Government Executive - Authors - Tanya Parker

Obama Lights National Christmas Tree in Festive, Musical Ceremony

Tanya Parker, SHFWire — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:28:00 -0500

The White House kicked off the holiday season Thursday with the 90^th National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on the Ellipse, south of the White House.

About 17,000 guests huddled under blankets and layers of warm clothing as carolers and performers entertained the crowd by playing and singing traditional holiday favorites. Actor Neil Patrick Harris hosted the ceremony, and welcomed the first family to the stage, where President Barack Obama was invited to flip the switch.

Once the lights were on, Obama recounted the history of the ceremony – but not without a few jokes. He reminded guests that this National Christmas Tree was freshly planted.

“Our tree has been having a hard time recently,” Obama said. “This is our third one in as many years. Our longstanding tree was lost in a storm, and then its replacement didn’t take hold. It just goes to show, nobody’s job is safe here in Washington.”

The new tree, a 30-foot Colorado blue spruce from a private owner in Virginia, weathered Hurricane Sandy without trouble. Now decked in 100 colorful strands of lights, the tree served as the backdrop for the holiday concert performances that followed.

The first family sat in the front row, next to ABC’s “Modern Family” actor Rico Rodriguez, who interrupted Harris’ hosting duties by cooing about his amazing seats.

Harris asked Rodriguez why he was sitting with the first family.

“Well, Neil, I’m glad you asked,” Rodriguez said. “I was just talking to the president about possibly joining the first family. I mean, Neil, they have a chopper!”

The president played along, chuckling and nodding his head as Rodriguez announced they were taking a family vacation to Hawaii – and that Harris wasn’t invited.

“The Obamas and I are trying to keep it just family.”

Taking the skit one step farther, Rodriguez later joined first lady Michelle Obama on the stage as they read, “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” to a few lucky children.

The lighthearted atmosphere continued as singers Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, Ledisi, Jason Mraz, Colbie Caillat, Phillip Phillips, James Taylor and the band The Fray performed songs including, “This Christmas,” “Sleigh Ride,” and “Silver Bells.”

The Obamas closed out the ceremony by joining Harris, Rodriguez and the rest of the musical performers on stage for a holiday sing-a-long.

“Neil, are we going out with a song?” Obama asked.

“Sure, let’s sing one,” Harris said. “You start it.”

As Santa Claus came on stage, the group sang, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” while the Obamas made their exit back to the White House.

The National Christmas Tree will be lit from dusk until 11:00 p.m. every evening until Jan. 1. Musical performances will continue to take place on the Ellipse stage beginning Dec. 11 and run through Dec. 23.

]]>

Giant Duck Urges Lame Duck Congress to Avoid Fiscal Cliff

Tanya Parker, SHFWire — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 14:00:00 -0500

What do Congress, the can-can and a giant, inflatable duck have in common? A lot, as it turns out.

With the 15-foot tall yellow rubber duck behind them, the Senate minority leader did a high kick, and the House minority leader swiveled her hips, all in the name of preserving poverty programs.

But the real congressional leaders were inside the Capitol. Outside on the lawn, Oxfam America activists donned giant masks of congressional leaders and danced around the duck to tuneful quacking to encourage members of Congress not to “duck their responsibilities” during the lame duck session.

Linda Delgado, director of government affairs at Oxfam America, said the stunt is intended to urge Congress not to cut the budget for poverty-focused assistance for fiscal year 2013.

But why the duck? Oxfam took a punny approach to a serious message.

“Well, you know, we wanted to come up with something that was positive, a little bit edgy, a little bit funny, and yet that had the key message,” Delgado said. “And since this is a lame duck session and many lame duck members of Congress are going to be making key decisions, we thought, why not have a duck?”

