Portland State Vanguard Volume 76 Issue 5

VOLUME 76 • ISSUE 5 • APRIL 27, 2021

SHAC is prepared to receive and distribute vaccines NEWS New tomato from OSU P. 4

ARTS & CULTURE New Mortal Kombat movie is terrible, here are some alternatives P. 13

OPINION A response to criticisms over Disney inclusivity P. 14

CONTENTS NEWS COVID-19 UPDATE

COVER BY SAM PERSON ARTS & CULTURE P. 3 BRAINWASHED BY PINKERTON

P. 12

OSU PROFESSOR DEVELOPS NEW MIDNIGHT ROMA TOMATO

P. 4

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY APPLE TESTIFIES TO SENATE OVER ANTITRUST VIOLATIONS

WATCH THESE VIDEO GAME MOVIES INSTEAD OF THE NEW MORTAL KOMBAT

P. 5

INTERNATIONAL OVER 100,000 RUSSIAN TROOPS DEPLOYED TO UKRAINE BORDER

OPINION THE MOST MYOPIC PLACE ON EARTH

P. 14

P. 6

IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO OPEN THE STREETS

P. 15

NORTHERN IRELAND TALKS ATTEMPT TO QUELL VIOLENCE

P. 7

EVENTS CALENDAR

P. 16

COVER AN INTERVIEW WITH SHAC MEDICAL DIRECTOR DR. MARK BAJOREK

P. 8–9

INTERNATIONAL THIS WEEK AROUND THE WORLD

P. 10–11

STAFF

EDIT ORI A L EDITOR IN CHIEF Justin Grinnell MANAGING EDITOR Nick Townsend NEWS EDITORS Nick Gatlin Rachel Owen INTERNATIONAL EDITOR Karisa Yuasa SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Béla Kurzenhauser ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Morgan Troper

OPINION EDITOR Nick Townsend ONLINE EDITOR Lily Hennings COPY CHIEF Sophie Concannon CONTRIBUTORS Alana Baldwin-Joiner Conor Carroll Luke Harkins Nova Johnson Catherine Kane Allison Kirkpatrick Benjamin Kirkpatrick Analisa Landeros Danny O’Brien Eric Shelby Mackenzie Streissguth

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.

P. 13

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 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 AT PSU AS OF APRIL 27: 49

Three March cases, two April cases Three new COVID-19 cases have been reported at Portland State since the beginning of March and two cases have been reported thus far in April, keeping PSU at 49 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. The self-reporting form can be found on PSU’s Coronavirus Response website.

The Student Health and Counseling Center is taking measures to obtain COVID-19 vaccines.

Vaccine distribution is controlled by the state and timelines are not clear at this point.

TOTAL IN OREGON AS OF APRIL 25: 180,700 CONFIRMED CASES, 2,485 DEATHS

Total Vaccinations as of April 26: 563,000 vaccines in progress, 1.74 million fully vaccinated The Oregon House of Representatives has logged two COVID-19 cases in the last seven days.

In an email this week, the legislature’s human resources director, Jessica Knieling, warned lawmakers and their staff working in the Capitol that their office was told of a new positive COVID-19 test. The notice would not say whether or not the infected person is a lawmaker, but it noted the person was “last in the building on April 15.”

This is when the virus was last active on the House floor, according to officials. That infection, announced April 19, encouraged House Speaker Tina Kotek to cancel floor sessions in the House this week, according to OPB. The chamber is currently scheduled to meet April 26 and the latest positive case is unlikely to change what is happening legislatively.

TOTAL IN U.S. AS OF APRIL 26: 31.9 MILLION CASES, 569,272 DEATHS

Total vaccinations as of April 26: 140.9 million with at least one dose, 95.9 million fully vaccinated COVID-19 cases are rising so rapidly in some parts of Oregon, certain counties have been placed in the national rankings on The New York Times’ coronavirus tracker.

“If you take a two-week look at this as the New York Times does, we’re, I believe, the fourthhighest state in the country for rate of growth of cases for that two-week period,” said Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen in a statement reported on by KGW8.

COVID-19 cases around the world are at their highest levels since the start of the pandemic.

As of April 21, approximately 5.6 million new established cases were reported over the previous week, more than double the last February numbers, and higher than the preceding peak in December, according to Our World in Data, a project based at Oxford University.

PSU Vanguard • APRIL 27, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

NEWS

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OSU PROFESSOR DEVELOPS NEW

MIDNIGHT ROMA TOMATO

OSU PROFESSOR JAMES MYERS HOLDS A MIDNIGHT ROMA PLANT. COURTESY OF JAMES MYERS

NICK GATLIN James Myers, professor of vegetable breeding and vegetable genetics at the Oregon State University College of Agricultural Sciences, has developed a new dark purple antioxidant-rich tomato called the Midnight Roma.

The Midnight Roma is a result of crossbreeding the tomato varieties Indigo Rose, another purple tomato also developed at OSU, and Oregon Star, according to The Oregonian.

The Midnight Roma is unique in many respects, especially with regard to its antioxidant-rich skin. The Midnight Roma, like other so-called “indigo” tomatoes, contains a high concentration of anthocyanins, often found in blueberries. “The anthocyanins, in addition to being anti-oxidants, they’re also anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-corrosive,” Myers said.

“They have many different health properties.”

The Midnight Roma is also unique in that it is the first in-

4

NEWS

digo Roma-type tomato Myers and his team have developed.

Previously, Myers has bred Indigo Cherry Drops, Indigo Pear Drops and Indigo Kiwi, all of which are cherry tomatoes.

Roma tomatoes, also known as “paste” or “plum” tomatoes, are “bred for processing,” Myers said. “They tend to have very thick walls, and the gel where the seeds are, that tends to be fairly small.” Lower in water weight and higher in solid mass, Roma tomatoes are best cooking down, such as in sauces.

“Roma tomatoes, in general, are not going to be very flavorful,” Myers explained, because most of the flavor in tomatoes comes from the acidic gel around the seeds. But the flavor of the Midnight Roma tomatoes seemed to be much more intense than that of other Roma tomatoes. “I get this comment from chefs saying that they really like the flavor, because it is much more vibrant than what you normally get out of a paste tomato,” Myers said.

The development of indigo tomatoes began around 2000, when Myers and his students began to study tomato breeding and tomatoes’ effect on human health. “We arrived at working with tomatoes because we knew of all these different types of carotenoids that tomatoes have,” Myers said. Carotenoids are red, yellow and orange pigments synthesized by plants, and some studies have suggested that diets high in carotenoid-rich fruits and vegetables are associated with lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease and some cancers.

“We were studying those and this graduate student, Carl Jones, noticed that there was some material in the tomato collection that had a little bit of purple on it,” Myers explained. “That was about the time that people were beginning to recognize antho-

cyanins for their health benefits. And so Carl said, ‘well, let’s get some of this material and look at it.’”

