Memorial Day Parade Comes to Stratford: Photos

Stratford veterans wave at onlookers from atop an eagle-adorned float.

Members of the Stratford High band.

Students from Wilcoxson Elementary School carry the fifty states across Stratford.

Cub scouts ride down the street in their pine-box derby racers.

The line of parade marchers passes under the train tracks.

The parade is an advertising opportunity for some local businesses.

Street vendors spend every Memorial Day trekking up and down the streets.

The Creek tribe’s representatives toss candy to children waiting on the sidelines.

The Kickapoo tribe’s bubble machine.

Kids scramble for candy as the parade moves on.

All photographs by Brandon T. Bisceglia

Predictions, Patents and Politics in the Birth of News Radio

During his lifetime, science fiction writer Jules Verne dreamed up many futuristic technologies that could be used to explore new territories and expand the social progress of the human race. Over and over again, his imagined inventions became reality, often being used in an uncannily similar fashion to the way that he first described them.

One of Verne's most interesting conceptions was that of a new kind of news delivery system that involved reporters reading the news directly to their audiences – what we would now recognize as live news broadcasting. At the time he wrote about this upcoming technique, he placed it a thousand years into the future.

Little did he realize that several inventors were already on the cusp of creating the devices that would lead to the era of radio broadcasting. It would take less than half a century before newsrooms around the world were doing almost exactly what Verne had described. Radio technology would become so popular, in fact, that it would lead to a 40-year battle between two intellectual heavyweights over patent filings that would determine who got credit for the invention.

In 1889, Verne published a fanciful essay in the Forum titled “In the Year 2889” that walked the reader through a day in the life of a news baron named Fritz Napoleon Smith who owned the world's largest daily “paper,” the Earth Chronicle. Smith was so successful in part because he had developed a novel system for delivering the news to subscribers:

“Instead of being printed, the Earth Chronicle is every morning spoken to subscribers, who, in interesting conversations with reporters, statesmen, and scientists, learn the news of the day. Furthermore, each subscriber owns a phonograph, and to this instrument he leaves the task of gathering the news whenever he happens not to be in a mood to listen directly himself. As for purchasers of single copies, they can at a very trifling cost learn all that is in the paper of the day at any of the innumerable phonographs set up nearly everywhere.”

Image courtesy of wondersmith.com/scifi

Verne wrote that Smith had created this system of news delivery in his own era with the aid of “telephony,” which had been developed only one hundred years previously. In both the mode of delivery and the amount of time it would take to become reality he was mistaken.

Alexander Graham Bell had already spoken through the first working telephone to his associate, Thomas Watson, in March of 1876. Verne no doubt knew about the breakthrough, as over a decade had already passed by the time of his story. Although he did not specify how his version of telephony worked, it seems likely that Verne thought of it as a strictly “wired” technology, since that was still the primary way in which electrical impulses were being transmitted at the time.

Indeed, the New York Times reported in 1880 that new uses were being found for the telephone on a constant basis. One such use was involved reporters in Parliament for the London Times reading their reports directly to the compositor in the print office. “As the reporter in Parliament reads,” the article said, “the compositor in the printing office sets the type.”

It would not be a great leap from person-to-person calls to what might be termed a live “conference call” with reporters. Moreover, if Verne had been aware of the ambient way in which radio waves propagate, he is less likely to have posited that the news service could control subscriptions – anyone with a receiver can listen in on radio transmissions for free, rendering Verne's proposed business model obsolete.

There were people working on wireless systems around the time of Verne's publication, though. Nikola Tesla was one such inventor; Guglielmo Marconi was another. These two men would both file patents at the end of the nineteenth century for the key components of the radio.

U.S. Patent No. 645,576, for a “System of Transmission of Electrical Energy” was filed by Tesla in 1897 and approved on March 20, 1900. In it, he described a series of discoveries that he and other engineers had made about the ability of electrical impulses to pass unobstructed through the air. By devising a novel transmission-receiver apparatus with tightly wrapped conducting coils, he found that he was able to make use of this mode of electrical transport. He wrote:

“Expressed briefly, my present invention, based upon these discoveries, consists then in producing at one point an electrical pressure of such character and magnitude as to cause thereby a current to traverse elevated strata of the air between the point of generation and a distant point at which the energy is to be received and utilized.”
Tesla also noted that the devices could be rendered portable. He immediately saw a number of possible applications for his device, including to “transmit intelligible messages to great distances.”

Meanwhile, over in England, Marconi was working on a similar invention. Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company received its first patent 1896. But when he brought it to the United States in November of 1900, he was rejected by the Patent Office because of Tesla's previous filing. He continued to file revised versions, which were all thrown out.

But Marconi wasn't beat yet. He made connections with investors, including Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie, who put their substantial weight behind Marconi's company on the stock market. The Patent Office reversed its decision on Marconi's patent without explanation in 1904, and he went on to win the Nobel Prize in 1911. Tesla sued Marconi in retaliation in 1915.

It was not until 1943 – after Tesla had died – that he finally won recognition for his invention. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Tesla's patent, in part because Marconi's company was suing the U.S. Government for use of its patents during World War I.

Whether by Tesla or Marconi, the radio had been born. However, its potential in the news world – the application that Verne had envisioned – did not come to pass until several decades after the patent battles had begun.

Then, on November 2, 1920, radio manufacturer Westinghouse's KDKA station used the Associated Press's election returns to broadcast the results of the presidential race between Republican Warren G. Harding and Democrat James Cox from the top of the Pittsburgh Post's building. It was the fulfillment of Verne’s prophecy, a mere thirty years after he predicted it.

