by Annette Birch
For Kevin Spacey Netflix may not have been the only choice for his production of the TV-series “House of Cards” – but in the end he considers it to be the best choice.
“Netflix was the only one which did not say ‘Do a pilot.’ They just said: How many seasons do you want to do?” Spacey on Nov. 4 told a full crowd at Georgetown University. Now, he wouldn’t do it any other way. “We could do things we couldn’t do on a regular network.”
Trailer from Netflix’ popular TV-series “House of Cards” on YouTube.
Spacey explained that one of the reasons why Netflix has been so popular is that it gives people the possibility of being in control. They can choose when to watch the movies or TV-series and how much to watch. And it is cheap.
And it seems he is right. Netflix has been able to capture the modern audience by offering producers and actors a more flexible, creative environment and their audience a forum where they are in control. Today, Netflix has 23 million subscribers and last year its stock increased over 200 percent.
The reactions to Netflix transforming its strategy from a DVD by mail distributor and streamer of already produced content to a streamlining producer of original content has been overwhelming. After “House of Cards” was aired, other producers have followed suit and this summer, Netflix received 14 Emmy nominations, nine for “House of Cards,” three for “Arrested Development” and two for “Hemlock Grove.” And its new series “Orange is a New Black,” is already a huge success.
Trailer from Netflix’ TV series “Orange is the New Black.”
Other networks like NBC Universal and Amazon have followed suit and also begun pouring money into streaming original TV-shows, according to CNBC .
This raises the question of whether the streaming networks have made cable TV redundant. A survey from Harris Interactive ” target=”_blank”>survey from Harris Interactive </a>found that 53 percent of all Americans viewed digitally streaming content on an internet-enabled device. In particular streaming television was particularly popular with people btween 18 and 35 and with families with children. However, a recent study from Price Waterhouse Coopers shows that 70 percent of the respondents said they subscribe to cable TV and that even younger consumers pay for cable TV.
The reality is probably that today’s consumers want it all – and now they can have it. Before, TV could dominate the daily entertainment as the web was more a place for tech savy people, according to <a title=”Michael Wolff from USA Today.But as the web becomes an integral piece of our lives (and a whole generation has grown up with it), the speed and the possibility of choice also becomes a part of what we want, for good and for worse. As the net moves away from solely being the domain of tech people, it can become a new place for creativity, for telling stories – and thereby for producing entertainment.
Some people have objected that one of the problems with Netflix is that it has not been able to stream all the traditional high-quality movies, while others object to the change in pace in releasing all episodes at once and not one per week.
This is not only a problem which has been raised with TV but with everything from work to hobbies to private life – that life just goes faster and faster. Before, the choices were made for us. Not anymore. But more choices require the ability to choose not only what TV shows we want to see and how, but what life we would like to have. History tells us that life is not going to slow down, but the present debate shows that that we are just in the wake of learning how to choose between enormous amounts of information on the internet.
Netflix has successfully entered this competition and so have other streaming entertainments, but people are still watching cable TV. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, does not think that Netflix will or should limit the competition and existence of either other streaming or cable networks, an opinion quite in accordance with the original idea of the free exchange of information on the web.
“So I think more shows is better. And they don’t steal from each other – they build on each other,” Hastings said to CNBC on July 23.
By Annette Birch
A new study shows that Asian immigrants are not applying for the two-year work permit under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) as much as Mexican immigrants. The study was presented on the one year anniversary for the start of the Deferred Action by Tom K. Wong, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego.
“One of the things we have to look into is why DACA is not performing evenly among all ethnic groups,” Wong said at a conference held by the Center for American Progress.
Audrey Singer, senior fellow at the nonprofit Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, agreed. Her study of Deferred Action applications showed that most applicants came from Mexico and that immigrants with a Chinese background are not even among the top 25.
In the period from August 15, 2012, to March 22, 2013, the immigration service received 465,509 applications from undocumented immigrants for deferred status. By June 30, over 400,000 applications have been approved. However, the studies show that the applications are not evenly divided among ethnic groups: 93.5 percent of all applicants are immigrants from Latin American countries. Immigrants from Asian countries only make up 4.2 percent of the total number of applications, even though analysts had projected that they would make up 6.1 percent of the applicants.
