Occupy New Haven: an Operation in Progress

The main Occupy New Haven encampment consists of several dozen tents nestled in a corner of the Hew Haven Green. Hundreds of protesters have shown up for some of the group’s events, and many come and go throughout the day. Only a minority have made the space their temporary home.

A village of tents has arisen on the New Haven Green. Its inhabitants each has a slightly different reason for being there. They all share one thing in common, though: dissatisfaction with growing social disparity.

This is Occupy New Haven, a local offshoot of the global Occupy Wall Street protest movement that began Sept. 17 in Zuccotti Park, New York City. It has its own local flavor to it.

It's Personal

“Moose” declines to give his real name. He, like several others in his community, is wary of the media.

He wears a sign draped around his neck that reads, “Department of Hornland Security. When asked why he wears it, he pulls out a makeshift horn and blows into it like a megaphone.

Moose says he moved to New Haven from New Hampshire nine years ago. He graduated from UNH in 2006, but is currently unemployed. So is his fiance, who attained a master's degree in psychology. They're saddled in over a hundred thousand dollars in student loans.

“I have a hard time identifying the difference between that and indentured servitude,” he says.

Not too long ago, he points out, finishing an undergraduate degree was considered a major accomplishment. “Now a bachelors degree is the equivalent of a high school diploma,” he says.

Moose and his community plan to occupy downtown New Haven indefinitely. To do that, they have had to make a concerted effort to prepare and sustain themselves. They've developed more than ten committees to handle various tasks, from legal issues to safety to music.

The New Haven group has benefited from its later start compared to the first Occupy Wall Street encampment, says Moose. They have a permit from the city to be there. They began planning their supply needs before they moved to the green. They have an amicable relationship with the police.

They also have a much more expansive space. Zuccotti Park is a mere 33,000 square feet, or .076 of an acre. The New Haven Green is 16 acres. The camp only covers an out-of-the-way corner of the green. The area, surrounded by old New England-style churches and apartments, is idyllic for an occupation.

A sign decries the differing rules that govern student loan debts and bailouts for large businesses.

A Community Vision

Hundreds of people have shown up at some of Occupy New Haven's rallies. Some come and go freely throughout the day. Only a relative few stay overnight in several dozen tents strewn across the grass.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, the 99 percent are not protesting; they're searching out supplies, having individual conversations, eating and sleeping. On a Friday afternoon, a meeting of 25 or so convenes near the Information tent. They sit in a circle on the ground or in lawn chairs.

One wonders if there should be more regular meetings. A debate ensues over whether to move some meetings to earlier times or keep them later to allow for people getting out of work to come. Someone asks if smaller meetings could take place throughout the day.

A woman at the outskirts of the circle notices that a car in the street is being towed. She stands up and calls, “Mic check!”

“Mic check!” the others around her call out in unison, using the group amplification tactic called the “human megaphone.”

“Someone’s car is getting towed,” she says. The group repeats the sentence. Everyone looks out to the street, but no one moves to claim the car. The meeting continues.

The occupiers have a number of makeshift public institutions, such as this “library.”

Afterward, Amanda Taylor returns to the Comfort tent to sort clothes and blankets. As a member of the Comfort Committee, it's her job to manage the inventory.

She takes her task seriously. The days are getting colder, and there are incoming donations to sort and distribute.

Taylor grew up in North Stonington, and this is the first time she's been to New Haven. She has felt the sting of economic inequality. Her family had little money when she was growing up. She didn't go to college because she couldn't afford it.

In New Haven, though, she learned just how wide the economic gap can get.

“I'd never seen a homeless person before,” she says. “It's really sad. People aren't homeless in North Stonington.”

Some of the clothing donated to the Occupy New Haven group, she says, now go to the local homeless community, many of whom spend most of their time at the New Haven Green.

Taylor is glad to be helping others in a tangible way, even as she struggles with her fellow protesters to spur action from the most powerful in society.

Comfort committee member Amanda Taylor takes stock of some of the demonstrators’ supplies.

Organizational Networking

Win Heimer is trying to coordinate Occupy New Haven with its correlate in Connecticut's capital, Occupy Hartford. He is not a member of either, but he wants to support both with supplies and services.

Heimer is a union representative with the Alliance for Retired Americans, and part of the Greater Hartford Central Labor Council.

