The Pacific Sentinel March 2019, Volume 4 Issue 5

BEES The Pacific Sentinel LIGHTS BOGHOSSIAN Volume IV Issue V March 2019

MEASLES MATTRESS MAHAL SRIRACHA LEGO VIBRATOR

CONTENTS News

3 A Bee Or Not A Bee 6 Viruses, Vaccines, and the Clark County Measles Outbreak 9 You Share Scooters, What About Helmets?

10 4th Annual Portland Winter Light Festival 12 A Safe City in a Sanctuary State

Opinion

14 Arsham Parsi and the Importance of Community Still Fighting For Stonewall 16 Setting Love in Stone

Boghossian and the hoax articles 18 Is Civil Discourse in Its Death Throes?

20 Contextualizing Boghossian

Arts and Culture

23 Girlpool Uncovers Identity Amidst Chaos 24 Meeting Mattress 26 Artists on Campus: Julie Perini 27 Amazing! Local Man Still Puts Sriracha on “Basically Everything” 27 The Lego Movie Has a Second Part?

28 In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) What’s all the buzz about?

Front cover: Breakthrough research at PSU about Back cover: house ad by Jake Johnson featuring wild bees photo by Margo Craig; “Geodesic Dome” Winter Light Festival photo by Saqif Maqsud; photo illustration by Jake Johnson.

photography by Zell Thomas and Jon Bordas.

Come work with us: ThePacificSentinel.com/Jobs

The Pacific Sentinel is a monthly student-run magazine at PSU. We seek to uplift student voices and advocate on behalf of the marginalized. We analyze culture, politics, and daily life to continually take the dialogue further.

Editorial Staff: Executive Editor, Jake Johnson; Production Manager, Zell Thomas; Multimedia Editor, Missy Hannen; News Editor, Margo Craig; Opinion Editor, Daniel J. Nickolas; and Arts and Culture Editor, Shane Johnson.

Lunch money, lollipop, or a rotten old log I can sleep in. Choice is yours, pal.

I thought you were a doo-wop group.

Featured Contributors Hanna Anderson Pete Bensen Jon Bordas Jacob Brauer Brooke Jones M. Saqif Maqsud Malihah Maqsud Raz Mostaghimi Sydney McBee Amy Seufert Van Vanderwall Designers Seth De Armas Haley Riley Alec Smith

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THE PACIFIC SENTINEL

Kleptoparasitic Bees being a nuisance in general.

comic by Jake Johnson

Megachile perihirta: Western leafcutting bee collected in Portland, the males, like this specimen, have mustaches and cover the females’ eyes during copulation. “Not entirely sure why,” says Steele.

article and photos by Margo Craig

A Bee Or Not A Bee? Bee populations are in decline; what do we really know?

Bee Brief

Invertebrates may be spineless, but they run this planet. “Most animals in the world are invertebrates,” joked Susan Masta, associate biology professor at Portland State University.

Masta’s lab focuses on processes of biological diversification. “Just some are vertebrates.” Over 95 percent of species on earth are invertebrates, and most of those are insects. An alarming report recently published in the Biological Conservation Journal states insect populations everywhere are dwindling, and fast. The report estimates that 40 percent of the world’s insect species could go extinct over the next few decades. The likely culprits? Heavy agriculture, pesticide-use, habitat loss, and climate change.

Insects are ecologically vital—such a whopping loss of diversity would be dire for agriculture and the world at large.

But the EPA, under the Trump and Obama administrations, has routinely circumvented the pesticide review process. The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act gives the EPA the authority to allow farmers to temporarily use pesticides too toxic for approval in a crop emergency, like an unexpected blight.

In December 2018, right before the country spiraled into a partial government shutdown,

the EPA announced “emergency” approvals to spray the insecticide sulfoxaflor on more than 16 million acres of cotton and sorghum, crops which are attractive to bees. The EPA has acknowledged that sulfoxaflor harms bees but is making a so-called emergency exemption across 18 states to control aphids and tarnished plant bugs. According to the EPA, a pile of dead bees near a hive, say from pesticides, doesn’t necessarily mean colony collapse.

However, while sulfoxaflor may not kill bees directly, it hampers their reproduction. One study found that a bumblebee queen exposed to sulfoxaflor produced 54 percent fewer male drones and no new queen bees. Bee experts say the pesticides that produce “sublethal stressors,” whether they are neonicotinoid or sulfoximine-based, likely contribute to colony collapse disorder.

Even huge agrochemical corporations like Monsanto, which is steeped in lawsuits over its use of toxic products, acknowledge the importance of insects, namely pollinators. A third of the world’s food production relies on insect pollination. According to the Monsanto-sponsored organization Modern Agriculture, “managed honeybees” are considered the “most valuable pollinators in terms of agricultural

economics,” and their estimated market value is at $20 billion. “Honeybees are livestock,” Masta said, because they form colonies. Their eusocial lifestyle makes them viable cargo. But the vast majority of bees are actually solitary.

Just because most wild bees don’t form social colonies or make honey doesn’t mean they don’t have pollinating power. “Wild bees,” per Modern Agriculture, have an estimated market value of $4 billion. They’re regarded as “a valuable supplement” to commercial honey bee colonies that even pollinate “certain crops more efficiently than their domesticated counterparts.” But what do we even know about these so-called wild bees?

Bee Insightful

Bee populations are in decline, in large part due to habitat loss, agricultural practices, urbanization, and disease. Wild bee populations are diverse. There are about 20,000 species globally, 4,000 species in North America, and over 500 estimated in Oregon alone. But we don’t know much about them. “There is much less known about Northwestern bees,” Masta said. “We’re really centuries behind on the West Coast, just because the systematists [the specialists in taxonomy] didn’t make it out here.”

NEWS

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“Invertibrates may be spineless, but they run this planet.�

Invertebrates make up 95 percentof all animal species on earth, this includes bees, sponges, starfish, jellyfish, flies, ants, slugs, worms, etc. Just 5 percent are mammals, reptiles, birds, and people. infographic by Margo Craig

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NEWS

LEFT PAGE

(L) Steele handling one of the collected bee specimens, now pinned and part of the invertebrate collection of PSU’s Museum of Natural History. (R) Boxes of pinned specimens showcase local bee diversity.

RIGHT PAGE

Stefanie Steele and Erica Rudolph present the first Survey of the Bees of Portland at the Urban Ecology and Conservation Symposium in Smith Ballroom, February 2019.

DEFINITIONS:

Multivoltine: multiple generations of offspring occur within a year, typically adult populations don’t live very long after mating.

Univoltine: one single generation of offspring occurring in a year.

Diapause: developmental stage of dormancy similar to hibernation that a species uses to avoid adverse environmental conditions.

Kleptoparasitic bees: parasitize by stealing (as the name suggests, they are kleptos). They survive by laying their eggs in other bees’ nests; when the parasitic bees emerge, they kill and steal resources from the host bees’ brood.

Despite their ecological value, little research has been conducted into which native bee species occur in the region, let alone the bees’ biology.

Stefanie Steele is a graduate student in Masta’s lab pioneering research on basic biology about local bees: Who is here? Where do they live? When do they mate? What flowers do they like? “Many bees may be at the risk of extinction,” Steele said. “But we also just don’t know a lot about their life histories, or what habitats or nesting locations they’re occupying.”

For the past two years, Steele and undergraduate Erica Rudolph have been working on a comprehensive survey of bees in urban Portland. This study—the first of its kind—indicates that 66 morphologically distinct species can be found throughout the city. Some have yet to be described, but it can be a struggle to identify certain genera of bees if the taxonomic keys don’t even exist. As Masta put it, “Oregon bees just haven’t been studied.”

Steele’s thesis project will research nest preferences within species of cavity-nesting bees.

“Most of the bees here are solitary,” Steele said, “most people think of honeybees, which are truly social bees with a true hierarchy system, but these bees are solitary, mostly nesting in the ground, and about 30 percent nesting in cavities, which is what I’ll be focusing on.” Some bee species are multivoltine, meaning they produce multiple generations of offspring in a year, while others are univoltine, having only a single brood a year. “To address the decline it’s important to find where they’re nesting so we can better accommodate them so that they can be successful later.”

Steele says that some of the earliest bees to emerge in spring are cavity-nesters that polli-

nate fruit trees. They too can be used commercially to pollinate crops like cherry trees and certain apple orchards. Cavity-nesting bees inhabit debris people tend to clear away. “As a society, we have a pressure to tidy our yards and remove all these imperfections and make things look nice to us, but we’re really removing important habitat for these bees as well as other organisms.” Old logs riddled with beetle bore holes, fallen branches, and pithy plant stems might be unseemly to us, but for some native bees, they’re home sweet home. More people are buying supplemental nests, but the models could be better if based on research.

For example, people are advised to place their supplemental bee nests at eye level. “From my understanding,” Steele said, “that is for our pleasure—to be able to view them,” but there may be a better way to set the native bees up for success.

Steele will focus primarily on preferred nesting heights of each species of cavity-nesting bees in the Portland area. The results of the study will also provide insight into which bee species are inhabiting the cavities, the nest features, and differences in bee diversity. The survey already established that some places house more diversity than others, while some places appear to attract certain house-hunters.

An ecological restoration site in an industrial area of North Portland, for example, had the most cavity-nesting bees. Steele thinks bees may be flying over the river from Forest Park because the site offers a lot of good real estate: driftwood logs from the Willamette River line the educational garden there and are perfect homes for cavity-nesting bees.

This spring, Steele will place nest boxes in at least ten sites throughout Portland, mostly in

residential gardens across the city, as well as in a large industrial educational garden in North Portland, a farm in Oregon City, and on the PSU campus. The nest boxes are designed with features known to improve nesting success. For example, they offer a range of nesting holes to accommodate the range of bee sizes. The boxes will be collected in fall, put in a cooler for diapause, and then warmed up until the adult bees emerge. Diapause is a developmental phase of dormancy similar to hibernation. Steele is also the first to establish a procedure for shortening the duration of diapause for native bees, as a way to study who exactly emerges in a more timely fashion.

Based on data from Survey of the Bees of Portland, Steele’s thesis will focus on three out of the total five families of bees that live in North America: Megachilidae, Apidae, and Colletidae. She anticipates finding kleptoparasitic bees too. “They’re a good bioindicator—a good sign—because it means the bees that they rely on are around too.”

Parasitoid wasps are also part of the picture.

If the cavities are good for cavity-nesting bees, they are good for cavity-nesting wasps too. But their presence isn’t “bad” per se, they are just a natural part of bee-life. But not to worry— according to Rudolph, who is also a wasp-enthusiast in Masta’s Lab, “The wasps are also really important, and they’re not super mean!

They’re mostly solitary and don’t really sting.”

You don’t need to love bugs to appreciate the work Masta’s lab is doing, but you may want to give them a second thought, a closer look, and at very least, a safe home in some cozy dead wood.

THE PACIFIC SENTINEL

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Viruses, Vaccines, and the Clark County Measles Outbreak Amy Seufert

regon is dangerously close to a measles outbreak. Coupled with the anti-vaccine movement—or as Dr. Ken Stedman, resident virologist at Portland State University, puts it: the “pro-disease” movement—we may be in for the perfect storm. In January, health officials in Washington declared a state of emergency as more and more children came down with Measles in Clark County, just across the Columbia River from Portland. Since January 1st there have been 70 confirmed cases, and 61 of them are unimmunized children (not all could confirm their immunization status). Four cases are in Multnomah County, Oregon.

Measles is a highly contagious virus that scientists expected to eradicate given there is an incredibly effective vaccine. However, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 7.5 percent of kindergartners enrolled in Oregon between 2016–2018 were not vaccinated for nonmedical reasons; it was the highest rate of nonmedical exemptions in the country. There is an abundance of misinformation fueling the anti-vaccine movement, and it behooves all of us to turn to the experts—all the way down to the basics.

WHAT IS A VIRUS?

“A virus is a bag of genes,” Stedman said. He researches viruses that live in volcanic hot springs and was mentioned in The New York Times for discovering a way to reversibly inactivate viruses; this method is important because it allows vaccines to not need to be kept cold during transport in developing countries.

All viruses are host-dependent, meaning without a host, a virus can’t replicate (aka reproduce for this non-living life form). In fact, whether or not viruses are actually alive is up for debate. As of now, all cellular life is divided into three domains: Eukarya, Bacteria and Archaea. But viruses? “They’re part of life,” Stedman tells his virology class with a smile. Sure, viruses use DNA or RNA (the molecules responsible for storing and communicating genetic information) just like other life, but they must hijack the machinery of another living being’s cells in order to replicate and persist.

You may be surprised to discover that not all viruses are harmful, or even infectious to humans. Most infect specific hosts. We tend to know the most about the ones that impact human and crop health because there is more incentive to research them. Furthermore, all of us are made up of viruses in a way. According to Stedman, anywhere from 10 to 40 percent of human DNA came from viruses!

Compare that to the fact that only 1.5 percent of our genome encodes protein. It begs the question: Are humans more viral than human?

Fun fact—measles comes from a family of viruses that have been around longer than humans: the Morbilliviruses. However, the measles virus itself is relatively new, and is thought to have emerged in the early 20th century from a cattle virus called rinderpest—rinderpest translates to meat disease from German. “The most successful viruses,” Stedman said, “are those that don’t cause much in the way of disease.” That is because the virus does not want to kill the host—it’s home! The way our immune system responds to a pathogenic virus is often more harmful than the virus itself.

