A self-portrait of the Mars rover Curiosity combines dozens of exposures taken by the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 177th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity’s work — Feb. 3, 2013 — on Mars. Curiosity landed on the planet on Aug. 6, 2012. (Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS via Getty Images)

Space geeks: Unite!

John Grotzinger, the head of NASA’s Mars Curiosity mission, is here at PIN headquarters in St. Paul, Minn., to share with us the latest research and a behind-the-scenes look at the red planet’s robot rover for Science Night Minnesota.

Minnesota Public Radio host Tom Weber will chat with Grotzinger on the stage of the Fitzgerald Theater about new discoveries, the potential for the building blocks of life on Mars and how it felt when Curiosity touched down after the so-called seven minutes of terror. They’ll be joined by Boing Boing science editor Maggie Koerth-Baker, who’ll help explore the world of space and scientific discovery.

You might not be able to make it to Mars — or even to Minnesota, for that matter — but you can get an evening’s worth of Mars and the science of space right here: We’ll be pulling in photos from the event, tweets from the audience (#sciencenight), updates from stage and more.

The event begins at 7 p.m. Central time tonight (Tuesday, May 21, 2013). Join us!

>> In the meantime, follow all of our Mars coverage — stories, art, updates and more — at ScienceNightMN.tumblr.com. 

The Hackathon will focus on real-world use cases for the new PIN APIs set to be officially released May 28. The new PIN APIs allow for searching and visualizing the wealth of contributions from the Network. For more details contact Peter Karman.

Bring your laptop and your programming chops and build something.

This post, which covers New Orleans public radio station WTUL’s “Deep Dialogue” series, comes from Ada McMahon, a media fellow at Bridge The Gulf, a community journalism project for Gulf Coast communities focused on justice and sustainability. A version of this post was first published on Bridge the Gulf’s website.

Featured speakers Ben Mintz, Derwin Wilright, Jr. and Shana griffin participate in WTUL’s “Where are you from, originally?” series on April 23, 2013. (Photo by Ada McMahon | Bridge the Gulf Project)

Where are you from, originally?

This simple question was the topic of a discussion at Community Book Center in New Orleans in April, and prompted a sweeping conversation about race, class, displacement and what it means to be from a rapidly changing city with deep roots.

The event was the first in the “Deep Dialogue” series hosted by the city’s WTUL “News and Views” show and the Bridge The Gulf Project. These in-person community conversations, recorded to air on WTUL, focus on topics that matter to New Orleanians and are made possible by funding from the Public Insight Network.

Here are just two excerpts from the conversation that I’ve been thinking and talking about since. They’ve been edited for length below, but you can listen to the full conversation here.

This first excerpt addresses some of the layered meanings behind the question: “Where are you from?” It features:

• Ben Mintz, who spoke about his discomfort about telling people he is from New Jersey, because he runs a news site about New Orleans
• Yasin Frank Southall, a community organizer who talked about people assuming he is from New Orleans because he is black, and the offensive things he hears when people realize he isn’t a local
• Shana griffin, an activist and researcher who grew up in public housing in New Orleans, spoke about feeling erased by post-Katrina policies
• Jennifer Turner (aka Mama Jennifer) of Community Book Center, who grew up in Central City and talked about the segregated New Orleans of her childhood
• Catherine Michna, a cultural historian at Tulane, who spoke about grappling with the “Where are you from?” question since high school, when she moved to New Orleans from Baton Rouge

The second excerpt touches on coastal land loss, climate change, and race. It features:

• Jonathan Henderson, who works for the Gulf Restoration Network
• Monique Verdin, who recently made a documentary film about how the Houma side of her family has been threatened by coastal land loss and Hurricane Katrina
• Amber, a young African American woman from New Orleans
• Shana griffin

The first of three events in WTUL’s “Deep Dialogue” series. The community discussion focused on race, place and what it means to be local. (Photo by Ada McMahon | Bridge the Gulf Project)

We’re inviting others to join the conversation by leaving a voice message at (504) 457-8439.