Within another decade, the radio phenomenon would be in full bloom. By the end of the century, newsrooms all over the world would look much like Smith’s, with reporters at stations reading live events out to the world as they happened. The news industry would also be populated with a myriad of technologies that Verne never predicted: television and the Internet would dominate the field, producing copious amounts of content for the world’s eager news consumers. In an ironic twist, telephones themselves eventually went wireless; today they represent a burgeoning new platform for news media. Radio, too, thrives among the milieu. Indeed, the world of 2011 is much richer than the world of 2889 that Verne imagined.

Posting More of Less

I never intended this blog to be a professional endeavor. I created it for finished thoughts, essays, and tidbits that didn’t fit neatly elsewhere.

As a result, my posting is sporadic. Most months, I might add two or three pieces. So far in 2011, there were no updates for February or April.

Thinking about this has led me to a now-common conundrum. As a writer, I prefer to toil in privacy, revising and retooling until the work is as precisely organized I can manage. But if I want to be noticed in the digital culture, I need to be putting out more material in places like this more regularly.

More material doesn’t mean better material; even the best blogs sacrifice finely tuned artful writing for roundups, updates, and links. It doesn’t mean that they’re badly written, and it certainly doesn’t mean that they’re useless. But they do exhibit an “unfinished” quality that was largely discouraged in the days of print culture.

Scarce resources used to restrict authors and publishers from putting anything out that hadn’t been vetted by multiple parties. That’s changing now that everyone with an Internet connection can type up unending missives for free.

The rise of Internet speech has cluttered the field for professional writers of all sorts, making competition stiffer and creating a feedback loop that increases demand for content.

There’s a limit to how much one person can do; past a certain point, even the best writer’s work will begin to suffer if he or she is too stretched.

Many of us cut corners to meet the new demands: a journalist spins one story into five different versions for various platforms. An author blogs parts of the book that he or she is working on, thus drumming up interest in advance of its release.

But most of this content would have been considered a kind of offal in an earlier era. The repetitions, reconfigurations and drafting all used to be part of the private process that would, after much effort, result in a finished public piece. Most of the time, those earlier notes and drafts would get tossed or filed on a dusty back shelf. Today they are front and center – and will be open to scrutiny for as long as the web lasts.

I’ve resisted contributing to this milieu partially because my thinking follows the print paradigm; I want my work to be the best it can be before anyone sees it (except perhaps a trusted advisor or relative).

Perhaps I should change my methodology, though. It may be too twentieth century.

On Wings of Wax

Flowers for Algernon, Awakenings, and Man's Brief Moments in the Sun

A comparison between the thematic arc of Daniel Keyes's fictional story Flowers for Algernon and the real-life accounts of post-encephalatic patients written by Dr. Oliver Sacks in Awakenings. This was originally given as a presentation for a course in science fiction as literature.

Tips on Arguing: Quote Mining

Quote mining is the alteration of the meaning of a person’s quote by taking it out of context or removing sections of the quote. It’s a disingenuous way to make it look like something someone said supports your position when, in fact, it does not.

Quote mining is easy to do if you’re creative about it. Consider the following passage:

“One day when we were kids, Charlie spent the afternoon stepping on ants in the driveway. He came into the house that evening with a guilty expression on his face. When his mother asked what was wrong, he admitted, ‘I’m a horrible person. I committed murder today! Poor ants.’”

In context, this passage is about an innocent child coming to terms with the world beyond himself.

Suppose now that you wanted to make Charlie seem more nefarious. By cutting out just a few choice sections, you could twist the meaning:

"He [Charlie] came into the house that evening with a guilty expression on his face. When his mother asked what was wrong, he admitted, ‘I’m a horrible person. I committed murder today!'"

Technically, the new quote is correct - the words are the same as the original. But notice how choosing to remove certain contextualizing phrases has corrupted our understanding of Charlie as a "murderer."

Academic creationists have become notorious for quote mining - so much so that the term came into popular language among scientists in the 1990's to describe how their own quotes were being dishonestly used to suggest that they had doubts about the validity of evolutionary science.

In 1996, biochemist and high-profile creationist Michael Behe published a popular book called Darwin's Black Box, which argued among other things that evolution could not account for certain biological structures, such as the bacterial flagellum. These parts, he claimed, were "irreducibly complex" - that is, if you removed any one piece, the whole thing would cease to function (a presumption that was promptly debunked by other biologists).

Behe tried to shore up his case by including numerous quotes in his book from evolutionary scientists that seemed to show how shaky the science of evolution was. On page 29, he quoted from a paper co-authored by Professor of Evolutionary Biology Jerry Coyne:

"We conclude--unexpectedly--that there is little evidence for the neo-Darwinian view: its theoretical foundations and the experimental evidence supporting it are weak."

Coyne responded quickly. In the February 1997 issue of the Boston Review, he wrote, "I went back to see exactly what Orr [Coyne's co-author] and I had written. It turns out that, in the middle of our sentence, Behe found a period that wasn't there."

What the paper had originally said was: "Although a few biologists have suggested an evolutionary role for mutations or large effect (Gould 1980; Maynard Smith 1983: Gottlieb, 1984; Turner, 1985), the neo-Darwinian view has largely triumphed, and the genetic basis of adaptation now receives little attention. Indeed, the question is considered so dead that few may know the evidence responsible for its demise.

"Here we review this evidence," the paper continued. "We conclude--unexpectedly--that there is little evidence for the neo-Darwinian view: its theoretical foundations and the experimental evidence supporting it are weak, and there is no doubt that mutations of large effect are sometimes important in adaptation."

Coyne added, "By inserting the period (and removing the sentence from its neighbors), Behe has twisted our meaning. Our discussion of one aspect of Darwinism--the relative size of adaptive mutations--has suddenly become a critique of the entire Darwinian enterprise. This is not sloppy scholarship, but deliberate distortion."

Quote mining is effective because few people ever go back to read the original sources. It's easy to do, since all quotes require selecting certain sentences to keep and others to omit. The goal, however, should always be accuracy. Mining for quotes does disservice to the reader, misrepresents the person being quoted, and makes the quote miner look more like a dishonest ditch digger.

