We take a look at the ongoing debate for immigration reform as we wait for news on the Senate bill; Deepa Fernandes reports on how library story times use puppets, rhymes to sow the seeds of literacy; Legal weed sends tourists flocking to Colorado and Washington for 4/20; LAX is now using therapy dogs to calm stressed passengers; How NASA imagined life in a space colony 40 years ago, plus much more.
Immigration Bill: The road to citizenship is a long and expensive one
The immigration bill being filed today by the Senate's "Gang of Eight" creates a way for undocumented immigrants in this country to, "adjust their legal status."
But as expected, there are a lot of boxes to check before anyone can pursue that path to citizenship. There is a $500 fee to pay, plus back taxes, and you are ineligible if you have been convicted of a felony or three or more misdemeanors. KPCC's Leslie Berestein Rojas is here to tell us more.
How the immigration bill could change how we live and work in California
Then, there are more than two million undocumented workers in California. If the immigration bill that is being discussed in the news today becomes law, it could change how we live and work here in Southern California.
Louis DeSipio is a professor of political science and latino and chicano studies at the University California at Irvine.
Ralph Strahm is a farmer in Holtville, CA.
Aida Hermosillo is a hospitality worker in Anaheim whose son is currently living in the US without documentation.
Nevada hospital busing out their mentally ill to California
Over the past five years, a psychiatric hospital in Nevada has put more than 1,500 mentally ill patients on Greyhound buses and sent them to cities across the country. About a third of those patients have wound up here in California, many with no one to take care of them once they arrive .
Library story times use puppets, rhymes to sow the seeds of literacy
A packed room of cherubic, wide-eyed babies sit spellbound as singing finger puppets perform an animated version of Five Little Ducks. Parents and nannies bounce the babies and join in with the singing.
It’s story time at the Beverly Hills public library. The lead act for the babies: librarian, Ginny Kovner.
Across the hall in the polished library’s newly renovated children’s theater, another librarian is setting up a second story time for two-year-olds that would blow anyone’s mind.
RELATED: #KidReads: Which children's book do you or your child hold most dear?
Marilyn Taniguchi, an early literacy specialist and 20-year story time veteran, is cueing up multimedia elements on a big screen embedded at the back of the theater’s stage. She’s planning to end the story time with a DVD and music video. Her assistant is setting up a marionette theater for an added story element.
While it might appear that restless toddlers are not paying attention to the story, she is convinced that most are listening, even as they are moving around.
“They’re hearing the words, they’re picking up the things we want them to pick up,” she said.
These read aloud events play a special role in a child’s development, experts said. While most literacy strategies directly teach reading and writing, story time at the library has always involved so much more. Small children are transported to a world of imagination that not only entertains, but also secretly lays the building blocks of literacy.
“Literacy is definitely more than reading and writing,” said Linda Clinard, a retired UC Irvine professor and leading Southern California expert on early literacy.
Clinard has spent her professional career teaching educators how to work with small children on early literacy acquisition. Too often parents and teachers get frustrated when a child won’t sit still to read an entire book, she said, failing to recognize the child has developed strengths in listening or speaking.
“We have to see how important listening and speaking and thinking are as foundations for reading and writing,” she said.
Because of that, she believes library story time holds a unique place in children’s development. What makes it a wonderful early literacy opportunity is that it's playful and interactive. Very good librarians have a gift for making the learning effortless and teach parents tricks to help the process at home.
Yet library programs are among the first services cut when state and municipal budgets shrink. Over the past several years, library hours have been reduced, branches closed and staff members laid off.
Peter Persic, with the Los Angeles Public Library, said that during the recent budget reductions, the greatest impact to children’s services was not related to the book budget, which remained stable. What occurred was a “reduction in hours, which reduced children’s access to library services, and a cut to staff, which reduced school visits, programming and one-on-one interaction with parents and children.”
Those reductions may seem invisible, but they have an effect, said Suzanne Flint, an early literacy specialist with the California State Library.
"In some communities, there’s the sense that we’ve been able to cut costs and the libraries are still able to operate,” she said.
As part of her job, Flint travels across the state training librarians in early childhood development.
In her visits, she doesn’t see many well-funded libraries, like the one in Beverly Hills, with its three full time and 12 part time children’s librarians. Most children’s sections in California libraries are underfunded and under-staffed, she said.
“Many staff are doing above and beyond what they would normally do,” Flint said. They're working extra hours for no pay or contributing supplies and resources without reimbursement.
Flint is talking about librarians like Sada Mozer, the sole children’s librarian at the Junipero Serra branch in South Los Angeles.