However, Wong’s study shows that within the Asian group the ratio of applications varies substantially from nationality to nationality. Immigrants with Korean and Indian background are likelier to apply for deferred status than immigrants with a Chinese background, although there had been several attempts by ethnic media in Los Angeles to reach the Chinese population.
“We have to cut through the culture and shame that some Chinese have. Asian families are also pursuing legal status through other means, like work permit,” Wong said. He pointed to the effort by the Latin American community in reaching out to undocumented Latin American immigrants as well as the effort of the Mexican consulate to help find the necessary documents to apply for deferred status.
However, as long as Congress has not adopted a comprehensive federal immigration reform, the future for all undocumented immigrants remains uncertain. The Deferred Action only grants the immigrants a two-year period where they can stay legally in the United States. At the end of that period they have no guarantee that their permits will be renewed and that they will not be deported. Roberto G. Gonzales, Assistant Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, therefore found that the adoption of a comprehensive immigration reform was the only way to ensure immigrants a safe future.
“DACA-recipients want further integration. They feel American,” Gonzales said.
By Annette Birch
Published at The Capital Post, http://thecapitalpost.com/living-life-with-lung-cancer-p-24735.html
Richard Heimler, 53, was diagnosed with lung cancer nine years ago and has been on permanent disability leave since 2007. Today, he spends his time advocating for more funding for lung cancer research, his family and using his fundraising skills from his last job to raise money volunteering for a non-profit in downtown New York with gay lesbian youths who have been psychologically or physically abused and need a new environment to flourish. This is his story as told to Annette Birch.
“It was in May 2004. I was coming back from a business trip in London and I just came off the plane and I just had heart palpitations and I didn’t understand why. I went back to my apartment, I woke up the next morning, I called a friend of mine who is a cardiologist. And he thought I might be having a heart attack. So I went to his hospital and we did a battery of tests and on one of the X-rays he saw a very small spot that was not related to the chest pains. The chest pains could have been capital pressure for being on the plane for so long.
I do not have a medical background, I did not know anything about lung cancer, I did not know the statistics. He just said it was a spot. A few days later I had a PET scan and I lit up at the PET scan and we knew it was more serious than scar tissue. So we started with doctors in the nearer community and had a biopsy and then it was confirmed that it was lung cancer.
I was numb and I really had no idea of the magnitude of my illness. And I did not know at that time that 60 percent die within the first year, 90 percent die within five years, that every year 200,000 are diagnosed. I didn’t know and that was probably a good thing. My mother has a medical background because she is a genetic counselor so I kind of let her run with everything. She became my primary advocate and she was the one who arranged my doctor’s visits and told me where to show up and when. It was a while before I really understood the severity of my health situation.
At the time I just needed to know what I had to do in the moment to get the best chances to survive. Because I was a healthy 44 year-old the doctors all felt strongly that we should remove my entire lung. Again, I did not know how that was going to change my life. The problem with that for me is I have scoliosis so my left lung is compromised by my spine so at the time it left me with only 32 percent breathing. This lung does 50 percent and the other does 48, but mine was only doing 32. So they were very concerned about that. But again, it gave me the best chance to survive, my children at that point were 16 and 14, and they were just too young to lose their dad. I was going to do anything I could to stay alive.
I worked for two years but it just became too difficult for me to travel, to carry things and I didn’t have the stamina to work a full day, a full week. And at that time I was taking a very debilitating treatment and it was very difficult to also work at the same time.
In 2006 my cancer had taken a turn for the worse. My pulmonary function was at a level that was low enough to qualify for full-time disability from social security and because of my treatments and my physical health I was not able to continue with the responsibilities I had at my last job so I went on permanent disability from that company and also with permanent disability from social security because I just cannot work physically and mentally a full time week 40 or 50 hours a week.
[Then] three years ago I was diagnosed with tumors on my left lung. So it was very debilitating for I had been on chemotherapy for two solid years. My doctor told me about these clinical trials and we thought we had nothing to lose because the chemotherapy wasn’t killing the tumors, it was just stabilizing them. Phizer created this drug, called Xalkori. It was approved by the FDA and it only works on three to five percent of lung cancer patients which has a gene which is the ALK. I have that gene. So instead of taking debilitating intravenous chemotherapy I am taking three pills in the morning and three pills a night, and that’s it.
