Leg. Money Tracking

Initiatives
We’ll start with initiatives, the process by which a group of Washington voters can propose a law. Let’s look at spending on initiatives in recent years. How much was spent in each of these years?
2010- $60,683,508.66
2009-

$6,986,958.85

2008-

$9,547,845.16

1. Under ‘Search the database,’ navigate to ‘Committees’ and then ‘Initiatives.’ 2011 is too young -- let’s look at spending in 2010.
    a. How much was been raised for initiatives in 2010?
$61,620,635.33
    b. How much was spent?
$60,683,508.66

3. Each column header allows us to sort the data in different ways. For example, if we click on the ‘Spent,’ we can rank the committees by spending.

   a. Click on ‘Spent.’ (You’ll notice that it shows the money from lowest to highest. We’re interested in big money, so let’s click on the column header again to reorganize most to least.)
        I. Which committee has spent the most money this year?
STOP THE FOOD & BEVERAGE TAX HIKES
        II. Which initiative is the committee opposing?
CIT TO PROTECT OUR ECONOMIC FUTURE
        III. What would the initiative do?
Stop food and beverage tax hikes
        IV. How much have the supporters of this initiative raised? (Hint: Click the column header ‘Ballot’ to group by initiative.)
$16,797,752.50
        V. Who won? Check Google.
STOP THE FOOD & BEVERAGE TAX HIKES


    c. Let’s look closer at the committee that outspent all others. Who funded it? To the left of the committee’s name, click on ‘Details.’
        I. Which individual group has contributed the single largest donation to this committee?]
The American Beverage Association
        II. Where is this group based?
Washington D.C.
        III. When was the last donation from this group sent to Washington state?(Specifically, what’s the date?)
8/26/2010
IV. How many separate contributions did the group make to this committee?
9
V. In total, how much money did it send to the committee in August 2010?
about $17 million.

4. Change the year to 2011. Which committee has raised the most money? State Candidates
            1. How much did Gov. Chris Gregoire received in campaign contributions in 2008?
$13,661,703.15

Washingtonians for Humane Farms

a.  Click on “reports” next to the committee’s name.  Then click on the first C3 form, which tracks donations to the  committee.

b. Which national group gave this committee $150,000?

Humane Society

c. List the treasurer’s phone number.

(206) 325-5013

SB 5621

WHAT WOULD IT DO?

Students who are 14 years of age as of the date of a school board election

are entitled to vote in the district election where they are enrolled.

SPONSORS?
Senator White.

FISCAL NOTES?
Not available.

Exploring our government

SB 5749
1. GET is Washington's 529 prepaid college tuition plan. Families can prepay for their children's college tuition today knowing that the value of their account is guaranteed by the state to keep pace with rising college tuition
2. Since 1998, families have opened more that 119,000 accounts.
3. If the bill passes, the program will now have to pay service and activities fees.

HB 1325
1. Sponsors: Hunt. Dammeier, Darneille, Liias, Carlyle, Roberts, Jinkins, Orwall, Kenney, Hasegawa, McCoy, Fitzgibbon, and Tharinger.
2. This bill would cut the number of school districts in half.
3. 300
4. To implement a comprehensive statewide reorganization initiative to streamline and provide efficiencies in the administration and operation of school districts and educational service districts.
5. $397,963

Editor decision: to publish or not to publish.

I would not publish the story because we do not all have all the facts. All of the information we are dealing with so far has been from a blogger and his unknown source. In order not to lose the credit of the news website, we must dig deeper into this story and get facts that we can back up with evidence. Also, in order to not be bias, we must get information pertinent to this accusation from both sides. This includes the senator himself. The Internet is similar to Wikepedia, anyone can put up information and claim it is true.

Homecoming Lede

The Student Entertainment Board at Washington State University has decided that starting this year, there will no longer be a homecoming queen and king.

Speech Story

 According to Lucy Craft, a CBS news correspondent, Japan has become a pop-culture oasis based on anime and manga.

