Portland State Vanguard. Vol. 72 Issue 24

portland state vanguard

Volume 72 • Issue 24 • April 10, 2018

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News:

accessibilty issues for WRC P. 5

arts:

Roasting with Chapo Trap House P. 13

International: conflict in yemen P. 7

opinion:

Tailoring teaching to students P. 10

Cover

April April 15 15

Student government will strike if tuition increase passes

• Last day to adjust enrollment for financial aid purposes • Last day to waive student health insurance

ASPSU fears possibility of less-publicized future increases

• Last day to drop with 70% refund

April 10

April 13

SMSU Room 115 Renovation Smith Memorial Student Union Room 115 will undergo renovation and conversion until April 30 from retail store to daycare. A new storefront will be installed outside of the existing roll up door. New sinks, casework and a fire alarm horn/ strobe will be added to the space as well as cosmetic upgrades.The renovation will provide a new daycare space on campus.

April 17

Bring Your Kids to Campus Day Sponsored by the Portland State Resource Center for Students with Children, PSU’s Bring Your Kids to Campus Day is a free day-long campus-wide celebration which invites students, staff, faculty and their children to campus for events and activities.

From 2:30–4:30 p.m., the PSU Branford Price Millar Library will host coloring and button making and have healthy snacks.

CONTENTS

Marena Riggan and Anna Williams If the Portland State Board of Trustees votes to increase tuition at its next meeting Thursday, April 12, Associated Students of Portland State University will strike.

The $35 Arts Education and Access Income Tax (“Arts Tax”) is due. Adults with income less than $1,000 during the tax year or who are below the fedaeral poverty level may claim an exemption by filing the Arts Tax return.

Portlanders can file and pay the $35 Arts Tax online at www.portlandoregon.gov/artstax.

“We’re furious because of the track we’re on,” said ASPSU President Brent Finkbeiner. “We’re facing [tuition] increases every year.”

COVER design

by Sydney bardole

cover Students confront administration at budget town hall

p. 3–4

news City of Portland threatens houseless advocates with fines

p. 4

The way we frame mental illness matters

p. 9

a word on...pedagogy

p. 9

Supporting introverts in the classroom

p. 10

Local high school students lead gun control town hall P. 5

Sustainability in the fashion industry

p. 11

Women’s Resource Center joins the fight for space

p. 5

Brand new Viking Pavilion takes off

p. 6

Arts & Culture The timeless tastelessness of ‘Female Trouble’

p. 12

International When elephants fight

Chapo Trap House visits Portland

p. 13

p. 7

DJ salinger’s weekly playlist

p. 13

comics

p. 8

EVENTS CALENDAR

p. 14-15

Opinion Challenging the insta-poet community

p. 8

The Board of Trustees will vote on increases totaling 4.98 percent for full-time resident undergraduate students, 3.64 percent for non-resident undergraduates, 3.24 percent for resident graduates and 4.13 percent for non-resident graduates for the 2018–2019 academic year. Vice President of Finance & Administration Kevin Reynolds explained this would amount to increases of about $3,000 for resident undergraduate students taking 15 credits per term and about $5,400 for resident graduate students taking 12 credits over the course of the 2018–2019 academic year.

Reynolds said PSU projects a budget shortfall of 3.4 percent next fiscal year, or $33 million if state support does not increase. The deficit is likely to be filled by budget cuts in combination with the proposed tuition hike.

After last year’s tuition increase, Reynolds and other administrators assured students the administration would try to keep its next biennium increase at or below 5 percent. As the next academic year will be the second of the 2017–2019 bien-

nium, this falls in line with a 6-year budget forecast presented at the April 11, 2017, Board meeting. This projection assumes a 5 percent tuition increase across the board in the second year of each biennium until 2023, but a 9 percent increase to resident full-time tuition in the first year of each biennium. This means that if the university follows its projection, students might see another 9 percent increase proposed in spring 2019.

When the Board finally settled on the 5.45 percent increase to last year’s tuition at a special meeting in July 2017, no mention of this budget projection was made. Finkbeiner said if the university plans to stick to this projection, he thinks that could mean students will see tuition increase by almost 20 percent over the next three years.

“I’m a business major,” Finkbeiner said, “and to appeal to those business elements I would say that an increase to a product or service of almost 20 percent over a three year time span with a projection to [increase] even more is totally irresponsible without raising the quality of that service by a commensurate amount. That’s the path we’re on and that’s why I stand completely opposed to any tuition increase.”

He added, “There has been no full admission [to] how much tuition is going to increase over the next coming years because the percentage is so ugly that no one wants to say it.”

When asked whether students should expect increases as projected over the next several years, Reynolds said he could not predict the increase without knowing how much the state will contribute. He explained the state would need to provide all seven Oregon public universities with a total of about $130 million in order to keep tuition percentage increases for the 2019–2020 academic year from approaching double digits.

Last spring, the Board passed a nine percent tuition increase, which Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission quickly rejected. After former PSU President Wim Wiewel announced the university would have to cut services by an additional $5 million, Oregon Governor Kate Brown was able to secure more funding for higher education at the last minute, reducing the increase to 5.45 percent. One of Brown’s main goals has been to increase funding for higher education and technical jobs training.

Students confront administration at budget town hall

At ASPSU’s third public tuition forum Thursday, April 5, about 50 students, some holding protest signs, joined members of the administration in the Native American Student Cultural Center for a tense back-and-forth about rising tuition and the administration’s budget concerns.

Continued on P. 4

Content warning: John waters’ films contain extreme violence and potentially offensive material.

Staff EDIT ORI A L Editor-in-Chief Evan Smiley Managing Editor Danielle Horn News Editors Anna Williams Fiona Spring International Editor NOW HIRING Arts & Culture Editor Alanna Madden Opinion Editor Nada Sewidan Online Editor A.M. LaVey

Copy Chief Missy Hannen

Multimedia editor Emma Josephson

COPY EDITORS Molly MacGilbert Jesika Westbrook

Photographers & Videographers Li Chun Wu

Contributors Hannah Anderson Vinu Casper Cory Elia Andrew Gaines Piper Gibson Shandi Hunt Andrew Jankowski Claire Meyer Katharine Piwonka Marena Riggan Ian Rodell

Creati v e Direction & De sign Creative Director Sydney Bardole

Photo & Multimedia Photo Editor Brian McGloin

Lead Designers Robby Day Designers Lisa Kohn Kailyn Neidetcher Jenny Vu Leah Maldonado

Dis tribu tion & M ar k eting Distribution & Marketing Managers Danielle Horn T echnology & W eb site Student Media Technology Advisor Corrine Nightingale Technology Assistants Damaris Dusciuc Long V. Nguyen Annie Ton A dv ising & Accoun ting Coordinator of Student Media Reaz Mahmood Student Media Accountant Sheri Pitcher To contact Portland State Vanguard, email info@psuvanguard.com

Mis sion Statemen 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 necessarily represent the PSU student body, faculty, staff or administration. Find us in print Tuesday and online 24/7 at psuvanguard.com Follow us on Facebook and Twitter @psuvanguard for multimedia content and breaking news.

Assumes a nine percent resident and five percent non-resident increase in the first year of each biennium, with five percent across the board in the second year.

PSU Vanguard • april 10, 2018 • psuvanguard.com

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news

news

City of Portland threatens houseless advocates with fines lisa kohn Cory Elia and Anna Williams The City of Portland is threatening organizers of Portland’s short-lived Village of Hope houseless community with fines potentially totaling tens of thousands of dollars after city officials swept the camp in early February 2018.

The fines VOH founder and local pastor Steve Kimes and organizers Lisa Lake and Ree Campbell received include $55,000 for the January 2018 removal of VOH platforms and personal belongings from the Big Four Corners natural area, an unknown fine for removal of the Forgotten Realms Camp in December 2016, and an alleged threat of criminal mischief charges for the VOH occupation.