The four party leaders were singled out at the demonstration. Oxfam volunteers wore masks of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

After the demonstration, Delgado said, Oxfam activists would deliver packets of yellow, duck-shaped candies to each Senate and House office asking them to fund poverty-focused accounts before potential automatic cuts kick in. She said global poverty assistance programs are often targeted for budget cuts because there aren’t people fighting for them. Oxfam America is one organization fighting for the cause, and a giant duck certainly demands attention.

“It’s a tiny part of the budget,” Delgado said. “It’s 0.6 percent of the budget and it often gets targeted with what, today, we’re calling ugly duck cuts.”

Capitol Hill visitors passed by the performance seemingly confused about Washington’s new lawn ornament, but amused nonetheless.

As far as reaching the newly elected members of Congress who don’t yet have offices, Delgado said they are doing the best they can.

“Obviously, we don’t have the capacity to cover everybody, but we will work in coalition with many other organizations to make sure that every single new member gets a briefing on this issue, that their staff get a briefing and that we are educating them on this key issue,” Delgado said.

In a press release issued by Oxfam America, Delgado said “the leadership in the House and Senate must get their ducks in a row and support Senate funding levels for poverty-focused development assistance.”

Oxfam America will continue its efforts throughout the lame duck session of Congress.

It is unclear if more ducks will be involved.

]]>

Youths Carry the Vote, Research Study Says

Tanya Parker, SHFWire — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 15:00:00 -0500

The millennial generation provided at least 80 electoral votes for President Barack Obama last Tuesday.

More than 22 million voters ages 18 to 29 cast ballots in this election.

Peter Levine, director at the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University said voter turnout for young people tallied at least 49 percent, creating a new normal for voter demographics in the U.S. He said he expects the percentage to increase to as much as 51 percent as more results are released.

In 2008, youth voter turnout was 52 percent.

Data source: Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement

Youth turnout matched the turnout results of 2008 statistically, but youths also increased their electoral representation in this election, Levine said.

Although the percentage of young voters was similar to the 2008 election, young voters were able to create a more influential role in the electoral college, increasing youth representation as an electoral stronghold.

In 2008, young voters represented 18 percent of the voting population, which is 1 percent less than current youth voter share estimates.

Levine said the single percentage increase to 19 percent means young voters were more represented in the electorate this election year than previous years.

Heather Smith, president of Rock the Vote, said this year’s election proves that the millennial generation cares about the election and wants to be heard.

“I think we’ve now established a very fairly decent pattern that this generation is different than their older brothers and sisters and can put those rumors about youth to bed,” Smith said.

Levine said if youth voters did not participate in the election in Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Florida, or if former governor Mitt Romney had won half of the youth vote, these states would have flipped from blue to red.

He said losing the youth vote lost the election for Romney.

“It is because he lost the youth group pretty decisively that he is not going to be the next president,” Levine said.

An estimated 17 million youths have turned 18 since the last election, granting them eligibility to vote.

Smith said she expected youth voter turnout to be lower.

“We knew all along that they cared,” she said, “but the campaign was just different than 2008.”

Levine and Smith said some youth voters were confused about the election, and the campaigns didn’t treat young people well.

“An awful lot of young people were confused about policy issues, and I think that this was a very confusing campaign to follow,” Levine said.

CIRCLE polling data showed that there was a decline in youth voter enthusiasm in this election, Levine said. Despite possible confusion and lack of enthusiasm, voters still turned up.

“They may not have been enthusiastic or happy about the campaign, but they were persistent,” Levine said.

From 2000 to 2004, youth voter turnout increased from 41 percent to 48 percent, indicating that voter turnout has consistently increased regardless of which candidates were running for president.

“Yesterday, young Americans showed up, voted and made it clear that they are the generation that will take our country forward,” Smith said.

(Image via Peeradach Rattanakoses/Shutterstock.com)

]]>

The Women Behind Curiosity Rover's Tweets

Tanya Parker, SHFWire — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 12:57:00 -0400

Subscribe:

> Newsletter

> Facebook

> LinkedIn

It has been four years since the creation of the Mars Curiosity Twitter account, and one thing hasn’t changed – the witty rover’s still got it.