Being on this trial has meant all these terrible effects of chemotherapy I don’t have them anymore. From a vanity point of view, I wasn’t going to lose my hair, my skin color wasn’t going to look different and I wasn’t going to lose weight, have a bad appetite or bad taste. With the medication I have now there are no side effects so I live the healthiest I have been in nine years which is great. I look like a healthy person. My breathing now is up to 37 percent. So I can really live a normal life at least what I call a new normal and I can do things; if I want to travel, to volunteer, go to the movies, visit my friends. Now, it may not be curable but it is treatable and it is livable.
I have had seven re-occurrences. I want to believe that I am the same person that I always was when it came to enjoying life, living a good life, fulfilling life. For my kids, my family and my friends I proved to them that I was still me, that I could still lead a very active life.
I call myself a reluctant advocate because this was not my platform when I was 43. But I now know that I have a responsibility to help raise lung cancer to a national and international health priority because of things like the smoking stigma and I never smoked. After heart disease lung cancer kills the most people but you never hear about lung cancer and celebrities who are diagnosed with lung cancer they don’t want to talk about it. I think it is important for me as an advocate to get the word out that lung cancer needs to be raised to a new level of attention when it comes to research, funding, treatment, things like that. The other part for me is to show people that you can live a productive life with lung cancer that you can beat the odds. Now with all the gen-personalized medicine it is a very different world than when I started eight or nine years ago and so the future is very promising.
With lung cancer you never get to a point where you can say that you have beaten it. Lung cancer, you know I have gone two years, three years without a re-occurrence and then you get a reoccurrence. I had two in the last year but right now the scans are clean but every three months I have new scans and you just don’t know what they are going to tell you. The reality with lung cancer is that very few people survive. I am lucky that I lived nine years with it. I hope to live 30 more years. But the thing you hope for is to live the longest life span between recurrences and also to stay alive long enough until a better treatment comes along that gives you a better change to survive.”
Photo by Roswell Park, http://www.flickr.com/photos/roswellpark/6344065167/sizes/s/in/faves-87276657@N03/
Photo by Marion Doss, posted at Flickr, http://bit.ly/18HsDJk
Published at The Capital Post, http://thecapitalpost.com/democratic-senators-call-closing-guantanamo-p-24736.html
By Annette Birch
Democratic senators called for the closing of Guantanamo which they argued is both inhumane and too expensive. Sen. Dick Durban (D-Ill.) asserted at a hearing on July 23rd before the Senate Judiciary subcommittee that the congressional restrictions imposed on the president constitute the greatest obstacles to closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
“It is time to lift those restrictions,” Sen. Durban said.
However, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) questioned whether there was any other facility that could hold the prisoners.
“Unless I am presented with a good plan I cannot see how it is responsible to send these terrorists home where they will commit more terrorist acts,” he said. He pointed to a Jan. 2013 report from the director of National Intelligence stating that 28 percent of former Guantanamo detainees when released engage in terrorism.
During the eleven years Guantanamo has existed, several presidents have vowed that they would shut down the facility if the prisoners could be tried and held elsewhere. In February 2009, George Bush stated to CBS that he would like to close Guantanamo but was waiting for a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on whether inmates can face military tribunals. During his presidential campaign in 2012, Barack Obama promised that he would close Guantanamo. However, the president’s power was limited, when Congress in December last year past theNational Defense Authorization Act, restricting detainee transfers from Guantanamo. Today, there are 166 inmates at Guantanamo Bay; of these 86 have been cleared for transfer, 46 are being held without trial, while 28 are considered to be too dangerous to ever stand trial. The federal government is spending around $900,000 per year on each prisoner according to an article in the Huffington Post on May 3. By comparison, a prisoner in a super-maximum security prison in the United States costs $60,000 to $70,000 at most per prisoner.
Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.), who has just visited Guantanamo, called for the closing of Guantanamo and transfer of the prisoners to high secure facilities in the United States.
“I saw the people there. It is a very different picture than people imagine,” she said referring to the dismal state of the detainees.
Lieutenant Joshua Fryday, who represented a 22-year-old Afghan citizen detained without trial for 10 years at Guantanamo, found that the indefinite detention violated his client’s constitutionally guaranteed rights.