Myers said that he’s heard most chefs like to use the Midnight Roma for cooking or preserving, and he shared one of his own favorite ways to use it: “One of the ways I like to do it, it’s a pizzaiola steak…you’re basically cooking a steak in olive oil and then putting tomatoes with garlic and oregano on that and cooking down the tomato. That makes a really nice sauce, very pleasant to eat.”

The dark color of the tomato makes for a pleasant burgundy hue in sauces. Myers said it’s “definitely a darker color than a normal tomato sauce.” He also noted that the Midnight Roma seems to have a high amount of pectin, which means sauces made with it thicken very quickly.

Because the anthocyanins in the tomato are stored in its skin, it’s important to eat the skin if you want to gain the health benefits. “What chefs have been doing when they make a sauce is they put it through a food mill,” Myers said. This is in order to break up the skin and keep it in the finished product.

Serious Pie in Seattle has been using Midnight Roma tomatoes for their sauces, and Myers himself got to taste the varietal in a pizza sauce. “We had a pizza party in Portland back before the pandemic, and it was held at the Fora…Dan Barber from the Blue Hill restaurant in New York, and we had…basically two meals, two platings done with them [Midnight Roma],” he said. “It was a fantastic meal.”

Dan Barber is the founder of Row 7 Seed Company, which currently sells seeds for the Midnight Roma on its website for $3.75 per 20 seeds.

PSU Vanguard • APRIL 27, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

Apple testifies to Senate over antitrust violations APPLE STORE IN PORTLAND, OREGON. ERIC SHELBY/PSU VANGUARD BÉLA KURZENHAUSER Apple is once again facing the United States Senate Judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee following the announcement of its AirTag location trackers on April 20.

The hearing arrives while Apple is simultaneously engaged in a continuing lawsuit with Epic Games over the App Store’s anticompetition and anti-consumer practices, in addition to the subcommittee’s cross-examination of Silicon Valley’s business practices at large.

AirTags, the newest addition to Apple’s extremely connected network of devices, are a new type of GPS tracking device. They’re similar to a “find my phone” tracker, and you can attach them to nearly anything you want to track, provided you buy Apple’s actual mount for the tracker—which is sold separately. The idea is nothing new, and many other companies have produced their own similar products, but Apple’s advantage is that AirTags are supported by its very own “Find My” location tracking technology, which they’ve used for over a decade to recover lost phones.

One of primary competitors to AirTags is Tile, which started selling bluetooth tracking fobs eight years ago following an extremely successful crowdfunding campaign. Apple’s AirTags announcement led Tile to urge the U.S. Senate Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights to reexamine Apple’s attitudes towards competition.

This is not Tile’s first run-in with Apple. Last year, Tile filed a complaint with the EU’s competition commissioner regarding Apple’s automatic disabling of its GPS tracking—Apple’s own tracking is turned on by default.

PSU Vanguard • APRIL 27, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

Apple has had to testify in front of the antitrust committee multiple times in the past two years. Last year, Fortnite developer Epic Games sued Apple over the distribution of Fortnite on the iOS store.

One of Apple’s most contentious policies is its hefty cut of any profits an app makes on the App Store, which can be anywhere from 15–30%. Additionally, Apple mandates that all apps developed for iOS are published only on the App Store. In contrast, Google allows developers to self-distribute their apps by using the APK file format, which lets them bypass Google Play Store regulations and restrictions, as well as opening up the avenue of distribution for developers.

Epic Games, frustrated by Apple’s 30% cut of all in-game purchases, created an option to let players purchase items from outside of the App Store, essentially voiding Apple from collecting a chunk of Epic’s profits. In response, Apple delisted all of Epic Games’ software from the App Store, causing Epic to retaliate with a lawsuit. Although the case has not reached court yet, its existence has deep ramifications for Apple’s walled-garden approach toward distribution.

Tile’s own dispute with Apple arose just a day before both companies and fellow tech giant Google were called to testify in front of the antitrust subcommittee on Apr. 21. Additional witnesses included executives from Tinder parent company Match Group and Spotify—both of which have previously taken issue with Apple and Google’s hefty profit cuts.

“Capitalism is about competition, it’s about new products... it’s about new competitors emerging,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, chair of the Senate Judiciary Antitrust committee at Wednesday’s hearing. “This situation, to me, doesn’t seem like it’s happening. You have companies that are simply trying to do business in their own ecosystems, or maybe with Apple and Google that are severely hampered from doing it.”

Executives from both Apple and Google defended the profit cut as a necessity to maintain their respective app stores and fund security measures, but refused to actually commit all royalties to store upkeep, according to Reuters. Klobuchar noted current antitrust legislation is insufficient to fully crack down on tech monopolies, drawing more attention to her recently-proposed antitrust bill that would require companies to justify that new acquisitions or mergers would not lessen competition in their industry.

Tile believes Apple’s AirTags don’t just pose a threat against Tile’s commercial success, but that Apple is also deliberately choking the company’s product by configuring the iOS Find My software to favor AirTags. Tile’s trackers rely on the iOS Find My software to function, and if Apple controls that domain, then it could very well push Tile out of its own industry.

“We welcome competition, as long as it is fair competition,” said Tile CEO CJ Prober in a statement on Apr. 20.

“Unfortunately, given Apple’s well-documented history of using its platform advantage to unfairly limit competition for its products, we’re skeptical.”

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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OVER 100,000 RUSSIAN TROOPS DEPLOYED TO UKRAINIAN BORDER CONOR CARROLL Ukraine’s foreign minister informed several European Union foreign ministers that Russia deployed more than 150,000 troops to Ukraine’s border and the Russian-annexed Crimea, according to an April 18 statement from top EU diplomat Joseph Borrell.

“It is more than 150,000 Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian borders and in Crimea,” Borrell said. “The risk of further escalation is evident.” He did not provide a source for these figures, though his office later amended the number of troops to “more than 100,000” and did not issue a reason for the change.

There are no new sanctions, economic or otherwise, planned for Russia—nor any further diplomatic expulsions in retaliation. However, Borrell stated the Russian military’s increase of forces at the Ukrainian border is the largest ever.

In the United States, the Pentagon stated the Russian military build-up was bigger than in 2014 when Russia amassed troops before invading the Ukrainian territory of Crimea.

“In general, we have continued to see this buildup increase,” said Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby on April 19. “We certainly heard the Russians proclaim that this is all about training. It’s not completely clear to us that that’s exactly the purpose.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba requested that the EU levy new sanctions on Russia. Tensions between the Ukrainian and Russian governments are increasing amid both the Russian military’s surge and ongoing conflicts in eastern Ukraine between the army and pro-Russian separatists.