What Americans Are Missing

Left: Jose Socrates (Reuters) Right: Smokey the Cat (Gather)

Portugal’s Prime Minister Jose Socrates resigned Wednesday night after Parliament rejected his proposed austerity measures for the country, prompting renewed worries about sovereign debt in the Euro Zone. The collapse of Portugal’s government means that it may become the third country in the EU after Greece and Ireland to require a bailout from its neighbors.

I decided after hearing about this to check Yahoo! News’s top stories, just to see what they thought the most important things for their readers to know about were. I used Yahoo! as a source because many people I know look there for news, and because it’s targeted at the “average” American audience.

Portugal was conspicuously absent from their feed. What was so compelling that it took precedence over a brewing international debt crisis? Here were the ten “winning” headlines:

- Mysterious moment during NHL game
- Smart, simple skin care tips for guys
- Is Smokey the loudest cat in the world?
- How Elizabeth Taylor became an icon
- Surprising write-offs the IRS allows
- [Michael] Jordan’s cool promise to his college team
- 119-year-old not recognized as oldest
- How Olsen twins created $1 billion empire
- ‘Uglytecture’ flaunts worst of NYC condos
- High tech cloud will cool World Cup fans

Can we say “penchant for frivolity?”

The Orphaned Meme

Who Says We Get the Government We Deserve?

In a 2008 episode of the Fox suspense series, 24: Redemption, newly-elected American president Allison Taylor stands before the throng to deliver her inaugural speech. In what is meant to be a philosophical moment for Madame President, she trots out an aphorism that has become incredibly familiar in modern parlance:

“In every democracy, people get the government they deserve.”

Taylor gives credit for the quote to the famous French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville.

She (or, more accurately, the screenwriters) had apparently not done her homework. Although de Toqueville wrote hundreds of pages on democracy, he never penned that particular string of words.

The folks at Fox aren’t the first or only ones to have baselessly perpetuated the myth that this quote belongs to de Tocqueville. A quick Google search reveals that the false credit is bandied in all kinds of blogs, forums, and other niches of the web.

De Tocqueville isn’t the only supposed author, either (though he seems to be the most popular). Suggestions have included such prominent figures as Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain. Of course, none of these attributions contain citations to primary sources.

So where did the quote really come from?

It’s tough to say, but the line bears a striking resemblance to a quote from a letter written by French politician and philosopher Joseph de Maistre in 1811. His son, Rodolphe, published the letter posthumously in 1853 as part of a collection of his father’s writings called Lettres et opuscules inédits. At one point, de Maistre remarks, “Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle merite” (“Every nation has the government it deserves”).

Lithograph of a painting by Pierre Bouillon (1776-1831); lithograph probably by François Le Villain, who was active around the same time. Public domain image.

The original point of the comment seems to have been forgotten. De Maistre had been speaking of the Russian czarist government, not of democracies. He was criticizing the value of written constitutions by pointing out that successive leaders of the Russian state would reverse the policies of their predecessors based on their own whims.

De Maistre would be vexed to see his words used as a call for the people to guide political policy: he was one of the most vocal members of the counter-enlightenment in Europe, and dead-set against the democratic revolutions going on at the time. De Maistre believed in the reinstitution of hereditary monarchy in France, guided by what he thought to be the divine hand of the Christian church. He was a proponent of hierarchical authoritarian government, not democracy.

De Maistre’s critiques of the Russian state blamed the lack of moral education among the clergy for that government’s vicissitude. He wrote:

“Between a Russian pope and an organ-pipe I see no great difference; both emit sound, and that is all. I have repeatedly asked intelligent Russians whether means might not be found to civilize the clergy, to introduce it into society, to get rid of that disfavour which now more than ever attaches to it, and to make it of use for education, public morality, &c.”

He concluded that without the moral guidance of an educated church, the Russian people could not handle the reforms toward Westernization that had become so attractive to the Russian leaders of the era. (St. Petersburg was the capital at the time, and had been built a century earlier as part of a bid to put the country in closer contact with Europe.)

By 1879, six editions of Lettres et opuscules inédits had been printed. That year, The Library Magazine of Select Foreign Literature reprinted a commentary on de Maistre’s letters that had originally appeared in the Quarterly Review; de Masitre’s famously cynical comment was mentioned in both.

Modified versions of this quote begin appearing shortly after the publication of the letters in the second half of the nineteenth century, and were passed around from there in something reminiscent of a protracted game of 'telephone.' It wasn’t long before the words had been twisted to make them sound - as faux-president Taylor intended them to be taken – like a call for citizens living in participatory democracies to be vigilant against corruption.

In 1920, for instance, an article in The Blacksmiths Journal retold a sermon given by Arthur Brisbane decrying the excessive political power being wielded by privately owned railroads in the United States.

“It need not surprise you, for the United States is only just beginning an extremely interesting career of industrial feudalism,” Brisbane said, “with dollars for the soldiers, financiers for generals and a hundred millions of citizens for the ‘conquered populations.’”

Brisbane added that the situation was merely a reflection of Americans’ values: “Do the hundred millions deserve anything better? They do not. People get exactly the government they deserve.”

Similarly, a 1922 edition of the theological publication, the Homiletic Review, featured a discussion on the reasons for the decline of the nation of Judah. In an interesting parallel of de Maistre’s own top-down thinking, the author cited the moral deterioration of religious leadership as the first cause of the ancient culture’s ruin. Ironically, though, the infamous phrase was not invoked in this section of the essay (if it had, it would have aligned closely with de Maistre’s own meaning). Instead, it appeared in its new role, implicating the common people in Judah's decay:

“If good leaders are necessary, so also are good people. It is often said that people get the government they deserve: certainly in a democratic country the government must be a more or less faithful reflection of the tastes and character of the people; for any national catastrophe the latter, no less than the former, must bear a very heavy share of the blame.”