“It is at odds with our oldest principles. We can do better than indefinite detention,” he said. He underscored that the U.S. criminal system was capable of trying terrorists. Since 9/11 500 terrorists have been tried in the United States, while only six persons have been tried on Guantanamo. Sen. Durbin stated that several terrorists who had been tried and found guilty were already held in high secure prisons in Illinois. Sen. Cruz did not believe it was safe for the American people to detain inmates of Guantanamo in prisons on the U.S. mainland.
While the Democrats hold the majority in the Senate, the same division along party lines was evident from the testimony of two Congressmen from the Republican dominated House of Representatives. While Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wa.) believed that the prisoners should be tried and, if found guilty, transferred to high secure prisons in the United States, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Ks.) stated that Guantanamo was necessary for these terrorists as the United States is still at war with Al-Qaeda.
By Annette Birch
Published in The Capital Post, http://thecapitalpost.com/evening-faiths-state-department-p-24528.html
The crystal chandeliers illuminated the Benjamin Franklin room at the State Department as the light outside began to set. The room quickly began to fill with people who came together for a celebratory dinner on July 25 at the State Department, breaking the fast during the Islamic month of Ramadan. Red and orange roses decorated the white tablecloths and waiters in black and white had filled glasses with red pomegranate juice and water. Behind a red line, video cameras were lined up for the event. The room fell silent as Farah Pandith, the first ever Special Representative to Muslim Communities for the State Department, welcomed everyone, emphasizing the importance of reaching out across nations.
“We must explore what is possible and engaging with Muslims on a people to people level,” she said. She introduced their host and initiator of the dinner, Secretary of State John Kerry whom she had met on what she pronounced to be “the last day of normal” – September 10, 2001.
Kerry took the podium welcoming everyone with the traditional Arabic greeting “Assalamu Alaikum.” His audience greeted him back with “Salekum Alaam.”
“Every single one of you were invited here because you are doers. You are all involved in trying to make the world a better place,” he said.
It is the first time since his confirmation as Secretary of State that Kerry has hosted an Iftar, a celebratory dinner traditionally held at the White House. The purpose of the event is to celebrate people and reinforce programs that build bridges of understanding and partnership. In his speech, Kerry welcomed this time for compassion, peace, and celebration of faiths that reaches back to the days of the beginning of the republic and constitutes a core American value.
“America did not always get it right. But no place has ever welcomed so many different communities and worships,” he said to the clicking of knives and forks as the guests began to eat. The great faiths in America could force a common effort for human dignity and create a partnership with common goals, which should be founded on peace, prosperity and cooperation between peoples.
“I just returned from the Middle East where the need has never been greater,” he said and continued with the examples of Libya and Tunisia, where young people seek new ways for improving their situation, underlining the need to include everyone in the process of change.
“We need to reach beyond government to include civil society and people of all kinds,” he said
The next step in the process is already under way. Kerry announced that he is in the process of establishing a first faith office in the State Department that would reach out “across continents and oceans” to people of all faiths.
Kerry ended the speech by going back to his days as governor of Massachusetts, where an Islamic Center was made a reality due to the cooperation of a Rabbi, a Greek Orthodox, and the Iman and urged everyone to follow their example.
“That is what our shared humanity asks of us. Let us treat each other with respect,” he said and stepped down to shake hands with several guests. The room quickly filled with a renewed clicking of forks and knives accompanied by the voices of people of different faiths.
By Annette Birch
The article has been published in The Capital Post, http://bit.ly/1aodREz
At a Senate committee hearing on July 10 several senators questioned the long-term effects on national security of a merger of an American company with a Chinese one. The proposed merger involves the U.S. company Smithfield Foods and the Chinese company Shuanghui. Sen. Stabenow (D-Mich.) was especially concerned that the merger would lead to other Chinese takeovers of U.S. food companies.
“It may be the first in the food business, but it will not be the last. We must take a long term view of what is happening. The importance for our food supply and safety cannot be underestimated,” Sen. Stabenow said.
CEO for Smithfield Food, Larry Pope, assured the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry that the merger would not have any noticeable impact on their business, except increased production.
“This is all about exporting products to China. There will be no import of food from China,” Pope said and stressed that China, for several years, has suffered from food shortage due to severe water shortages and insufficient farmland. Doug Wolf, president of the National Pork Producers Council agreed.
“This is a great opportunity for us to get into the Chinese market. It could pick up our economy,” Wolf said.
