Portland State Vanguard Jan. 10, 2013

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Portland State University Portland State University Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013 | vol. 67 no. 28

Professor Students capture Cuba on film Campus spearheads locks down Persian for break minor Closure strategy yields good results, CPSO says

Visiting scholar teaches winter and spring term

Josh Kelety Vanguard staff

Ravleen Kaur Vanguard staff

Despite having translated a number of seminal Persian works, Dr. Dick Davis is still unearthing fresh beauty and stumbling upon new nuances of the Persian language to this day.

“I feel much more confident reading an 11th century epic than reading a modern [Persian] newspaper,” Davis said.

Persian, he explained, is idiomatic.

“It’s possible to know what every word in a sentence means, but still to misunderstand completely what the sentence as a whole means,” Davis said, comparing the difficulties of learning the language to the similar complexity of English.

Davis, an accomplished poet, scholar and translator of medieval Persian poetry, will be teaching at Portland State this term.

As a visiting scholar, Davis will teach two courses this term and two courses in the spring. Among his course offerings are “Iranian Women Writers” and “Persian Mythology and Folklore.”

His arrival will help spearhead PSU’s new Persian minor in its inaugural year. “[Davis] is a very important pillar in Persian literature,” said Anousha Sedighi, an associate professor of See persian scholar on page 4

COURTESY OF derek dauphin

Clarke leland, a 23-year-old Portland State film major, shoots buildings in Old Havana, Cuba, from the sidewalk. Leland is helping to produce a documentary about Cuban planning and sustainable development for a class.

Class contrasts sustainable building in Cuba and Portland Matthew Ellis Vanguard staff

Clarke Leland was staring at his laptop monitor, trying to find a class for fall term that would fulfill that pesky University Studies credit that so many Portland State students treat as an afterthought.

The 23-year-old film major didn’t realize it then, but that class would take him and a group of graduate students 2,719 miles from Portland, into a foreign country embargoed by the U.S. government, and give him an opportunity to make a documentary film about Cuban planning and sustainable development along the way.

Not bad for a class that’s not even required for his major.

“I just thought this was a really great opportunity to try something,” Leland explained. “To have the chance to go make a documentary in a place I might never get the chance to [go to] again.”

What started as an open-ended series of travel-abroad classes quickly morphed into a fully-realized film and research hybrid project, tentatively titled The Greenest Places: Sustainable Historic Preservation in Old Havana and Portland.

Leland was joined by students from the Master of Urban and Regional Planning program.

Not prone to settle for a short-form travelogue about a “forbidden” country, Leland and his crew decided to transform the film into a four-part, feature-length piece, to be shown in segments around Portland this spring.

By first investigating sustainable urban planning in Cuba and eventually

turning their lens back to Portland, the group hopes to ask difficult questions about our own practices in urban planning as well as highlight the differences—and similarities—in these seemingly polarized environments.

The group landed up to $1,500 in funding from the Solutions Generator program run by PSU’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions. The program seeks to award financial support to student projects in sustainability in an attempt to encourage holistic learning and community involvement.

The team was assembled before leaving for Cuba and consisted of two undergraduate students (Leland and sociology major Veronica Bradford) and four urban planning graduate students: Derek Dauphin, Liz Paterson, Lina Menard and Katie Hughes.

See Cuba on page 2

From Dec. 22 to New Year’s Day, almost every Portland State building was locked and closed—save residence halls, where some students spent their winter breaks.

The closure was coordinated by university administration and the Campus Public Safety Office in an effort to save energy and improve campus security during the winter holiday.

“It represents smart stewardship,” CPSO Chief Phillip Zerzan said.

With access to campus facilities limited, CPSO saw a decrease in burglaries, theft, vandalism and other criminal activity that usually occurs during normal academic terms. In addition, overall power usage decreased significantly.

“The results were fantastic,” said Steve Coop, a public safety officer who was involved in organizing the closure.

In the past, the university has employed similar plans, but Zerzan said this year was more thorough and universal in its approach.

“I would say that we were a little more diligent and thoughtful in locking buildings, limiting access and turning down heating,” he said.

The comprehensive closure was in the works for quite some time, with initial planning beginning almost six months ago.

Even though classes were not in session, faculty still needed access to necessary university research facilities.

See Closure on page 4

Bikers, walkers bolster business Report reveals nondrivers’ spending on rise in Portland Shanna Cranston Vanguard staff

Riza Liu/VANGUARD STAFf

Bike racks like this one, located between Smith Memorial Student Union and Cramer Hall, can be found all over campus and increasingly around Portland.

Non-car-users spend more money than drivers at Portland businesses, PSU’s Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium found in a report last month.

The OTREC report, titled “Consumer Behavior and Travel Mode Choices,” takes a look at the relationship between Portland businesses and the way their customers travel to them.

For example, the study found that restaurants saw more transit-using

customers and fewer drivers. A transit user frequents a restaurant an average of eight times per month and spends about $50 total during those visits.

Comparatively, drivers frequent restaurants between two and three times per month, but spend the most per visit out of any other customer, with an average of $19.

“It was interesting to me to see that people who took transit and walked were just as competitive of consumers as those who drove, contrary to how businesses think,” said Christopher Muhs, a graduate research assistant in the engineering program.

According to Muhs, the study was initiated by the city and several

businesses to provide structure for alternatives to driving.

“Not much research has been done on this in the United States, and we wanted to look into what alternatives businesses should cater to…and what policies they should alternate,” Muhs said.

OTREC Communications Director Justin Carinci explained that business owners sometimes worry that sales will drop as more people leave their cars behind.

“There was little research we could point to that would prove this isn’t the case,” he said.

See consumer travel on page 4

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NEWS Brew away winter weather

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DIY beer can be an easy winter hobby Andrew Lawrence Vanguard Staff

From the Iran hostage crisis to long lines for gas to inflation, the presidency of Jimmy Carter is not always remembered in the most positive light.

Oregon culture, however, might not have been the same without his signature on a 1978 bill legalizing the homebrewing of beer for the first time since Prohibition.

Today the state hosts 133 breweries, with Portland itself home to a world-record 51, according to the Oregon Brewers Guild.

So, with months of cold, wet weather ahead, students looking for a new indoor hobby (or looking to become the next Widmer Brothers or BridgePort Brewing Company) might consider brewing their first batch of beer.

What may surprise them, though, is that the project can be accomplished with as few as three hours of work (plus about three weeks of aging) in a space as small as an apartment or dorm room, said Jeremy Frey, an employee at F. H. Steinbart Co. Homebrew Supply Shop in Southeast Portland.

Water and a heating source, Frey said, are really the only two requirements other than the ingredients.

Walking through the store, which, at 95 years old, claims to be the oldest home-brew supply store in the country,

it’s easy to see why the idea of making one’s own beer from scratch can seem daunting.

The dusty, antique bottles, worn floors and esoteric products give it the feel of an old-fashioned country hardware store, while the products themselves, with names like “Dry Isinglass Finings” and “Immersion Wort Chiller” seem like they belong in a lab, not in beer.

But brewing one’s first one- or five-gallon batch of beer is really not complicated, Frey said.

“I guess the biggest misconception is that it’ll take you a lot of practice to turn out a great product,” he said.

“Everybody thinks with their first batch, ‘I’m prepared for it to suck,’ and that’s not really the truth. I think most people love their first batch and make perfectly good beer.”

But how exactly does one get started?

While everything needed to brew is, of course, available online, there are advantages to a brick-and-mortar store, Frey said. “When you walk into any great homebrew store, we’ll sit you down and walk you through the steps and just show you— show you what the ingredients look like and how you use them.”

While a brief chat and some guidance from a book or the Internet is enough for some to get brewing, most brewing

CUBA from page 1

Cuba’s sustainable building practices born of economic necessity “It’s really a nice model for the university itself,” Dauphin explained. “We can pool these educational threads together very nicely.”

On Dec. 9, the group headed to Cuba, anxious to break ground on a real-world project that looked nothing like highlighting lines in a textbook or spending hours in front of a computer at the library.

Armed only with his Canon 7D, a few rented lenses and the new GoPro Hero 3, a popular sports action camera slowly finding its way into documentary use because of its small size and durability, Leland was able to capture a unique vision of Havana that would have been nearly impossible just 10 years ago.

Impossible…or, at least, more expensive. This, to Leland and his crew, provides a unique opportunity to tell a story that highlights change in a world that looks different day by day—change that seems ever more apt when the very nature of telling stories and performing research

changes in sync with the subject of study itself.

According to Dauphin, Cuba’s uniqueness rests heavily on the country’s recent history. Dauphin points to the collapse of the Soviet Union, which crippled the Cuban economy because of their reliance on trade with the former Soviet Republic.

This, combined with the United States’ trade embargo, essentially sent Cuba back 60 years, and the country was forced to take up sustainable building practices simply out of economic necessity. Cubans stopped importing, reused local goods and were forced to be innovative with the few resources they had. Multigenerational use for buildings became an imperative.

This model, while unique and not exactly intentional, makes Havana a worldwide leader in sustainability, according to Dauphin and his team.

Transportation in Havana is still a key problem in the

supply stores offer 2- to 3-hour courses for aspiring home brewers, which usually walk students through the brewing of a batch of beer from start to finish.

Over at the Homebrew Exchange brewing supply store in North Portland, retail manager Beth Staus said the decision whether to take a course depends on the person.

“I never took a class,” she said. “But I think my husband would have learned better in a class.”

Whether one is more of a visual learner or book learner is a factor, Staus said, though watching someone brew can take away some of the intimidation factor. “You just see how easy it is,” she said.

Retail associate Hannah Hall said she thinks that it’s easier to learn from a class. “You can ask questions that are random and weird,” she said.

But how one learns to brew or what method they use isn’t the point, Staus said: “Beer brewing has a lot of gray areas,” she explained.

Ultimately the decision to home-brew comes down to the freedom it offers, Frey said.

“People home-brew so that they can try different things,” he said. “They like to see the ingredients go in and then taste what that did, they like to understand the flavors, [and] that is what drives their passion to brew.”

city’s development, and contributes to the push of residential development into the outskirts of Havana because of the lack of funds.

“Some people have to ride the train for an hour just to get into the city,” Dauphin said. “It really is a work in progress.”

The group spent two weeks in Cuba, gathering footage—800 gigabytes so far—and research that will keep them occupied for much of 2013. But now that they are back in the United States, the group’s focus turns to Portland.

In the upcoming months, Leland and his team will meet with Chet Orloff, an Oregon historian, for a walking tour of Old Town and Chinatown, in an attempt to contextualize the recent urban development in the area.

After the film’s completion, the group hopes to create a website to use in conjunction with the film’s four segments in an attempt to create a dialogue that lasts longer than a two-hour sitting in a movie theater.

Editor’s note: Reporter Matthew Ellis will volunteer as a crew member in the upcoming Portland segment of this film.

OMSI science pub unites Students with children talk about shootings beer and learning Resource center provides tips to parents Mary Breaden Vanguard staff

Karl kuchs/VANGUARD STAFf

Jeremy Frey of F.H. Steinbart Co. shows off a variety of brewing ingredients.