As indicated by this passage, the phrase had already evolved into a popular expression under the changed meaning.

By the middle of the twentieth century, the expression, now completely altered in implication, was being paraphrased by writers of all kinds. One such use occurred in 1942, when science fiction author A. E. van Vogt published a short story called The Weapon Shop.

The main character of van Vogt’s story discovers that an underground society of rebels is engaged in a secret war with the ruling empire in which he lives. As his alliance to the empress dissolves, a member of the rebel faction explains the crux of their philosophy to him:

"People always have the kind of government they want. When they want change, they must change it. As always we shall remain an incorruptible core ...of human idealism, devoted to relieving the ills that arise under any form of government."

This call to action is almost the complete opposite of what de Maistre would have recommended. Yet even under such loose phrasing, the basic syntax and structure bear his mark.

Just because the expression as it's understood today contradicts the original intent doesn't mean that the modern understanding carries any less truth behind it. However, neither de Maistre nor his thoughts should be misrepresented. That kind of decontextualization is the first step to full-blown revisionism.

Tips on Arguing: Naturalistic Fallacy

Image by Brandon T. Bisceglia

“Whether it’s motivation or some invigoration that you’re looking for, Cell-nique assists in detoxifying and alkalizing your body naturally to enhance your spirit and drive.”

That’s one of many claims made by a “super green drink” manufacturer headquartered in Weston, CT. It’s the kind of claim that we hear more and more these days: “natural cures” are offered in place of scientifically-backed medicines. Foods tout the fact that they contain no preservatives or artificial flavors. Even some cleaning products distinguish themselves as being made from “natural chemicals.”

All of these advertising schemes play on the assumption that because something is natural, it must be better somehow.

But does nature always offer the best solution? Probably not.

First, it helps to realize that the word “natural” simply means “not man made.” If a human modifies it, it becomes artificial.

With that definition in mind, imagine that you want to cross a deep river. You have two options: you can hang on to a piece of driftwood floating near the riverbank, or you can build a raft.

The driftwood might get you to the other side, and it’s definitely natural. But your chances of making it are much, much better with the artificially-made raft.

All-natural clearly isn’t always the most effective or useful policy. Making tools to overcome the limitations of what the natural world can offer is one of humankind’s greatest assets. No one would advocate for going back to all-natural knives (rocks), or all-natural toothbrushes (fingernails).

Nor does all-natural mean healthy. Just consider the fact that cyanide and uranium are both naturally occurring substances. Yet one is a deadly poison and the other is highly radioactive.

Even the claim that some food producers make about using all-natural ingredients is hard to back up. Agriculture is a man-made invention that has literally changed every crop into something different from its wild counterpart through selective breeding over the thousands of years that we’ve been farming. Unless the manufacturers plucked their ingredients from a forest, they too are engaging in an “artificial” process to make their products.

So what does it mean if a product is advertised as natural? Most of the time, absolutely nothing. It’s just another gimmick to hook consumers into paying an extra buck.

New Magazine Fails on Freemason Conspiracies (an open letter)

An antique door knocker at the Mumford River Masonic Lodge in Douglas, Mass.
Photo by Svadilfari. Published under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License.

To the editors of Ideas & Discoveries:

I recently purchased your pilot issue (February 2011), and saw the page on which you asked to hear your readers' "likes and dislikes" of the new magazine. I visited your website, and filled out the survey available there.

But I felt that more needs to be said, especially after reading the dubiously under-sourced feature article titled, "Freemasons: History's Secret World Government."

The article suffers from a litany of serious shortcomings in journalistic standards and basic due diligence that utterly undermine the entire piece's credibility.

Three problems in particular caught my attention:

1. The author is not listed, nor is any information given about her/him. It's not just a point of pride for a writer to have her or his moniker under a headline; it's also a vital reference for the reader. This article is ostensibly about history. Is the author an expert historian in this field - or a historian at all? Is she or he a vetted journalist who covers this field? There's no way to tell.

The reader's lack of knowledge about who wrote the article becomes even more pertinent given the next shortcoming, which is that:

2. The article contains few cited sources or quotes. A journalist is supposed to make the sources - primary documents and interviews - the backbone of the story. Source citation is the basis of a story's credibility. It tells the reader, "Hey, I didn't just make all this stuff up. Here's where I got it from, so you can check for yourself."

Vague references to unnamed "journalists" or "researchers" is only allowable if a fact is tangential to the article's focus. But the "Freemasons" article uses these kinds of unidentified sources to posit central arguments, such as when it points out that "more reports are being published" about the devious plans of secret societies. No examples of these reports are given; no quotes, and no mention of whether any of them are reliable.

More often, "facts" are simply presented without any reference to a source whatsoever. According to the article, 33% of the rebels who fought in the American Revolution were Freemasons. But where did this statistic come from? Certainly not the Census Bureau.

In another section the author writes, "Investigations reveal that many of [Italian Prime Minister Silvio] Berlusconi's policies correspond to the secret society's objectives." No hint is given about what the objectives were, how they were discovered, how they relate to any policies, or even who conducted the supposed "investigations."

The only person quoted directly in the entire article is Jim Marrs, who is variously identified as an "expert on secret societies" and a "researcher." A simple Google Scholar search reveals not one piece of recognized academic writing under his name. Marrs is, in fact, an ex-journalist who now espouses belief in a whole host of conspiracies, from alien abductions to 9/11 denial.

The author’s B.S. detector must not be very sensitive if he or she considers Marrs to be engaged in legitimate research. But that wouldn’t be quite as bad if not for the third shortcoming, which is that:

3. Although the article makes highly controversial claims, it offers practically no dissenting views.

The author’s wording of the article makes it obvious that his or her opinion is that the Freemasons exert a great deal of power and influence (perhaps in a negative fashion) on society. At one point, for instance, the article states (without citing a source) that “Besides Washington, there have been at least 11 U.S. presidents who belonged either to a Masonic Lodge or an affiliated organization.”