Russia is issuing “last-minute military exercises near commercial shipping lanes in the Black Sea,” which threaten to stifle Ukraine’s economy, according to internal documents from Ukraine’s ministry of defense, reviewed by Axios.

The U.S. further conveyed a “deep concern” regarding Russia’s campaign to stop foreign naval ships in segments of the Black Sea, according to a statement from State Department

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INTERNATIONAL

RUSSIAN MILITARY ARMORED VEHICLES ROLL INTO LANDING VESSELS. RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE VIA AP PHOTO

employee Ned Price.

“This represents yet another unprovoked escalation in Moscow’s ongoing campaign to undermine and destabilize Ukraine,” Price stated.

The leaked document indicates that Russian services are intensifying their presence on every side of the Ukrainian border with “units that boast a vast array of capabilities, including many that suggest more sinister intentions than a simple show of force,” according to Axios.

The document infers that Russia’s intentions may be to distract from domestic issues in anticipation of their legislative elections in September. The military actions were also said to be an attempt to detract from NATO exercises and force Ukraine into reversing its “positive political developments.”

Russia secured its naval presence in the Black Sea and provided two warships. Those warships traversed the Bosporus, the world’s narrowest strait, last April 17, accompanied by 15 smaller vessels. All this took place during strained RussiaUkraine relations regarding troop increases at the border near Crimea.

The Russian warships that went through the Bosporus are “Ropucha-class landing ships” from Russia’s Northern Fleet, according to reports. The ships can carry tanks and troops, which could potentially be used for a “coastal assault.”

Moscow has called the huge troop buildup a “temporary defensive exercise.”

“We don’t want to burn bridges, but if somebody interprets our good intentions as weakness, our reaction will be asymmetrical, rapid and harsh,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said. “We’ll decide for ourselves in each case where the red line is. The organisers of any provocations against Russia will regret [their actions] in a way they never have before.”

The warning was issued in Russia’s annual state of the nation address, during the elevated tensions with the U.S. regarding Ukraine and the imprisoned Putin critic Alexei Navalny.

Putin said NATO countries were continuously attempting to “pick on” Russia. Security forces have incarcerated around 100 Navalny factions rallying in dozens of cities.

The U.S., since President Joe Biden’s election, has acknowledged Russia’s antagonistic behavior towards the democratic west.

The U.S. intelligence community has produced new material regarding Konstantin Kilimnik, a convicted Russian agent, and the associate of ex-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, confirming internal Trump campaign polling and strategy content was passed to Russian intelligence services, according to two U.S. officials.

On April 22, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Kilimnik and for the first time stated he provided the information to Russian intelligence services.

Russia’s Defense Ministry issued a “partial pullback of troops” from the border with Ukraine on Thursday, according to a New York Times report.

The Russian defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, who initially named the increase in troops a “test of the Russian military’s readiness,” said that the units installed at the Ukrainian border had displayed their competences and should now regress to their normative stations.

“I believe that the goals of the snap inspection have been fully achieved,” Shoigu said. “The troops demonstrated the ability to reliably defend the country.”

However, the order indicated that forces leaving the camp an estimated 100 miles from the border with the eastern Ukrainian region known as Donbas would not depart the armored vehicles until next fall.

“The reduction of troops on our border proportionally reduces tension,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Twitter. “[Ukraine] is always vigilant, yet welcomes any steps to decrease the military presence & deescalate the situation in Donbas. Ukraine seeks peace.”

PSU Vanguard • APRIL 27, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

NORTHERN IRELAND TALKS ATTEMPT TO QUELL VIOLENCE

HIJACKED CARS BURN AT THE PEACE WALL ON LANARK WAY. PETER MORRISON/AP PHOTO

KARISA YUASA United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced he is in the process of ending harsh Brexit border checks in Northern Ireland in an effort to calm tensions between unionists and loyalists.

Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom that shares a western and southern border with the Republic of Ireland—a country part of the European Union. Although tensions have existed for decades between the mostly-Protestant loyalists—who wish to remain part of the U.K.—and the mostly-Catholic unionists—who wish to remain part of Ireland and the EU—violence erupted on a scale not seen in decades.

On March 29 police officers were attacked while attempting to disperse a crowd in majority unionist Derry, Northern Ireland. Violence continued nightly and on April 2, 12 police officers were injured in Derry and almost a hundred people gathered in Belfast, Northern Ireland’s capital, for a loyalist protest where eight officers were injured and seven people were arrested, according to BBC. Protests and occasional violence continued nightly until April 9, following the death of British Prince Philip.

Signs in west Belfast on Apr. 9 read: “We would ask all PUL [Protestant, Unionist,

Loyalist] protests are postponed as a mark of respect to the Queen and the royal family.

The continued opposition to the NI protocol and all other injustices against the PUL community will take place again after the period of mourning.”

Some police and politicians have spoken of fears of children being coerced to participate in the violence after 12 and 13 year olds were seen in videos of the unrest. Ireland’s justice minister Naomi Long said she felt “ill” after watching videos of adults “standing by cheering and goading and encouraging young people on as they wreaked havoc in their own community,” referring to it as “child abuse.”

“I know that many of our young people are hugely frustrated by the events of this last week but causing injury to police officers will not make things better,” said Arlene Foster, the Democratic Unionist party leader. “I appeal to our young people not to get drawn into disorder which will lead to them having criminal convictions and blighting their own lives. I also ask parents to play their part and be proactive in protecting their young adults.”

“It’s really, really important that we stand shoulder to shoulder and say no to this type of criminal behaviour, and that we don’t al-

PSU Vanguard • APRIL 27, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

low our children to be sucked in by criminal gangs who are orchestrating some of what we see on our streets,” said Michelle O’Neill, Ireland’s deputy first minister.

According to AP News, the recent violence is due to the Public Prosecution Service’s decision made on March 30 not to prosecute any politicians who attended a funeral last June—allegedly attended by approximately 2000 people despite COVID-19 restrictions, which limited funeral attendance to 30 people—in addition to growing Brexit and economic frustrations.

“These are areas of multiple deprivation with the sense of not much to lose,” said Katy Hayward, a professor of politics at Queen’s University Belfast. “And when [people] are mobilized by social media telling them ‘Enough is enough, now is the time to defend Ulster,’ then many of them—too many—respond to that.”

The violence was to a scale not seen since prior to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

The Good Friday Agreement, also known as the Belfast Agreement, paused nearly three decades of violence between loyalists and unionists that cost over 3,000 lives.

“The Good Friday Agreement was an exercise in conflict management, not con-

flict resolution,” said Donnacha Ó Beacháin, Director of research at the Dublin City University School of Law and Government.

“The conflict is not resolved and in many ways it institutionalized the conflict. In that sense, the guns have been decommissioned, but the mindsets that led to the conflict in the first place have not been fully put aside.”

According to The Guardian, Brexit minister David Frost and European commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič met on April 15 to discuss Northern Ireland. The talks were described as “productive” and “constructive,” but no concrete decisions have been announced.

