Portland State Vanguard Volume 75 Issue 27

VOLUME 75 • ISSUE 27 • FEBRUARY 23, 2020

Preaching empathy for those who were ‘brainwashed by this death cult’

NEWS The future of voting rights P. 5

ARTS & CULTURE Rence offers music industry insight P. 12–13

P. 8–9

OPINION H.B. 3115 and houselessness P. 14

CONTENTS

COVER BY SAM PERSON

NEWS COVID-19 UPDATE

P. 3

SNOW BATTERS PORTLAND, PSU AND REMOTE LEARNING

P. 4

THE FUTURE OF VOTING RIGHTS

P. 5

ARTS & CULTURE PRO TIPS

P. 12–13

INTERNATIONAL THIS WEEK AROUND THE WORLD

P. 6–7

OPINION H.B. 3115: A LEGISLATIVE PLATITUDE

P. 14

FEATURE PREACHING EMPATHY

P. 8–9

WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE GOP?

P. 15

INTERNATIONAL DISPUTE OVER PRESIDENTIAL TERM LEADS TO CONFLICTS IN HAITI

P. 10

BACK COVER VIRTUAL EVENTS CALENDAR

P. 16

STAFF

EDIT ORI A L EDITOR IN CHIEF Justin Grinnell MANAGING EDITOR Nick Townsend NEWS EDITORS Hanna Anderson Dylan Jefferies INTERNATIONAL EDITOR Karisa Yuasa SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Béla Kurzenhauser ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Morgan Troper

OPINION EDITOR Nick Gatlin ONLINE EDITOR Lily Hennings COPY CHIEF Sophie Concannon CONTRIBUTORS Juliana Bigelow Sofie Brandt Conor Carroll Aineias Engstrom Nova Johnson Analisa Landeros Kat Leon Claire Plaster Alan Rodriguez Tiburcio Mackenzie Streissguth

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY NEW STUDY CORRELATES FAILURE OF TRUMP POLICIES WITH MASSIVE DEATH TOLL

PHO T O & MULTIMEDI A PHOTO EDITOR Annie Schutz

A DV ISING & ACCOUN TING COORDINATOR OF STUDENT MEDIA Reaz Mahmood

MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Olivia Lee

STUDENT MEDIA ACCOUNTANT Sheri Pitcher

PRODUC TION & DE SIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR Sam Person

TECHNOLOGY ADVISOR Corrine Nightingale

DESIGNERS Farah Alkayed Sam Garcia Shannon Steed T ECHNOL OGY & W EB SIT E TECHNOLOGY ASSISTANTS Juliana Bigelow Kahela Fickle George Olson

To contact Portland State Vanguard, email editor@psuvanguard.com

MIS SION S TAT EMEN T Vanguard ’s mission is to serve the Portland State community with timely, accurate, comprehensive and critical content while upholding high journalistic standards. In the process, we aim to enrich our staff with quality, hands-on journalism education and a number of skills highly valued in today’s job market.

A BOU T Vanguard, established in 1946, is published weekly as an independent student newspaper governed by the PSU Student Media Board. Views and editorial content expressed herein are those of the staff, contributors and readers and do not

P. 11

necessarily represent the PSU student body, faculty, staff or administration. Find us in print Tuesdays and online 24/7 at psuvanguard.com.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @psuvanguard for multimedia content and breaking news.

COVID-19 UPDATE CONOR CARROLL

TOTAL CASES AT PSU AS OF FEB. 21: 43

Two February cases An additional case has tested positive for COVID-19 at Portland State, this time an employee, bringing the total number of cases for February to two.

Over the course of the pandemic, the largest portion of PSU related cases have come from oncampus resident students, who represent 21 of the 43 cases. The second largest group is nonresident students, who make up 12 of the cases.

PSU relies heavily on a self reporting system for people who have tested positive or inconclusive, and have been on campus within two weeks of a positive test. The self-reporting form can be found on PSU’s coronavirus response website.

TOTAL CASES AND DEATHS IN OREGON AS OF FEB. 21: 152,818 REPORTED CASES; 2,155 REPORTED DEATHS

Total Vaccinations as of Feb 21: 274,466 vaccines in progress, 261,316 fully vaccinated, 535,782 people total

TOTAL CASES IN U.S. AS OF FEB. 21: 27,879,604; 489,060 DEATHS

Total vaccinations in U.S. as of Feb. 21: 43.6 million received at least 1 dose; 18.9 million fully vaccinated The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) unveiled its new guidance manual to assist school management determine how to return students to their classrooms, safely, and how to keep them there.

According to OPB, the CDC under Joe Biden’s presidency is utilizing a fact-based and datadriven design to expand on previous recommendations and advise teachers on how to combine the best safeguards in the classroom, which include contact tracing, physical distancing, mask wearing and general sanitary etiquette.

PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

NEWS

3

SNOW BATTERS PORTLAND, PSU AND REMOTE LEARNING

ASSESSING THE DAMAGE AFTER A BRUTAL WINTER STORM—AND DEALING WITH WHAT’S LEFT ABOVE: PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY DURING THE FEBRUARY SNOWSTORM. SOFIE BRANDT/PSU VANGUARD BELOW: A TREE COLLAPSES ON AN APARTMENT BUILDING IN THE PARK BLOCKS. JUSTIN GRINNELL/PSU VANGUARD

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NEWS

HANNA ANDERSON Portland was pelted by an unprecedented winter snowstorm over the Valentine’s Day weekend, with widespread power outages, slick roads and fallen phone lines and trees across the city. While much of the snow has since thawed, the weather’s impact persists.

With 6.1 inches of snow on Feb. 12 and 3.3 the next day, Portland’s snowfall set new record highs for those dates, according to the National Weather Service.

Come Monday, the NWS reported downtown Portland had 0.7 inches of ice. The area hardest hit by ice was Oregon City, with upwards of one and a half inches of ice accumulation.

Portland State was no exception to the impacts. On-campus operations halted between Feb. 11–14, the closure expanding to remote classes and work Feb. 15 and 16, totalling six days in a row of campus closures while students and faculty grappled with power and internet outages.

The university reopened Wednesday, but acknowledged that there were still many students, attending school from across the country, who were without power.

“Winter has been very hard on many places that our students reside—from the Portland metro area to Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, to the DC area and beyond,” stated a university-wide message from Dean of Student Life Mark Walsh and Interim CARE case manager Katrina Machorro. “We under-

stand that due to these power outages, much of your focus is on your own health and safety and for those in your closest community, and away from your classes, homework, and upcoming exams.”