How to brew: 10 steps (as explained by Jeremy Frey) 1. Purchase equipment kit (which will include recipe), spend 10–15 minutes talking to staff if desired.

2. Heat water and add malted barley, remove grains after steeping as called for in recipe, add malt extract.

3. Boil mixture with hops for one hour (adding more hops during boil as called for in recipe).

4. Take mixture (wort) off of heat and chill in sink for about 15 minutes.

5. Add wort to fermenter bucket, add cold water to reach batch size.

6. When mixture reaches room temperature, add yeast and air lock.

7. Let ferment for at least two weeks.

8. Siphon yeast into bucket, adding sugar as called for in recipe.

9. Bottle and cap, leaving at room temperature for about a week.

10. Enjoy your beer.

COURTESY OF derek dauphin

Film Crew Lina Meriard (left), Liz Paterson, Clarke Leland and Katie Hughes film at the Capitolo in Havana, Cuba.

courtesy of D. Scott Frey

Brian Skerry, a National Geographic photographer, speaks to a full house at the OMSI Science Pub held at the Bagdad Theater in March.

Maya Seaman Vanguard staff

The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is a beacon of education.

Its goal is to improve the public’s understanding of science and technology though creative programs and interpretive exhibits for both children and adults.

Other than OMSI After Dark, a claustrophobically crowded event that offers adults a “child-free” night of science and booze, there haven’t been many places for adults in Portland to quench their thirst for science.

In an effort to diversify their programming and “expand science education among adults”—a daunting task given that most young adults relish the idea of graduating college and never having to sit through another boring lecture ever again— OMSI created Science Pub. Since 2006, OMSI’s Science Pub has covered topics from lessons learned from the Japan and Haiti earthquakes, to genetically modified food, to Oregon’s little-known gray whale population, to the science of lasers—drawing scientists, researchers, authors and nature photographers to lecture from all over Oregon and beyond.

Despite doubts that Portlanders wouldn’t want to sit quietly in a cramped bar for two hours and listen to a researcher talk about science, the event’s popularity quickly outgrew its original location, forcing OMSI to move it to a larger venue.

“There’s a lot of interest, which we found fascinating,” said Andrea Middleton, OMSI’s events manager. “Pretty

much everyone’s enthusiastic.”

And that enthusiasm has since spread to five other cities in Oregon. Corvallis, McMinnville, Hillsboro, Eugene and Salem all host an OMSI Science Pub event once a month, proving that science isn’t just for scientists, but for everyone.

Amy McMackin, a Portland State alumna and local architect, attended her first Science Pub—a lecture on forensic anthropology—for reasons she doesn’t remember. What she does remember was how approachable the science was.

She found that the speaker “kept the lecture fun and casual and quirky.”

Upon attending the lecture on lessons learned after the Japan and Haiti earthquakes, McMackin was shocked to discover just how unprepared the United States is for such a catastrophe.

A coworker who attended the event with McMackin “went so far as to get our office thoroughly prepped for the big one. We now all have earthquake kits strapped under our desks and bins full of emergency food in case we are stuck here for days.”

Teresa Nguyen, a teacher at Growing Seeds Early Learning Community, attended the epigenetics lecture with a biologist friend.

“As soon as I got into the

venue, I was immediately culture-shocked just by the sheer density of people stuffing themselves into this tiny pub.

Stadium balcony seats and floor-seat space or not, there were people here to get their nerd on,” Nguyen said.

One might think that Science Pub’s draw is simply the fact that it’s a free event and an easy way to get in out of the cold and have a couple of beers, but attendees are deeply focused on the science.

According to Nguyen, the projector shorted out during the epigenetics lecture and, though it could have killed the talk early, the whole crowd loudly encouraged the speaker to continue.

“That was the most awesome thing about the evening,” Nguyen said. “Not only was everyone genuinely interested in learning, but we had the speaker’s back in wanting to be sure we were here to see her speak and give our due respects.”

Science Pub is usually held the first Monday or Tuesday of every month, sometimes twice a month, at either the Bagdad Theater and Pub or the Mission Theatre and Pub. The 21-and-over event starts at 7 p.m., but because of growing crowds doors open at 5 p.m. Cost is a suggested donation of $5.

Next Science Pub

For more information on Science Pub in Portland and other locations, visit omsi.edu/eventsand-programs/science-pub Other science lectures in Portland include: Linus Pauling Memorial Lecturesisepp.org

Tuesday, Jan. 15 Mission Theatre and Pub 1624 NW Glisan St. Topic: “Exploring the Deep Ocean: Strange Animals, Submarine Volcanoes, and Life in Extreme Environments”

Portland State parents who are struggling to explain to their children the senseless violence of the December shootings now have a few more on-campus resources.

Immediately after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred on Dec. 14, Portland State’s Resource Center for Students with Children provided a list of tips for parents about how to talk to children about violence.

The list, written by the National Association of School Psychologists, was made accessible to the center’s community through their Facebook page.

It attempts to provide parents with a strategy for counseling children about random violence. The list suggests reassuring children that they are safe, and not overwhelming children with details that may be inappropriate or beyond the limits of their understanding.

Lisa Wittorff, the center’s coordinator, recommended that parents emphasize the rarity of school shootings.

“The Clackamas Town Center shooting served to com-

pound the ‘scariness’ of the Sandy Hook shooting. Statistics have shown an increase in these shootings at the holiday time,” Wittorff said.

And the shootings came at a time when many studentparents are already stressed out about staying in the black.

Wittorff described the financial burdens of the holiday season—from buying winter clothes and gifts for children to paying rent just as financial aid funding runs out—as being a “stressor” that PSU student-parents combat.

Wittorff also mentioned that she saw more students coming in for food resources this holiday season.

Wittorff said that most parents she spoke with found their children unaffected by the tragedy. During one discussion with a student worker who has children, Wittorff said that the student worker attempted to discuss gun safety with her children but that the children were confused by their mother’s unexpected emphasis on this, and were not able to connect the Sandy Hook shooting to gun safety.

Another student parent from the center found that explaining the shooting wasn’t hard.

“I told my girls about Sandy Hook, briefly,” she said. “[I] remind[ed] them that there are millions of children in the nation and that

just because it happened on the other side of the country doesn’t mean it will ever happen at their school. They accepted that and the topic was dropped.”

Parents should tell their children that the world is a safe place, Wittorff said. But in the instance of violence in a school, children should follow their teacher’s lead.

Ellie Justice, director of Portland State’s Helen Gordon Child Development Center, sent out an email after the shooting with suggestions about campus safety for child care providers, along with a reiteration of the Helen Gordon Center’s safety policies, which include security call buttons and an emergency response plan.

“We have a secured entryway, but it takes everyone to make sure that people aren’t entering the building,” Justice said.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Justice said that one parent wanted to be with her child and picked her up earlier than usual that day. Most parents, however, merely responded to Justice’s email.

“We were on lockdown last July when there was an armed person in the parking structure. Everyone handled it well, but it gave us an opportunity to review our policies,” Justice said.

“The biggest concern is child safety,” she added.

© Mike m. ahlers/CNN

a makeshift memorial lies along the main road leading to Sandy Hook Elementary School Vin Newton, Conn.

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persian scholar from page 1

closure from page 1

professor dick davis will teach two courses in Persian literature as a visiting scholar this spring.

Author, poet has 20+ books Persian who leads the program. “He’s really going to be important for the visibility of the program.”

Davis has authored more than 20 books, including collections of his own poetry and translations of seminal Persian works. Included among these is his critically acclaimed translation of the epic poem The Shahnameh, or Persian Book of Kings, which was ranked as one of the 10 best books of 2006 by the Washington Post.

Born in England, Davis studied English at the University of Cambridge, where medieval literature, in particular, resonated with him. Davis taught English in Greece and Italy, but his life commitments lay a continent away.

“I wanted to go somewhere outside of Europe for a while,” Davis said. “I had a friend who was working as an archeologist in Iran at that time, and he liked it so much that he suggested that we share an apartment in Tehran for a year.”

Within the year, Davis met his future wife. He stayed in Iran for another eight years, where he fell in love once

courtesy of mage publishing

more, this time with the country’s literature.

“Almost as soon as I was able to read medieval Persian, I decided that this was something I wanted to give my life to in a serious, committed way,” Davis said.

As both an English-language poet and a translator of medieval Persian poetry, Davis finds that composition and translation are, in many ways, complementary.

“I’m very aware that my own poetry has changed and, I think, become better from my translating Persian poetry,” Davis said. He finds that his own poetry mirrors, in some ways, the highly formal nature of the poems he translates.

“Both in writing your own poems and in translating, you need to engage two different

parts of your mind,” Davis said. There is the almost unconscious openness to inspiration, he explained, and the readiness to, as he described, “shape and mold what you’re given.

“I’d emphasize that both have to be there in both cases, just in somewhat different proportions,” Davis said.

Davis, who most recently taught at Ohio State University, will teach both translation-based courses and a class following the original Persian texts.

“What I always look forward to is getting at least one or two students really turned on to the literature, to get them to see how great it is and to love it as much as I do,” Davis said.

Campus shut down allowed for repairs and maintenence “There are not that many people on campus, so there is a significant cost saving to closing buildings and only having necessary personnel,” said Scott Gallagher, director of PSU’s Office of University Communications.

“It makes us more sustainable, and we save money at a time when the campus is empty anyway,” he added.

To determine who could access university buildings during the closure, academic department heads selected

faculty members who were essential to ongoing research.

The vice president of Finance and Administration approved the final list of individuals, who were then given special access to facilities.

“Our focus in closure is ensuring that the academic needs and research needs of the university [are met], as well as the safety and security needs of the people,” Coop said.

The closure also allowed for repairs and maintenance that

required an empty campus to be done properly.

The maintenance was primarily electrical, and called for checking electrical conduits, turning power off and on and identifying areas that need upgrading and improvement.

“You can’t do that [maintenance] when classes are in session and researchers are in labs,” Gallagher said.

CPSO and the administration intend to implement this level of campus closure for future breaks during the academic year, as well as in extreme weather conditions.

“The closure goes beyond the winter,” Coop said.

Students kick threats with self-defense class

Campus boasts many resources for safety Sierra Roberts Vanguard staff

In light of recent violence on campus and ongoing violence nationwide, many students may decide to make themselves aware of resources available to them to help prevent becoming a victim themselves.

At Portland State, students have the option of enrolling in a self-defense class that is offered every term.

Students are even encouraged to take the course more than once to keep self-defense methods fresh.

“Defending yourself is a lifetime effort. You keep adding layers every year,” said Billie Anger, who has been teaching collegelevel self-defense since the ’70s.

Anger, who has been teaching the course at PSU since the ’90s, views proper self-defense as a lifetime commitment, and said you can always be better prepared.

Her class consists of more than just basic choke hold escapes, and caters specifically to student needs.

“People come to the class with different expectations,” she said. “Smaller classes let students focus on new things.”

Topics covered in class range from weapon disabling to identifying body language and the science behind selfdefense.