MEASLES SYMPTOMS AND TRANSMISSION

The symptoms of measles infection begin with a high fever, cough, runny nose, and watery eyes. However, the rash does not develop until the fourth day, and up until that time, patients are typically unaware that they are chaufferring around a highly contagious viral disease. This phenomenon is what Stedman refers to as “naivety of infection,” that period of time where your immune system is beginning to kick in, but you are still unaware of your infection. It is so contagious because it is transmitted via aerosols, which are tiny droplets or particles in the air. When a person talks, coughs, sneezes, or even breathes, they emit aerosols.

If a person is infected with the measles virus, it can be spread to others with unbelievable ease. If that person leaves a room before you enter it, you could catch measles up to two hours after they are gone.

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NEWS ANALYSIS

Measles threshold immunity also known as “herd immunity”

vaccinated unvaccinated infected

Clark County Vaccination Rate

One Clark County school reported a Vaccination rate under 40 percent

One Multnomah County school reported a Vaccination rate of 30 percent

HOW DOES AN OUTBREAK OCCUR?

Herd immunity and vaccination rates These graphics illustrate the concept of herd immunity and show how reported vaccination rates appear when visually represented in the same way.

The teal dots act as buffers to reduce the likelihood that the pink dot can infect the yellow dots.

These graphics are illustrations of how a vaccinated or unvaccinated population would theoretically interact with a measles case, and do not represent actual infections or rates of infection in these locations. sources: Willamette Week, Oregonian, NPR, and the CDC

Undervaccinated populations and naivety of infection are strong foreshadowings of an outbreak. Herd immunity refers to the protection of an entire community from disease by reaching a certain threshold of people who are immunized. The more members of the “herd” that are immune to a disease, the less likely an infection spreads through a population. Since viruses rely on hosts, if we eliminate a certain amount of hosts a virus can infect, we decrease its likelihood of jumping from host to host. Vaccination is important because not everyone is healthy enough to get vaccinated, such as those who are immunocompromised. Consider children who are not yet of age to receive a vaccine—they are already susceptible to infection. If they are on chemotherapy for cancer, which suppresses the immune system, exposure to infectious agents is more dangerous.

Scientists say that the threshold immunity for measles is 95 percent.

However, more communities across the world are falling beneath that level.

An outbreak often begins with travel, according to Stedman. For example, there are current measles outbreaks in the Philippines and Madagascar, where vaccination rates are well beneath the 95 percent immunity threshold. The alarming trend of nonmedical vaccine exemption emerging in Oregon is taking a toll on herd immunity. The Oregonian reported that 65 percent of charter public schools fall beneath the 95 percent threshold needed to effectively disrupt the chain of transmission for measles and stave off an outbreak. Ideally, the 5 percent of the population that does not get vaccinated are only those that cannot due to medical reasons. They are precisely why healthy children should be vaccinated. Infections like measles pose serious threats to communities with vaccination rates under the 95 percent threshold, because symptoms might not arise until days after someone is infected, making it difficult to contain.

VACCINES

illustration by Margo Craig infographic by Jake Johnson

Vaccination is so common now that it can be easy to take for granted, but disease was a dismal death sentence before vaccines were an option.

Smallpox, for instance, was devastating, and killed 300 million people in the 20th century alone. It has been eradicated thanks to a vaccine created

by Edward Jenner when he discovered that the cowpox virus could be used to build immunity in people and prevent them from becoming infected by smallpox (the word vaccine comes from the Latin “vacca” for cow). The measles vaccine was created in 1963, and, according to the CDC, 3 to 4 million people were infected a year before the vaccine, and that included 400 to 500 deaths each year. Measles is not as deadly as smallpox, but the fatality rate is still 1 in 1,000—a risk that none of us have to take since there is a vaccine.

Vaccines work by training the immune system. Lucky for us, we can develop strong immunological memory against pathogens without getting infected. If our body gets a small taste of a pathogen, it can usually figure out how to fight it for our lifetime. Viruses are used to make vaccines, but they are either inactivated or attenuated.

The flu vaccine, for example, is an inactivated virus. It has been zapped with chemicals and broken into tiny pieces, according to Stedman. The small pieces are not virulent, meaning they cannot infect a host because they are unable to hijack the cell machinery. However, the small pieces are similar enough to the true virus that the immune system recognizes them as foreign and builds up a defense system in case it comes into contact with a virulent strain. In this way, our bodies can ward off an infection by the actual virus.

THE PACIFIC SENTINEL

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Dr. Ken Stedman, virus hunter, biology professor and member of the Center for Life in Extreme Environments at PSU, holding a 3D-printed model of a Sulfolobus virus from the archaebacteria of acidic volcanic hot springs. photo by Amy Seufert

An attenuated vaccine is also made directly from the virus, but in a form that has evolved to lose its virulence. First, the virus is injected into a non-human animal, where it proliferates for some time before getting re-injected into a different animal. After multiple rounds of reinjection, the virus evolves to lose the elements that make it virulent. This is how each of the three vaccines in the “Measles Mumps Rubella” (MMR) vaccine were made. The MMR vaccine is especially effective for two reasons: It only takes a small dose to work, and it is made of whole viruses, so our immune systems can learn to recognize many different parts of the viruses.

Vaccines are good for us, but do they pose any threats? “There are some issues with vaccination,” Stedman said. “One in a million cases of vaccination can cause some kind of severe allergic reaction, and that’s a problem. But one in a thousand people can die from measles—humans are really bad at risk assessment.” If you were faced with a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of anaphylactic shock due to an allergy to the vaccine preparation (some people find they are allergic to the eggs that are used in the preparation), would you take this risk knowing that you had a 1 in 1,000 chance of dying from a measles infection?

Some attenuated vaccines come with another risk, albeit a very rare one.

Technically, some attenuated vaccines can mutate to regain their virulence, but, per Stedman, “Most attenuated vaccines have many mutations, not just one, so reversion of all of them at the same time is extremely unlikely.” He adds that there have not been any instances of reversion with the measles vaccine, yellow fever vaccine, nor with “FluMist” for influenza, all of which are live attenuated vaccines. The chances of this happening with the attenuated version of polio vaccine are 1 in 750,000, a slim chance of contracting “vaccine-derived polio.”

According to Stedman, the polio vaccine is only a few mutations away from its virulent strain, meaning that during the attenuation process (the re-injection of the virus into several animals to decrease its virulence), the viral genes still remained extremely similar to the original virus. As a result, some patients contract vaccine-derived polio. This is still a problem in the developing world, but the number of incidences is only in the tens. Importantly, vaccine-derived infections do not occur with other attenuated vaccines, including the MMR, due to the high rate of viral genetic mutation that has occurred in the attenuation process for these vaccines. Furthermore, live or attenuated viruses are not recommended for people who are immunocompromised. And this is a reminder of why herd immunity is so important for us to uphold—to protect those around us who are unable to receive certain vaccines.

THE MISINFORMATION

7.5 percent of kindergarden age children in Oregon have non-medical exemptions (purple dots) combined with the 5 percent allowance for individuals unable to get vaccinated for medical reasons.

Some people have doubts about vaccines because they do not trust the government or pharmaceutical companies. The government does indeed get a financial return from vaccine development, but according to Stedman, it is not direct.

Vaccines lead to less disease, which means less stress on the public health system and a savings for the government. Even health insurance companies are on board—they know that if people are vaccinated they will pay less in the long run on bills like hospitalization. “It’s better for their bottom line,” Stedman said. As for pharmaceutical companies, vaccines are far from being their most profitable products, and they represent only 2–3 percent of this trillion-dollar industry.

According to an article in Cureus, an open access medical journal, the anti-vaccination movement began with ex-physician Andrew Wakefield. In 1998, Wakefield published a paper in The Lancet claiming there was a connection between the MMR vaccine and the development of autism in children. The deceptive claim was not only disproved by many succeeding studies, but in 2004 was referred to as a “scandal” in The Times: It turned out that Wakefield was funded by solicitors against vaccine manufacturers. In 2010, The Lancet, a highly esteemed and peer-reviewed medical journal, retracted Wakefield’s paper stating its claims were incorrect. Wakefield and his team were later found guilty of ethical violations, scientific misrepresentation, and deliberate fraud.

MORALS OF THE MEASLES STORY

The moral of this story: It is important for us to stay informed, and inform others, about infectious diseases such as measles and the benefits of getting vaccinated. It may be difficult to sift through all of the conflicting information on the internet, but finding the right answer is beneficial to you and those around you. Putting an end to fear-mongering, getting vaccinated, upholding herd immunity, and protecting those who are unable to receive vaccines for medical reasons are things we should consider as we take action against this measles outbreak. Finally, talk to your medical provider for reliable advice; or, if you would rather seek out answers on your own, check out the CDC’s page for information on vaccine safety: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/caregivers/index.html

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NEWS ANALYSIS

You Share Scooters, What About Helmets?

By Jacob Brauer

STARTUP WORKS ON ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY HELMET SHARING PROGRAM TO COMPLEMENT MICRO-MOBILITY VEHICLE SHARING

Oregon law currently requires bicyclists under 16 years old and e-scooter riders of all ages to wear a helmet. In 2016, Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) kicked off a bike-share program called BIKETOWN, and various e-scooter share programs are slated to return to Portland this spring after a popular pilot period. These micro-transportation programs have been successful, but riders rarely wear helmets. PBOT gave away 500 free helmets during an e-scooter safety event halfway through the pilot program; the three e-scooter companies, Lime, Bird and Skip, also hosted helmet giveaways during the trial. But, PBOT reported 176 scooter-related emergency room visits during the e-scooter pilot period and estimated that 90 percent of all riders did not wear a helmet.

Should there be a helmet share program, too? Sandeep Chandrasekhar, a graduate student at University of Oregon, thinks so. Chandrasekhar was born in New Delhi, India and grew up in the Bay Area. He has a passion for environmentally friendly transportation options and understands the necessity of safety in this rapidly expanding field. He is interested in micro-mobility transportation and human body protection, and is currently prototyping an environmentally friendly helmet as well as a helmetshare program to accompany micro-transportation options. Chandrasekhar is now meeting with investors in hopes of finalizing a program to pitch to the City of Portland to protect noggins.

Where do you see your helmet startup incorporating into the Metro transit system?

It’s good because there is no viable program for ride-sharing helmets currently. This need is going to be met by us preventing the need for ownership, which will encourage more people to use public transit options. Micro-mobility is single-person use vehicles, and since these take up less space, it will help traffic congestion in the city because it’s easy to get from one place to the next using a micro-mobility option.

Ride-sharing and micro-mobility allows for people to get from doorstep to doorstep as quickly as possible. This is a good complement to public transit because public transit rarely gets the user from doorstep to doorstep; and this will help do so because it encourages more people to use public transportation options in densely populated areas, by increasing accessibility and safety.

We want to encourage the option for micro-mobility in densely populated regions.

Currently helmets are absolutely on outside expanded polystyrene foam (EPS) on inner liner, which is a cradle-to-grave option [the lifecycle of a product’s material components end when the product is no longer used, i.e. throwing your phone in the trash instead of recycling the components]. Our helmet redesign is an environmentally friendly Cradle to Cradle option [design that attempts to mimic nature by designing products where the materials can be reused at the end of the product’s cycle of use]. This is a bonus for a more Cradle to Cradle option that prevents the need for ownership in densely populated urban settings.

Do you plan on working with just Portland or with other cities as well?

Hopefully other cities, any big densely populated urban areas work. We were thinking about San Francisco, New York City, Boston, Seattle, and Philadelphia.

Do you see the effort that you’re putting into your startup influencing the following of the legality of mandatory helmet wearing on e-scooters?

Yes, but e-scooters are very new. The whole thing is much more about micro-mobility as a whole, not just about e-scooters. E-scooters’ success is way too early to tell is the thing. Micro-mobility in one form or another is here to stay.

The question that no one wants to talk about is lice—what are you going to do about this issue?

A phenomenal question. This is the reason the current helmet technology is not a communal use option currently, that ends up forcing individual ownership. We need to look into the processes to ensure cleanliness of materials before and after use, [and] environmental concerns with disposal and recycle of cleaning products and materials. This is a big time issue and we take this very seriously. We care about user

and environmental safety and this is a big time potential engineerable breakthrough in helmet technology that we are going to solve.

There’s a lot of talk in Portland about the legal mandate for helmets. Do you think your technology could influence any legislation?

Yes, we have to solve it right now, we have to look at the customer solution right now. Helmet use was the most prevalent complaint from the [PBOT] about bicycle sharing and e-scooter sharing. There has to be a viable solution to incentivize helmet wearing on micro-mobility vehicles.

The fine for operating a motorized scooter in Portland without protective headgear is $25. Has this ever happened to anyone you know?

No.

What type of helmet sharing program is this going to be used for? Is it the same as the scooters where you can just leave the helmets anywhere?

That’s the goal that’s going to depend on the product layout and how that ends up happening.

To get from point A to point B as possible, anything damaging the customer experience is not going to be an option. This is to make micro-transportation options easier not harder, so this is all going to depend on how the the product layout is performed.