The power outages in Portland were extensive, reaching from the downtown area to the surrounding cities. By midday Saturday, Portland General Electric, an electric company serving from Portland to Salem, had 41,000 customers that were still without power, according to the company’s Twitter, after having restored power to more than 650,000. According to PGE, there was 10 times more damage to their system than there was during the extreme winds and wildfires that hit the state in September 2020.

Almost 80,000 Pacific Power customers were without power as well over the course of the storm, with about 1,300 without power Friday.

Falling branches, trees and power lines carried much of the blame for power outages—and are also to blame for citywide damage and road closures.

The most extensive property damage over the course of the storm came from falling trees and power lines. In the South Park Blocks alone, multiple trees had fallen over the weekend, including an entire tree that uprooted and fell on an apartment building just off of campus.

Roads were shut down across Portland over the weekend, including I-84 going both ways, according to the Portland Bureau of Transportation. The freeway reopened Sunday, but

by Tuesday, almost 50 roads were closed across Portland, almost entirely due to fallen trees and power lines.

The road closures and dangerous, icy conditions led TriMet and Portland Streetcar to suspend all MAX, streetcar and bus lines Saturday morning. While service was able to resume later in the day, public transit routes continued to see disruption throughout the week.

PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

THE FUTURE OF VOTING RIGHTS CONOR CARROLL After historic voter turnout in the 2020 elections, Republican state legislators across the nation are introducing restrictive legislation on the right to vote, especially mail-in voting.

According to a Brennan Center February report, well over half of state legislatures have introduced over 150 bills aimed at restricting mail-in voting, access to the vote and the electoral procedure as a whole.

The report stated thirty-three states have introduced, prefiled, or carried over 165 restrictive bills this year (as compared to 35 such bills in fifteen states on Feb. 3, 2020).” The report alleged these actions are a response to the record-level voter turnout seen in the 2020 election, and are “grounded in a rash of baseless and racist allegations of voter fraud and election irregularities.”

Former President Donald Trump, in a recent interview with Fox News, broke his silence since the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 to eulogize the passing of controversial talkradio personality Rush Limbaugh. Trump claimed both he and Limbaugh believed the election was “rigged,” and spouted the baseless claims the report describes.

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, under Trump’s administration, stated in a Nov. 12 press release that “the Nov. 3 election was the most secure in American history.”

This has not persuaded many state legislatures of the recent election’s security and legitimacy. According to the Brennan Center report, there are four categories of voter restriction tactics being presented by legislatures: limit mail-in voting access, impose stricter voter ID requirements, slash voter registration opportunities and enable more aggressive voter roll purges.

In Georgia, a state in which elections had far-reaching ramifications for both the presidency and the United States Senate, the State House of Representatives has instituted a committee to investigate the integrity of the 2020 election.

Legislators there are attempting to institute a rollback of “no-excuse” absentee voting, a process which proved critical to voting during a dangerous pandemic.

In Arizona, which leads the nation in proposed voter suppression legislation in 2021 with 19 restrictive bills, Republican lawmakers have proposed bills aimed at altering the way Arizonans vote by mail and remove entirely the permanent “early voter list.”

According to a January report by Phoenix affiliate Fox News 10, “Democrats and voting rights activists are raising alarm, saying these proposed measures amount to voter suppression.”

In the same article, State Rep. Athena Salman of Tempe, Arizona spoke to early voting and mail-in voting: “It’s the preferable method of voting for 80% of Arizona voters…to see Republicans do this power grab after the highest voter turnout elections in our state’s history, in the shadows of an attempt to overthrow the election results in Arizona, there’s no other way to describe this than as a flat-out power grab, and that’s what this is.”

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Pennsylvania, a state with 14 legislative proposals to restrict the vote in a similar manner to Arizona, first came into the 2021 political spotlight when its Republican state senators refused to seat a Democratic coworker, until a federal judge instructed them to.

Currently, the Pennsylvania GOP intends to introduce bills which necessitate voters who want to vote by mail to call for a ballot preceding every election, rather than putting them on a perpetual voteby-mail list. Additionally, Republicans in the state intend to provide poll watchers more access to observe mail-in ballot tabulation, necessitate “signature matches” on outer envelopes and the mail-in ballots inside and exclude all mail-in ballots, regardless of postmark, that are not received by election day.

Alternatively, some lawmakers at the state and federal level are introducing concurrent legislation to expand voter rights.

According to the Brennan Center report, “other state lawmakers are seizing on an energized electorate and persistent interest in democracy reform (which is likewise reflected in Congress).

To date, thirty-seven states have introduced, prefiled or carried over 541 bills to expand voting access (dwarfing the 188 expansive bills that were filed in twentynine states as of Feb. 3, 2020).”

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden reintroduced his annual “Vote From Home” bill with Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer that would make universal absentee voting—or the ability to vote by mail with no required excuse—required for federal elections and prohibit states from forcing “additional conditions or requirements on the eligibility of the individual,” except for the postmark deadline.

Oregon is one of few states which did not attempt any voter restriction legislative proposals, and also has one of the highest rated voting systems and participation rates in the country.

One possibility as to the large number of voter suppression proposals from the GOP is the recent voter registration flight away from the Republican party since the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

According to a recent analysis by The New York Times, an estimated 140,000 Republicans left the party in 25 states, and 19 states do not have “registration by party.”

SHANNON STEED

NEWS

5

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2 4

1

THIS WEEK

around the

WORLD

Feb. 16–20

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INTERNATIONAL

PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

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1

February 16

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, BRUNEI

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi visited Brunei to begin efforts at formulating a collective regional response to the military coup in Myanmar that took place on Feb. 1. Marsudi is reportedly aiming to coordinate on the issue with other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a regional international organization whose rotating chairmanship is currently held by Brunei. In a joint statement with Brunei’s foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan, Marsudi “expressed strong support for a proposed informal ASEAN ministerial meeting” in order “to facilitate a constructive exchange of views and identify a possible way forward,” according to Reuters. A proactive response would mark a break of tradition for ASEAN, which has traditionally steered clear of the domestic affairs of its members, including Myanmar. Marsudi has also spoken to United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi about the situation in Myanmar.

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February 16

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The daughter of UAE Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid

Al Maktoum, has alleged that her father is keeping her hostage in solitary confinement.

