VOLUME 76 • ISSUE 36 • FEBRUARY 16, 2022
INTERNATIONAL
ARTS & CULTURE
SCIENCE & TECH
Drug test puts Olympic prodigy in jeopardy P. 4
The resurrection of the condors P. 9
Bowser v. Bowser P. 12
CONTENTS
COVER DESIGN BY SHANNON STEED COVER PHOTO BY ERIC SHELBY
INTERNATIONAL KAMILA VALIEVA’S OLYMPIC ELIGIBILITY IN JEOPARDY FOLLOWING DRUG TEST P. 4
BRINGING CONDORS BACK FROM THE BRINK OF EXTINCTION, ONE EGG AT A TIME P. 9
THIS WEEK AROUND THE WORLD
P. 5
SPORTS SOFTBALL VIKS START OUT STRONG AT SEASON OPENER
OPINION DEMANDING EMPATHY THROUGH ART
P. 10
P. 6-7
WELCOME TO PORTLAND, WE HAVE CRIME
P. 11
ARTS & CULTURE BOB’S RED MILL FOUNDER REFLECTS ON AN ACTIVE, WELL-LIVED LIFE
P. 8
SCIENCE & TECH GARY BOWSER’S SENTENCE SPURNS MUDDY WATERS FOR HARDWARE LAW
P. 12
STAFF EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Béla Kurzenhauser
ONLINE EDITOR Lily Hennings
MANAGING EDITOR Karisa Yuasa
COPY CHIEF Mackenzie Streissguth
PHOTO EDITOR Sofie Brandt
DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Tanner Todd
SPORTS EDITOR Eric Shelby
MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Olivia Lee
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Ryan McConnell ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Tanner Todd OPINION EDITOR Justin Cory INTERNATIONAL EDITOR Alberto Alonso Pujazon Bogani
CONTRIBUTORS Wyatt Dillman Whitney Griffith Nova Johnson Kat Leon Jesse Ropers
PRODUCTION & DESIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR Shannon Steed
ADVISING & ACCOUNTING COORDINATOR OF STUDENT MEDIA Reaz Mahmood
DESIGNERS Leo Clark Whitney Griffith Fiona Hays Mia Levy Astrid Luong Anastasia Pargett
STUDENT MEDIA ACCOUNTANT Maria Dominguez
TECHNOLOGY & WEBSITE TECHNOLOGY ASSISTANTS Kahela Fickle George Olson Kwanmanus Thardomrong
STUDENT MEDIA TECHNOLOGY ADVISOR Vacant To contact Portland State Vanguard, email editor@psuvanguard.com
MISSION STATEMENT Vanguard ’s mission is to serve the Portland State community with timely, accurate, comprehensive and critical content while upholding high journalistic standards. In the process, we aim to enrich our staff with quality, hands-on journalism education and a number of skills highly valued in today’s job market.
ABOUT Vanguard, established in 1946, is published weekly as an independent student newspaper governed by the PSU Student Media Board. Views and editorial content expressed herein are those of the staff, contributors and readers and do not necessarily represent the PSU student body, faculty, staff or administration. Find us in print Wednesdays and online 24/7 at psuvanguard.com.