Are they going to be customizable?

I don’t know yet!

Would you customize yours?

I can’t give you a fair answer on that at this time.

Thank you very much for your time.

You too!

Chandrasekhar’s scooter is indeed named the Swagtron.

NEWS

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4th Annual Portland Winter Light Festival

by Hanna Anderson

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NEWS

The 4th annual Portland Winter Light Festival came to brighten the cityscape through the early February winter, once again taking over the darkness with a wide array of illuminated art installations.

The yearly event, hosted by the Willamette Light Brigade, brings a variety of lighted artworks to different designated “zones” of Portland, and for the first time, the Portland State University Campus was one of those zones. While PSU has hosted pieces for the Winter Light Festival before, this year the campus featured more artworks as an official zone, including the iconic “Geodesic Dome” on display in the middle of the Urban Plaza.

The West Riverside Zone was situated outside of the World Trade Center and around the West side of the Hawthorne Bridge. Oregon had just been put under a statewide winter advisory anticipating a record-breaking blizzard; the Snowpocalypse never really landed, but the Portland Winter Light Festival was cold, especially by the river. Crowds of people braced against the weather with warm jackets and knits, turning their attention to the surrounding lights popping against the nighttime chill. Some festival-goers, like PSU student Sarah, lined up under the bridge at the Coffee Bus, not for artwork, but for a hot beverage. Two minutes later, my hot chocolate was already just chocolate, but Sarah seemed undeterred by the cold. “This is the first time I’ve come. I didn’t even know that Portland hosted a light festival,” she explained. “It’s really cool. There’s a lot of creative designs and concepts. My favorite’s the paper airplane exhibit, though the airplanes were made of glass or ice or metal or something.”

A festival featuring lights did not waste the opportunity to host some spectacular interactive artwork. One flaming structure in particular, titled the “Moltensteelman Wishing Portal,” garnered quite a crowd. The portal consisted of a pair of lit structures with fire blazing out of their tops in repeated bursts.

The fire was controlled by a “magic lamp” in front of a gated barrier, where people could step up and use buttons to control the flames in a variety of patterns.

There were several pieces under the Hawthorne bridge, but the “F(Light)” was front and center.

“F(Light)” is a collection of glass paper planes frozen mid flight with a video projection of the moving sky over top. The installation was created for the first Portland Winter Light Festival in 2016 and has returned every year since. Next to “F(Light)” was “La Touffe,” a massive group of paper lanterns suspended from the bottom of the bridge. A single string that hung from them made for a great photo op for passersby.

The festival carried on: artists, their vibrant work, and the festival’s attendees showed that despite concerns of a potential snowpocalypse, public art was worth braving the weather for.

photos by M. Saqif Maqsud

THE PACIFIC SENTINEL

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A Safe Cit y in a S N T A Y State?

A C U R The steps and stumbles toward protecting immigrant rights in Portland

article and photos by Hanna Anderson

“Our federal government is criminalizing immigrants and refugees; they’re violating their constitutional rights. As criminals, they would have a right to representation, and they certainly have a right to due process regardless. However, we don’t supply them with that.”

—Commissioner Chloe Eudaly

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NEWS ANALYSIS

In March 2017, nearly two months after the Trump administration took control of the federal government, the city of Portland passed resolution 37277 to “Declare the City of Portland a Welcoming City, a Sanctuary City, and an Inclusive City for all.” The legislation, as its title would suggest, reaffirmed the city’s dedication to protecting the immigrant and refugee population in our community.

However, strong sanctuary statutes are hardly anything new in the state of Oregon. The legislation best known for being Oregon’s poster Sanctuary Law dates back to the summer of 1987, and prohibits the use of any state or local resources to enforce federal immigration law. Essentially, if one’s only crime is being in the country illegally, they technically would receive no hassle from Portland or Oregon law enforcement police and sheriffs.

As far as state laws go, resolution 37277 has been a relatively non-controversial one for most of its life. In the midterm elections last November the initiative Measure 105, to repeal the sanctuary law, lost 37 percent to 63 percent of the vote; Oregonians reaffirmed that they are still committed to sanctuary policies within their state.

The law has become especially relevant today, as the Trump administration continues to take a hard stance with unrelenting legislation targeting both illegal and legal immigration. As the federal government pushes a far harsher stance than has been seen before, it leaves state and local governments in a unique position. What role do they play in the protections and rights for immigrants?

The City of Portland took two distinct legislative steps in the first two months of 2019 towards defining their own role: Passing resolutions to leave the Joint Terrorism Task Force [JTTF] and to apply to join the Safety and Fairness for Everyone [SAFE] Network.

Portland City Council voted unanimously to apply to join the SAFE Network on Jan. 23, in order to help provide universal legal representation to all undocumented immigrants in the city. The SAFE Network, created by the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit group, is a collective of cities committed to supporting undocumented immigrants across the country. Legal resources and representation in deportation cases for those who would otherwise not have access to it increase immigrants’ chances of winning their cases. Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse reported that in 2016 unrepresented asylum seekers had a 90 percent of having their claims denied; however, asylum seekers with legal representation were denied in 48 percent of cases. According to the SAFE Network’s website, “immigrants who are

represented are up to ten times more likely to establish a right to remain in the United States than those who are unrepresented.”

Joining the network would give the city of Portland access to training and support for legal services defending undocumented immigrants, as well as monitoring performance and outcomes of the program. It does not cost money to join, but the city would also be eligible for up to $100,000 in grants towards the cause. The vote was 4-0 in favor of passing the resolution—Mayor Ted Wheeler was absent from the hearing and the vote.

The importance of universal representation in court cases was heavily stressed throughout the meeting. The Sixth amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to a lawyer not solely to citizens of the United States; however, it only applies to criminal cases, whereas deportation cases are considered to be civil cases. Therefore, undocumented immigrants are not guaranteed a lawyer when they are facing deportation, under the current law. Commissioner Chloe Eudaly introduced the bill in hopes to assist immigrants with the life-changing ability to have that legal representation.

“Our federal government is criminalizing immigrants and refugees; they’re violating their constitutional rights,” Eudaly said. “As criminals, they would have a right to representation, and they certainly have a right to due process regardless. However, we don’t supply them with that. So this effort around universal representation seeks to remedy that.”

Despite the January 23, 2019 decision by the Portland City Council to apply to join the SAFE Network, the City of Portland still remained in the JTTF. The JTTF was criticized harshly by testimony in city council for unlawful surveillance of peaceful political groups, prejudice against minority groups, as well as being led by the FBI and ICE. Most concerning legally, however, was the Portland Police Bureau involvement in the task force; If PPB is supposed to be prohibited from enforcing federal immigration law, they might

not be able to abide by sanctuary state and city policies if they are sharing information and resources with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Even if PPB doesn’t actively assist ICE, the optics of their relationship with the JTTF make trusting PPB’s commitment to sanctuary policies difficult.

At Portland City Council’s Feb. 13 session, the resolution to leave the JTTF was passed.

Just before the vote, a rally was held outside of city hall, with a small crowd passionately in support of passing the resolution. The rally included multiple speakers, including Commissioner Hardesty, who introduced the bill.

“Today, we have an opportunity to once again make sure that Portlanders are heard loud and clear. ” Hardesty said, “ We want to live in a city where we are one Portland, where all of us are safe from over policing. We want to make sure that everyone in our community, regardless of where they were born, what language they speak, what color they are, that they can feel that they can walk down the street safely without concern for how law enforcement will interact with them.”

The vote was 3-2 in favor of leaving the JTTF. Commissioners Hardesty, Fritz and Eudaly voted in favor, while Mayor Wheeler and Commissioner Fisk voted against. 38 Portlanders signed up to give public testimony at the session, overwhelmingly in support of the resolution; of the testimonies given, only two were against the resolution.

During her vote, Eudaly—whose vote was

the only one not almost entirely certain before going into the session—asked the audience of the chamber, “Do you feel safer today than you did five years ago?” After a resounding “No,” she responded, “I don’t either.”

“Using immigration violations to bypass the criminal court system is a violation of the spirit of our due process protections,” Eudaly said.

“Additionally, I continue to be wary of supporting any agency that works with ICE...I’m not convinced that there are adequate protections to ensure Portland Police Bureau officers will be walled off from this component of the JTTF’s activities.”

For both pieces of legislation, the Trump administration was directly cited as a reason behind their writing. Since entering office in 2017, President Trump has made his undoubtedly hardline stance on immigration a major factor in his policymaking.

Within his first month of office alone, the president signed various executive orders to penalize sanctuary cities in attempts to withhold federal funding, ban citizens of seven Muslim-majorit y countries from entering the U.S, and authorize the building of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Two years later, arguments between congress and the president over funding for the border wall caused the longest government shutdown in history, having lasted 31 days, with the president refusing to sign the budget if the funding was not included.

Both of these resolutions by Portland City Council require further work. Whether the city’s application to the SAFE Network is accepted remains to be seen. Severing ties with the Joint Terrorism Task Force could prove a long, messy, and complicated process. Both of these resolutions have impacts that are not easily known; however, they both show a desire to take steps toward making Portland a place where immigrants and marginalized people feel better supported, less targeted, and more willing to see law enforcement as a beneficial resource.

THE PACIFIC SENTINEL

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STILL FIG HTING FOR STONEWALL

ARSHAM PARSI AND THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY AN ONGOING LOOK AT LG BTQ AC TIVISM AROU ND THE WORLD Daniel J. Nickola s

The Stonewall Inn was run by a mafia outfit that notoriously watered

down drinks, shortcut proper sanitation practices, blackmailed wealthy patrons, and bribed police officers into ignoring a multitude of law violations committed by the bar’s owners. On the surface, Stonewall was not the place one would choose for a night out. But despite this, The Stonewall Inn was massively popular. The reason? This dive bar offered something that could not be found in practically any other establishment of the time, including other gay bars: an inclusive space that fostered belonging and community.

In the era before the Stonewall Uprising, the queer community itself was severely fractured; the few places that catered to queer individuals were usually very specific about the kind of clientele that would frequent these establishments. Stonewall was unique in that lesbians, gay men, drag queens, transgender individuals, genderfluid people, and other queer identities all frequented the bar together. When an unidentified lesbian (probably Stormé DeLarverie) was being beaten and arrested by a host of Alice Blue Gowns (the police) during the infamous raid that sparked the uprising, she shouted out to the onlookers, “Why don’t you guys do something?” This was a unique moment, because she was speaking to an audience representing a variety of queer identities, not just of identities similar to her own. This is perhaps the reason the influence of the Stonewall Uprising has had such longevity; it was a moment of unification that inspired queer individuals in the coming years to try fighting together as one community. This unification is a huge reason the LGBTQ rights movenent has made such significant progress.

As a society, we would be remiss to forget that queer citizens of the United States, within the last century, have been subjected to electroshock therapy; transorbital lobotomies; prejudiced legislation; legal discrimination in workplaces and housing markets; sexualpsychopath laws, which put LGBTQ individuals in prison or mental health hospitals; a slew of physical hate crimes; and the continued use of conversion therapies—still completely legal to practice, even on minors, in 35 states. In the face of such discrimination, creating a cohesive community was understandably difficult, and this difficulty still plagues many queer individuals. We see this even today as identities such as asexuality and bisexuality struggle for proper acceptance and representation. Luckily, activists like Arsham Parsi have dedicated their lives to creating queer communities in spite of such difficulties.

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Arsham Parsi: Building community in Iran

The attitudes against LGBTQ inviduals in Iran are some of the most unforgiving in the world. For transgender individuals, Iran appears to be an outlier. The country recognizes binary trans identities and allows for gender reassignment surgery. However, Iranian society strongly discourages the openness of trans identities; trans people are expected to treat their transitions as something culturally surreptitious, and transgender individuals—especially those who are not cis-passing—are often discriminated against and ostracized, both socially and legally.

While same-sex relationships have technically been illegal in Iran for some time, it was not until after the 1979 Iranian Revolution that legal punishments against homosexuality began in earnest. The Memorial in Defense of Human Rights project, which focuses on those who have died as a result of human rights violations in Iran, lists 140 individuals executed since 1979, whose charges included homosexuality. Nearly all 140 of these individuals were male, as the punishment for lesbian relationships is not capital punishment, but rather public flogging—up to 100 lashes. In light of all this, creating queer communities might seem next to impossible, and that is exactly why the work of activists like Arsham Parsi is so important.

Arsham Parsi was born in Shiraz, Iran. With a history of high literature and world renowned gardens, Shiraz is a beautiful city, one which Parsi loves, and one to which he is afraid ever to return. When Parsi was 14, he read a book from his school library purporting to be about sex education. The book depicted homosexuality as an abominable sin. Realizing that the feelings and attractions described in the book applied to him, Parsi began attempting to rid himself of his homosexual feelings. This practice included isolation, strict religious devotion, and self-harm. In his autobiography, Exiled for Love, Parsi describes that period of his life: “I became obsessed with the idea of being stoned to death. I thought about it constantly...my [self-inflicted] punishments grew more intense and painful. I would bite my arms until I bled. Other times I would beat myself.”

