Final Profile

The temperature rises monumentally as you cross from the seating section of Eugene Lang’s cafeteria into the feeding area where sushi is neatly rolled and food bakes under florescent heat lamps. Amidst the madness of college students striving to satisfy their hunger cravings sits Joy. 

Her auburn pony weave loosely bound with a hair net, her unrelenting jolliness, and her “thank you my ladies” with every credit card or meal plan transaction defines the dining experience to the students at The New School.  However, if you were to ask Joy who was responsible for the endless trays of baked zitti, the tantalizing spicy mayo, the pre-packaged sandwiches, or the veggie lo-main she would not say herself. Joy would casually tell you, Heath Braunstein, the head of dining services. Or she would tell you “the Purdue chicken man,” a nick-name Joy has given Braunstein because of his uncanny resemblance to Frank Perdue from the Perdue chicken commercials.

Braunstein strives to make the dining services department as professional as possible. He arrive’s to work in a crisp suit more than willing to answer any questions a student may have, even though many students do not know who Braunstein is. Whether it’s a question involving his marriage of nineteen years, his Doberman that’s terrified of his Chihuahua, his sixteen-year-old son or thirteen-year-old daughter, or his area of expertise: food.

Braunstein started working at The New School in April of 2011after he applied for the job through the New York Times. This was not his first campus dining job. Before working for The New School he worked as an area manager supervising food services Dominican College and Pace Pleasantville. Since he started working for the university he has made some changes to the dining services. Without Braunstein there would be no to-go sandwiches and salads, a hot food menu filled with regional and American cuisine, or a Moo-Bella ice cream machine.

One aspect of the food services at The New School that Braunstein did not initiate but still strongly implements is the university’s use of local and organic foods. According to Braunstein the meat and fish come from a local distributor called AFI. They provide the university with sustainable seafood, and antibiotic free, organic meats whenever they have them available. When the vegetables are in season, they come from local farmers as well. When a vegetable is not in season or unavailable, the chefs use high quality frozen ones instead. “We hired an outside company to take care of the sushi station,” Braunstein said as he peered into the cafeteria. “They are the same company that makes sushi at Yankee Stadium.”

Braunstein and the head chef work together to create the menu based on student requests, and current trends. The menu is created at the beginning of the semester and rotates on a four-week cycle.

Braunstein takes great pride in the food that the New School produces. “The Health Department does not require us to dispose of our pre-wrapped sandwiches or salads for a week after they are made,” Braunstein explained. “However, in order to maintain their freshness we throw them out at the end of the second day they have sat on the shelf.”

Not only does Braunstein take pride in the food, but he really cares about the way the food services department functions. Arriving to work around seven am, he makes his rounds from kitchen to kitchen. He makes sure everything is being made correctly, and neatly. He makes sure everything gets out on time, and that all catering orders are set. He makes sure to greet each employee and check to see that they have arrived to work and are not in need of anything. If you ask Joy, she’ll tell you that she has never seen someone in Braunstein’s position so involved in every aspect of the food services. So while joy patiently wraps Murray’s bagels early in the morning, you may be able to catch Heath Braunstein popping his head in to check up on her. You may see him monitoring the drink case or having a conversation with the sushi chefs. You may catch a glimpse of Heath Braunstein just in time to see him heading on to the next kitchen or back to his office. And if you don’t get to see Braunstein, there’s a good chance you can always find Joy.

journal entry December 6th

First off, I have been meaning to add this to my weekly entry but I keep forgetting. I cannot believe that The Guardian has a section for the occupy protests, and the New York Times does not. Moving right along.....

Earlier this week my friend forwarded me her fashion blog which is published in her school newspaper at Emory College. It got me thinking about fashion related to journalism. Right next to articles in the New York Times that deal with serious cultural issues, one can easily find an “article” about how to master metallic makeup this holiday season. I began to wonder at what point in history did newspapers start publishing stories about trends dealing with fashion? I realized this is one major similarly that most newspapers share. Whether you are reading the Guardian, the Times, or the Tribune all of these periodicals have a section dedicated to fashion trends. This is also the only section of the paper that does not need to worry about bias’s. People don’t think about truth or bias’s when reading these articles because we just assume that who ever is writing them has been given permission to write them for good reason. Can these articles be considered journalism if they don’t really need to worry about following the majority of journalistic rules? For this week’s journal I have decided to look into these articles to answer some of my questions.