WE’RE HIRING Contributors & News Editors EMAIL RESUME AND COVER LETTER TO EDITOR@PSUVANGUARD.COM PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 16, 2022 • psuvanguard.com
THE WINTER OLYMPICS LOGO. COURTESY OF PXFUEL
KAMILA VALIEVA’S OLYMPIC ELIGIBILITY IN JEOPARDY FOLLOWING DRUG TEST ALBERTO ALONSO PUJAZON BOGANI
RUSSIA’S PRODIGY VALIEVA SURROUNDED BY POSITIVE DRUG TEST CONTROVERSY 15-year-old Russian skating prodigy Kamila Valieva brought a gold medal to the Russian Olympic team on Monday Feb. 7, after being the first woman to land two quadruple jumps at the Olympics, according to The New York Times. Valieva won both of her skates in the team event, and nearly set a world record for points in the women’s short program on Sunday, finishing more than 15 points ahead of the next competitor. “This is a fantastic feeling,” Valieva said, though she is trying to cope with the pressure of competing against so many adults in the Olympics at a young age. However, this success and celebration was short-lived after confirmation of a positive drug test from a urine sample collected on Dec. 25 by the International Testing Agency (ITA). The prodigy tested positive for Trimetazidine (TMZ), a heart-
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SECTION INTERNATIONAL
and endurance-enhancing drug banned by the Olympics for athletes to use inside and outside competition. Due to past allegations and scandals involving doping, Russian officials responded by calling the case a “misunderstanding.” “Hold your head up, you’re a Russian,” said Dmitry Peskov, a Russian government spokesperson. “Go proudly and beat everyone.” Valieva is one of the youngest athletes to ever test positive. She is due to compete again on Tuesday for the individual’s event—however, her fate will be decided before then. A six-member board pertaining to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) will confer on the second floor of the Continental Grand Hotel behind locked doors, according to Reuters. The Russian Anti-Doping Agency lifted an automatic provisional suspension placed on Valieva, which was imposed immediately after any positive test. The International Olympic Committee, the International Skating Union and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) plan to appeal to CAS reinstate it. CAS has two temporary offices in Beijing for legal disputes and drug-related issues to provide rapid resolutions to any problems that arise. As Russia has a history with doping in the Olympics, Valieva and her Russian athlete counterparts are competing as the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC)—a team without a flag or national anthem—due to the country being sanctioned for a state-supported doping system. TMZ is a drug used to treat angina, among other heart-related health conditions, and increases blood flow to the heart
while also limiting rapid swings in blood pressure. It is not approved in the United States for medical use, but Dr. Kelly Johnson-Arbor, a medical toxicology physician at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, explained its usage. “If you’re in a highly exertional sport, where you’re using a lot of energy and you’re putting your heart under significant stress, it certainly could help your heart function better theoretically,” Johnson-Arbor said. It was categorized as a hormone and metabolic modulator when placed on WADA’s list of prohibited substances in 2014. That same year, Chinese Olympic gold medalist Sun Yang was suspended for testing positive for TMZ. Yang claimed that he had been prescribed the drug by doctors to ease chest pain. Former head of WADA Rob Koehler felt agencies should be held responsible. “There are three organizations to blame for Kamila Valieva’s positive test: the World Anti-Doping Agency, the International Olympic Committee and the Court of Arbitration for Sport,” Koehler said. Valieva’s case has made its rounds across the globe—with some athletes and fans speaking on the situation, her accountability and how it should be handled. “What they knowingly did to her, if true, cannot be surpassed in inhumanity and makes my athlete’s heart cry infinitely,” wrote German skater Katarina Witt in a social media post. “Kamila Valieva is a young girl and child prodigy, whose highly difficult performances and grace enchanted the whole world at only 15, a minor, depending on adults and she is not to blame here.”
PSUVanguard Vanguard• FEBRUARY • JANUARY 16, 11, 2022 • psuvanguard.com PSU
THIS WEEK
around the
WORLD
Feb 6-12
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3
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1
Feb. 7
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
The Australian government announced that the country would reopen its borders to vaccinated travelers and tourists in February, as reported by Reuters. This decision is expected to revive the Australian tourism industry and inject billions of dollars into the Australian economy, though the ban on travelers has been credited for the country’s relatively low death and infection rates. The start-stop lockdowns, another component of Australia’s COVID-19 response, were lifted Dec. 2021. In the past few months, Australia’s efforts to loosen restrictions have included allowing the entrance of skilled migrants and quarantine-free travel arrangements with New Zealand along with a select few other countries, according to Reuters. Borders will reopen on Feb. 21, the first time since March 2020 that international travel from anywhere in the world will be allowed, as long as the traveler is vaccinated. “If you’re double-vaccinated, we look forward to welcoming [you] back to Australia,” said Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison at a media briefing. This decision to lift the travel ban comes three months before Morrison faces an