When Parsi was in his early twenties, he discovered a fledgling Iranian queer community on the internet. In these early-internet chat rooms, Parsi was able to not only be himself with other gay men, but also work through the emotional turmoil of being a gay man in a severely anti-gay society. Upon discovering that some of the other chat room participants

and security.” These individuals, hopeful to become refugees, inspired Parsi to found The Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees (IRQR).

Since 2008, the Canadian based group has been assisting queer Iranians through the process of obtaining refugee status; it also provides financial assistance to queer Iranians waiting on refugee status who are unable to find work as asylum seekers. The organization also prioritizes connecting LGBTQ Iranians with other queer communities.

The same year IRQR was founded, Parsi’s other organization IRQO (later renamed the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization), was awarded the Felipa de Souza Award for human rights activism. In 2015, Parsi was honored with the Pride Toronto Award for Excellence in Human Rights, and the Logo TV Trailblazer Award that same year. He continues to live in Canada.

The importance of Community

illu st rat ion by Jake John son

lived in Shiraz, Parsi took up the daring task of creating a small community of gay friends in the offline world. Consisting mostly of potluck dinners at someone’s home or simply meeting for coffee, this community stayed small and casual for sometime. However, after Parsi faced a tragic turning point in his life, he decided to use the internet chat rooms for an even greater good.

A close friend of Parsi’s—whose name was Arash—committed suicide after Arash’s family discovered that his long-time male friend was actually his romantic partner. The event left Parsi desperate to find an outlet for gay men to discuss and work through the secrecy, shame, and isolation plaguing gay individuals in Iran.

Parsi founded the Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO). The group used the internet to create safe, welcoming communities for queer individuals living in oppressive countries throughout the Middle East. The ultimate goal was to help individuals find friendship and community both online and, more importantly, offline. Unfortunately, the group’s very existence posed a threat to Parsi.

In his autobiography, Parsi tells of an incident on his twenty-second birthday, during which the police raided his party. A family relative with connections to the police warned Parsi

that the raid was going to happen, allowing Parsi to avoid both the party and his arrest.

However, several of Parsi’s queer friends were in attendance, and were all arrested on suspicion of being homosexuals. Several of his friends were beaten while in police custody.

This incident began an intensification of police raids against queer community gatherings in and around Shiraz. Several arrestees testified to being interrogated by the police about the IRQO, and who was managing it. Because of increased police hostility, Parsi concluded that his presence in Shiraz, and even in Iran, was harming the very community he had worked so hard to create.

Parsi met a trusted friend at a coffee shop in order to get help planning his escape into exile. Twenty-four hours after this meeting, he had fled Iran.

Parsi sought asylum in Turkey while waiting to be officially approved as a refugee.

After many months, he was granted refugee status and sent to live in Canada. Despite Parsi being thousands of miles from his community, he once again recognized the potential of the internet to make positive changes in the lives of queer Iranians. Parsi recounts in his autobiography, “Almost daily I received desperate emails from people looking to leave Iran for reasons of safety

In the 50 years since Stonewall, LGBTQ people have gained a lot more freedom to live their lives. While this freedom remains, at times, precarious, it nonetheless exists; remember, we don’t yet live in a world where all LGBTQ people around the globe know this level of freedom. But one of the greatest things that came out of the Stonewall Uprising was our ability to leave The Stonewall Inn behind.

The Stonewall Inn was, after all, just a sleazy mafia bar. It matters to us today, because it happened to be frequented by some amazing people back then. Thanks in part to the efforts of the people at Stonewall, and those inspired by Stonewall, many (not yet all) queer individuals here in the U.S. now possess the opportunity to find community beyond the bars and nightclubs.

So as the possibilities of community continue to expand for LGBTQ individuals here in the U.S., it’s important to remember the part community has played throughout our history. The Stonewall Uprising, sparked by a police raid in the early morning of June 28th, 1969, was fueled by a desire to protect a space where outcasted people were finally able to create community with one another. Before there was a fight to claim and protect LGBTQ rights, there was a fight to claim and protect an LGBTQ community.

Had there been no sense of belonging and solidarity among the patrons of The Stonewall Inn, it is likely the June 28th raid would have been another, standard police raid; what implications this would have had for the LGBTQ rights movement, it is difficult to say; but it’s much easier to shove one individual into a closet, than it is a united group determined not to go in.

We owe a lot to community. Arsham Parsi recognized this himself one New Year’s Eve. When celebrating with his friends and family, a diverse community of allies and LGBTQ identities: “I stood in the middle of the room and looked around at the festivities. Everyone was laughing and enjoying themselves, their current situation forgotten for one night...I smiled. This is what I had been working for.”

STILL FIGHTING FOR STONEWALL

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SETTING LOVE IN STONE The Symbols and Story of the Taj Mahal

by M. Saqif Maqsud

People who lack perspective see it as a palace.

People who appreciate the grandeur see it as one of the seven wonders of the world. But to the many who know the history, not by mind but by heart, the Taj Mahal is a legacy of eternal love—a love story set not in paper, but in marble.

A mausoleum of a Mughal empress and her emperor. With written and documented history on the building and the empire it belonged to, it is perplexing that some still argue the ownership of the Taj Mahal, and deny the fact that it is a tomb belonging to the Mughal Empire. If one studies the history of this great empire, one can easy tell fact from fiction.

The layperson definition of the Taj Mahal: the world’s most famous tomb. To better understand this definition, it is imperative that some information be stated about the Mughal Empire. According to an article by the BBC in a series feature on the Mughal, the founder of the empire, Babur, was originally a descendant of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. He was the first of many emperors to rule the Indian subcontinent, from 1526 to 1761. Until its fall, the empire was an efficiently organized empire, with huge amounts of wealth and military power.

The Mughals were responsible for spreading Islam in Southeast Asia. They were Muslims ruling a country with a Hindu majority, and until the British took over, the presence of Islam was strong. The Mughal Empire also built the Taj Mahal.

Shah Jahan, which is Persian for “King of the World,” was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire. During his reign, he constructed the Taj Mahal for his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal, whose name means “The Exalted One of the Palace.” Of all the wives, she was Shah Jahan’s favorite, and when she passed away during childbirth in 1631, he was heartbroken. She died while Shah Jahan was in battle, and therefore he had her buried temporarily in Burhanpur.

He would visit the grave every Friday, and recite the first verse of the Quran, for as long as the army was stationed there. The love was so great that he disregarded all the guidelines of Islamic burial and had the body taken out, and bought to Agra, near the bank of the river Yamuna. Her body was brought to the construction site of the Taj Mahal, which Shah Jahan had chosen.

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In the book, Taj Mahal, by Giles Tillotson, he writes about how the burial site was owned by the Raja of Amber, who was compensated by properties in the city. The tomb’s construction, over her grave, took twelve years. Tillotson provides an excellent example of symbolism and love when he writes, “the time, the effort, the cost and the splendid result have all been taken as further evidence of the power of Shah Jahan’s grief.”

Symbolism is what the Taj Mahal is all about. Little is known about the architects of this great building, mostly because during the emperor’s reign, he liked his buildings, forts, and palaces to be built to a specific standard.

He liked to pay homage to his past ancestors, and favored the old Mughal tombs and forts.

All the prior mausoleums were grand, and the Taj combines elements borrowed from all of them, united in perfect harmony. His intention was to build paradise on earth, and many of its symbolic stylings resonate with the empress, or her likings.

There are three gates to enter the complex.

The main one is the one facing the Taj Mahal directly. National Geographic notes that this gate is a brilliant example of optical illusion. When using the main gate as a frame, the Taj Mahal appears smaller the closer you walk towards it, but larger as you walk away from it. I have experienced this myself, and to actually witness this illusion is mind bending. I couldn’t find any recorded fact about why this design aspect was chosen, but many historians and even architects conclude that it adds to the poetry of the building; when you leave the Taj, it appears to get bigger and bigger through the gate, and hence the local saying is that when you leave, you take this love story with you.

According to Koch, the Taj is the architectural embodiment between this life and the next. The entire complex is symmetrical on both axes. One axis proves Koch’s point, where one half is the Taj and its gardens symbolizing heaven, and on the other half is a bazaar and servant’s quarters, symbolizing life on earth. The color code of the building is also symbolic. The mausoleum was meant to be a heavenly building, beaming with enlightenment, and therefore the special ivory white marble, portraying the soul of the

empress, was reserved by the emperor. The emperor became so obsessed and focused with the mausoleum, that there was famine in other parts of the empire. He ordered much of the empire’s grain and supplies to be diverted to Agra, where the Taj was being built. Mughal courts and writers documented that artists from all over the empire were summoned to Agra. Just as a poet uses his words to write, that specific marble was the architect’s words.

I believe that the marble was chosen to give it a floating illusion, because upon my first glance of the building, my mind understood that the building is immense in size, but it appears to be light and floating. The gardens and water features are what catches the viewer’s attention after the building. It pays tribute to the heavenly gardens described in the Quran. The water channels that run across the garden represent the rivers of paradise. “And give good tidings to those who believe and do righteous deeds that they will have gardens [in Paradise] beneath which rivers flow” [Quran 2: 25]. The concept of the garden with four streams before the mausoleum was to make visitors feel like they are entering paradise.

Like all the other Mughal mausoleums, the presence of Islam is undeniable.

To understand the theories and articles about the Taj being a temple to a Hindu goddess, it is important to acknowledge that India’s majority practices Hinduism, making Islam a minority.

So the mass population of this country reacts in a different way to the Mughals and all their buildings. The prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, compared the Mughal Kings to British rulers and labeled the Mughal empire a period of slavery. According to an article in The Guardian, Vishal Sharma, the secretary of the Agra Tourist Welfare Chamber said, “they [Hindu nationalists] have a certain attitude towards any buildings that were built by Muslim rulers,” in response to Modi’s comment. A chief minister named Yogi Adityanath approved a tourism brochure omitting any mention of the Taj, but listing Hindu pilgrimage locations including the temple in eastern Uttar Pradesh, where Adityanath serves as head priest. He went on in length stating, “Taj Mahal should have no place in Indian history,” claiming Shah Jahan, the emperor who built the mausoleum

photo by Malihah Maqsud

for his deceased wife, had “wanted to wipe out Hindus.” Despite documented evidence from European scholars, architects, and historians, Indian writer P.N. Oak argues that the Taj is a Shiva temple; Oak also claimed Westminster Abbey is a Shiva Temple. This sort of intentional tampering of recorded history is an example of religious tensions against the Mughal Empire and Muslims in India. A country where the majority feels this way creates a difficult scenario in preserving world heritage sites. It is indeed sad that a wonder of the world is being used as a point of contention between Hindus and Muslims.

Tensions between the two religions in India are evident. I have been touring India since 2004, and with every visit I made, I saw something the Mughals left behind. Over the years, I have witnessed with each restoration that Arabic scriptures, engraved into the buildings and tombs, start disappearing. If it were not for the Aga Khan Foundation, which has taken over funding for these Mughal sites, a lot of vital components would have been lost. UNESCO also plays a significant part in the preservation of these magnificent buildings. The Taj Mahal is recognized on the UNESCO World Heritage Site as the “the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world’s heritage.” This provides the Taj’s immutability over any dispute. Once selected by The United Nation, the site is legally protected

by international treaties.

However, not all pitchforks in India are sharpened toward the Taj. Many Indian historians are disturbed by all the needless controversy, terming it “absolutely wrong and absurd.” The Taj Mahal’s history is in fact not vague, or suspicious. On the contrary, it is among the best chronicled of any Indian monument, recorded in detail at the time by three court historians. Leading historian R. Nath also confirms the fact that Shah Jahan purchased the land. There are documents that prove the foundation of the grave and the building. He also made it clear by saying, “There is not a single piece of evidence to support this theory that it was a Shiva temple.” To further cement his statements, another historian named Rana Safvi actually possesses a copy of the original property deed, which the emperor used to obtain land for the Taj Mahal. Savi argues against Modi’s statement about the Mughal Empire being a slave driven empire, saying, “There is a lot of difference between colonists such as the British and rulers like the Mughals, who lived in India, married in India, and died in India.” Unfortunately, people like these historians are not in charge, and, sadly, events like the banning of Muslims from praying in the mosques of the Taj Mahal are widely suggested and encouraged.

The beauty of the Taj, its story, and all this controversy will never make sense until one has

been to the Taj Mahal and stepped on the marble stones. The connection remains incomplete if you don’t touch the water that plays with the water from the Yamuna River. You have to be there, read the scriptures, and listen to the tour guides telling you all these wonderful tales of their own, so beautifully constructed that it makes you wonder if Shah Jahan was actually real. The most beautiful and symbolic piece of the Taj is not within its grounds, but on the opposite banks. The emperor’s architect was so involved in symbolizing the love Shah Jahan had for his beloved, he wanted to create a black marble foundation, with no building on it. According to Koch, and many experts on the Taj Mahal, the architect’s purpose was to reflect the building using the calm Yamuna River, on the black marble, to create a mirror image of a Taj Mahal that was black. This would complete the tribute to the empress’s memory for eternity, in light and in darkness! Unfortunately, that was never completed and the symbolism stops with the Taj Mahal only. Nevertheless, I believe that the famous poet Tagore encapsulates the symbolism of the wonder of the world when he wrote, “Let the splendor of diamond, pearl, and ruby vanish like the magic shimmer of the rainbow. Only let this one tear-drop, this Tajmahal [sic], glisten spotlessly bright on the cheek of time, forever and ever.”

