Portland State Vanguard - November 19, 2013

VOLUME 68 | ISSUE 15

NOVEMBER 19, 2013

NEWS

OPINION

ARTS & CULTURE

SPORTS

Authors of Dollarocracy look at the influence of money and the media on American Politics. pg. 6

Goodbye modern technology! One family goes back to living like it’s 1986. pg.8

A new PSU program aims to change the way high school students learn about Arab culture. pg. 14

How good are the Blazers? A positionby-position ranking of the Trailblazers starting five. pg. 21

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NEWS

HELEN GORDON CENTER RECEIVES FEDERAL GRANT $1.5 MILLION WILL BE USED TO SUPPORT THE CHILD CARE ACCESS MEANS PARENTS IN SCHOOL PROGRAM

KARISA CLEARY

The Helen Gordon Child Development Center at Portland State was approved to receive a federal grant of $1.5 million in order to sustain the Child Care Access Means Parents In School program for the next four years. This will be the second time in a row the center has received this grant and the third time altogether, thanks to the success shown from the previous years of funding.

These funds will not only assist the center in adding qualified staff, but they will also allow over 25 low-income student parents at PSU to attain an education by helping pay for their child’s preschool tuition.

Ellie Justice, director of the HGCDC, is thrilled to see these student families succeed through the CCAMPIS grant.

“We are excited and grateful to be able to better meet campus needs in child care and have seen tremendous growth in the last three years in PSU’s ability to support parents in childcare,” she said.

“Less hours of work means more family time and time to study, and students can take more coursework.”

Students who qualify can receive anywhere from 25 to 50 percent off of their childcare tuition, this is an improvement over the last award, which only gave 15 to

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30 percent off.

Priority is given to military affiliates and Pell Grant eligible families in order to assist those in greatest need.

Tracking and surveying of the students involved with these subsidies is done every single year. Results have shown that the GPAs of these students have increased, along with student retention. Surveys have also displayed a great reduction of stress in student parents.

Will Parnell, associate professor of early childhood education at PSU, shared some statistics of those surveys.

“41 percent of students said they would have had to quit school without [this] grant, which is highly significant to us,” Parnell said. “[This] proves that student families benefit from subsidies.”

Kelsey Benny, current PSU senior and liberal studies major, has experienced great success in academics over the past four years by being able to send her son to the center with the help of the CCAMPIS program grants.

“After having a child, my income was cut in half.

I made a decision to go back to school and take pre-reqs for nursing,” Benny said.

“Between working two nights a week as a server at a restaurant I used to manage, taking care of [my] son and studying, there’s no way I could have afforded [it].

“Three days a week [at the Center] would be 85 percent as much as our rent.”

Run partially on student fees, the Center is actually less expensive than other off-campus child care. For many student families, obtaining a degree wouldn’t be possible without this program and the grant supporting it. “[It is] definitely a big relief to have help with my son’s tuition,” says Benny.

Along with the support CCAMPIS gives to low-income student families, the grant is also used by the center to improve the historic building and hire additional teachers to increase enrollment numbers.

Justice described the center’s plans for enhancement. “[We will] allow priority enrollment [to] younger children, under [the age of ] three, which is a high unmet need here...” Justice said.

“Our program is currently maxed out, with a wait list.”

The grant stretches further by aiding in graduate assistantships for the Early Childhood Education master’s program at PSU. Graduate assistants are able to put in hours of coursework at the center in a hands-on way.

“The Helen Gordon Center is accredited and connected to an ECE degree, but the new grant connects us even more with the master’s of ECE through heightened graduate assistant interaction with children in the center,” Parnell said.

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CLARISSA MILLER, a student teacher at the Helen Gordon Child Development Center, keeps an eye on a pair of children.

BRIAN NGUYEN /PSU VANGUARD

The CCAMPIS program has plans to further their subsidies toward low-income families with this upcoming grant, taking effect in Octoberof2014.TheHelenGordon Center even offers 60 classroom assistant job positions to current undergradstudents.

PSU also offers other programs—like the Jim Sells program—to provide financial assistance to families who need childcare on and off campus. “[The PSU] campus is rallied around student parents,” Justice said.

For more information on the HGCDC, visit: http://www.hgcdc. pdx.edu/.

And for more information on the federal grant for CCAMPIS, visit: http://schoolofed.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/1– 5-million-federal-grant-approved-foron-campus-child-care/.

PSU, OPERATION NIGHTWATCH TO HELP HOMELESS HEATHER WILSON

During the month of November, Portland State is featuring an on-campus donation drive, partnering with Operation Nightwatch to help collect blankets, socks, warm clothing and books for Portland’s homeless population.

Collection bins will be located in Smith Memorial Student Union, Cramer Hall, Neuberger Hall, the Science Research and Teaching Center, the School of Education and the library until Nov. 29.

Paula Henderson, a PSU senior and volunteer with Operation Nightwatch, organized the campus drive. Henderson noticed the charitable organization had very few warm clothing items to hand out to the homeless this winter and decided to organize collection sites on campus to ensure the program’s success.

“They had no socks and no blankets to hand out, and I wanted to find a way to make sure the organization had what they needed to help the homeless stay warm and dry,” Henderson said.

PSU fraternity Phi Delta Theta will help with the drive by collecting and storing any donated items until they can be delivered to Operation Nightwatch’s downtown facility.

“Working with the charity drive affords us an opportunity to get involved in outreach to support other student organizations in philanthropy efforts,” said Brian Owlsey, president of Phi Delta Theta. Owlsey said that philanthropy is an important part of Phi Delta Theta’s mis-

sion. “We are thankful for any opportunity to give back to the campus community and reach out to the Portland community at large.”

Operation Nightwatch was established in downtown Portland in 1981. For 32 years, they have worked to make sure those that those who live on the streets have the essential items they need to survive. In addition to their downtown service, they also help serve the homeless in the St. Johns area. Next month they will be expanding to help the homeless in Vancouver.

Operation Nightwatch is not a homeless shelter; they focus on helping homeless people who can’t or won’t stay in homeless shelters.

Through their hospitality centers, they provide food, clothing and toiletries to those living on the street.

Gary Davis, executive director of Operation Nightwatch, says the organization serves 600 to 700 people per month throughout the year.

During the winter, the organization focuses on providing the items people need to stay warm and dry while sleeping on the streets.

“They avoid shelters for various reasons,” Davis said.

“Some say they don’t feel safe there, some get their property stolen and some say the shelters are just too crowded and they can’t sleep with so much snoring.”

Without shelters, homeless individuals have no access to bathing or laundry facilities, so the personal care items and clean clothing offered by Operation

Nightwatch is a big help for those living on the street. In the Northwest’s cold and wet winters, dry socks are more than a matter of comfort— they help prevent foot rot, a serious medical condition caused by constant exposure to cold, damp conditions.

In addition to providing the homeless with food and warm clothing, the organization also accepts donated books for their lending library. Mystery and action novels are the most popular among the largely male population, but romance novels and non-fiction books are always appreciated as well.

“We have a lot of readers out there,” Davis said. “If you’re living on the streets you don’t have TV or an iPod, so reading is one of the few ways you can entertain yourself.”

Henderson is hoping book donations to the PSU drive will help expand Operation Nightwatch’s currently sparse library collection.

“They have a library, but right now they don’t have any books,” she said. The drive is also accepting warm clothing items like blankets, socks, gloves, coats, rain gear and sweatshirts. “Socks and gloves are always in high demand, and blankets go out as soon as they come in, so there is always a need for blankets.”

Items can be new or used, Henderson said, “As long as they are clean and in good condition.”

If you would like to know more about Operation Nightwatch, visit their website at www.operationnightwatch.org.

NEWS

Campus drive for OPERATION NIGHTWATCH to collect warm clothing for the homeless.

JOSE-DAVID JACOBO/PSU VANGUARD

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NEWS

VISITING AUTHORS EXPLORE ‘DOLLAROCRACY’ POLITICAL SPENDING, THEY SAY, NEEDS TO BE KEPT IN CHECK ROBERT EVERSMANN

Robert McChesney and John Nichols, the authors of Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Complex is Destroying America, visited Portland State on Thursday to discuss their book. They spoke with the Vanguard before giving a presentation in Smith Memorial Student Union to about 50 people.

“We [the U.S.] no longer meet the minimum requirements to qualify as a democracy,” they argued.

“We have a system that is now defined more by one dollar, one vote than by one person, one vote,” said McChesney, the Gutgsell Endowed Professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Nichols is the Washington correspondent for The Nation. Together the two cite the Citizens United 2010 Supreme Court decision as one of the most significant contributing factors to what they call “dollarocracy.” The ruling maintained that political spending is protected under the First Amendment as a form of free speech.

“The CU decision essentially unleashed spending by billionaires on our campaigns and made that spending potentially anonymous and unaccountable,” McChesney said.

The decision, according to PSU assistant professor of political science David Johns, “reinforces the unequal political influence of citizens and groups of citizens based on their wealth.” He explained that the CU case increased the influence of the wealthy

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on the electoral process, “distorting it until it resembles the distorted distribution of wealth in the United States.”

According to McChesney, the authors’ book is the first to track the amount of money spent on the 2012 presidential elections. “The general theory was that about 6 billion dollars was spent by both parties and all their independent supporters,” Nichols said. “But what we determined, what was actually spent, was a total of more than 10 billion dollars.”

Nichols suggested that the greater inflow of corporate money into politics “can actually shift the election process,” especially at the state level. The two found that 4 billion of the 10 billion dollars spent on elections in 2012 was at the state level.

By way of example, Nichols described a municipal election, “which often [has] 10 or 12 percent turnout,” where someone is voted into the responsibility of managing a multi-billion dollar budget. He said that in a close race, “you get a mandate from only about 6 or 7 percent of the population, but 94 percent didn’t vote.”

The authors see “dollarocracy” as a systematic effort to make the government work more for corporations than for people. Corporate money in politics, McChesney said, is “undermining the ability of elections.”

“Elections are the one moment where everyone is the same, when Phil Knight and the people who clean toilets at Nike offices have the same power,” he said. “That’s always scared people with great

wealth.” He argued that democratic elections are a threat to corporate influence.

“Wealth has become more and more concentrated in the United States,” Johns said, “and this great inequality has a profound effect on politics… those with great wealth have a disproportionate ability to write the rules in a way that benefits them.”

Dollarocracy is not the first book that McChesney and Nichols have penned together.

They examined the media in their 2010 book, The Death and Life of American Journalism, and maintain that the press plays a role in the political circumstances they’ve observed.

“It’s not just money and politics [contributing to dollarocracy], but the disappearance of credible journalism to counter the influence of the money,” Nichols said at their talk. Both suggest that media has lost its bite and has ceased to keep corporate power in check.

“There are dramatically fewer newspaper reporters,” Nichols said. “Television news programs shave down content to make room for advertisements.”

“The dominant vehicle by which we communicate about politics today is through advertising,” he continued. “And [advertisements], by their very nature, are designed to give a false impression.

“We’ve ended up with a politics that is deeply disappointing to most people. Not just because of the money but because of the media.”