In a secretly recorded video obtained by BBC Panorama, Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum claims that she is being held “in a villa converted into a jail” with boarded up windows and no access to medical help. Sheikha Latifa had previously tried to flee the country in 2018 with the help of a Finnish fitness instructor, but she was captured by Indian authorities and returned to the UAE. She has not been seen in public since Dec. 2018. One of her 25 siblings, Sheikha Shamsa, has disappeared since 2000 when she also attempted to flee the country.

Sheikh Mohammed’s sixth wife, Princess Haya, successfully escaped to the United Kingdom with her two children in 2019.

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February 17

BARCELONA, SPAIN

Thousands of people in the Spanish autonomous region Catalonia protested the arrest of rapper Pablo Hasél, who faces nine months in prison for allegedly glorifying terrorism and slandering the Spanish monarchy in his songs and on Twitter.

Clashes between the demonstrators and police injured at least 33 people, including 17 police officers. At least 14 people were reportedly arrested.

PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

In his songs, Hásel had insulted former Spanish King Juan Carlos and fantasized about committing violence against conservative politicians. His supporters maintain that these lyrics constitute a form of freedom of expression. They took to the streets shortly after the musician was taken into custody, which brought to an end his attempt to avoid arrest by barricading himself inside the University of Lleida. Hundreds of Spanish artists, including film director Pedro Almodóvar and Hollywood star Javier Bardem, have spoken out against the imprisonment of Hasél, citing their support for freedom of speech.

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February 19

HONG KONG

The government of Hong Kong announced that it will replace the director of its public broadcasting company Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) on March 1. According to Al Jazeera, a government review of the city’s sole publicly funded television channel found “deficiencies in (the) editorial management mechanism,” prompting the ouster of director Leung Ka-wing six months before the end of his contract. RTHK had drawn ire from the Hong Kong government and the city’s police for its critical investigative reporting during the pro-democracy protests

that have occurred in Hong Kong since 2019. The channel’s new director, Patrick Li Pak-chuen, is a government official. Both the RTHK’s Programme Staff Union and the Hong Kong Journalists Association expressed concern about the move and its impact on the channel’s editorial independence, according to Asia Times.

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February 20

WALLOPS ISLAND, UNITED STATES

Paraguay launched its first svatellite into space, kick-starting its nascent space exploration program. The launch took place from the Virginiabased Wallops Flight Facility. The $400,000 satellite is named Guaranisat-1 and was developed by the Paraguayan Space Agency (AEP) in cooperation with a Japanese technology institute. According to La Prensa Latina Media, it will dock on the International Space Station before being placed into orbit from there in March or April. The satellite is designed to help state authorities monitor natural disasters in the country. In addition to these benefits, Jorge Kurita, the AEP’s head of planning, said the program has already had a “domino effect” in the country, thanks to “the creation of research teams and groups in the space sector, applied to solving terrestrial problems.”

INTERNATIONAL

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Preaching empathy RALLY OF QANON FOLLOWERS. COURTESY OF AP PHOTO

A more productive approach to cults such as QAnon

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FEATURE

KAT LEON

PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

At 2 a.m. in the morning on a random day in my childhood, I sat at the kitchen table with my family, my Bible open to the Book of Revelation.

My father’s voice had been droning on for hours, and while most children would be fighting sleep, I was not. After years of these unpredictably long sermons from my father, fear kept me wide awake. The fear stemmed from knowing any interruption or lack of focus on my father’s every word would anger my father, and anger God. The end times or the apocalypse were common topics in my household. Understanding what is discussed in the Bible about the end times is impossible, as most of it is written with poetically cryptic wording that leaves everything up to individual interpretation. Furthermore, I will never quite know how one could be fully prepared for the apocalypse by reading a mystifying and coded book in the Bible; yet in that time of my life, I believed and feared this prophecy of the future with my entirety.

Years of indoctrination while living with my parents have given me a different perspective on many things in life, most recently the riot that engulfed the Capitol Building on January 6.

Key participants in this riot were members of a group that was relatively unknown until recently: QAnon. Almost overnight, information about QAnon was brought to the world’s attention, and its seemingly insane beliefs were broadcast around the world. QAnon was labeled as a cult, and the media portrayed members of the group as crazy and ignorant.

While my family was never a part of an officially-recognized cult, my father practically ran our home like a cult and used the same tactics of mind control often used in cults like QAnon. While the execution of these tactics might be different, the effects can be just as powerful and damaging to anyone they victimize.

While some general public members did not know about QAnon until the January 6 riot, it began years earlier. In October 2017, an anonymous user named Q, who remains unknown to this day, posted a series of messages on the online message board 4chan. These messages were referred to as “Q drops” or “breadcrumbs” and claimed to be insider knowledge that explained and proved several conspiracy theories. Q claimed to have high-level government clearance allowing for this insider information, and his messages were often coded and enigmatic, adding to the intrigue and mysterious nature of the information.

When a cult leader words something indecipherably, it is a tactic used to control their members. Cryptic language is successful for several reasons; most importantly it sparks a sense of curiosity in the average person, which makes them want to know more. To find out more, they have to join the group, and thus they are hooked. In an interview conducted

by Rolling Stone, a man named Jitarth Jadeja explained how Q’s cryptic messages had this exact effect on him, saying, “You read a Q drop and he tells you something, and you’re like, ‘Whoa dude, that’s crazy’….a hit of dopamine goes off in your brain, and you have to go in deeper and deeper and deeper in order to get that feeling again.”

QAnon’s beliefs and theories have been described by The New York Times as “incredibly convoluted,” which also said one could “fill an entire book explaining its various tributaries and sub-theories.” The large number of conspiracies QAnon followers learn about from the group can cause a form of mind control known as information overload. According to Dr. Stephan Pretorius, South Africa’s leading researcher on cults, “A human being can only absorb a limited amount of information in an analytical way. When too much information is given, a person will simply absorb it uncritically.”

QAnon spreads its theories on online platforms tailored to one’s preference and designed to keep one scrolling. Absorbing information at that fast pace can easily lead to information overload and cause one not to absorb information critically. Sleep deprivation, which is likely for individuals who become super invested in QAnon to have, decreases an individual’s intellectual thought process, making them more susceptible to absorbing messages, according to Pretorius. A report from the Times of Israel described the experience of one QAnon member: “Ceally Smith spent a year down the rabbit hole of QAnon, devoting more and more time to researching and discussing the conspiracy theory online.

Eventually, it consumed her.”

Unfortunately, cults become all-consuming. As a child, there was not a single moment that my focus was not on pleasing my father and earning my salvation; this was continuously reinforced by the mind control techniques like information overload and sleep deprivation, making it impossible to question what I was taught. There was never a moment where I was not consumed by my father’s whims.