THE PACIFIC SENTINEL

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Boghossian in a bathrobe telling videographer that he got an email telling him about a meeting with the institutional review board chair. Illustration directly traced from a still from this video posted by them.

Is Civil Discourse in Its Death Throes?

Backlash to Boghossian’s hoax articles raises censorship questions

by Van Vanderwall illustration by Jake Johnson FROM FALL 2017 through autumn of 2018, Dr. Peter Boghossian, philosophy professor at Portland State University, and coauthors Dr. James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose submitted hoax articles to peer-reviewed academic journals in fields they refer to as “the grievance studies”: including queer studies, fat studies, and gender studies. 7 of the team’s 20 papers, written under pseudonyms, were published before the authors’ identities were revealed; additional papers in various stages of the review process were dropped. PSU’s Office of Research and Graduate Studies is conducting an ongoing investigation into Boghossian to determine whether the journals’ peer reviewers constitute human research subjects. Department Chair and inquiry leader Dr. Mark McLellan never responded to The Pacific Sentinel ’s request for comment. Despite the fact that Boghossian’s hoax articles targeted topics relevant to—and the validity in general of—their field, PSU’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department also declined our request for comment.

I spoke with Dr. Boghossian in late January,

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2019. He described his concern with the growing number of academic papers treating “intersectionality as a religion.” Boghossian believes they are presenting moral opinion as moral fact and because of that there is a consequent impossibility of debate or examination. “I think there’s a kind of a culture where people just don’t want to talk to each other or voice alternative opinions or anything that runs contrary to the dominant moral orthodoxy,” Boghossian said. “I’m worried about what’s happening to the university system.”

Boghossian described how he and his collaborators reverse-engineered papers in fields they considered to be engaging in lackadaisical scholarship. This resulted in the publication of a number of papers—even awards—for pieces with deliberately faulty reasoning, written in impenetrably obtuse prose. Some of the more noteworthy examples include rewritten sections of Mein Kampf using intersectional terminology and ideology, and a paper asserting that masturbation and sexual violence are synonymous.

The hoax papers not only presented opin-

ion as fact, but used fake data to support those opinions. To what extent does the inclusion of quantitative data make a paper appear more valid than it is? How effective is the peer review process if it fails to distinguish between false and genuine data? Perhaps the peer review process is not designed to catch these issues.

What, then, is its purpose? Is it an ideological, rather than epistemological, vetting process by which advocacy of opinions shared by the reviewer are accepted as fact? The immense pressure on faculty to publish—so summed up in the exhortation to “publish or perish”—is one factor that can lead to the acceptance of bogus, inadequate, and potentially fraudulent articles. Perhaps it is time to radically retool the peer review process. Depending on the nature of the research, submission of audio and video recordings could be required. Changes to how journals are funded could allow reviewers, who generally work without compensation, to spend more time scrutinizing papers.

But none of this addresses the underlying issue: Language in academia is deeply flawed.

The contemporary problem with academic

language is not a new one. George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language,” originally published in April 1946, addressed academia’s inaccessible language issues. That piece took special issue with the then prevailing support of Stalinist communism by British academics and liberals, though more broadly attacked obfuscating language used in service of orthodoxy. The use of an “inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism” with “a mass of Latin words [falling] upon the facts like soft snow, blurring outlines and covering up all the details.” The acceptance and publication of the grievance studies articles demonstrates just such obscuring of meaning in academic journals. As Orwell pointed out, the use of cloudy and opaque language also “perform[s] the important service of concealing your meaning from yourself.” Meaning is not only indecipherable to readers, but also to the authors themselves.

Intentionally turgid written language as a mode of non-communication is part of the larger, cultural inability and unwillingness to engage in reasoned dialogue. From the destruction of sound gear at James Damore’s appearance on PSU’s campus on February 17, 2018, to the President Donald Trump’s use of ad hominem attacks, our society continues to move further away from engaging in constructive discourse by retreating into enclaves of enforced orthodoxy.

As the Damore event indicates, this substitution of unreasonable for reasonable engagement extends even to PSU’s campus. Twelve of Dr. Boghossian’s colleagues saw fit to pen an anonymous missive, published by Vanguard in November, 2018, claiming Boghossian is “interested in scoring cheap political points” and has a history “of actively targeting faculty at other institutions.” Boghossian criticized a faculty member at Syracuse who had created a petition that called for the retraction of and apology for the initial publication of a controversial piece on colonialism titled “The Case for Colonialism.” The article argued Western colonialism is good and should be considered again as a modern solution for issues facing countries around the globe—the author defended the article after it was published saying that the piece was satire. Vanguard ’s anonymous op-ed linked to a petition that says that the faculty member Boghossian criticized “received hate mail, targeted online harassment, and mischaracterizations” as a result of the petition. Vanguard declined to comment on the Boghossian articles; all assessments reflect my own readings and interpretations and not those of Vanguard or its editors.

The article advocating for colonialism’s return might have been a satirical piece in the Swiftian tradition, but might also be an accurate representation of the author’s views.

This leads to questions about whether satire is still a valid form as an impetus for discussion and change, or whether it has lost its teeth and functions mainly as a cover for euphemism and misdirection. In a time when a reasoned debate about contentious topics, such as the history of colonialism, is

difficult, debates that range into the personal seem impossible.

That Boghossian’s own colleagues decried him anonymously is troubling; troubling, too, is that they, rightly or wrongly, felt endangered enough to see this as their only recourse. Some immense sea change in the way people communicate is underway and anonymity, online harassment, termination for unpopular views, and the blurring of personal and political all seem to be intertwined in convoluted ways.

What sense does it make for an anonymously written letter to decry another’s subterfuge (which was eventually revealed)?

Alleging that a professor harassed colleagues at other organizations is a serious charge; leveling such an accusation without proof seems more like character assassination than engaging with Boghossian’s actual claims—a third party consciously decided to publish Boghossian’s articles. If his conduct were as reprehensible as the letter describes, then publicly standing behind those claims and providing evidence would be expected.

Instead, the collective’s statement stoops to personal attacks by an anonymous group.

However, if the group’s allegations are true, at what point do institutions have a responsibility to investigate them?

The distinction between engaging with ideas and simply trying to ostracize and vilify people who hold, or even describe, alternate views seems to have become completely blurred. Any quantifiable proposition or assertion can be verified or falsified.

Conversely, statements of subjective value cannot be conclusively proved or disproved if people ascribe to different moral axioms.

Damore’s firing from Google for distributing his thoughts about why men are more capable than women and what happened during his appearance at PSU, demonstrate this.

The first thing to note is that Damore was fired and subsequently protested against, for expressing an unpopular view. Perhaps there is an argument that using company time to distribute political and social views is inappropriate, but an immediate and highly public termination for writing something seems extreme—even if the views expressed were demeaning. What this instead illustrates is the culture’s trend toward conflating unpopular opinion with criminality.

Likewise for Boghossian. Should we really consider radical questioning of other fields a crime? If the dialectic has collapsed to the point that hoax papers are the only way to begin a discussion, that is itself a huge problem. If Boghossian, like Damore, holds views so awful as to merit expulsion as the only remedy, why is that the case? Is there a standard for determining when propositions are so dangerous that they must be blocked rather than countered? Are hoax articles and controversy effective tools to question institutional integrity? Are hoax articles in the internet era satire in the Swiftian tradition of “A Modest Proposal” or have the implications and repercussions changed with the technology? If some hoax articles contain fake data, to what extent are reviewers

swayed by the appearance of mathematical validity more than the arguments and qualitative analysis? If Boghossian’s team had published hoax articles in philosophy journals, would the uproar have been as loud?

In the words of Boghossian, this topic “has a lot of moving parts.” This article has only briefly touched on some of the issues at play, including academic language, the peer review process, university workplace politics, philosophies of knowledge, the uses of anonymity in publication (in online forums such as Twitter as well as print forms such as college newspapers and academic journals), epistemology, and the place (if any) of advocacy in university disciplines, silencing of alternative voices, and so much more. Even after over a month of research and interviews full of leads, dead ends, and unanswered questions, I feel that I have only barely begun to grapple with the many issues at work.

To what extent, if any, should university disciplines position themselves as arbiters of moral truth? Are there different domains of knowledge, as Stephen Jay Gould once posited regarding religion and science, which arrive at valid conclusions through differing means? If there are different domains of knowledge, what are their boundaries and how can they be determined? What do we do if our epistemology brings us to conclusions that controvert our moral beliefs? Is there an inner, immutable self/mind/soul somehow intrinsically linked to gender, sexual orientation, skin color, etc.? What is the university’s obligation to society, and what is society’s obligation to the university?

I encourage you to engage in the difficult, and possibly painful, process of ongoing questioning of dogma and authority of all kinds—and not merely the questions raised in this article. Sometimes this continuous re-examination of principles and knowledge upends all that came before and lands us squarely among those we once considered wrongheaded adversaries. Don’t be afraid of this.

Keep asking questions.

Suggestions for Further Reading: The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt That piece’s genesis as a cover story in The Atlantic: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/ “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/ http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/04/ the-shut-it-down-left-and-the-war-on-theliberal-mind.html?gtm=bottom&gtm=top This list is in no way exhaustive.

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Boghossian, Lindsay, and Pluckrose laughing while they work on their project: illustration directly traced from a still posted by them.

Contextualizing Boghossian article and illustration by Jake Johnson with contributions by Van Vanderwall In anything, the truth is much harder to find than we think. If we talk about photography, even news photos, the photo shouldn’t necessarily be taken at face value. Has the photo been doctored in Photoshop? If so, the photo is not necessarily being truthful. What were the circumstances that led to the photo being taken? What came before and after the moment captured? Is the moment captured representative of the events leading up to and after the moment that we see? Would the meaning of the photo change significantly if what was outside the frame was captured as well?

All of these things contribute to the murkiness that is the “truth” of a photograph. But then what is truth? Complete objective truth is often difficult to come by, but without having all of the information and contexts of a situation the objective truth becomes more and more difficult to discern.

Sure, maybe according to Peter Boghossian, James A. Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and their supporters they are speaking and promoting their subjective version of “objective” truths, and in their subjective truthfulness they believe they are being unjustly roasted by academics.

Thinking they are being unfairly treated sounds fairly similar to a subjective grievance based on their experience doesn’t it? And they definitely want people to listen to their perspective about

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it. But they don’t seem to like listening to the grievances of people with different perspectives and considering that the perspectives of those who disagree with them may be valid as well.

Thus we arrive at the publication of Boghossian’s and his colleagues’ hoax articles known as “the grievance studies affair.”

What are “the grievance studies”?

Boghossian and his friends use the term “the grievance studies” to refer to academic fields related to identity, with gender studies as one of their favorite targets. Most specifically, as specified by an article they authored explaining the project, the fields targeted by their hoax were: “(feminist) gender studies, masculinities studies, queer studies, sexuality studies, psychoanalysis, critical race theory, critical whiteness theory, fat studies, sociology, and educational philosophy.”

After 10 months and 350,000 words of work under fictitious pseudonyms, the real names of the hoax authors were revealed. They describe their work as sophistry—false, intentionally deceptive arguments—and a “a forgery of knowledge that should not be mistaken for the real thing.”

In that article the group clarifies their supposed purpose: “writing academic papers and publishing them in respected peer-reviewed

journals associated with fields of scholarship loosely known as ‘cultural studies’ or ‘identity studies’ (for example, gender studies) or ‘critical theory’ because it is rooted in that postmodern brand of ‘theory’ which arose in the late sixties.

As a result of this work, we have come to call these fields ‘grievance studies’ in shorthand because of their common goal of problematizing aspects of culture in minute detail in order to attempt diagnoses of power imbalances and oppression rooted in identity.”

The article says the project’s purpose was to “study, understand, and expose the reality of grievance studies, which is corrupting academic research. Because open, good-faith conversation around topics of identity such as gender, race, and sexuality (and the scholarship that works with them) is nearly impossible, our aim has been to reboot these conversations. We hope this will give people—especially those who believe in liberalism, progress, modernity, open inquiry, and social justice—a clear reason to look at the identitarian madness coming out of the academic and activist left and say, ‘no, I will not go along with that. You do not speak for me.’” The quotes and parentheticals within the previous quotes are from the quoted article, not inserted for clarification or emphasis.

How they thought they would “expose the reality” of these fields and “study” them while

writing papers that mocked the fields is baffling. The most interesting part about this is that theoretically, if they really wanted to study these fields, they could probably just take classes and through studying in these fields they could learn more about them. Instead they decided that the best way to learn and critique them is to mock these fields of study and all who work within those fields by making up nonsense articles; and when those nonsense articles got published they hold up those examples as a reason why these entire fields of study are illigitimate? That train of logic seems heavily flawed at best, and should hardly be regarded as legitimate academic research or critique.

Yes, Boghossian has asked scholars from gender studies to have public debates with him, but it is difficult for them to do so in good faith considering that Boghossian views their entire field of study as a top-to-bottom waste of time with no academic integrity. In Boghossian’s interview with Vanderwall he clearly stated his view about faculty who teach within these fields: “I’m worried that people who are teaching these classes—I’m not going to mince words—they’re frauds. I’m worried that we’ve created a system which, all this talk of marginalizing voices, we’ve now become the thing we hate and we’re now marginalizing voices of the, of people.”