City Commissioner Amanda Fritz informed Kimes of the fines during a February 2018 meeting in which Fritz agreed to use her staff to look for city-owned land for the village.

During the meeting, Lucas Hillier, Portland State alumnus and program coordinator at the city’s Office of Management and Finance, also asked Kimes to sign a property release document that would allow him to reclaim property removed in the sweep if he agreed to not place retrieved belongings on city-owned land again without written permission.

Kimes refused to sign and sent the document to American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon Legal Director Mat dos Santos. Santos did not respond to a request for comment, but Kimes said he was advised not to sign anything until Santos read over the documents.

Ree Campbell, executive director of house-

less advocacy group Boots on the Ground PDX and unofficial communications director for VOH stated in a Facebook post that Hillier came to her home in Southeast Portland and threatened her with similar fines on Friday, Feb. 2, just hours after the VOH sweep. Campbell did not provide documentation of the fines or what she claimed was a threat of criminal mischief charges, but said the fines were similar to those brought against Kimes. “[The fines] would equate to bankruptcy and homelessness for my family,” Campbell wrote. “That threatens my children’s wellbeing by reducing their chances of any success in life. Furthermore, [Hillier] threatened my well-being by promising criminal charges which would follow me for the rest of my life, reducing my chances of future housing [and] employment.”

Campbell said she does not fully blame Hillier for the fines, however. “[Hillier] actually does care about houseless people,” Campbell clarified in an interview. “He has two little kids, he has $60,000 in student loans, and I think he didn’t really have a choice. I think his job is always in danger...He has a lot at stake, and [Hillier was sent to my home] because of the inroads of the relationship that we have.”

Campbell said she has worked extensively with the city, primarily with Hillier, to give city officials access to her nonprofit connections in the winter months and act as a mediator during camp sweeps. She believes Mayor Ted Wheeler

“Students are drowning in debt,” one sign read. Another said, “Higher tuition [does not equal] higher education.”

Reynolds, Director of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships Mike Johnson, Dean of the School of Business Cliff Allen and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Karen Marrongelle fielded questions from the audience.

One student asked Reynolds, “You’re working within the system. In the last 20 years at PSU, the administration overhead has taken up a larger and larger percentage of the overall budget while less and less has been spent on educators. How can you work toward changing that trend so that it’s more equitable for our students who are suffering, when less money is spent on educators because more classes are taught by lowpaid adjuncts and graduate students?”

Reynolds responded by explaining what constitutes administration and how administrative costs are broken down.

During ASPSU’s second tuition forum on March 14, Reynolds said increases to Oregon’s Public Employee Retirement System and declining state support for higher education were partly to blame for next year’s projected budget shortfall. Reducing administrative salaries, he explained, would not substantially address the $33 million deficit.

Cost drivers like renovations to Neuberger Hall and the addition of the $51 million Viking Pavilion to the Peter Stott Center were also among the complaints from students. Reynolds was quick to clarify funding for building projects comes in large part from the state, which is otherwise distributed to other schools if PSU doesn’t advocate for a portion of the grants offered.

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PSU Vanguard • April 10, 2018 • psuvanguard.com

sent Hillier to speak with her because “[the city] knew I wouldn’t allow anyone else in my home.”

Hillier has come under criticism in the past for ridiculing a Lents neighborhood resident who expressed concern about houseless people moving to the neighborhood following the 2016 Springwater Corridor sweeps.

Campbell added she believes the alleged threat of a criminal mischief charge came because Wheeler treated VOH—which originally called itself Protest Camp—like other camps, rather than a political protest.

“We broke no laws!” Campbell wrote in her post. “[VOH] is a social justice movement in support of our houseless community. At no time was any law on the books broken, and the mayor’s office has responded to us viciously, arbitrarily and with a complete disregard for in-place laws, due process [and] our freedom to protest.”

In response, Wheeler wrote in a statement, “As we have pursued different iterations of alternative shelter, the City has also learned hard lessons about what can go wrong when an unsanctioned camp operates without sound management or accountability standards.”

The statement continued, “Consider the ‘Forgotten Realms’ camp, which put lives in danger as well as causing more than $100,000 in claims for damages to private properties nearby.”

Kimes and Campbell both helped organize the Forgotten Realms camp in North Portland, which was swept in January 2017 after a faulty

Despite last year’s tuition increase reduction, $9 million were cut from the budget for academic programs. Swahili and Ancient Greek were two of the programs recently cut this academic year, as well as the Arabic summer program. Marrongelle admitted to making this decision in response to the funding cuts.

Many audience members also aired grievances related to administration salaries, textbook prices, downsizing departments and programs, capital improvements projects and student retention and graduation rates. Many also complained of general constraints in their ability to live while going to school and personal fears of dropping out due to increased tuition costs.

Johnson addressed upcoming changes to student federal aid, explaining that the Federal Pell Grant will increase to $6,095 while the Oregon Opportunity Grant will increase from $2,250 to $3,200 beginning in the 2018–2019 academic year. However, many students voiced they have been excluded from the Oregon Opportunity Grant, which funds recent Oregonian high school graduates now enrolled in college. In response, Johnson expressed regret for the limitations on awarding scholarships.

Preparing for a possible strike

The town hall ended before students who still had questions or concerns were able to speak. ASPSU is encouraging students to voice further concerns at Thursday’s Board meeting, then possibly stage a walk-out if the tuition increase is passed.

Finkbeiner said he understands the financial constraints PSU is under. He called recent increases to PERS benefits a mistake on the part of the state and acknowledged the government’s waning support for higher education.

camp stove caught fire and damaged a nearby home.

Campbell said VOH differed from Forgotten Realms because VOH had an organized system for vetting residents, providing security and cleaning up garbage. That was not the case for Forgotten Realms, Campbell claimed.

“Our position remains that it is inappropriate for a political protest—which is how Village of Hope labels itself—to unilaterally erect permanent structures on environmentally sensitive public lands that are intended for use by everyone,” Wheeler’s statement concluded.

Campbell said she stands by the belief that organized camps are the solution for Portland’s housing crisis until the city can come up with a better solution to get people off the streets.

Other organizers agree.

Since VOH was shut down, Southeast Portland’s Central Nazarene Church, together with Cascade Clusters, the Village Coalition and Agape Church of Christ, has begun drawing up plans for another houseless village on its own property.

According to CNC Pastor Matt Huff, The Agape Village has no proposed opening date, but aims to supply shelter, showers and a communal gathering area for residents.

As for Campbell, she is stepping away for the summer until colder weather threatens people living on the streets. “When winter comes, of course it’s all hands on deck,” Campbell said, “but aside from that, I’m just so disgusted and hurt.”

Additionally, Finkbeiner said he applauded the university’s efforts to work with students on determining tuition increases.

Members of the student and faculty bodies joined administration members six times this academic year in Tuition Review Advisory Council meetings to give their recommendations during the tuition setting process.

However, he added, trustees should be doing more.

“I’m mad because [the Board] was presented with only one option by the [administration]; they were presented with a 5 percent increase, and they went for it,” Finkbeiner said. “[It’s] the responsibility of the [Board] to scrutinize the administration. That’s what I’ve been asking Board members to do—is to assert themselves in their role as a governing body.”

If the Board passes the tuition increases on Thursday, ASPSU plans to walk out of the board room and march through campus. Finkbeiner said he is then calling for a one-day strike to make it clear “[administration members] are literally pushing us out of college.”

The Board of Trustees will meet from 8:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 12 in the Academic and Student Recreation Center, Suite 515.

Local high school students lead gun control town hall Legislators and students discuss “common-sense” gun laws, voting

Shandi Hunt

Roughly 300 people, the majority of whom were middle school and high school students, filled the Smith Memorial Student Union Ballroom at Portland State on the evening of April 4 to have a non-partisan discourse on gun legislation and school safety.