If 12 presidents were Freemasons, then 31 were not (43 men have been president: Grover Cleveland is typically counted twice, which is why Barrack Obama is president number 44). A sizeable majority therefore were not initiates.

In a similar fashion, the author mentions that “nine of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence...are openly members of Masonic Lodges, and another five have close ties to a lodge.” If, as the article says, Freemasons really did constitute one third of the rebels at the time of the Revolutionary War, then they made a terrible showing at the signing. Out of 56, they would have represented less than one sixth of the signers - and still only one quarter if you count outside “ties.”

Marr’s statements about cover-ups and the New World Order go unopposed, without the slightest attempt at a counterargument. The author doesn’t even bother at any point to bring in a token skeptic or to propose another perspective. Fringe conspiracy theories are portrayed as commonly accepted knowledge - and all this without a trace of reference.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. I haven’t addressed the veracity of the article, despite the fact that practically every paragraph makes unsubstantiated claims that arouse my suspicions.

To be frank, I don’t recall the last time I saw such sloppy journalism printed on such glossy paper. After reading this one article, I decided not to read any of the others. If the standards are as low as they seem, I don’t feel I can trust any of the content.

My likes are easy to enumerate. I like the concept of Ideas & Discoveries; judging by the design and content, it appears to be intended for a similar audience as "academic" magazines, such as Scientific American and National Geographic (I base this assessment in part on several of the survey's questions, in which the magazine is grouped with these and other popular science periodicals).

I wish there were more publications that provided education on a range of academic subjects that was accessible to general audiences. Your magazine could be among them, too, if it adopted some of the normal practices for maintaining journalistic integrity and accountability.

Until you tighten your editorial guidelines, however, I wouldn’t expect to reach anywhere near that level of credibility. Right now, a place on the rack closer to Weekly World News or the National Enquirer seems more appropriate.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
- Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Continuum 32: The (Mostly) Science Show

Visiting the CDC / Climate Denial / Culture and Scientific Consensus / Psychic Kids

Students from HCC’s Honors Program stand next to an iron lung during their recent visit to the CDC in Atlanta. Image courtesy of Caysey Welton.

Interview: Visiting the CDC – Every year, HCC offers a special interdisciplinary course for students enrolled in the college’s Honors Program. The topics covered by the seminar change from year to year.

This semester, Professor of Biology Dr. Kathleen Toedt is covering epidemiology – the study of diseases and how they spread.

In mid-November, the students in the class flew to Atlanta, Ga. to visit the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), where they toured the agency’s on-premises museum.

Climate Denial – Dr. Michael Mann is a professor of meteorology and the director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. Mann is also the person responsible for the famous “hockey-stick graph” that has become a major target of climate change critics over the past decade.

At the annual conference of the National Association of Science Writers and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing in New Haven earlier this November, Mann discussed the solidity of climate science and some of the genuine scientific uncertainties that remain.

He contrasts this with the misguided public discourse surrounding the hockey-stick graph and, more recently, with the manufacture of the Climategate controversy in 2009.

Climate Science From Climate Scientists: http://www.realclimate.org/

Culture and Scientific Consensus – Why do people with certain political and social values tend toward a particular set of seemingly unrelated beliefs about what the scientific consensus is on certain issues, while people with a different set of values think the consensus agrees with their perspective?

Dan Kahan is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He and his colleagues have looked into something they call “cultural cognition of risk.” What they’ve found is that a person’s cultural values play an important role in determining their assessment of risk, of what scientific consensus is, and even in whether someone is likely to believe an expert’s opinion.

The Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School: http://www.culturalcognition.net/

Commentary: Psychic Kids – A&E began airing the second season of a show called Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal this November. On the show, children with emotional and psychological problems are given “help” by psychics and mediums, all while being taped to sell to audiences.

Most of the supposed “experts” on the show have little professional experience working with troubled children, and all of them are invested in entrenching the kids that they really are being visited by ghosts or possess psychic powers.

This show demonstrates the harm of unscientific thinking, and takes advantage of the misery of children for a profit.

Skepchick’s letter-writing campaign to end Psychic Kids: http://skepchick.org/blog/2010/11/psychic-kids-letter-writing-campaign-edition/

News – HCC’s Ex-President Dies, World AIDS Day, Metropolitan Museum of Art Trip, Winter Wonderland Ball



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Continuum 31

Visit the Continuum web page

Executive Positions / Canvassing / Guilty of Date Rape? / Bridgeport's Beloved Socialist

Jaclyn Willis, played by Shamorrow Bember, tells the court the story of the night she was allegedly raped.
Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia

Student Senate Updates: Executive Positions/Canvassing - For most of the semester, the Student Senate has operated without most of its executive positions. That finally changed on Nov. 4, when Treasurer Konrad Mazurek became acting President and senator Juleen Moreno was voted as acting Secretary.

The Student Senate also decided to hold a special meeting the following Thursday in response to concerns that the Community Action Network (CAN) had possibly violated certain rules and policies during a demonstration the club held on Oct. 27 to promote Democratic Congressional candidate Jim Himes when he and his opponent, Republican Dan Debicella, were at the college for a debate.

Interview: No Witness - On Nov. 3, HCC's Women's Center and the Performing Arts club cosponsored a production of No Witness, a play that explores the complexities of date rape. Twelve audience members are selected as jurors to render a verdict in the fictional court battle over whether a young man overstepped the line.

This Week in History: Bridgeport's Beloved Socialist - Jasper McLevy was mayor of Bridgeport for 24 years, from 1933 to 1957. He was also a prominent member of the Socialist Party. He was a closer friend to Republicans than Democrats, and was eventually criticized for being too fiscally conservative in city affairs.