“It’s important, because most people don’t realize they have a self-value until that value is threatened,” Anger said.

She believes recognizing your self-worth and becoming

Reporter sierra Roberts demonstrates a Krav Maga kick on Michael Roberts, a former PSU student.

risa liu/vanguard staff

COURTESY OF Drew Martig

Sgt. Michael Anderson locks an entrance to Science Building One during standard patrol. The Campus Public Safety Office plans to implement full campus closures for future breaks.

Broadway Coffee soon to be Thai bar Upstairs Baan-Thai Restaurant expands Josh Kelety Vanguard staff

consumer travel from page 1

Study looked at 89 businesses, a majority of them food-related To get this information, a team directed by Kelly Clifton, associate professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, surveyed 1,884 people at 89 businesses and found that many factors influence how much a person spends at a particular place—including how far a person has to travel to get to his or her destination.

Most of the businesses examined in the study were foodrelated, such as restaurants and bars, but convenience stores were also included.

Supermarkets tend to see more money spent in one trip from automobile users. Since pedestrians often have to make multiple trips to get all the groceries they need, however, they actually spend more money on a monthly basis.

Pedestrians also spend more money at businesses that serve alcohol and food, shelling out an average of $22 per trip. Bicyclists spend even more money at drinking establishments, spending an average of $82 per month.

Traveling within Portland has changed drastically in the past 30 years. Many have given up driving in favor of cheaper ways to travel, like biking and public transportation.

Portland businesses, however, aren’t quite in tune with this trend. They have continued their efforts to appeal to drivers without making new efforts to meet the specific needs of walkers and bikers.

During the study, Muhs helped with data collection and design; he also helped create the data report. He believes that this study will help Portland businesses better understand their customers, and that the city will see more businesses cater to driving alternatives in the future.

“Lots of businesses already have bike racks,” Muhs said.

“As more businesses catch on to this trend, they will add themselves to a wait-list to get racks from the City of Portland and will wait about a year to get some installed.

“Portland can now look into consumer transportation patterns, and more studies on this sort of thing will probably be made,” he added. “We are on the right track.”

Employees of the Bike Hub, PSU’s on-campus bike shop specifically catering to students, faculty and staff, are optimistic that the city will

continue to become even more bike-friendly.

For some students, riding bikes to campus is a more affordable travel option than driving or riding the bus, with the cost of gas and TriMet passes.

Bike Hub supervisor Clint Culpepper said the shop is hoping to see more cycletracks—separate bike lanes— on Portland streets, like the one on Southwest Broadway.

“Cycletracks are seen all over Europe, and studies have shown that they’re preferable to not only cyclists, but drivers as well,” Culpepper said.

“As the study has shown, it’s important to locate the bicycle infrastructure with commercial activity in mind.”

Safety for bike riders is another concern that Bike Hub employees would like to see addressed in the future.

“We would love to see continued improvement in the bicycle infrastructure,” he said.

“The projects that the city has undertaken have really been the motivating factor for many new cyclists. Safety concerns are always the number one reason that people give for not riding, so anything that we can do to improve the safety of our bicycle network would be much appreciated.”

The study is available to download online at otrec.us/ project/411.

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Students hoping to grab a cup of joe at Broadway Coffee are in for a surprise.

Instead of a bustling coffee shop, they will now be met by brown paper covering the front door and window.

After 16 years in business, the coffeehouse that once gave students a place to study, mingle and relax is undergoing remodeling to become a bar and lounge for the upstairs Baan-Thai Restaurant.

The reconstruction began shortly after winter break started.

In addition, a coffee cart will be built adjacent to the building so students and community members can still grab a cup of coffee while on the move.

“We are expanding the restaurant; we want more seating and want to put a little bar downstairs,” said Pete Leesahavivat, co-owner of Baan-Thai.

The space will be more an extension of the restaurant than a traditional bar. It will serve the standard drinks, cocktails, liquor and beer, along with new and familiar dishes.

“I think it was the time because they [Baan-Thai] really need the space,” said Amir Rahimi, the building’s landlord, who is leasing the former coffeehouse to Baan-Thai.

But some students and former Broadway Coffee customers disagree.

“Bogus!” PSU sophomore Shelby Cazier said of the conversion. “I loved that place [Broadway Coffee]—the only place I knew besides Starbucks that sold coffee and tea on campus.

“It was so cozy and comfyfeeling inside,” she added.

“Definitely would have voted against it turning into a bar— we have plenty of those on campus.”

Rahimi said that while it will be different without the coffeehouse, he thinks the coffee cart outside the build-

ing will be a sufficient substitute.

Because Broadway Coffee was a popular spot for PSU students to study, Baan-Thai’s owners plan to make it a comfortable place where people can still come to find a mellow ambiance.

“The bar area is going to have a more relaxed atmosphere—it’s not going to be like a sports bar,” said Paul Leesahavivat, Pete’s brother and the other owner of Baan-Thai.

“Students are always welcome, especially because we are open late. Students can come here and relax,” he said.

riza liu/VANGUARD STAFf

broADWAY COFFEE is currently undergoing a remodel to become BaanThai’s new bar and lounge.

properly equipped to defend it are key to a well-rounded education.

Phillip Zerzan, chief of the Campus Public Safety Office, agrees.

“There is certainly value in self-defense,” he said. “Knowing what your capabilities are and being able to fight are important in protecting your safety.”

Jessica Amo, director of the Women’s Resource Center, believes informing and empowering students will make the campus a safer environment.

“You [students] can actively engage in the situations going on around you,” she said. “You can make the commitment to safely interrupt situations that could become violent.”

Amo outlined three violence prevention steps students can use to help create a safer campus.

Primary prevention consists of efforts taken to stop violence before it occurs, like becoming an educated student leader. The WRC hosts events throughout the year, like the Sexual Assault Education Theater, that equip students with the skills to become an informed leader.

The secondary prevention step is about recogniz-

ing violence when it arises and advocating for those who have been victims of violence.

Research has proven that victims of violence are more likely to reach out to a friend than a professional for help.

Portland State has abundant resources for students seeking help.

The last step is zknowing what to do after violence has occurred and stopping future violence.

The Center for Student Health and Counseling offers confidential counseling services for students who have been victims of violence, and the WRC is dedicated to raising awareness of campus safety with events like Take Back the Night/Bike Back the Night in April.

CPSO and Student Legal Services also encourage students to report violence on campus.

“We are really committed to creating a safe and healthy campus,” Amo said. “We encourage any student who has been affected by violence to seek help.”

Editor’s note: Reporter Sierra Roberts participated in Billie Anger’s self defense class during fall term 2012.

Tips for safety • Trust your gut. Often, your body is more aware of your surroundings and the body language of others than you realize.

• When going out to a social event where alcohol is served, travel in groups and designate a leader.

Similar to a designated driver, the “leader” is the responsible friend who is put in charge to keep the group safe.

• Pre-program the Campus Public Safety emergency and non-emergency numbers into your phone.

Emergency: 503-725-4404.

Non-emergency: 503-7254407.

• Become an “active bystander.” Learn how to diffuse potentially unsafe situations. If you see something, don’t be afraid to say something.

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Arts & Culture • Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013 • VANGUARD

VANGUARD ••Thursday, Thursday, THURSDAY,OCTOBER TUESDAY, JANUARY Jan. Nov. FEBRUARY JANUARY 10, 8, 2012 2013 10, 25, 26, 2, 2012 2011 •2012 ARTS •• •OPINION OPINION &ARTS CULTURE & CULTURE

ARTS & CULTURE

EDITOR: Louie Opatz ARTS@PSUVANGUARD.COM 503-725-5694

Rambo: first book Author and PSU grad Ron Rambo talks horror and e-publishing Tristan Cooper Vanguard staff

The prospect of life after college can be terrifying in and of itself: There’s no monster or murderer waiting behind a door or around a corner—instead, it’s a whole wide world full of uncertainty. Trying to find a foothold in the chaos might be the scariest thing about becoming an adult.

Ron James Rambo Jr. seems to have it figured out. Besides being bestowed with an undeniably unique name, Rambo Jr. is currently balancing his passion and his day-to-day work with relative ease after graduating from Portland State.

Rambo recently self-published a collection of horror-themed short stories, Twisted Love, available for download on Amazon.com.

Rambo sat down with the Vanguard to talk about his killer name, life after PSU and the self-publishing process.

This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.

Vanguard: So, most people are going to want to ask, “Is your name really Rambo?” At this point, are you kind of resentful of the name, or have you embraced it?

Ron James Rambo Jr.: Yeah, for the first 10 years of my life it [was] kinda B.S., because little kids don’t understand how cool Rambo is, as a name. But by the time I got to middle school, it’s like, “All right, your last name’s Rambo? That’s pretty cool.” And it just kind of went up from there.

I pretty much got my job because of my last name, which was pretty cool. [Laughs.] And then writing the book, and not having to use a pen name, that kind of makes it easy.

VG: Tell me about Twisted Love.

RJRJ: What do you want to know about it?

Just everything?

VG: I want to know everything. What is there to know about Twisted Love?

RJRJ: So, I love horror. I’ve always loved horror, forever. I don’t know why. I don’t know if it’s because I’m just messed up in the head. [Laughs.] Scary stuff always does it for me. I read a lot in high school, George Orwell’s 1984 is a great book. H.P. Lovecraft.

Ray Bradbury, [I’m a] huge Ray Bradbury fan. I started writing, myself, in high school, the end of high school.

The very first story I wrote, for a creative writing class, it was the longest story that anybody turned in. I got called up to see the teacher, and I was thinking, “All right, well, she’s going to complain because it’s too gory and she’s gonna say, ‘Well, this is bad, you can’t write stuff like this.’” And the first thing she asked me was: “Did you really write this, or did you plagiarize this?” And I was like, “Of course I wrote it, are you kidding?” I would never do something like plagiarism, that’s ridiculous. And she said, “Because this is really good.”

And that was, like, the first thing that got me on the boat. I was like, “Maybe I can actually do this and have some success with it.” And at that point, I started writing, and I kind of noticed a trend in what I was writing. And that was that a lot of the people in these stories were in relationships. There was some love-centered focus, and then something crazy happened to them.

So this last summer, after I graduated, I actually had time to write because I wasn’t doing two jobs and going to school. I decided I’d really actually try to pursue this and put it together, and that’s when I realized that this is the trend—it’s all love-based. I wanted to stick with the short story route first off, because I love Ray Bradbury, I love short stories. Richard Mathe-

COURTESY OF ron rambo jr.

“So, I was high one night, and I was like, ‘This is what I have to do. I’m going to take the love aspect, I’m going to do the short story thing.

This whole concept is going to be love, and it’s gonna be crazy things that happen when you’re in love.’”

Ron James Rambo Jr.

son is great, [a] phenomenal short story writer, one of the best ever.

All good writers, I think, go through a short story phase, where they just write short stories. Some just do that forever. Some move on to novels. I just wanted to stick with the short stories. I thought I could tell a lot more…strange occurrences, strange happenings, terrifying incidents, that kind of thing. You can cover a lot more with short stories than you can with one huge novel, because you’re stuck on that one train of thought.