The town hall meeting, named #EnoughIsEnough, was led and organized entirely by a group of eight students from the Oregon Episcopal School. Organizers attempted to give young people the chance to speak and ask questions directly to a handful of Oregon elected representatives, as well as to police officers who attended the event.

Panelists included Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Sen. Mark Hass (D-Ore.), Beaverton Mayor Denny Doyle, and aides for Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

“Our initial inspiration for organizing this event lay in our desire for hosting a non-partisan conversation regarding gun legislation and school safety,” stated OES student organizer Simran Jhooty in an email. “Along with the discourse segment of our event, we also wanted to ensure that there were plenty of opportunities for people to take action and become involved with various local and na-

tional organizations concerned with gun legislation. Furthermore, we wanted to host an event that was entirely student-run and which placed an emphasis on the questions and activism of young people.”

The first guest speaker, PSU senior Joshua Friedlein, was a student at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. when a student killed 10 people and injured seven on Oct. 1, 2015 in the deadliest mass shooting in Oregon’s history.

Friedlein described the events that took place that day, but also discussed the lifelong challenges survivors of gun violence experience including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, anxiety and an increased risk of suicide.

“Never again will survivors of gun violence be able to feel normal,” Friedlein said. “Never again will students who experienced gun violence in their classrooms be able to learn and live like they were prior to that event.”

The panel also discussed its definition of common-sense gun laws, which included implementing more thorough background checks while closing private sales loopholes and properly reporting domestic violence charges. Speakers also discussed creating legislation that makes assault weapons and

what they called weapons of war illegal, banning bump stocks and implementing more thorough background checks.

Oregon law requires that a person be 18 years old to purchase a firearm. Federal law states an 18-year-old can purchase only a long gun and must be at least 21 to buy a handgun.

Some states and cities, including Washington, have recently banned bump stocks, while Oregon Governor Kate Brown recently signed a bill to prohibit domestic abusers from owning guns. Retail companies including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Walmart and Recreational Equipment, Inc. have either raised the minimum age for firearm purchase to 21, cut ties with companies that sell guns or discontinued the sale of assault-style rifles.

Blumenauer added that because states with stricter gun safety provisions experience fewer gun deaths, he believes all political sides have interest in common-sense gun laws, including gun owners, republicans and members of the National Rifle Association. According to a 2013 Journal of the American Medical Association study, states that have enacted stricter gun safety

provisions experience fewer gun deaths, while states with more permissive laws experience more murders and examples of gun violence.

Blumenauer has been rated “F” by the NRA following his comprehensive plan to improve gun safety and has repeatedly voted for gun control.

During the last hour of the meeting, students asked panel members what actions they or the senators they represented planned to take to make schools and communities safer.

“In Florida, [young people] were able to face down the politicians, and be able to enact something that two months ago was inconceivable,” Blumenauer said. “I would hope that that example that you have seen in Florida and we are seeing here in this auditorium this evening continues. What we need to do is have a political change…There are consequences for inaction.”

Blumenauer, like participants in last month’s nationwide March for Our Lives demonstrations, also encouraged the audience to vote for common-sense gun laws. “If you find just not your voice, but the ballot box,” Blumenauer said, “I think it’ll make profound changes.”

Women’s Resource Center joins the fight for space Ian Rodell Portland State’s Women’s Resource Center, currently situated in the basement of Montgomery Residence Hall on SW 10th Ave. and SW Montgomery St., is seeking to return to Smith Memorial Student Union to alleviate concerns that students might have trouble accessing WRC services. However, the WRC is one of many communities on campus fighting for more space than SMSU has available.

WRC’s entrances lie at the bottom of a large staircase and at the end of a long hallway accessible by elevator from the Montgomery lobby. “It’s a big space, it has ample space, but there are...accessibility issues,” said WRC Administrative Coordinator Janit Saechao.

“It’s really hard for our students who use wheelchairs or need elevator access to get down here because we have one elevator, and that goes through the actual Montgomery Residence Hall. They have to go through an essential maze to even get in here.”

The WRC moved during the 2004–2005 academic year, expanding from a tiny office in the basement of SMSU to its current space which is 20 times larger than its original location and includes a student lounge and multiple offices. According to Saechao and WRC

Volunteer Coordinator Mars Correa, the WRC has continued to expand since its move, adding six paid positions for a total of eight, in addition to numerous volunteer and intern positions.

This growth, as well as the continually expanding breadth of services and groups contained within the WRC, has caused concern about the center’s ability to serve students in its current location.

“The heart is here.

We show up for our students and make things happen.”

The WRC offers the Sexual and Relationship Violence Response Program, Feminist of Color Leadership Development Program, Women Veterans Outreach Program, Women’s Mentorship Project and Returning Women’s College Success Class. Confidential Interpersonal Violence

Advocates can sometimes be the first line of response to students seeking help for a violent encounter or relationship.

“We take a strength-based approach to a lot of things, and we make things happen all the time, even when we are in a basement or when we have to overcome challenges,” Correa said.

“The heart is here. We are in a basement, we don’t have resources, and yet we still show up for our students and make things happen.”

According to former Smith Advisory Board Chair Cassidy Hines, WRC Director Erica Bestpitch submitted a request to the board in December 2017 to relocate the resource center to SMSU. SAB assists in the process of approving or denying space requests in SMSU, including the Disability Resource Center’s recent proposed expansion. Hines said the WRC set its sights on the quiet study lounge on the fourth floor of SMSU, reasoning that with the improved accessibility and proximity to the other resource centers, the WRC would be able to do more for the student community.

According to Hines, the SAB denied the request, partly because it cost $132,000 to renovate the space into a quiet study lounge.

Additionally, according to Assistant Director of Conference & Event

Services Casey Payseno, who works with the SAB, study space and lounge space were the number one and number three requests of the student body in a July 2015 campuswide survey.

Hines added the WRC currently has no proposal to fund moving to a new space.

SAB Student Board Chair Emily Korte said no compromise has yet been reached, which leaves the WRC in the basement of Montgomery for the foreseeable future.

The SAB has fielded multiple space requests in the last several years, but requests outnumber the amount of open space in SMSU. However, said Saechao, the main issue is not about how many students are using the space, but about which students are being served and which are not.

“Whether it’s for us or for other resource centers, I think the nature of resource centers in themselves is to serve students who are being underserved, students who are marginalized and need access to these resources,” Saechao said. “But, we don’t have adequate space [to serve these students], and historically…it doesn’t seem like any of us have ever had adequate space to do everything that we need…and we do a lot.”

PSU Vanguard •April 10, 2018 • psuvanguard.com

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News

international

Brand new Viking Pavilion takes off

$51 million event center gives new home to PSU athletics Fiona Spring

When elephants fight understanding the conflict in yemen marena riggan In 2011, a wave of uprisings spread through the Middle East as demonstrators protested against regimes with longstanding human rights violations, including political corruption, state violence, social inequality, high unemployment rates, food inflation, restrictions on free speech and undemocratic systems of government.

This wave, popularly known as the Arab Spring, began with the people of Tunisia and soon spread across much of the region including Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. While Tunisia is generally considered to be the only success from this movement, many countries saw authoritarian rule emboldened or regimes succeeded by civil war.

Two countries in particular, Syria and Yemen, remain entrenched in conflict with no end in sight. In 2017, directors from United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Health Program and the World Food Program declared Yemen as having the worst humanitarian crisis in the word.

Thousands have died as a direct result of the conflict; however, that does not compare to the hundreds of thousands of suspected cholera cases. Additionally, about 7 million people are experiencing famine, and 60 percent of the population is food insecure.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in 2012 in response to the uprising, leaving the country with an uncertain future.

