American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Developed in response to the Great Recession, the ARRAs primary objective was to save existing jobs and create new ones as soon as possible. Other objectives were to provide relief programs for those most affected by the recession and invest in infrastructure, health. The approximate cost of the stimulus package was estimated to be $787 billion at the time of passage. Since its inception, the impact of the stimulus has been a subject of disagreement, studies on its effects have produced a range of conclusions, from strongly positive to strongly negative and all reactions in between. IGM Forum asked the question to leading economists in 2014. This new poll found 82% of leading economists strongly agreed or agreed that unemployment was lower in 2010 than it would have been without the stimulus. Revisiting the question about the benefits outweighing the costs, 56% strongly agreed or agreed that it did, 23% were uncertain, both the House and the Senate versions of the bills were primarily written by Democratic Congressional committee leaders and their staffs.
Because work on the bills started before President Obama officially took office on January 20,2009, the House version of the bill, H. R.1, was introduced on January 26,2009. It was sponsored by Democrat David Obey, the House Appropriations Committee chairman, on January 23, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said that the bill was on track to be presented to President Obama for him to sign into law before February 16,2009. Although 206 amendments were scheduled for floor votes, they were combined into only 11, on January 28,2009, the House passed the bill by a 244–188 vote. All but 11 Democrats voted for the bill, and 177 Republicans voted against it, the senate version of the bill, S.1, was introduced on January 6,2009, and substituted as an amendment to the House bill, S. Amdt. It was sponsored by Harry Reid, the Majority Leader, co-sponsored by 16 other Democrats and Joe Lieberman, the Senate began consideration of the bill starting with the $275 billion tax provisions in the week of February 2,2009.
Republicans proposed several amendments to the bill directed at increasing the share of tax cuts, the Senate called a special Saturday debate session for February 7 at the urging of President Obama. The Senate voted, 61–36 on February 9 to end debate on the bill, on February 10, the Senate voted 61–37 All the Democrats voted in favor, but only three Republicans voted in favor. Specter switched to the Democratic Party in the year, at one point, the Senate bill stood at $838 billion. Senate Republicans forced a near unprecedented level of changes in the House bill, the biggest losers were states and the low income workers with major gains for the elderly and high income tax-payers. Additional debt costs would add about $350 billion or more over 10 years, many provisions were set to expire in two years. The House had more funds appropriated for education and for aid to low income workers, direct cash payments Senate – $17 billion to give one-time $300 payments to recipients of Supplemental Security Income and Social Security, and veterans receiving disability and pensions
Tidal Basin
The Tidal Basin is a partially man-made reservoir between the Potomac River and the Washington Channel in Washington, D. C. It is part of West Potomac Park and is a point of the National Cherry Blossom Festival held each spring. The Jefferson Memorial, the Martin Luther King, Jr, National Memorial, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, and the George Mason Memorial are situated adjacent to the Tidal Basin. The basin covers an area of about 107 acres and is 10 feet deep, peter Conover Hains, an engineering officer in the U. S. Army, oversaw the design and construction. The basin was initially named Twining Lake, in honor of Major William Johnson Twining, a 1917 Army Corps of Engineers map of Washington already shows the basin with the name Twining Lake. The Tidal Basin which exists today was not laid out until after World War II and it was built in 1949 by the construction firm of Alexander and Repass, which was unusual at that time because Alexander was of African descent and Repass was of European descent.
The basin is designed to release 250 million US gallons of water captured at high tide twice a day, the inlet gates, located on the Potomac side of the basin, allow water to enter the basin during high tide. During this time, the gates, on the Washington Channel side, close to store incoming water and block the flow of water. As the tide begins to ebb, the outflow of water from the basin forces the inlet gates to close. This same force is applied to the gates, which open into the channel. Silt build up is swept away by the force of water running from the Tidal Basin through the channel. The gates are maintained as navigable by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, the bridge was designed by Paul Cret, begun in 1941, completed 1943 and altered with dedication in 1954. It is of concrete and steel on pilings, all granite faced, as part of the restoration and redesign of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, completed in 2012, water is pumped from the Tidal Basin to fill the pool. The Tidal Basin was the scene of a drunken incident involving the Chairman of the U. S.
