US Country Studies

четвер, 21 березня 2013 р.

Texas

Capital: Austin

State abbreviation/Postal code: Tex./TX

Governor: Rick Perry, R (to Jan. 2015)

Lieut. Governor: David Dewhurst, R (to Jan. 2015)

Senators: John Cornyn, R (to Jan. 2015); Ted Cruz, R (to Jan. 2019)

U.S. Representatives: 36

Historical biographies of Congressional members

Secy. of State: Hope Andrade (apptd. by gov.)

Comptroller: Susan Combs, R (to Jan. 2015)

Atty. General: Greg Abbott, R (to Jan. 2015)

Entered Union (rank): Dec. 29, 1845 (28)

Present constitution adopted: 1876

Motto: Friendship

State symbols:

flower	bluebonnet (1901)
tree	pecan (1919)
bird	mockingbird (1927)
song	“Texas, Our Texas” (1929)
fish	guadalupe bass (1989)
seashell	lightning whelk (1987)
dish	chili (1977)
folk dance	square dance (1991)
fruit	Texas red grapefruit (1993)
gem	Texas blue topaz (1969)
gemstone cut	Lone Star cut (1977)
grass	sideoats grass (1971)
reptile	horned lizard (1993)
stone	petrified palmwood (1969)
plant	prickly pear cactus
insect	monarch butterfly
pepper	jalapeño pepper
mammal	longhorn
small mammal	armadillo
flying mammal	Mexican free-tailed bat

Nickname: Lone Star State

Origin of name: From an Indian word meaning “friends”

10 largest cities (2010 est.): Houston, 2,099,451; San Antonio , 1,327,407; Dallas, 1,197,816; Austin, 790,390; Fort Worth , 741,206; El Paso, 649,121; Arlington, 365,438; Corpus Christi, 305,215; Plano, 259,841; Laredo, 36,091

Land area: 261,797 sq mi. (678,054 sq km)

Geographic center: In McCulloch Co., 15 mi. NE of Brady

Number of counties: 254

Largest county by population and area: Harris, 4,092,459 (2010); Brewster, 6,193 sq mi.

State forests: 5 (7,314 ac.)

State parks: 115 (600,000+ ac.)

Residents: Texan

2010 resident population est.: 25,145,561

2010 resident census population (rank): 25,145,561 (2). Male: 12,472,280 (49.6%); Female: 12,673,281 (50.4%). White: 14,799,505 (71.0%); Black: 2,404,566 (11.5%); American Indian: 118,362 (0.6%); Asian: 562,319 (2.7%); Other race: 2,438,001 (11.7%); Two or more races: 514,633 (2.5%); Hispanic/Latino: 6,669,666 (32.0%). 2010 percent population 18 and over: 72.7;65 and over: 10.3; median age: 33.6.

Texas was the 28^th state in the USA. It was admitted on December 29, 1845.Texas is the second largest and second most populous state in the United States of America. Owing to its remarkable size, distinctive culture and politics, and colorful history, many Texans maintain a fiercely independent attitude, with Texan identity often superseding American identity.

Spanish explorers, including Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, were the first to visit the region in the 16th and 17th centuries, settling at Ysleta near El Paso in 1682. In 1685, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, established a short-lived French colony at Matagorda Bay.

Americans, led by Stephen F. Austin, began to settle along the Brazos River in 1821 when Texas was controlled by Mexico, recently independent from Spain. In 1836, following a brief war between the American settlers in Texas and the Mexican government, the Independent Republic of Texas was proclaimed with Sam Houston as president. This war was famous for the battles of the Alamoand San Jacinto. After Texas became a state in 1845, border disputes led to the Mexican War of 1846–1848.

Possessing enormous natural resources, Texas is a major agricultural state and an industrial giant. Second only to Alaska in land area, it leads all other states in such categories as oil, cattle, sheep, and cotton. Texas ranches and farms also produce poultry and eggs, dairy products, greenhouse and nursery products, wheat, hay, rice, sugar cane, and peanuts, and a variety of fruits and vegetables.

Sulfur, salt, helium, asphalt, graphite, bromine, natural gas, cement, and clays are among the state's valuable resources. Chemicals, oil refining, food processing, machinery, and transportation equipment are among the major Texas manufacturing industries.

Millions of tourists spend over $50 billion annually visiting more than 100 state parks, recreation areas, and points of interest such as the Gulf Coast resort area, the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Alamo in San Antonio, the state capital in Austin, and the Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

The 2011 drought gave Texas its hottest, driest 12 months on record. The drought brought up the same questions of water supply as the state's seven year drought back in the 1950s. With the state's population predicted to double by the year 2060, Texas began researching new water sources in 2011.