Some of those messages will be aired on WTUL.

Community members can also participate by suggesting a topic for the next “Deep Dialogue” event, which will be held on July 23.

Download the Guidebook app to access the mobile version of the PINCamp schedule.

With apologies to Groucho Marx, I do want to belong to a club that has these folks as members.

Do you know that nearly 40 people from 27 news organizations around the country have registered for PINCamp? Most of you are from public radio stations. But we also have journalists from the print, online and television world, as well as university instructors.

If the company you will keep doesn’t get you excited, maybe the discussions at PINCamp will. Below is a detailed guide to PINCamp 2013 in St. Paul. Alongside these sessions, there will be opportunities to meet with PIN staff one-on-one to talk through technical questions and get hands-on training with the PIN tools.

To access the schedule on your phone, download the Guidebook app. Then, go to “Download Guides” and search for PINCamp.

Thursday, June 6

Breakfast and an APM welcome
8:00-8:45

Real examples of engaging the community
9:00-10:15

Meet some PIN partners who have worked community involvement into their content. WITF’s (Central Pennsylvania) Transforming Health is a multimedia project about health care, its quality and its costs. Interactive producer Colette Cope will talk about how she used PIN to engage with people in the community and how that engagement guided reporting and led to stories on the air. Caitlin Shamberg of KCRW (Los Angeles) will talk about her station’s approach, through social media, to opening up dialogue about Los Angeles’ “Eastside” and “Westside” neighborhoods. And Stefania Ferro of WLRN/Miami Herald will share the steps she took to launch PIN-fueled coverage of Florida’s latest legislative session.

Presenters
Colette Cope – WITF
Caitlin Shamberg – KCRW
Stefania Ferro – WLRN and the Miami Herald
Daniel Rivero – WLRN social media editor

Moderator
Joellen Easton – APM

Go beyond your audience
10:30-11:45

Typical newsroom audiences tend to trend older, whiter and more affluent, yet we all want to access the insights of those who are younger, less affluent and/or part of immigrant or minority groups. How can we use PIN to reach hard-to-reach areas? We will convene a panel that has used PIN to connect with a diverse group. Amanda Peacher has used Oregon Public Broadcasting’s volunteer program to expand and diversify its PIN, bringing in new story ideas and amplifying the voices of under-represented community members. And Kat Chow of NPR will introduce you to an entire campaign designed for deep engagement with sources around issues of race.

Presenters
Amanda Peacher – OPB
Kat Chow – NPR’s Code Switch

Moderator
Annie Anderson – APM

Lunching and networking
12:00-12:45

Participants from PINCamp 2012 gather after a day of workshops in St. Paul, Minn. (Public Insight Network photo)

Making online reporting work for community building
1:00-1:45

Many reporters for legacy print or broadcast organizations see online as secondary to their main job. But what if a reporter’s online work could be woven into their day-to-day work? What if the online expression was a window into the journalist’s reporting process — a living document that provides fuller context by connecting the stories a journalist reports? Wouldn’t that create new content and also complement the reported story?

Dr. L.J. Thornton leads us in a discussion of how online content can add to a reporting stream without being a heavy lift and how that work can help community building, an important part of the PIN process.

Presenter
Leslie Jean Thornton – Cronkite School, Arizona State University

Moderator
Michael Caputo – APM

Solving community problems with PIN
2:00-3:15

It makes sense for newsrooms to organize reporting around “problems” rather than “topics.” This framework creates meaningful content that plays a real role in improving lives and becomes an indispensable service. Cole Goins of the Center for Investigative Reporting will lay out guidelines for a “problem-solving” approach to journalism, and will talk about how PIN partners can work with sources, community members and each other to highlight potential solutions to a particular issue. Dave Peters of MPR will discuss his solutions-based reporting effort, Ground Level, a multimedia project that focuses on issues – and the people trying to overcome them – in Minnesota communities beyond the Twin Cities.