Nichols argued that media has become dominated by a “false dialogue managed by very wealthy people,” meaning

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PHOTOGRAPHER/VANGUARD STAFF

©NATION BOOKS

real issues that matter to ordinary people get left out of the political conversation. “And then people believe the system is so rigged against them, so they don’t vote,” he continued.

To counteract “dollarocracy,” the authors call for a group of amendments to the Constitution. McChesney

said that the first of these would ensure that “money is not speech and corporations are not people.”

The authors urge PSU students, faculty and staff—as well as young people at large— to get involved. “Understand that almost nothing big has happened in this country

without young people getting engaged,” Nichols said.

“What we’re handing [younger generations] right now is an unacceptable infrastructure of democracy. It doesn’t work well,” he added.

“We need young people to come in to rip it up and make big changes.”

NEWS

PSU COLLEGE DEMOCRATS CLUB REINSTATED NEW LEADERSHIP GUIDES CLUB TO A MORE ACTION-BASED APPROACH KENNEDY MARTIN

During the second week of fall term, the Portland State College Democrats were reinstated as an official PSU club. The group has existed for the past two years but was unable to get enough officers and members together last spring to be counted as an official club, which also made them unable to apply for funding.

Brought back together by new president Landru Parker, the Portland State College Democrats plan to be much more active this year.

“It’s an exciting time for the club; we’re really getting back on our feet and starting to integrate ourselves back into the PSU community,” Parker said.

Currently the club is working on becoming a chapter of the National College Democrats Organization. They have also joined forces with University of Oregon and Pacific University in an effort to become certified as a state federation. These titles would give the College Democrats more power to endorse movements and candidates.

The club is also working to advance progressive causes by influencing public policy through voter awareness, outreach events, fundraising and signature gathering.

The group will support the election of progressive candidates and serve as a forum for political discussion and

education. They also strive to provide the PSU community with resources to learn and act on political issues.

“We are really focused on political action. It’s great to be able to sit around and talk about issues, but it doesn’t do any good if nothing is then done about them,” Parker said. “We really prefer to talk about why an issue is important, explain what we can do and then go out and act.”

This quarter, the College Democrats are working closely with Oregon United for Marriage, a coalition working to win freedom to marry for same-sex couples in Oregon.

There was a training session at the club’s first meet-

ing, allowing members to help gather signatures for petitions. They also canvassed at the recent Ok Go concert on campus, where they collected approximately 50 signatures toward the Oregon United for Marriage cause.

“We are very grateful for the help and efforts of the PSU College Democrats and look forward to collaborating with them in the future,” said Owen Christofferson, PSU chapter chair of Students United for Marriage, in an email.

The biggest challenge the club has faced so far has been rebuilding the club from scratch.

“It has its benefits though; being so new has pushed us to reach out to other student groups and partner together

in collaborative efforts in order to be successful,” said Marcus Sis, vice president of the College Democrats.

Another important collaboration for the club is with the Students for a Sensible Drug Policy. They plan on working with student housing and the campus public safety office to get a Good Samaritan Policy put in place on campus.

This policy allows students to call 911 if assistance for an intoxicated or impaired student is needed, without having to fear that they themselves will be subject to college disciplinary action regarding the university’s alcohol policy.

The club is also working to pass a resolution through As-

CRIME BLOTTER

Week of Nov. 11 - Nov. 17

ASHLEY RASK

Nov. 13

Exclusion

Smith Memorial Student Union At 2:00 a.m. Officers Shawn McKenzie and Chris Fischer-Williams located nonstudent Ezra Salken, who was asleep on the basement level of SMSU. Salken was initially uncooperative. An exclusion was issued.

Theft

Smith Memorial Student Union At 4:19 p.m. Officer David Baker took a cell phone theft report from a student who left her Google Nexus in the fourth floor genderneutral restroom of SMSU. The student left the cell phone at 9:30 a.m. and was unable to locate it at 9:50 a.m. No further information.

Disturbance

University Place Hotel At 5:21 p.m. Officers Baker, Peter Ward, and Gary

sociated Students of Portland State University to ban the use of student fee dollars on bottled water.

In the future, the College Democrats hope to have the power to endorse ballot issues and candidates statewide. They also plan to begin tabling on campus.

“We would love to table and have all the issues we support laid out so that someone stopping by to look at one petition may then realize they also want to sign the other three we have available,” Parker said. “It would be a great way to get the word out about a lot of topics at once.”

For more information visit https://www.facebook.com/ PSUCollegeDems.

Smeltzer responded to the above hotel on a report of a male causing a disturbance in the lobby. Officer Baker contacted Leslie Jones, who is not affiliated with PSU, and learned that Jones was a guest at the hotel and was upset because staff refused to provide him a room key without identification. Jones stated that he was in extreme pain and was staying at the hotel on a voucher from Oregon Health & Science University because he had surgery the following morning.

Officers were able to restore peace and clear the call.

Disturbance

University Place Hotel At 6:11 p.m. Officers Ward and Baker responded to a second call at the hotel regarding Jones causing a disturbance in the hotel’s restaurant. According to staff, Jones became “irate” and started yelling and swearing because he did not want to wait any longer for his chicken dinner. The on-duty manager decided that Jones

could remain in the hotel due to special circumstances, but he was excluded from the restaurant and any future issues would result in his removal from the hotel. Officers Ward and Baker contacted Jones, communicated the manager’s conditions and warned Jones that any future disturbances that evening would result in his arrest for disorderly conduct and removal from the hotel. Jones agreed to remain in his room.

Nov. 14 Trespass

Parkway Manor At 5:38 p.m. Officers Brenton Chose and Ward responded to a call from two staff members about non-student and known trespasser Christopher Kreloff being in a student’s apartment without them present.

Upon being contacted, Kreloff said that the resident let him into the room earlier before she went to work. Kreloff was arrested for trespass.

Marijuana and Alcohol Violations

BroadwayHousingBuilding At 10:19 p.m. Officer Jonathan Buck and Officer Chose were dispatched to the above building to assist a Resident Assistant with the odor of marijuana coming from a room. After the RA entered the room, Officer Buck contacted the room’s 18-year-old resident. Resident denied possessing or smoking marijuana and consented to a search, which located two unopened alcoholic beverages in refrigerator and two black plastic packages (medical marijuana packaging) containing residue amounts of marijuana in her trash can. Alcoholic beverages and residue amount of marijuana were destroyed.

Violations forwarded Housing and Dean of Student Life.

Nov. 15

Inappropriate Behavior

SchoolofBusinessAdministration At 1:00 p.m. a student was approached by a male who aggressively “bummed” a cigarette from her and angrily

told her that he would be talking to her after she was done with a phone call she was on.

She moved away, but the male then followed her and in the process of following her began “playing” with a PSU cart.

After playing with the cart the male left the area. Subject had a large knife on his belt in a translucent green sheath (the knife was not displayed in a threatening manner) and was in his early 20s and described as Hispanic or Pacific Islander, wearing baggy jeans, a hoodie and a bandana on his head.

Nov. 17

Student Code of Conduct

ParkingStructureOne At 2:05 a.m. Officers Brian Rominger and Buck responded to a complaint from a student of a car spinning cookies on the roof of the above parking structure. A black Infiniti G35 was stopped on the north side and was emitting the smell of burnt rubber and hot brakes.

The student driving the car admitted to spinning out on the roof. Three other students

were also inside the car did not admit to driving on the roof. Several long, black tire skid marks were found on the roof of the structure. A report will be forwarded to the Dean of Student Life and Transportation & Parking Services for evaluation and estimated repair costs to the structure.

Exclusion, Criminal Mischief III

University Center Building At 2:38 p.m. Officer Jared Schuurmans was dispatched to a report of a female, later identified as non-student Rebecca L. Timpe who had a bloody nose and was in the above building, which was locked and secure. It was found that Timpe had created a bio hazardous mess in both the male and female restrooms on the fourth floor.

Timpe was later found in the Urban Plaza and was issued an exclusion.

For full crime blotter listing visit psuvanguard.com

Vanguard | NOVEMBER 19, 2013 | psuvanguard.com

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OPINION

1986: UTOPIA? IDEALIZING THE PAST DOESN'T CHANGE ANYTHING

Everywhere and Here

by Eva-Jeanette Rawlins I recently heard a story about a family in Canada who are living like it’s 1986. They have given up all forms of technology that were not invented before that year, which is when parents Blair McMillan and Morgan Patey were born. They want to raise their kids just like they were raised, without all the noise of today’s technology-crazed society. The father, McMillan, willingly sports a mullet. Now that’s commitment. Or maybe just an excuse.

Why a trip down memory lane? Well, it’s the kids’ fault.

One day, McMillan asked his son Trey to come play outside, but Trey was too busy swiping his little finger across his dad’s iPad, and that was that. He paid for this mistake dearly. “When I was a kid,” McMillan told the Toronto Sun, “I lived outside.”

The idea that Trey was more content sitting in front of a screen than climbing a tree was unacceptable.

That’s when they swore off the internet, cell phones and anything that begins with “i.” Out the door they went. CDs weren’t widely distributed in 1986 either, which surprised me because they already seem archaic nowadays. It’s hard to believe they were barely available in the late 1980s. So cassette tapes are now McMillan’s only source of music. Y’know, those rectangular plastic things with two holes that you sometimes see in vintage shops.

McMillan and Patey are trying for a year what most of us would find unthinkable. Giving up Facebook for Lent is about as far as my friends have gone, and that feels pretty huge. I think they may have suffered withdrawal symptoms. Imagine

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CORINNA SCOTT/PSU VANGUARD

going completely cold turkey by saying goodbye to your cellphone, personal computer, Netflix, Hulu and the internet in general. It would be a foreign existence. The internet has always been there. It’s like, well, part of the family.

McMillan and Patey kicked that family member out and didn’t bother to wave goodbye. They even braved a road trip across the U.S. without technology. They used a map to find their way, and the kids had to settle for coloring books and stickers to keep themselves entertained. Talk about traumatic.

On the one hand, I love what they’re doing. I wish I could be as brave as them. As I write this, a mother and toddler are sitting in the booth next to me. The mother’s been on her cellphone the entire time, and the little guy is talking to himself as she texts. No, I’m not judging her. I’m sure she’s a fabulous mom. It’s not about that. It’s just that today, technology affects every area of our lives—how much we interact with each other on a personal level, how much we see the world around us and how we rest. It worms its way into every part of our day. To do away with that would radically change our relationships.

McMillan said that without technology, “We’re just closer, there’s more talking.” Maybe we’d all be a bit closer.

The problem is, it’s not realistic. We don’t live in 1986. It’s 2013, with all of the mini-screens and 140 character conversations. As much as we might want to, we can’t ignore technology. It’s here to stay. I started thinking about McMillan’s kids and how in schools today, it’s becoming more and more common for children to learn to use iPads, internet-based

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textbooks and YouTube tutorials. The future of our education system is web-based. Is it really helpful for parents to have no access to tools that their children will need in order to be successful in school?

Furthermore, McMillan admited that he lost his business partner as a result of his decision to go old-school. That’s not surprising. Getting the most basic of jobs today requires a basic level of technological savvy.