понеділок, 3 грудня 2012 р.

Edgar Allen Poe - "The Black Cat"

The Black Cat

(I made a collage)

One of Edgar Allen Poe's most famously read and celebrated stories is "The Black Cat." Like most of his other stories, "The Black Cat" follows the Gothic convention of literature, a style that explores humanity's fear and fascination with the unknown. Although it originated in Germany, it was revived in the 1700's. Gothic literature investigates man's emotions, particularly fear, in the face of forces we cannot comprehend. Typical motifs of this type include darkness, horrid figures, grotesque imagery, illusion, and spaces. Stories of this sort strip us of our understanding, and sensationalize us, giving us a thrilling sense of terror that we enjoy.

Although Perverseness is the theme of Poe's story, he uses the feeling of guilt as a kind of fear. By detailing the decline in the main character's mental state throughout the story, Poe demonstrates the loss of control over one's own behavior and the horrifying effects, touching on the fear of one's own self as fear of the unknown. The narrator beings the tail claiming to be perfectly sane, but over time his account shows that he indeed has a spirit of perverseness that surprises even himself. Through a series of violent acts, he brings about his own destruction. The elements of horror in this tale are very apparent.

One primary element of gothic literature is the superstitious blurring of the line between the normal and the fantastic. Poe accomplishes this in a number of ways. The narrator, for example, is unreliable, being insane. In his account, he claims that the exact shape of a cat hanging on a noose was imprinted on a wall in the ruins of his old home. Although he tries to explain it naturally, it seems that there may be supernatural elements at work. The changing shape of the gallows on the new cat's white spot have similar effects. The narrator's wife even had a suspicion of black cats.

Revenants and haunts from the dead are often prevalent in Gothic literature. In the story, the second cat the narrator happens upon is a double of the first, and represents a revenant or ghost of the first-the one he killed. When the narrator kills his wife and walls her up, he attributes the scream from inside to the cat, although he describes it as sounding very human, as if his wife's ghost had screamed.

Gothic architecture plays with open spaces and depicts the decay and gnarling of human creations. Likewise, Poe explores a lot of psychological space in his story, and takes the reader on an emotional tour through the mind of a madman until reaching his final emotional breakdown and mental defeat. Poe's narrator is so perverse that his mind eventually becomes so twisted it is inhumane. The narrator could almost be described as a Byronic hero, being a flawed and tragic protagonist who is a danger to himself and others. Such a character is again typical of the old Gothic romances.

As Gothic movement was in part a rejection of neoclassical rationalism, so does Poe defy all logical explanation of the events in his story, his narrator being completely vexed by his own uncontrollable actions. The destruction of his house, and the eerie basement of his new one are representatives of usual structural motifs of Gothic variety. He explores perverseness as a thematic gateway to inner, inexplicable terror. "Terror is not of Germany," Poe once said, "but of the soul." Thus he revitalized in Victorian America a genre that had all but lost popularity until his time.

середа, 14 листопада 2012 р.

U.S. Election Procedures

Voting in the United States is a two party system. Every president since 1852 has been either a Republican or a Democrat.
In the U.S., a "single-member district system" applies. The candidate who gets elected is the one who gets the highest number of votes in their respective state.
Presidents are elected indirectly. The voters are really voting for electors in each state.

In all states, the candidate who wins a plurality, receives all of that state's electoral votes. All together there are 538 electors (in the "Electoral College). It is very important to win in populous states.

To win the presidential election, a candidate must earn an absolute majority at least 270 of the 538 electoral votes cast nationwide.

Who can run for President?

He must be a natural-born citizen of the United States, be at least 35 years of age, and have been a resident of the United States for 14 years.

How long is the President in office?

He is in office for 4 years.

Can the President be reelected?

Yes. He can be reelected once. Overall he can be in office for 8 years.

Who can vote?

Anyone who is 18 years of age. There is no national list of eligible voters, so a citizen must first qualify by becoming registered. Citizens register to vote in conjunction with the place they live, if they move to a new location, they typically have to register again. Registration system has been designed to eliminate fraud.

Is the President elected directly?

No. Voters are voting for electors who are members of a party.

When is election day?

Election day is the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

When is the Inauguration of the President?

The President will be inaugurated on January 20 in the year after the election. From this time he is in office.

What are primaries?