Presenters
Cole Goins – CIR
Dave Peters – MPR News

Moderator
Joellen Easton – APM

Taking advantage of PIN’s big data
3:30-4:45

As journalists, we often see PIN as a wealth of stories. But, seen differently, it’s also a wealth of data. What does PIN’s big data look like? And how can we use it, combined with other data, to engage audiences deeply while maintaining their trust? With the upcoming launch of the PIN publishing tools, the possibilities will be endless. This session will touch on what’s possible without getting too technical, and will be an opportunity to work toward defining the boundaries of big data use and ethics.

Presenters
Ryan Kellett – Washington Post
Peter Karmen – APM

Moderator
Alison Brody – APM

Friday, June 7

Breakfast and gathering
7:30-8:15

Turning sources into storytellers
8:30-9:45

How can a station help PIN sources become reliable storytellers? Turning sources into storytellers allows PIN journalists to learn more about their source community and can be an empowering experience for people who participate. But creating storytellers takes work. PIN analyst Stefania Ferro will share how Miami’s WLRN turns sources into community commentators, telling their story in their own words. We will give tips on how to make the turn from response to commentary. And we’ll also share tips on taking audio from sources and producing it so that they are telling the story in their own voice.

Presenters
Stefania Ferro – WLRN and the Miami Herald
Daniel Rivero – WLRN social media editor
TBD

Moderator
Meg Cramer – APM

What do you know about PIN success?
10:00-10:45

PINCamp workshops will include discussions on how to use the PIN effectively, collaborating between newsrooms and strategies for effectively engaging communities. (Public Insight Network photo)

Kate Fink has been studying PIN as part of her dissertation research at Columbia University. She’s visited PIN newsrooms, surveying and interviewing people who use PIN, and analyzed the content of PIN queries and responses. She’ll be sharing the results of her research and talking about how newsrooms can encourage sources to tell stories and share experiences. She’ll also discuss ways to define PIN success in terms of audience, impact and content.

Presenter
Kate Fink – Columbia University

Moderator
Meg Cramer – APM

Why you have to invite feedback and, yes, criticism
11:00-11:45

Newsrooms must create journalism that invites engagement and collaboration with their audience. But what does it take to have an engaged newsroom? To invite collaboration internally and externally, you have to be open to feedback, even criticism. Are you willing to hear it and adapt? University of Missouri’s Joy Mayer, who specializes in community engagement and journalism, will talk about welcoming feedback in the newsroom and how it fits in with PIN-style journalism.

Presenter
Joy Mayer – University of Missouri

Moderator
Michael Caputo – APM

Lunching and networking
12:00-12:45

The source relationship: When the boundaries are challenged
1:00-2:00

The Public Insight Network hopes to create a relationship with sources, to email them on topics and sometimes to lean on them as the newsroom decides which direction to take the story. So what happens when a source relationship through PIN goes beyond sharing information, when that relationship becomes more personal or ambiguous? KPCC’s Ashley Alvarado and KUOW’s Carolyn Adolph will help start a discussion by sharing stories about a source relationship taking an unexpected turn.

Presenters
Ashley Alvarado – KPCC
Carolyn Adolph – KUOW

Moderator
Alison Brody – APM

The partner collaboration realized
2:15-3:30

With nearly 80 newsrooms using PIN, just how far can our organizations go when it comes to sharing responses, PIN data, queries and reporting? The answer is that we’ve barely scratched the surface. We will hear from PIN journalists who work with a committed media partner and who have teamed up with other PIN partners. It’s all about creating a collaborative spirit to serve audiences.

Presenters
Linda Lockhart – St. Louis Beacon
Ashley Alvarado – KPCC
Jeff Jones – APM

Moderator
Annie Anderson – APM

Be a Budget Hero »

If you ever wanted to control where your tax dollars go, here’s your chance to decide »

Firearm and immigration issues have dominated the news out of Washington lately, but many Americans say they are most concerned about economic topics, including the state of the federal debt, the size of the national deficit and shoring up Social Security and Medicare.