McLevy's relationship with the city was deeply intertwined with his sometimes battered identity as a lifelong Socialist. Bridgeport also changed dramatically under his stewardship.

News – Jewish Culture, Frosty the Snowman, Mr. HCC, Musical Talent Show, Toys for Tots, Music Lessons



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Continuum 30: Student Senate / STATWAY / Extracurricular Activities / Yale School of Medicine

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Graphic courtesy of actiononaccess.org.

News – FOE Meeting Times, Gettysburg Trip, Ernest Newton, NYC Trip, Music Lessons

Student Senate Updates: The Student Senate continued a painfully slow growth process at its Oct. 21 meeting, inducting its fifth member, Business major Melissa Silver.

The Student Senate also took votes on allocating funds for clubs who had not supplied a budget proposal before the Spring semester deadline. Proposal deadlines had been reopened until Oct. 14.

Most clubs got what they asked for without too much question. The Photography Club, however, was flat-funded $2,000 after several items on their proposal were rejected. The club had been asking for nearly $5,000, nearly twice what any other club had received.

The Art Club was left in the same position, though their initial request was slightly lower.

The clubs may still receive the rest of the funding that they requested. Part of the reason that the Student Senate voted for flat-funding was that the budget proposals were, in Mazurek’s words, “messy.”

Interview: STATWAY – HCC’s Math Department has begun test-piloting a new program for developmental math students that shifts the focus of their studies from algebra to statistics. The program is called STATWAY, and was formulated by the Carnegie Foundation. If all goes well, the college will begin teaching the new program in 2011. The goal then will be to change the way that developmental math is taught in community colleges across the country.

Host Brandon T. Bisceglia speaks about the program with Mathematics Professor Theodora Benezra, who is heading up the research and development team at HCC.

Commentary: Extracurricular Activities – Ever since Beacon Hall opened in 2008, HCC’s enrollment has been increasing. Along with that expansion has come an added demand for more extracurricular events and activities.

Several groups have excelled at meeting this demand. They deserve a bit of praise for that success.

This Week in History: Yale School of Medicine – In November of 1813, the Medical Institute of Yale College opened its doors, making it the first school in Connecticut for the formal training of physicians. The Institute, which would blossom into the now-famous Yale School of Medicine, was the product of a unique agreement between the college and the State.

Medicine at Yale, presented by the Harvey Cushing/John Jay Whitney Medical Library




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Continuum 29: Special - Politics in Connecticut

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Graphic courtesy of ctlocalpolitics.net

With the 2010 elections just passed, host Brandon T. Bisceglia tells stories from the campaign trail revealing the ways in which Connecticut politicians interact with the people, the press, and each other.

Part 1: The Narrative of Rick Torres

Part 2: Poll Fables

Part 3: A Stolen Laugh

Part 4: An Honest Ad

Part 5: Negativity

Part 6: Lawsuits Don't Matter

Part 7: Millions of Dollars for You




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From Science Friday: March of the Immune Cells

Science Friday

Reporting in the journal Science, Paul Kubes and colleagues filmed immune cells called neutrophils finding their way to a mouse's wounded liver. The researchers wanted to understand how neutrophils find injuries when bacteria aren't around to signal the damage.



video footage: B. McDonald and P. Kubes, Science, music by SYNTHAR, produced by anna rothschild, flora lichtman

Continuum 28: Behind the HCC Library / Boughton & the Tea Party / Pandemic Flu in Bridgeport

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Library Associate Jennifer Falasco carefully applies a special glue to the binding of a book that has begun to fall apart.
Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

Part 1: News – HCC Museum Closing, Veteran’s Center Move, Women’s Opportunities in Math/Science, Men’s Center Open House, ECE Food & Clothing Drive, CJ Club Presents Sarah Tyman, World Music Performance, Psychology Information Sessions, Salem Trip, Transfer Fair

Part 2: Behind the HCC Library – Host Brandon T. Bisceglia speaks with Library Associate Jennifer Falasco to find out how HCC’s library gets and keeps track of its books. Falasco also discusses her lifelong background with libraries, as well as some of the differences between public libraries and academic libraries.

Part 3: Boughton and the Tea Party – Last week Democratic State Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo criticized Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor Mark Boughton because of several Tea Party rallies he’s attended. Boughton’s association with these groups represents a tightening alignment between Republicans and tea party groups – a relationship that may have both positive and negative impacts on the two factions.

Part 4: Pandemic Flu in Bridgeport – On October 11, 1918, pandemic influenza was reported to have infected 147 Bridgeport residents within 24 hours, and had killed the city’s police commissioner. It was the height of the worst flu outbreak the city – and the world – had ever seen. That same day, a new committee was formed to staunch the spread of the disease in Bridgeport. The efforts would come too late for the pandemic, but would inform public health policies into the twenty-first century.

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Continuum 27: Club Budgets / Institutional Research / Blasphemy / The Death of County Government

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Part 1: News – Author Sergio Troncoso, Safe is Sexy, Madonna y El Niño, SCORE

Part 2: Student Senate Updates – The September 23 meeting of the Student Senate produced a lively discussion about the process of securing club budgets, resulting in an extension of budget applications until October 14.

Part 3: Institutional Research – HCC’s official student count for the Fall 2010 semester was 6,197, another all-time enrollment record in a string of records that have mounted since Beacon Hall opened in 2008. Director of Institutional Research Jan Schaeffler talks about the meanings behind the numbers, her dual jobs as researcher and teacher, and other projects she’s working on.

Part 4: Blasphemy - September 30 is International Blasphemy Rights Day. The benefits of the right to blaspheme include the unimpeded dissemination of scientific discoveries, freedom of religious choice, and are even tied closely to the ability to criticize government.