If we say goodbye to it, we’re really not living in the present.

As nice as the past might seem, it’s still the past. What if, instead of tossing technology out the window, we learn how to manage it in a healthy way? What if we learn the art of moderation and teach our children how to control their gadgets instead of being controlled by them? What a concept.

Human beings tend to swing endlessly back and forth on pendulums, and neither side is necessarily any better than the other. If we learned to find a place of tension in the midst of it all—healthy relationships and lifestyles, together with technology—we might actually be happier.

We’d be teaching our kids and ourselves tools we could use the rest of our lives. These tools would empower us to make technology work toward our needs, not the other way around.

Instead of feeling like we’re at its mercy, learning how to turn the phone off, close the laptop and stop swiping the tablet is a far better skill than denying these things exist.

McMillan and Patey are definitely onto something. I just think it can be done in 2013 instead of in a time machine.

OPINION

Half the quality, twice the price The rise of the two-parter

The Pop Culture Ephebe

by Joshua Benson

When I’m done listening to the four or five tracks that actually deliver on Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience: Part 1, I move to Part 2, where there are four or five more tracks that actually deliver. This starts an irksome cycle by which I move, infuriated, between two parts of the same album that achieve roughly the same insubstantial effect.

The 20/20 Experience begs the question: Why does each part harbor one half of a great album when, if put together and slimmed down, we may have experienced it as a whole? I’m on to you, Timberlake. I think this has much less to do with spectacle, grandeur and spontaneous overflow than it has to do with money and sloppiness.

The two-parter’s in vogue, and most of them use tactics similar to The 20/20 Experience to waste your time. The last installments of the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises and this new, inexplicable The Hobbit trilogy sacrifice storytelling power to unnecessary division, leading to plot and tonal expansion and making the films both boring and manic.

Harry Potter is the real crying shame here because it almost touches greatness. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 captured the simultaneous monotony and dread of traveling through the countryside on the lam until it plodded through the latter half of its second hour, at which point we wondered when something exciting was going to happen. The climactic scene at Malfoy Manor didn’t necessarily cut it, though. The real climax came with the battle sequence that lasted for almost the entirety of the following part…six and a half months later. The second part felt like that errant firework some local hooligan shoots up five minutes after the display is finished, when you’ve folded up your lawn chair and gone back to your car. It still makes you turn your head, but it’s far less exciting for being delayed.

This unevenness is ever-present in Timberlake’s non-narrative new releases. The listener may actually feel the phantom of the missing half underlying the one to which he or she is listening.

It’s like they are mirrors—one a little more traditional and the other a little more contemporary, but both shooting below the mark of a perfect hybrid between the two. Instead of just throwing all of his material onto different discs, he could have lined

them up, cut out the unnecessary stuff and shown some, I don’t know, artistic control? I mean, most of the tracks end with an infinite and unchanging beat that does absolutely nothing but waste space that would have been better filled with truncated versions of other overwritten tracks from Part 2. Not to mention that there are some obvious duds that could’ve been tossed.

If these artists are trying to convince audiences that it was done this way because the product deserved to be presented in its entirety, I’m not buying it.

Let’s compare these two-parters to other works in these artists’ oeuvre. Dreamgirls, the project by Bill Condon that preceded Breaking Dawn, was meticulously edited into a condensed but emotional film. David Yates’ previous two Harry Potter films were expertly paced and some of the finest in the series. FutureSex/LoveSounds brought Timberlake to a new level of critical esteem with a single album. We’ve seen evidence that these guys can edit, which makes me think that the two-parter gives away just how little effort went toward conceptualizing the project.

Contrary to the idea that the art is much more personal this time around and has less to do with the audience, it inevitably has very much to do with the audience, whose desires it exploits and never fulfills. This brand of the two-parter essentially gets as much of our buck for its compromised bang as possible.

Well, maybe we’re the dupes now, but they’re the dupes in the long run because it’s their quality’s funeral. Get a hold of your expression, guys. It’s what you’re there for.

ACADEMIC FREEDOM THROUGH TENURE ENSURES QUALITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY TO STUDENTS: PART 1 LETTER TO THE EDITOR Patricia A. Schechter, professor of history For a century now, tenure has served as the basis of academic freedom and shared governance in higher education. Together, academic freedom and shared governance ensure a robust, responsive, high-quality education to students and advance the public trust that is at the heart of an educational mission like Portland State’s.

As the American Association of University Professors put it in 1915, “The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition.” Similar to other campuses across the country, tenure and faculty stability have eroded substantially at PSU, threatening our ability to deliver on our mission and provide genuine accountability to our students.

Excellence, accountability and genuine academic freedom for students is paramount, especially when students take on staggering debt to pursue and complete their educations.

“Academic freedom in the classroom is not merely a matter of constitutional free speech nor should it regarded as a privilege of the faculty,” notes education sociologist William Pendleton.

“It is a fundamental requisite of effective education.”

PSU must reinvest in tenure to protect its academic mission and to foster the instructional excellence that students demand and deserve. Extending tenure eligibility to faculty currently holding full-time teaching appointments can effectively counter recent policies, especially of cancelling classes, which threaten to turn the curriculum and faculty into pop-beads. The cancellation of about 80 summer courses in June left students in the lurch, as The Oregonian reported. Not only did many adjunct and fixedterm faculty find themselves out of work, but one—a 15-year veteran—reported that he/she was “still expected to provide student advising and complete other work requirements without pay.”

Abrupt cancellations of classes treat such dedicated mentors as exploitable objects.

Administrators pointed out that summer school courses are offered during the regular academic year, but we on campus know that those courses are increasingly vulnerable. A procedure of cancelling classes one to three weeks into the term has emerged, which tears up student schedules and imposes on remaining faculty to pick up the slack or leave students bereft. Such practices represent not “flexibility,” but a ruthless and short-sighted crowdsourcing of our majors and degrees that deeply compromises our accountability to students.

The administration recently announced an incentive program to accelerate time-to-degree for undergraduates, promising a fifth year of free tuition if students enroll for a four-year, 45-credit-per-year load and regularly meet with an adviser. Given the practices around course cancelling and an increasingly disposable attitude toward faculty labor, I must wonder what sort of “guarantee” we are really holding out to these new freshmen.

Investing in tenure by converting full-time fixed-term faculty to tenure-eligible would go a long way toward stabilizing delivery of instruction and building teaching capacity at a fragile budgetary moment at PSU. Tenure helps nurture facultystudent relationships over the long term—in the classroom, the campus and as alumni in the community—and thereby deepens the public trust that is the heart of public education.

PSU has an important role to play in education as a K-life commitment. Indeed, the value of an authentic liberal education is only visible over the course of a lifetime, both in faculty and students. This tested and treasured vision demands a campus faculty rooted in a stable and well-supported community of scholars, rather than a shifting pool of contingent and increasingly exploited contract workers or at-will employees.

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OPINION

GET YOUR GRINDR ON ARE STRAIGHT PEOPLE AGAINST HOOKUP APPS?

Just a Phase

by Konrad Juengling While talking with one of my female friends the other day, the topic of how to meet prospective dates came up. Besides the usual “bookstore, coffee shop, gym” and the like, I suggested looking online. She was ambivalent, but I told her it was pretty common and an easy way to weed through people in whom you have no interest. You can match compatibility and preferences and see pictures and a profile, all without having to leave the comfort of your own home. It was only a matter of time until online dating made the leap from computers to mobile, and with the advent of the app, we now have dating at our fingertips.

While I’ve never been an OkCupid or eHarmony man myself, I know they’ve got their apps to help people find love.

Inevitably, the hookup app followed the dating app, and a whole new world of mobile entertainment was born. You could look for love and lust simultaneously!

In the gay world, this new social networking app took the form of Grindr. Grindr is an app that is used to “connect to others around you.” Read: hook up. Interestingly, it was one of the first hookup apps to become popular that wasn’t a complete scam. When looking through apps on your smartphone, there are the verified accounts—the apps that seem legitimate—and then the ones that ask for your credit card number so you can get charges from Bangladesh popping up on your checking statement the next day. Grindr actually falls into the first category: It’s become the largest “all-male location-based” app out there, with over 4 million users.

Grindr uses your geolocation to pinpoint where you are in proximity to other users. When someone logs on, they are able to see how far away from you they are. You get one photo, a line of text and a few basic demographics: height, age, weight and a name. Men are listed by photo, Brady Bunch-style, from clos-

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CORINNA SCOTT/PSU VANGUARD

est to farthest. If you click on someone, you have the option to message them. There aren’t pokes, winks or any kind of weird social interaction you inevitably get from your old uncle on Facebook.

There are men who legitimately use Grindr for dating. There are also the ones who use Grindr for “making friends,” but I put that in quotes for a reason. Mostly, it’s just for hooking up.

Value judgments aside, it’s a pretty streamlined way for people to come together and get what they both want. What’s interesting, though, is that after this concept took off in the gay community, the heterosexual community copied it.

Now when you search you can find hookup apps for straight people as well. There’s Lulu, Down and the moderately successful Tinder. The one most directly inspired by the success of Grindr is Blendr. Blendr was actually developed from the same creator as Grindr, Joel Simkhai, and marketed for the heterosexual community. It’s been a huge flop. While Grindr has become synonymous with the gay community, Blendr was released to some fanfare, and we haven’t really heard about it since.

What we do know is it hasn’t lived up to the popularity of Grindr. Ann Friedman wrote a scathing review of Blendr in The New Yorker, Tracy Clark-Flory from Salon called it boring and similar reviews fill up a simple Google search. With the same founder, the same layout and an exponentially larger population of potential users, why did Blendr fail? Blendr, like

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Grindr, is free for a basic account. It’s geolocation-based, with a photo of the person you’re talking to and a simple chat button. Interestingly, while Simkhai boasts about the number of Grindr users, the number of Blendr users is kept under wraps.

Reading editorials online, I was disappointed in what I found: all negative ones. I honestly wanted to find a matching version of Grindr for straight people so I could talk about it with my friend and see what her experience would be. Not because I necessarily think straight people aren’t having enough sex, but because I want to have friends outside the gay community who understand mobile dating and the ease of chatting without the huge, cumbersome profile. Setting up an online dating profile is analogous to buying a car: pages of questions to answer that eventually leave you completely devoid of any energy by the time you’ve finished the exhausting process.

Why not go for the ease of an app instead? The bonus being, of course, that you can be more honest in the fact that you aren’t looking for a life partner right this minute; you’re just looking to have some fun.

Is it that the rules of the game are different for straight people? Are there too many apps catering toward heterosexuals, so the audience is too widespread between them? Are they looking for different things? There could be any number of reasons why Blendr didn’t pan out. But Grindr, the one that started the hookup app trend to begin with, is still going strong. For the time being, it looks like my friend is out of luck.

LIBERAL ARTS, NOT CAREER-SPECIFIC MAJORS This, not That

by Chelsea Lobey

“What are you supposed to do with an English degree?” “How will you ever find a job after you graduate with a philosophy degree?”

“You’re a history major? How is that even relevant to anything?”