Dr. Robert Asaadi, an adjunct professor of political science at Portland State specializing in Iranian politics, explained how this conflict accelerated into a larger regional dispute between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

“We saw a re-emergence of what was an older conflict between Houthis in the Northwest of the country and the

Sunni Arab population that is dominant elsewhere,” he said.

“That’s accelerated, and basically since 2015, Yemen has descended into a state of civil war. Just like we’ve seen in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan [and] other weak or failed states in the region, it becomes like a vacuum and then dominant players in the region, namely Iran and Saudi Arabia, are intervening on both sides.”

According to Asaadi’s understanding of the conflict and Iranian relations, Saudi air strikes as well as Saudi Arabia’s involvement elsewhere contribute to regional instability, which in turn negatively affects Iran. “Iran is concerned that Saudi Arabia is trying to expand its influence and basically make a network of client states on its borders,” he said.

U.S. support for Saudi Arabia further complicates the matter, provoking Iran to counteract.

On March 6, PSU’s Middle East Studies Center hosted the lecture “Understanding Yemen” with political science professor Dr. Peter Bechtold as part of their month-long series discussing issues in the Middle East. During the lecture, Dr. Bechtold, whose extensive career has focused on Middle Eastern politics, stressed Yemen’s geography and topography as crucial issues in the government’s lack of central control.

Mountainous villages can be extremely remote, and modern infrastructure like water, electricity and roads are often inaccessible to build or maintain. Tribes have traditionally mediated disagreements through delegates in a process known as peace huts or sulh, Arabic for reconciliation or compromise. These delegates would come from each side of the disputing tribes to a neutral village and negotiate until reaching a resolution. “That was the traditional way of do-

The new arena can SEAT more than 3,000 spectators. Courtesy of university Communications The Viking Pavilion, Portland State’s newest building, opened April 4. The 141,700 square foot venue, adjacent to the South Park Blocks between SW Hall and SW College Ave.h, is designed to function as a multipurpose event center as well as PSU Athletics’ new home.

“This is a transformative building for our campus,” said Campus Recreation Director Alex Accetta. “I think it’s going to activate the entire South Park Blocks and begin to draw people to this side of downtown in a way that I think we don’t even understand or can anticipate.”

Designed by Woofter Architecture and built by Fortis Construction, Inc., the pavilion features a newly-renovated 8,000 square foot weight room, five general pool classrooms, student lounges and the new Oregon Health and Sciences University Sports Medicine Center in addition to its central arena, which can accommodate up to 3,500 people for a variety of events including basketball and volleyball games, trade shows, commencements, seminars and banquets. “You’re always connected to the outside and to the inside,” said W+A architect Miles Woofter. “You’ll find there’s not a bad seat in the house.”

Planning and construction for the pavilion has been underway since August 2013 and carried an overall price tag of

approximately $51 million. The majority of funding for the project came from private gifts and state bonds, as well as a $7.5 million sponsorship from OHSU. An additional $1.5 million were drawn from student building fees, which come from mandatory student fees. No general operating funds or tuition dollars were used to fund the project.

According to Accetta, funds taken from student building fees were put towards the construction of classrooms, student lounges and food service, including a cafe set to open in fall 2018. “There’s a real clear attempt to make this have a lot of lounge spaces,” he said. “That’s really to help this place be real student centered.”

A large wood panel attached to the outer western wall of the arena, which Accetta called an ode to a viking ship, is visible through the two-story window that faces the Park Blocks.

“The wood wall of course refers to [PSU’s mascot] the Vikings,” said W+A architect Jonathan Bolch. “We wanted a symbol of Viking athletics but we didn’t want it to be literal.

It’s a 200-foot-long gesture made out of reclaimed lumber from the Pacific Northwest.”

The pavilion was built as an extension of the Peter W. Stott Center, which was built in 1966 as a home for PSU Athletics.

The Stott Center’s 1,775-seat gym, which previously hosted

Vikings basketball and volleyball games, now functions as a practice gym. The Viking Pavilion also contains the athletics department staff offices, allowing all athletics staff to work in the same building for the first time. “I have worked here for many...years [and] I [had] never been in [the Stott Center] until I moved in here last August,” Lund said. “Getting everybody together under one roof has been huge for our staff.”

The pavilion will host Vikings basketball and volleyball games beginning in fall 2018. During construction, Vikings basketball games took place at Lewis and Clark College in southwest Portland. “It’s pretty exciting to finally get to come home and be able to actually play in front of your friends,” said PSU freshman and Vikings basketball player Holland Woods.

Woods said he was optimistic about the effect the pavilion would have on PSU athletics in general. “I think it will be able to start a culture here having a nice arena right here on campus,” he said.

Prior to its grand opening on Monday, April 9, the pavilion opened to the public for the first time on Thursday and Friday, April 5 and 6 with TechFestNW, a conference showcasing global technology trends in food, health, inclusivity and smart cities.

Kailyn Neidetcher ing things because the government was far away,” Bechtold said. “It was also incapable and arguably incompetent.”

President Saleh became president after his predecessor Ahmed al-Ghashmi was assassinated, and he would remain in office for 33 years until the Arab uprisings in 2011.

Bechtold explained that in the midst of these protests, sharpshooters were placed on buildings and the situation quickly devolved into violence. The government response in Yemen was similar to that of Syria, in which security forces opened fire on demonstrators.

Though Syria arguably receives far more media coverage than Yemen does, Bechtold called the Syria coverage “horrendous in the Western world, whether it’s PBS or BBC. In Syria now, 60 percent is under government control, 30 percent under the United States and the Kurds. We have no Arab allies in Syria, but we don’t talk about this in public because it’s inconvenient, and our media strangely simply go with the government lie.”

When Western media do portray the Yemeni conflict, it’s often in the context of relations between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Asaadi refutes this narrative. “I actually don’t think that’s a particularly relevant or helpful way to think about the conflict,” he said. “It’s much more motivated by this problem of state weakness and powerful actors in the region intervening to promote their strategic interests.”

Remnants of American-made cluster bombs have been found in various parts of Yemen, as reported by Human Rights Watch and The Intercept. Under the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs, cluster munitions are illegal under international law. These munitions owe themselves partly to U.S. arms deals with Saudi Arabia, the largest of which was signed last year and amounted to $110 billion.

In a recent attempt to end Saudi support and U.S. involvement in Yemen, Sens. Bernie Sanders, Christopher Murphy and Mike Lee submitted a bill that would give Congress more power in withdrawing troops and overriding the president on acts of war.

Saudi Arabia continues to implement aid blockades to prevent badly needed supplies from entering the country. The Kikuyu people of Kenya have a proverb that says “When elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers,” Asaadi said. “In the last 15, 20 years, who’s been dying in these conflicts in the Middle East? It hasn’t been predominantly Iranians and Saudis, it’s been Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians and now Yemenis.”

protest in sana’a, yemen. courtesy of wikimedia commons

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PSU Vanguard •April 10, 2018 • psuvanguard.com

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opinion

opinion

The way we frame mental illness matters

Challenging the insta-poet community Vinu Casper

Poetry is—and has always been—a performance art, but the amount of substandard poetry being performed might be bogging the community down more than raising it up.

This past year has seen a massive uptick in the number of poets. Poetry book sales increased by 79 percent in 2016.

This competitive spirit has driven poets to dig deeper and write more meaningful poetry, often throwing light on issues that would otherwise be left in the dark like abuse, racism and sexism.

Whether its origins are from Norse Vikings or the ancient Japanese, spoken word poetry has always been a powerful artform. It has been performed before kings and before countries, to flatter and to fight and, most importantly, to emote.

One of its current platforms can be traced back to the early ‘80s in Chicago, where sleepy poetry recitations were livened up with contests, or as poets call them, slams.

Poetry is growing ever more prominent, and when poetry increases in impact, more people start writing, which is great in theory. It means that performance poetry finds better footing as a contemporary artform, a bigger audience and a space for poets to make careers out of passion.