One thing I realized about these articles is they do in some ways follow the rules we have outlined in class. They ask specialists questions in order to make sense of what they are writing. What I found interesting is a lot of these journalists go to beauty magazines in order to ask around for trends. Journalists approaching another type of journalist for questions. 

Another interesting thing I noticed is that even though there is a style section for most news papers, the content of them differs quite a bit. When comparing the Tribune with the Times you can see a pretty big difference in the type of audience they are trying to appeal to. The Times is dripping with designer names, pictures of hipsters, and has a greater variety in the types of articles. The Tribune seems to be geared towards all ages and all classes. Their articles are much less factual than the times. They don’t have long stories behind their trends, instead most of their trends in fashion are just lists. 

I am still sort of on the fence as to whether or not these articles are true journalism. I am interested in learning who is responsible for putting these types of stories in news papers. I feel that in some cases, such as in the Times, the stories do follow a similar journalistic style. However, when its just a list of must have makeup it seems that belongs in Elle magazine as opposed to a periodical thats delivering news. 

Reading Journal 11/30

       Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is it a crime? and Trial by Fire are two feature stories that recall tragedies involving a parents loss of a child. Both of these stories epitomize good writing, and in my opinion how the relationship between a reporter and subject greatly affect the written work.

          It goes without saying that the amount of work, and time both reporters but into these pieces made for incredible detail, and in turn allowed for the writers to play with their styling of the articles. In Fatal Distraction, the relationship that the reporter had with his subjects and the amount of extra research done in order to prove theories behind memory loss, helped him to write this story without leaving any holes. He was also able to include the various layers and characters as well as the dramatic ending. As for the Trial By Fire article, the reporters relationship and research into every aspect of this mans trial, life, and even research done outside of the trial, created this incredibly complex and intricate story that allowed for the reader to go through a roller-coster of emotions. 

          One thing I noticed about both of these articles is how both of them dealt with subjects that could have easily been pinned as the bad guy if it was a hard news story. In my mind hard news stories are supposed to be unbiased. When you look at these articles, even though they present the facts, they seem to have compassion and aim to have the reader feel a certain way at the end. This made me realize that hard news is in a way biased. We talk in class about the angles reporters choose to take and when considering stories like this we can see that the reporters could have approached the stories from a variety of angles just as hard news reporters do. These articles however do not take the obvious angle. I think part of the reason this was able to happen is because of the extensive amount of information the reporters gathered.  

          It should go without saying that I will probably spend my whole career striving to write like these two reporters have. It is so rare to find articles that report facts, tell a story, allow for a good read, and don’t allow for reader fatigue. I especially liked the Fatal Distraction article because after further examination of the writing styles I have come to realize that the writing in this is truly impeccable. 

First draft-profile

          The temperature raises monumentally as you cross from the seating area of Eugene Lang’s cafeteria into the linoleum floored hub. This is where sushi is neatly rolled and food bakes under florescent heat lamps. Students collide and push past each other as they make their way through the narrow tunnel that connects the drink cases and Moo-Bella ice cream machine to the sushi bar. Amidst the madness of indie hipster students fiending to satisfy their hunger, sits Joy. To the students of The New School, Joy is the face of “dining” when it comes to on-campus meals. Her auburn pony weave loosely bound with a hair net, her unrelenting jolliness, and her “thank you my ladies” with every credit card or meal plan transaction epitomizes the cafeteria experience at Lang. However, if you were to ask Joy who was responsible for the endless trays of bakes zitti, the tantalizing spicy mayo, the pre-packaged sandwiches, or the veggie lo-main she would not say herself. Joy would casually tell you, Heath  “the Purdue chicken man.” This is a name Joy as coined due to Heath’s uncanny resemblance of Frank Perdue from the Perdue chicken commercials. However, the magical oz-like character who is rarely seen, or recognized, by students is more commonly referred to as Heath Bernstein.

            Bernstein is charismatic and professional. He is more than willing to answer any questions a student may have. Whether its involving his marriage of nineteen years, his Doberman thats terrified of his Chihuahua, his sixteen year old son or thirteen year old daughter, or his area of expertise: food.