If you’re a liberal arts major, you’ve definitely heard questions like these before, and you’ve probably learned to mumble out some excuse or justification, all the while feeling bad that you don’t have a better answer. I’m an English major myself, and the accusatory questions hurled at holiday family dinners from my relatives are relentless and brutal. After I told him my major, a man once said, with a loud guffaw, “Whaddaya need an English degree for, you already speak English perfectly good!” There was nothing I could do but let out a deep sigh and walk away.

The cost of four years of college continues to increase, which leaves students with the need to see an immediate return on their investment. More and more students are opting for the practical route of business or marketing degrees, while there seems to be a general consensus, at least among parents and relatives who think they know better than you, that degrees in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields virtually guarantee you a job after graduation. Without a doubt, these disciplines are vital to push our economy forward, but they are certainly not the only worthwhile degrees a person can obtain from a college or university.

The vast majority of American citizens are struggling to afford to go to college at all. We often put ourselves into great debt just to gain that piece of paper. Under these circumstances, the ambiguity and uncertainty of a liberal arts degree can appear less than ideal. Nobody wants to shell out thousands and thousands of dollars for something that doesn’t come with a guarantee. But the thing is, a liberal arts degree is a lot more valuable and necessary than most people give it credit for.

Liberal arts disciplines can teach you how to think deeply and creatively, and they can teach you how to convey your thoughts and ideas in writing and in speech. They can teach people to question information and draw conclusions, and they can instill ethical and cultural awareness and understanding.

OPINION

Liberal arts disciplines also have the ability to qualify people for a broad range of jobs after graduation, because they don’t tie you down to any specific career path. Finance and marketing degrees are so specific that it might be difficult to ever move out of those fields, but a liberal arts degree prepares people for a wide array of possible careers and a lifetime of learning and critical thinking, which is essential to creating an educated and employed citizenry.

In an April 2013 survey of employers, the Association of American Colleges and Universities found that “nearly all those surveyed agree, ‘a candidate’s demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly and solve complex problems is more important than their undergraduate major.’” That same study also found that 90 percent of employers say “it is important that those they hire demonstrate ethical judgment and integrity, intercultural skills and the capacity for continued new learning.”

Wouldn’t you know it, the things employers are looking for are precisely what a liberal arts education provides.

Now, I’m not saying that liberal arts majors are necessarily better than any other majors. I’m just saying that they’re equally important, and we should not let ourselves forget that. It is true that our society needs people to advance science, innovate technology and start businesses, but those people will always be around. We also need people who want to read, write and think critically about the world around us. We need people to push the boundaries of our culture, to write books, make art and appreciate music. How boring, colorless and utilitarian would our society be without the liberal arts disciplines?

So to you, dear English major, embrace your love of reading and your passion for writing. And to you, lovely philosophy major, keep on reasoning out why we think and do the things we do, and apply what you learn to modern society. To all of you liberal arts majors out there, don’t take any crap from your relatives over the inevitable holiday family dinners, because your degree is important, adaptable, employable and just as relevant and necessary to a modern economy as it ever was.

“How boring, colorless and utilitarian would our society be without the liberal arts disciplines?”

CORINNA SCOTT/PSU VANGUARD

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COVER

JAY PENGELLY AND COBY HUTZLER

The Southwest Park Blocks run right up the middle of Portland State’s campus, making them an essential thoroughfare as well as a place for events, relaxing between class and studying.

During sunny days it feels like Portland State overwhelms the space with activity, though in the park’s defense, it was there long before PSU was.

ALAN HERNANDEZ-AGUILAR/PSU VANGUARD

Eleven narrow blocks were designated for public park space in 1852. It was the first park in town and lay at the south edge of established Portland. Lombardy poplars and elms were added a few years later, and the Park Blocks developed into a cultural trust for the city, housing

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the Portland Art Museum, the Oregon Historical Society and some of the oldest churches in town on its borders.

As a public space, similar to sidewalks, anyone can practice their First Amendment right to free speech in the Park Blocks. This sometimes takes the form of organizations gath-

ering signatures for petitions or looking for donors.

Children International, a non profit that provides aid to children around the world with a “one sponsor supporting one child” model, has a presence in the Park Blocks almost every day. They often stand near the junctions be-

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tween buildings where students funnel into the park after class.

Alex Hughes is a fundraiser for Children International. The PSU campus is one of many places where he attempts to find sponsors each week.

“It’s one of the better places to work,” Hughes said. “There’s

cool people, lots of foot traffic.

On average I get two to three donors a day here.”

Hughes adds, however, that the majority of people walk right by ignoring him completely. Some just smile or say hello, and a rare few have rude words.

“A lot of people don’t want

to talk,” he said.

Adrienne Godshalx is a PSU grad student who lives near campus and walks through the Park Blocks at least three times a day.

“I used to get stopped, but now I’m better at avoiding them,” Godshalx said. “They have a nice, personable ap-

COVER proach. I wish people would act that way all the time.”

That cheerful greeting is inevitably followed up with a pitch outlining how important their cause is and the difference one person can make.

“They suck you in [by] being friendly,” Godshalx said.

“I was stopped once and was chatting then realized they had their binder behind their back. When they pulled it out I felt totally betrayed. Now I avoid eye contact.”

The Campaign for Restoration and Regulation of Hemp, as well as Portlanders for Water Reform, are two other groups which regularly send employees to the Park Blocks for signatures on their petitions. They often gather over 100 signatures in a single day.

FREEDOM OF PREACH Another incarnation of free speech in action is open-air preaching. Daniel John Lee, often called “Preacher Dan,” has been a public and sometimes controversial character on the PSU campus since 2001.

As it did in the past, the stage next to the Smith Memorial Student Union continues to serve as his soapbox.

For Lee, preaching in the Park Blocks provides a forum where he can reach a large number of people at once. Part of his personal style involves using strong language that many find offensive in order to draw a crowd and to continuing that pattern with those who show up to watch nearby.

“If you look at the Christian New Testament, you’ll discover all the early Jewish apostles’ primary method to spread the gospel was known as open-air preaching,” he said. “They were confrontational evangelists, and that’s what I’m doing at PSU.” Lee, who was raised a non denominational Christian, began preaching in 1997 soon after his high school graduation. Shortly after beginning his preaching at PSU, he was introduced by a student to Messianic Judaism, which is largely a combination of Christian and Jewish theology and practice.

Lee’s YouTube channel acts as a home to many of his declarations. “I understand the Torah 100 percent

perfectly correct,” he said in one video, dated Nov. 10 of this year. “You better follow me as I follow Christ or you will burn in the lake of fire,” he added.

“I’m practicing righteous judgment,” he said in another from Nov. 16, “…by trying to bring the heathen to repentance like I do at Portland State University.”

Lee’s confrontational preaching style has also earned him numerous runins with the law.

In 2001 he was arrested by Portland police on the Park Blockswhile preaching atop Skidmore Fountain. For a previous warrant unrelated to PSU, Lee says he missed a court date because of jury duty and was unaware of the warrant, issued by the Multnomah County Sherriff’s office.

Another encounter occurred in January 2003, when an African-American PSU student was arrested by Portland police for punching Lee after the two got into a racially charged scuffle.

Following that punch, Lee picked up his then 2-year-old son and held the child between himself and the student. Lee says that he was not using his son as a shield, but to calm the man down, “He wasn’t in danger,” he told the Vanguard about his son in a 2003 interview. “I knew that doing that would make that black man calm down, and he did.”

Talk of banning Lee from the Park Blocks began surfacing early that February, and the Office of Student Affairs reserved the stage outside SMSU from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. for the year, effectively banning Lee from preaching there. The reservation was ultimately removed.

Phil Zerzan is the Chief of Public Safety for PSU. Part of his job, and that of CPSO, is ensuring that the Park Blocks are safe for students and staff.

When it comes to open-air preachers, there is nothing campus safety can do but observe and make sure things don’t get out of hand.

“We certainly try and deescalate [tense situations],”

he said, “while at the same time protecting people’s free speech rights.”

“We don’t want to see people be so upset as to escalate to violence, because that’s not defensible.”

“We make sure speech is protected,” he said.

Indeed, in 2001, Lee won an appeal in the Oregon Supreme Court that ultimately determined his preaching to be a form of protected speech.

It is Zerzan’s view that when students confront preachers like Lee, it encourages them.

“When people engage them in dialogue, it empowers them.

Their message may be hateful, or distasteful but a better strategy is not to engage them in a logical discussion.”

Ultimately, PSU’s central location and masses of people determines the wide variety of personalities and endeavors that take place in the Park Blocks.

“Downtown Portland is what it is. Campus is vibrant and exciting. I think the street preachers add to that,” Zerzan said.

DIALOGUER JENNY METCALF (Right) and team leader Edward Bodo (Middle) of Children International assist Lara Hendrix (Left), a communications major at PSU, in making a donation to the nonprofit organization.

MILES SANGUINETTI/PSU VANGUARD

DANIEL JOHN LEE proselytizes in the parkblocks as students go about their business.”

MILES SANGUINETTI/PSU VANGUARD

ALAN HERNANDEZ-AGUILAR/PSU VANGUARD

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ARTS & CULTURE

ARAB CULTURE THROUGH LITERATURE AND FILM BRANDON STALEY

Elisheva Cohen saw a problem: Offerings for high school students eager to learn more about Arab culture were severely lacking.

Cohen, outreach coordinator for the Middle East Studies Center at Portland State, decided to fix that. The Arab Culture through Literature and Film project, created in part by Cohen, is a curriculum aimed at the high school level that uses media to expose students to authentic Arab voices.

The curriculum is broken into five units: Introduction to the Arabic World, Religious Expression, Language and Ethnicity, Gender Roles, and Daily Life: Kinship, Marriage, and Family. Cohen said that while the program is meant to be taught as a set, it is also designed so the units can be taught independently. The material is free to use; there is no license attached to it, and permission was obtained from various copyright holders so the curriculum could be distributed freely.

Cohen said the idea for the curriculum came out of a film-oriented “Introduction to Arab Culture” class she taught the year prior at Lincoln High School. Students were interested and engaged in the subject, but Cohen was dismayed at the lack of materials available.

She soon started designing her own curriculum, found funding in the form of grants, and the project grew from there.

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“Broadly, there is a need in this country for students to understand Arab culture,” said Cohen. “It’s not something that very many people know about, and what people are learning is predominantly from the media.”

Cohen said she wanted to focus on authentic Arab voices when she was choosing what film and literature to include.

“These are not books written by Americans about the Middle East. It’s not an American journalist talking about what they saw in Iraq,” said Cohen. “It’s actual Egyptian or Iraqi peoples talking about their own experiences.”

Cohen said films can also offer a visual glimpse into other cultures and their diversity.

“Often times when people think about the Arab world, they think about desert and camels,” said Cohen. “But these films really give visual portrayals of big cities, small villages, mountains and snow.

“You see different people.

You see women with veils.

You see women without veils.

You see men in jeans. It really shows the visual diversity of the region.”