While QAnon supporters believe in a host of conspiracy theories, it’s most widely recognized for its avid support of former President Donald Trump, and most of its core theories support a pro-Trump theme.

They believe the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshipping, sex trafficking, cannibalistic pedophiles, members of which include highlevel Democrats like President Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama, as well as celebrities and religious figures like Oprah, Ellen, Tom Hanks, Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama. According

PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

to Qanon, Trump was recruited by the United States military to break up this criminal element in the government.

When spelled out like that, their beliefs sound crazy and impossible to believe. However, it usually starts way smaller. Look up one thing that falls under the extensive QAnon conspiracy umbrella, and it becomes a slippery slope that can lead to one’s social media feed being inundated with QAnon conspiracies.

Some QAnon members have moved away from the original online platform and used their beliefs to justify multiple illegal acts. The most notable of these acts was the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. However, both before and after the riot, QAnon members have been charged with multiple violent crimes committed in service of Q, including kidnappings, attempted assassinations, murder and terrorism.

One female Qanon supporter ran two strangers over with her car because she thought they were child traffickers. In 2018, a heavily-armed man blocked a bridge over the Hoover Dam due to his affiliation with QAnon. Online QAnon activity has included coordinated abuse of any individual QAnon believes to be a part of the government cover-up. The New York Times also reported that QAnon supporters spread false information about “Covid-19, the Black Lives Matter protests and the presidential election.”

It is hard to see any of what this group does as justifiable, and overall it is not. However, one must understand that some members got involved because this group manipulated the very best parts of them. This creates what is known as cognitive dissonance, an underlying principle in mind control and QAnon’s most potent weapon in recruiting new followers. According to Pretorius, “Cognitive dissonance occurs when an individual is confronted with two or more contradicting cognitions or ideas.

The result is that the individual experiences discomfort...The view and lifestyle of the cult is presented as ‘pure’ and novel compared to the bad, evil, unfulfilling world-view of the individual. As a result, cognitive dissonance is created. The individual is now forced to make choices or act in order to relieve the discomfort.”

The belief that there are members in high-ranking positions of power capable of the horrendous claims that QAnon conditions its members to believe forces this cognitive dissonance in individuals. One can ignore the perceived problem laid out by QAnon and become labeled as deluded for not believing the “truth,” or worse, as a part of the conspiracy; or they can accept the conspiracy and QAnon’s “truth,” and work to stop the perceived horrendous claims that are happening. This becomes a problem because, at this point, believers can justify anything. After all, what their perceived enemy is doing is so much worse than anything they could do.

This fosters the environment of “us versus them” and allows them to justify any action taken against their perceived enemy.

I know the power of cognitive dissonance from personal experience, as I experienced this principle of mind control in my childhood. The Bible’s cryptic messages are often left up to the reader’s interpretation and can be twisted to fit an individual’s narrative and excuse any behavior or belief. The amounts of times that my father used the Bible to justify his actions and condemn me were endless. His favorite passage, and the one that sticks with me the most, was when he would say, “Love keeps no records of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:5) in response to the few times I tried to hold him accountable for his actions. This forced me to either choose not to hold him accountable for his actions or continue to stand against his actions. Standing against his actions would threaten my safety and, even more terrifying at the time, risk me facing an existential threat, because how could one ever disagree with God without facing eternal damnation?

It is not exactly logical to believe that an all-powerful God would punish me for the rest of eternity because I dared speak up to my father, just like QAnon’s beliefs do not always appear logical to someone on the outside looking in. However, when faced with situations that challenge our thought processes, the tactics these cults use to create respect and fear are powerful and leave room for anyone to fall prey to them. No matter how smart or educated one is, if something can push your emotions in just the right way, it can and will have you believing what the rest of the world might label as crazy. No one is immune to being manipulated into something that goes against their identity.

However, being aware of cult mindsets and mind control tactics will help you spot when someone or something is trying to control you.

Approaching people who have been in cults like QAnon with empathy is bound to go farther than approaching them with hostility. While mocking QAnon members and their beliefs online might be a tempting trend, it will only further alienate individuals. As reality clashes with QAnon’s beliefs, some have continued to hang on by doubling down on conspiracy theories, but others have started to question their beliefs. When people are in this state of questioning, it is crucial to speak to them with kindness and be understanding. As Jadeja, a former QAnon member, said, “It’s not about who is right or who is wrong. I’m here to preach empathy, for the normal people, the good people who got brainwashed by this death cult.”

FEATURE

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DISPUTE OVER PRESIDENTIAL TERM LEADS TO CONFLICTS IN HAITI KARISA YUASA Following the controversy of what year Haitian President Jovenel Moïse’s term started, thousands of people have protested, accusing him of attempting to start a dictatorship, according to Al Jazeera.

Protesters and opposition leaders attest that Moïse’s five-year term started on Feb. 7, 2016, the day his predecessor Michel Martelly’s term ended.

In 2015, elections were held for a new president who would take office in 2016. After disputed election results, a provisional president took office until a re-election took place in late 2016.

Moïse was formally elected in 2016 and took office on Feb. 7, 2017, according to AP News.

Moïse and his supporters claim that since he did not take office until 2017, his term does not end until 2022.

“My Administration received from the Haitian people a constitutional mandate of 60 months,” Moïse wrote in a tweet on Feb. 7. “We have exhausted 48 of them.”

Fears of protests began in January after criminal activity in tandem with political uncertainty and a struggling economy grew, according to United Nations reports.

“Political tensions are resurfacing due to disputes over the timing and scope of elections,” said Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Marta Hurtado. “Calls for mass protests have been growing.”

“The amount of people going hungry in the county has doubled, it’s gone from two million to four million people,” said Haitian economist Camile Charlemers to Al Jazeera. “The currency is devalued and there’s an inflation rate close to 25 percent.”

On Feb. 7, when many claim that the president’s term expired, thousands of people took to the streets in opposition to his re-

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INTERNATIONAL

A PROTESTER HOLDS UP A COPY OF THE HAITIAN CONSTITUTION DURING A PROTEST TO DEMAND THE RESIGNATION OF HAITI PRESIDENT, JOVENEL MOISE. DIEU NALIO CHERY/AP PHOTO fusal to leave office. Although most protests remained peaceful, reports of clashes between demonstrators and police who fired tear gas and rubber bullets emerged.

“It’s a strike against kidnapping, against hunger in the country,” said Rebert Nonsent, resident of the Haitian capital of Portau-Prince, during a protest. “We are sending a clear message to the president to respect the constitution.”