Several unions across the country have joined in demonstrations. The worldwide phenomenon that began near Wall Street is combating economic injustices that Heimer says he's been fighting against for a long time.

Heimer and his associates at a local union have arranged buses between New York, New Haven and Hartford. He says he is hoping to find a biodiesel generator for the encampment on the green.

Heimer is careful not to try to push the groups in a particular direction, however. Everyone prefaces their statements by saying they do not speak for the group, including him.

“This movement has just started. We have to see where it goes,” he says, adding, “hopefully it will bring changes that benefit our children and grandchildren.”

A message of peace decorates the medical tent.

Martina Crouch, a New Haven resident, is also hoping that the movement brings changes. She says she joined because she found people who thought like she did there. Then she realized that the protests could become a launching pad for something greater – a community conversation.

A number of the Occupy New Haven demonstrators note that they view their role in movement as an opportunity for local change. Crouch agrees with that sentiment. In this sense, one of the main themes of the their protest sounds like twenty-first century version of a distinctly New England tradition: the town hall meeting.

She says that the media cannot possibly portray the culture of the occupiers as well as experiencing it firsthand.

“Whatever preconceptions you may have,” she says, “you should come down and see what it really is.”

Occupy New Haven has become a microcosm, a society within a society. For Crouch and her tent community, that in itself is a great success.

“These protests brought people together,” she says.

Signs are carefully arranged on the ground in one corner of the encampment when they’re not being used.

All photographs by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Community Colleges Benefit Everyone: Letter

A painting in the HCC cafeteria celebrating the college's diversity. Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

I wrote this letter to the editor in response to an opinion piece by Housatonic Community College President Anita Gliniecki arguing that cutting funding for community colleges is a proposition that is "penny wise and pound foolish." My letter appeared in the Oct. 26 edition of the Connecticut Post:

Housatonic Community College President Anita Gliniecki should be applauded for her defense of community college funding.

I worked my way through HCC, paying for classes out of pocket with the money I earned at a full-time job. It was only because of HCC's low cost that I was able to afford to go back to school.

This spring I graduated with highest honors, a 4.0 GPA and a broad range of new skills. My efforts paid off in the form of scholarships and awards that allowed me to afford to transfer to the University of New Haven.

My experiences at HCC also instilled in me a strong connectedness with the wider community. Community colleges may be better equipped for this than private colleges, because nearly everyone enrolled comes from surrounding municipalities. They share a common stake in the region.

HCC has grown by thousands of students in the past five years. During every year in that same period, state block grant funding has stayed flat or been cut.

An economic impact study completed in 2008 showed that the college contributes $283.9 million each year to the economies of Fairfield and New Haven counties, far more than it receives in state funds.

Having HCC in downtown Bridgeport has made a huge difference in revitalization. Recall what it was like in 1997, the year that HCC relocated to Lafayette Boulevard.

We should all be grateful for the opportunities offered by community colleges. Short-term cuts will only lead to long-term losses for everyone.

More: Read Anita Gliniecki's letter.

Reporters talk tech changes in news at UNH

 

Professional journalists speak to students in the Vlock Center for Convergent Media Wednesday about the ways that their work has been changed by the Internet and mobile technologies. From left to right: Hartford Courant reporter Christine Dempsey, Connecticut Post columnist MariAn Gail Brown, Madison, CT Patch.com editor Patricia McNerney. Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Three veteran journalists from around Connecticut visited UNH Wednesday evening for a panel discussion with students about the challenges and opportunities that new technologies have brought to their field.

Hartford Courant reporter Christine Dempsey, Connecticut Post columnist MariAn Gail Brown, and Madison, CT Patch.com editor Patricia McNerney shared their experiences and fielded questions from a packed audience in the Laurel Vlock Center for Convergent Media in Maxcy Hall.

The two-hour discussion was titled “News Writing and Editing for Traditional and Social Media,” and was hosted by Adjunct Professor of Communication Michael Bazinet as part of the copy editing course he is teaching this semester. Students from other journalism courses also attended.

Dempsey described how the process of reporting had changed dramatically in the 25 years she has been doing it. She said that when she used to arrive on the scene of a breaking story, she would have to look around for a pay phone to call her editor.

“Now they have these smart phones that can do anything but slice bread,” she said.