Cohen said that now that the hard work of actually crafting the curriculum is over, she is now primarily working on presenting it at academic conferences and getting it distributed at a national level.

Ruth McDonough, co-author and secondary school teacher of Arabic, said the literature and films in the curriculum

ELISHEVA COHEN, outreach coordinator for the Middle East Studies Center at PSU, at work in her office.

BRITTNEY MUIR/PSU VANGUARD

were chosen to highlight specific aspects of the five units.

Films in the curriculum include Mascarades, in which a brash young man concocts an imaginary suitor for his narcoleptic sister, and Ajami, which recounts five tales of daily life in a mixed community of Muslims and Christians in Tel Aviv.

McDonough said that while the number of Arabic-centered programs is increasing in high schools across the U.S., there is still a long way to go.

“Although some resources from the Arab world are available for high school classrooms, the Arab world

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is not a regional designation that is widely recognized or understood,” said McDonough.

McDonough said she hopes the curriculum will make film and literature from the Arab world accessible to secondary school teachers.

The curriculum was funded in part by the Qatar Foundation International, a nonprofit that focuses on dispensing grants and promoting programs that further the cause of cultural exposure through education.

Helene Theros, the communications manager for QFI, said that the organiza-

tion aims to link learning activities to what they believe to be the major challenges of today, such as access to education and cross-cultural dialogue.

“The Arab Culture through Literature and Film curriculum connects U.S. high school students with the cultures and peoples of the Arab world in an engaging way, not through a traditional textbook, but by exploring authentic texts and films,” said Theros.

Theros said QFI has noticed that K-12 level students have become increasingly interested in learning about Arab culture in the past several years.

“Students are seeing that learning about Arab culture opens up many opportunities in business, communication and education,” said Theros.

Theros said the Arab Culture through Literature and Film curriculum offers students the opportunity to go beyond what may be covered in a traditional classroom setting.

The curriculum has been awarded QFI’s Curriculum Development grant. The Curriculum Development grant awards money to curricula that promotes the teaching of Arabic language and culture in U.S. public and public charter schools.

ARTS & CULTURE

REMEMBERING A FORGOTTEN HERO Portland State's Confucius Institute looks back on the impact of Hu Yaobang JEREMY KING

On the night of Nov. 15, Dr. Bruce Gilley, associate professor of political science at Portland State, discussed the lingering political and ideological impact of Hu Yaobang, who served as China’s General Secretary from 1982 to 1987.

The lecture, presented on behalf of PSU’s Confucius Institute, focused on Hu’s bold political beliefs, which often directly challenged the more conservative perspective of the Communist Party of China at large. Gilley discussed Hu’s accomplishments while in office, the influence he had on China and the legacy he left behind.

“Many of the things that have come since in Chinese politics we can trace back to the Hu Yaobang period…I don’t think just any political leader is a hero,” Gilley said.

“When we look at what Hu Yaobang did in this period, he did things that were heroic in the sense of stepping outside of the safe boundaries of Chinese politics.”

Looking backward Hu, a staunch liberal who spoke openly of a necessary move to a more democratic form of government, promoted an open approach to policy, elections comprised of more than one candidate and increased governmental transparency, expressing a controversial desire for expanded interaction with the public on affairs of state.

In a government notorious for censorship, corruption and intolerance, Hu pushed for unprecedented change in the social and political landscape, advocating democratic ideals that stood in stark contrast to the conventional sentiments of Chinese politics. This insistence on reform irked plenty of contemporary senior Chinese officials but cemented Hu’s role in the hearts and minds of Chinese citizens.

While no Chinese leader has presented such an open liberal agenda or vied for dramatic political or societal upheaval following Hu, his contribution to China’s national consciousness is undeniable, Gilley said.

“I believe he was heroic in voicing his opinion and giving voice to things that weren’t really in the best interest of the Chinese government at the time...and in really going against the anti-Soviet Union type of ideology,” said Isaiah Alvarez, a student of Warner Pacific College who attended the lecture. “So in that regard, he was heroic.”

After his death on April 8, 1989, a memorial service was scheduled in Tiananmen Square, with a turnout exceeding 50,000. Fueled by Hu’s libertarian beliefs and anger at the government’s failure to provide a proper memorial service in a timely manner, mourning gave way to protest. The protests lasted from April 15 to June 4, 1989. The response on behalf of the government, which

labeled the protests as counter-revolutionary, was one of intolerance and violence, culminating in upward of 1,000 estimated casualties.

In the bloody aftermath, the government declared discussion of Hu’s political beliefs to be highly destabilizing and a threat to China at large, subsequently censoring any mention of Hu in the media. There would be no mention of the former general secretary until the ban was lifted in 2005.

“The 2005 conference led to this explosion of publishing, so now Hu Yaobang is back in,” Gilley said. “You can write about him, you can talk about him, you can hold conferences about him.”

to secure trust between government and populace, Gilley believes that it’s possible that the party may at some point own up to what happened at Tiananmen Square.

“At what point does the party decide to do with Tiananmen what it’s done with Hu Yaobang? Let’s get this aura back. Let’s rehabilitate this. Let’s say we understand what’s happened there. We’re no longer considering this something that needs to be

purged from the party memory. And maybe that’s still a ways off, but you can see the movement in that direction,” Gilley said.

The likelihood of that happening anytime soon seems distant, according to Dr. Matthew Brazil, an adjunct professor in PSU’s history department. “…It’s very unlikely that the verdict of it being a counterrevolutionary rebellion will ever be reversed, as long as

the communist party is in power,” Brazil said.

Regardless of what China’s future may hold, Hu remains an instrumental component of its past and a hero to many.

His bold democratic vision may have yet to come to fruition, but the seeds of revolution have been planted. And when, if ever, China takes that crucial plunge forward, Hu Yaobang will be remembered as the man who brought life to the possibility.

DR. BRUCE GILLEY lectures on the legacy of an overlooked figure in China’s history.

Looking forward Despite the recent revitalization of Hu’s legacy, it’s important to maintain realistic expectations for the future. The influx of content and discussion involving Hu is not necessarily reflective of China embracing the notion of a more liberal tomorrow.

The party is more likely simply seizing the opportunity to sate the public’s appetite, Gilley said.

“What I think’s happening with Hu Yaobang’s memory is that the party recognizes that Hu Yaobang’s widely liked, and loved, and remembered across the whole spectrum,” Gilley said.

“And the party would like to enjoy some of that aura, to enjoy some of that positive feeling, and the reason the party has embraced him is because it feels as though if they embrace Hu Yaobang, they will get some of that positive feeling.”

Though the party’s tolerance of Hu’s memory may be entirely superficial, manufactured

CORINNA SCOTT/PSU VANGUARD

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ARTS & CULTURE

DANGIT that’s

BAKED MACARONI AND CHEESE JORDAN MOLNAR

Macaroni and cheese happens to be one of those classic foods that you can feed to a child in order make sure they live into young adulthood and don’t starve to death. I suppose what I mean to say is that no one doesn’t like macaroni and cheese, and if they don’t like it, it is a miracle that they are even alive.

So here is a fantastic macaroni and cheese recipe that, theoretically, a majority of people should enjoy. It’s got to be nearly picky–eater proof.

Before you get too excited with the cheese and noodles and all of that, you are going to have to preheat the oven. 350 degrees will do. Let it get there. Don’t look over its shoulder all of the time and ask it if it is at 350 degrees yet. That makes it very hard for the oven to work, and it really needs to get this done because it has other things to do and it probably wants to get some quality time with the DVR in later. Just leave it alone and go grease your 2-quart baking dish.

Actually, you probably want to boil some water at this time as well. I know you’ve only got two hands, but what did I say about the oven? Just let it do what it does. It is an expert at that sort of thing. Anyway, once your water is boiling, cook your macaroni until it is soft. There may be some instructions for this on the package, but you can more than likely use your best judgment and be just fine. Drain it, rinse it, set it aside. Seriously, calm down.

Get out a large saucepan. In this you are going to begin to melt your first 2 tablespoons of butter. Make sure that you set the heat at medium-low and do not touch it again. If you turn it up, you will ruin everything. We’ve already come this far, so just keep the heat right where it is and stir in your flour until it is well blended and bubbly. Is it bubbly? Good. Add your milk, but do it gradually, stirring constantly so it does not burn. You can use whole milk if you want to. Treat yourself.

Eventually the mixture you are stirring should thicken a bit.

That is a good sign. Now you can add the herbs. You can really add whatever you want, but thyme, sage and chives are good choices.

Some people really dig oregano too. No one is going to judge you for your herbs. Besides, you have more important things to worry about, like adding your salt and pepper. Quick tip: Garlic salt can be really good here if you have any handy.

All spiced up? Cool! It’s cheese time. Stir in your Cheddar and about 3 ounces of your Parmesan cheese. Save the rest of that Parm; you are going to need it later. You probably get that a lot, but this time it is totally true. Stir until it all is melted.

Add your goat cheese last so you can keep it a little less melted.

This will create some tasty goat cheese pockets in your macaronic and cheese.

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CORINNA SCOTT/PSU VANGUARD

Finally, it is macaroni time. You set it aside, remember?

Well, grab it now and stir it into the rest of the stuff, then dump the whole mixture into your baking dish. Your oven should be ready by now—assuming you left it alone like I told you to. Before sticking the dish in, though, you should combine your bread crumbs (Whatever kind you like. Panko can be good for this instead of regular ones, but it is up to

you.) with the last tablespoon of butter (melted). Toss this mixture with the remaining Parmesan cheese and sprinkle the whole thing over your noodles and sauce. When it is ready to go, it should be put in the oven for 25–30 minutes, or until bubbly and nicely browned.

This recipe serves 4–6 people, but if I were you I would keep it all to myself. I am just that kind of person.

INGREDIENTS Serves 4-6 | Total Time: 45 Minutes 8 ounces elbow macaroni (about 2 cups uncooked) 3 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour

Vanguard | NOVEMBER 19, 2013 | psuvanguard.com

2 cups milk 1 to 2 tablespoons fresh chopped mixed herbs, or 2 teaspoons dried herbs (thyme, sage, chives, etc.)

1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 4 ounces goat cheese, with herbs or plain 8 ounces sharp Cheddar cheese, shredded 4 ounces shredded Parmesan cheese, divided 1 cup soft bread crumbs

ARTS & CULTURE

PULP INFLICTION

DARK HORSE COMICS RELEASES FIRST ADVENTURE OF NOIR-STYLED HERO THE BLACK BEETLE TRISTAN COOPER

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Not many these days. Save the brief blip that was The Shadow movie (starring Alec Baldwin) in the 1990s, pulp heroes have been in short supply for years.

Blame The Avengers. Not the British spies—you know the ones I mean.

Portland’s Dark Horse Comics has a new fix for those going through pulp withdrawal; they’ve just released the first volume of Francesco Francavilla’s The Black Beetle in hardcover. Subtitled No Way Out, Black Beetle’s debut is a tale of mystery, intrigue and some pretty sweet helicopter jetpacks.

Set in an urban jungle that blends the best and worst parts of Gotham City and New York, Colt City, likely named after the secret identity of classic crimefighter The Spirit, is exactly what you imagine a

shadowy metropolis to be like in the 1940s and ‘50s, if a bit left of center.