On Feb. 10, Haitian police were accused of firing tear gas on the hundreds of demonstrators in Port-au-Prince and specifically targeting journalists covering the protests, according to Al Jazeera.

“Their job is to shoot the activists, throwing gas on all the press,” said protester Senat Andre Dufot. “We all noticed that they put a tear gas canister in the back of the pick-up [van] of the TV Pacific car.”

While opposition leaders protested, Haitian authorities announced that police arrested 23 people on Feb. 7 accused of trying to kill the president and overthrow his government, according to BBC. “There was an attempt on my life,” Moïse said, during a live national address on Facebook. “I thank my head of security at the palace. The goal of these people was to make an attempt on my life. That plan was aborted.”

The people arrested on suspicion of planning a coup d’etat included a Supreme Court justice and senior political official.

“These people had contacted national palace security officials, high-ranking officers of the national palace whose mission was to arrest the president...and also to facilitate the installation of a new president,” Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe said.

Haitian opposition on Feb. 8 announced Supreme Court Justice Jean Louis was chosen to replace Moïse as provisional president, according to Reuters. Following the announcement, Moïse’s government published a decree announcing the retirement of three Supreme Court judges that were approached by the opposition to replace him.

According to The New York Times, Moïse has been running Haiti under presidential decree since Jan. 2020 when he suspended two-thirds of the senate, the entire lower Chamber of Deputies and every mayor in the country. The electoral council postponed legislative elections originally set for 2018 indefinitely, despite only having 11 elected officials.

“Moïse blamed parliament for the postponement, for failing to approve an electoral law, while his opponents accused him of maneuvers to hijack the process,” stated Human Rights Watch in their 2020 country report.

By ruling by decree, Moïse has been able to make decisions with little to no checks on his power. Some see this as an abuse of power and a step closer to dictatorship.

On Feb. 14, protesters were seen chanting “down with the dictatorship,” according to Al Jazeera.

Moïse and his supporters disagree.

“Haiti is not a democracy at risk. What the government is trying to do and we are doing our utmost to keep it is to preserve democracy in Haiti,” said Claude Joseph, Haiti’s foreign minister, in an interview with Al Jazeera.

“The government is paying attention to what the people is asking, they are asking for their lives to be improved. Those are legitimate concerns and we agree and the government is working on that.”

PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

NEW STUDY CORRELATES FAILURE OF TRUMP POLICIES WITH MASSIVE DEATH TOLL

AN INDIVIDUAL RECEIVING A COVID-19 VACCINE. MATT ROURKE/AP PHOTO

CONOR CARROLL the lancet, one of the oldest and most respected

science and medical academic journals in the United States, issued an exhaustive study on Feb. 10 lambasting the Trump administration’s public health response to COVID-19 and alleging that at least 40% of U.S. deaths were avoidable.

According to the report, entitled “Public policy and health in the Trump era,” former President Donald Trump “exploited low and middle-income white people’s anger over their deteriorating life prospects to [mobilize] racial animus and xenophobia and enlist their support for policies that benefit high-income people and corporations and threaten health.”

They concluded that America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic failed in both policy and practice compared to that of economic peers such as Japan, Canada and other G-7 countries.

In relation to the global total, the U.S. currently leads in both total cases and deaths. Although the study does not place blame solely on the former president’s shoulders, their analysis claims that hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved had proper measures been taken.

The journal also mentions the fact that there were dozens of “pandemic preparedness exercises” under Trump’s administration and several prior administrations which laid out nearly the exact same scenario which

the U.S. found itself in at the beginning of the pandemic. Despite this, Trump falsely stated in March 2020, “nobody knew there’d be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion.

Nobody’s ever seen anything like this before.”

Two U.S. government/non-governmental organization (NGO) scenarios in particular evince their relevance to the current pandemic, one dubbed “Event 201” and the other entitled “Crimson Contagion,” with each “tabletop exercise” occurring during Trump’s administration in 2019.

Event 201, which was named for the estimated 200 “epidemic events” that occur on average every year globally, was conducted to predict what could occur in a deadly novel coronavirus outbreak. The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security hosted Event 201 on Oct. 18, 2019 in New York City in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Nature Magazine provided a brief description of the exercise in an August 2020 article entitled “Two decades of pandemic war games failed to account for Donald Trump.”

According to the report, Event 201 anticipated the possible failures of America’s COVID-19 response, including failed travel bans, PPE shortages and other critical pitfalls of public policy.

The scenario, however, couldn’t predict Trump.

PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

The second 2019 exercise, Crimson Contagion, was not all too dissimilar from the first. The joint exercise, headed by former Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, was conducted from January–August 2019.

Dozens of national, state and local, private and public entities in the U.S. participated in order to “test the capacity of the federal government and twelve states to respond to a severe pandemic of influenza originating in China,” according to an analysis by The New York Times.

The simulation, which was conducted just a few months before the beginning of the current pandemic, involved a scenario in which tourists returning from China spread a respiratory virus, infecting and killing the population at an even faster rate than COVID-19.

The HHS report released at the terminus of the exercise summarizes the government’s limited capacity to respond to a pandemic, with federal agencies lacking funds, coordination and resources to facilitate an effective response to the virus. Allegedly, this report had been presented to Trump to no avail.

Considering the current death toll, some experts have elucidated a path forward by looking backwards.

“From a public health perspective [the Lancet study] highlights the real costs of

dismantling decades of pandemic preparation and planning at the CDC for a lethal respiratory borne virus,” said Professor David Bangsberg, founding dean of Oregon Health and Science University at the Portland State School of Public Health. “It also highlights the costs of ignoring and discrediting science-based policies to respond to a pandemic as well as the importance of clear and decisive federal leadership to build public trust and necessary national infrastructure to promote life-saving policies.”

Bangsberg did not mention the possibilities of future viral outbreaks and these so-called “epidemic events,” 200 or more a year of which happen globally. The World Health Organization stated in October 2020 that “COVID-19 will not be the world’s last health emergency and there is an urgent need for sustainable health emergency preparedness to deal with the next one.”

“We have paid the cost in both lives as well as exacerbating inequities of historically oppressed groups, particularly in Black, Latinx, Indigenous and other communities of color,” Bangsberg said. “Disregard for science-based public health policy not only negatively impacted our response to COVID-19, but an array of local, national and climate related forces that create and sustain inequity.”