            Bernstein started working at The New School in April of 2011 after he applied to the job through the New York Times. This was not his first campus dining job. Prior to working for The New School he worked as an area manager supervising food services at other universities.

            Since he started working for the university he has made some changes to the dining services. Without Berstein there may be no to-go sandwiches and salads, a hot food menu filled with regional and American cuisine, or a Moo-Bella ice cream machine.

            One aspect of the food services at The New School that Bernstein did not initiate but still implements is the universities use of local and organic foods. Although the students are informed that the food is local, organic, and fair-trade, there is still some mystery left as to where the food comes from. The meat and fish come from a local distributor called AFI. They provide the university with sustainable seafood, and antibiotic free, organic meats whenever they have them available. When the vegetables are in season, they come from local farmers as well. When a vegetable is not in season or unavailable, the chefs use high quality frozen ones instead.

            Bernstein and the head chef work together to create the menu based on student requests, and current trends. The menu is created at the beginning of the semester and rotates on a four week cycle.

            Bernstein takes great pride in the food that the New School produces. He explained that the Health Department does not require the university to dispose of pre-wrapped sandwiches and salads for a week after they are made. However, in order to maintain their freshness Bernstein instructs his crew to dispose of them at the end of the second day they have sat on the shelf.

            Not only does Bernstein take pride in the food, but he really cares about the way the food services department functions. Arriving to work around seven am, he makes his rounds from kitchen to kitchen. He makes sure everything is being made correctly, and neatly. He makes sure everything gets out on time, and that all catering orders are set. He makes sure to greet each employee and check to see that they have arrived to work and are not in need of anything. If you ask Joy, she’ll tell you that she has never seen someone in Bernstein’s position so involved in every aspect of the food services. So while joy patiently wraps Murray’s bagels early in the morning, you may be able to catch Heath Bernstein popping his head in to check up on her. You may see him monitoring the drink case or having a conversation with the sushi chefs. You may catch a glimpse of Heath Bernstein just in time to see him heading on to the next kitchen or back to his office. And if you don’t get to see Bernstein, theres a good chance you can always find Joy.

            

Reading Journal 11/15

We have discussed several times in class how journalists are able to add their voice an opinion to their articles through their sly word choices. For example, in the profile we read on the clown musicians, the author was able to add hints of sarcasm to his article without outwardly poking fun at his subjects. For this weeks journal I chose to write on an article from the New York Post. The article is called “Face of a ‘Rapist’” and is written by Lorena Mongelli, Larry Celona, and Dan Mangan. This article is a perfect example of the saying, too many cooks spoil the soup.

 
I have never in my life read an article about a rapist, that was so over the top and  kitsch that in the end I didn’t know who to have sympathy for. The author(s) of this article worked so hard to the pin the perp as an evil no-good-doer that in the end I sympathized with him. Well...maybe I didn’t sympathize, but I was so frustrated at the writing in this article that by the end I felt I had to side with the bad guy.

 
The “rapist”, (the reporters are careful and quote this coined name) never did rape the girl. It is not to say he wouldn’t have if he had enough time, but he never did. It seemed that the authors were so worried that because of his lack of action, the readers wouldn’t take the story seriously. In turn, they added as much negative descriptions as possible when talking about the perp. It shouldn’t be necessary when describing a potential rapist to shove the ideas surrounding this person down the readers throat. The reader’s red flag should go up with alarm when reading about an attacker regardless of his actions. The mere act of pushing these ideas in the readers face raises my red flag for a whole other reason.

    have been reading a lot of profiles in preparation for our upcoming project. I think that the most successful profiles I have read do a fantastic job at catching the essence of a person through descriptive writing. When I stumbled upon this article I realized there is a point when description can actually become too over the top. For example, the reporters write “F--k you! Get the f--k out of here! I know what you f--king look like! Screamed the feisty fashion-firm employee during the frightening attack that she repelled early sunday, she recalled.” It may be the authors word choice here that lacks the provocation of sympathy from me. Feisty fashion-firm employee? There is nothing about that choice of adjective that makes me worry or sympathize with this poor woman, who anyone should have sympathy for because she was attacked. Instead I picture an animated super-hero version of Kim Kardashian, in a pair of stiletto heals, fighting off the “bad guy”. It just didn’t work.