Smithfield Foods, which is the world’s largest pork producer and processor, was bought in May by the Chinese company, Shuanghui, for $4.7 billion, making it the largest Chinese takeover of a U.S. company in history. The merger is currently under review for its impact on national security by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIS), which must approve the merger. A bipartisan group of committee members, among these Sens. Stabenow, Tcad Cochran (R-Miss.) and other senators has sent a letter to the Secretary of Treasury, urging him the secretary to take a closer look at the impact foreign purchases like Smithfield Foods have on national security.
At the hearing, Commissioner Daniel Slane of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also raised concerns that the merger is part of an overall Chinese strategy aiming at gaining as much control of the U.S. market as possible.
“It raises the question whether allowing a Chinese organization to dominate the food industry will do any good for the U.S. economy,” Slane said. He emphasized that the Chinese government had a large influence on the Chinese company, Shuanghui, as several of its board members had strong ties with the Chinese Communist Party. He also questioned whether China would really open up its markets to foreign competitors.
Another question raised was whether the merger could pose a threat to the U.S. export of pork to Japan, if China instead of importing pork began exporting it to Japan.
Pope was not concerned the merger would hinder U.S. export of pork to Japan.
“There are very tight food standards in Japan for Chinese products. Pork is 50 percent higher price in China than in the U.S.,” Pope said.
However, Matthew J. Slaughter, faculty director of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, thought the merger had the potential to be a create more jobs for the 22 million unemployed American in the United States.
“The job opportunities come from opportunities created in the world market. These kind of transactions create large benefits,” Slaughter said.
Sen. Stabenow was not impressed.
“China could feed their people by opening up their markets to U.S. companies,” Sen. Stabenow said and invited the other members of the committee to join her in another meeting about the merger with the Department of Treasury. Sen. Johanns (R-Nebr.) did not, however, see a legal mechanism in place that could stop the merger and he did not think Congress would act.
At her bakery, Marcia Crandall sells all kinds of cakes.
By Annette Birch
The article is published at The Capital Post, http://thecapitalpost.com/started-with-wedding-cake-p-23836.html?osCsid=4f5bjq6bj95uj9mgn1l6d7a382
When Marcia Crandall agreed to bake a wedding cake for a friend around nine years ago, she didn’t imagine it would lead to her quitting her day job as a payroll clerk and opening an Alexandria bakery that now has two locations. Today, Occasionally Cake sells cupcakes and all kinds of cakes, offering 170 flavor combinations, but during the wedding season from May to August the focus is on wedding cakes.
“We really get to know our couples well and what they are looking for in a cake and I can do most anything that a couple throws at me,” said Crandall who upon request also do wedding packages with a wedding photographer.
When her friend asked her to make her a wedding cake, Crandall had only made a couple of cakes before, but no major ones.
“I spent a lot of time on the internet learning how to do it. Once the wedding happened and went forward I thought I have to learn how to make cakes and how to do this,” Crandall said.
Crandall began taking classes where she ran into Sabrina Campbell, a friend she knew from church. The two started baking cakes for friends and she tells that “it started to take up so much of our time that we were like we either need to do something about it or just do one cake a month or back it off.”
At last, they got so many orders that they decided to start their own shop in Alexandria near Route One on the way to Mount Vernon. “When we found this place it was four walls and a ceiling and nothing in here,” Crandall said.
The shop opened in 2009, but in the beginning business was slow. “When we opened up the doors, they were all Sabrina’s friends. People we knew from church and things like that.” But soon more business was coming. “We are on Google search, so people will call us and say I drive Route One every day, where are you?”
Today, cupcakes in different colors occupy the counter next to a little table and chairs, while Crandall and two colleagues are busy making and decorating cakes. A wedding cake with 60 servings starts at 400 dollars and can go up after the detail and decoration of the design, while a little wedding cake with cupcakes is 70 dollars for the wedding cake and three dollars per piece for the cupcakes. Crandall had people come into the shop, saying “Oh gosh, I could get a cake at Walmart for 20 dollars.” She does not want to compete with that.
“All of our stuff is custom done, everything is done by order. If you are going to compare me other ways with them, taste, beauty, all of that kind of stuff, I am going to blow them out of the water every time. But if you are only going by cost, I cannot compete there and I am not going to try,” Crandall said.