Frost said the discussions “had begun to clarify the outstanding issues, and some positive momentum had been established,” but added that the “difficult issues remained and it was important to continue to discuss them.” “[Ireland] truly became a completely different place in the last 23 years, because of the Good Friday agreement” said Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheál Martin. “We owe it to the ‘agreement generation’ and indeed future generations not to spiral back to that dark place of sectarian murders and political discord.”

INTERNATIONAL

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SHAC READY AND WILLING TO DISTRIBUTE VACCINES AS NEEDED 8

COVER

PSU Vanguard • APRIL 27, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

AN INTERVIEW WITH SHAC MEDICAL DIRECTOR DR. MARK BAJOREK BENJAMIN KIRKPATRICK The center for Student Health and Counseling, located on the Portland State campus, provides COVID -19 testing, but does not currently offer the vaccine. SHAC’s website states it is “taking measures to obtain the COVID-19 vaccine,” but it is unclear when the center will obtain it since Oregon controls vaccine distribution within the state.

SHAC Medical Director Dr. Mark Bajorek stated all health practitioners and nurses working at SHAC have been certified and trained, so if they receive a shipment of vaccines, they are prepared to administer them.

“We’ve also gone through the training and made sure our refrigerators are up to snuff so that if they drop off [the] vaccine, we can store it for the appropriate amount of time,” Bajorek said. “We have all the right conditions for that, so those pieces are in place. We have the gloves, we have the syringes and needles, we have all those pieces in place.”

SHAC does not have any direct control over obtaining the vaccines or have any specific information on when they will be available. Bajorek stated if individuals are interested in receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, they should check out the airport (PDX Red Lot Vaccine Clinic) or Oregon Convention Center, which currently administer the vaccine and have the infrastructure to distribute vaccines in much larger quantities.

Bajorek said SHAC could realistically vaccinate 100–200 people a week, compared to the thousands of vaccines that other venues like the airport or convention center can administer per week.

“Give us a couple of hundred vaccines, and we’ll get them to students, faculty and staff,” Bajorek said. “We’d be able to arrange that, too. I don’t decide how the vaccine is allocated. All I can say is, we have the pieces in place. We’d be happy to take care of folks.”

Bajorek did acknowledge that certain populations of individuals may be unable or unwilling to venture to those areas to receive vaccines.

“Right now, the convention center is open, and they’re doing 1,000 vaccines a day, which is fantastic. But what groups are missing? You know, maybe not everybody can go between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., so how do we make sure that we capture those people that want to get vaccinated?”

Many students who attend PSU are also off-campus, presenting a unique challenge to international and marginalized students.

“I think there are just so many competing interests, like schools opening back up,” Bajorek said. “Are we taking care of them? While stores are open, are we making sure that food service workers are taken care of? For restaurants or cafes that are opening, are the people that work those jobs also taken care of, and have they been vaccinated? It’s a tricky thing. It is just a new problem for all of us to discern through. Some of the things I’m sure we’ll get right, but we have to be able to recognize when we’re headed down the wrong track.”

As of April 19, everyone 16 years of age and older in the United States is eligible to get a COVID-19 vaccination. Those looking to receive a vaccination can visit VaccineFinder.org to find vaccine providers near them. They can also check your local pharmacy’s website for vaccine availability, or watch local news outlets and the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) website for more information.

When asked about the types of vaccines that will be available, Bajorek stated SHAC doesn’t have control over the particular brand of vaccinations they will receive in the future. Regarding the eligibility of the vaccine, SHAC would be offering it free-ofcharge to students, faculty and staff members.

Potential side effects of the vaccine mainly include a sore arm and fatigue. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has made headlines recently, with reports of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, or clots in the brain, in an extremely small amount of individuals who received the vaccine.

Administration of the vaccine had been put on pause due to potential safety concerns, though use of the vaccine will soon resume with an extra warning added to its label about blood clot risk, the Food and Drug Administration announced Friday. The Center for Disease Control has begun an investigation into the death of one Oregon woman who died within two weeks of receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The OHA emphasized it is too early to draw a connection between the death and the vaccine until the investigation is concluded.

When asked about the J&J vaccine, Bajorek stated the risk for developing these blood clots is “about six per six-million, so it’s like one-in-a-million. Being struck by lightning in your lifetime is like one-in-15,000.” He said the risk of getting a blood clot from COVID-19 is much higher than from a vaccine.

Individuals who receive the vaccine are not injected with a live virus—unlike measles boosters, for example, which use

weakened versions of the virus.

“There are three different types of vaccines, and two of the most common are the Moderna and the Pfizer,” Bajorek said. “They are messenger-RNA related, so you’re getting this RNA in a lipid particle, and that’s what’s going into your system. It meets up with the ribosome and is converted to a protein, and then your body makes antibodies to that protein—but there’s never any virus; it’s just part of the code for that virus that gets injected into the body.”

As far as who should get the vaccine, Bajorek stated everyone eligible to receive one should. Younger people who are not in a high-risk category can still come into contact with the virus and potentially spread it to others who may be immunocompromised.

Some people do experience challenges with receiving the vaccine, but individuals and medical professionals such as Bajorek are doing their best to help.

“I’ve, on my own time, gone to group homes and given vaccines to people and volunteered to help people that are in marginalized communities,” Bajorek said. “We have got to make sure those people are taken care of. I mean, that’s what healthcare is about— protecting people you know and making sure that they stay well.”

Even if we do end up reaching herd immunity, which is when most of the population in an area becomes immune to a specific disease, Bajorek said “we have to monitor how long this vaccine lasts. We know that some vaccines last a lifetime, and others, like the flu vaccine, you still have to get one every year. And, you know there’s a possibility that we’ll continue to make boosters, and we’ll have to monitor for that, whether that’s in six months or a year or two years.”

The Biden Administration has recently begun working on what it calls the COVID-19 Community Corps, an initiative to enlist people to help their friends, family and neighbors get access to vaccines. Just under 50% of American adults have yet to receive any shot of a vaccine, and vaccine supply will soon overtake demand.

Bajorek said any updates regarding the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine will be posted on SHAC’s website and sent out to students, faculty and staff via email. SHAC is encouraging individuals to get a vaccine wherever there is availability. Information can be found on the Oregon COVID-19 vaccine website.

“We just want to get that vaccine out to folks,” Bajorek said. “We continue to advise our friends, ‘please get a vaccine. Volunteer and get a vaccine. Do whatever you can to get a vaccine.’”