To further clarify, here Boghossian, “not to mince words,” suspects that teachers of “(feminist) gender studies, masculinities studies, queer studies, sexuality studies, psychoanalysis, critical race theory, critical whiteness theory, fat studies, sociology, and educational philosophy” may be frauds. Not to mince words, but for someone concerned about how other people feel about him and his work, his claim that teachers whose lives have been dedicated to any of these fields of academic pursuit could be frauds is a very steep, and inherently problem-prone, allegation.

An “open, good-faith conversation” requires both sides having an openness to listen so that the other takes them seriously and respects them enough to believe that the conversation is generally intended to be productive and constructive in the pursuit of greater understanding; but Boghossian and his colleagues spend so much time attacking the validity of these fields and the professors within them that it’s not surprising those same fields might not want anything to do with him or his invitations.

If Boghossian, Pluckrose, and Lindsay are “liberal lefties,” why is the left so critical of them?

According to an article written by Pluckrose for Areo Magazine, the digital publication she is editor-in-chief of: “The principles of liberalism, while diffuse, are strong enough and consistent enough to have become dominant throughout the whole of the western world. They are so widely held that the majority perceive them as sufficiently natural and self-evident that they neglect the need to defend them.”

“Western world,” references a common theme with Boghossian and his colleagues.

The values of liberalism are dominant enough throughout the world that France nearly elected far-right nationalist Le Pen, Brazil, the

U.S. looking to yet again engage in South American regime change in Venezuela, and Italy’s legitimately out-and-proud return to an alarming embrace of fascism. “Western” does not refer to Indigenous Americans—North, South, or Central. Pick up a copy of Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: A Concise History of Western Art. By the looks of it, only Europeans and white Americans made significant artistic contributions after the Aztecs and Incas in the 1500s until Frida Kahlo in the 1900s.

Which is a significant falsehood. Despite that it is one of the most iconic and recognizable images in the world, Juan Diego’s tilma (cloak) with the image titled The Virgin of Guadalupe does not receive a single mention in either the “Western Art” text or their companion textbook titled a Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: A Global Perspective. Diego was a Nahua, indigenous person from Mexico. That textbook is the required introductory text for lower level art history classes and thus perpetuates widespread false ideas about what artistic contributions come from the “Western world.” Despite Boghossian and his crew’s claims that identity politics are the dominant dogma of academia, there seems to be a significant amount of exclusionary curriculum that is indeed holding out “against the creep of Social Justice ideology” (quoted out of context using recurring language from Lindsay). However, perhaps the exclusion of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas is intentional because the concepts of the “Western world” and “Western” ideals of liberalism established in the enlightenment were never intended to include them.

The authors are big fans of enlightenment-based liberalism. It is important to note that the period of enlightenment ended before 1800. It’s been over two hundred years since the enlightenment ended, and over three hundred years since it began—Kant died 215 years ago, let’s let him and his racist foundational beliefs die too. Other thought has, thank goodness, developed since.

I would hope that thinkers would take into account new modes of thinking that have developed since before the foundation of the United States, the maintenance and abolition of slavery, the segregation of Indigenous and Black peoples, the rise and fall of the Nazis, the colonization of India by a “Western” country, territorial possession of Puerto Rico, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum.

I would definitely hope that new modes of thinking would have erupted and become more dominant modes of thought among liberal people after the assassinations of MLK, JFK, and Vietnam. I would hope that we would take the AIDS crisis and how different communities were affected seriously. I would hope that the forced removal of Native American children and the forced separation of those children from their cultural identities would prompt us to learn. I would hope that all of these instances may prompt people—like Boghossian, Pluckrose, and Lindsay—who claim to care about marginalized and under-supported communities and individuals to develop new modes of thinking that take into account the different experiences that people in this country have had, are having, and may continue to have spe-

cifically because of their different backgrounds and identities.

One Summer in 1967—during the civil rights movement, the year before MLK was murdered—showcased the two very different experiences of Americans at the time. The Summer of Love was a time of hippies in San Francisco with sexual and drug experimentation, music, art, spiritualism, and political protest against the Vietnam War. However, that same summer was very different for another side of the country: The Long, Hot Summer of 1967 race riots spread across the U.S. in protest of the prevalent racism and discrimination against Black Americans. However, despite the fact that Pluckrose, Lindsay, and Boghossian are indeed very smart, they think the study of these different experiences is a waste of time and that the teachers who teach about these subjects and explore the intricacies rooted in the varying identities that make up the diverse story of U.S. history may be frauds.

I’m sure there are problems with some of the research some professors are doing somewhere in some of these fields; just as I’m sure there are problems with the research done in fields like philosophy, physics, mathematics, literature, and art. Getting bogus articles published within a field doesn’t remove the entire field’s legitimacy.

In an interview with Vanderwall, Boghossian told him he wasn’t envious of the task Vanderwall was undertaking because of how complicated the situation is. Yeah, extremely convoluted, and most of the context surrounding Boghossian is not widely known. I would rather do a lot of other things with my time, including tending to my own degree, instead of responding to a response to an article about Boghossian. I have no vendetta or personal quest to destroy him, this is not a hit piece.

Unfortunately, as executive editor of this magazine, I have an ethical obligation to respond to the article written by Van Vanderwall because despite Vanderwall and Boghossian’s concerns about censorship being valid, it is absolutely necessary to place Boghossian within his proper context. It is personally irresponsible for me to write this, but it is, unfortunately, necessary for the societal responsibility of this magazine that the record be set a little straighter and that Boghossian is a little further contextualized.

I don’t stalk Boghossian’s Twitter account, and I don’t follow the circus of his controversy shrouded spotlight, but I care about the PSU community. Events largely unknown to the vast majority of people at PSU and those beyond—in addition to other things I am probably not aware of—are probably what led the collective to publish their op-ed anonymously.

Boghossian’s reckless actions put a PSU student’s safety at risk for no reason.

My name is on this article. I know this to be an absolute objective fact. Boghossian put an individual’s life at risk by spreading absurd falsehoods. Vanguard let an editor go surrounding the editor’s decision to misrepresent—through omission and incomplete contextualization— the statements of a student leader. Boghossian took those misrepresented statements and then spun his own horrific lie about the student THE PACIFIC SENTINEL

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leader’s statements that weren’t even remotely rooted in either the statements made by the student leader or the misrepresentations by the former editor.

The student leader was then the subject of targeted online harassment including calls for physical violence, their death, and more questions about why the student leader was still breathing than I cared to count. Boghossian may not be the sole reason the student leader feared for his life, but his actions exacerbated the situation and did nothing to prevent unjust calls for violence against a student at our school.

Boghossian’s actions in that situation showed a reckless disregard for the safety of PSU’s students; but they also showed a complete lack of interest in the truth.

If I were one of the individuals in the collective who decided that the hoax was the straw that broke their ability to keep their distance any longer, I too would probably prefer to remain anonymous. If Boghossian had that level of disregard for a student’s safety, why risk it.

Boghossian posted a video responding to arriving at work and seeing the paper with the news and anonymous op-ed. In this video he stated, “...It just is utterly incredible to me what the university has become when you have to publish an anonymous hit piece on people.”

The anonymous collective stated at the bottom of their piece: “None of us wish to contend with threats of death and assault from online trolls.”

Boghossian is absolutely correct: It is a terrible shame that the university has become a place where people are afraid to speak out against Boghossian because they do not wish to receive “threats of death and assault from online trolls.”

As of writing this article, The Pacific Sentinel and I are not regularly receiving any threats online.

And yes, I am definitely concerned that will no longer be the case after this article is published.

Hoax author Lindsay wrote an article and called the anonymous collective cowardly, and in the same article published in December 2018, Lindsay also wrote “The question comes down to what working scientists and other academics who are concerned about Social Justice ideology can do about any of this. Here are a few suggestions. Do as much as you can feel safe doing. That may mean making anonymous posts on message boards, social media or elsewhere.

It may mean signing your name to the same, if you think you can.”

According to Lindsay, the collective of teachers who disagree with the hoax authors and their work is cowardly, but if others want to advocate anonymously against social justice ideology, that would be good?

Hoax authors’ views should be known

Boghossian and his crew think Portland’s decision to condemn, identify, and understand the legacy and impacts of white supremacy and altright hate groups is worthy of the eye-rolling eye rolling tangible in telling Portland to “get a grip.”

In 1857 Oregonians voted to enact as part of Oregon’s constitution a law: “No free negro or mulatto not residing in this state at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall come, reside or be within this state or hold any real estate, or make any contracts, or maintain any

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suit therein; and the legislative assembly shall provide by penal laws for the removal by public officers of all such negroes and mulattoes, and for their effectual exclusion from the state, and for the punishment of persons who shall bring them into the state, or employ or harbor them.”

That law and language remained included in Oregon’s constitution until 2000, when voters finally decided to repeal it. Because of federal laws it hadn’t been enforceable for decades, but its inclusion in the constitution could hardly have felt welcoming to Black Americans. There were many other ways, legal and illegal, that Oregon has sought to marginalize communities of color in our state. So a commitment to being aware of the history of white supremacy and the ability to identify it hardly seems like something

why do they feel the views of the fields of study they disagree with are actually dominant and thus dangerous to themselves and others? They say they believe in progress, but their approach seems more rooted in regression and maintenance rather than progression.

Two major points of contention the anonymous op-ed collective held is that Boghossian acted outside of professional codes of conduct and wasted the time and effort of a lot of people.

Both of those points are objectively true.

Boghossian told Vanderwall in their interview that one reached out to him, which is not true. Vanguard did reach out to Boghossian for comment. Twice. Before and after the initial articles were published in Vanguard.

This response has sought to adequately

not worth taking a look at. 2000 was only 18 years and 4 months ago. White supremacist hate groups have not gone away, but have continued to spread. A U.S. Coast Guard officer and white supremacist was found to have 15 guns and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition stocked up to “murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country.” We still have work to do.

One post about gender studies retweeted by Boghossian’s Twitter is a video that features the phrase “Sex, Gender, and Bullshit” on an animated book that features a cartoon illustration of the woman and man who are speaking in the video. The woman featured claims that if women want equality they ought to be advocating for longer prison sentences.

The group of hoaxers claims that identity studies’ “worldview is not scientific, or rigorous.” But I would very strongly disagree. Once again, just because academic journals accepted your hogwash articles doesn’t mean the entire fields of study related to those journals are hogwash too.

contextualize who Boghossian is and why we should be concerned that the added context of this response is not more widely discussed.

The only thing I would add is that since Boghossian, Pluckrose, and Lindsay all claim to be concerned with social justice as left-leaning liberals who want to make sure society doesn’t let marginalized people slip through the cracks, I would strongly encourage them to spend more time listening to the very people they don’t want to slip through the cracks—not just the ones they agree with—and less time talking. Maybe instead of rolling their eyes at academic papers, they could take the classes from some of their colleagues who’ve spent their lives dedicated to work they’ve attempted to categorize as foundationally fraudulent. Perhaps they could get coffee privately with them and have productive “open, good-faith” discussions in a private non-confrontational setting. Although it may take some work on their part to rebuild whatever little trust they had prior to this latest fiasco before that’s even remotely possible, if they truly cared, it would be worth it. That’s what these studies they campaign so obsessively are about: listening and doing tough work. Who knows, maybe if they approached these fields of study with a mind that is actually open to learning and helping academia progress instead of being bent on discrediting, they could actually help to improve them. But we all have to be students before we can teach, no?

Boghossian is not being persecuted

He still has a job and will likely keep his job.

The work the hoax authors did and are continually engaged in doing is far from radical or brave. In their own words they are moderate liberals who advocate for the maintenance of the status-quo liberalism that is, as Pluckrose said, “dominant” throughout the western world. If the views they are advocating for are, according to themselves dominant and so widely held,

Girlpool Uncovers Identity Amidst Chaos

by Pete Bensen Photo: Girlpool Bandcamp

Individuality is integral in art. Regardless of whether every given artist always strives to achieve it or not, it is often a major deciding factor in the degree to which said art lasts the test of time. Suffice to say, since the band’s inception in 2013, this is not something that Girlpool has ever had to worry about. Even upon listening to the their 2014 self-titled EP and its rebellious, passionate, “Riot Grrrl”-esque sound, there’s no mistaking them for anyone but them. The same can undoubtedly be said for their first LP, Before the World Was Big: Its nostalgic harmonies alongside the impassioned melodic ballads of 2017’s Powerplant cemented Girlpool’s distinct artistic voice. However, with their third LP, What Chaos is Imaginary, the L.A. duo brings something more to the table.

In many ways, the songs on this album feel much the same as those on Powerplant—they are bittersweet and lethargic in a way that has become somewhat signature to Girlpool. At the same time, there is a noticeable shift in composition, exploring sounds that set the album apart from the rest of their discography. Where many of the band’s previous works felt more nostalgic and almost playful with their warm, interweaving harmonies and nearly reminiscing lyricism, What Chaos is Imaginary feels bigger and more expansive. The added sounds of organs, synths, and even a string octet make it feel darker, thicker, almost palpable.