At the primaries the parties nominate their candidates. This takes place about 1 year prior to the election.
There are
- closed / semi-closed primaries (e.g. Arizona)
- open primaries (e.g. Missouri)
- blanket primaries (e.g. Lousiana)

What are"caucuses"?

In some states (e.g. Iowa) there are three levels.
1st: local
2nd: district
3rd: state
Voters are voting for electors here, too. (e.g. North Dakota)

What is "Super Tuesday"

At this day there are pre-elections in at least 8 states. The winner of the primaries is most likely the candidate for the elections.

Kinds of Voting Technology

Elections in the United States are administered at the state and local level, and the federal government does not set mandatory standards for voting technologies. 1. Paper Ballots
2. Lever Machines
3. Punchcards
4. Computer (push-buttons)
5. Marksense Forms
6. Electronic Voting

Electoral College

There is a total of 538 electors. In December the electors meet in each states’s capitol to formally elect the President.
The congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes January 6.

Voting pattern in America

The turn out at the election is only 50%. The problem that has made worse the issue of voter representation is the fact that an individual must initiate voter registration well before election day.

Turnout	57.5% (voting eligible)

Nominee	Barack Obama	Mitt Romney
Party	Democratic	Republican
Home state	Illinois	Massachusetts
Running mate	Joe Biden	Paul Ryan
Electoral vote	332	206
States carried	26 + DC	24
Popular vote	62,613,405	59,140,591
Percentage	50.6%	47.8%

H.W. Longfellow

Born in Portland, Maine in 1807, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is perhaps the best-loved American poet of the 19th-century. He graduated from Bowdoin College, later to join the language faculty at Harvard. His "Voices of the Night" (1839) brought him to popular light. He later wrote the poems, "The Village Blacksmith," Evangeline," and "Hiawatha." His work is known for its simplicity and gentleness.

The Rainy Day

"The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;

It rains, and the wind is never weary;

The vine still clings to the moldering wall,

But at every gust the dead leaves fall,

And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;

It rains, and the wind is never weary;

My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,

But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast

And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;

Thy fate is the common fate of all.

Into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary."

We had a creative task so I made a collage.

четвер, 1 листопада 2012 р.

Geography

Boundaries

Beginning from the Atlantic Ocean, the state's eastern border with South Carolina runs up the Savannah River, northwest to its origin at the confluence of the Tugaloo and Seneca Rivers. It then continues up the Tugaloo (originally Tugalo) and into the Chattooga River, its most significant tributary. These bounds were decided in the 1797 Treaty of Beaufort, and tested in the U.S. Supreme Court in the two Georgia v. South Carolina cases in 1923 and 1989.

The border then takes a sharp turn around the tip of Rabun County, at latitude 35°N, though from this point it diverges slightly south (due to inaccuracies in the original survey). This originally was the Georgia and North Carolina border all the way back to the Mississippi River, until Tennessee was divided from North Carolina, and the Yazoo companies induced the legislature of Georgia to pass an act, approved by the governor in 1795, to sell the greater part of Georgia's territory presently comprising Alabama and Mississippi.

The state's western border then departs in another straight line south-southeastward, at a point southwest of Chattanooga, to meet the westernmost point of the Chattahoochee River near West Point. It continues down to the point where it ends at the Flint River (the confluence of the two forming Florida's Apalachicola River), and goes almost due east and very slightly south, in a straight line to the origin of the St. Mary's River, which then forms the remainder of the boundary back to the ocean.

It should be noted that the water boundaries are still set to be the original thalweg of the rivers. Since then, several have been inundated by lakes created by dams, including theApalachicola/Chattahoochee/Flint point now under Lake Seminole.

Georgia state legislators have claimed that the state's border with Tennessee has been erroneously placed one mile (1.6 km) further south than intended in an 1818 survey, and in 2010 proposed that the border should be corrected. This would allow Georgia, then in the midst of a significant drought, to access water from the Tennessee River.

Geology and terrain

Each region has its own distinctive characteristics. For instance, the Ridge and Valley, which lies in the northwest corner of the state, includes limestone, sandstone, shale and other sedimentary rocks, which have yielded construction-grade limestone, barite, ocher and small amounts of coal.Main article: Geology of Georgia (U.S. state)

Flora

The state of Georgia has approximately 250 tree species and 58 protected plants. Georgia's native trees include red cedar, a variety of pines, oaks, maples, cypress, sweetgum and scaly-bark and white hickories, as well as many others. Palmettos and other subtropical flora are found in the southern and coastal regions. Yellow jasmine, and mountain laurel make up just a few of the flowering shrubs in the state.