House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means. Mills was intoxicated and his face was cut from a scuffle with Foxe, when police approached the car, Foxe leapt from the car and jumped into the nearby Tidal Basin. Despite the scandal, Mills was re-elected to Congress in November 1974 with 60% of the vote, soon after this second embarrassment Mills was forced to step down from his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee. Mills eventually acknowledged his alcoholism, sought treatment at the West Palm Beach Institute and he did not seek re-election in 1976. From mid-March until October, paddle-boats are available for rent, the activity is very popular during the Cherry Blossom Festival, which takes place in April
Clay
Clay is a fine-grained natural rock or soil material that combines one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure. Clays are plastic due to water content and become hard, brittle. Depending on the content in which it is found, clay can appear in various colours from white to dull grey or brown to deep orange-red. Although many naturally occurring deposits include both silts and clay, clays are distinguished from other fine-grained soils by differences in size, which are fine-grained soils that do not include clay minerals, tend to have larger particle sizes than clays. There is, some overlap in size and other physical properties. The distinction between silt and clay varies by discipline and soil scientists usually consider the separation to occur at a particle size of 2 µm, sedimentologists often use 4–5 μm, and colloid chemists use 1 μm.
Geotechnical engineers distinguish between silts and clays based on the plasticity properties of the soil, as measured by the soils Atterberg limits, ISO14688 grades clay particles as being smaller than 2 μm and silt particles as being larger. These solvents, usually acidic, migrate through the rock after leaching through upper weathered layers. In addition to the process, some clay minerals are formed through hydrothermal activity. There are two types of deposits and secondary. Primary clays form as residual deposits in soil and remain at the site of formation, secondary clays are clays that have been transported from their original location by water erosion and deposited in a new sedimentary deposit. Clay deposits are associated with very low energy depositional environments such as large lakes. Depending on the source, there are three or four main groups of clays, montmorillonite-smectite and chlorite. Chlorites are not always considered to be a clay, sometimes being classified as a group within the phyllosilicates.
There are approximately 30 different types of clays in these categories. Varve is clay with visible annual layers, which are formed by deposition of those layers and are marked by differences in erosion. This type of deposit is common in glacial lakes
Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument
The Belmont-Paul Womens Equality National Monument is a historic house and museum of the U. S. womens suffrage and equal rights movements located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D. C. The monument is named after suffragists and National Womans Party leaders Alva Belmont, since 1929 the house has served as headquarters of the National Womans Party, a key political organization in the fight for womens suffrage. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, from 1972 to 2016, the Sewall-Belmont National Historic Site was an affiliated unit of the National Park Service. In 2016, President Barack Obama designated it a National Monument, affording it more protection and likely more funding. On June 20,1632, Charles I, King of England, made a grant in North America to Cecilius Calvert. Lord Baltimore established counties within the province, and provincial courts further subdivided counties into areas known as hundreds, one of these was New Scotland Hundred. Its southern boundary was the Potomac River, extending from the mouth of Oxon Creek upstream to Little Falls Rapids, on February 12,1663, the third Lord Baltimore granted a land patent of 1,000 acres in New Scotland Hundred to George Thompson.
The property changed hands, was subdivided, and inherited a number of times before it came into the possession of nine-year-old Daniel Carroll in 1773, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, about December 1790, Washington chose the site now known as the District of Columbia. Congress ratified his decision in 1791, Congress subsequently purchased all land in the new district from its private owners, including Carroll. The district was divided into squares, and each square into lots, Daniel Carroll purchased lot 1 in square 725 on October 18,1793, for $266.66, and the same day the federal government gave lot 32 in square 725 back to Carroll gratis. Robert Sewall purchased lot 2 in square 725 for $429.33 on October 18, the construction of the main house occurred in 1799 and 1800. The main house was essentially an addition to the front of a one-room farmhouse believed to date from 1750, although the Sewall family rarely occupied the home, its size and location led many prominent government leaders to reside there.
These included Albert Gallatin, who served as Secretary of the Treasury under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Senator from Maryland, United States Attorney General, and U. S. Tradition maintains that British troops set fire to the house during the War of 1812, the house has undergone several architectural changes and restorations. After the house was burned by the British in 1814. Congress declined to award them, so Sewall himself paid to have the structure repaired in 1820, a stable was probably added to the property at this time. Sewall died in the house on December 16,1820, leaving the building to his wife, Polly and it is unclear which of these continued to live in the house, but Susan definitely lived in it until her death in 1837
Lincoln Memorial
The Lincoln Memorial is an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is located on the end of the National Mall in Washington. Dedicated in 1922, it is one of several built to honor an American president. It has always been a major tourist attraction and since the 1930s has been a symbolic center focused on race relations and it has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since October 15,1966. It is open to the public 24 hours a day, in 2007, it was ranked seventh on the List of Americas Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects. Since 2010, approximately 6 million people visit the memorial annually, the first public memorial to Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D. C. was a statue by Lot Flannery erected in front of the District of Columbia City Hall in 1868, three years after Lincolns assassination. Demands for a national memorial had been voiced since the time of Lincolns death. In 1867, Congress passed the first of many bills incorporating a commission to erect a monument for the sixteenth president, an American sculptor, Clark Mills, was chosen to design the monument.