Behind the pop-culture-savvy, science-loving bot is a social media team brimming with ways to engage the public in NASA’s other-worldly exploration.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratorykeeps news and social media manager Veronica McGregor and social media specialists Courtney O’Connor and Stephanie L. Smith busy, running the social media accounts and public affairs for more than 20 flying missions.

McGregor has been a NASA news and social media guru the longest, joining the JPL team in 2001 after covering NASA for CNN.

O’Connor joined McGregor shortly after graduating as an early career hire in 2009 just as Curiosity was being built. She joined the team after working for Microsoft as a social media intern.

“I do think that the mission has a kind of special place in my heart,” O’Connor said. “I came on at the same time she was being built.”

Smith was the last to join the JPL social media team in 2010. Before working for NASA, Smith was the senior editor for the online division of Channel One News. She covered and translated many JPL stories for the news organization.

The women refer to the team as JPL’s social media “hivemind.” Scientists send data collected from Curiosity to the team to simplify complicated terminology, add a little spice and condense the information into 140 characters or less.

“It’s a little like writing science haiku,” Smith said. “We try to distill stories down to their essence, but also focus on how the science works, what’s going on and why it matters.”

And when these social media savvy team members don’t quite understand the information they’re supposed to tweet, O’Connor said help is never too far away.

“We also have really strong connections with the scientists and engineers,” O’Connor said. “We can email them with questions.”

The team said they try to accommodate everyone when it comes to catering tweets to followers. McGregor said they include “techy” and fun mentions in each tweet because some followers just want the funny headlines, while others want all the technical details. To keep tweets fresh, the team will throw in a song lyric with a Curiosity twist or refer to movies. She said tactics like these help keep the conversation going.

When Curiosity was undergoing software maintenance, the team had to decide how to condense the science into an interactive, fun and brief tweet. The Hivemind decided on a quirky Matrix reference.

“When curiosity was getting its brain transplant … we started thinking about ‘what are we going to tweet for that?’” McGregor said. “Half a second later, people were writing back saying ‘show me!'"

But as pop culture tweets gain a lot of attention, none has surpassed the landing night tweet, lovingly referred to as the “touchdown tweet” by the Curiosity team.

The touchdown tweet received nearly 72,000 retweets, the most the Twitter account has seen since creation.

“That’s Bieber level,” Smith said.

Along with her hefty retweets, Curiosity hauls in a lot of followers.

Curiosity has nabbed the No. 1 spot as JPL’s biggest account from previous leader,@AsteroidWatch. Since her launch, Curiosity has accumulated more than a million followers.

Because the tweeters behind the account are human, accidents occasionally happen. Typos and inaccurate information sometimes slip through the cracks, but the team said it doesn’t happen frequently.

O’Connor said the team is thankful that Twitter is very forgiving.

Blunders aside, Smith said it is important to connect with the public through social media communication.

“For a given tweet, we can trade off between huge metrics and personal interaction,” Smith said. “So the rover has tweets that go out to everyone, but it’s still responding to individual questions.”

McGregor said more than 50 percent of Curiosity postings are replies rather than the team pushing out new information.

With the social media boom, NASA not only increased its audience worldwide, but it also fostered a stronger relationship with the public.

“NASA had a pretty good reputation going in, but social media just makes it even easier,” McGregor said. “And I think people now feel they have a relationship with NASA.”
Curiosity’s Twitter team said fans should be on the lookout for results from recent science experiments on Mars.

“It’s a voyage of discovery!” Smith said. “So you never know what you’re going to find.”

In the meantime, fans are encouraged to wish JPL a happy birthday as it celebrates its 76^th anniversary Wednesday.

Learn from experts, innovators and your peers about the impact of technology on the future of government programs and citizen outreach. Join us on December 3 in Washington DC for Nextgov Prime, the defining event in the federal technology landscape. Learn more at nextgov.com/prime

]]>