Neighborhood Legal Services, which provides free legal services to the poor, has expanded into the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys, areas with large Asian populations, many of whom speak limited or no English. Language is their biggest obstacle, but the Asian communities' cultural isolation and service providers' lack of cultural expertise also play a part, said NLS executive director Neal Dubovitz. And with 13 percent to 15 percent of the Asian population in the U.S. living below the poverty line, NLS services are badly needed, Dubovitz said. "Although it is a significant part of the poverty population, Asians historically have not been able to participate in the services and programs available to the poor," he said. From simple telephone advice to complete legal representation in court, the agency provides free consumer, health, family, immigration, housing, public benefits and labor legal services to people who earn under $1,380 per month. Legal service providers have long served large Latino populations, who have cultural diversity but share a common language. "I remember the days when there were only a handful of people in the legal offices who spoke Spanish," Dudovitz said. "Now Spanish and English are interchangeable. Our goal is to have that for the major Asian languages as well." Before the expansion, only a few NLS lawyers spoke Asian languages, said attorney Rebecca Yee, who was hired by NLS in April 2002 to design and head the project. "Now we have people speaking Cantonese, Mandarin, Thai, Khmer (from Cambodia), Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese and Tagalog," Yee said. One of the 13 attorneys hired to work with the program is Irene Mak, a family law attorney who speaks Cantonese, Mandarin and Thai. Mak was a partner at a private law firm before she went to work for NLS two years ago, earning up to $20,000 less a year working on domestic violence cases. "The job is more satisfying than the money," said Mak, who grew up in Hong Kong and Thailand before coming to the United States. "I could use my language skills and wanted to give back to the Asian community." NLS expanded when Legal Services Corp., the federal agency that funds providers of free legal services nationwide, reduced the number of grantees in the Los Angeles area from five to three, Dudovitz said. NLS won the competitive grant over the Legal Services Program for Pasadena, San Gabriel-Pomona valleys. That boosted its client base from 16,000 to around 25,000, and NLS opened an office in El Monte.

Question: "How do the attorneys working with the program feel about it?"

Response: "They feel happy to give back"
OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

A: yes

Grande dame of cooking still going strong at 90: Julia Child celebrates in San Francisco. How does it feel to turn 90 and have attained the status of an icon, a living legend? "It feels just like it felt before," Julia Child says with the throaty laugh familiar to millions who cut their culinary teeth on her "French Chef" television series. The show, along with her seminal book, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (1961), revolutionized the way America cooks and eats. While making light of the difference a day -- or another decade -- makes, Child intends to enjoy her birthday thoroughly. First, there will be all the public observances, including a sold-out dinner Thursday at San Francisco's tony Fifth Floor restaurant, which -- like dinners that night at 19 other venues across the country -- will benefit the scholarship fund of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (which Child co-founded). Friday to Sunday, the action moves to Napa, with both members-only and public events at COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, of which she is an honorary board member. Aug. 15, her actual birthday, will see her in Maine at an annual gathering of nieces, nephews, their offspring and friends, who for many years have rolled a joined birthday celebration for several members of the group into a jolly reunion. The schedule Child and her assistant of 14 years, former pastry chef Stephanie Hersh, have laid out is not exactly a senior-citizen routine, even though Child has always been candid about her age and realistic in assessing her own capabilities. When the Pasadena native moved back to California from her long-time home in the Boston area last year, she also made the move from a condominium she and her late husband, Paul, had purchased many years ago to a progressive retirement home. She is in the most active of the four levels available, but should the need arise, she can move on to assisted living facilities within the same complex.

Question: "When is Julia Child's actual Birthday?"

Response: "Aug. 15,"
OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

A: yes

Alexis-Charles-Henri Clerel de Tocqueville (French: [aleksi SaRl aRi kleRel d@ tokvil]; 29 July 1805 - 16 April 1859) was a French political thinker and historian best known for his works Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes: 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both of these, he analyzed the improved living standards and social conditions of individuals, as well as their relationship to the market and state in Western societies. Democracy in America was published after Tocqueville's travels in the United States, and is today considered an early work of sociology and political science. Tocqueville was active in French politics, first under the July Monarchy (1830-1848) and then during the Second Republic (1849-1851) which succeeded the February 1848 Revolution. He retired from political life after Louis Napoleon Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup, and thereafter began work on The Old Regime and the Revolution. He argued that the importance of the French Revolution was to continue the process of modernizing and centralizing the French state which had begun under King Louis XIV. The failure of the Revolution came from the inexperience of the deputies who were too wedded to abstract Enlightenment ideals. Tocqueville was a classical liberal who advocated parliamentary government, but was skeptical of the extremes of democracy.

Question: "What was Democracy in America?"

Response: "A single volume book"
OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

A:
no