Subscriptions for the project were insufficient, the first five bills, proposed in the years 1901,1902, and 1908, met with defeat because of opposition from Speaker Joe Cannon. The sixth bill, introduced on December 13,1910, the Lincoln Memorial Commission had its first meeting the following year and U. S. President William H. Taft was chosen as the commissions president. Progress continued at a pace and by 1913 Congress had approved of the Commissions choice of design. There were questions regarding the commissions plan, many thought that architect Henry Bacons Greek temple design was far too ostentatious for a man of Lincolns humble character. Instead they proposed a simple log cabin shrine, the site too did not go unopposed. The recently reclaimed land in West Potomac Park was seen by many to be too swampy or too inaccessible. Other sites, such as Union Station, were put forth, the Potomac Park site had already been designated in the McMillan Plan of 1901 to be the location of a future monument comparable to that of the Washington Monument.
With Congressional approval and a $300,000 allocation, the project got underway, on February 12,1914, a dedication ceremony was conducted and the following month the actual construction began. Work progressed steadily according to schedule, some changes were made to the plan. The statue of Lincoln, originally designed to be 10 feet tall, was enlarged to 19 feet to prevent it from being overwhelmed by the huge chamber
Henry Bacon
Henry Bacon was an American Beaux-Arts architect who is best remembered for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C. which was his final project. Henry Bacon was born in Watseka, Illinois. C, the Confederate Memorial in Wilmington, North Carolina, and many other distinguished public buildings and monuments. In Turkey, he met his wife, Laura Florence Calvert. He traveled with another student, Albert Kahn who would become a leading industrial architect. In 1897, Bacon left MMW to found, with James Brite, an architect from the firm. There Brite was in charge of financial and contracting aspects of the partnership, while Bacon was in charge of the architectural design and construction. The La Fetra Mansion was designed and built by Bacon, and his design was published in the September 1901 issue of Architecture, the LeFetra Mansion fully exhibits Bacons preference for Beaux-Arts Neo-Greek and Roman architecture style. His simple and elegant lines and his skill in dimensions and proportions gave rise to a stately elegance, peaceful tranquility, and a sense of divine protection.
In 1897, Bacon was approached by a group which was organized with the intent to raise public and private funds to build a monument in Washington, DC to memorialize Abraham Lincoln. The Brite and Bacon Partnership dissolved in 1902 partly resulting from Brites disagreement over Bacons passion, after that, Bacon practiced under his own name with significant success, building a large number of famous public buildings and monuments, until his death in 1924. In 1913, Bacon was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, Bacon was very active as a designer of monuments and settings for public sculpture. He designed the Court of the Four Seasons, for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, olin Memorial Library, one of Bacons buildings at Wesleyan University, houses many of Bacons documents and blueprints of the Lincoln Memorial. Bacon rarely found time to design for private residences, there are three known residential projects that are clearly his work. The first is the La Fetra Mansion in Summit, New Jersey, Bacon skillfully integrated into a residential setting many of his signature Greek Revival and Roman Renaissance elements and proportions.
The resulting elegance was astoundingly masterful, the La Fetra Mansion was commissioned by industrialist Harold A. La Fetra of the Royal Baking Powder Company, which merged with RJR Nebisco. The second is a mountain resort Donald McRae House in Wilmington. Its exterior bears similarity the La Fetra Mansion Bacon served as a member of the U. S, commission of Fine Arts from 1921 until his death in 1924
I Have a Dream
Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C. the speech was a defining moment of the Civil Rights Movement. Beginning with a reference to the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed millions of slaves in 1863, King observes that, one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. Toward the end of the speech, King departed from his text for a partly improvised peroration on the theme I have a dream, prompted by Mahalia Jacksons cry, Tell them about the dream. In this part of the speech, which most excited the listeners and has now become its most famous, King described his dreams of freedom and equality arising from a land of slavery and hatred. Jon Meacham writes that, With a single phrase, Martin Luther King Jr. joined Jefferson, the speech was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century in a 1999 poll of scholars of public address. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was partly intended to demonstrate support for the civil rights legislation proposed by President Kennedy in June.