I’ve always grown up listening to a lot of music, rock music, progressive and stuff like that.

I like the idea of concept albums, concept albums are great. So, I was high one night, and I was like, “This is what I have to do. I’m going to take the love aspect, I’m going to do the short story thing. This whole concept is going to be love, and it’s gonna be crazy things that happen when you’re in love.”

VG: Any particular concept albums [you were thinking of ]?

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COURTESY OF ron rambo jr.

E-Horror: PSU graduate Ron James Rambo Jr. recently e-published his first book, Twisted Love.

RJRJ: Operation: Mindcrime, by Queensryche.

It’s hard to ignore The Wall, by Pink Floyd, but I like Animals a lot better—probably because I like Animal Farm a lot. Actually, the next book I’m working on, the concept is nuclear war, nuclear occurrences and that kind of thing, and that’s about a third of the way done. I’m already getting that train going. You ever read The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury?

VG: I’ve started it before, yeah.

RJRJ: It’s kind of the same idea. It’s a bunch of short stories, but they all have this one relation, and that’s Mars. That’s what I’m kind of doing with Twisted Love, and that’s what I’m trying to do with my next book, except it’s about nuclear war. I think it’s kind of coming back in vogue a little bit.

I’ve always been a huge fan of horror anthology movies as well, like Creepshow. It’s all these ideas, this massive amalgamation of weird stuff that just kind of came together and just threw itself at me. I said, “I gotta write this, I gotta pursue it, I gotta try it.”

VG: What in particular is it about the short story that lends itself well to horror?

RJRJ: With me, as a reader anyway, I find that if you don’t like the story, it doesn’t take up a lot of time. If you do like it, you’re always going to want more. That’s what I’m trying to get people to do when they read. I like when you don’t really know what happened before, you don’t necessarily know what happens after, it’s just this one chunk of time. You start the story, you read through it, and then you hit the end, and you’re like, “Damn, that was good.” That’s what I really like, that’s what I try to do. That’s what I try to focus on, really [what] most writers focus on.

I like the short story format a lot more because I can say what I need to say…I can just get to the point. It’s scarier to tell a shorter story than it is a longer story. Atmosphere is almost something that’s too overdone in a lot of novels. With short stories, you can hit just the right level, the right equilibrium between atmosphere, storytelling, character development, plot, all the key things that you need. I think I do it better than long writing right now, and it’s probably because I’m a young writer.

VG: Was there anything else—not directly in a writing class, but just your time in Portland and at PSU—that informed your horror stories?

RJRJ: The town itself. When I write, I kind of imagine certain areas of the town. I’ve got one story, “The Whisper,” that’s really based off of the park area here. That’s one of the places I envision in my head when I started writing. Little things like that. The people. Dialect changes according to where you’re from and so, if you know Portland, you have a good grasp of how this area functions. I think I do, too.

I like Portland, and I like how weird it is, I guess. There [are] a lot of really eclectic things about it that you don’t necessarily know from the writing, but if you live here you can kind of relate to it. I don’t say anything by name in the stories, but there are certain things you can envision while reading and you can say, “Wow, I know a place just like that, it’s right down on Morrison,” or something like that.

VG: What made you decide to self-publish digitally on Amazon?

RJRJ: I did a lot of reading about the economics of writing books and self-publishing.

I’ve taken some marketing classes, I work for a marketing company. One of the things my company does is publish e-books through Amazon. I kind of just stole all the marketing tools from them, and combined those with other things that I’ve seen from other people.

The money behind it is the big thing, because you can get a publisher, you can get an agent. You’re probably only going to get 35 percent royalties, and then you’re going to send that to your agent. When you go through Amazon, at least, if it’s above a certain price bracket, you get 70 percent, so right there, that’s twice as good.

My scheme, so to speak, [is that with] the tools that I have I can get the sales that I want.

My sales goal is very low, it’s very realistic, and if I hit that goal, I can just do that for the rest of my life. I don’t really want to work a regular job, and it’s really hard to find a dream job. So I figured I’d just create my own. I’ll do See Rambo on page 2

A psychedelic take on retro sci-fi Beyond the Black Rainbow playing on PSU campus Tess Anderson Vanguard Staff

Beyond the Black Rainbow, which is currently playing at 5th Avenue Cinema, was released in 2010, but everything about the film suggests that it was made in the 1960s or ’70s. The lighting, clothing, hairstyles, music, setting and even the atmosphere of the movie are all reminiscent of those LSD-influenced decades of the 20th century.

A word of caution: After extensive research, the general consensus seems to be that people either love or hate this movie. There is very little middle ground—this film certainly isn’t for everyone.

One of the major complaints against it is the seeming lack of plot. This is a sensory film. It was not really made to tell a story. Rather, the writer and director, Panos Cosmatos, chose to show off his aesthetic talents in his premiere piece. As a medium, film is primarily used to visually tell stories—but Cosmatos is concerned with telling artistic rather than entertainmentstyle stories.

After all, there are a limited number of stories to tell—man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. woman, man vs. society, etc.—but the number of ways to portray a story is as infinite as the human imagination. Beyond the Black Rainbow’s plot is admittedly thin and takes a long time to develop, but it does exist.

The movie’s plot revolves around a young girl attempting to escape her lifelong imprisonment in the Arboria Institute. The film is set in the year 1983, and the institute helps people to reach their full happiness potential through a “unique blend of benign pharmacology, sensory therapy and energy sculpting.” The film’s antagonist, Dr. Barry Nyle, has made it his goal to guide his telekinetic patient, Elena, to her full happiness potential.

One of the most impressive things about Beyond is that it was all edited in-camera: Any of the lighting or effects that are seen on the screen were done on set, not on a computer. The laborious in-camera editing process makes the technical and artistic skills showcased throughout the film especially impressive.

Beyond the Black Rainbow uses the ever-sogeneric blue and orange color palette for the majority of the film. After a certain point, however, yellow and green become the lighting focal points.

Cosmatos takes pains to light the film distinctively. The two main characters, Dr. Nyle and Elena, both seem to have their own spe-

Rambo from page 1

Ron Rambo discusses his new e-book normal work until it gets fixed, but this is a yearlong [to] two-year process that I’m starting up, really, just recently. Just in December I published the book.

It’s doing pretty well so far—I’ve got quite a few downloads, more than I would have expected, especially because I haven’t really started the marketing aspect of it yet. Writing for different avenues, like Before It’s News, Cracked—that’s a good way to market the book and get your voice out to people.

And you don’t really need a lot of people to buy it to make enough money to make it worthwhile. My goal personally is 10,000 copies. If I can’t sell 10,000 copies in a world of billions of people and millions of readers, then I really have no business doing this, and I’ll just stick to a normal 9-to-5 job. But it’s definitely worth trying for the next few years.

COURTESY OF Magnet releasing

head trip: A forlorn cyborg stands alone in what’s either a photo from the film Beyond the Black Rainbow or Daft Punk’s dressing room.

cific lighting color palette, creating extra contrast between the characters.

Dr. Nyle is frequently seen in front of a black backdrop, highlighted in orange. Elena is frequently seen highlighted in blue, with orange buttons on the set or in the background. Because the color palette is so simple, the movie is more psychedelic than if the entire spectrum were used.

Sound plays a crucial yet subtle role in giving Beyond its unique tone and feel. While the music isn’t always melodic or beat-oriented, the synthesized background sound helps to build suspense and give the viewer a sense of claustrophobia and terror at some points, a sense of freedom and adrenaline at others.

Few recent films have used minimalistic synthesizers so subtly or effectively.

The acting in Beyond is also noteworthy: Only about four characters have dialogue, and three of them are relatively inconsequential. Michael Rogers (Dr. Nyle) had only ever appeared in small TV roles, and was given the opportunity to prove his ability as the bad guy. He does not disappoint, remaining cool, calm and calculating throughout the film.

This makes Rogers’ portrayal of Dr. Nyle even more terrifying.

Eva Allen (Elena), who also had worked in smaller TV roles, was assigned the difficult task of allowing the audience to sympathize and also be intimidated without speaking a single world.

She’s not entirely mute, as she is heard making grunts and distressed sounds throughout the movie; she just doesn’t communicate verbally. Elena’s entire mental and emotional state is shown through Allen’s facial expressions and body language. An impressive feat.

VG: You work at a marketing company, but you seem to have this sort of disdain for it.

But, on the other hand, you’re taking what you’ve learned from it and putting [it] toward what you really want to do.

RJRJ: I don’t really have disdain for the company, I have disdain for just working in general. I don’t think it’s necessarily laziness or anything, I just don’t like to work. I like to put my time into doing things that I like to do, and if I can find a way to make money doing that, that’s the most important thing.

I’m very lucky—I got the job less than two weeks after I graduated. And considering how many people…don’t have jobs right now [who] do have degrees, I’m definitely very thankful for it…so, not disdain for the company, just disdain for work in general. And I don’t consider writing “work.”

VG: What would you call it? A hobby?

RJRJ: I’ve been doing it for five years, I was a journalist for four years, between The Advocate [at Mount Hood Community College] and the Spectator here. I don’t know, it’s fun.

It’s a fun way to communicate, I think. I don’t

know of a good way to explain it other than that. It’s obviously a hobby, it’s obviously a job, but I don’t really consider it too much of a job because I like doing it so much.

VG: It seems like you’re only partway through the process but, so far, going through the digital publishing process, is there anything you wish you would have done differently leading up to this moment?

RJRJ: Yeah, published another book.

[Laughs.] I think the bigger your library is, the more sales you’re gonna get. The next book I’m doing is in a completely different area. It’s more political, it’s more a kind of a thriller, but it’s still my writing style.

But, published another book, yeah, that’s what I wish I would have done. If I had more choices for people to choose from, you can get more reviews that way, get more sales, obviously, and you have different things you can promote.

VG: What’s your new book called?

RJRJ: Last Day of the Sun. It’s the nuclear war concept [book]. I don’t want to give too much of it away. It’s very political, and I

Beyond the Black Rainbow goes nowhere fast, but the ride to the finish line is absolutely gorgeous.

Not everyone will be able to stomach—let alone enjoy—this movie. It can seem that the story drags on, like 2001: A Space Odyssey with a slower, thinner plot. To reiterate: This is a sensory piece.

Beyond the Black Rainbow goes nowhere fast, but the ride to the finish line is absolutely gorgeous. This is Cosmatos’ first film, inspired by the VHS covers of horror movies his mother wouldn’t let him rent.

If Cosmatos is able to develop his storytelling capabilities, he may have the potential to be a brilliant filmmaker or, at the very least, enjoy a loyal cult following.

5th Avenue Cinema presents Beyond the Black Rainbow Friday, Jan. 11, and Saturday, Jan. 12, at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m..

Sunday, Jan. 13, at 3 p.m. $3 general admission; free for PSU students with ID 510 SW Hall St.

really want to take a closer look at—you always watch movies, and it’s like, “We have to avert this disaster before it happens, we have to get away from that.” A movie I saw when I was a kid, it was called The Day After…really took a closer look at the actual toll that people would go through when a nuclear war occurred.