  Maybe I am being too hard on these reporters. I guess over describing something may be better than using no description at all. I just think that these people crossed the fine line between well written, and over-the-top.

Journal Entry 6

I chose to write this weeks journal on a profile I read in the New York Times on Lex Luger called “Lex Luger Can Write a Hit Rap Song in the Time it Takes to Read This.” I sifted through a few profiles, but this one I liked the best.

Alex Pappademas, the writer of the article, only followed Luger around for a few days. In this short amount if time Pappademas was able to show Luger’s successes, his character, his family, and his life.

One of the things I really liked about the piece was the way Pappademas was able to add description that stylistically matched Luger’s lifestyle. Everything in Luger’s world is electronic. He works on a synthesizer and a program on his computer constantly smoking weed making beats for famous rap artists. Pappademas’s language matches this synthetic, electronic atmosphere that is seen through the hazy eyes of a drug induced stupor. “It had a thunderous canned-orchestra melody, like an endless loop of some bombastic moment from Wagner or Danny Elfman; a sternum-rattling bass line; and skittering electronic percussion that brought to mind artillery fire,” Pappademas writes. I just love this sentence. “Thunderous canned-orchestra” “endless loop of some bombastic moment” “sternum-rattling baseline” “artillery fire”, his word choice lets the reader (who may have never listened to Luger’s music) in on the fact that his music is grandiose, moving, rattling, electronic, sharp, and momentous. Its almost difficult for me to explain how perfectly his writing matches the music of Luger’s without having my reader listen to the music and read the article at the same time. 

At the beginning of the article Pappademas starts out by briefly telling Luger’s story of success. He leaves the reader with reserved sense of mystery in regards to Luger. Part of this, I believe, is that Luger is not the most articulate human being. The quotes that Pappademas chose clearly show this, and he doesn’t include them until half way through the story. By leaving Luger’s own voice out of the first half, he tells his story through interactions with others. It isn’t until the second half of the article when Pappademas is introduced to Luger’s family and entourage that the writer is able to land on a conclusion as to whom Luger is. Pappademas writes (I included this incredibly long quote because I think it is beautifully written and was impossible to leave any of it out), “In the photo Lex has his hands on the hips of a pretty girl in a seafoam dress. His expression is sour, as if he’s embarrassed to be there. He’s making the same face on the cover of VABP’s CD.

I got it, suddenly — he’s shy. Maybe less so now that he’s found something he’s good at, realized some rewards, signed some autographs — but he’s still not Kanye. He’s a hip-hop star who wouldn’t be a hip-hop star without the Internet. He has the tunnel vision of a hard-core gamer or a programmer, someone who can wire into an interface and shut off his perception of time’s passage — someone who feels more comfortable doing that than he does living in the world. And having his picture taken and answering questions about his craft ultimately takes him out of the zone where he’s most comfortable, the one where everything else falls away and it’s him and the screen and the beat.” 

This quote sum’s up the writers style in this article. The entire article Pappademas leaves Luger out of the equation in a way. He writes about his family, the way he zones into his computer to make his music, his swagger. However, the way he writes never makes it seem as though Luger fits in to his surroundings. In the end Pappademas is able to come to the conclusion. Luger was thrown into this world of stardom and never had the make-up to actually be a star. 

One of the reasons I chose this profile is because I was having a difficult time coming to a conclusion with the profile I wrote for Wednesday’s class. Most of the time the conclusion on a person is at the beginning. A profile on a famous chef shows his masterful way of managing a kitchen right off the bat. A profile on a stylist typically describes her keen sense of fashion sense from the getco. This article does not do that. The conclusion is not one someone could conclude from watching an interview on Luger, or reading his biography. Pappademas was thrown into this mans life and saw his interactions with his world and was able to, in my opinion pretty profoundly, figure Luger out. I want to be able to do something like this for the profile I write. 

Occupy Wall Street

By Jolie Peters

(All italicized quotes are from signs held by protestors)

  There are zen meditation circles, singing, camp sites, news reporters, and it wouldn’t be New York without the variety of Halal trucks surrounding Zuchotti park. “The only thing I can possibly feel is hope,” said Roberto Anderson, a twenty three year old college graduate from upstate New York, as he approached one of the Halal trucks to charge his cell phone. “A month is nothing, just wait till we reach six.”  