McNerney, whose publication exists entirely online, agreed that mobile devices had altered her reporting practices. She said she had “the most amazing experience in journalism” during Hurricane Irene this summer, because she was able to report on what was happening in her hometown of Madison while staying at a friend’s house in Wallingford by using information other residents posted or sent her.

Volunteers are key information sources for McNerney. “The readers start to tell you what to report,” she said.

Brown pointed out that the Internet had “invigorated” print newspapers, too, by helping them to keep up with television and radio.

“Because of the Internet and our websites,” she said, “we’re constantly updating our stories, which is rejuvenating our papers.”

The panelists warned, however, that not all of the changes brought about by new technologies have been positive. Brown noticed a disturbing pattern while covering the trial of Steven Hayes, who was given the death penalty in 2010 for a brutal home invasion and murder in Cheshire. Whenever reporters heard something they thought was newsworthy, they would tweet it, often in unison. She said the furious tweeting of reporters could send a visual signal to jury members to pay more attention to certain parts of the trial, possibly affecting the way they thought about the case.

For Dempsey, the increasing pressure to get news out as quickly as possible sometimes makes her uncomfortable that she might not have checked her facts thoroughly enough first. She said she had not made any major blunders she knew of. But, she added, “I’ve felt like I was walking a tightrope sometimes.”

McNerney said that, in the face of a faster news cycle, reporters need to continually remind themselves that they have a mission beyond entertainment as society’s watchdogs.

“Are we fulfilling our traditional role as the fourth estate?” she asked.

Despite all of the changes, the panelists agreed that many of the fundamental aspects of their profession remain the same. Dempsey said that strong writing skills were still absolutely essential. McNerney concurred, noting that Patch.com requires prospective reporters to take a writing test, just like traditional newspapers.

She recommended that journalism students avoid focusing only on print, broadcast or web content.

“Don’t think of yourself as a one-dimensional reporter,” she said.

Tips on Arguing: Vet Your Facts

Vetting your facts simply means looking into them. It may sound like this should go without saying, but failing to double-check a source is one of the most common ways that misinformation spreads.

Internet databases and search engines have given people access to more information than ever. But not all information is created equal. Public relations departments disguise their self-advertising to look like news stories. Poltical groups shape the presentation of facts to fit their agendas. Groups peddling pseudo-science publish their own journals, and conspiracy theorists sometimes make stories up out of whole-cloth.

Even if you are using a well-respected source, there is always a chance that human error will creep in. If you read New York Times articles that are more than a few days old, you may see corrections posted at the bottom of the page. It’s not because they weren’t careful the first time around – it’s because new information has overturned a previous statement, or new sources have provided further details.

There are several ways to get your facts straight, though none is foolproof. Whenever you can, you should always use a primary source over a secondary one. Primary sources tend to be more accurate and deliver more nuances.

Cross-checking is a simple way to make sure your facts are legitimate. If one source says A is true, find a different source – one that is independent of your first source - and see if it says the same thing. If your second source says that B is true, you’ll have to do more research to figure out which is closer to the truth.

If you’re drawing facts from scholarly journals or books, go through their references. Did the “fact” about Thomas Jefferson’s beliefs come from a document he wrote or from Wikipedia? If it came from Wikipedia, it might be correct – but the chances for error are higher.

Another tool often used by researchers to determine whether a given scholarly article is widely accepted by the academic community is to find out how many times it’s been cited by other papers. The more citations, the more likely it is to be useful information.

Unfortunately, there is no perfect way to vet your facts. Eyewitnesses remember things inaccurately. Typing, writing, and speaking mistakes are common. Personal biases can cloud even the most intelligent person’s assessment of a situation.

Vetting your facts is, however, the best way to minimize your own errors. It doesn’t mean that you’ll get everything right, but it will prevent you from getting a whole lot of things wrong.

Occupying Wall Street After Dark

The Occupy Wall Street protest in Zuccotti Park does not end when the sun goes down. Hundreds of people, from curious onlookers to news crews, mill in and around the sliver of green space near Manhattan’s World Trade Center.

An infrastructure has evolved around the site to compensate for various needs. It’s a little like a tiny island nation in an ocean of concrete and glass.

All around the rim of the park are signs. Some are specifically related to protest events. Others carry some of the social messages that members want to express.

Those who stay in Zuccotti Park as the winter closes in face numerous challenges. They must eat, sleep, clean up after themselves and keep warm, all while maintaining the momentum of the movement many are hoping to spark.