The story follows the titular masked vigilante on a mission to discover the cause of an explosion that killed several mobsters. In true pulp fashion, the plot only thickens from there. Though he technically has a secret identity, most of the book centers on the Beetle in action, hot on the trail of another mysterious figure clad in a maze-like bodysuit.

Labyrinthine yarns are dime-a-dozen in the genre born of penny dreadfuls.

Story matters less than the way that’s it’s told, and this case, you couldn’t pick a better style to choose over substance.

In the title card, the book is billed as “written and directed by” Francavilla. It’s fitting. Most mainstream comics have a separate artist and a writer, but they’re rarely more cohesive than

when those two are one and the same. Throughout the book, we are reminded that this is the work of a singular vision from one person.

Like his hero, Francavilla works best in the dark. Solid shadows cast themselves across every page, so omnipresent that it’s not hard to imagine this book working well in black and white.

Despite its noir overtones, this book thrives in full color. Yellows, oranges and reds are Francavilla’s most common accents, with blues and purples filled in for contrast. The coloring is simple as it is vivid—it pops off the page.

Though Francavilla’s uniquely gritty and cartoonish art style is reason enough to read any comic he’s worked on, it’s the way he puts the story together that makes The Black Beetle stand out.

In other comics, exposition might involve two characters talking or several pieces of

© DARK HORSE COMICS

narration over a low-action scene. In Francavilla’s case, it’s a two-page spread that looks like a cross between a detective’s bulletin board and a fever dream. One collage puts together paper-clipped portraits, flying planes and mob-style executions, all without clear panel lines separating them. But like the rest of the book, it’s never hard to read, as Francavilla points and pulls you through each overstylized page without ever being obvious or condescending.

It sounds odd to say with a straight face, but the layouts might be the most ex-

citing part of this comic. An early scene shows us cascading sections in the shape of bulbous eyes on the Beetle’s mask, and later we find our hero leaning on a building that houses panels that further the story.

An action scene might take the shape of a literal beetle spreading its wings, or a car might drive straight through two full pages.

In one of the book’s many brawls, Francavilla simply tilts the panels to the side, filling in the colors of the panels cut off on each side of the page, recreating the

feeling of laying down and reading comics on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

It’s hard to know what to expect next from The Black Beetle, but it’s always a joy to read. Anyone with a nose for pulp should hop on this trolley, on the double.

Dark Horse Comics presents The Black Beetle: No Way Out $19.99

Make yourself a strong drink ‘WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?’ COMES TO 5TH AVENUE CINEMA HANNAH GRIFFITH

“…This becomes one of the most scathingly honest American films ever made,” roared Stanley Kauffmann of The New York Times.

Originally a play written by Edward Albee in 1962, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? is transformed into this brilliant and brutal film by director Mike Nichols. The incredibly tragic and demonic story takes us on a journey into a twisted dimension where the line between reality and illusion is almost nonexistent.

Nichols’ use of black and white cinematography adds such a thick layer of darkness and hopelessness to the characters that the audience is almost immediately subjected to feelings of tension and anxiety. We travel a long and delusional road to a hell of absurdity and passion and cannot rest for a single second of the full 132 minutes.

Starring in this absurdest comedic film are two couples: George (Richard Burton) and Martha (Elizabeth Taylor), and Nick (George Segal) and Honey (Sandy Dennis). George and Martha are an old, drunk and dissatisfied couple who have the younger ones over for a drink after a party thrown by Martha’s father. Before Nick and Honey even arrive, we are graced with Martha’s bellowing and screechy diatribe against George, who

is seemingly the only sane one in the marriage. Once the young couple finally enters, breaking up George and Martha’s loud dispute (don’t worry, there are many more to come), we immediately detect the strain between the four characters and almost want to stop watching the film because the feelings of embarrassment and restlessness are so realistic and stressful.

The emotional vulnerability we experience, however, keeps us stuck on the edge of our seats throughout the awkward encounter.

There is verbal spar after spar between George and Martha, and as the night wears on Nick and Honey begin to see similarities in the two marriages.

It seems, although, that things have begun to settle in the house, when the subject of George and Martha’s son brings upon a whole new uproar, which ends with George aggressively spinning Honey round and round to the eerie lyrics “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf ?” until she becomes sick.

Verbal abuse eventually escalates to physical between the couples. At this point in the film the audience is expecting someone to snap and are honestly just waiting to see who loses their mind first. Faster and faster do we lose our own sense of

self and, alongside the characters, are obligated to decipher between the truths and falsities in our lives.

As the film comes to an end, startling truths come to the surface and our grasp on what is real and what is fake has ultimately been destroyed. We are left with a grim and ominous feeling and are forced to ask ourselves the essential question: “Are we afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

5th Avenue Cinema is free for PSU students, $3 for other students and $4 general admission. Visit 5thavenuecinema.org/upcomingfilms for show times and a full schedule of other films being screened over fall quarter.

5th Avenue Cinema presents Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Friday, Nov. 22 at 7 and 9:30 p.m.

Saturday, Nov. 23 at 7 and 9:30 p.m.

Sunday, Nov. 24 at 3 p.m.

Vanguard | NOVEMBER 19, 2013 | psuvanguard.com

17

ETC FEATURED EVENT Film Screening and Discussion: Mulholland Drive Wednesday, Nov. 20 at 6 p.m.

5th Avenue Cinema 510 S.W. Hall St., Portland, OR 97201

©UNIVERSAL PICTURES

The Portland Center for Public Humanities and the Oregon Psychoanalytical Center present a screening of the David Lynch film Mulholland Drive. Following the film, commentators David Denny, Ph.D., director of Literature and Humanities at Marylhurst University, and Michael Clark, Ph.D., J.D., director of the Portland Center for Public Humanities, will join psychoanalysts Carol Stuart, Psy.D., and Nancy Winters, M.D., both faculty members of the Oregon Psychoanalytic Center, for a discussion that you are welcome to join. FREE

EVENT CALENDAR Tuesday, Nov. 19

Global Food/local perspectives: Coffee-nomics 6 p.m.

World Affairs Council of Oregon 1200 S.W. Park Ave., Portland, OR 97205 Coffee is a part of daily life for many of us, especially for many of us in Portland.

Come to “Coffee-nomics” to join in a discussion about how coffee makes it from where the beans are grown and harvested to where they are roasted and on to our local coffee shops. Writer Hanna Neuschwander, Portland Roasting Company’s Mark Stell and David Griswold of Sustainable Harvest will lead the conversation and answer your coffee questions. Admission is for the event is $10. For more information and to register, visit www.worldoregon.org.

Open Mic Tuesdays 7 – 9 p.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union Main floor stage at NE corner 1825 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201 Portland State Professional Sound invites you to join them for open mic nights every Tuesday in the Smith Memorial Student Union. Bring your own instruments and let PSPS take care of lighting and sound while you share

18

your talents with your fellow Vikings. FREE

Wednesday, Nov. 20 Nutrition Workshop: Food.

Body. You. 2 – 3:30 p.m.

Student Health and Counseling 1880 S.W. 6th Ave., Portland, OR 97201 Nutrition Services at the Student Health and Counseling Center will be offering a workshop focusing on improving eating and exercise habits. Issues such as body image, how to shop right, and safe and effective diets to improve overall health and wellness will be discussed. Join fellow students and gain essential tools for nourishing yourself in a way that makes sense for your body and mind alike. Student participants must be eligible for SHAC services. If you have any questions or would like to attend the workshop, please contact Annika at a.backstrom@pdx.edu.

FREE

Social Sustainability Month: Las Cafeteras 5 – 8 p.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union, Parkway North 1825 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201

by the traditional sounds of Veracruz, Mexico. Join fellow students for a special performance at Portland State that is part of the social sustainability month theme of “decolonizing sustainability.” FREE

Thursday, Nov. 21 Flu Shot Clinic 10 a.m. – noon Student Health and Counseling Center, Suite 200 1880 S.W. 6th Ave., Portland, OR 97201 Due to high demand, SHAC will be hosting a third flu shot clinic for all PSU students taking 1 or more credits and any non-benefited faculty and staff. The cost of the shots is $15 and will be billed to your student or staff account. Students with the PSU Aetna Plan are covered at 100 percent. Those not covered under the PSU Plan can receive a receipt to submit to their insurance for possible reimbursement. No appointment is necessary and attendees will be handled first-come, first-serve. For more information visit, www.pdx.edu/shac/ flu-vaccination or call SHAC at 503-725-2800.

Las Cafeteras is a musical group made up of many members who tell their collective story though music inspired

Vanguard | NOVEMBER 19, 2013 | psuvanguard.com

Racism and Settler-Colonialism at Home and Abroad

Sunday, Nov. 24

6:30 – 8 p.m.

Native American Student and Community Center 710 S.W. Jackson St., Portland, OR 97201

Portland State University Choirs: Immortal

Come to the Native American Student and Community Center to participate in a conversation about building global solidarity. Featured speakers from SUPER, Las Mujeres, United Indian Students in Higher Education and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will lead the event. Dr. Cornel Pewewardy, director of the Indigenous Nations Studies Program, will also assist in guiding the panel. Food will be served at 6:30 p.m. and the panel begins promptly at 7 p.m. FREE

Friday, Nov. 22 Dad’s Group Meeting 2 p.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union, room 462 1825 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201 Every Friday the Resource Center for Students with Children hosts “Dad’s Group,” a gathering for PSU students who also happen to be fathers to come together and share their experiences as both parents and students. Refreshments will be provided, so if you are a PSU dad, be sure to stop by and get to know your community. FREE

4 p.m.

St. Stephens Catholic Church 1112 S.E. 41st St., Portland, OR 97214 PSU’s collective of choirs present a fall concert that offers a wide selection of musical history, with classics by Victoria, Mendelssohn and Chesnokov standing sideby-side with modern masterworks by Peteris Butans of Latvia, Budi Susanto Yohannes of Indonesia and Miklos Kocsar of Hungary.

In addition, they will sing spirituals and African music that contemplate the topic of immortality or timelessness.

Come see three choirs combine to perform Joan Szymko’s mystical Illumina le Tenebre to welcome her to PSU’s choral faculty. Admission is $12 for the general public and $7 for students and those 17 years of age and younger.

Monday, Nov. 25 Bicycle Maintenance 101 Noon – 1 p.m.

PSU Bike Hub 1818 S.W. 6th Ave., Portland, OR 97201 The Portland State Bike Hub will be offering a free workshop that covers all of the ba-

sics that are needed to properly maintain your bicycle, including demonstrations on proper methods of lubricating your drivetrain, adjusting your brakes, properly maintaining your tires and all of the other tricks to keep you rolling around town. You are free to bring your own bicycle if you have specific questions about it. FREE

Monday, Nov. 26 Philip Roth Goes to the Movies 7 p.m.