STUDENT RACHEL OWEN GETS THE PFIZER VACCINE. PHOTO COURTESY OF RACHEL OWEN

PSU Vanguard • APRIL 27, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

COVER

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THIS WEEK

around the

WORLD

Apr. 12–15

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INTERNATIONAL

PSU Vanguard • APRIL 27, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

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April 19

FINLAND

Finland was named the “happiest country in the world” for the fourth year in a row by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which issues a yearly report assessing the happiness of the world’s population. The World Happiness Report uses statistics from interviews of “more than 350,000 people in 95 countries,” taken by the polling organization Gallup. The rankings aren’t based on factors like income or life expectancy, but rather on how people rank their own happiness on a 10-point scale. The United States has never broken the top ten. Five years ago, the U.S. was ranked 13th, but slipped to 18th and 19th place in recent analyses, according to an AP News report 2 April 20

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL

Wildlife was seen in the Pinheiros River following the removal of 30,000 tons of surface garbage, according to Reuters. The river runs through the center of São Paulo, Brazil’s wealthiest city and what some consider the “financial heart” of Latin America.

“The project is to improve the river’s quality, not to make it transparent, with fish and where people can swim,” said Edison Carlos, president of Trata Brasil, an organization that supports clean water and sewage. “We do expect for the smell, which is especially bad on hot days, and the mosquitoes to be eliminated, and to see the return of some fish.” According to São Paulo’s

PSU Vanguard • APRIL 27, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

Governor, João Doria, the Pinheiros river clean-up was the largest environmental project in the country, costing 4 billion reais, or $735 million. “When I see fish in Pinheiros river, I see life,” said Jose Bueno, an urban planner with the river conservation group Rios e Ruas. “So we are not defending something invisible, something abstract. We are protecting what is alive,” 3

April 20

CHAD

The President of the African nation of Chad, Idriss Déby, died suddenly after visiting the front lines of the country’s civil war, according to BBC. “[Déby] breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield,” an army general said on state TV while announcing his death. The exact circumstances of his death remain uncertain, but Déby is believed to have been shot on April 17 while Chad military forces fought a rebel group north of the capital N’djamena, according to CNN. A military statement mentioned he “took control of operations during the heroic combat led against the terrorists from Libya. He was wounded during the fighting and died once repatriated to N’Djamena.” Déby’s son, Mahamat Kaka, was named interim president by the transitional council of military officers.

4

April 21

BALI STRAIT, INDONESIA

An Indonesian submarine with 53 people on board went missing during a military training exercise. Based on when the

submarine lost contact, it was estimated that there was approximately 72 hours worth of oxygen onboard. The submarine asked permission to dive before losing contact, according to CNN. On April 25, the ship was found broken into at least three different pieces and all crew members were pronounced dead, according to Reuters. “Based on the evidence, it can be stated that the KRI Nanggala has sunk and all of its crew have died,” said military chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto. President Joko Widodo sent condolences to the families of the crewmembers saying, “All of us Indonesians express our deep sorrow over this tragedy, especially to the families of the submarine crew.”

5

April 23

POKROV, RUSSIA

The imprisoned Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny has ended his hunger strike, according to a New York Times report. The 24-day hunger strike was the most recent development in a years-long conflict between President Vladimir Putin and Navalny, his most prominent critic. Navalny started the hunger strike to protest the reported lack of prison medical care for his back pain and loss of sensation in his legs. Earlier this month, the Russian police reported nine arrests after doctors allied with Navalny gathered outside the prison and demanded to have access to him, according to NPR. Putin has refused to speak Navalny’s name publicly, even after protests overwhelmed the Russian political landscape in the wake of Navalny’s arrest.

INTERNATIONAL

11

BRAINWASHED

BY PINKERTON GETTING TOO OLD TO HATE WEEZER

MORGAN TROPER In one of Saturday Night Live’s only moderately relevant and funny sketches from the past decade, two Weezer fans—played

by Leslie Jones and Matt Damon—disrupt an otherwise civil dinner party when a new Weezer song comes on the Alexa. The conceit is that Matt Damon is a “ride or die Weezer fan” who appreciates every era of the band, while Leslie Jones swears by only their first two albums—1994’s The Blue Album and 1996’s Pinkerton. You know, the good ones.

This skit is hard to watch, which is par for the course with most of Saturday Night Live, a show that predominantly panders to moneyed, condo-dwelling liberals and their ilk. But unusually for SNL, this skit isn’t hard to watch because of the war criminal apologetics or whatever—it’s hard to watch because it’s eminently relatable. It forces me to acknowledge that I have wasted precious hours of my life having this very same debate, both on and offline. The vicarious embarrassment grows even more pronounced once you realize that “Weezer” here is a proxy for virtually any meaningless yet polarizing topic within apolitical pop culture. You could recreate this skit except have it center around Star Wars, or Kanye or, God forbid, the Martin Scorsese-Marvel Cinematic Universe feud.

For some context: Weezer’s 1994 debut was released to critical acclaim and strong sales, cementing the band’s status as a quirky fixture of ’90s alternative rock radio. While writing the band’s follow-up, Pinkerton, frontman Rivers Cuomo was studying at Harvard, where other students wearing Weezer shirts supposedly didn’t even recognize him. The isolation Cuomo experienced back East—far from his adopted hometown of Los Angeles—coupled with his immersion in English literature and

12

ARTS & CULTURE

PINKERTON. COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA high-brow art forms such as opera, did wonders for his songwriting but stunted his emotional development. On Pinkerton, Cuomo ditched the references to Dungeons & Dragons and Kiss, opting instead to write vignettes about masturbation and being creepy toward his teenage female fans. The band—and the rest of the world—was understandably bewildered.

When Pinkerton was released, it was a critical flop, and it performed poorly on the charts relative to the band’s debut.

Bassist Matt Sharp, who played a pivotal role in shaping the band’s early aesthetic and was something of Cuomo’s musical foil, quit the band shortly thereafter. The record and its surrounding narrative has become nearly impossible to parse—in 1996, critics deemed it pathetic, indefensibly misogynistic and wholly without artistic merit. Around the mid ’00s, critics began reevaluating the record on a large scale. Not only is it now widely considered the band’s masterpiece, but Pinkerton is often referred to as the inflection point where Sebadoh-esque indie rock, power pop and emo collided, an aesthetic that endures to this day. Additionally, a widely held belief among one camp of Weezer fans is that Rivers Cuomo expended so much emotional energy making Pinkerton that he has nothing left to say.

For this reason, Weezer “purists,” as Matt Damon’s character calls them in the SNL skit, hate every Weezer album released after Pinkerton.

Per usual, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, or possibly even off to the side. Pinkerton is a cathartic piece of music—especially if you’re a sexually frustrated teenager— but in terms of emotional and musical scope, it pales in comparison to the band’s debut. Moreover, an important critique

of Pinkerton—that the pop world in 1996 simply wasn’t literate enough for—is the idea that it traffics in orientalist tropes and fetishizes its Asian subjects. This point specifically is touched on in Jenny Zhang’s groundbreaking Rookie essay from 2015, “Far Away From Me.” But people love a loser’s history, and so Pinkerton is now the best. By my estimation, the purpose of the SNL skit isn’t to give weight to that claim—it’s to demonstrate that both sides of the argument are equally ridiculous. Going to bat for Pinkerton may have been risky once, but that position is so canonized now that it reeks of stock iconoclasm, à la proudly proclaiming you are an atheist in secular society.