Martin Luther King and other leaders therefore agreed to keep their speeches calm, King originally designed his speech as a homage to Abraham Lincolns Gettysburg Address, timed to correspond with the 100-year centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. King had been preaching about dreams since 1960, when he gave a speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called The Negro, King suggests that It may well be that the Negro is Gods instrument to save the soul of America. In 1961, he spoke of the Civil Rights Movement and student activists dream of equality—the American Dream, a dream as yet unfulfilled—in several national speeches and statements, and took the dream as the centerpiece for these speeches. On November 27,1962, King gave a speech at Booker T. Washington High School in Rocky Mount and that speech was longer than the version which he would eventually deliver from the Lincoln Memorial. And while parts of the text had been moved around, large portions were identical, after being rediscovered, the restored and digitized recording of the 1962 speech was presented to the public by the English department of North Carolina State University.
Martin Luther King had delivered a speech in Detroit, in June 1963, when he marched on Woodward Avenue with Walter Reuther and the Reverend C. L. Franklin. The March on Washington Speech, known as I Have a Dream Speech, has shown to have had several versions. It has no single version draft, but is an amalgamation of several drafts, little of this, and another Normalcy Speech, ended up in the final draft. A draft of Normalcy, Never Again is housed in the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection of the Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, the focus on I have a dream comes through the speechs delivery. Toward the end of its delivery, noted African American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson shouted to King from the crowd, Tell them about the dream, King departed from his prepared remarks and started preaching improvisationally, punctuating his points with I have a dream. The speech was drafted with the assistance of Stanley Levison and Clarence Benjamin Jones in Riverdale, March, a recording of Kings Cobo Hall speech was released by Detroits Gordy Records as an LP entitled The Great March To Freedom.
Early in his speech, King alludes to Abraham Lincolns Gettysburg Address by saying Five score years ago, in reference to the abolition of slavery articulated in the Emancipation Proclamation, King says, It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity
Reflecting pool
A reflecting pool or reflection pool is a water feature found in gardens, and at memorial sites. It usually consists of a pool of water, undisturbed by fountain jets. Reflecting pools are designed with the outer basin floor at the rim slightly deeper than the central area to suppress wave formation. They can be as small as a bath to as large as a major civic element. Their origins are from ancient Persian gardens, the Miroir deau on Place de la Bourse in Bordeaux, France, is the worlds largest reflecting pool. The Mughal garden reflecting pools at the Taj Mahal in Agra, India Chehel Sotoun in Iran The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the modernist Palácio do Planalto and Palácio da Alvorada in Brasília, Brazil The King Center in Atlanta, Georgia commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum, located in New York City, has two reflecting pools on the location where the Twin Towers stood
African Americans
African Americans are an ethnic group of Americans with total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. The term may be used to only those individuals who are descended from enslaved Africans. As a compound adjective the term is usually hyphenated as African-American and African Americans constitute the third largest racial and ethnic group in the United States. Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved peoples within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of 73. 2–80. 9% West African, 18–24% European, according to US Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not self-identify as African American. The overwhelming majority of African immigrants identify instead with their own respective ethnicities, immigrants from some Caribbean, Central American and South American nations and their descendants may or may not self-identify with the term. After the founding of the United States, black people continued to be enslaved, believed to be inferior to white people, they were treated as second-class citizens.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited U. S. citizenship to whites only, in 2008, Barack Obama became the first African American to be elected President of the United States. The first African slaves arrived via Santo Domingo to the San Miguel de Gualdape colony, the ill-fated colony was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves revolted and fled the colony to seek refuge among local Native Americans. De Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly afterwards of an epidemic, the settlers and the slaves who had not escaped returned to Haiti, whence they had come. The first recorded Africans in British North America were 20 and odd negroes who came to Jamestown, as English settlers died from harsh conditions and more Africans were brought to work as laborers. Typically, young men or women would sign a contract of indenture in exchange for transportation to the New World, the landowner received 50 acres of land from the state for each servant purchased from a ships captain.