This is exemplified in the album’s title track, which uses

these more exploratory instrumental choices to create an ethereal, expansive musical landscape. “Pretty” and “Stale Device” stand out as holdovers from their Powerplant sound, contrasting well with songs such as “Hire” and “All Blacked Out,” which are heavily reminiscent of XO-era Elliott Smith.

Since the band’s previous LP release of Powerplant, one member of the duo, Cleo Tucker, has come out as trans, taking testosterone that has lowered their voice nearly a full octave. This adds an entirely new dimension to the band’s sonic landscape, adding a dynamic friction and aural diversity where the duo’s voices were nearly indistinguishable on previous releases. Tucker seems to have adjusted effortlessly to their new tenor vocal range, finding and carving out their own sound that in many ways defines the album. Their parts feel more confident and more defined.

Girlpool has always been a unique band with a unique sound. This has always served as one of their strong suits.

They have long ago proven to the world that they have no trouble standing out among the crowd and unapologetically letting the world know who they are, sonically or thematically. On this new album, however, Girlpool seems to have a broader, more confident and defined sense of who exactly they are. If individuality is any deciding factor on how long art is remembered, Girlpool have already reserved themselves a spot in the annals of musical history.

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Rex Marshall: Thanks for the write up [in The Pacific Sentinel’s January issue]! Some people that’ve written stuff don’t even see it live.

Margo Craig: It seems like something that needs to be performed.

I was listening while writing it too.

RM: I think it makes more sense if you see me. It stands alone too.

MC: It’s the triple threat: the moves, the lights, the music.

RM: Triple threat! Exactly. For fuck’s sake. All I gotta do is get people to see me once and I feel like they’ll hate me or love me.

That’s all I want!

MC: So, what, or who is, or whose “Mattress”?

RM: I think that’s just unfiltered me. Why I named it that?

Because the best and worst happens to you on a mattress.

n the bleakest day of February, also O known as Valentine’s Day and Oregon’s Birthday, I met Mattress (aka Rex

Marshall, Circulation and Collection Maintenance Coordinator) for an interview over tea in the library. Fitting, as it was also, to the day, the 50th anniversary of PSU’s Millar Library. Marshall has worked there for 15 years, and now does library business from a coral room where the music collection used to live. You can also catch him as DJ El Dorado around town, or tune into Sunday evening radio for a show called Ballin’ the Jack on XRAY.fm.

MC: “Going to the mattresses.” Is that the phrase? From The Godfather?

RM: [laughs] The best and worst! The best of times and the worst of times. At least in our culture, right? It seems like. I mean, when else do we talk seriously?

MC: If not on mattresses?

RM: [laughs] Yeah, exactly—it’s kind of, how many ways to be intimate?

MC: Now everyone’s on their respective mattresses just talking through phones.

article and photos by Margo Craig

MEE T ING

RM: Yes, exactly. Oh my God. MC: What other music endeavors do you have going on?

RM: I have a band called Slim Fortune which is kind of a creepy country band. But everyone is so busy and I’m so busy.

MC: And you’re also a DJ. RM: Yes that’s a lot of stuff. Last week I was sick and I had three, sighs, but I couldn’t not. I was like I have been waiting for this cash! I have to do this! It sucked, but I did it.

MC: Are you DJ El Dorado everywhere you go?

RM: Mhm, yeah, mhm.

MC: What does PSU need to know about the Portland music scene?

RM: It needs to go into it! Maybe a fraction of a bit. It is a pretty weird disconnect here. PSU is like—I don’t think people really live in Portland it seems like. It is really strange. Once in a while I’ll get people that recognize me at the desk.

MC: Art in 2019—what do you want to see more and less of ?

RM: Mmm. What do I want to see more of ? I guess I want to see more just unique things. People just get in trends and keep nailing the trend. I would like to see new things, if that’s even possible. I can’t say I can even do anything new and unique, but at least maybe some personality? Or, something different. That’s a tough question. Like, what is going on? I don’t even know what’s going on.

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MAT TRE

MC: I would say those things though, “personality,” “unique,” “something I hadn’t seen before”—all fulfilled by Mattress.

MC: Maybe the plus of being a one man band.

RM: [laughs] But I feel like especially with music now, more than ever. I’m writing a book about Mattress right now. I think it’s called ‘Happy to Fail,’ or [laughs] ‘One Man Band with No Plan,’ might be another title. But I’m a complete failure because I can’t commit to one genre or one trend or easily identifiable thing at the total detriment. Sometimes I’ve made some traction, but mostly it’s like, not that different from 13 years ago when I started it.

RM: Yeah, I think that’s part of it, but also, I was a bit naive in the beginning. But then I figured out—like I don’t care to try to be famous or anything. I just like to get this out. Out. Expand at its own rate. But, ugh, there’s just so much standard stuff. That makes sense if you want to be on a label and make it. Like, you gotta just nail a genre and, like, kill it. I have friends on big labels, and the labels are like, ‘Don’t change your sound, man.” Straight up! And it’s a business thing! Like, “just make another album like your last one. We’re fine!” And they have no problem with that.

MC: You started it a few years after working here?

MC: The same old Mattress.

RM: Yes I did. I needed some stability, man. I don’t want to sleep on floors. Or couches.

RM: [laughs] “I’m making a new album! Same music different words!” [laughs]. But I’m finishing one up now—I don’t know when it’ll come out actually. I’m taking my time with it. Yeah, I got a new video I’m working on now.

MC: The library gives you that nice post-apocalyptic edge, where you keep your soup cans and jigsaw puzzles.

RM: Exactly right. There’s a lot of stuff in here that will help me.

If this building collapses, I’ll be able to hide in here and I have some stuff in here. Just come to this office, I’ll help you out. Look I got garlic. [laughs] MC: For the vampires?

RM: But nowadays, it is awful, you have—being...what happened to being unique? It doesn’t get paid. I mean, I can only do what I do! But I see it a lot, there’s such a high turnover with bands. I saw some fliers that somebody put up from 13, 12 years ago, and like, 95 percent [of those] bands are dead except me, and I’m just all alone. A couple times I tried to be a band, but it didn’t work out.

MC: You’re a pan-artist. You dabble?

RM: Uh-huh. I did a play last year that was really fun. It was more like a dance piece. I have a video of that I need to post sometime soon. And I’m writing the Mattress book—it’s going to be sad. But the new album is going to be good.

MC: So I think we all agree the most efficient get-to-know-you question is what’s your sign?

RM: Oh god. Shut up! [laughs] Dumb! Scorpio.

MC: Do you identify?

RM: No. But of course, someone who knows that shit is like, “Typical.”

MC: Does Mattress identify?

RM: No! [laughs] It’s not an alter ego, but I like to fuck with that a little bit with Mattress. I don’t believe that stuff, but, people always say that about Scorpios, like “of course you don’t believe in that stuff.” My mom was new-age astrology, so I’m pretty [scowl face]. Hate it. It’s all a West Coast thing, right? It’s huge! Oh God. I was hanging out with a lady over the winter, and she started talking about essences.

MC: Like, auras?

RM: Like, laying out bottles of water under the eclipse. [laughs] People recharging their crystals! I only like that people are terrified of Scorpios—I like that. I’m like, yeah, fuck you, leave me alone! It’s supposed to be the shady one. Or just the sexual one.

The player one. And dark. And troubled. Or whatever.

MC: Yeah, good flex.

SS

C

heck out Mattress on bandcamp, featuring albums such as Looking for my People and Lonely Souls, and stay tuned for a sad book written by a true librarian.

RM: I’ll take that, yeah, back off ! This one chick was giving me hell, she goes, “Oh! Scorpios! Yeah, I’ve dated you before.” She was like, “Yeah! You guys are FUN but…” I was like, “Psh, what are you?” She’s like, “Gemini.” I’m like, “HELLO, you’re crazier!

Your thing is craziness! Ask anybody. Everybody says Geminis are evil as fuck. Don’t trust them.” All I gotta say, though, I grew up with this shit, with my mom—who was a pretty evil person— and it’s garbage. But then I have a Goddamn therapist. I was like, “Come on...” She’s like, “Nope, yeah, there’s something there.”

Like, “No come on, not you too!” She’s like,“You know, I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and all Scorpios have some attachment problems!” What about me being a dumb American?

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by Van Vanderwall

JULIE PERINI is a tenured professor in the art department focusing on art practices, video, and time-based media. Following the completion of her MFA at University of Buffalo in New York, Perini moved to Portland.

She spent a few years working as an adjunct professor at Western Oregon University in Monmouth, Pacific Northwest College of Art in NW Portland, and the now defunct Art Institute of Portland. “I was looking for full-time tenure-track gigs while doing all the adjunct work,” Perini said. She left the area for a oneyear contract at a college in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, but returned and taught at Portland State for five years before being offered tenure-track status. “I finally got this dream job in Portland,” Perini says. “It’s great. It’s better than I ever imagined.”

PSU grants tenured faculty permission to take a sabbatical every seven years. After seven years of work with tenure status, Perini took sabbatical for the 2017–2018 academic year.

She began this period with a short artist residency in Italy that permitted her to attend the arts festivals Documenta in Kassel, Germany, the Venice Biennale, and the Munster Sculpture Project.

She came back to Portland after what she described as “a month of inspiration” to finish post-production work on her film The Gentle-

man Bank Robber before its premiere screening at the Northwest Filmmakers Festival in November 2017. The documentary profiles self-described “ butch dyke feminist, anti-imperialist, and anti-authoritarian” rita bo brown, who now lives in Oakland, California.

(Note: brown does not capitalize her name.) “[The] sabbatical was packed in the beginning, but after November it kind of opened up,” Perini said. Prior to the sabbatical, she had intended to begin another feature-length film project, but decided instead to use the time to experiment, study, and reflect in a way that “hadn’t been possible since graduate school.”

Although less frenetic than the first several weeks of her sabbatical, she rounded out the rest of the year with residencies in New Mexico and Eastern Oregon as well as spending a week in Poughkeepsie, New York filming and documenting her family history and childhood home. “And throughout this I was hopping off to conferences and screenings,” Perini said.

As a guide with Portland-based group Signal Fire, Perini leads groups of artists from many disciplines on wilderness excursions ranging in length from one to three weeks. During May of her sabbatical year, Perini earned her Wilderness First Responder certification in order to lead trips without a co-leader.

Over spring break, she and fellow Signal Fire guide Ryan Pierce will lead a week-long trip in the area around Phoenix, Arizona to examine the impacts of climate change and urban and suburban sprawl. The intent is to investigate “how artists can influence responsible city planning.”

Perini maintains a regimen for shooting and editing video. “I shoot video every day using consumer cameras,” she said of the practice she has adhered to for many years. Many of these short works, called minute movies “because they’re also minute—it’s kind of a pun,” are not intended for commercial release or distribution. In our interview, Perini showed me a minute movie filmed at the 24 Hour Hotcake and Steak House on SE Powell. “I keep some record of the day. A lot of them are bad, and that’s ok. There may be something else to learn.

It’s just a way to make sure I’m shooting.”

Perini is teaching two courses this term: ART 257 Introduction to Video Art and ART 399 Special Studies: Video Installation. The latter course is a new one that she says covers “using space with video,” combining sculpture or other physical implements with projection or video. She will teach ART 257 again in the spring, as she does each term, in addition to ART 457/557 Low-Tech Cinema and ART 336 BFA: Research and Proposal.

promo image courtesy of Julie Perini

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ARTISTS ON CAMPUS

AMAZING!

Local Man Still Puts Sriracha on “Basically Everything”

by Raz Mostaghimi

PORTLAND, Oregon (AP)—Friends and acquaintances of Portland State University student and mechanical engineering major Todd Clarkson sat in quiet discomfort as he squirted three tablespoons’ worth of Sriracha sauce on his Caesar salad at the McMenamins Market Street Pub on Friday night. Since discovering the popular Southeast Asian condiment in 2011, Clarkson has formed an inseparable bond with it. Some sources allege that his Sriracha usage borders on inappropriate.

“I actually went to high school with Todd, and when, uh, white people discovered Sriracha a couple years ago, he got really into it. Like, it didn’t matter what meal or cuisine he was eating, he’d put it on everything. Beef stroganoff, pancakes, whatever,” said Claire Nguyen, another student enrolled in the engineering program. “I wouldn’t normally care, but he always explains it to me like I didn’t grow up eating it.

At my birthday dinner we went out to get pho and he just, like, squeezed some on my spoon while saying, ‘put some cock sauce on that bad boy.’ That was kind of the last straw for me.

Am I holding up two fingers for The Second Part, waving, or giving this reivew the bird? Who’s to say??

I’m a Lego® person, everything is obviously awesome!!

When we hang out, I make sure to eat first.

I hoped that he would stop when the cultural craze around it died down, but he still corners me at parties sometimes to tell me about the how the chili paste is made.”

Clarkson has a history of clinging on to cultural moments “a little too long,” claims an anonymous source. At the time of reporting, Clarkson wore a shirt with three howling wolves and a pair of Toms. After leaving the restaurant, Clarkson told his friends to “dare [him] to plank on the hostile architecture.”

“It’s like he’s still in the Obama years. Honestly, I’m jealous,” the anonymous source clarified.

His roommates, Anna Willis and Drew Krakowski, have a more positive spin on Clarkson’s lifestyle.