But I ultimately still sympathize with Leslie Jones’ character’s viewpoint, and what does that say about me? Every time I hear a new Weezer song I feel my blood pressure increase and the urge to tweet something stupid. Pinkerton was, at one point in time, so integral to my identity as a music fan that a bad Weezer album felt like a personal affront. Intellectually, I know my reaction—i.e., impassioned disgust—toward Weezer’s latest album, OK Human, is immature and unreasonable, but I also can’t help myself. I sometimes can’t tell if I hate new Weezer because it’s genuinely offensive or if I’ve just been thoroughly charmed by the Pinkerton mythos.

The funniest part of the SNL skit is that nobody besides Matt Damon or Leslie Jones really cares about Weezer or understands what is being discussed. This, too, is relatable—the older I get, the more monotropic my interest in Weezer seems.

Pinkerton doesn’t exactly make for a great water cooler discussion topic—so I guess I’ll just have to argue with myself.

PSU Vanguard • APRIL 27, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

SCENE FROM MORTAL KOMBAT 2020. COURTESY OF ROGER EBERT

MORGAN TROPER There is a new Mortal Kombat movie out on HBO Max, the streaming platform quickly making a name for itself as the service where big licensed blockbusters whose releases were jeopardized by COVID-19 go to die. It is a very bad film, despite what you may have read elsewhere—gaming blog Kotaku claims its opening 12 minutes constitute the author’s “favorite cinema moment of the year.” That is far too charitable.

This article was supposed to be a review of the film, but there simply isn’t anything else to say. So instead, I’d like to highlight some of the best films based on video games that you should watch instead of Mortal Kombat. It’s a fraught genre, to be sure, but it isn’t entirely worthless.

SUPER MARIO BROS. (1993)

Let’s get this list’s most divisive entry out of the way immediately. The Super Mario Bros. movie featured an all-star cast including Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper, along with some cutting edge special effects that still look pretty good today. But it had absolutely nothing in common with the video games—directors Robby Morton and Annabel Jenkel reimagined Nintendo’s Mushroom Kingdom as a gritty, cyberpunk metropolis à la Blade Runner, and introduced an incomprehensible plot centered around a conflict between primates and dinosaurs. Dennis Hopper’s portrayal of King Koopa—more commonly known as Bowser in the games—is slimy and decidedly Trumpian, a far cry from his depiction in the video games of a familyfriendly Kaiju. The result is a film with a massive identity crisis—it simultaneously feels too beholden to the source material and not be-

WATCH THESE VIDEO GAME MOVIES INSTEAD OF THE NEW MORTAL KOMBAT holden enough. That said, Super Mario Bros. is still a massively enjoyable film if you go into it with tempered expectations, and it has a fervid cult following for good reason.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (2020)

THERE ARE BETTER WAYS TO WASTE YOUR TIME

Sonic the Hedgehog’s production is well-chronicled. The film’s teaser trailer made it look so unappealing, and Sonic’s original design was so wretched that the studio was eventually coerced into delaying the project. It mostly paid off in the end—unlike the lone live-action Mario movie, Sonic is an artful blend of real world and video game aesthetics. The performance from Jim Carrey as series’ antagonist Dr. Eggman is occasionally overpowering, but it’s nonetheless a thoroughly enjoyable romp.

Go for Sonic, stay for the Tails cameo.

an immediately identifiable, marquee actor in a starring role—there are times when Ryan Reynolds sounds more like Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool as Pikachu than Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu, which is as obnoxious as it sounds.

Don’t let that deter you if you haven’t seen it, though—at other points in the film, the writing soars, particularly during an uncharacteristically dark scene where Pokémon trainer Tim and Detective Pikachu interrogate Mr. Mime.

DETECTIVE PIKACHU (2019)

More than anything else, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within seemed like game developercum-film studio Square flaunting their technological literacy. The Spirits Within is a rare example of a video game movie based on a Japanese property that was actually made by the game developer themselves, as opposed to being outsourced to a Western film studio. The film was even directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy game series.

With Detective Pikachu, director Rob Letterman attempted what long seemed like an impossible feat—a live-action Pokémon movie.

The creatures in this film are so arresting and meticulously rendered that the actual plot becomes a bit of an aside. It’s a buddy comedy featuring a young Pokémon trainer and a Pikachu who inexplicably speaks English. Like Sonic, Detective Pikachu suffers from having

PSU Vanguard • APRIL 27, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN (2001)

These visuals were groundbreaking at the time, though they leave a bit to be desired today. The first half of the movie is also tremendously boring, but its scale and precocity make it an easy inclusion here. The Spirits Within signaled the future of video game films—for better or worse—but in 2001 we just weren’t there yet.

MORTAL KOMBAT (1995)

The new Mortal Kombat is bad. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation from 1997 is funny, but also mostly bad. The original film adaptation from 1995 is bad-good. You could tell the filmmakers and cast were high as hell off the momentum generated from Mortal Kombat’s initial success—it was still a legitimate cultural phenomenon at this point, after all. It’s one of those films where the terrible acting and special effects are elevated due to a totally misguided, Wiseau-esque enthusiasm. Not even the glacial pace and sawdust color palette can ruin it—it’s just a fun, terrible movie, and those aren’t too common in this day and age, clearly.

ARTS & CULTURE

13

THE MOST MYOPIC PLACE ON EARTH

LUKE HARKINS Jonathan VanBoskerck is deeply concerned. As Disney rolls out the latest revisions to its rules governing employee appearance standards at Disney parks, VanBoskerck had a few choice words for the company. A selfdescribed Disney loyalist and deputy district attorney from Nevada, VanBoskerck has drawn the ire of social media due to his recent commentary in the Orlando Sentinel, criticizing Disney for going “woke.” To VanBoskerck, Disney’s ongoing decisions to cultivate a more inclusive brand represents more than just calculated, corporate deliberation. To VanBoskerck, the Disney park experience is just the latest sacrifice at the altar of the Twitter gods, another casualty of appeasement in the never-ending culture war.

Quite frankly though, who cares?

Who is genuinely concerned about what some Jonathan VanBoskerck from Nevada thinks about the retiring of the Trader Sam animatronic from the Jungle Cruise ride at Disney World? Are VanBoskerck’s words really so novel and thought-provoking as to warrant such a public response? Does this conversation need to happen?