An indentured servant would work for years without wages. The status of indentured servants in early Virginia and Maryland was similar to slavery, servants could be bought, sold, or leased and they could be physically beaten for disobedience or running away. Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom and they raised families, married other Africans and sometimes intermarried with Native Americans or English settlers. By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown and some became wealthy by colonial standards and purchased indentured servants of their own. In 1640, the Virginia General Court recorded the earliest documentation of slavery when they sentenced John Punch. One of Dutch African arrivals, Anthony Johnson, would own one of the first black slaves, John Casor
Drinking water
Drinking water, known as potable water or improved drinking water, is water that is safe to drink or to use for food preparation, without risk of health problems. Globally, in 2015, 91% of people had access to suitable for drinking. Nearly 4.2 billion had access to tap water while another 2.4 billion had access to wells or public taps,1.8 billion people still use an unsafe drinking water source which may be contaminated by feces. This can result in infectious diarrhea such as cholera and typhoid among others, the amount of drinking water required is variable. It depends on activity, health issues. It is estimated that the average American drinks about one litre of water a day with 95% drinking less than three litres per day, for those working in a hot climate, up to 16 liters a day may be required. Water makes up about 60% of weight in men and 55% of weight in women, infants are about 70% to 80% water while the elderly are around 45%. Typically in developed countries, tap water meets drinking water quality standards, other typical uses include washing and irrigation.
Greywater may be used for toilets or irrigation and its use for irrigation however may be associated with risks. Water may be due to levels of toxins or suspended solids. Reduction of waterborne diseases and development of water resources is a major public health goal in developing countries. Bottled water is sold for consumption in most parts of the world. The word potable came into English from the Late Latin potabilis, the amount of drinking water required is variable. It depends on activity, age and environmental conditions. It is estimated that the average American drinks about one litre of water a day with 95% drinking less than three litres per day, for those working in a hot climate, up to 16 litres per day may be required. Some health authorities have suggested that at least eight glasses of eight fl oz each are required by an adult per day, the British Dietetic Association recommends 1.8 litres. However, various reviews of the evidence performed in 2002 and 2008 could not find any scientific evidence recommending eight glasses of water per day.
An individuals thirst provides a guide for how much water they require rather than a specific
Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial is a presidential memorial in Washington, D. C. honoring American Civil War general and U. S. President Ulysses S. Grant. It sits at the base of Capitol Hill, below the west front of the United States Capitol and its sculpture of Grant on horseback faces west, over the Capitol Reflecting Pool and toward the Lincoln Memorial, which honors Grants wartime president, Abraham Lincoln. Grants statue rests on a pedestal decorated with reliefs of the infantry, flanking pedestals hold statues of protective lions. The Grant and Lincoln memorials define the eastern and western ends, the Grant Memorial is a contributor to the Civil War Monuments in Washington, D. C. of the National Register of Historic Places. James M. Goodes authoritative The Grant Memorial in Washington, D. C. calls it one of the most important sculptures in Washington and it includes the second-largest equestrian statue in the United States and the fourth-largest in the world. The Grant Memorial is in Union Square, which encompasses the Capitol Reflecting Pool.
The platform for the Monument, made of Vermont marble, is 252 feet long and 71 feet wide and is divided into three sections. The tall, middle section features a 10, 700-pound, 17-foot-2-inch high equestrian statue depicting Grant astride his war horse Cincinnati on a 22½-foot high marble pedestal, a striking feature of the central statue is Grants calm attitude amidst the raging fighting going on around him. This is not surprising because Grant was known for his calmness and coolheadedness during battle, surrounding the main pedestal are four shorter pedestals, each supporting a bronze lion in repose guarding both the United States flag and the flags of the Army. The memorial was the largest bronze sculpture cast in the United States at that time, the Artillery Group to the south shows a caisson carrying three artillerymen and pulled by three horses. Astride the horse on the left is the carrier who is signaling a sharp right wheel. Despite the impending course change the horse on the right is able to continue lunging forward due to a strap on the right bridle bit.
To the north the Cavalry Group depicts a squad consisting of seven cavalrymen charging into battle. The horse on the right has fallen and the rider, modeled after Shrady himself, is moments from being trampled by the onrushing horses, the drive to erect a monument to Grant was begun in the 1890s by the Society of the Army of the Tennessee. Work on the memorial was begun in 1902 as the largest ever commissioned by Congress at the time, was created by sculptor Henry Merwin Shrady, sculptor Edmond Amateis assisted Shrady as the monument neared completion in 1921. Shrady spent 20 years of his working on the memorial and died and overworked. The sculptures were cast in bronze at the Roman Bronze Works in New York, construction on the site of the memorial began in 1909 when the marble superstructure and the four bronze lions were installed. The Artillery Group was installed in 1912, the Cavalry Group in 1916, the memorial was dedicated on the 100th anniversary of Grants birth, April 27,1922
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