That really fascinated me, that’s what I wanted to pursue. What people would actually go through during a crisis. Not like The Road, which is after a crisis, and not like The Sum of All Fears, which is before the crisis—I want the actual crisis, right there.

That’s where it starts: In the first chapter [the nuclear war] hits, and it kind of goes from there. It took me a couple days to kind of think about it, but after I thought about it I got really excited and I was like, “All right, that’s it, that’s the next one, that’s what I’m doing.”

VG: I think that’s about all I’ve got for you.

Was there anything else you wanted to add?

RJRJ: Follow your dreams, kids. Do what you love to do and you’ll never work a day in your life.

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VANGUARD ••Thursday, Thursday, THURSDAY,OCTOBER TUESDAY, JANUARY Jan. Nov. FEBRUARY JANUARY 10, 8, 2012 2013 10, 25, 26, 2, 2012 2011 •2012 ARTS •• •OPINION OPINION &ARTS CULTURE & CULTURE

Wheelin’ women Women’s cycling advocate and author April Streeter speaks at PSU’s Bike Hub Tamara Alazri Vanguard Staff

April Streeter has been a dedicated cyclist for nearly six years and has no plans to buy a car in the near future.

“I totally believe that cars are practical, especially in Portland’s rainy climate, but strongly encourage women to take advantage of our great biking infrastructure,” said Streeter, a women’s cycling advocate and author of the book Women on Wheels. Streeter will speak at Portland State’s Bike Hub next week to encourage students and city residents to ride.

With its ubiquitous bike lanes and decreasing speed limits, Portland biking is far beyond the “up-and-coming” phase: It stands second behind Minneapolis for the title of most popular biking city in America. Portland also features a good mix of riders of both genders.

“We have a great female-to-male biking ratio that consists of 30 to 70 percent, making Portland one of the top cities,” Streeter said.

After moving with her family to Sweden in 2005, Streeter realized the convenience of mobile transportation.

“A large majority of Europe’s population rides their bikes, and it’s thought of as a normal thing compared to U.S. cities,” Streeter said.

After selling her car and turning to cycling as her means of daily transportation, Streeter has spent the last several years working hard at sharing her knowledge of female city cyclists and the challenges they face.

Streeter’s latest book, Women on Wheels (a how-to guide for female cyclists), is a mix of inspiration and education, according to the author. Women on Wheels combines a narrative of “the early heroines of cycling with a practical look at some of the issues women city cyclists face,” according to Streeter’s website.

COURTESY OF women on wheels

takin’ it to the street: Streeter proudly shows off her wheels. She is the author of Women on Wheels.

Streeter gives her best tips for women who don’t feel comfortable on bikes so they can gain the necessary confidence.

“I highly suggest riding with an experienced rider on your first bike route, but have fun with it,” Streeter said. “Riding to campus and back is a great way to gain confidence and ease with your route and the traffic flow.”

PSU provides the perfect safe atmosphere for student bikers who wish to ride more and drive less.

“Although it can be a terrifying experience at first, my mission is to inspire women all

over to ride, and my book provides safety precautions women can take when picking up the sport,” Streeter said.

Portland is such a wonderful city for those who favor the outdoors, especially street biking. Most city streets have well-marked bike lanes, making it perfect for beginners.

“I want to make [biking] an enjoyable experience, which I think many people misinterpret,” Streeter said.

Cycling is often thought of as a superserious sport with riders decked out in spandex tights, heavy helmets and flashing neon

jackets. Many of the early female riders wore tall lace collars and extravagant corsetry, but found that riding empowered and liberated them.

In her book, Streeter covers these early inspirational female riders, including American actress Katherine Hepburn, America’s Women’s Champion Tillie Anderson and Louise Armaindo.

“I admire these women because they are not celebrated, but make up [the] ‘hidden’ early history of cycling that changes our perceptions,” Streeter said. “For example, most of us didn’t think that women [rode] the penny-farthing high-wheeled ordinary bikes…which were extremely difficult to maneuver in ankle-length skirts, but history reveals that women actually rode in them and raced them.”

Portland has earned a number of bicyclefriendly awards and continues to encourage and educate new bikers around the city. The Bike Hub, which is located in the Campus Rec building, is a great starting point for beginners who wish to learn city cycling.

The Bike Hub offers a number of classes, tutorials and resources throughout the year.

Clint Culpepper, the center’s supervisor, has noticed the work the city has put in to advocate bike riding.

“Portland has done so much work to get new riders, while continuing to rebuild neighborhood streets and roadmaps,” Culpepper said.

Streeter stays active spreading her message by sharing her advice and knowledge with female riders. Six years ago, during that fateful trip to Europe, Streeter discovered her love of bicycles and found it to be a way of life.

“It’s a much easier way of living, but people don’t understand that until [they] actually ride,” Streeter said. She feels that riding a bike can invigorate women of all ages, reminding them of the freedom they felt when they first pushed down a pedal and rode.

“I want to bring out that young soul again, no matter what age,” Streeter said.

PSU Bike Hub presents A workshop with April Streeter Cycling advocate and author of Women on Wheels PSU Bike Hub 1818 SW Sixth Ave. Free and open to the public.

RSVP via email to clint@pdx.edu

Israeli couscous risotto approximately 7 to 10 minutes or until cooked through, then set aside in a covered bowl.

In a medium pot, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat, add Israeli couscous and cook, stirring frequently for about 5 minutes until lightly golden and fragrant. Pour in chicken stock and bring to a boil.

Reduce to a simmer over medium-low heat and cook for 10 to 15 minutes until all of the stock has been absorbed. When half the stock has been absorbed, stir in chopped parsley and thyme.

Finish risotto by stirring in parmesan cheese, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper and cooked chicken, then serve immediately.

A delicious twist on an Italian dish Kat Audick Vanguard Staff

Risotto is a fickle friend in the pasta world. It can take an eternity to cook and has a temperamental texture that can be grainy or totally mushy when its ratios are wrong. That’s why Israeli couscous is a college kid’s secret weapon for consistently flawless mock-risotto.

Not only does Israeli couscous cook in a fraction of the time, it also holds its form better, preventing it from turning into a pile of slop. Israeli couscous can be found in most grocers’ bulk dried goods section, and it’s perfect for budget-conscious shoppers. Aside from being scrumptious, this recipe is also high in fiber and promotes healthy digestion.

Pre-frying your couscous in olive oil before adding other ingredients is the most crucial step. This is where you’ll really bring out the natural nutty flavor that takes your risotto from bland to blam!

This dish can also be transformed into a salad, giving you more delicious options. To do this, hold off on adding the other ingredients once the couscous has absorbed all the chicken.

Ingredients

Daniel Johnston/VANGUARD STAFf

college kid couscous: Take the guesswork out of risotto by using Israeli couscous. Enjoy hot or as a cold salad.

Instead, pop it into a closed container in the fridge to cool.

Chop two fresh tomatoes after removing their seeds and pulp, and double your amount of chopped parsley to 1/2 a cup. Fluff chilled couscous with a fork and stir together all of your ingredients in a bowl for a fresh and tasty dish.

INSTRUCTIONS Chop chicken breast into bite-sized pieces.

Combine salt, paprika and 1/4 teaspoon black ground pepper in a bowl and shake over chicken, rolling pieces so they are evenly coated.

Warm 2 tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan over medium high heat for 1 minute.

Add chopped seasoned chicken and saute

4 tbsp olive oil, divided 1/4 tsp kosher salt 1/4 tsp paprika 1/2 tsp ground black pepper, divided 1 chicken breast, skinless, chopped into bitesized pieces 1 cup dried Israeli couscous 2 cups chicken stock 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped 1 1/2 tbsp fresh thyme, chopped 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

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OPINiON • Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013 • VANGUARD

VANGUARD •• Thursday, THURSDAY,Jan. NOVEMBER 10, 201310, • OPINiON 2011 • SPORTS

OPINION

11

EDITOR: Meredith Meier OPINION@PSUVANGUARD.COM 503-725-5692

The discourse of difference OMSI project shows that race is a social construct miles sanguinetti/VANGUARD STAFf

One Step Off

Pros and cons at PSU

Emily Lakehomer

Take a look at some of the reasons we’re here karl kuchs/VANGUARD STAFf

© Conor ogle Photography /flickr.com

$3 million on red 22

Ms. Fudge’s Sweet Nothings Stephanie Fudge-Bernard

‘Provost’s Challenge’ a high stakes game with poor payout The Price of Everything Jake Romero “Build a better mousetrap,” Emerson is supposed to have said, “and the world will beat a path to your door.”

Why build that mousetrap in the first place? Why do we innovate? The question has been the focus of decades of research, but it’s not merely academic. Portland State’s administrative leadership thinks it knows the answer, and it’s betting—with student money—on “green.”

The “Provost’s Challenge,” now wrapping up, will use awards totaling $3 million, procured from online course fees, to “[encourage] each department on campus to think creatively,” according to Provost Sona Andrews, the challenge’s author.

There’s something odd about this rationale. It ignores 50 years’ worth of scientific research and defies the facts recently unearthed from the rubble of so many broken incentive schemes.

The research, neatly summarized by Daniel Pink in Drive and lent added nuance in a recent paper by a trio of economists from Harvard Business School and the World Bank, might be waspishly summed up with the following: Where creativity is involved, a bit of hunger and some skin in the game make you smarter.

A prize makes you dumber.

An exorbitant prize and nothing to lose, dumb and greedy.

In one well-known experiment, participants are asked to solve the “candle problem” (given a candle, matches and

a box of thumbtacks, attach the candle to the wall). Posed in a way that demands creativity to find a solution, adding monetary incentives actually diminishes performance.

In another, subjects play a game with three tiers of progressively higher monetary

We have no business ‘investing’ at the roulette table when the roof is leaking and the windows are broken.

rewards. When the game involves only mechanical play, the incentives work as desired, yielding better performance for higher pay.

When the game is designed to require even rudimentary cognitive skill, however, the cash not only diminishes performance, but does so in proportion to the size of the reward.

And in a field study of bank loan officers, HBS economist Shawn Cole and his coauthors found that it took higher stakes, not rewards, to produce better work.

Merely incentivizing loan origination wasn’t enough— if anything, such schemes

actually distorted the bankers’ perceptions of the facts they evaluated to make their decisions.

With no personal downside risk involved, in other words, the loan officers would fool themselves into thinking they were making good loans.

So, it’s hard to fathom how a “So You Think You Can Innovate?”-style competition, which violates every principle one would want to follow to engender innovation, is a responsible use of students’ money.

Why risk $3 million on potential boondoggles when there are substantive investments we could make that both carry a guaranteed return and create the conditions for organically driven innovation?

Sure enough, browsing through some of the reTHINK PSU proposals makes clear that it takes more than some creative capitalization and a big dollar sign to think outside the box.

We get the distinct impression, not of an incipient new age wherein PSU makes real all the implicit aspirations of its slick, endearingly delusive promotional materials, but of a grab bag of tinkeringat-the-margin pet projects.