election, and has been positively received by the tourism industry. “Over the two years since the borders have been closed, the industry has been on its knees,” said Australian Tourism Export Council Managing Director Peter Shelley. “Now we can turn our collective efforts towards rebuilding an industry that is in disrepair.” 2
Feb. 7
OTTAWA, CANADA
Following intense protests against COVID-19 restrictions in Canada, Canadian police stated Monday that they have seized thousands of liters of fuel as well as removed an oil tanker as part of a crackdown on the 11-day ongoing protest. Canadian police officials stated that truck and protester numbers had dropped significantly. A court granted an interim injunction following excessive amounts of horn blaring by the protestors gridlocking streets of Ottawa. The participants are going by the collective alias Freedom Convoy, composed of truckers and other motorists who oppose a Canadian vaccine mandate for cross-border drivers—a rule already in place in the United States. The rallies have evolved from a protest over the specific
PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 16, 2022 • psuvanguard.com
mandate into a general protest against Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s public health measures. “This is a story of a country that [got] through this pandemic by being united and a few people shouting and waving swastikas does not define who Canadians are,’’ Trudeau said. Trudeau denounced the tactics being used by the protesters, in response to an emergency debate within parliament. 3
Feb. 11
CHIN STATE, MYANMAR
Kaung Thu Win, a Myanmar Army officer who defected and fled the country, spoke with Reuters about the country’s battlefield losses to rebels in the southern part of Chin state. He alleged that at least 50 soldiers were killed—and 200 badly wounded—by opposition fighters using homemade weapons in 2021. Kaung Thu Win defected after he heard reports from colleagues of the military abuses that occurred last year during clashes. He showed Reuters his national and military identity cards, as well as 30 classified documents backing up his statements about the events. The former officer detailed 12 incidents in which soldiers were
killed or wounded by rebels occurring from May–Dec. 2021. The documents stored on his mobile device provided new insight to a previously unreported major clash near Mindat, and served as further evidence of rebellion growth against Myanmar’s military rulers. The Mindat attack occurred on May 14, 2021 around dawn when seven Myanmar military vehicles were ambushed by rebel forces. The rebels fired at troops from hillside positions which resulted in five deaths and 37 troops unaccounted for. An internal field report estimated 1,000 insurgents had participated in the attack that left six army trucks destroyed and multiple weapons lost. Four other Myanmar Army defectors reviewed the documents and confirmed that they mirrored the language, format and descriptions of combat seen in other official documents. According to Kaung Thu Win, at least 20 Myanmar soldiers died. The level of civil unrest in Myanmar has been high, with some analysts calling the conflict a civil war, according to Reuters. The Myanmar military has called the rebellion an armed insurrection, with military ruler Min Aung Hlaing claiming 2021 was filled with 9,000 terrorist attacks.
INTERNATIONAL
5
OLIVIA GREY PITCHING FOR THE VIKINGS. ERIC SHELBY/PSU VANGUARD
SOFTBALL VIKS START OUT STRONG AT SEASON OPENER VIKS OUTSCORED THEIR OPPONENTS 28-4 IN TWO GAMES
ERIC SHELBY
SOFTBALL Softball season returns at the Lynn Russell Classic in Riverside, California, as the Vikings take on Utah Valley, Pacific and UC Riverside. The Big Sky Champions dominated Utah Valley in five innings with a final score of 14-1, scoring 12 runs in just the first three innings. Pitcher Olivia Grey started her season 1-0, throwing four innings and only allowing three hits and one run. In one inning, Marisol Gaona only allowed one hit to give the Vikings a win. Emily Johansen had the most runs for the Viks, only getting one hit off of the Wolverines and two RBIs (runs batted in). In her five times at bat, Maddie Thompson had three runs and four hits. Paetynn Lopez had three runs and two RBIs. Olivia Dean, Logan Riggenbach, Shea Garcia and freshman Kiara McCrea all had one run against Utah Valley. The Viks finished the double header with a win over Pacific 14-3. Allicitie Frost pitched the whole five innings and allowed only three hits and three runs. Six runs in the fourth inning made it another short game as Thompson and Julia Perkins both had three runs. Thompson had one hit, while Perkins had two and an RBI. Kiara McCrea got a perfect 4-4 with six runs batted in and a run for herself. Natalia Martinez had three RBIs and two hits. Mariah Rodriguez, in her one time at bat, gave the Viks two runs.