Part 5: The Death of County Government – On October 1, 1960, the Connecticut General Assembly formally abolished the last vestiges of the state’s county government, making it the first in the country to do so. This level of government, though integral to the original formation of the colony, slowly turned into an ineffectual shell of its former self.

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Continuum 26: Why We Needed the Constitution / Off-Peak Students / Long Island Express Hurricane

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Part 1: News & Events - Bridgeport Library Book Sale, The Big E, Banned & Challenged Books, Read Aloud Day, Record Enrollment

Part 2: Why We Needed the Constitution – History Professor Dave Koch’s presentation at the Events Center in celebration of Constitution Day on September 17 tells about some of the major ideas and events that led the United States from independence, to the Articles of Confederation, and finally to a Constitutional Convention.

Part 3: Night & Weekend Students: Many of HCC’s services are only open during traditional daytime hours. Many more activities take place during the day. This leaves night and weekend students underserved and unable to participate in many aspects of student life – a position that is unfair, given that they constitute one of the community college’s target demographics, and that they end up paying for college functions that they cannot use.

Part 4: The “Long Island Express” Hurricane: On September 21, 1938, a category three hurricane plowed across Long Island and slammed into Connecticut, centering between Bridgeport and New Haven. It was the single worst natural disaster to strike the state in recorded history.

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Continuum 25: Student Senate Shortage/FEMA/Connecticut’s First Constitution

Part 1: Events

Part 2: Student Senate Updates – Recruiting Senators, HCC Foundation, Budget Estimates, Revision of Constitution & Bylaws

Part 3: Student Senate Shortage – Many students who served on HCC’s Student Senate last semester have either graduated or moved on to other activities. Only three members were left to run the group’s September 9 meeting. Host Brandon T. Bisceglia speaks with Director of Student Activities Linda Bayusik and Student Senate Treasurer Konrad Mazurek about the push to recruit new senators, and why they feel the Senate is important.

Part 4: News – Albertus Magnus Transfer Agreement, HCC Crime Statistics, Himes Internships

Part 5: FEMA - Last Friday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency denied Connecticut’s request for federal assistance for losses incurred by the June 24 storm that produced a tornado that ripped through Bridgeport’s downtown area. The denial reveals inequities inherent in FEMA’s policies, and questions about its overall usefulness.

Part 6: Connecticut’s First Constitution – On September 15, 1818, Connecticut Governor Oliver Wolcott signed the final draft of Connecticut’s first post-colonial constitution.
- Connecticut Constitutional History, By Wesley W. Horton: http://www.cslib.org/cts4ch.htm

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Continuum 24: News/Off to the Americorps/Stem Cells/Benedict Arnold

Continuum is inaugurating the new school year with a new format! Join host Brandon T. Bisceglia as he delivers news, interviews, and stories related to Housatonic Community College and Connecticut as a whole.

Part 1 - News and Events: Dean of Outreach/Vietnam Course/Welcome Back Party/Clubs/The Big E Trip

Part 2 - Off to the Americorps: Former Student Senate Vice President Chad Hunter discusses his time at the college and his decision to take a year off to serve in the Americorps in California, as well as the drive to serve one’s community.

Part 3 - Stem Cell Commentary: A federal judge recently ordered a temporary ban on public funding for embryonic stem cell research, because of a law passed by Congress in 1996. Connecticut has its own laws that have created clear guidelines for the acquisition of embryonic stem cells, and may serve as a model for updated federal legislation.

Part 4 - This Week in History - Benedict Arnold: On September 6, 1781, Connecticut native and infamous traitor Benedict Arnold led British forces onto shore at the port of New London, in one of the worst battles to occur in the state during the American Revolutionary War.

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Anti-Islamic Illogic

In the hyperbolic rhetoric surrounding the proposed construction of an Islamic cultural center in New York City, some of us seem to have forgotten a few salient facts.

First: the center is in no way a part of ground zero. It's two blocks away. So are numerous other businesses and centers, none of which were asked to pass any kind of "9/11 litmus test."

Deferring to the opinions of the 9/11 victims' families on this issue (no matter whether they support or oppose it) makes little sense in this context. The families are rightly involved in the planning of the land left vacant on the World Trade Center property, but they should not have sway over the use of sections of the city that lay some arbitrary distance away.

Second: The building is private property, paid for with private funds. The proposal violates no law whatsoever. Any opposition is therefore only a ploy for the purpose of capitalizing on emotions.

We hear that this construction is "insensitive" to various Americans. But is it not equally insensitive to subject an oft-maligned minority group to the court of public opinion over something that encroaches on no one else's freedoms?

Third: An Islamic center can only be a "win" for the terrorists if we insist on giving their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam priority over the other 1.57 billion peaceful Muslims living on this planet.

That's what terrorists (of all kinds) really want -- to have their views validated. If you oppose this center, they've already won by defining the terms of the debate for you. It also does a total disservice to those Muslims who have suffered at the hands of terrorists. The numbers of these people dwarf the loss of life on 9/11 (some victims of which were also Muslim).

It is worth noting that the group who first stoked this controversy is itself an extremist Christian organization called Operation Save America, and that their opposition is not simply to the location of this particular center. They have traveled the country, staging protests at Muslim venues of worship (including in my city of birth, Bridgeport), intimidating Muslims, and driving divisive wedges into local communities.

These people consider the Islamic faith an affront to their own religion, and see themselves as confronting a dangerous rival on the verge of taking over their country. This is exactly the same view that extremist Muslims have, and that the Christian crusaders in the early part of the millennium had.

But even if that were not the case, it remains to be demonstrated that the parties involved in this project pose any legitimate threat to American security. Until such a threat is credibly established, it is a myopic worldview that automatically associates these people with terrorists. And if such a threat does become apparent, then the correct line of action to take will be to arrest them, not call them names.