Last year the shop opened another shop in Old Town Alexandria. Crandall is confident that people will continue to eat her cakes. “One of the things we say a lot is that anybody can make a good-looking cake but to actually open up and eat it and have it be good still is something special. We got an email yesterday (from the bride) that said ‘Just wanted to thank you for making such a beautiful and delicious cake. It looked amazing and everyone kept commenting on how delicious it was.’”
The photo is used with permission from Marcia Crandall, http://www.occasionallycake.com/Site/Occasionally_Cake/About_Us.html
By Annette Birch
The article has been published in The Capital Post, http://thecapitalpost.com/local-groups-call-congress-solve-klamath-water-wars-p-23837.html
In Oregon 96,000 acres of agricultural land may soon be without water because the present drought at the Klamath River Basin has forced local authorities to shut down water for several farmers in the upper basin. According to Becky Hyde, board member at the nonprofit Upper Klamath Water Users Association, who testified before a House committee on June 20, the shutdown would mean that 70,000 animals would be without feed.
“There are a lot of concerned families out there. Some people are saying that they will not be able to make it through the summer,” said Hyde, who represents 400 farming families. She added that her family was among those who will be without water. “Just last Wednesday, the water master delivered the news to my nine-year-old son at home while his dad was out irrigating, that our water would be shut off.”
Along with 16 other local representatives of farmers, tribal leaders, environmental groups and state officials testifying before the committee, Hyde asked Congress to pass legislation which would secure a permanent solution for the distribution of water from the river basin. The groups asked Congress to pass legislation which would implement a 2004 settlement for the Klamath River Basin and give them tools to resist drought. The settlement has never been implemented due to the costs of the settlement.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Or.) agreed that the imminent drought at the Klamath River Basin required immediate action and that some part of the settlement may require federal legislation. However, he thought $800 million was too high a price for Congress to pay and invited recommendations to lower the costs. He also called for California to pay what it was supposed to pay according to the 2004 agreement.
“California is good for solving its financial commitment,” replied John Lair, Secretary for Natural Resources at the California Natural Resources Agency. He added that after having solved its own deficit problem, California is now ready to pay its share.
Mike Connor, Commissioner at the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation, also suggested that $ 250 million out of the $ 800 million could be found through cutting funding from other federal agencies.
by Annette Birch
A new congressional caucus could influence the water dispute between Georgia, Alabama and Florida, which for years have been fighting over the use and distribution of water from Lake Lanier. The caucus, created by Rep. Doug Collins (R-Gainesville) on April 1, will focus on lake levels, water supply and reform of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the organization that manages the lake.
“The plan is to approach from a broad point-of-view on how we can speed up what has been a very lengthy and frustrating experience updating management plans,” Rep. Collins said in an email. He emphasized that while it was not the intent of the caucus to specifically solve the tri-state water dispute, the caucus would look into national issues similar to those at Lake Lanier, where the disagreements over water distribution and the Corps’ management using outdated regulations and procedures have created conflict and criticism.
Joan Cloud, executive director of the non-profit Lake Lanier Association, agreed that a congressional caucus could start a dialogue with the Corps which has been lacking. The caucus could also put pressure on the Corps to review its 50-year-old manual which regulates the distribution, storage and use of water for Lanier. The Corps does not expect the manual to be updated before 2015.
For now, the water supply in Lake Lanier is so abundant that there is plenty of water for Georgia, Alabama and Florida, which all depend on water from the lake for their water supply. However, before 2011 where a court decision gave Georgia the right to a larger portion of the lake’s water supply, the three states were engaged in legal battles over who had a right to water from the lake. Jason Ulseth, technical program director at the Tri-state Conservation Coalition indicated that those days could come again. If the Corps in the present times of plenty does not store enough water in the reservoirs, there will not be enough left to satisfy the needs of all three states in times of extreme drought – which has happened twice in Georgia over the past several years.
“When water gets scarce, then they compete against each other,” Ulseth said. Without federal regulation or a formal agreement, the legal battles could break out again if the three states do not agree with the Corps’ distribution of water supplies.
Rep. Collins expects the three states to reach an agreement on the tri-state water dispute. Instead he will use his caucus to weigh in on the revision of the Water Resources Development Act, which regulates the Corps’ management of lakes all over the country including Lake Lanier. He does not expect the revision of the bill to alter the current authorizations related to Lake Lanier.