One month has indeed passed since people have been participating in the Occupy Wall Street Movements. These protests are the result of resentment that some Americans have had towards large corporations, banks, and the government, who, in the protestors opinions, do not have the interests of the American people in mind. The occupation has included a variety of marches that have occurred in New York City, and around the world. Despite the mass arrests and legal interventions, the occupation has made incredible headway since it began in September. The movement has not only spread to over a thousand cities, but it has gotten the attention of many politically important people as well.

How the Protest’s Began

“Lost my job, Found my occupation.”

        In July of 2011, Adbusters, a non-for-profit, non-consumerist organization , as well as the New York General Assembly (NYGA), a compilation of groups set out to organize the occupation, put out a call to occupy Wall Street. They asked people to protest the fact that over the past few decades the majority of wealth in America has been in fewer and fewer hands, as well as the events that occurred leading up to and after the recession in 2008. When September 17th came, thousands of protesters began their march through the Financial District. After the police began blocking the march, protestors moved to the privately owned Zuchotti Park where they have stayed ever since. 

        “I’m here because I have a feeling of personal responsibility,” Said Jordan McCarthy, from New Hampshire as she sat with her friends and Beagle puppy, Tucker on the steps of Zuchotti Park carefully explaining her reasons for traveling to New York in order to protest. “I don’t know if this movement is going to accomplish everything I want it to, but it goes along with what I believe has to happen so much that I needed to be here.”  The media has painted the face of the protestors as young politically naive individuals. 

“By late morning on Wednesday, Occupy Wall Street, a noble but fractured and airy movement of rightly frustrated young people, had a default ambassador in a half-naked woman who called herself Zuni Tikka,” wrote Ginia Bellafante in a piece for the New York Times. “The group’s lack of cohesion and its apparent wish to pantomime progressivism rather than practice it knowledgeably is unsettling in the face of the challenges so many of its generation face....” 

  While there are a fair share of young activists on Wall Street, there is a larger spectrum of protestors who are different ages, and have different intentions for occupying. World War Two veteran Eddie Davis sat silently on a wooden bench, wearing his World War Two veteran hat and holding his hand-made sign. He observed his fellow protestors, on October 5th, during the union march in which the unions came to join those occupying. 

       “I’m here because there needs to be a broad peoples movement. All of us affected by the same issue need to call for a meeting of interested parties,” Davis said. "In the 1930‘s there were unemployment councils organized throughout the country. The outcome of this was Social Security and Unemployment Insurance. We all need to ban together to see a change.” 

There are a variety of events that have consequently sparked the feelings that brought people like Davis, and McCarthy down to the occupation.

The Creation of the 99%

“None are more Hopelessly Enslaved than those who believe they are free.”

Bank deregulation has been occurring in America since the early nineties. The banking industry pushed for deregulation, or less monitoring of their transactions, and in 1999 congress passed bills legalizing it. After the bills were passed, bankers were able to give out large quantities of risky loans to American citizens. This led America into a severe recession in 2008 because people who were issued these loans were unable to pay them back. During this time foreclosures began to skyrocket and banks were left with the loans unpaid, and real estate they were unable to sell. When the banks began to collapse due to this debt, the American Government passed bail out packages to save them. When the smoke finally cleared from the financial crisis, many CEO’s walked away with billions they had made prior to the recession, as well as bonus’s they received during the recession and afterwards. 

“There is an incredible anger and disillusionment with watching those executives in the upper 1% that contributed to the financial crisis walk away with bonuses when unemployment and poverty are at levels not seen in decades,” said Mary Borrowman, an Economics expert and teacher at The New School.

  On top of the feelings of disenfranchisement people felt after the recession, there are also high levels of resentment towards the income disparities that have been growing for decades. According to a report released by the Congress of the United State’s Congressional Budget Office, from 1979 until 2007 the average income for the top 1% has grown 275 percent. The people outside of the 1% have not seen their income grow higher than 65% since 1979.

Police and Legal Action

“We are not fish, put your nets away”

        From the start of the protests there has been clashes between police and occupiers. Video’ went viral on the internet of police officers brutally arresting, beating, and macing protestors. One of the videos depicts three young women standing on the side walk near an occupation march. When one of the woman pulled her camera out of her bag, a police officer in a white shirt stormed over to the side of the curb, and maced her as well as two other bystanders. The protestors in turn fell to the ground writhing in pain an screaming for help. 