Those issues of budget and finance will take center stage in the coming months as the White House seeks a “grand bargain” with congressional Republicans over taxes, spending and entitlements.

Today, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office published its new 10-year estimates of federal spending, tax revenues and deficits. Its analysis of President Obama’s budget plan will be released Friday.

Since his second inauguration, Obama has pitched changes to Social Security and Medicare as part of a budget plan that the White House says would point the nation on a path toward reducing the national deficit. While he says his proposals were designed to meet congressional Republicans halfway, they make some of the president’s Democratic colleagues nervous as they look ahead to midterm elections.

With entitlements set to take center stage in Washington’s latest round of budget battles, we took the opportunity to find out how players of Budget Hero approached such hot-button federal issues.

Let’s start with Budget Heroes en masse. (Later this week, we’ll hear some individual players’ views on federal spending.) Since 2008, the game has been played more than 1.6 million times. While most players choose to remain anonymous, nearly 50,000 players shared their demographic information through the Public Insight Network.

Working with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Jefferson Institute (with funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation), we’ve created a data visualization that lets you explore the policy options Budget Heroes preferred as they played the game between May 2008 and December 2012, broken down by players’ demographics.

Take a look.

PLAY WITH THE DATA: The Wilson Center analyzed demographic and interaction data on nearly 50,000 plays of the Budget Hero game that occurred between May 2008 and December 2012 to get a better idea of Americans’ spending priorities.

A majority of players who identified themselves across political parties tended to both raise the Social Security age and to slowly increase Social Security benefits.

That data contradicts a Pew Research Center survey from late 2012 in which 56 percent of Americans polled said they opposed gradually raising the age at which people can begin receiving Social Security benefits. Thirty-eight percent of those polled matched the Budget Hero players, and were in favor of raising the minimum age.

To be clear: Budget Hero isn’t a scientific poll. Each version of the game has included dozens of different tax and policy options for players to pick. Since its launch, Budget Hero has undergone three major revisions to allow players to choose from among the latest economic projections and policy options being seriously considered by lawmakers. And because it’s a game, players’ choices do not necessarily reflect their political beliefs directly.

While the most recent Budget Heroes of all political stripes have largely been willing to calculate Social Security increases using the chained Consumer Price Index, an AARP survey released in April found “broad bipartisan opposition to chained CPI among voters over 50, with 69 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of unaffiliated voters in agreement that Congress should not support the policy.”

Despite Budget Heroes’ widespread willingness to make changes to Social Security, players were far less receptive to the idea of gradually raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67.

That option was most popular among self-identified Republicans and Libertarians from May 2008 through July 2011, but it saw huge drops in popularity across the board from July 2011 through December 2012, especially among Republicans and Libertarians. It’s been more popular among players who identify as Democrats and independents in that same time frame.

Of course, the game launched in 2008, as the United States was beginning to feel some of the toughest effects of the economic collapse.

What did you find interesting in the Budget Hero data visualization? Share your insights through the Public Insight Network.

We’re planning to launch another major Budget Hero iteration this summer, based on the latest CBO projections of federal spending, revenue and the president’s budget proposals. Follow @BudgetHero to find out when the new version is released. If you haven’t played the game before — or if it’s been a while, – give Budget Hero a shot.

Marine Cpl. Mike Liguori riding in a convoy in Iraq during his deployment there in 2004. (Photo shared by Mike Liguori)

Editor’s note: This is the third post in our series on veterans, reintegration and mental health.

“Writing saved my life,” says former Marine Cpl. Mike Liguori.

When Liguori, 29, returned home to San Carlos, Calif., in 2006, after two tours in Iraq, he felt numb and disconnected. He fell into a deep depression. He hated being alone yet felt intense loneliness when surrounded by people.

Eventually, he turned to the VA’s mental health services and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

His therapist gave him an assignment: Think back to the first traumatic event of the war and write about it.

Transporting himself to that moment was wrenching, Liguori says. His writing was filled with pain and self-loathing.