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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PR LOS ANGELES ARTIST RENCE. COURTESY OF REBECCA HEARN

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ARTS & CULTURE

PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

RO TIPS

RENCE OFFERS SUPPORT TO PSU’S MUSIC STUDENTS

JULIANA BIGELOW On February 12, musician Rence performed virtually and offered industry insight to Portland State students. The show and Q&A were hosted by KPSU, PSU’s free-form radio station, in conjunction with Sony Music U, Sony’s college representative team.

Hailing from Los Angeles, Rence played two songs for attendees, “Baby Blue” and “Endless.”

He later explained that these two tracks demonstrated his progression as a musician. “Baby Blue”—a dreamy, synth-heavy pop song—placed Rence in the national spotlight, eventually garnering over 10 million streams. It was also written in his college dorm room. Originally from Seattle, Rence attended New York University, where he studied music business and graduated in 2019.

“Endless,” his newest release, carries many of the same sonic elements as “Baby Blue,” but is ultimately more mature and lyrically inquisitive: “Do you ever wonder about / How come, how come you can’t figure it out? / Every day, every day like we endless,” he sings.

While it never actually answers these questions it poses, the song leans toward hope, implied in its major chords and consistent beat. It feels comforting as we come upon the first an-

niversary of the pandemic, a time in which hope remains hard to find.

During the Q&A session, Rence explained he started producing the song two years ago in New York. At the time, he and his friends were trying to answer large, existential questions about their place in the world, unaware that he would eventually release the song when they were quite literally “living the same day over and over again.”

When asked about the meaning of the song, he said it has “turned into an anthem for my life in this house,” referring to the house in Los Angeles where he’s been living and working since last March.

Ari Elkins, a music journalist and playlist curator who has amassed over 600,000 followers on TikTok, moderated the event. Elkins met Rence at an event similar to this at the University of Michigan, and the two have since become close friends.

Rence also used the opportunity to answer questions about his journey in music and offer advice to students looking to pursue careers in the industry.

Rence explained how not getting into a music production program when applying to college

PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

was a “blessing in disguise.” After the rejection, he thought making music might not be for him.

But after figuring out audio production on his own, he took classes in music business. In these classes, he learned about all of the things he now comes into contact with every day as an artist.

In fact, Rence explained that when he wakes up every morning he tackles the business aspects of his career before he even works on any music. This includes fielding emails and “staying informed” by speaking regularly to managers.

Elkins encouraged Rence to share his marketing strategy for “Endless.” The musician made over 48 TikToks about the song before one finally took off and went viral. This led to people pre-saving “Endless,” which is an integral part of achieving Spotify playlist placement, a highly significant aspect of an artist’s marketing strategy. “TikTok is the vessel artists have right now to build a fanbase, especially without touring,” Rence explained.

For aspiring music industry professionals, this Q&A wasn’t just interesting—it was necessary.

PSU only offers one class in music business— MUS 445—and it requires students to have upper-class standing. Events such as these allow

students to gain a window into the industry outside of Portland. Having the opportunity to talk with Rence—a major label artist signed to Epic Records—allowed students to explore what options may lie ahead of them.

Rence’s one piece of advice for students looking to enter the industry was to always collect content of yourself or the artists you’re working with because of how central social media has become. “I’m constantly wishing I have more content than I do,” he said. “I hate being in a content deficit. Don’t be afraid to capture the moments [even if they aren’t] the most special moments in the world, because someday you might look back and realize that they were.”

Rence provided an invaluable opportunity for students with music industry aspirations, offering them insight into the business that they may not be able to study formally while at PSU. Insider information on marketing, industry contacts and personal workflow was freely and openly purveyed. And as students remarked at the end of the Zoom call, it was a nice break from the chaos and hardships everyone continues to experience during the ongoing pandemic.

ARTS & CULTURE

13

WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE GOP? REPRESENTATIVE MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE. HOUSE TELEVISION VIA AP NEWS CONOR CARROLL Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and others in the Grand Old Party have allied with the politically extreme and ridiculous. This isn’t the first time, but it may be the last.

The party of Lincoln, of fiscal responsibility and of personal freedoms has, throughout United States history, fluctuated from extreme far-right politics verging on fascism to moderatism and realism in governance.

Nowadays, extremist politics and ideologies like those of freshman Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) harken back to the John Birch Society/Jim Crow era, normalize fantastical conspiracy theories, deny scientific realities and further polarize the two dominant U.S. political parties with hateful rhetoric, keeping the Republican party (GOP) on the path to potential political failure.

Perhaps one of the most pernicious aspects of the current GOP is the adherence to, or at least placation of, conspiracy theories, which often have ties to white supremacy, Nazism and other hate-group ideologies. These ideations are not unique to today, especially within the right. The Republican party is no stranger to extremist viewpoints.

Perhaps most relevant now is Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential run, when political extremism from the far right was on the rise. On July 14, 1964, the Republican party was preparing to nominate their presidential candidate: the choice was between Arizona Congressman Goldwater and New York Mayor Nelson Rockefeller, seen as a relative centrist at the time.

Goldwater’s fans and supporters literally booed Rockefeller off stage, who had been speaking in favor of amending the party platform to condemn political extremism.

The resolution repudiated “the efforts of irresponsible extremist organizations,” including the Communist Party, the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society, a rapidly growing far-right grassroots group obsessed with the alleged communist infiltration of America.

Rockefeller’s proposed resolution failed. The extreme rightwing held sway over voting blocks critical to electing Republican candidates all over the country. There were even KKK members present and cheering at the aforementioned Republican National Convention, supporting Goldwater.

In an August 13, 1964 New York Times article, leadership within the KKK made it clear: “The Imperial Wizard of the United Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, said today Klan members would be urged to vote for Senator Barry Goldwater for president even though the Republican nominee has said he does not seek their support.”

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OPINION

The idea that a similar resolution condemning extremism would hardly even get a vote among the GOP these days indicates the direction the party has taken. It has surrendered to the extremism movement along the right-hand side of politics, so to speak.

In the current landscape of extremist movements in conservative politics, the most recognizable, yet perhaps most misunderstood, is the QAnon movement. Most people are also unaware of the correlation this ideology and belief system has to many hate group and white supremacist organizations.

QAnon became popularized several years back, allegedly first appearing on 4chan, a message board that commonly amplifies racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and ideologies. QAnon has now embedded itself into the GOP, at least in the parts of the GOP that see former President Donald Trump as a savior figure.

The “Q” belief system purportedly goes something like this: A clandestine cabal is taking over the world. “They”—i.e., Democrats— kidnap children, slaughter them and eat them to gain power from their blood. They control high positions in government, banks, international finance, the news media and the church. They want to disarm the police. They promote homosexuality and pedophilia.