If Republicans truly value the sanctity of individual property rights and the free exercise of religion (as they so often assert), they ought to be fighting especially hard for this work to go forward. Even if they don't like where or why it's being built, the issue is a classic example of the kind of liberty the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect (both from government and mob intervention).

These Muslims are our fellow citizens, and deserve all of the same inalienable rights to the use of their property for the practice of their religion as the rest of us.

The protection of those rights must supersede public sentiment, anti-Islamic fear mongering, or any other form of the current opposition. If we are willing to subjugate our most deeply cherished rights whenever an unpopular private decision is made, then we will be hypocrites. The rest of the world will correctly recognize us as hypocrites. And the real terrorists will have yet more confirmation that they can easily undermine the institutions that we claim as most important to us.

Development Exposed

When my wife and I moved to Fairfield at the beginning of the summer, we situated ourselves on a quiet street on the shore of Ash Creek. Our particular block bends around to meet with a parallel residential street.

That bend was lined on the far side with a large grove of wild trees and shrub that obscured the skyline beyond. I took particular pleasure in walking on the road beside towering brush that was barely held in check by a chain-link fence.

In the meantime, my parents told us that we had arrived in the town at a lucky moment: the new train station was in the process of being constructed just a few blocks away, easily within walking distance. As a fan of mass transit, I was initially delighted.

But about two weeks ago, while looking out our attic window, I noticed something strange. Off in the distance, I could see water towers and other structures. Previously, the horizon in that direction had been an unbroken sea of green.

Over the course of the next week, the tree line grew thinner and thinner, until just a single band of branches hid the newly stripped land from our street.

Now, even those are gone. In their place is a gigantic pit of stewed dirt, mud, and roots, crisscrossed with tire and tractor marks. The rabbits, possums, squirrels and birds have fled into the adjacent neighborhoods (where they will no doubt perish in the paws of cats and the headlights of cars).

Now that I can see over the ridge, it’s become apparent that this once verdant patch of land is all that separates us from the forthcoming train station. My speculation is that the trees will literally have been paved to put in a parking lot for all of the commuters who can’t find space for their SUVs at the older Fairfield station.

I plan to get confirmation of this in the next few days. If it is true, I’ll soon have a much different view from home: one of blacktop and metal glinting in the sun.

Our block terminates in this gate to a whole new world of development. Beautiful, no?

Construction equipment roams the denuded hillside.

The extensive root systems of felled trees still cling to the dust beneath.

The last carcass rests in the dirt where it was killed.

The tallest thing around is now the street sign. Two weeks ago, I didn’t even know it was there.

When removing natural structures, the workers are careful to preserve the man-made ones.

A long view.

A few finds from the Southport, Connecticut Pequot Library’s annual book sale:

"Design for the proposed Building for the Department of Agriculture - City of Washington."
Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

- “The Brass Industry in the United States: A Study of the Origin and the Development of the Brass Industry in the Naugatuck Valley and Its Subsequent Extension Over the Nation,” by William G. Lathrop. (1926)

- “A Pocket Guide to the Common Wild Flowers of Connecticut,” by John E. Klimas, Jr. (1968)

- “The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan, the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America,” by Russell Shorto. (2003)

- “First Principles of Chemistry – Revised Edition,” by Raymond B. Brownlee, et al. (1915)

- “Probability and Statistics for Engineering and the Sciences – 6th edition,” by Jay L. Devore. (2004)

- “Contemporary Medical Ethics,” by Father John F. Dedek. (1975)

- “The First Book of Stories for the Story-Teller,” by Fanny E. Coe. (1910)

- “Annual Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year 1880,” by the Department of Agriculture. (1881)

- “The New Humanists: Science at the Edge,” edited by John Brockman. (2003)

- “El Gato con Botas – versión del cuento de los hermanos Grimm,” by Eric Blair. (2006)

- “Solid Clues: Quantum Physics, Molecular Biology, and the Future of Science,” by Gerald Feinberg. (1985)

- “The Mayor’s Game: Richard Lee of New Haven and the Politics of Change,” by Allan R. Talbot (signed). (1967)

- “Techniques of the Great Masters of Art,” by QED Publishing Limited. (1987)

Future Statements: An Adaptation of Aristotle

Journey

Image by Vanessa Pike-Russell

If it is Tuesday, and it is raining, and I say, "It is raining," this affirmation is TRUE. Likewise, if I say, "It is not raining," this negation is FALSE. The principle works for the past as well, on the assumption that something that has happened or is happening is NECESSARY, i.e., since it is that way it cannot be any other way.

However, the same does not hold for the future tense. If it is Monday, and I say, "It will rain tomorrow," and it does, that does not mean that at the time of my prediction the event was necessary (that is, in relation to what humans can know). In other words, a statement made about the future is neither true nor untrue, since the future is indeterminate.

Keep in mind that this is only the case with the statement, not the event itself. Since it is necessarily true that it will rain on Tuesday, being as a thing that happens is necessary, and causes cause things to happen in a particular way (condensation causes rain clouds, making rain necessary, though it has not yet happened), the event will or will not happen in the future because of the causes set in motion by the present. Of the affirmation, though, one cannot be as definite. For it may be likely that rain will occur by the clouds we see today, yet our saying it does not make it happen.

Thus statements about the future can never be true or false, only likely or unlikely. There is an interesting corollary to this. That is, if I say, "It will not rain on Tuesday," and it does, it will not be entirely correct to answer my prediction with the statement, "You were wrong." For at the time of my speaking, I was neither wrong nor right, neither speaking the truth or a falsity. Furthermore, it is also indecent to propose that "I am wrong," since the only way this would make sense is if, at the onset of the Tuesday rain-shower, I still maintained that it is not going to rain. Since it would be patently absurd for me to say this in the face of the actual event, we cannot say that I continue to be wrong (that is, because my opinion has changed).

This is the net result - future statements are neither true nor untrue, even in a deterministic universe.