College of Urban and Public Affairs, foyer 506 S.W. Mill St., Portland, OR 97201 The Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies at PSU invites you to join professors Michael Weingrad of PSU and Marat Grinberg of Reed College for an open discussion of film adaptations based on the novels of Philip Roth. Movie clips from Goodbye, Columbus (1969), Portnoy’s Complaint (1972), Deconstructing Harry (1997), The Human Stain (2003), and Elegy (2008) will be included for the facilitation of discussion. FREE

FREE

21+

PSU FREE OPEN TO PUBLIC 21 & OVER

ETC

will go a long way in helping you break free.

Scorpio Oct. 23–Nov. 21

Do you feel like life is on a loop right now?

Like you’re taking a few steps forward just to find yourself in a similar predicament? Try not to be too frustrated by this, Scorpio; in fact, you should probably be taking notes. If the same theme keeps cropping up, it’s for a reason.

Pisces Feb. 19–Mar. 20

Capricorn Dec. 22–Jan. 19

Your relationships have felt all over the board lately, and as a stable earth sign, these mixed messages are driving you up the wall. Don’t read too much into it, Capricorn.

You may find that it’s more about your perception than the truth.

Sagittarius Nov. 22–Dec. 21

Your hard work is really starting to pay off, Aquarius!

While I encourage you to keep at it, I’d also like to remind you to congratulate yourself at the same time.

Stop being so modest. You deserve every bit of praise coming your way.

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Remember last week when I told you to set aside some time for pure, unadulterated fun? Don’t stop that party train from rolling, Cancer! I know you still have plenty of things to accomplish, but a balance of work and fun are needed to keep you from going insane.

It’s always super agitating when someone comes along and drops a big project in your lap, as if you don’t already have like a bajillion other things going on, am I right? Try not to sweat it too much, Virgo. Your frustration might be bigger than the actual task at hand.

Leo Jul. 23–Aug. 22

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You have a tendency to get a little fiery when you’re feeling under pressure, and that’s totally okay, Aries.

However, I’d urge you to consider adopting a calmer perspective in the coming days, as it will undoubtedly lead you down the path of least resistance.

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You’d much rather think your way out of a situation than feel your way out. I’m sorry, Taurus, but sometimes you have to step outside the box and try a new approach. A little heart and creativity will go a long way in helping you solve a recurring problem. This week, let your heart speak louder than your thoughts.

Aries Mar. 21–Apr. 19

Aquarius Jan. 20–Feb. 18

You’re feeling boxed in, Sagittarius, and you despise feeling boxed in.

I know it’s easier said than done, but take an hour or so to do something that makes you feel alive. That hour

Taurus Apr. 20–May 20

Wow, can you believe this year is almost over? 2013 has been quite a rollercoaster for you, dear Pisces, and you may be worried about what the New Year will bring. Remember the good that came of the bad and think of ways to apply it to your future. I promise it all had a purpose.

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Vanguard | NOVEMBER 19, 2013 | psuvanguard.com

19

SPORTS SCORES

UPCOMING

NBA

NBA

PORTLAND TORONTO

Top Performers: Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge, 22 points each

118 PORTLAND @ MILWAUKEE 110 WED. 11/20 5:00 p.m. | COMCAST SPORTS WHL

SPOKANE vs. PORTLAND FRI. 11/22 7:00 p.m. | KPAM 860 AM

WHL

PORTLAND KAMLOOPS

Top Performers: Chase DeLeo and Brendan Leipsic, 2 goals each

7 PSU FOOTBALL 3 PSU @ EASTERN WASHINGTON SAT. 11/23 2:45 p.m. | ROOT SPORTS PSU MEN’S BASKETBALL

PSU FOOTBALL

SACRAMENTO STATE PSU

Top Performers: DJ Adams, 249 yards, 5 TDs

43 42

Top Performers: Tim Douglas, 16 points

FRI. 11/22 5:30 p.m. | STOTT CENTER PSU WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

SEATTLE vs. PSU

PSU MEN’S BASKETBALL

PACIFIC LUTHERAN PSU

LOYOLA CHICAGO vs. PSU

FRI. 11/22 8:00 p.m. | STOTT CENTER

43 79

PSU VOLLEYBALL

PSU @ IDAHO STATE SAT. 11/23 6:00 p.m.

BLAZERS START SEASON ON FIRE

PSU VOLLEYBALL

NORTHERN COLORADO PSU Top Performers: Kaeli Patton, 19 kills

0 3

PSU CROSS COUNTRY

MEN’S WOMEN’S

26th PLACE 25th PLACE

TOUCHDOWNS FOR DJ ADAMS IN A CLOSE LOSS TO SACRAMENTO STATE. THE RUNNING BACK WAS NAMED PSU TEAM MVP FOR 2013.

20

MATT DEEMS

What a week to be a Portland Trail Blazers fan, what a week indeed. Last week the Blazers managed to go undefeated, with a record of 2–0 on the road and 3–0 at home, for a season record of 7–2.

This isn’t the same team as last year; they’re a squad that has five players averaging double digit scoring totals, five players averaging five-plus rebounds, and two-time All-Star LaMarcus Aldridge is nearly averaging a double-double with 21.9 points per game (ppg) and 9.1 rebounds. Also of note: Reigning Rookie of the Year Damian Lillard has averaged 19.6 ppg, 5.6 assists and 4.8 rebounds.

What has all this lead to?

Wins—the Blazers have beaten some decent squads over the last week, including the Boston Celtics at TD Garden (something the Blazers haven’t done since 2004), the surprising (5–4) Phoenix Suns, the Detroit Pistons and the Sacramento Kings twice.

The Blazers have also bested the Western Conference’s top squad, the San Antonio Spurs, and their division rival, the Denver Nuggets.

The Kings victories were critical confidence boosters for this new Blazer squad.

As the favorite coming into both meetings, the Blazers

Vanguard | NOVEMBER 19, 2013 | psuvanguard.com

were coming off a blowout loss to the Houston Rockets that shook their growing confidence from their earlier wins against the Spurs and Nuggets.

The Blazers greeted the Kings at Moda Center for the first leg of the homeand-home double header.

In a comparable fashion to their preseason meeting, the Blazers got up early in the first quarter and never looked back, winning 104–91.

While rolling hot, the diverse squad traveled to Sacramento to log another win, 96–85. The noteworthy news from this meeting was the horrendous shooting night from Lillard, who went 1–15 on the night. The Blazers were unfazed, as six players had over eight points to carry the load.

Following the Kings conquests, the Blazers next hosted the Pistons at the Moda Center. The Pistons put up a good fight before falling 109–103 to the Blazers. Oregon native and Medford sensation Kyle Singler put up only two points, four rebounds and three assists for the Pistons in his return to Oregon.

The Blazers saw a bounceback game for Lillard, who knocked down 25 points.

The team again had six players in double digits, including two bench players, but

Wesley Matthew’s hot start to the season cooled off with just three points.

Looking for revenge after losing what was slated as a warm-up season opener, the Blazers played the Suns in Rip City. The Blazers ended the first quarter on top but fell behind after losing the next two quarters. With just 15 seconds left in the fourth quarter and the Blazers down by two points, Lillard streaked past multiple defenders to put in the easy go-ahead game-winning layup. A remarkable performance from backup power forward Thomas Robinson, with 15 points and eight rebounds in only 16 minutes of play, was key to the win.

Finally, on Friday the Blazers ended a nine-year streak of losing at TD Garden when visiting Boston. The Blazers easily beat the lowly Celtics 109–96. Aldridge logged a double-double (27 points and 12 boards).

Portland’s sixth man, Mo Williams, believes the team’s court pace is leading to the Blazers’ success. “I thought we kept the pedal to the metal,” Williams said.

“And that’s the sign of a good team.”

All these wins are great and all, but what does it mean for the Blazers? It means Portland, pending a big injury, finally has reliable bench depth, has faith in them-

selves and is winning the important winnable games.

I know exactly how you feel. As a Blazer fan myself, I am quite concerned this will all come crashing down (like Brandon Roy and Greg Oden’s knees, or the 13-game losing streak to end last season or the horrible season before that…OK, I’ll stop now), but currently I am enjoying every minute of being the second-best team in the NBA Western Conference.

The Blazers are ahead of some powerhouse teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder, Los Angeles Clippers, Golden State Warriors and, my favorite to hate, the Los Angeles Lakers. Not to mention the Blazers are steadily climbing up many experts power rankings, averaging a handsome Top 10 spot.

The Blazers’ Matthews has confidence in his squad.

“Man, why aren’t we 9–0?”

Matthews said. Enjoy it, Portland, and hope it lasts.

The Blazers will look to keep this momentum rolling as they wrap up their ninegame road trip with a tour of BMO Harris Bradley Center to play the Milwaukee Bucks Nov. 20 at 5 p.m., followed by hosting the Chicago Bulls Nov. 22 at 7 p.m. Both will be broadcast on Comcast Sports Network.

TRAIL BLAZERS GOT GAME

SPORTS

JAY PENGELLY

In the modern NBA, the proven method of winning a championship relies on one thing: superstar players. The formula is simple: Get a few of the best players in the league and surround them with capable role players. Okay, not so simple. Great players don’t come along every day, and injuries, personality conflicts, or a dozen other reasons can derail a singular talent. Not all great players are effective in the playoffs (Tracy McGrady never led a team past the first playoff round) and some lesser talents play enormous roles on championship teams (Robert Horry and Steve Kerr come to mind).

The 2004 Championship Detroit Pistons were one team with plenty of gifted players but no dominant superstar. Every starter on that team was good or very good, probably a top-10 talent in each position.

Today’s Portland Trail Blazers have taken a similar philiosophy in building their team. Lamarcus Aldridge is clearly the team’s star and number-one option, but the capable talent which surrounds him has top-ten ability. This year’s team is ripe for a breakout season; all five starters are under 30 years old and most are considered experienced NBA players. In a subjective list, each Blazers starter will be placed in their NBA hierarchy. These ranks are based on overall career and general predictions for this year’s production. Even injured players who have not played yet or are not 100 percent healthy are taken into consideration.

Eighth-best center: Robin Lopez (behind Brook Lopez, Marc Gasol, Dwight Howard,

Roy Hibbert, Marcin Gortat, Nikola Pekovic, Andrew Bogut).

He is still adjusting to everything that comes with a new team, but the 17-point, 10-rebound performance against Detroit last Sunday showed what the guy can do.

Don’t expect him to average those numbers, but hope for production similar to what he did last year in New Orleans: 11 points, 6 rebounds per game. Most importantly, he played all 82 games.

Second-best power forward: Lamarcus Aldridge (behind Kevin Love).

This high placement may be controversial to some.

There are certainly more dominant offensive fours than L.A., and veterans like Duncan and Garnett are more savvy defenders, but Lamarcus has youth and athleticism on his side. He has improved every year, and at 28 years old, he should be just entering his prime. Look for his consistent play to set the tone for the Blazers season, hopefully leading to a playoff berth.

Fifth-best small forward: Nic Batum (behind Lebron James, Kevin Durant, Paul George, Carmelo Anthony).

The good news is: Nic’s having a terrific all-around start to the year, notching his second career triple-double already. The bad news is: The

best two players in the world today play the same position, and Paul George was scarygood in last year’s playoffs.