Poets from India, China, Vietnam, Canada, England, Brazil, Sudan and all across the globe are becoming revolutionaries, standing for what they believe in and making a real difference. It’s inspiring to know that words can go from paper to stage, becoming a herald of societal betterment.

We live in a world full of overenthusiastic teenagers, fame-hungry capitalists and activists willing to do any-

thing to aid their cause. In a such a world, people try to stay on top of the fad and consequently turn the poetry industry to a conveyor belt churning out a long line of mediocre poems. Sometimes these poems are written by the genuinely interested newcomer who’s too eager to perform and doesn’t work on their writing enough; other times, they’re written by the social media influencer who saw a new platform to exploit.

More than the poetry community at large, the conveyor belt hurts the struggling individual. Poets who spend years honing their craft, carefully writing and rewriting every line, practicing their performance over and over before they take to stage, are being beaten to the punch by influencers with a steady social media presence and masses of followers. These so-called insta-poets get away with blanket statements and empty metaphors under the guise of poetry.

This trend is most visible on Instagram, a site littered with pictures of one or two or four lines of sentimental, generic drivel in a typewriter font that is meant to be poetry.

Instagram poets include J. Iron Word, R.M. Drake and a dozen other identical poets whose posts you wouldn’t be able to tell apart, if not for their names at the bottom of the post.

This is not to say that poetry cannot be simple, but when these poets churn out mindless poems like clockwork, keeping them to more than 20 words every time, you cannot help but wonder if this is all for sake of engagement. Their daily posts become a ploy that focuses on the outcomes of or reactions to poetry rather than poetry itself, or more importantly, the process of writing poetry.

Deconstructing narratives of healing Piper Gibson

Jenny Vu I’ve attended slam after slam, only to find 60 different poets writing in the name of feminism. Such poets use the same ocean metaphor to describe themselves, or win the national poetry slam because they offered up the most social justice selling points. Rupi Kaur appears to steal from Tumblr statuses and call it poetry, only to go on to write a bestselling poetry book.

I cannot accept that these practices are not motivated by the urge to turn a quick buck. I’m sure this phenomenon has shown up in every performance artform, when a few artists capitalize on a trending phase only to explode into relevance. But when it trickles into performances that base themselves on original thought and raw emotion, when it stains authentic expression—which is what poetry is all about—the whole platform begins to feel counterfeit.

The debates surrounding causes of mental illness and how to treat it have gone on for decades. How we discuss these issues matters. Mental illness stigma is enough of a problem when only 41% of adults with a mental health condition in this country receive help. We don’t need to contribute to that statistic by making mentally ill people feel hopeless about recovery.

Alarmist, clickbait headlines such as “The real cause of depression” are everywhere, and often frame mental illness in a dangerous light. They put the onus of healing entirely on the mentally ill person’s ability to change their circumstances, instead of considering genetic, biological, psychological and environmental factors.

Johann Hari, author of Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions, is one among many who criticize the use of antidepressants and the claim that a chemical imbalance in the brain causes depression. Hari’s book has drawn criticism, including from psychiatrist Carmine Pariante who warns that “demonizing [antidepressants] plays into stigma meaning that, tragically,

more people will be held back from receiving help for a debilitating condition.” Antidepressants don’t work for everyone and come with side effects, but they can have a tremendous positive effect on someone’s life and health, and can save lives.

External factors do contribute to illness, but changing those factors alone doesn’t stop people from being mentally ill or heal them automatically. Chronic mental illnesses, such as major depressive disorder, occur over a lifetime and never permanently go away.

Framing mental illness in terms of behavior that can be controlled alienates those who can’t change their circumstances due to social and economic position.This leans into classism: Not everyone can quit a stressful job, spend more time with friends and family or take some time off of school, much less control instances like cars breaking down, computers failing or becoming sick.

Insisting that mental health solutions are up to individuals ignores the social and political forces that make mental illness more difficult to live with and mental health services less accessible. When seemingly simple tasks like eating or brushing

A word on… missy Hannen

Pedagogy (n.) the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept.

Sydney Bardole

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PSU Vanguard • April 10, 2018 • psuvanguard.com

Leah Maldonado

your teeth feel insurmountable, the last thing you want to do is sit down and plan an overhaul of your whole life.

What is actually useful and productive for those with mental illness to know is this: Help is out there, it is not impossible to acquire, you will not feel this way forever, and you will feel better by taking one calculated step at a time.

If you need help, the Student Health and Counseling Center has walk-in counseling hours Monday–Friday. A counselor will meet with you to discuss your needs and can refer you to a separate therapist that takes your insurance and fits your schedule, or help you get involved with other solutions. PSU’s C.A.R.E. team can assist you if you are in crisis and need to take time off of school.

If you are considering suicide, please know that you are not alone and there are many resources available to you.

The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is open 24 hours a day: 1-800-273-8255. If you would prefer to use a chat service, there are counselors available to talk to you anytime at suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

“Today’s learning goes beyond the one-size-fitsall model of the classroom and teaching to the test,” wrote Rachel Matuszewski in an article about hip-hop education. We all know those teachers we don’t look forward to, the teachers without magic. They drone on about things we want to care about, but can’t connect to. They want us to memorize things for the sake of test taking and GPAs, but where’s the engagement?

Where’s the magic?

“Why does teacher education only give you theory and standards...nothing to do with the basic skills, that magic that you need to engage an audience, to engage a student? We could focus on content and theories, and that’s fine, but content and theories with the absence of the magic of teaching and learning means nothing.”

Dr. Christopher Emdin, in his TED talk, is trying to reframe how we teach teachers. He wants teachers to go to rap concerts, Black churches and barber shops.

He teaches classes around hip-hop concerts, watching how performers engage with the audience, and he wants to translate it to pedagogy.

“If we could transform teacher education, to focus on teaching teachers how to create that magic, then we could make dead classrooms come alive, we could reignite imaginations, and we could change education.”

We’re not there yet, so what can you do about the boring lecture, the required coursework you’re not interested in?

Having taught for almost a decade, I can promise you teachers care. We know they’re not in it for the money, as the Oklahoma teachers’ strike continues this week at the state capitol. According to The Atlantic, teachers aren’t on strike just for more pay, “they’re also similarly driven by an underlying mission to improve the quality of public education offered in their state.”

The students who get up and ask questions, who put themselves out there even if they might be wrong, who go to office hours and send emails: These are the students who get more attention and help.

I know being vocal and reaching out can be difficult for some people. If you’re one of those introverts, email your professor and let them know you’re interested, but talking in class is hard. If you put effort into the teacher-student relationship, you will get effort in return.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world,” said probably not Gandhi. College is the time to challenge yourself and others, so challenge the pedagogy and create your own magic. Your education is yours, so make the most of it.

PSU Vanguard • April 10, 2018 • psuvanguard.com

9

opinion

opinion

Sustainability in the fashion industry

supporting introverts in the classroom

Ethical shopping is a game you can win Katharine Piwonka

Challenging traditional pedagogy

Many things are wrong with the fashion industry.

Trends go as fast as they come, pressuring us to buy the next best thing which will be the second best next month. We are left with cluttered closets, nothing to wear and our wallets a little bit lighter, yet we still can’t help but want more.

It’s fairly common knowledge that the fast-fashion industry is shady. Money appears to be the name of the game when taking a critical look into the corrupt side of fashion.

Low wages, unsafe working conditions, lack of regard for the environment and, in some cases, child labor are used to drive production costs as far down as possible. A bargain price often means someone somewhere else is picking up the rest of the tab.

How can we take a stand against unethical practices in the fashion industry and the negative effects of thoughtless shopping patterns while still expressing our unique style?

claire meyer Much of the current curriculum in the classroom seems to be geared toward extroverts. It can be challenging for introverts to share during class discussions, making their silent efforts feel undervalued for the nonverbal contributions made.

