the world’s biggest economy, but statistics are abstract and unreal. Take a tour of the DC monuments at night to understand the wealth and resources of this country.