We can be certain they’ll make for some glittering line items on a few select resumes, though.

Meanwhile, PSU has breadand-butter issues that demand addressing. Some of our laboratories are stocked with obsolete, poorly functioning equipment. Some of our instructors are ill-equipped or ill-disposed to teach PSU’s student demographic.

Many of our instructors, though outstanding or at least

well-meaning, are poorly supported and overworked, as our abysmal student-tofaculty ratio can attest.

This factor in particular has a far greater influence on students’ experiences during and following their studies than how well we keep up with the Joneses with a gimmicky reinvention campaign.

With every uptick in the student-faculty ratio, papers get shorter and problem sets more routine, feedback more cursory, training less rigorous, post-graduation prospects dimmer, our school’s shabby reputation still shabbier.

We have no business “investing” at the roulette table when the roof is leaking and the windows are broken.

But let’s be charitable.

The mask of leadership is sometimes inscrutable, and surely the provost is already aware that innovating is what provosts get paid so handsomely for (and, in theory, held accountable for).

Maybe this isn’t really about innovation at all.

Maybe the key to this riddle lies in one of the challenge’s other apparent motivations: not only to spark creativity but to “affect [sic] change” to address the challenges facing public higher education.

Could this all be some kind of brilliant Rommelian feint to get faculty buy-in for necessary changes to come? Some kind of activation stratagem to motivate the troops? Could such seemingly feckless leadership instead be a masterstroke of bureaucratic politics?

Perhaps. If so, that’s one pricey ploy.

In any case, you have to wonder: Judiciously invested, what could $3 million do for PSU?

Whether we like it or not, Portland State is the college we chose for the time being.

Every school has its advantages and disadvantages and the same goes for PSU, which has its own set of achievements and disappointments.

Being in the middle of an urban environment is one of PSU’s best qualities. For those searching for a city rich with environmental consciousness and interesting people, Portland is an awesome place that steals many hearts.

The beer alone could be enough to attract many students—Portland has more than 70 microbreweries and brewpubs. From the striking sour beers at Cascade Brewing to the unbelievable alcohol content in Hair of the Dog Brewing Company’s drinks, Portland is a wonderland to craft beer enthusiasts.

One eccentric quality that sets Portland apart is its enormous selection of food carts. They seem to be everywhere these days, and FoodCartPortland.com says we had 689 licensed mobile food venders at the end of 2011.

Despite the questionable sanitation inside those dark little trailers, the food that comes out is some of the best in the city and comes at an affordable price. PSU is amazingly fortunate to have so many spattered throughout the Park Blocks and along Fourth Avenue and College Street.

Despite the beer, the good food and the environmental awareness, though, we’re still in the middle of an urban environment. This means that crime will be higher, as we’ve seen from the gun-waving lunatic in Parking Structure 3 and the upsetting number of sexual assaults that keep happening around campus. We’re a fairly safe city overall, but there are

definitely some setbacks.

Downtown living also comes with a high price tag. The cost of parking is a nightmare for any student who’s already paying ever-increasing tuition.

Even if you pay a few hundred dollars for a term pass, you’ll usually get stuck circling the garages during the first week of term when everyone actually decides to shows up.

Those crazy enough to attempt to locate an apartment near campus will find the additional living costs can add thousands of dollars to their education debt. Portland has saturated itself with occupants. The city’s tiny 3.6 percent vacancy rate contributed to the more than 6 percent rise in rent during the last year.

PSU also has some random interesting points. Not all students seem to know about the bowling alley, pool room and video game area in the basement of Smith Memorial Student Union. While the equipment is a bit old and tends to break down, it’s actually a pretty fun place to meet up between classes.

It’s also close to Food For Thought Cafe, one of the only PSU dining options that don’t make your stomach churn. It’s run by students and uses local, fresh and organic foodstuffs, unlike the grease-soiled garbage that Victor’s Dining Hall (located in Ondine Residence Hall) calls food.

It’s meeting people that becomes challenging. PSU is so decentralized compared to schools like Oregon State and the University of Oregon, both of which have closed campuses. Our campus life seems strained at best and nonexistent at worst. I lived in the

See pros, cons on page 12

An exaggerated and partially untrue headline!

Misleading science article titles do a disservice to the reader and devalue science The Emphatic Observer Megan Hall The job of a journalist becomes increasingly difficult as news articles are more regularly posted on Facebook and retweeted on Twitter because of eye-catching titles rather than content.

The race is on to grab readers who may not even begin reading the content but are instead sharing a story for others to see because the headline causes a stir. And to make matters worse, news outlets themselves seem to chase after increasing the number of social media “shares,” neglecting the actual content of the writing.

Recently, the science articles I’ve come across have sported headlines that are just plain misleading. I see them spread across the Internet with comments expressing disbelief or amazement at information conveyed in the title but contradicted in the body of the article.

Case in point: Nathaniel Rich’s article in the Nov. 28, 2011 issue of The New York Times made me cringe as I read the headline: “Can a Jellyfish Unlock the Secret of Immortality?” The multipage feature is not, as the headline leads the reader to believe, about immortality, or even jellyfish for that matter.

It is, in fact, a portrait of a Japanese scientist studying

the ability of a type of hydrozoan (while related to jellyfish, they are not jellyfish) to repeat its entire lifecycle indefinitely.

However, the organism is very fragile and must be constantly cared for by the scientist to ensure it stays alive. While the researcher continues to study the organism’s ability to regenerate, it isn’t linked to any discoveries about immortality.

Immortality refers (obviously) to an organism’s ability to live forever. The hydrozoans have an ability to reverse their growth process and start it over again, which in itself is very interesting, but nonetheless very different from being “immortal.” The misleading title is simply unnecessary.

While it frustrates me that The New York Times publishes sociologically inclined features that are masquerading as scientifically based, they are definitely not the only ones to blame.

The same phenomenon presents itself in small public interest stories, such as NPR’s Dec. 9, 2012 article, “The Brontosaurus Never Even Existed.”

The article actually explains that there is now an understanding that the Brontosaurus was first identified

by a scientist who believed that the Apatosaurus was a different dinosaur. We now know that the Brontosaurus skeleton he found was just a more complete skeleton of an Apatosaurus. They are, therefore, the same dinosaur.

Not quite a case of the Brontosaurus never having existed.

Exaggerated headlines also take journal articles and frame them as major breakthroughs, such as George Dvorsky’s article, “Scientists snap a picture of DNA’s double helix for the very first time,” published in io9 on Nov. 29, 2012.

As The Guardian’s Stephen Curry quickly pointed out, this claim is simply untrue.

What actually happened was that the scientists discussed in the article took a high-contrast electron microscopy photo instead of an X-ray crystallography photo, which scientists have been using for decades.

Furthermore, the photo released is not a clear picture of the double helix, as the headline suggests, but a picture of the structure of the DNA molecule. The scientists discuss their new method for taking a clearer picture, but it’s certainly not the first picture ever taken of the double helix.

While these exaggerations may be easily dismissed as a commonly used tool in many areas of journalism, the problem is that headlines are often an individual’s only source of news.

Science journalism already faces an uphill battle in that it

deals with subject matter that many readers consider unapproachable. Many times, it is.

This makes the science journalists’ job reporting science stories more difficult because they’ve got to live up to exaggerated headlines in an attempt to gain readers.

Science writing, whether exploring a breakthrough or profiling an extended study, can be exciting, but an exaggerated headline does it a disservice.

Science writing is not political writing. There are no fiscal cliffs or general elections; there are experiments that take place over years and involve teams of researchers, and sometimes the advances are minute and unremarkable to most observers.

Science journalism shouldn’t be treated in tabloid fashion, with flashy headlines that devalue the significance of the actual findings, or judged by its number of “shares” and retweets.

The fields within science are constantly evolving— pieces of a puzzle slowly being fit together. There’s no need to pounce on every advancement as if it were breaking news.

Let us instead present science articles for what they are: information about our natural world, in which advancements and discoveries are hard to come by but are nonetheless endlessly fascinating.

No need for flashy headlines—the truth is good enough.

It’s nice to think that we’ve come pretty far as a country in the last 200-ish years. And we have, but not all at the same time. From observations on both the academic and Internet fronts, there’s a large number of people who would have us believe that America is “post-racial.”

This means that we’ve supposedly overcome the oppression powerhouse that is racism. While it would be so vastly amazing if that were to happen, it hasn’t. Sorry if that pops any utopian ideals out there, but really, we’re not post-racial.

Even if everything else about our society was pristine and beautiful and based on equality, we couldn’t be post-racial because media presences like Lena Dunham, writer and star of the HBO show Girls, and TV pundit Bill O’Reilly are allowed to display their opinions and perpetuate ignorance via mass media.

Racism isn’t natural, and race is indeed a social construct.

We create categories in order to respond to things we don’t understand.

All depressing, anti-utopian opinions aside, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry recently had a really cool exhibit that put the idea of race and identity politics at the forefront. The project, aptly named RACE, asked the question: “Are we so different?”

When it comes down to it, we’re all made up of the same stuff, but we are different. Like OMSI’s website states, “These differences have been a source of community strength and personal identity.”

Denying these differences makes communities more exclusive and denies the experiences of others. RACE is, according to OMSI, the first national-scale project

of its kind. It examines race from “biological, cultural and historical points of view.” It also introduces the idea of race as a social construct.

Many of the activities included in RACE were based on individuals sharing their experiences with others. It also delved into biology by examining hair, skin cells and even moles. This let visitors understand how bodies work and how they’re constructed.

Sadly, the exhibit ended on Jan. 1, but it provided an opportunity for discourse within and outside of academia.

To revisit the idea of race being a social construct, a recent article in The Oregonian quoted Portland State professor Robert Munoz Jr. as saying that racism “exists because we allow it to.”

Race and racism are triggering topics for many, but the fact that groups with a “history as oppressors” are discussing the issue is really great and forward-thinking.

However, that needs to extend into the outliers and include everyone in the discussion.

Within feminist theory and the feminist community, there’s an idea called intersectionality. This means that there are various means of identity—race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.—that interact and create social inequality.

Intersectionality feminists, or those who hold intersectional beliefs, believe that racism, bigotry, homophobia and other forms of oppression are all interlocking and work together to create a culture based on inequality and discrimination.

While not everyone is comfortable working under the guise of feminism, intersectionality is something that any worthwhile sociology, women’s studies or ethnic studies professor should be teaching.

Like Munoz said, racism isn’t natural, and race is indeed a social construct. We create categories in order to respond to things we don’t understand.

Dante James, a community conversation facilitator for the RACE project, said, “Racial categories and boundaries are not natural but created in response to political boundaries and pressures, and race as the concept we use today was created in the wake of European colonial conquests as justification for domination.”

See OMSI on page 12

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ETC. • Thursday, Thursday,Jan. Nov.10, 8, 2012 2013 • VANGUARD

VANGUARD • Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013 • Opinion

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Erick Bengel EDITOR@PSUVANGUARD.COM 503-725-5691

Monday, Jan. 14

MLK Tribute: School of Gender, Race and Nation 1–3 p.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union, room 228 1825 SW Broadway

The Multicultural Center will host a discussion on the dynamics of social justice and how studying race, gender and sovereignty can initiate change that leads to social freedom.