Then the therapist told him to do it again. And again. He continued to write and rewrite the same thing for weeks, for a month. Over time, the story began to change. The facts remained the same, but how he wrote it, the details he included and the details he left out, began to shift. He began to forgive himself.

“I had felt responsible,” he says. “But I wasn’t responsible. I wasn’t the one in charge.”

Liguori has continued to write. In August 2012 he published a book of short stories called “The Sandbox: Stories of Human Spirit and War.” The book features a version of that first story he wrote in therapy. It is retold here with excerpts from Liguori’s later writing.

In 2004, Liguori arrived in Iraq as a member of a motor transport team. He spent much of his time driving around Anbar province, resupplying bases. These missions, he says, were both incredibly dangerous and mind-numbingly boring.

I still haven’t seen combat. I still haven’t seen what I had imagined it to be, rounds coming at you with hand-to-hand fighting in the trenches against the enemy. A couple months out here, I have nothing to tell my friends and family back home. I thought war was going to be constant battle. I thought it was going to be days filled with grenades and firefights. I just have been driving miles and miles without a single firefight to show for it.

This wasn’t the experience Liguori signed up for. He had enlisted in the Marines right out of high school, inspired by the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Liguori says his personal mission had been to protect the United States from future attacks. In other words: He wanted to kill terrorists.

It is a little discouraging that I haven’t had a chance to kill. All those hours I spent cleaning weapons seem pointless. I keep getting this itch to shoot anything while I’m out on the roads. I just want to kill something. I want to tell my friends I killed out here, that it was one less terrorist they had to worry about.

The opportunity arrived late one night while he was returning to base after a supply run.

A shadow behind a cement barrier slowly slipped out between the chain link fence and concrete barrier. I couldn’t make out his face but the shadow looked like a child, maybe eight to ten years old. He held something in his hand as he pointed at one of the trucks in front of me. With the whip of his arm, he rolled something under one of the trucks. The gunner on the second truck, a guy named Dakota, peered through the opening in his gun turret to watch the item’s path. It rolled fast underneath his truck. As Dakota attempted to look closer over his turret, the item exploded as shards of metal went in all directions.

Another explosion quickly followed with more force. I didn’t realize how real this all felt until the second explosion. At first, it felt like a training exercise. All the preparation for a moment like this, all the times I mentally went through thinking about how I would shoot my weapon, how I would empty multiple ammo cartridges, shooting and killing the enemy, had not have prepared me for how scared I felt. My ass cheeks clenched as I pulled the trigger of my rifle as fast as my finger could, shooting in the direction of the blast. I slammed the gas pedal of the truck as the engine roared at my feet.  I whipped the truck hard into a left turn while red tracer rounds lit up the night sky.

Dakota whipped his .50 cal machine gun towards the small boy. The boy made eye contact with Dakota’s barrel.  His eyes lit up as if he had seen a ghost as his head swiveled quick to his right, looking for an escape route. The boy pumped his arms in furious motion as his feet followed. For the next few seconds, it seemed the interaction between Dakota and the small boy was in slow motion. The boy ran for his life as Dakota aimed in on him, Dakota’s eyes and war face behind the power of the machine gun.

I wanted this kid dead. The combat-hungry part of me wanted him to be the first casualty of our unit. I wanted him to be made an example to the villagers of [al-Qaim] that our unit was not to be fucked with anymore. No more throwing rocks at us, no more cursing in Arabic or we will kill you. But I felt something else during my want for blood. The human side of me, the little that was left, thought that if Dakota kills this kid, blood will always be on his hands. I would’ve watched a young boy die in front of me. I would have had the image of his death etched in my mind. I would have to live with that.

In the end, the boy escaped, but Liguori still thinks about what might have been.

“I have three younger brothers who were around the same age as that kid,” he says. “I would’ve had blood on my hands if that kid had died. It’s like, I killed the enemy, but the enemy was a 9-year-old boy.”

You can find more of Liguori’s writing at his blog, The Spirituality of War.

>> Are YOU a veteran with a story to share about how you have – or haven’t – been able to move on from war? Share it here.