All photographs by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Read more about past protest movements.

Around UNH: Parrot Carving

This carved wooden parrot is from the Upper Sepick river region of Papua New Guinea. The 12-inch bird, painted with red, white and black pigments, is on display in Dodd's Hall at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Video: Jazz for Peace Plays World Artist Network Benefit

 Jazz for Peace front man Rick DellaRatta. Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

The nonprofit Jazz for Peace Foundation played a benefit concert for the World Artist Network on Sept. 17 at the Acoustic Cafe in Bridgeport. In this clip, the band pays tribute to Thelonious Monk’s rendering of the 1929 song, “Just You, Just Me.”

To Encourage Scientific Literacy, Reward Citizen Scientists

Citizen scientists have been making contributions for centuries. This 1843 microscope was used by amateur naturalist Caroline Bucknall Escourt while her husband, a British military officer, was stationed in the Canadian colonies. Photograph courtesy of the Canadian Science and Technology Museum. Some rights reserved.

Two new planets outside our solar system were discovered using data from NASA's Kepler telescope. But not by scientists.

The discoverers were citizen scientists participating in an online project called Planet Hunters, which was set up specifically to allow members of the public to sift through Kepler's information. Six of these volunteers were listed as authors in the Sept. 22 paper about the planets, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The Planet Hunters are only the latest in a series of non-scientists who've made important contributions to science. A team of video-gamers playing a competitive protein-folding simulation game called Foldit also in September worked out the structure of a protein belonging to the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus, an HIV-like virus that causes AIDS in monkeys. It took them three weeks to do what professional scientists had been working on for years.

The value of harnessing public participation through games and projects is not lost on the scientific community. Hundreds of project websites can now be found with a simple Google search. Scientific American recently added an entire section to its website devoted to citizen science.

Yet science literacy remains low among non-scientists. The National Science Foundation concluded in a 2006 report that “most citizens do not have a firm grasp of basic scientific facts and concepts, nor do they have an understanding of the scientific process. In addition, belief in pseudoscience seems to be widespread, not only in the United States but in other countries as well.”

A low level of literacy matters. Take this year's Republican candidates. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann was roundly repudiated by scientists and pundits after she claimed to have met a woman who said her son's mental retardation was caused by the HPV vaccine. Texas Gov. Rick Perry made his illiteracy known on several occasions, with dubious comments about both evolution and climate change.

These people want to be president. They already command high offices, where they no doubt deal with science-related subjects on a daily basis.

Speaking about Congress on WNPR's “Where We Live,” Princeton Physicist and New Jersey Rep. Rush Holt recently noted, “There are 435 people in the House and 420 don’t know much about science and choose not to.”

Ultimately, though, it is the voters who elect leaders. They can't possibly hold politicians to account about science without first understanding it themselves.

Citizen science may be a way to close the knowledge gap, if incentives are put in place to raise its profile and spur interest. That's why an award, given once a year at an ostentatious ceremony, should be established for an individual or group who contributes significantly to the advancement of science.

No such award currently exists. Groups that organize citizen science have prizes, but the citizens themselves have no reward other than fulfiling their passions for discovery.

Rewarding citizen science would break down one more perceived barrier between the “elite” researchers and everyone else. Recognition is known to be a driving force among professional scientists. Their careers are built on getting their names published and receiving awards from their colleagues. We expect scientists to want these rewards. Why wouldn't anyone else want the same thing?

Introducing competition could have added benefits for scientic literacy. Science works because its core dynamics—not its methods or techniques per se—are rooted in pitting intellects against one another,” said Thomas W. Martin, an Honors Faculty Fellow at Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz. in an essay (that, incidentally, won an award) for Seed magazine in 2007. “Science eventually yields impressive answers because it compels smart people to incessantly try to disprove the ideas generated by other smart people.”

The MNARS paper took a small step toward rewarding the volunteers from Planet Hunters by giving them the status of co-authors. It's a small, but rarely taken, step.

Most importantly, perhaps, is the fact that citizen scientists may end up making huge contributions in the coming years. As Astronomer Phil Plait wondered on his “Bad Astronomy” blog: “Will the first exoEarth be found by a professional astronomer, or instead by some science enthusiast who decided one day to check out this Planet Hunters thing?”

It's a question we should all be seriously considering.