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SPORTS
The Tigers avoided a sweep by the Vikings in a 6-5, eight-inning loss to Pacific. Five runs at the bottom of the fifth made the game go 5-3 Pacific in the sixth inning. At the top of the eighth inning, the last chance for the Vikings wasn’t enough to complete the comeback. The Viks wait to finish their double header against UC Riverside. The Viks continued play at Riverside on a sunny, 86°F day for a win over UC Riverside. Grey pitched the whole seven innings, allowed six hits and one run as well as 10 strikeouts. Even though it was not another double digit score, the Viks won 7-1. Dean and Thompson both scored two runs, with an RBI for Dean. Johansen had three hits, a run and four RBIs. The Viks finish out the classic when they play Utah Valley for the last time.
TRACK: HUSKY CLASSIC Portland State traveled to Seattle for the Husky Classic, hosted by the University of Washington with multiple schools from the Pac-12, Big Sky and West Coast Conference. Katie Camarena broke the school—and Big Sky—record for the Women’s indoor 3k with a time of 8:57.08. She was not done yet, though. Not only did Camarena beat her own personal record in the indoor mile by two seconds, she also broke the Big Sky conference record with a time of
4:32.27. Keynan Abdi also broke a school record in the men’s indoor 5k, with a time of 14:17.70.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL The Park Block Vikings traveled to the Hornet’s Nest in Sacramento, California, in search of a conference win over a hot Sacramento State. Alaya Fitzgerald led the team with 19 points, going 8-9 on the free throw line—and cliching a three-pointer. Jada Lewis was consistent with three three-pointers, four rebounds, four turnovers and 17 points. Esmeralda Morales, in 39 minutes of play, had three three-pointers, three rebounds, three assists and four turnovers—giving the Viks 14 points. Reilly Kelty went 3-4 on the line with a rebound and three points. The Viks scored 62, but it wasn’t enough to beat the 72 points by Sacramento State. Greely, Colorado was the next stop for the Vikings, but ultimately they fell to the Northern Colorado Bears, 93-45. Rhema Ogele led the team with eight points, shooting 4-5 and three rebounds. Mia ‘Uhila and Syd Schultz both scored seven for the Viks, with Schultz shooting 3-3. Jada Lewis had two three-pointers and five rebounds. Savannah Dhaliwal led the Viks with 10 rebounds, three assists, two turnovers and five points.
PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 16, 2022 • psuvanguard.com
ABOVE: OLIVIA DEAN ON THE FIELD. BELOW: KEYNAN ABDI IN 5K. ERIC SHELBY/PSU VANGUARD
WOMEN’S RESULTS: 3,000 METERS: 3. Katie Camarena, 8:57.08 60. Hunter Storm, 9:55.80 64. Tatum Miller, 10:02.56 MILE: 1. Katie Camarena, 4:32.27
MEN’S RESULTS: 200M: 7. Harley Montgomery, 23.21 9. Jordan Gloden, 23.44 400M: 10. Harley Montgomery, 50.76 800M: 17. Chase Lovercheck, 1:55.18 21. James Bottrill, 1:56.28 MILE: 34. Jordan MacIntosh, 4:06.90 67. Luke Ramirez, 4:13.36
MEN’S BASKETBALL
WOMEN’S TENNIS
The Viks continued their winning streak with a 73-65 win over Sacramento State at the Viking Pavilion. Ezekiel Alley shot 10-18, and had a high-scoring 26 points for the Viks. Alley went 4-8 on three-pointers, 2-3 on the line—and two turnovers. Marlon Ruffin had 13 points with a three-pointer and 6-8 on the free throw line. The game’s high was eight rebounds, which came from the senior Khalid Thomas, going 5-6 on the line and 11 points. Paris Dawson and Damion Squire both had three rebounds and seven points. There was a heartbreaker in Bozeman, Montana as the Viks dropped their first game in a while, losing to Montana State with a close 77-74. Once again, Alley led the team in points with 18 and five rebounds. Thomas went 4-5 on the line, shooting 6-14 with 16 points. 16 points also came from Squire shooting 7-9. Marlon Ruffin had a perfect 4-4 on the line with four rebounds. Ian Burke had eight points with two turnovers, three assists and three rebounds. The Montana road trip ended in Missoula against the Griz. The Griz was too much to handle, and the Viks lost 85-76. Michael Carter III led the team with 13 points shooting 5-7 and a three-pointer. Squire, Alley and Thomas each scored 11 points for the Viks. Squire was a perfect 7-7 on the line—and both Alley and Thomas went 7-8 on the line. Hayden Curtiss shot 3-6 and 2-3 on the line to add an extra eight points to the board.