At Junipero Serra, the children’s books look worn, kids have access to three dated computers, and the kiddy armchairs and tables are fading. And yet, the children’s section is a wonderfully vibrant place – because of Mozer and her infectious energy and enthusiasm.
“The library can be the place in a community that doesn’t have a lot of outlets where the kids can come and do fun things,” Mozer said.
Growing up poor, Mozer learned firsthand the value of what a library can offer. She accessed books and programs at the library that her parents could never have afforded to buy, Mozer said. She has never forgotten it, and she wants children today to realize they too can get a lot of these things “for free.”
Mozer, or “Ms. Sada” as everyone calls her, has an instant connection with kids. In the library, she’s quick to help a wandering child find a fun book or activity.
But she doesn’t think her job begins and ends in the library. She regularly visits neighborhood elementary schools, preschools and head start programs, where she captivates kids with a story, then follows it with information on how the library works.
She entices kids to come to the library to draw or play. “And then they see the books,” she says with a conspiratorial smile.
With a small budget, Mozer has had to be creative and resourceful to increase the library’s offerings for kids and make it the “oasis” she thinks libraries can be in low-income communities.
She recruited specialists from museums and colleges to visit, bringing with them new and fun ways to engage children and families in literacy. She recently put on a week of science themed activities conducted by staff from the California Science Center for Spring break.
Mozer also formed a partnership with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to provide a teacher and art supplies for weekly art classes at the library. Art might not seem like a traditional literacy activity, but Mozer said it all comes back to reading.
She offered a recent example where the art instructor used Chinese New Year and the museum’s art supplies to get kids to care about books at the library. The instructor, Mozer says, “had all the snake books [displayed] and then she taught the kids the qualities of the personality of a person who was born in the year of the snake. And then they made these snake collage things.” After that class there was a rush on borrowing the snake books.
Mozer became a children’s librarian in 2008 at the Washington Irving Branch in Mid City, her neighborhood library. Two years later, she was laid off due to budget cuts. Afterward, Mozer would regularly bump into children and parents who would ask why she no longer worked there, and why services had been cut.
“I would be in the market and the parents and the kids would come up to me and say, ‘Ms. Sada, why did they close the Library on Mondays? That’s the only way I can get my homework done. I don’t have a computer,’ ” she recalled.
The tide has turned a little for libraries. Los Angeles city voters passed Measure L in 2011, restoring money to public libraries. Mozer was rehired–this time at the Junipero Serra branch, which needed a children’s librarian.
Flint, of the California State Library, is worried that too many librarians like Mozer are the engine behind good children’s programs. What happens if they’re cut? Or, more likely, burn out?
“I just don’t know how long people can humanly sustain that level of putting in extra work because this is their passion, they believe so much in serving their community,” she said.
Beverly Hills City Librarian, Nancy Hunt Coffey, hopes her well-funded children’s library can set an example.
“I think that if we can help to influence the profession in a positive way that makes libraries relevant into the future then we’re all successful," she said.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the year Los Angeles' Measure L passed. The measure passed in 2011. We regret the error.
Legal pot sends tourists flocking to Colorado, Washington for 4/20
This Saturday is April 20th, otherwise known as 4-20, otherwise known as an international holiday for those who enjoy marijuana. And, now that pot is legal in the state of Colorado, this 420 is being considered almost a debutante ball of sorts for the drug. The city of Denver is readying itself for a massive celebration.
In anticipation, there are reports of marijuana tours, cooking classes, concerts and a pot competition put on by High Times Magazine. We asked Rick Cusick from High Times to explain the competition.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Bombino, Xenia Rubinos and Dawn Oberg
Now it's time for Tuesday Reviewsday, our weekly new music segment. With us this week to talk about what's new in world music is critic Steve Hochman.
Artist: Bombino
Album: "Nomad"
Songs: "Imuhar," "Azamane Tiliade"
Artist: Xenia Rubinos
Album: "Magic Trix"
Songs: "Cherry Tree," "Pan y Café"
Artist: Dawn Oberg
Album: "Rye"
Song: "The Girl Who Sleeps with Books," "Gentleman and a Scholar"
Death penalty up for legal review today in California
It's been more than seven years since anyone was executed in California, but today in Northern California, an appeals court will hear arguments from the state about the death penalty.
At issue is California's method of execution, said Ellen Kreitzberg, a professor of law at Santa Clara University.
"There are several challenges to the death penalty, but the one they're hearing today deals with the state's procedures—or more accurately—their failure to follow procedures in writing the specific regulations in how to administer the death penalty, what drugs to use and how they should take care of inmates leading up to a execution," she said.
Kreitzberg explains that there are currently no regulations in place to administer a death penalty in California. But even if protocol is changed, it could be over a year before anyone is executed.