Fauna

White-tailed (Virginia) deer are in nearly all counties. The northern mockingbird and Brown Thrasher are among the 160 bird species that live in the state.

Reptiles include the eastern diamondback, copperhead, and cottonmouth, salamanders, frogs, alligators and toads. There are about 79 species of reptile and 63 amphibians known to live in Georgia.

The most popular freshwater game fish are trout, bream, bass, and catfish, all but the last of which are produced in state hatcheries for restocking. Popular saltwater game fish include red drum, spotted seatrout, flounder, and tarpon, among many others. Porpoises, whales, shrimp, oysters, and blue crabs are found inshore and offshore of the Georgia coast.

середа, 24 жовтня 2012 р.

Climate

The majority of the state is primarily a humid subtropical climate. Hot and humid summers are typical, except at the highest elevations. The entire state, including the north Georgia mountains, receives moderate to heavy precipitation, which varies from 45 inches (1143 mm) in central Georgia to approximately 75 inches (1905 mm) around the northeast part of the state. The degree to which the weather of a certain region of Georgia is subtropical depends on the latitude, its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico and the elevation. The latter factor is felt chiefly in the mountainous areas of the northern part of the state, which are farther away from the ocean and can be 4500 feet (1350 m) above sea level. The USDA Plant hardiness zones for Georgia range from zone 6b (no colder than −5 °F (−21 °C) ) in the Blue Ridge Mountainsto zone 8b (no colder than 15 °F (−9 °C) ) along the Atlantic coast and Florida border.

The highest temperature ever recorded is 112 °F (44.4 °C) at Louisville on July 24, 1952, while the lowest is −17 °F (−27.2 °C) at northern Floyd County on January 27, 1940. Georgia is one of the leading states in frequency oftornadoes, though they rarely are stronger than F1. A tornado hit downtown Atlanta on March 14, 2008, causing moderate to severe damage. With a coastline on the Atlantic Ocean, Georgia is also vulnerable to hurricanes, although direct hurricane strikes were rare during the 20th century. Georgia often is affected by hurricanes that strike the Florida panhandle, weaken over land, and bring strong tropical storm winds and heavy rain to the interior, as well as hurricanes that come close to the Georgia coastline, brushing the coast on their way north.

середа, 17 жовтня 2012 р.

Georgia

A state of the southeast United States.

Prior to discovery and settlement by Europeans, Georgia was inhabited by the mound building cultures. The British colony of Georgia was founded by James Oglethorpe on February 11, 1733 (February 1, 1732 O.S.). The colony was administered by the Trustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America under a charter issued by (and named for) King George II. The Trustees implemented an elaborate plan for settlement of the colony, known as the Oglethorpe Plan, which envisioned an agrarian society of yeoman farmers and prohibited slavery. In 1742 the colony was invaded by the Spanish during the War of Jenkins' Ear. In 1752, after the government failed to renew subsidies that had helped support the colony, the Trustees turned over control to the crown. Georgia became a crown colony, with a governor appointed by the king.

Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, June 27, 1864.

Province of Georgia was one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution by signing the 1776 Declaration of Independence. After the war, Georgia became the fourth state of the Union after ratifying the Constitution on January 2, 1788.

In 1829, gold was discovered in the north Georgia mountains, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush leading to the establishment of a federal mint in Dahlonega that continued operation until 1861. The influx of white settlers put pressure on the government to take land from the Cherokee Nation. In 1830, the Indian Removal Act was signed into law. This resulting in sending many eastern Native American nations to reservations in present-day Oklahoma, including all of Georgia's tribes. Despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Worcester v. Georgia, that states were not permitted to redraw the Indian boundaries, President Andrew Jackson and the state of Georgia ignored the ruling. In 1838, his successor, Martin Van Buren dispatched federal troops to round up the Cherokee and deport them west of the Mississippi. This forced relocation, known as the Trail of Tears, led to the death of over 4,000 Cherokees.

In early 1861 Georgia joined the Confederacy and became a major theater of the Civil War. Major battles took place at Chickamauga, Kennesaw Mountain, and Atlanta. In December 1864, a large swath of the state from Atlanta to Savannah was destroyed during General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea. 18,253 Georgian soldiers died in service, roughly 1 of every 5 who served. In 1870, following reconstruction, Georgia became the last Confederate state restored to the Union.

четвер, 21 березня 2013 р.