Ultimately, this conversation isn’t about VanBoskerck. In truth, no one cares what some district attorney from Nevada thinks about Disney World’s inclusivity initiatives. This conversation is about a tired discourse, a discourse that reflects the desperate, last gasps of a demographic that’s terrified of a world that may no longer need them. This is a conversation within which VanBoskerck is simply the latest representative of the middle-aged conservative whose cultural entitlements are slipping through his grasp. This isn’t about VanBoskerck. It’s about reactionary myopia.

There’s a revelatory passage in VanBoskerck’s commentary that speaks to the heart of this issue. As VanBoskerck states, “Disney is in the process of taking the woke scalpel to the Jungle Cruise. Trader Sam is out because he might offend certain people.

Every grown-up in the room realizes

that Trader Sam is not a representation of reality and is meant as a funny and silly caricature.” Putting aside the contention of whether or not the animatronic depiction of a headhunting, cannibalistic native is appropriate for a venue such as Disney World, it’s telling how VanBoskerck’s analysis never seems to consider what Disney’s inclusivity initiatives may mean for people of color, let alone the myriad of kids that visit the park. While VanBoskerck argues “grown-ups” may recognize the caricature of Trader Sam, can the same be said of children?

VanBoskerck examines Disney’s ongoing changes from the entitled, myopic perspective of a middle-aged white man whose sole concern is how these changes may impact his enjoyment.

But VanBoskerck’s analysis completely sidesteps the real conversations that need to be had. Ultimately, Disney is an all-ages brand. The content it produces will be enjoyed by millions of impressionable children wading through their formative years. What societal responsibility does Disney, one of the largest and most pervasive media brands in the world, have when formulating what sorts of messaging will be beamed into millions of living rooms around the globe?

Are we content with the preservation of racist and insensitive depictions of humans for the sole sake of historical continuity and baby boomer nostalgia?

Or can popular media be harnessed to foster a better sense of tolerance and inclusivity within the coming generations? VanBoskerck doesn’t seem to ponder these questions. His concern is that the changing world that cares less about his thoughts with each passing year. VanBoskerck is no longer the target demographic; his voice is no longer of any consequence to the decision-making processes of popular media conglomerates. So, what does this mean for people like him?

To conservatives like Vanboskerck, inclusivity initiatives are just a method of the virtue-signaling, overzealous political left. But is that a bad thing?

What are we truly losing by being more

responsible curators of the art we put out into the world? Will society collapse if we decide to weigh our decisions based on the perceptions of all, rather than just some?

Ultimately though, if any institution has an ethical obligation to provide space for inclusion, it’s Disney. Like it or not, the entertainment Disney produces, including their parks, have become synonymous with American childhood. For the same reason we no longer subject our children to the racist minstrel shows of the 19th century, we must also carefully consider the ways in which our contemporary media can shape our conceptions of “the other.”

It’s up to us “grown-ups” to set the standards for what is permissible to our youth. When we showcase racist and insensitive stereotypes in theme parks and media, we demonstrate to our children that these depictions are tolerable, perhaps even tacitly factual.

For some children, these representations present racism and prejudice as permissible; to others, it is simply alienating. VanBoskerck, and the greater contingent of middle-aged conservatives concerned about these inclusivity efforts, must take better care to reflect on these issues from perspectives other than their own.

VanBoskerck’s complete disregard for the impacts Disney’s policy changes may have on the manner in which our children perceive other humans speaks to a fundamental issue that plagues this discussion: myopia.

There is most certainly a conversation to be had here, but in order to facilitate a productive discourse, it is imperative that conservative America shed their presuppositions and begin examining these issues from a goaloriented, multi-perspective approach.

If we are all in agreement that a more inclusive, understanding world is our aim, then how do we get there? Does the preservation of racist stereotypes, such as Trader Sam, ultimately help to serve that goal? Or does it simply undermine social progress for the sake of baby boomer nostalgia?

CONSERVATIVES CRUMBLE AS DISNEY INCHES TOWARDS PROGRESS

14

OPINION

PSU Vanguard • APRIL 27, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

DANNY O’BRIEN As cars flood back into the once-empty streets of the early days of the pandemic, and affluent urbanites are forced out of their open street canopies and cabanas, a weak public outcry can be heard: Open the streets for pedestrians!

But this is really a structural problem. Sure, cities should be centered around pedestrians rather than cars. But there are larger issues at stake for those living on the outskirts of the cities, lower-income neighborhoods or industrial areas, where bougie outdoor restaurants are nowhere to be found. Not even during COVID-19 did their streets become closed off pedestrian hubs. For most Americans, cars carry a hell of a lot of loaded class issues.

The average person in the United States pays $125 per month on insurance, $165 per month on gas, and if they have a car loan, $420 per month.

This means that the average person has to pay $290–710 every month to legally own and operate a car. If maintenance is factored in, as it often must be for cars, those figures will increase by an average of $100. If we are not given money or any sort of standard general welfare from the government, and if our residential communities are not always linked to any viable form of public transportation, how can people be expected to shill out $500 or $600 a month? The Bureau of Labor Statistics states the average American spends 17% of their income on transportation costs alone.

The Interstate Highway System was a malicious act, where Black communities were cut through, disrupted, and excluded from any of the benefits of the system. Black communities— whose neighborhoods were disrupted by freeways—suffer a disproportionate amount from the environmental harm of car exhaust and noise pollution, while others built too far from highway access can become food deserts. The conditions of the Highway System have been used in the past as leverage to pass laws, where states would lose transportation funding if drinking ages weren’t increased, effectively sanctioning states that disagreed.

Cars are burdensome, expensive, racist and exploitative. But good thing they are not, like, bad for the environment. Oh, wait. Sorry, I meant to say: and they are bad for the environment. Cars account for 1/3 of the air pollution in the United States. They are composed of materials whose extraction and production choke out the atmosphere and rip scars into the earth, so even if you have a pretty, feel-good hybrid car, you’re not doing much. And for how intensive their production is, they don’t last nearly long enough. While it is an improvement that people no longer cycle through their cars every three years, it’s not a very substantial change that the cycle is now every six years. A quarter of each individual automobile still ends up chilling in a landfill forever.

Pseudo-progressive President Joe Biden recently put out a lofty transportation and energy plan that will bolster the United States’ funding for transportation infrastructure and supposedly divert our reliance on fossil fuels to cleaner energies. But the plan also calls for an increased production of automobiles alongside this. Biden uses frequent Cold War-like rhetoric to frame the issue as one of a production race between the U.S. and China. Over-production and loud-mouthed competitiveness seem a bit inappropriate for a plan centered around the environment and clean energy.

Why should we stick with cars and highways at all? Why should such a large part of American living include going into debt so that you can put yourself into a hyper-individualistic death

machine and rocket yourself down a vascular mess of dreary, billboard-laden roadways? Why not move towards safe and collective forms of transportation? Why not widen the public sector and do something productive with the 4.09 million miles of roads in this country?