They plan to mongrelize the white race so it will lose its essential power.

The QAnon theory is extremely similar to one of the most farreaching and influential anti-semitic pamphlets of all time, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Since its creation around the turn of the century by the Russian Okhrana, or Czarist secret police, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" has taken root all around the world.

It collected racist myths about a Jewish plot to take over the world that had existed for hundreds of years. Central to its mythology was the Blood Libel, which claimed that Jews kidnapped and slaughtered Christian children and drained their blood to mix in the dough for matzos consumed on Jewish holidays.

The conspiracies found throughout the text nearly mirror what QAnon espouses. This is a belief system which many state and federal representatives and senators alike believe in, or at least do not denounce, in order to stoke its base and maintain status in their heavily red districts back home.

The aforementioned Greene is one of the worst examples of such support. As CNN reported, Greene continually suggested support for literally executing top Democratic politicians—such as former President Barack Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. In recently

discovered posts from 2019, she also wrote a “press release” and a blog post promoting the petition and indicated that she believed Pelosi could be executed for treason.

Moreover, CNN previously reported, that in September 2020, Greene posted on her candidate Facebook page a picture of herself holding a gun next to images of progressive Congresswomen known as the “Squad.” The subtitle urged readers to go on the “offense against these socialists,” and was understood by spectators as an actual threat. The Facebook post was removed by Greene after blowback in the media.

Before Greene ran for Congress, she accepted violent and ridiculous conspiracies. One of the vilest among them was QAnon.

In August 2020, she tried to distance herself from QAnon and asserted that “it doesn’t represent me.”

Greene endorsed 9/11 trutherism conspiracies and falsely claimed there was no evidence a plane crashed into the Pentagon, according to reporting from Media Matters.

In 2018, she questioned if the Parkland shooting was a false-flag event and insisted that Parkland survivor David Hogg is a “paid actor.” In a recently surfaced video from March 2019, Greene stalks Hogg as he approaches the U.S. Capitol where she berates him with bogus and unsubstantiated allegations and a barrage of nonsensical questions about gun rights and his ability to speak before the U.S. Senate.

Greene also supported Facebook comments from 2018 which claimed the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass killing was staged.

In a social media post from September 2018, Greene declared that “Q”—whom Greene asserted is a “patriot”—cautioned false-flag events would be a part of the coming “storm.”

Greene regularly participates in radical anti-Semitic and antiMuslim rhetoric. She often considered future coworkers such as Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib target practice.

All of these conspiracy theory beliefs notwithstanding, and despite the fact Greene was recently (and mercifully) removed from all her committee responsibilities, two of her most dangerous false beliefs are ones that almost all of the current GOP believe: That man-made climate change is not real, and that Democrats are radical socialists, intent on bringing communist ideologies and government to the U.S. If two of the most dangerous aspects of extremist belief in the GOP are not fringe or extremist beliefs at all, then what does this say about the Republican Party? What will happen to the Grand Old Party once 2022 or 2024 come around? Only time will tell.

PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

HOUSE BILL 3115:

A LEGISLATIVE PLATITUDE

ALAN RODRIGUEZ TIBURCIO Houselessness is endemic across the West Coast. Whereas houselessness in the United States dropped by over 10% in the last decade, it increased here by 15%. Various West Coast cities have responded with controversial sit-lie ordinances—municipal laws prohibiting sitting or lying on a sidewalk or certain public spaces. As critics have noted, this strategy effectively criminalizes houselessness by prohibiting “mundane and everyday behavior.”

Now, Oregon is mobilizing to ban the use of such ineffective laws.

On Feb. 1, Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek introduced House Bill 3115 (H.B. 3115). The bill limits a municipality’s ability to charge persons for sleeping or sitting in public spaces.

However, H.B. 3115 does not ban anti-camping laws. The bill’s language is vague and allows municipalities mostly free reign, as long as their regulations are “objectively reasonable,” based on the “totality of the circumstances.” The bill would allow unhoused individuals to sue cities that regulate houselessness in an objectively unreasonable manner.

Proponents defend the wording as enabling consideration of unique circumstances. But this only ignores the reality H.B. 3115 fails to confront. By insipidly handling only one form of discrimination, H.B. 3115 overlooks the socioeconomic realities of houselessness and the moral failings of sit-lie ordinances—both of which boil down to basic truisms. Houselessness results from a misallocation of resources—failing to construct and place people into vacant housing—which state-level organization can improve. Sit-lie ordinances are also radically inhumane strategies that must be recognized for their abhorrent moral failings. No response can be effective without confronting the underlying tensions in allocating housing and allowing sit-lie ordinances (or their derivatives).

It is mainstream political ideology that allowed the bill to come along without addressing the tensions. Liberal ideology is resistant to altering neighborhoods—particularly when it is one’s own—frequently adopting anti-displacement rhetoric. On the other hand, conservative ideology justifies criminalizing houselessness—the argument being that it’s easier to be houseless when there are camps one can join so we should not allow camps to be established. They would rather the issue be dealt with via charities, believing the government’s only obligation is safety— i.e., removing camps that make people uncomfortable.

Liberal discourse on housing in Portland is often constrained to neighborhoods—e.g., the Eastmoreland Historic District. This is a relevant discussion to have when empowering marginal-

ized communities, such as work done by the Albina Vision Trust, where development needs to be mindful of past and present discrimination. However, there is an important distinction between the proposals for Albina and Eastmoreland, in that the latter is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. It’s not hard to believe wealthy neighborhoods would be able to adapt to muchneeded housing development. By not allowing more dense housing in areas that can adjust to them, it incentivizes newcomers to move to areas where housing is already cheap.

Newcomers look for cheap housing since they tend to have lower incomes than the state average. At the same time, they’re more likely to be college-educated, which alters the long-term trajectories of the local economy and increases growth. Without the appropriate construction and housing subsidies, there is a risk of pushing out individuals that cannot compete with college graduates for jobs or housing. It’s a shame that H.B. 3115 fails to respond to these conditions since targeted policy solutions can not only help residents remain in their neighborhoods but also rise economically with them.

Granted, one might claim that this isn’t the bill’s focus—it’s intended as a response to sit-lie ordinances. Even accepting that, it still leaves a lot to be desired, not only because the “ban” is infirm.

Sit-lie ordinances criminalize houselessness, yet they aren’t the only policies that do so, nor are their (conservative) presuppositions exclusive to laws.