One difference between extroverts and introverts is their vocality. Extroverts are people who are more talkative and social, while introverts are individuals who prefer or are more comfortable being private and quiet.

This trend of preference for extroversion in the classroom seems to be prevalent not only in university classrooms across the United States, but in the UK, China and all around the globe, according to Times Higher Education.

For example, in Canada, in university-level arts and humanities courses, class participation makes up anywhere from 10–35 percent of the overall grade, and participation can be worth a massive 40 percent of the overall grade in seminars.

If you’re an introverted student, it could take a heavy toll on your GPA. Plus, if you aren’t contributing to class in any clearly observable way, such as raising your hand or giving a presentation, not only may your grade go down, but you may be perceived as a student who is not engaged or hardworking. But what about the less observable ways students show they’re learning, such as nodding while others are speaking, taking notes and turning in assignments that reflect a deep understanding of the subject matter?

Many professors claim that extroverted work is necessary because it prepares introverts for the real world, which means working in groups and presenting your ideas vocally.

Though it true to an extent that being able to put on an extroverted face is an important life skill, professors rarely ever find an appropriate balance between challenging introverted students and supporting them.

“If you are constantly challenging them but not providing any support, they’re probably not going to learn,” said Karen Haley, an associate professor in the graduate school of education. “If you’re only about support and helping them but not challenging them, how far are they going to take that?”

Haley said during class discussions, she often gives students quiet time, or she divides them into groups of two or three before they respond to her questions. According to Haley, while extroverts often think out loud and need to raise their hand and talk to process information, introverts might

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The rules of the gamE

As consumers in a capitalist system, we have a lot of power.

By simply putting items in our shopping cart, we ultimately choose what sells and what stays on the shelves. But with this power comes responsibility. You should ask yourself how clothing was made and who made it before buying.

Once our purchases start reflecting the positive change we want to see in the world, fashion brands and manufacturers will follow suit.

Put your money where your mouth is Robby Day

need more time to themselves or in small groups to fully process the question and think about what they might say beforehand to lessen their potential anxiety.

Other professors have shown a similarly sensitive and proactive approach toward introversion in the classroom.

“My approach to student shyness aims for empathy while also recognizing that oral communication skills are critical for success in the workplace,” said Madeline Morrison, recent doctoral graduate in history at Carleton University. On the first day of class, she said she asks introverted students to identify themselves to her over email so she can work out a way to accommodate them. Often this involves these students sending her a short reflective blurb before each seminar to count toward, though not completely replace, their oral participation grade.

Morrison also encourages introverts to visit during office hours to test run some ideas with her in an intellectual but non-threatening environment.

“Students with intellectual shyness often want confirmation that their ideas are right even though they invariably present thoughtful critiques,” Morrison said.

Introversion consists of a few different factors. Academic introversion can be divided into either a fear of the delivery of ideas, a fear of ideas being wrong or both.

“I have ideas for what’s happening in class, but I just can’t say them,” said PSU student Kylie Nelson, who identifies as an introvert. Similar to Nelson, many introverted students have more trouble sharing their opinions than forming them.

Surprisingly enough, Nelson claims she’s more likely to speak up when participation isn’t mandatory. “I’ll say less quality stuff if I’m speaking up only to get my points,” Nelson said. “If it’s a topic I care enough about or I’m interested in, I wouldn’t be as quiet.”

Perhaps the best way to engage introverts in class discussion is not to force them but to encourage them in other ways.

Academia should be designing ways not only to help introverts share their thoughts out loud, but also to be more appreciative of the understated contributions they make, since the challenge they face sharing their ideas should be taken into account.

Introverts have different scholastic needs and desires than extroverts, and everyone should have a right to an education that fits their learning style.

One of the easiest ways to fight unethical fast-fashion practices is to stop buying from companies and brands which are not sustainably or ethically produced. According to a study by the Fashion Revolution, Topshop, Forever 21, Zara and Victoria’s Secret, among others, are popular fast-fashion brands implementing unethical and questionable production methods.

Think twice about brands that aren’t transparent in their production methods and environmental footprint. Apps like Good On You, Avoid and Good Guide can help you track ethical brands. TenTree, People Tree, Patagonia, Levis and Kings of Indigo are brands currently setting the stage for sustainable fashion.

It’s also worth taking time to consider repurposing old clothing items by donating to your local charities. Approximately 50 percent of clothing is thrown away each year that could have been donated or recycled in some manner, compared to the 95 percent of all textiles that can be recycled or reused.

Get thrifty

Save your money, help the Earth

One of the problems with switching over from fast-fashion labels is that fair trade and sustainable brands cost a pretty penny. These brands are not cutting corners when it comes to paying livable wages, providing healthy working conditions and being mindful of their environmental footprint.

However, you don’t have to drop hundreds on a new wardrobe in order to dress conscientiously. Thrifting and buying secondhand is a great way to find unique, high-quality fashion pieces for a fraction of the cost, not to mention it’s a waste-free way to shop. By thrifting instead of buying new, you are helping keep wearable clothes out of landfills, which can impact our environment in a big way.

Kailyn Neidetcher

Probably the best thing you can do to fight against the unethical consumption of material goods is to simply stop consuming. Save your money and hold off on buying things you don’t actually need. Ask yourself, “Do I really need this, or do I really want this?” Unless you went out to specifically buy it, you probably don’t.

Every year, two billion t-shirts are sold worldwide while 520 million pairs of jeans are sold in the United States alone.

According to Newsweek, Americans throw away 14 million tons of clothing and textile material each year. What percentage of that throwaway pile do you think is less than a year old?

Bottom line

The corporate giants that dress much of the world need to be held accountable for what is happening behind closed doors in the fashion production and manufacturing process.

The fast-fashion industry, paired with a deeply ingrained consumerist mindset, is hurting people, our planet and our pockets.

In order to contribute to worldwide sustainability efforts and to improve countless individuals’ quality of life, we need to start taking an active role in educating others about the impact of unethical fashion practices. Everyone has the power to implement small changes in their lives in order to make a big impact. It’s not hard to win the ethical shopping game; you just have to decide if you are going to play.

PSU Vanguard • april 10, 2018 • psuvanguard.com

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arts and culture

The timeless tastelessness of ‘Female Trouble’ John Waters’ offensive masterpiece can never be sanitized

Chapo Trap House visits Portland

Andrew gaines

The leftist political comedy podcast Chapo Trap House made two appearances at Holocene on Sunday, April 1. Hosts Matt Christman, Felix Biederman, Virgil Texas, Amber A’Lee Frost and Will Menaker humorously critiqued the current political climate in the United States. Insulting phrases such as “Chex Luthor,” “Cold Stone Steve Austin,” and “Louis KFC,” were hurled at pictures of far-right pundit Kevin D. Williamson. A misshapen, brillo-bearded misanthrope, Williamson’s combination of outlandish appearances and genuinely horrific worldviews have make him an easy target for Chapo. For example, Williamson was recently fired from The Atlantic for an article he wrote which suggested the hanging of women who undertake abortions.

Chapo has made a name for itself over the last few years earning praise from socialist institutions such as Democratic

andrew jankowski “Who wants to die for art?” Dawn Davenport (Divine) screams before shooting a willful volunteer to death in a packed theater. She’s just strangled her own daughter to death, and this is hardly even in Female Trouble’s top 20 most shocking moments.

The scene was shocking when it premiered in 1974 and has continued to shock generations of audiences over time.

5th Avenue Cinema’s decision to screen the second in John Waters’ “Trash Trilogy” is a fun one: The screening occurs one year shy of Female Trouble’s 45th birthday and in the first weekend of spring term. In the film, Davenport can be seen with her friends smoking in the school bathroom saying, “Fuck homework! Who cares if we fail? I’m wanna quit, and I am, right after I get my Christmas presents!” It’s extremely relatable. Where Female Trouble stops being a content source is its actual ties to true crime and horror.