Some of these mass arrests occurred on October 5th during the march on the Brooklyn bridge where s700 people were arrested. Also on October 15^th 92 people were arrested during the march to Times Square. 

      According to the Partnership for Civil Justice, the police have been using a trap and detain tactic in which they use an orange net to surround the protestors. 

 “I think the police officers just got desperate, took out their orange nets, and blocked off the (street) block,” said Yotam Marom, a recent graduate student from The New School and activist who has been avidly participating in the occupation since the start, in regards to the Union March which occurred on October 5th,“That was a intentional move to scare these people from coming out today. Parents that have kids can’t risk being arrested, people that have to go to work the next day can’t risk being arrested. I can risk being arrested.”

While some people may have been intimidated and scared by the police tactics, Jill Nelson, a writer and activist who has written books on police brutality, said that the police’s actions have actually raised awareness for Occupy Wall Street. 

“Ironically, the police violence, mass arrests, and overall ineptitude have done wonders for OWS in terms of getting the message and images out to a national and international audience...” Nelson said. “This is not to say that the demonstrations would not have continued and grown without the unintentional assistance of police and mainstream media, I think they would have, but the police violence and media coverage of it didn't hurt.” 

       While some are outraged by the police’s actions thus far, the police stand by their tactics. During a press conference Raymond Kelley, the police commissioner, said, “We are a big organization and we have an obligation to maintain order.”

       Because of these mass arrests, a large class action lawsuit has been filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice fund.

Political Response to Protests

“Obama is NOT a brown-skinned anti-war socialist who gives away free

healthcare...you’re thinking of Jesus.”

       The protests have not only gotten the attention of the media, but politicians have also turned their attention towards the occupation.

       Nancy Pelosi, the house minority leader, said during an interview on October 9th for ABC’s This Week, “God bless them for their spontaneity. It’s independent... it’s young, it’s spontaneous, and it’s focused. And it’s going to be effective.”

      The Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson also sympathizes with the protestors, even though he blames different culprit than the protestors do for the problems America is facing. “Everybody is outraged over the inequity and I hope it gets focused on the fact that government perhaps is at the root of all of this, politicians are at the root of this,” said Johnson during an interview with 

        Although some political candidates agree with the protesting and hope for change, many have problems with it. Mayor Michael Bloomberg doesn’t just disagree with the what the protestors have to say, but he believes the protestors are going to ruin jobs in New York. "If you focus for example on driving the banks out of New York City, you know those are our jobs. Mayor Bloomberg said. “What they’re trying to do is take away the jobs of people working in the city, take away the tax base that we have.”

The occupation has even had a response from possibly the most important politician, president Barack Obama. “Obviously I’ve heard of it. I’ve seen it on television,” said President Obama when asked if he has been following the movement. “I think it expresses the frustrations that the American people feel -- that we had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country, all across Main Street, and yet you’re still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on abusive practices that got us into this problem in the first place.” 

Growing in Size

“I won’t believe corporations are people until Texas executes one.”

  The protests have been continuously spreading. October 15th, right before the month anniversary of the protest’s start, was global action day. This called for people all over the country, and the world, to march for the cause. Prior to global action day, numbers of protestors had increased in New York, as well as spread to other cities including Los Angeles, Rome, Boston, Denver, and many more. Some of the goals are the same as those in New York, while others differ.  

       “I hope that this will help the government to see that the people are tired of electing officials just to have them pander to Wall Street,” said Chrystal Zimmerman who is occupying in Amarillo, Texas. “As far as our local movement we are still discussing what our local goals are. Obviously, we support the movement in New York and everywhere else, but we haven't really chiseled out our individual group's goals yet.”

______________________________________________________________________

       The drum are still beating down at Zuchotti Park. There are still people there eating hummus on bread thanks to the food service table. There are still people burning sage, and doing Yoga. There are even still people using Halal trucks to charge their cell phones. At this juncture, it is hard to tell how much longer this movement will last. As the cold days are quickly approaching one can’t help but think, will the occupiers survive the winters jarring temperatures? For the time being, life goes on in Zuchotti park. Well, at least while there are still places to charge a cell phone.