"The attorney general's office could say 'we're not going to keep appealing, let's just write a new procedure' ... but even that process would take somewhere close to 18 months,'" she said.
What do you think? Do you support the death penalty?
Parents of Audrie Pott reveal new details in cyberbullying and suicide case
Now the story of a 15-year-old girl who killed herself in northern California last fall. On Labor Day weekend, Audrie Pott attended a friend's house party. She had too much to drink, passed out and was allegedly sexually assaulted.
A week later, she took her own life.
Investigators are still trying to figure out what happened that night, and yesterday, Audrie's parents revealed new details to the press.
has been following this case for the San Jose Mercury News, she joins the show with more.
Photos: How NASA imagined life in a space colony would look 40 years ago
NASA's space program is struggling with budget cuts these days, but back in the early 1970s, the sky was the limit. Among a myriad of other projects the agency worked on in the post-Apollo era was a study of what life might be like on space colonies, complete with some amazing, futuristic illustrations.
In 1975, Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill began work on the 10-week study at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. looking into the feasibility of life in space. To accompany the study's long pages of technical specs explaining how life in orbit could work, artists Rick Giudice and Don Davis were hired to create illustrations of the space colonies described in the report.
In the paintings you can see long, rolling hills of green, rivers and neighborhoods filled with modern homes and smiling, happy people. They resemble a kind of utopian existence where the inhabitants live in harmony in a perfect, and well-controlled climate.
"They knew that probably the first space colonies if they ever existed were not going to look like these beautiful scenes that they were painitng," said science writer Veronique Greenwood. "There was some romance that they were injecting into the idea. Honestly I think all three of them knew it was going to be a little bit more like a shopping mall."
Even today, the idea of life in a space colony seems like something that only belongs on the big screen or in books. In 1970, it must have seemed downright insane, but physicist Gerard O'Neill had a pretty convincing explanation.
"By the time he started working on the idea he was already pretty well established," said science writer Veronique Greenwood. "He knew the math, he knew the physics, he was very pragmatic about this idea, and thus was very inspiring to a lot of people who otherwise may not have bought the idea."
God Is In The Garden: A conversation with Rabbi Noah Farkas
Earth Day, the annual observation of our global home takes place next Monday. To mark the day this year, we're exploring the relationship between the environment and religion. We asked people from different traditions to talk about how their faith shapes their attitude towards the natural world.
We call our series, "God Is In The Garden," inspired by a quote from George Bernard Shaw. Today, we meet Rabbi Noah Farkas of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino.
Click here to read the full story on the Pacific Swell Blog
LAX uses therapy dogs to calm stressed-out travelers
It's no wonder that Travel and Leisure magazine called LAX one of the worst airports in America: Long lines, cumbersome security, lost baggage, not to mention the difficulty of getting there.
But now there's a new program that could make your next trip to the airport a little less stressful.
"Pets Unstressing People,"or PUP for short, brings therapy dogs and their handlers into the terminals to help calm stressed-out travelers. The program was inspired by a similar program that has been in place at San Jose Airport since after 9/11.
"Someone in upper management caught wind of that over here and said, 'How are they doing this, and this is something that we want to do," said Heidi Huebner, Director of Volunteers at LA. "I am the lucky person who was given the task to make this happen here."
The program at San Jose Airport was born when a volunteer chaplain decided to bring his therapy dog to the terminal. The dog was such a hit that the program expanded into what it is today.
The way it works is handlers walk their trained therapy dogs through the terminals to visit anyone who expresses interest. The dog wear bright "Pet Me" signs inviting anyone and everyone to stop and visit with the dog for as long as they like.
"We have 30 dogs and we are always looking to recruit more," said Huebner. "We've got a huge Doberman Pinscher, an Irish Wolfhound, we've got medium-sized dogs that are mixed mutts and smaller dogs, so its really a variety, it just depends on the personality of the dog."
Though many people will find comfort in these furry friends, not everyone likes dogs. Some people can be quite allergic or even have a fear of the animals. Huebner insists that the handlers are trained to recognize when someone is uneasy about the dogs.
"If there is somebody who has a fear of a dog, allergies or just isn't in the mood to have a dog come visit them, the volunteers are trained to look at a situation," said Huebner. "They're going to take the dog in a different direction away from that person."
In new book, Duke researchers say we underestimate 'The Genius of Dogs'
Obedient, cuddly energetic. These are the sorts of adjectives humans use to describe their canine companions, but what about smart?
For decades not much was known about what dogs can or cannot comprehend, but all that has changed in recent years thanks in no small part to a guy named Brian Hare.
Hare is the director of the Canine Cognition Center at Duke University, he's also the co-author of the new book, "The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter Than You Think."