For the unfamiliar, John Waters is what would have happened if Andy Warhol had opened The Factory out of a warehouse in Trenton, N.J. The Dreamlanders, Waters’ team of actors, were an outrageous Baltimore-based acting troupe willing to embark on Waters’ pursuit of filth to the highest degree. Alongside the drag legend Divine (Harris Glenn Milstead), Female Trouble features iconic performances from Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, Cookie Mueller, Susan Lowe and Susan Walsh, among others.

Female Trouble’s thesis claims crime and beauty are the same, a bold declaration running counter to what’s perceived as traditional American morality while reinforcing American cinematic practices. For example, the success of glamorized crime stories like Spring Breakers, American Horror Story, American Crime Story and I, Tonya are all films that have been released just within the last five years.

arts and culture

Sydney Bardole

However, Female Trouble cites true crimes whose audacity have faded from pop consciousness: the brutal cases of Richard Speck, Arthur Bremer, Leslie Bacon, Juan Corona and Abbie Hoffman. Female Trouble is actually dedicated to Charles “Tex” Watson of the Manson Family, aka one of Sharon Tate’s murderers.

But look at what makes Female Trouble stand out decade after decade: Milstead plays both Divine and the gross industrial worker who she robs after he conceives Taffy on an abandoned field mattress. Your fave could never. While some of Waters’ work has been sanitized over the years (e.g. Hairspray), we will never see John Travolta knock himself up. Would your Instagram-cute fave ever tell her cinematic stepdad that she wouldn’t suck his dick if she was suffocating and there was oxygen in his balls?

Baltimore in cinema is an essential Waters motif: The city was once the United States’ capital city, and Waters makes no efforts to elevate the city to a historical or tourist board’s vision. Waters’ Baltimore is

tacky, low-class and violent. Drag was still very much in the closet and confined to Hollywood caricature or stages at gay bars.

Dawn Davenport wasn’t serving fish realness; she was living her trash glamour fantasy. It didn’t matter whether or not she “passed” as a woman when she was chewing off her own umbilical cord, or chopping off the hand of her ex-mother-in-law (Massey) after she disfigured Dawn’s face with acid.

While American civil rights have greatly expanded over the past half-century, so too have our tastes for what is and isn’t appropriate social behavior. For example, Dawn assaulted a classmate almost as brutally as a scene from 2016’s Moonlight, yet it barely would have registered as offensive in the ‘70s.

Likewise, Dawn’s treatment of her daughter Taffy (Stole/Hillary Taylor) is a microcosmic maternity sample that could have inspired another 5th Avenue Cinema selection, 2011’s Precious. None of Female Trouble’s characters are sympathetic, not even poor Taffy.

Finally, mass shootings had not happened yet in the scale and frequency to which

they happen now. In just the past decade, America has survived deeply traumatic mass shootings at both a movie theater and a queer nightclub, to say nothing of schools or shopping malls.

In the present era, where an allegedly adulterous, urophillic American president tries to claim moral high ground over his opponents with sensationalism, Female Trouble still resists mainstream acceptance.

President Trump’s brand of depravity fits in with the trash tastes of Donald and Donna Dasher (David Lochary, Pearce), who escape criminal justice because they look and sound like American “respectable” society’s upper echelons.

To consider Waters’ filmography as filthy in a time before the present, expertly curated filth, is to witness to birth of shock cinema that never goes full exploitation. After all, exploitation cinema presents sex and violence as its peak, whereas Female Trouble presents sex and violence as its most base.

PSU Vanguard • april, 2018 • psuvanguard.com

hosts said watching something that doesn’t share your views doesn’t turn you into a different person overnight, and the act of not watching something isn’t necessarily worthy of praise and comes across as more self-aggrandizing than a thoughtful political act.

Another highlight involved the group’s impressions of Bill Maher for seemingly no reason other than the fact that it’s always a good time to mock Maher, and watching Biederman nearly swallow the mic to get the proper gravitas on Maher’s delivery of “the Republicans.”

It’s uncertain when the recording of Portland’s live show will be released, but it’s probably not the best entry point into the podcast itself. This particular show was tailored more for the fans and included many inside jokes an audience would understand more by listening to Chapo on a weekly basis.

SPRING AND RAIN POETRY Alanna Madden It’s officially April, but it may as well be October all over again. If you don’t drown or freeze to death first, this playlist could help you get through the second week of Spring Term and—as Cheryl Strayed once said—write like a motherfucker. April is National Poetry Month, after all.

1.

1940 – THE SUBMARINES, P HONEYSUCKLE WEEKS (2008)

8.

TEEN AGE RIOT – SONIC YOUTH, DAYDREAM NATION (1988)

2.

NO RAIN – BLIND MELON,BLIND MELON (1992)

9.

GOOEY – GLASS ANIMALS, THE DOUBLE EP: A SEA OF SPLIT PEAS

3.

ENDLESS SHORE – MELODY’S ECHO CHAMBER, MELODY’S ECHO CHAMBER

(2014)

(2012)

10.

DON’T MOVE – PHANTOGRAM, NIGHTLIFE (2011)

4.

THE GHOST INSIDE – BROKEN BELLS, BROKEN BELLS (2010)

11.

ANY COLOUR YOU LIKE – THE FLAMING LIPS & STARDEATH AND WHITE

5.

LOWDOWN – MY MORNING JACKET, AT DAWN (2001)

DWARFS, THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (2009)

6.

THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD (LIVE) – NIRVANA, MTV UNPLUGGED IN

12.

WILD – BEACH HOUSE, BLOOM (2012)

NEW YORK (LIVE) (1994)

13.

THE PARK – FEIST, THE REMINDER (2007)

7.

AVANT GARDENER

14.

SLEEP FOREVER – PORTUGAL. THE MAN,IN THE MOUNTAIN IN THE CLOUD

(2011)

PEAS (2014)

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Socialists of America and derision from established news outlets such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and The New Yorker. A recent NYT opinion piece compared Chapo to the alt-right claiming reactionary commentary allows the political sihtuation in America to be more unstable.

After a fun, green screen–heavy video explaining their plane ride from the “urban wasteland” of New York, Portland was roasted in a rant comparing the historic Jupiter Hotel to a factory produced recreation of John Waters. All of the kitsch, but with none of the heart or social commentary. However, Portland was indirectly praised by Felix who explained, “New York has the exact same twee stuff, but there’s also rats and garbage covering everything.”

Columnist Roxane Gay was also put on blast for her NYT opinion piece criticizing the recent Roseanne reboot. The

–

COURTNEY BARNETT, THE DOUBLE EP: A SEA OF SPLIT

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TUESDAY, APRIL 10

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11

THURSDAY, APRIL 12

FRIDAY, APRIL 13

SATURDAY, APRIL 14

Breakside Brewing Bar Bingo Dublin Pub, 7 p.m., 21+ 6821 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy.

Trivia Night Hotlips Pizza PSU, 6 p.m.

1909 SW 6th Ave.

Yom HaShoah: Day of Remembrance 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

Pioneer Courthouse Square

March for science PDX 2018 Pioneer Courthouse Square, 10 a.m.–3 p.m.

Beer, trivia, and cash prizes? Sign me up!

Test your knowledge. Stuff your face.

This is college!

Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education will host an event downtown to remember the victims of the Holocaust.

A Place to Call Home: Exploring Housing in Oregon Academic and Student Rec Center, Room 620, 5:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m.

Perception: From Prison to Purpose Screening Northwest Film Center, 7 p.m., $9 1219 SW Park Ave.

FILM & THEATER

“My Boyfriend is a Bear” Art Exhibit Sequential Art Gallery + Studio, 2 p.m.