“He reminds me of simpler times,” Willis said. “Just the other day, he asked me if I heard of a band called the Arctic Monkeys, and for a second I felt like I didn’t have any of my stupid adult problems. My IUD even stopped throbbing.” A look into their pantry revealed Sriracha

bottles with varying levels of fullness. Clarkson’s keyring, hanging from a hook on the living room wall, had its very own portable Sriracha bottle.

“It can be kind of a lot though, so we’ve agreed to never bring up certain topics around him, to avoid another ‘Claire’s birthday dinner’ situation,” Krakowski said. The roommates presented a “Hide From Todd” list that consisted of the following words: squid ink, macarons, kimchi, turmeric latte, matcha. Willis and Krakowski acknowledge that Clarkson could easily discover these foods via 30-second food videos on Facebook and Instagram. However, as of this story’s publication, Clarkson is still unaware of the Facebook meme renaissance and exclusively uses Tumblr.

The Lego Movie Has a Second Part?

A review by someone who hasn’t seen the first one

by Sydney McBee

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part had me at the title, which might have been one of the funniest parts about it. For the past couple of years I have been religiously told by countless people how amazing the original Lego Movie was, which beckoned me to dip my toes in the pool of animated Legos without any prior knowledge. I saw the sequel Lego movie without seeing the first, which might be the best way to see any sequel to a cartoon. I had nothing to compare it to, which made it great. The kid humor wasn’t super funny in this movie seeing as there weren’t any poop or fart jokes, which immediately knocked the score down for me.

The adult humor, however, was pretty hilarious at times. Super clever jokes (many involving Bruce Willis) were made, but the biggest joke of all was the last half of the movie.

I found it way too long, dry, and drawn out. But it was all worth it by the credit sequence.

The credits were by far the best part of the whole movie (however if you had to pee as bad as I did by the end, they also lasted too long). It capitalized on how awesome the crew was and how unimportant the cast was in an animated movie like this, which I found completely accurate and truthfully funny. The animation on this movie was honestly way better than any I’ve seen in the last couple years, if we aren’t counting other stop motion films. The voice actors were casted well too. Although they seemed to have just hired all well known people in Hollywood, it wasn’t as distracting as I thought it would be.

Overall, I have no idea if this movie was as funny as its counterpart, but I thought it was enjoyable enough to watch one time and never again (unless you’re under eight years old, of course, in which case you will make your guardians watch it with you ad nauseum). illustrations by Jake Johnson

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In the Next Room (or TheVibrator Play) What’s all the buzz about?

article and photos by Brooke Jones

Portland State University’s newest play production is In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), a mature comedy written by Sarah Ruhl that deals with sexuality and intimacy in the 1800s.

The show surrounds the main characters Dr. Givings and his wife Catherine, as well their midwife Annie, Dr. Givings’ patient Mrs. Daldry, her husband Mr. Daldry, a wet nurse Elizabeth, and a male patient named Leo Irving. Dr. Givings runs a medical treatment for hysteria in his home office, a room blocked off from the rest of his house. This play takes place during a time when electricity is still new and fascinating to all the characters.

Electricity is especially of interest to Dr. Givings, who uses it to power vibrators as a way to treat hysteria in his patients by giving them paroxysms, doing so with the help of his midwife Annie. The play starts out with Mr. and Mrs. Daldry coming to Dr. Givings to help the highly anxious Mrs. Daldry’s health. The show moves forward as these characters slowly become intertwined in one another’s lives in unexpected ways. Barriers are broken down, and they learn about themselves and others in their most vulnerable state.

This is a play about sex and female sexual awakening, but ultimately it’s a story of how love is expressed to others and what kind of relationships these people deserve. The characters challenge each other and learn things about themselves while doing so; the show ultimately concludes leaving the audience with a message of love, heartbreak, and the nature of intimacy.

In The Next Room ran between March 1st and 9th in Lincoln Performance Hall. I spoke to five members of the cast and crew about the play itself and their roles in the production.

The following interviews have been edited for clarity and brevity.

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ARTS AND CULTURE

Jon Davis: Mr. Daldry How did you approach this character as an actor and how did you prepare for this role?

Jon Davis: It’s interesting playing a man in this age, because the idea of being a man was so different. And even just the way this guy talks to his wife is just very uncomfortable for me. I mean, it’s been hard, it really has. I try to remind myself that these men aren’t, like, malicious in the way that they’re a little sexist. They do love their wives, they’re just playing the roles that they were told to play at that time. So, in preparing for the character, I try to focus on other aspects of his personality. I had to decide what life he brings to the play because all of these characters are so full of life. It’s interesting how these characters are so reserved, especially in the first act, but as the play goes on you see them open up and the way they just have so much energy and life inside of them.

Preparation wise, I chose to read an entire etiquette handbook from 1886. It’s kind of crazy.

There’s a lot of stuff I would not have imagined.

The etiquette for attending a dinner party was an entire chapter. I don’t think of that nowadays. The way they viewed life was very carefully. They had a lot of rules, because I think that’s the way they enjoyed life, which sounds so crazy to us now. But I think the idea of having these social rules was very comforting for these people.

Ruhl’s explorations of sex in this play are closely related to gender roles during this time period. How does Mr. Daldry break or enforce these gender roles on his wife, on others, or in the story in general throughout the play?

JD: I really hesitate to say that I enforce them on my wife...but there are ways that I have that

subtle patriarchy come out. She’s at first afraid to go to the doctor’s office and I tell her to “be a good girl”...yikes. It’s pretty subtle, and I think the playwright purposefully keeps it to just few things. I think she really doesn’t want this to be a play about roles between the sexes, as specifically in marriage. I think she touches on that quite a bit because it’s very important for us to see why the doctor and his wife have this disconnect, but I don’t think she’s necessarily critiquing those roles as much as she’s saying... that they can break free of those roles and still be people of that time.

Madeleine Peterson: Annie How did you approach this character as an actor, and how did you prepare for this role?

Madeleine Peterson: It was kind of tough, this character, just because this character has the least amount of lines and the least amount of information, so there are a lot of liberties I could take with it personally. She is very put together and into her routine. She’s a lot older than I am, so that’s been interesting. In the show, toward the end she comes to the realization she’s a lesbian so that’s fun and interesting [laughs]. I’m trying my best to understand that journey. I’ve been talking to people, because I don’t want to portray that incorrectly, I would want to do my best to do it liberty and do it justice.

I’ve been doing a lot of dramaturgy [background research]. It is kind of tough to find stuff about that specifically in the 1800s. It’s a very different time period. [laughs] It’s definitely different than 2018. I had to do research on women’s education at the time. I believe Annie went to school. Some women who went to school and didn’t end up getting married: they would get jobs. I had to pull what I could from my dramaturgy and what little hints are given [in the script] and build something around that.

In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) covers sex and sexuality in the 1880s. One of the main themes of the play is female sexual awakening. What role does your character play in this plot?

MP: Mrs. Daldry, as she is being treated for hysteria and she’s discovering herself sexually and all that stuff—I am very much there as a part of that journey. I use the instrument on her and help her “paroxysize” [laughs]. It’s called a paroxysm in the show. There’s that and also, much smaller, but you know, my character is coming to terms with—you know she’s never been interested in sex or men until she realized, “Oh shit, that’s why, it’s because I don’t like guys!” [laughs] (Spoilers in this question) What is the significance of the moment when Annie and Mrs. Daldry kiss? Why are they both confused after the kiss, despite having moments that lead up to that particular one?

When Annie leaves the stage after Mrs. Daldry says she had better not see Annie again, upset, how does this conclude her arc as a character?

MP: It’s interesting. First seeing Annie, you sort of just think she’s like an onstage crew member; she’s just, like, doing stuff and not really important. But then she ends up having this really important arc with Mrs. Daldry and everything. Throughout the play, all the characters fall off the wagon a bit, everything gets chaotic.

Then at the end she realizes there is more to life than just her job. She could be interested in that sort of relationship with someone, but also who knows if that could even happen for her at that time? I think that she’s going to evolve as a person past what we see of her. She’s not going to be living the exact same life that she was before.”

Ethan Cockrill: Dr. Givings In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) covers sex and sexuality in the 1880s. One of the main themes of the play is female sexual awakening. What role does your character play in this plot?

Ethan Cockrill: In the play, my character invented this vibrator. It’s a very complex thing.

There’s a downplaying of the sexual aspect of using the vibrator in this manner. It seems that the male characters such as myself know that the paroxysms are sexual in nature. I think I play the part of love and caring, but [my character’s wife and I] definitely don’t have a relationship like the Daldry’s do.

I’m not sure he’s necessarily trying to suppress female sexuality so much as he’s trying not to relate the vibrating and the paroxysms to sexuality. I think he thinks that the female orgasm is some sort of totally separate thing to sex. He does explicitly state that he only wants to help people. That’s his whole reasoning for doing everything. When I first read [the script] I was wondering too, “Is the doctor getting something out of this?” because it’s kind of a gross thing. But then as you read it, and you find out more about the characters…the people, what they state in the script is all true. So at the end when the doctor says, “No, I only wanted to help people,” it’s believed.

Your character uses the vibrator to give his patients paroxysms (orgasms) as a way of relieving hysteria. He does so professionally, and is described as being expressionless THE PACIFIC SENTINEL

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while administering treatment. What do you think Ruhl is trying to say about the nature of intimacy in her play and about Dr. Givings through these scenes involving your character?

EC: That’s really his whole character arc is that he is warm to his patients and even to his wife, but he is detached. He uses his science and his doctor status, and he kind of hides behind all of that. Anytime he has to deal with something, he just hides behind the doctor or the science.

That’s kind of his arc throughout the play: He opens up and starts to learn how to be more passionate and to let go of all that technical stuff.

[Intimacy] is definitely a major theme in the play. I think that’s a large thing that [Ruhl] wrote, because she wrote this play in 2010. I honestly do think it has a lot to do with social media today and what we see in society now with people not being as intimate with one another. Just like, kind of the separation that humans go through and this lack of intimacy that’s there thanks to our technology. So I think that’s a large reason for her writing it.

I can kind of see that’s a large thing that’s coming through is that this vibrating instrument represents something. It’s like a barrier between [people’s] intimacy. It creates this wall, just like the wall in the middle of our [characters’] house that separates people from each other. And only when we can break through that and truly be intimate and in love with each other.

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ARTS AND CULTURE

Akitora Ishii and Kati Dery: Two of the Assistant Directors What are your duties as assistant directors?

Kati Dery: I’ve been put in charge of keeping track of all the costume changes that happen on stage, because there’s a lot [of] dressing and undressing for the parts that happen in the next room. And [the director] Devon had heard about me plotting out my own cups during Victims of Duty when I was in that, and she was like, “You have a math mind, you can do this!”

So I’m in charge of that.

But then all the ADs [assistant directors], we kind of track everything, like we take a lot of notes in our scripts of what’s happening when and how much time we have for specific stuff.

So whenever Evi, the stage manager, or Devon has a question about something, we basically know the answer to everything [laughs] We also are allowed to throw out little ideas whenever we feel, but also Devon is just such a good director that most of the time we don’t [laughs], because she knows way better than we do.

Akitora Ishii: Sometimes there’s problem solving like, “How are these actors going to juggle all these props?” So we’re just sort of additional minds and voices helping to solve problems behind the table. I’ve been holding book a lot of the time, being on book, if somebody calls “line,” that’s one of our duties and then taking line notes on those. And running lines with the actors when they’re not being needed on stage, that’s something we’ve been doing a bit of.

How, as assistant directors, did you help feature this in the play while also keeping in mind the current caution that surrounds sex and women today?

KD: This is something we tend to have conversations on as a full cast and crew, when certain topics come up. Like we’ve had photographers in the room, and Devon is very adamant about them not taking any pictures when the stuff in the next room is happening. So none of that is going to be put up as promotional photographs or anything.

AI: Devon was very specific about those scenes as well, and continuing to be very specific with the actors that they are very technical and very medical. The character that Sarah Ruhl has written, he is a gentleman.

KD: We have conversations about that with everybody and how the audience might react to these things, because yes, in our times, masturbation is a thing that happens and everyone knows it. And if this was happening in our time, it would be really weird, and uncomfortable and crude. But like Akitora was saying, this is a medical procedure for them. It’s not something that they’re doing to gain pleasure. [This] play is really about intimacy and relationships, genuine relationships, between people.

Following the question of sex used in this play, Ruhl also connects sex to intimacy in her story. What do you think she is trying to say of sex and intimacy through characters? What is the arc of intimacy throughout the shows?

KD: I think one of the big things is communication. In this one specifically, the big rift is because Mrs. Givings doesn’t understand what Dr. Givings is doing and they don’t communicate about it enough. And it’s not until they do start communicating and really trying to understand one another that they can find the intimacy that they want. And it’s not with sex. That’s the point of the show, is that sex is not what you need to find intimacy and love between two people. There’s a huge undertone of loneliness that we’ve both gotten to see a lot of. Devon has been working really hard in the blocking and the characterization to highlight that these characters, all of them, are so lonely in their own ways no matter what their life is like.

AI: Devon had sort of a breakthrough and understanding of the show when she realized it was about substitutes—and throughout the show, the vibrator being the substitute for the real thing, people being substitutes for what they’re lacking in their own relationships. And the way they get sidetracked and start to pursue those substitutes instead of getting to the real thing.

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