Treating houselessness as a crime comes from believing that unhoused individuals create a danger to property and propertyowners—best dealt with by not allowing unhoused communities to exist on their own terms. This is visible in the city government’s actions in the painful Laurelhurst sweeps and Hazelnut Grove evictions, two unhoused communities oriented to support the needs of its members. City officials, imposing alternative housing and locations, create serious issues—e.g., failing to create a sense of community, rules forcing residents to look for other housing, drug and/or alcohol policies, disallowing self-governance. This strategy strips away the autonomy of houseless people and imposes a set of market-based expectations.

Presupposing that it is within a government’s right to coerce unhoused people to “get a job” or “get help” is based on the simple fact that, as the U.N. reports, there exist fallacious misconceptions regarding poverty and welfare in the U.S. These myths uncritically propagate through society—myths that poor people are lazy, welfare recipients are leeches, funding welfare makes

people not want to work, that panhandlers just need a “real” job. They serve as a rationale for hatred of unhoused people in a world for which “[m]oney has become the grand test of virtue.” In failing to take a firm stance against these shameful beliefs, by not outright banning sit-lie ordinances or laws like it, H.B. 3115 severely lacks the vigor needed to redeem decades of mistreatment.

H.B. 3115 does deserve some credit. It does move legislation in the right direction, though only as far as has been moved by courts. It provides an avenue for unhoused communities to challenge unfair enforcements, though there are obvious limits to this benefit—e.g., gauging whether something is objectively unreasonable, one’s ability to acquire an attorney, estimation and payment of the costs of objectively unreasonable measures, what might need to be done after objectively unreasonable measures have been acted on. Thus, the credit that may be given to H.B. 3115 is qualified by its equivocal language and lack of zeal in defending unhoused communities.

The challenges faced by houseless people, personally and systemically, will not be solved by H.B. 3115. The lack of targeted policies in a growing economy will continue to push out poorer households with less educational attainment. Obstruction of development and rezoning by wealthy neighborhoods will continue to exacerbate our affordable housing shortage. And the continued acceptance of houselessness as a crime or danger to society means that the least-fortunate members of our community will be lambasted. If our state and municipal government want an effective response to the houselessness endemic, it will need more to address the complexity of housing and social attitude towards the unhoused.

At the same time, the efficacy of any response also depends on locals. Combating privilege is crucial to building in areas where households can more easily adapt to development without being displaced; this means getting involved in discourse about zoning and land-use, possibly with organizations such as 1000 Friends of Oregon. Locals are also capable of combating the harmful myths about houseless communities from the ground-level, by means ranging from supporting grassroots organizations such as Street Roots to speaking with their neighbors on the subject, especially any unhoused members.

Until then, though, H.B. 3115 is a piddling effort to overcome deplorable strategies that never should have existed in the first place.

TENTS SET UP ON NW SECOND AVE. COURTESY OF FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS

PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

OPINION

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VIRTUAL

EVENTS CALENDAR CHINESE NEW YEAR LANTERN VIEWING

TUE FEB

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Lan Su Chinese Garden In-person event 6 p.m., 7 p.m., 8 p.m. $20–25 Ongoing through February 28

Northwest Portland’s iconic Lan Su Chinese Garden will be hosting a socially distanced New Year celebration. This year’s lantern exhibit will feature the debut of a new, 18-foot phoenix sculpture from China.

ZOOM IN ON BOLLYWOOD Streaming via Northwest Film Center 6 p.m. $195 Ongoing through February 23

Producer and musician Kavita Baliga—who wrote the music for Slumdog Millionaire—offers a comprehensive three-course Zoom seminar on 20th century Indian cinema.

THU

ISHIMOTO YASUHIRO

FEB

In honor of his 100th birthday, the Portland Japanese Garden will be offering a limited exhibit showcasing famed Japanese-American photographer Ishimoto Yasuhiro’s work.

SAT

LOMELDA

25 FEB

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EVENTS

Portland Japanese Garden 9 a.m.–3 p.m.

Included with general admission pricing Thursday-Monday; ongoing through April 11

FREE FLU SHOTS AND COVID TESTING

MCMINNVILLE SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

Uninsured and BIPOC folks are prioritized for free flu shots and COVID-19 testing. Call in advance to schedule. Walking, driving and biking are all permitted.

The McMinnville Short Film Festival will be hosting virtual showings of 127 award-winning films from the past decade, in addition to an awards ceremony.

Tickets to individual showings are $10, while an allaccess pass will run you $85.

THE 31ST ANNUAL CASCADE FESTIVAL OF AFRICAN FILMS

TAG! QUEER SHORTS FESTIVAL 2021

PCC Cascade Campus 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

Free Ongoing through March 31

Online event Different showings; $10–85 Ongoing through February 28

Streaming via Hollywood Theatre 6 p.m. $35; $20 for students and seniors Ongoing through February 28

Online event, via PCC Different showings; free Ongoing through March 10

The Annual Cascade Festival of African Films—which, naturally, will be migrating entirely to the internet this year—features African films by African filmmakers.

Among the films showcased this year are Sam Soko’s Softie and You Will Die at Twenty, Sudan’s first Oscar nomination.

“The 2021 edition of the Tag! Queer Shorts Festival arrives February 18-28 as a new Hollywood Theatresponsored program. This year’s festival features over 40 short films that acknowledge the range of emotions and experiences that mark the past year, feelings from isolation to joy that find special resonance within queer and trans communities."

JORYU HANGA KYOKAI, 1956–1965

HOUSE OF VINTAGE ANNUAL SALE

The Portland Art Museum presents an exhibit on Japan’s famous printmaking society, Joryū Hanga Kyōkai—or the Women’s Print Association—with a series of etchings and lithographs from 1956–65.

From the press release: “It’s back, the one time of year our entire store goes on sale! Find 25% off on items priced over $10 in every dealer space. So many great deals to be had, you won’t want to miss it! This year get there earlier in the day to help avoid lines from COVID Max Occupancy restrictions!”

Portland Art Museum 10 a.m.–5 p.m. $20 Thursday–Sunday; ongoing through April 11

House of Vintage 12 p.m.–7 p.m.

Free Ongoing through February 26

Streaming via Bandsintown Plus 7 p.m. $9.99 LA via Texas songwriter Lomelda released one of 2020’s best albums with last year’s Hannah—a collection of tender and unflinching indie pop anthems that owes as much to the emo tradition as it does to sad bastard masters of alternate guitar tunings such as Nick Drake and David Crosby.

PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com