328 NW Broadway, Apt. 113 Portland Artist Cat Farris celebrates the release of her new graphic novel “My Boyfriend Is A Bear”, featuring original watercolor artwork used in the novel. Limited copies of Farris’ novel will be available for purchase at the event.

Tuesday Blues!

Bossanova Ballroom, 7 p.m., all ages 722 E. Burnside St.

Award-winning comic book writer, filmmaker, pop culture critic, journalist, educator and author David F. Walker will lecture on “Stealing the Black Body,” followed by a screening of Get Out.

The Murder of Fred Hampton on 35mm Northwest Film Center, 7 p.m., $6–8 1219 SW Park Ave. The Murder of Fred Hampton is a 1971 film directed by Howard Alk profiling the last nine months of Fred Hampton’s life as a prominent Black Panther Party member in 1969.

Dizzy Diplomacy: Jazz Ambassadors and Cold War Culture WorldOregon, 6:30 p.m.–8 p.m.

1207 SW Broadway Suite 300 If discussion on cultural diplomacy in the 50s, 60s and 70s paired with smooth jazz is literal music to your ears, head down to WorldOregon on SW Broadway.

Standing Rock to the Bundy Standoff: Occupation, Native Sovereignty, and the Fight for Sacred Landscapes First Unitarian Portland, 7 p.m.–9 p.m.

1211 SW Main St. Local writer, editor, and social activist Jacqueline Keeler will discuss the perspectives within America in which the “exclusivity of viewpoint” exists against the interest of other peoples— more specifically, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Keeler will compare events involving the history of the Sioux Nation and controversies surrounding the Bundy family and their armed supporters. Tickets will be sold on a sliding scale between $5–20, and a reception will be held after in Fuller Hall.

The Real Dirt on Farmer John Clinton Street Theater, 7 p.m., $7–10 2522 SE Clinton St. Bee Friendly Portland presents the film screening of The Real Dirt On Farmer John, which will include an after discussion with filmmaker Taggart Siegel alongside a panel of local farmworkers and beekeepers. Free seeds and plant starts will be provided to attendees!

Man/Woman ballet 7:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m.

Tickets available at ticketmaster.com Newmark Theatre,

MUSIC

Man/Woman challenges gender stereotypes in ballet by showcasing all-female versus all-male dance scenes in five parts, where performers will perform counter-gender roles. For example, dancer Michel Fokine will dance to Swan Lake’s “The Dying Swan” to represent “the ethereal beauty and fragility of a romantic-era ballerina.”

Love it & Leave With It Photo Pop-up Exhibition DISJECTA, 6–9 p.m., $15 8371 N Interstate Ave. Photolucida is celebrating Portland Photo Month with Love It & Leave With It, a pop-up gallery featuring community photography with an auction, photo booth, food, and booze.

The silent auction will feature items from Princeton Architectural Press, Tamara Staples and more.

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“That Femmiliar Feeling”: Cat Castle Reception Littman + White Galleries, SMSU 6 p.m.–9 p.m.

White Gallery presents the reception event for “That Femmiliar Feeling” a collection curated by Cat Castle works, which will be on display April 9–27. The new exhibition features several artists whose pieces will address the concept of empty space within galleries themselves with the question, “How does one build their own world within a world?”

The Portland Pancakes & Booze Art Show Hawthorne Theatre, 8 p.m., 21+, $10–12 1507 SE 39th Ave. Over 75 emerging local artists will convene for “Portland’s Premier Underground Art Show,” where you can find live body painting, art, booze and a free pancake bar. Performing music artists include Sugar Moore, Dariio and Pat Chaos.

80s’ Video Dance Attack 13th Anniversary Crystal Ballroom, 8 p.m., $13, Ages 21+ 1332 SW Burnside St. McMenamins Crystal Ballroom is hosting a two-floor dance party to celebrate 13 years of 80s dance music videos, which will be projected onto 10-foot screens around the main ballroom.

Portland is coming together again to join millions of others around the world to advocate the sciences to elected officials and political representatives.

The March for Science begins with a rally at 10 a.m., and the march is set to begin at 11 a.m. All ages are welcome, and the march has been designed to be accessible for everyone.

Sorry, Not Sorry Hip Hop Workshop The Viscount Dance Studio, 11 a.m., $25–30 720 SE Sandy Blvd.

Choreographer Parris Goebel will host a class on how to dance like Janet Jackson, Missy Elliot, Beyonce, Justin Bieber, and Rihanna—just to name a few—with an emphasis on pollyswagg and dancehall beats.

Hortlandia Portland Expo Center, 10 a.m.–3 p.m., Free The Hardy Plant Society of Oregon is hosting the 30th annual plant convention, Hortlandia, where nearly every plant from the Pacific Northwest will be available for introductions to the Portland metro area.

MØTHERSHIP: Episode 1 No Vacancy Lounge, 9 p.m., 21+ 235 SW 1st Ave.

The Courageous Vulnerability #MeToo Tour Taborspace, 5 p.m.

5441 SE Belmont St. A performance and literary salon in honor of the #MeToo, #HerToo, and #TimesUp. The event aims to ask, “How can men support women to speak up and be seen?” Tickets are available for purchase online, and students can buy theirs at a discounted rate of $20.

9th Annual Letterpress Printers Fair AudioCinema, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.

226 SE Madison St. Calling all writers, typographers, designers, and general print lovers: Portland’s annual Letterpress Printers Fair is back! Live demonstrations, shopping and interactive printmaking techniques will be available for all who attend.

MONDAY, APRIL 16 Prisoner Correspondence Night In Other Words Feminist Community Center, 5:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m.

14 NE Killingsworth St. Critical Resistance Portland hosts a monthly event to correspond via mail with prisoners serving time in Washington and Oregon prisons. The event objectives include offering political education, resource information and literature.

The Limits of Whiteness SMSU, 12–2 p.m.

Everybody Reads 2018 is hosting author Neda Maghbouleh to discuss their new book The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and The Everyday Politics of Race. The event is free and open to the public.

Hamilton Fiction Writing Literary Arts, 7–9 p.m.

925 SW Washington St. Every Monday in April, author M. Allen Cunningham is instructing a fiction writing class using Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton. Tickets and student scholarships are available for purchase at literary-arts.org. All writing skill levels are welcome.

ART

Bossanova’s weekly Blues dance night offers beginner and intermediate dance lessons between 7 p.m.–8 p.m. and a full-on dance night from 8 p.m.–midnight. Lessons cost $8–15 on a sliding scale.

Reel Science: Get Out Oregon Museum of Science and Industry , 6:30 p.m., $6–7 1945 SE Water Ave.

Oregon Humanities and PSU’s School of Social Work have joined forces to present a lecture by Christina Palacios as part of a month-long series in April called Culture & Conversation. April’s event series is part of a seven-year tradition in which Portland leaders, activists and thinkers have come together to address social issues that affect the community.

SUNDAY, APRIL 15

FILM & THEATER

Perception will make its debut at NFC along with a panel board to discuss issues involving Measure 11, Oregon’s minimum sentencing law, and how it affects the states’ youth.

ART

Alanna Madden

COMMUNITY

COMMUNITY

Events April 10th - April 15th

NVL’s monthly departure from Earth “in search of the best dance parties in the galaxy” is back, and this month’s dress code is Sci-fi Swagger. Pre-sale tickets are $5 or 499 Universal Galactic Currency (UGC); $10 at the space station gate. Will run through Sunday, April 15.

Artist Reception: “Break, Mend, Fold” Bullseye Projects, 1:30 p.m.

300 NW 13th Ave. RSVP on Facebook Brooklyn, N.Y. artist Matthew Day Perez is set to appear at his exhibit “Break, Mend, Fold” to explore concepts involving materiality. The exhibition also features work by artist Marzena Krzemińska-Baluch and will be available to view through April 28.

PSU Vanguard • april 10, 2018 • psuvanguard.com

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