Because Batum is still young, athletic and showing potential for more growth, he ranks ahead of waning stars (i.e.

Paul Pierce).

Seventh-best shooting guard: Wesley Matthews (behind James Harden, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, Kevin Martin, Klay Thompson, Eric Gordon).

Usually an adept defender and three-point shooter, Matthews gets placed ahead of some up-and-comers (Jimmy Butler) and veterans (J.R. Smith) who may be more athletic or skilled, but his leadership, toughness and all the little things that don’t show up on the stat sheet make him an essential part of this Blazers team.

Sixth-best point guard: Damian Lillard (behind Chris Paul, Tony Parker, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Kyrie Irving).

Probably the most starstudded position in the league, it seems a great point guard has emerged from every draft, going on years now.

Lillard has that killer instinct and drive to be the best player on the court, so he is placed ahead of all but the most accomplished and spectacular of point guards.

NOTE FROM THE SPORTS EDITOR Jay is clearly a Blazers fan and as he stated, this is a subjective list. Overall he did a very good job of limiting the impact of his fanhood, but we couldn’t print this without a disclaimer about Nic Batum. On no other list of small forwards will you find Batum in the top 20. Wishful thinking, Jay. SEAN BUCKNAM/PSU VANGUARD

Vanguard | NOVEMBER 19, 2013 | psuvanguard.com

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SPORTS

SIX WAYS FROM SATURDAY VIKINGS SAFETY WALTER SANTIAGO emerges from the tunnel, prepared for the game.

KAYLA NGUYEN/PSU VANGUARD

JOEL GUNDERSON

In football, it’s often said that “the games to remember are won in November.” Playoff hopes are forged and heroes are born during those cold nights after Halloween. However, to get there, you must survive the week.

That’s where Portland State’s success on the field can be traced to—the work that no one sees. The early morning weight room, afternoon practices and schoolwork that fans don’t see. Saturday may be game day, but the real work begins six days earlier.

There is no more important time for Vikings’ football players than Sunday afternoons. That’s when they get to take a swim. Andrew Pompei, head strength and conditioning coach for the

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team, is the man charged with keeping players strong, both mentally and physically. He leads the charge in the weight room, heads up the nutrition program and pushes players through hot summer workouts. On Sundays, he gets to be a lifeguard. The players may be in a pool, but it’s far from a leisurely affair. They’re there to work, rehab and get ready for next week.

“We spend about 40 minutes in the pool—swimming, skipping, jumping and kicking. This is done to maintain range of motion in most of the larger joints and decrease the amount of force or impact,” Pompei said.

Pool periods are designed to transition the players from one game to the next in more ways than one.

“We also want to get the blood circulating; to flush out any soreness or unwanted by-products from the game,” he said “Flushing out” is a must.

No matter how a player feels, they know that the following Saturday, they must be ready to do it all again…and again.

And again. Having been a collegiate player himself at Coe College, Pompei knows what his players are feeling. He also knows how to keep it going throughout the season.

“Being the strongest, fastest or whatever only matters if you are those things in the playoffs.

No different than being as good or better in the fourth quarter as the first,” Pompei said.

Classes, girlfriends and family—all these obstacles can impair a player’s focus.

That’s where strong lead-

Vanguard | NOVEMBER 19, 2013 | psuvanguard.com

ership comes in. A typical day in the life of a football player involves a litany of obligations: lifting, practice, film study, classes and homework. It’s a balancing act that requires self-control. It also requires leadership, something this year’s team has in spades. Jaycob Shoemaker, a senior linebacker, is the team’s vocal leader on and off the field.

He knows how easy it is to get off course.

“The main distraction is outsiders. If you’re winning the games, everyone loves you, but the moment you aren’t winning, everyone has something bad to say,” Shoemaker said.

He takes it upon himself to keep the team focused.

“I try and make sure that the next game is the most important one to us. Always

reminding [us] that it’s important to not look past the present,” he said.

A season can derail quickly if there’s a void in leadership. When things go south, it takes a group to keep everyone in check and keep the locker room together. For Shoemaker and the rest of this year’s senior class, they know that time is running out and that their voices are more important than ever.

“It’s a lot easier to stay focused ’cause you can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said The steps down to the weight room are long and ominous; gray brick walls line the hallways and a dingy floor squeaks and creaks as the players trudge in halfasleep, no matter the time of day. One look inside tells you all you need to know about the mindframe of PSU football: Work hard; skip the frills. There’s no fancy equipment, no plush juice bars, no massage tables.

Squat racks, Olympic lift areas and dumbbells line the walls. There are no distractions. No excuses.

During the season, players lift twice a week, usually Tuesdays and Thursdays. They lift at varying points of the day, depending on their school schedule.

They come in shifts, some as early as 6 a.m. If a player doesn’t lift in the morning, they lift after practice. Big lifting sessions are put to the side. This is about keeping players healthy, preventing injuries and rehabilitating existing ones. It’s as much mental as it is physical.

“If they’re feeling good, they will believe in their abilities.

It’s when the body is really hurting that most of the kids

will start to pull back, and it’s much less likely that they will perform at their highest level,” Pompei said.

That doesn’t mean they don’t put in the work. According to Shoemaker, Saturdays are the easiest days of the week. “During weights we try and get after it, making sure we get all the hard work in. Due to how much we get after it on those other six days, game days are easy,” he said.

The Vikings sit at 6–5 on the year, a marked improvement from last seasons’ 3–8 campaign. There is more leadership, more talent and more of a purpose. In his fourth season on the job, Pompei has learned how to get players in the right frame of mind.

“If you can get the players to buy in and work as hard as possible all the time, you will see results, no matter what you have them doing,” Pompei said.

Staying focused and finishing strong, every day of the week, is the difference between success and failure. In his office inside the Stott Center, Pompei exudes confidence. His attitude is infectious and his message is clear.

“I’m always telling our guys, we have to continue to get better in all aspects. That we cannot be satisfied with success if we are on a win streak, and that we have to have pride to dig ourselves out of a hole if we have lost a game or two,” Pompei said.

Whether it’s the pool, weightroom or film room, players have many ways to improve. And they better take advantage of them.

There are, after all, only six days until Saturday.

SPORTS

IT’S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR

HEALTH& WELLNESS

DREA VICK

It’s that time of year again. The rain is falling, the leaves are rustling and people are sneezing… and sneezing…and sneezing.

It’s flu season, and the time is ripe for getting sick. To avoid missing class and having snotty holidays, it’s important to take the necessary precautions to keep yourself healthy and productive. It’s actually quite easy to prevent the flu. It requires just a bit of forethought.

Firstly, if you wish, you can get a flu vaccination. SHAC offers the shots for free if you have Aetna insurance and for $15 if you don’t. You can fit a quick appointment in between classes. If SHAC is out of the vaccinations, which is possible, you can also head over to the Safeway pharmacy on SW 10th and Jefferson.

In addition, if you are caring for someone with the flu, like a child or an elderly parent, a doctor can prescribe you antiviral medications. This is not to be confused with antibiotics. Antivirals lessen the

likelihood that you will get the flu. If you pair up the vaccine with the antivirals, you’ll be darn near impenetrable!

Secondly, the best way to fight the flu is to not get it in the first place. The first line of defense you have is prevention. Yes, it may seem obvious to stay away from sick people, but some people are sick before they even know it.

Influenza has an incubation period of one to four days, which is the amount of time between infection and the onset of symptoms. The best way to avoid getting it is to wash your hands often. Someone may have rubbed their eyes and then shook your hand, or coughed and touched a doorknob—you just don’t know. On that note, it should go without saying that you should limit the amount of contact your hands have with your eyes, nose or mouth. Those mucous membranes are happy homes for dirty viruses.

Thirdly, if you are one of those unfortunate souls that do get sick, stay home, drink fluids and rest up. You should not re-

enter the general public until your fever has been gone for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing drugs. Keep in mind, though, that influenza can continue to infect people up to five days after symptoms dissipate. This goes double if you work in retail or food service. If you are unlucky enough to get the flu AND have a class where the professor is unsympathetic, go to class, cover your mouth and sit as far away from people as possible.

Lastly, DO NOT TAKE ANTIBIOTICS! No matter how much you think they will help, they won’t. Influenza is a virus, and you just have to wait it out. If you take antibiotics, you run the risk of creating more drug-resistant bacterium that will be less receptive to antibiotic treatment in the future.

Not to sound trite by any means, but we all have to work together to keep the greater good healthy. A little forethought on everyone’s part can prevent a massive outbreak that has the potential to shut down the entire school.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN Dear Seattle, Why must we hate and love each other so much, all at the same time?

I can’t be the only one aware of this Portland-and-Seattle sister-city love/hate relationship, especially when it comes to sports. Because man, there is nothing better than beating Seattle at anything. But there is also nothing better than getting the opportunity to play against Seattle, especially when it proves that Portland is the number-one city in the Northwest.

The I-5 rivalry is my favorite in sports. Obviously, there are more historic rivalries, as well as bigger rivalries. But this one represents two cities fighting for supremacy in the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately for fans of this rivalry like myself, we do not get to see it very often. Timbers-Sounders is the only time we get to see the two biggest cities in Cascadia go head-to-head on a major level.

Granted, Portland only has two professional sports teams, and it is not like we would get to see this rivalry that much more, but still, Blazers-Sonics would be nice to see. Especially for me, who, as a die-hard fan of the Blazers, almost has trouble remembering what it was like to play the Sonics. And Portland does have an Arena Football team now, so I-5 football rivalry? (Watch out Seahawks).

So yeah, as a Portland fan there is no better taste than that of beating Seattle. But paired with the hate aspect of this rivalry, there is also a brotherly love. When there was all that news about the Sacramento Kings possibly relocating, I was hoping basketball would return to Seattle, I hate what happened to the Sonics, and I am waiting for the day when they return.

I am also a huge Seahawks fan, and I treat the Seahawks like they are a team from Portland. I absolutely love the Seahawk’s homefield advantage, and I respect the fans in Seattle for creating such an atmosphere. As far as baseball goes, if I had to pick a team, I would pick the Mariners.

Portland’s limited sports teams puts me in a situation where I am forced to root for Seattle teams and be part of the same fan base that I would not noramlly feel connected to. I’m rooting for the Seahawks to win the Superbowl, and I also enjoyed every second of the Timbers beatdown of the Sounders in the MLS playoffs.

Seattle, our relationship is a strange one. However strange, it is incredibly exciting. You do not hear many people who aren’t excited about Timbers-Sounders. That rivalry is the most exciting one in the MLS, and it is sad that it is the only one that exists on our stretch of the I-5. I want more of this. I want to have to hate Seattle more than I love Seattle. And when I say hate, I really mean love. But only in a brotherly-sisterly Pacific Northwest kind of way.

Sincerely, Alex Moore Vanguard Sports Desk

CALLING ALL SPORTS ENTHUSIASTS THE VANGUARD IS LOOKING FOR Sports Writers Apply @ psuvanguard.com

MILES SANGUINETTI/PSU VANGUARD

Vanguard | NOVEMBER 19, 2013 | psuvanguard.com

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