With all this in mind, it may be hard to shake off a bleak feeling of futility, but the alternatives are endless. The U.S. used to be known internationally for its rail system, but has now become a laughingstock in a world of efficient, high-speed train travel for passengers. The commercial capability for highspeed rail travel has long been a feasible reality, and one that would immediately benefit the country.

Biden’s plan talks a great amount about the glory days of rail travel, but would do well to carry with it an influx of concrete policy. Since the release of the infrastructure plan, Amtrak has proposed a series of new rail lines, which have garnered some attention and might improve the infrastructure, but there is no timeline or proof of when or if this will actually be realized. And this represents a patterned problem with policy in the country: the state is rendered powerless if the most sweeping legislation it can make only gives money to private corporations with the soft expectation that they will do something tangible with the funds. When I hear Amtrak has a grand plan of re-railing the country, I have a hard time believing it will happen anytime soon, if at all.

While a total overhaul of the highway infrastructure may be unrealistic within the next few years due to the snail pace Washington’s policies crawl at, there are additional alternatives that could be explored. The last decade has seen a rise in ride-sharing programs such as Uber and Lyft, and parallel to this, issues regarding the pay and conditions their workers are subjected to. These companies could be nationalized and deployed by the government, with free rides and well-paid, benefitted drivers. This would lessen the amount of cars on the road and change the level of dependence this country has on the private ownership of cars. To quickly dispel the opposition, who are no doubt grumbling about the loss of profit: Uber has never been profitable. There would be no profits lost and many advantages gained.

These are just two alternatives to the expensive, unequal and cumbersome mass private ownership of automobiles and hellish network of highways we have in this country.

We can sit and hope that Biden’s plan will have some effect, and we can carry on the discourse of what problems are inherent to cars and how sunny any other alternative would be, but we cannot forg et that progress does not happen simply by pouring money into the pockets of massive corporations.

If policy is to be truly progressive, it must be concrete, substantial and organized.

PSU Vanguard • APRIL 27, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO OPEN THE STREETS

AMERICA NEEDS ALTERNATIVES TO INDIVIDUAL CAR OWNERSHIP— AND FAST

SHANNON STEED

OPINION

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EVENTS CALENDAR

``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` APR 27–MAY 2

TUE APR 27

WOODEN SHOE TULIP FESTIVAL Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm 9 a.m. $60 Ongoing through May 2

Look out at over 40 acres of blooming tulips during peak blooming season at the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm, located in Woodburn. Tickets must be purchased online and social distancing measures will be in-place.

THUR APR 29

VIRTUALANDIA! 2021: YOUTH POETRY SLAM CHAMPIONSHIP Livestream via Literary Arts 5:30 p.m.

Sliding scale admission

SUN APR 30

Pioneer Courthouse Square 10 a.m.

Free

Portland nurses will honor the life of George Floyd with a silent vigil every Friday morning.

PORTRAITURE FROM THE COLLECTION OF NORTHWEST ART

MON MAY 2

Livestream via Powell’s Books 5 p.m.

Free

“Jonny Sun is back with a collection of essays and other writings in his unique, funny, and heartfelt style. The wonderfully original author of Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too gives us Goodbye, Again (Harper Perennial), a collection of touching and hilarious personal essays, stories, poems — accompanied by his trademark illustrations — covering topics such as mental health, happiness, and what it means to belong. The pieces range from long meditations on topics like loneliness and being an outsider, to short humor pieces, conversations, and memorable one-liners. Jonny’s honest writings about his struggles with feeling productive, as well as his difficulties with anxiety and depression, will connect deeply with his fans, as well as anyone attempting to create in our chaotic world. It also features a recipe for scrambled eggs that might make you cry. Sun will be joined in conversation by Samantha Irby, author of We Are Never Meeting in Real Life and Wow, No Thank You.”

RATBOYS 10th ANNIVERSARY SHOW Livestream via Bandcamp Live 6 p.m. $10

“#Virtualandia! 2021 is an exciting opportunity for students from eligible Portland One of the greatest active indie rock groups, Chicago’s Ratboys, are celebrating their metro area high schools to take part in a dynamic virtual slam poetry competition, and 10th year in existence with a live performance on Bandcamp in addition to an exclusive to win prizes like the title of #Virtualandia Slam Champion and corresponding $1,000 airing of a new retrospective film.

Visa gift card. Up to 300 youth poets will submit original work via video by midnight on Wednesday, March 31 to be reviewed and judged by a diverse group of artists and fans with a pulse on the literary scene.”

NURSES FOR BLACK LIVES VIGIL

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JONNY SUN IN CONVERSATION WITH SAMANTHA IRBY

Portland Art Museum 10 a.m. $20 Ongoing through August 1

AHAMED WEINBERG Helium Comedy Club 7 p.m., 9:30 p.m.

Tickets at box office 21+

“Ahamed Weinberg is a Los Angeles-based comedian from Philadelphia. He made his latenight stand-up debut on ‘Late Night w/ Seth Meyers’ (NBC), is one of ‘TimeOut LA’s’ Comics to Watch and ‘Vulture’s’ 20 Comics to Watch, and was awarded New Face at the 2016 Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal. Credits include writing, directing, and starring in two seasons of ‘Ahamed’s Ramadan Diaries’ (Comedy Central Digital), and appearing in ‘Comedy Bang Bang’ (IFC), ‘The Eric Andre Show’ (Adult Swim), ‘I Love You, America’ (Hulu), ‘Comedy Knockout’ (Tru TV), and ‘Insecure’ (HBO). His film, ‘Lovebirds,’ premiered on Amazon Prime as part of their inaugural FunnyFest short films festival, and his Facebook series, ‘Please Understand Me,’ was executive produced by Sarah Silverman and released in June 2018, amassing millions of views. ”

FIRST SUNDAY FLEA PORTLAND Urbanite 10 a.m.

Free

“Located just off SE MLK Blvd., First Sunday Flea PDX is held outside one of Portland’s “In the rich tradition of portraiture reflected in Northwest art, there is an exemplary finest vintage institutions. When you’re done shopping outside, wander inside to exrange of individuals and styles of depiction. For this exhibition, the artist Storm Tharp plore Urbanite’s elaborate interiors—a collective house showcasing over 50 designers, was invited to help select works from the collection through his keen eyes as a fellow por- makers and curators of cool.” traitist. As he combed through the collection, some themes in portraiture rose to the surface: the self-portrait, artists and friends, family, psychological space, and making present those who have been less recognized. For an artist, capturing a literal likeness is far less important than grasping the essence of a person or the moment in time...Across the themes and styles in this exhibition, it is evident that portraiture allows for a breadth of expressiveness, a scrutiny of the self, and the occasion to connect with those around us.”

EVENTS

PSU Vanguard • APRIL 27, 2021 • psuvanguard.com