FREE

Black Cultural Affairs Board Annual Awareness Dinner Riza liu/VANGUARD STAFf

miles sanguinetti/VANGUARD STAFf

Omsi from page 11

you have, and check your own privilege on a regular basis. Remove derogatory and offensive speech from your vocabulary because, at the end of the day, it’s not doing anything for you and it’s only serving to make you uninformed and disrespectful.

Also, a little bit of empathy goes a long way.

The most important part about the RACE project is that it inspired people to talk

about racism. While mass media is doing a lot to inadvertently (or intentionally— who knows?) perpetuate a racist culture, we can counteract that by being aware of what we do, say and think.

In talking about these issues, or creating discourse, we’re already getting closer to an intersectional ideal where we can base cultural values in inclusion and equality rather than hatred and bigotry.

Heard a Rumor you’d like US to check out?

Contact us at our tip line: news@psuvanguard.com

pros, cons from page 10

Despite low retention and graduation, PSU still ranks as ‘up and coming’ dorms at PSU for two years and only became friends with a handful of people, and all the little dorm events forced onto unsuspecting residents tend to be uncomfortable for everyone.

Likely, this is one of the reasons the university has such a hard time keeping firstyear freshmen. In 2010, PSU had 1,293 first-time freshmen (meaning they’d never been to university before), but only 73 percent came back for sophomore year. Here’s the kicker: PSU’s six-year graduation rate is an abysmal 35 percent, according to an article previously published in the Vanguard [“Grad rates are up,” Jan. 11, 2011].

These numbers can be attributed to many different factors, like our nontraditional student base and working student body—and let’s not forget the large number of transfer students messing the whole system up. However, the numbers remain the statistics that influence the university’s funding as well as how employers judge PSU’s success.

Still, PSU is a really fun place to go to school, and there are tons of local businesses where students can try to get internships and start careers. U.S. News & World Report ranked PSU in its top 10 up-and-coming colleges, so maybe there’s hope for all of us yet.

More than friends?

Communication and safe sex practices in friends-with-benefits relationships

OMSI’S RACE exhibit opened doors for much-needed discussion on racism We know that race, like gender or the old world idea of virginity, is a social construct. We know what intersectionality is, but what do we do with these fancy academic terms? We put the theories of inclusion into practice.

If you want to fight racism and oppression, do it. Don’t deny the experiences of others. Help create opportunities for those who haven’t had the same privileges

5 p.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union, room 228 1825 SW Broadway

A Woman’s Right Shilpa Esther Trivedi Friends-with-benefits relationships are becoming more and more common: Studies suggest that almost two-thirds of college students have entered into at least one of these relationships. However, little research has been done on these relationship dynamics in comparison to other kinds of sexual relationships, especially as FWB relationships impact participants’ sexual and reproductive health.

A few recent studies have sought to remedy this absence of data, and one in particular has made headlines. Titled “Sexual Communication, Satisfaction, and Condom Use Behavior in Friends with Benefits and Romantic Partners,” it appeared in the November 2012 edition of the Journal of Sex Research.

Participants involved were mostly in their mid-20s. While many of the media’s articles concerning this study focus on one data point—that FWB partners are more likely than romantic partners to use condoms—the actual study is more nuanced.

The study did find that people in FWB relationships were more likely to practice safe sex and to use condoms more frequently, but it also found that both participants were also more likely to have greater numbers of additional sexual partners than people in romantic relationships.

Also, according to researchers, condom use in FWB relationships wasn’t perfect. The addition of multiple partners poses more of a risk if safety measures aren’t consistently employed. However, friendswith-benefits were more likely to discuss their other partners with each other and to talk more about outside sexual experiences, including past partners.

To me, this communication is crucial to safe sex practices, especially in an age in which a

lack of comprehensive education on these issues exists. Even if a person thinks he or she has been safe in the past, he or she may have inadvertently taken a risk or two without realizing it.

Friends-with-benefits spent more of their time together engaged in sexual activity than did those in romantic relationships, though they ultimately had less sex with each other. The study also found that these partners communicated less with each other in general about sex and thus were less likely to be sexually satisfied.

While all of this data is interesting, it’s hardly compelling, and more studies like this are needed. Because the study relied on a pool of only 376 people and most of the data originated from an online survey, isolating any one of the study’s claims and running with it could result in false conclusions. After reading the original study as well as several other articles about it, my opinion is exactly the same as it was before.

Regardless of the type of sexual relationship shared between any two (or more) people, honest and open communication about sex is the key to safer sex practices as well as sexual satisfaction. There are a number of different factors to consider when looking at the data in this study concerning what is safer sex, and some of this information is missing.

As one of the study’s researchers, social psychologist at Harvard University Justin Miller, points out, the lack of condom use in romantic relationships compared to that in FWB relationships may have more to do with exclusivity, feelings of trust and commitment than it does anything else. I take issue, though, with the assumption that trust seems to be more of a concern in romantic relationships.

It’s possible to develop trust and communication with a

sexual partner who is a friend; in fact, some level of trust should be inherent in any sexual relationship. Furthermore, because 93 percent of the study’s participants who were in so-called “traditional” relationships claimed to be exclusive, reporters discussing the data implied that a relationship must be monogamous to be considered romantic.

I disagree.

It’s possible to practice safe sex with multiple partners. Safe sex depends on being informed and willing to talk to and develop trust with all partners, no matter how many are involved.

The study didn’t include data on the sexual health of partners who believed they were in exclusive relationships but weren’t using condoms, or similar situations in which a partner wasn’t as open about past or current sexual experiences with others.

There shouldn’t be an ideal standard of what a relationship ought to look like, and it’s best for partners to figure out for themselves what’s right for all involved in a relationship. Studies like this are important, though, especially because of what they tell us about communication.

Everyone can learn a lot from looking at how things operate in different types of relationships, even relationships dissimilar to their own.

If it’s true that romantic partners are more likely to communicate with each other about the sex they’re having and are therefore more sexually fulfilled, then this is certainly a form of communication friends-with-benefits can seek to emulate.

On the other hand, if FWB partners are more likely to talk to each other about prior sexual experiences, they’re more likely to discuss safe sex practices.

We can all seek ways to make the type of relationship or relationships we prefer safer for ourselves and our partners by openly engaging in honest dialogue on these issues and seeking ways to communicate better about everything that pertains to sexual safety.

COURTESY OF Women on Wheels

Local author April Streeter provides a look at the daring women who helped to grow the cycling movement and offers advice to city cyclists at noon on Wednesday, Jan. 16, at PSU’s Bike Hub. Thursday, Jan. 10

Archaeology First Thursday 4–5 p.m.

Cramer Hall, room 41 1721 SW Broadway

Every first Thursday of the month stop by the Anthropology Department to attend a free lecture.

This week, Eric Gleason from the National Park Service focuses on uncovering the Chinese presence from the past in The Dalles.

FREE

Master of Science in Financial Analysis Information Session 6 p.m.

College of Urban and Public Affairs, Memorial Boardroom 506 SW Mill St.

If you are considering a Master of Science in Financial Analysis degree this information session will help you discover everything that you need to know, including future career opportunities as well as information about admission into the FREE program.

Advanced Screening: Zero Dark Thirty 7 p.m.

Lloyd Center Cinema 10 1510 NE Multnomah St.

The creators of The Hurt Locker return to the screen with another compelling story, about one of history’s greatest manhunts. For more information visit zerodarkthirtymovie.com.

Friday, Jan. 11

Women Veterans Outreach Action Team 9–10 a.m.

Women’s Resource Center 1802 SW 10th Ave.

The goal of the Women Veterans Action Team is to provide support and the special resources that women veterans need. Meetings are held bimonthly at the Women’s Resource FREE Center.

Women of Color Action Team Noon–1 p.m.

Women’s Resource Center 1802 SW 10th Ave.

With meetings twice a month, the Women of Color Action Team provides support and a sense of community for women of color on the Portland State campus.

FREE

Saturday, Jan. 12

Portland Bridal Show 10 a.m.

Oregon Convention Center 777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

The Portland Bridal Show is a chance to see various fashion shows and meet with various vendors and wedding specialists. Tickets are $9 at the door or can be purchased in advance at portlandbridalshow.com.

Hungover Brunch 9 a.m.–3 p.m.

Swift Lounge 1932 NE Broadway

If you have had a rough weekend Swift Lounge has the cure with a specialized menu designed for rejuvenation every Saturday and Sunday. This brunch is always 21+ and the only cost is the price of food. 21+

Sunday, Jan. 13

Loudon Wainwright III at the Aladdin 7 p.m. doors, 8 p.m. show The Aladdin Theater 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave.

Grammy award winner Loudon Wainwright III will be at the Aladdin Theater for a show that precedes the release of his latest album.

Admission is $30 and all ages are welcome at the show.

The Black Cultural Affairs Board will be holding their first dinner to provide an annual forum for students to openly discuss issues that need to be address in order to form a more inclusive student community on campus.

This year the focus will be a discussion on the present need of faculty color in FREE the classroom.

Tuesday, Jan. 15

Faculty Favorite Lecture Series: Ben Anderson-Nathe 2–4 p.m.

Women’s Resource Center 1802 SW 10th Ave.

Dr. Ben Anderson-Nathe will be at the Women’s Resource Center leading a discussion that investigates the discourse of the It Gets Better Project, first started by sex columnist FREE Dan Savage in 2010.

13

ETC.

Multicultural Center MLK Student Pep Rally

Shrouded: Indicators of Holy War in Southeast Asia

4–6 p.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union, room 228 1825 SW Broadway

6 p.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union, room 298 1825 SW Broadway St.

Join fellow students at the Multicultural Center’s “Reflect and Connect Session,” a pep rally aimed at pumping students up for open discussion about race and social justice.

Dr. Shane Barter, assistant professor of comparative politics at Soka University, will be giving a presentation on possible indicators of holy war in FREE Southeast Asia.

Art of Musical Maintenance

MLK Tribute: Brother Outsider

5 p.m.

Goodfoot Lounge 2845 SE Stark St.

The Goodfoot Lounge presents an art show based around concert poster creation. The show will be long-running and feature more than 300 posters from more than 40 individual artists. FREE

Wednesday, Jan. 16

Women on Wheels Noon–1 p.m.

PSU Bike Hub 1818 SW Sixth Ave.

April Streeter, local author of the book Women on Wheels will be at the PUS Bike Hub to discuss the history of women’s cycling as well as offer a workshop for bike enthusiasts new FREE and old.

MLK Tribute: Viva La Causa Noon–1:30 p.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union, room 228 1825 SW Broadway

The Multicultural Center will be offering a screening of Viva La Causa, a film chronicling the story of Cesar Chavez and his leadership in the fight for farmworkers’ rights during the Latino Civil Rights Movement of the FREE ’60s.