Portland State became .500 as they dominated once again with 7-0, but this time over the Seattle University Redhawks. In singles, Capu Sanoner and Nika Beukers won 6-2. Emily Rees and Majo Henandez won 6-3 over the Redhawks’ Jillian Rasmussen and Hannah Grossman. The last doubles match was Makoto Ohara and Maddie Egan falling in a close 6-4 battle. In singles, Sanoner won 7-5, 6-4; Beukers won 6-4, 6-4; Rees won 6-4, 6-0; Ohara won 6-2, 6-4; Hernandez won 6-4, 6-3 and finally, to finish the sweep, Egan won 7(7)6(5), 6-4.
PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 16, 2022 • psuvanguard.com
MEN’S TENNIS The Viks dropped their third game of the season with a 7-0 loss to the Washington Huskies on Saturday, which remain undefeated at 8-0. In singles, Vikings senior Nils Plutat fell to #2 nationally-ranked Clement Chidekh, who won 6-3, 6-1. Tommy Hsu fell 6-2, 6-2; sophomore Oliver Richards fell 6-4, 6-2; Sam De Vries fell 6-0, 6-2; Otto Holtari fell 6-0, 6-0 and Andrew Vu fell 6-0, 6-3. In doubles, Vikings were also swept, with duo Hsu and De Vries losing 6-3. Plutat and Richards couldn’t hold it and fell at 6-4. Holtari and Vu fell 6-1.
3,000M: 33. Jordan MacIntosh, 8:12.06 68. Drew Seidel, 8:30.36 80. Cam McChesney, 8:49.16 5,000M: 43. Keynan Abdi, 14:17.70 59. Dom Morganti, 14:55.02 60H (PRELIMS): 6. Jordan Gloden, 8.42 60H (FINALS): 5. Jordan Gloden, 8.23 60M (PRELIMS): 15. Jordan Gloden, 7.17 LONG JUMP: 4. Jordan Gloden, 22-03.00 (6.78m)
SPORTS
7
BOB’S RED MILL FOUNDER REFLECTS ON AN ACTIVE, WELL-LIVED LIFE AT 93, BOB MOORE LOOKS BACK ON A LIFE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT
TANNER TODD Bob Moore has spent a long time figuring out who he is. “You don’t always know who you are,” Moore said, “until you’ve been who you are for a while.” The founder of Bob’s Red Mill celebrated his 93rd birthday this month—44 years after creating the company that bears his name. Moore, whose face is printed on his company’s diverse array of health-focused and whole grain foods, is largely known for his milling business. While this might be his most well-known pursuit, it’s certainly not the first—before he started his first mill, Moore occupied various far-flung professions, ranging from a stint in the Army to electronics manufacturing, small business ownership and automotive service. Moore said he joined up with the Army soon after graduating high school in 1947, where he built bridges and other infrastructure projects. After serving his allotted time, he leveraged the money from the recently-passed G.I. Bill to go to school for electronics manufacturing, learning enough to land himself a job in a test lab with U.S. Electrical Motors. It was there that Moore met his lifelong wife, Charlee Moore, who worked in the company alongside him. “I was fascinated by someone telling me about the girl named Chuck,” Moore said. “I wanted to know who she was…I asked her out for dinner, and the rest is history.” Despite his interest in electronics, Moore continued to nurse a desire to go into business with his father—a dream that lived on even after his father’s unexpected death from a heart attack at 49 years old. In 1955, Moore’s business aspirations became a reality when he bought a Mobil gas station in Gardena, California, which brought in enough income to support himself, Charlee and their three sons. There he learned the fundamentals of business ownership, along with the value of hard work and dedication. “I learned what hard work was,” Moore said. “The first year in the business, I worked 365 days of the year…I never took a day off.” He left the business after several years, relocated himself and his family and eventually took a job as the general manager of a JCPenney auto center in Redding, California. With a stable job and work that he liked at JCPenney, Moore made the discovery that would cause him to switch careers and change the course of his life entirely. It happened in a library, which Moore visited frequently. “I went to the library one day and I saw this book, John Goffe’s Mill,” Moore said. “I picked it up, looked at it and took it home and read it.” Something about the book—which detailed the author’s experience restoring an antique grain mill—resonated with Moore. He wasn’t alone. Charlee Moore read as well and between the two of them, an idea emerged. Charlee Moore had a long-term interest in whole-grain foods and healthy eating, and this, combined with Bob Moore’s newfound interest in the art of milling, inspired them to open a mill together. There was only one problem: neither of them had ever run a mill in their lives. The Moores’ research process merged intensive reading with