“I expect that the Water Resources Development Act will be a good opportunity for members of the caucus to discuss their individual concerns to move towards improving the operations of the Corps,” Rep. Collins said in an email.
The bill, which was adopted by a bipartisan vote in the Senate Committee on March 20, includes reforms to enhance and streamline projects by giving the Corps more authority to operate. For Lake Lanier, the bill could mean that the Corps would be able to complete the environmental review process, which is needed for revising the manual, faster.
However, the bill still has to be adopted by the entire Senate and passed by the House to become law.
By-line: Annette Birch
The article is published at The Capital Post, http://thecapitalpost.com/immigration-reform-life-personal-journ-p-23522.html
The cell phone rang. A young woman got up, the phone plastered to her ear, alternating between English and Spanish as she spoke. Between calls, she chatted with other participants and greeted speakers, who all seemed to know her. Lizzette Arias was busy making sure that everything went as planned for Dream Project’s’ retreat about immigration reform for the non-profit’s volunteers from all around the country. For her, the issue is deeply personal. Until Dec. 10, she was in the United States as an undocumented immigrant. That’s when she got her papers thanks to a new White House initiative.
“I want to help other people who went through the same as I did,” Arias said and nodded, her earrings which matched her black blouse and jeans dangling from her ears. Since she graduated from college in 2011 she has worked part-time for Dream Project which helps undocumented Hispanic high school students.
It was not until her freshman year in high school that her parents told her why she could not do all the things her documented sister and friends took for granted. For Arias, growing up undocumented meant that she could not freely travel where she wanted or choose her college and dream job. But thanks to the Obama administration’s resolution of June 15, 2012, on deferred status for childhood arrivals, she is now one of the 453,589 undocumented immigrants who came to the United States before they were 16 years old, who by March 14 has received a two-year work permit.
As the resolution’s one-year-anniversary approaches, Arias is working for the adoption of the bi-partisan version of the DREAM Act proposed in the Senate, which after five years on a conditional permit would give 11 million undocumented immigrants who came to the United States before they were 15 years old the possibility of a permanent residence permit and a path to citizenship. Now that her dreams are coming true, she wants to help other undocumented Hispanic youths realize theirs.
“We have to keep pushing. The DREAM Act would give me and all others on deferred status a faster pathway to citizenship. It would mean that we could stay,” said Arias who also lobbies Congress for Dreamers of Virginia. However, the bill faces opposition from Republican conservatives in the Senate and has to pass the Republican dominated House where leading members like Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., intends to debate the immigration issues one by one.
When the resolution was announced, Arias was in California with Dream Summer, an internship program for immigrant rights leaders sponsored by the University of California Los Angeles. She was really scared of getting on the plane because she knew she had to show her Bolivian passport which did not contain the proper visa. But as she passed the security officers, they only took a passing glance at her passport and did not notice that the visa was missing. Then she was on the plane. She could hardly believe her luck. On her way back, they had announced the resolution and she was not afraid to go to the airport, because she knew she met the criteria for a work permit.
For the 24-year-old Bolivian-born woman, her new status has opened up a world of possibilities she thought she would never be able to have. When the administration began taking applications on August 15, she was one of the first to apply and on Dec. 10, she got her work permit. Everything began to fall into place. First, she got part time work as an assistant coordinator at the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing and then she got her driver’s license. She also wants to find a place of her own, something she could not do before without being afraid of being asked for a social security number and other legal documents she didn’t have. Finally, her new status has opened up for career opportunities she had given up.
“I wanted to go to law school in high school but gave it up, because I was illegal. I recently met a friend who is undocumented but graduated from law school. That gave me hope,” she said.
Even though she has been in the country since she was two months old, Arias did not find out that she was undocumented until her freshman year in high school. A day in early March, her dad had forgotten to turn the stove off in the kitchen; it caught fire and spread rapidly. Her mother hurried to the bedroom and told Arias and her sister to get out. They climbed out the window because the apartment was located on the basement floor. As her father tried to put the fire out in the kitchen, the lights fell on him, burning his face and shoulder before he and her mother finally got out. It took over a month for his burns to heal. Arias could not understand why he would not go to the emergency room until he told her that he could not go because without the proper papers, he risked being deported. That was when he told her that she did not have the proper papers either.