6–8 p.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union, room 228 1825 SW Broadway

Brother Outsider is a film dedicated to the story of Bayard Rustin—an organizer of one of the largest nonviolent protests in the United States, the 1963 march on Washington—who was also openly gay during a historiFREE cally homophobic time.

Thursday, Jan. 17

The From Oregon with Love (Oregon kara ai) 7 p.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union, room 228 1825 SW Broadway

The Multicultural Center will host Sho Dozono, CEO of Azumano Travel, who will discuss the rise in tourism from Japan to Oregon thanks to Fuji Television’s popular drama, From Oregon with Love FREE (Oregon kara ai).

= on PSU campus FREE = free of charge = open to the public 21+ = 21 and over

14

VANGUARD ••Thursday, TUESDAY, JANUARY Jan. 10, 2013 10, 2012 • SPORTS • ETC.

SPORTS

EDITOR: MARCO ESPAñA SPORTS@PSUVANGUARD.COM 503-725-4538

Women’s basketball looking to build momentum Vikings ready to get season back on track against conference rivals Rosemary Hanson Vanguard staff

The Portland State women’s basketball team hopes to end a two-game losing streak as they go back on the road to take on California State University, Sacramento on Thursday and Northern Arizona University on Saturday.

The Vikings are in the midst of reworking their strategy to account for an injury to Kate Lanz two weeks ago, and should face a tough test against their Big Sky rivals.

The team will rely on senior guards Courtney VanBrocklin and Karley Lampman to help make up for the absence on the offensive end. On defense, the Vikings turn to junior forward Angela Misa, who leads the team in rebounding by a wide margin this season, including a near

record-breaking 21 rebounds in the preseason matchup against Butler University.

The Sacramento State Hornets sit at 6-6 overall and 1-2 in conference play, and are coming off a loss to the Southern Utah University Thunderbirds on Saturday. Like Portland State, the Hornets have had rebounding troubles of their own— Southern Utah was able to get 19 second-chance points from their 22 rebounds against Sacramento State.

With a 2-10 record overall and 1-2 in the Big Sky, Northern Arizona occupies the spot directly below Sacramento State in the conference standings. Unlike the Hornets, though, their last game (also a matchup with Southern Utah) resulted in a 71-61 victory.

Senior guard Amy Patton has been a force for the Lumberjacks on the offensive end of the floor as well as on the glass. In the second half of their game against Southern Utah, Patton made school history when she sank a shot that broke the Northern Arizona all-time scoring record.

Patton is joined in the leadership role by junior guard Amanda Frost, who scored a career-high 27 points against the Thunderbirds in her first appearance of the season and was named Big Sky Player of the Week for the effort.

Tipoff for the game against Sacramento State is scheduled for 7 p.m. tonight. The Northern Arizona matchup will begin at 5:35 p.m. on Saturday.

Live stats are available on goviks.com.

karl kuchs/VANGUARD STAFF

on point: Senior guard Courtney VanBrocklin will be crucial to the Vikings’ success this season.

Rose City Rollers ready for new year A look ahead to a loaded derby schedule in PDX Travis Kremer Vanguard staff

In less than two weeks’ time, the thundering rumble of the roller derby will slam back into the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

On Jan. 19 at 5:45 p.m., the Heartless Heathers will take on the Guns N Rollers in the first official bout of the Rose City Rollers intra-league season. The matchup will be immediately followed by a second full-length bout between the High Rollers and the Break Neck Betties. It will be a night of raffles, drummers, T-shirt cannons and just a little good old-fashioned violence.

For the unfamiliar, the Rose City Rollers league is made up of six adult competitive teams, along with one competitive team for teens and several noncompetitive squads and training programs. There are currently four in-home teams

competing over the course of the derby season, with two travel teams: the Wheels of Justice for national-level competitions and the Axles of Annihilation, the Rose City b-team that competes against teams across the Northwest. The league has been in business since 2004 and is a founding member of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association.

Last year, the High Rollers rode a four-match winning streak to close out the regular season only to lose to the Break Neck Betties by five points in the season championship. The High Rollers have finished at the top of the standings over the last three seasons in number of games won, but the Betties have beaten them for the home season championship the last two years running.

Rose City finished up 2012

© john rudoff, m.d.

rough and tumble: The Rose City Rollers league offers one of the more unique local sports options. Bouts are scheduled throughout the year, and the league continues to reach new fans. with the Wheels of Justice taking fourth place in the WFTDA West Region playoffs—one spot short of competing in the national championships. It was the third year in a row that Rose City has placed fourth or better in the regional playoffs, includ-

ing a 2011 run to the championships, where they were knocked out in the first round by the Kansas City Roller Warriors in a close 143-135 bout.

This month will also see the first game of the year for the junior league Rosebuds

on Jan. 26. The RCR junior league is home to the Death Scar Derby Dolls, Undead Avengers, Little Red Riveters and Rainbow Bites. Last year saw the first junior league home team championships, as the Death Scar Derby Dolls

barely took down the Little Red Riveters for first place with a final score of 115–106.

The derby season is nigh upon us, so grab your favorite guy or gal and prepare yourself for a fresh helping of flat track intensity in 2013.

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VANGUARD • Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013 • SPORTS

NFL wild card: quarterback woes Playoffs prove tough initiation for young QBs

Upcoming Games Thursday, Jan. 10

Women’s basketball

@ Vikings @ Sacramento State The Nest 7 p.m.

men’s basketball

Gino Cerruti Vanguard staff

With Washington Redskins rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III sitting on the sideline, face in hands, the final seconds of his team’s wildcard matchup against the Seattle Seahawks came to a close.

Thus ends the first weekend of NFL playoffs—a series of a few surprises and a large dose of disappointment. Although the home-field teams won three out of four games played last weekend, the overwhelming presence of displeasure seemed to outweigh the glee.

Coverage of each game was littered with shots of dejected fans. To come so far and fall is enough of a reason to look for someone to blame, and in these cases the blame fell squarely on the shoulders of the quarterbacks. Both losing teams of Saturday’s games— the Cincinnati Bengals and Minnesota Vikings—dealt with similar problems.

The Bengals struggled to put points on the board as the Texans routinely forced second-year quarterback Andy Dalton’s offense to punt.

Dalton missed his receivers with more than half of his attempts and finished with a dismal 127 yards. After Cincinnati somehow found themselves with a chance to take the lead in the fourth quarter,

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Vikings vs. Sacramento State Peter Stott Center 7:35 p.m.

NBA

vs.

Trail Blazers vs. Miami Rose Garden Arena 7:30 p.m. © brad mills, usa today sports

down goes griffin: Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III took a beating in his first career playoff appearance.

WHL Dalton overthrew wide receiver A.J. Green, sealing the Bengals’ fate.

Many cited Dalton’s lack of experience as the principal cause of the team’s demise, and Vikings backup quarterback Joe Webb was no different. Webb, who didn’t throw a single pass during the regular season, was a surprise replacement when it was announced before the game that starting quarterback Christian Ponder had suffered a triceps injury. It was quite a blow to the Minnesota team, but a hint of hope remained for fans as long as running back Adrian Peterson—who was nine yards shy of breaking Eric Dicker-

son’s single-season all-time record for total rushing yards this year—was still active.

That glimmer of hope was thoroughly extinguished, however, as the Green Bay Packers held the Vikings to just three points for most of the game, ultimately winning comfortably by a couple of touchdowns. Although Peterson managed to rush for 99 yards, his talent was not enough to carry the team away from a poor performance by Webb—one interception, three sacks and almost two-thirds of attempts missed.

Sunday’s games were also a showcase for young talent, as three of the four teams on the

schedule started rookies behind center. The two quarterbacks on the losing teams—Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts, and Griffin—were the number one and two picks in the 2012 NFL draft, respectively, and their skill was truly on display throughout the regular season. The playoffs proved to be an entirely different story, but unlike with Dalton and Webb the situation was largely out of their control.

There were a grand total of seven drops by Colts receivers, with four of them coming on third or fourth down—crucial mistakes that cost Indianapolis the game against the red-hot Baltimore Ravens. Griffin, who seemed a little off for most of the

game, fell awkwardly during play in the fourth quarter and a badly injured his knee. He had been playing the past few weeks with a knee brace after sustaining an injury in week 14, which had affected his rushing prowess and ability to throw long distances. With the Redskins’ entire offensive attack diminished, the Seahawks’ defense was able to take control.

A glance at each quarterback’s stats paints a picture of utter failure, but that only demonstrates the flawed value of numbers. Though Luck and Griffin both failed to reach Super Bowl glory, there is no doubt that they will have a great chance next year.

Long break no problem for track and field Vikings look to get back into the swing of things this weekend Alex Moore Vanguard staff

The Portland State track and field team enjoyed a long vacation, but that doesn’t mean they took it easy. With many of the athletes sacrificing their break to train, head coach Ronnye Harrison and the Vikings are ready for a busy indoor season. Portland State will be back on the track this weekend at the University of Washington Indoor Preview in Seattle. The meet will be the team’s first since the Jacksons Open in Boise, Idaho at the end of November.

“This is a dedicated group, a dedicated team,” assistant coach Jonathan Marcus said.

“Those people that have been putting in the consistent work over time are seeing the results. That’s the culture— enjoying the process of working so hard. It’s good to see a

Friday, Jan. 11

group working hard and getting better.”

The Vikings look forward to an especially intensive stretch in their schedule; they’ll have six meets between now and the Big Sky Championships on Feb. 22 in Bozeman, Mont. The women’s team finished third in the championships last season, and hope to better that this season. Marcus is confident they will do exactly that.

“We will definitely be in the running,” he said. “That’s why these athletes are working hard, in the rain, in the cold and over winter break when everyone is at home—to have a shot at the team title.”

Senior Geronne Black will lead the women’s team this season and, after a year full of broken records for the sprinter, she and the coaching

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Winterhawks vs. Spokane Rose Garden Arena 7 p.m.

NBA

@ Trail Blazers @ Golden State Oracle Arena 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, Jan. 12

Track and field UW Indoor Preview Seattle, Wash.

8 a.m.

women’s basketball

@ Vikings @ Northern Arizona J. Lawrence Walkup Skydome 5:35 p.m.

men’s basketball

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Vikings vs. Northern Arizona Peter Stott Center 7:35 p.m.

WHL

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Winterhawks @ Everett Comcast Arena 7:05 p.m.

Sunday, Jan. 11 © stanley brewster/goviks.com

off to the races: Geronne Black sprints to the finish at the Jacksons Open.

NBA

vs. staff have even higher expectations this season. Black didn’t waste any time getting her 2012–13 campaign started, finishing first in the 60-meter dash at the Jacksons Open.

“She is on fire in practice,” Marcus said. “She’s stronger, she’s faster than she ever has been. I expect to see some conference championships out of her. She’s on a whole other level. She will rewrite the record

books again this season.”

After the UW Preview this weekend, the Vikings travel south to Albuquerque, N.M. to compete in the Cherry and Silver Invitational on Jan. 18 and 19.

Trail Blazers vs.

Oklahoma City Rose Garden Arena 6 p.m.