Craft talked to students about this new wave of pop-culture at 6 p.m. Friday at the Center for Undergraduate Education. Craft has covered social and political trends throughout Asia and is currently based in Tokyo, Japan. “Japan is involved in what is known as the ‘cool Japan’ promotion strategy,” said Craft. She described ‘otaku’ as the Japanese word for ‘nerd.’ Otaku describes people with a deep passion and obsessive interest in anime, manga and video games.

Pop-culture consists of Pokémon, Sailor Moon and Hello Kitty. Japan has generated a ‘creative industries promotions office’ whose goal is to turn Japan into a pop-culture paradise and market it around the world.

Anime and manga made its mark in Japan after World War II. Japan was hungry for western culture, especially in the comic books brought over by soldiers that contained animated cartoons from Walt Disney. Osamu Tezuka was the ‘god’ of anime and manga as he pioneered the Japanese style of cartoons. He drew comics similar to sketches of frames for a film. “We have a comic culture here, but over there they have different aspects of a comic culture,” said Joshua Hardy an Asian Studies major.

Akihabara, Japan, is well known as a nerd paradise. The area is filled with stores that sell the hottest new games, costumes, and manga. “Akihabara is the one place in town for geeks to hang out, they don’t have to dress well or even take a bath!” said Craft jokingly. There are Mai cafes where girls greet the customers by saying “welcome master” and serve comfort food such as macaroni and cheese. Akihabara is so popular, the name is used in a famous music group called AKB48: 48 girls who sing, dance, and explore the fantasy world of nerds.

Not all Japanese are fans of the nerd culture. In the 1980s there was a serial killer known as the ‘otaku murderer’ who was a pedophile obsessed with anime. There are 2-D Otaku who prefer romance with cartoon characters rather then humans. This phenomenon has created concerns among the Japanese culture. More and more young people are not getting married and having kids. Many Japanese believe this 2-D trend is to blame.

Japan is extremely sensitive to what other countries around the world think of them.  They are very interested in making friends and influencing people. Joseph Nye, a professor of international relations, calls this concept ‘soft-power’ or the countries ability to attract others through cooperation and attraction. “I never thought of Japan using their culture to deal with politics,” said Kaho Tsang, a WSU student. “I thought it was just pop culture, like how we view football in America.”

Craft hopes that Japan will use this cool image to move on to more important issues facing their country such as immigration reform and tackling the greenhouse gas matter. “What if Japan could reduce carbon emissions by 25 percent by 2020 like they promised?” said Craft. “Now that would be really cool. That will make Japan really cool.”

3 questions for Lucy Craft:

1.     How did Japan go from big and scary like Godzilla, to cute and small like Hello Kitty?

2.     Have there been anymore major hate-crimes against otaku in Japan?

3.     Why are the young Japanese no longer interested in studying abroad?

Contact Information and Speech Story Outline

Contact Information:

Joshua Hardy: joshua.hardy@email.wsu.edu

Kaho Tsang: masterkaho1@gmail.com

Lucy Craft: lucy.craft@gmail.com

Speech Story Outline:

What happened?

·      Lucy Craft: “Anime Cool and Manga Chic: How and Why Japan Became a Pop-culture Oasis” Feb. 11 6:00 p.m. in CUE bulding.

·      Craft covers the pop-culture in Japan as well as how that impacts the politics and the Japanese image.

How did it happen?

·      Background on Lucy Craft.

·      Explanation of ‘cool Japan’ promotion strategy.

·      Definition of ‘otaku’

·      Introduction of anime and manga in Japan.

·      Insight on Akihabara, Japan.

·      Internal dispute on ‘otaku’ culture.

·      Japan’s image and influence.

Reaction?

·      Students were surprised to see coloration between politics and anime/manga.

·      Lucy Craft hopes this ‘cool image’ will help Japan move on to help the issues facing their country.