However, she still did not understand what being undocumented meant for her until her junior year in high school. One day when she was entering her information on-line to search for colleges, the search mechanism told her ‘William and Mary is your school and you can go there.’
“I looked at pictures and said oh my God I want to go there,” Arias said. But she could not afford to go even though she had straight A’s. As an undocumented immigrant she had to apply to a state university such as William and Mary as an international student, which was much more expensive than if she had applied as a U.S. citizen, and she could not get a scholarship from the school.
Yessina Arias, her younger sister by two years, felt unable to help her sister.
“She was very frustrated. It affected my whole family,” said Yessina Arias who unlike her sister is a U.S. citizen because she was born here and is now a senior at Arias’ dream school, William and Mary. She said Arias can be her own worst enemy when she is focused on being really pessimistic. “She focuses on the logical aspect and does not allow herself to dream.”
“In high school I was really depressed. The good thing was I focused a lot on studying. I did not want to talk to people,” Arias said. Her mother became so upset that she lost weight, but even though Arias yelled at her parents about everything else, she never talked with them about her being undocumented. Instead she confided in Mindy Lemus who has been her friend since eighth grade and who, like her, played on the school’s field hockey team.
“She thought it was not just,” said Lemus.
Arias was encouraged to be ambitious in school by her mother who only got to the first year of high school back in Bolivia. Even though her parents had not enrolled Arias in school before third grade for fear of being discovered as undocumented, her mother would get angry if she came home with a B.
“You have to be a professional, don’t clean houses like me,” she would confront her in Spanish in a disappointed voice. “You need to try harder. Why did you not do your homework?”
Yet, being undocumented made going to college seem impossible for Arias, until one day her SAT preparation teacher, Duncan Brook, took her aside and told her that if she was more motivated, she could achieve her dreams.
“That moment really changed everything,” Arias said.
In June 2007, Arias graduated from Wakefield High School at the top of her class and was selected to be one of the three student speakers at graduation. As she looked out over the half-circle circus formation where 500 to 600 persons sat, students in their green caps and gowns and their parents, she could see her friends in the front and her parents and sister sitting to the right. It was quiet when she began to speak except for a few parents talking in the back, and the sound of cameras. She talked about the warrior spirit of the school, how it brought them to this point, and in the spirit of Mark Twain, would help them go out in the world and “Explore. Dream. Discover.”
“It was like when I was in orchestra when all the different sections came together in harmony,” said Arias, who plays the violin.
Arias had already been accepted to Morovian College, a private college in Pennsylvania, with a scholarship from the college covering tuition, room and board. She graduated two years ago with a major in history and sociology. But even with a college education, she went an entire year without any other job than the paid part-time internship at Dream Project.
Despite the fact that she now has a new job, she still devotes five to ten hours each week helping undocumented immigrants at Dream Project. An important part of her work is to help mentor three to five undocumented Hispanic high school students every Friday.
One of the high school students she has mentored is 18-year-old Guatemalan born Henry Lopez who she helped with essay writing for college applications. Like Arias he got his two-year work permit late 2011. A recent Friday he showed up proudly displaying the green and yellow school colors of his GMU sweater.
“So you decided on George Mason?” Arias asked Lopez, while everyone else was chatting and eating pizza.
“Yeah,” Lopez said with a big smile.
“Cool,” Arias said.
Linda Rodriguez, mentor coordinator for Dream Project, also attended the session. She has known Arias for more than two years and thinks Arias brings a lot to the meetings.
“She has changed all of their lives. Lizzette provides a lot of information for the students and support for them,” Rodriguez said.
Elyse Graziano, who participated in the session as part of an internship for a class at Georgetown University, agreed.
“Lizzette does a zillion things,” said Graziano.
Juggling her internship at Dream Project, lobbying for immigration reform, her job and figuring out what she is going to do next, does not leave Arias much free time. However, she still manages to see her close friends nearby and take trips to Pennsylvania to visit her friends from college. Sometimes, she goes down to the hockey field to shoot the puck around, but she misses the competitions.
Still, with immigration reform around the corner, Arias is too deeply involved in promoting and lobbying for the DREAM Act to have any time left to spare. Despite the opposition, she is very hopeful that the bill presented by the Senate will pass.
“The DREAM Act would be the golden ticket. We would finally be where we felt we were as Americans,” Arias said.
Annette Birch 