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hands-on experience. The two took trips across the United States and England visiting old mills, some of which were hundreds of years old. “It’s almost like magic,” Moore said of the research process. “When you start digging around and finding out here and there, this is working and that’s working.” After getting the basics of milling down, the Moores opened up Moore’s Flour Mill in Redding, California, which they ran with their sons. After several successful years in business, Bob and Charlee Moore retired—or thought they did—and moved to Oregon, leaving their sons in charge of the mill. The couple lived a steady life in Oregon and joined a seminary, where they hoped to learn enough Hebrew and Aramaic to read the Bible in its original languages. To practice, they would walk long miles through the Oregon countryside, quizzing each other on Aramaic vocabulary. It was on one of these walks that inspiration struck again, with a discovery that would draw Moore out of retirement: the red mill which gave his company its name. “One day we go down a certain street,” Moore said. “We haven’t gone down it before. We’re walking down the street, and here is this old mill. I could not believe it… there was a for-sale sign out front.” Moore said he wasted no time calling the number listed on the sign, where he quickly arranged a sale. Not long after the sale, Bob and Charlee Moore were out of retirement and back in business, christening their new enterprise Bob’s Red Mill—the name the business bears to this day. The operation started out small, but with the Moores’ dedication and hard work, it quickly grew into what it is today.
ANASTASIA PARGETT “This whole thing has been a series of efforts, energies [and] fascinations, both on my part and on my wife’s part,” Moore said of his and his wife’s foray into milling high-quality grains. Now in his nineties, Moore looked back on his life and accomplishments with pride. “I’m not done yet, don’t misunderstand me,” Moore said, “but I was able to fulfill a reality that I believed in and made it into a structured business that feeds a lot of people…I don’t know if there’s much more in life.”
PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 16, 2022 • psuvanguard.com
BRINGING CONDORS BACK FROM THE BRINK OF EXTINCTION, ONE EGG AT A TIME A LOOK INSIDE THE OREGON ZOO’S CONDOR BREEDING PROGRAM
A CONDOR CHICK RECEIVES HATCHING ASSISTANCE. KELLI WALKER/OREGON ZOO
TANNER TODD Springtime for California Condors means egg season. For a mating pair of the enormous, vulture-like birds, this means picking out a nest site, laying a single, enormous egg and taking turns to incubate it. For Kelli Walker, the head of the Oregon Zoo’s condor breeding program, egg season is a little more complicated. “Today we had to pull an egg out of the nest room,” Walker said. “We have to wait until the male and female are out of the nest to pull that egg out, so we were literally standing in a frigid cold barn for an hour.” Waiting for the parents to leave the nest is only the first step— once the enormous birds are distracted by food, Walker must quickly swap out the egg for a decoy using cleverly-placed egg doors built into the walls. Once in Walker’s expert hands, the newly kidnapped egg is spirited away to a top-notch incubation room, where Walker and her colleagues can safely monitor the developing embryo. After years of practice, the routine is perfected almost to a science, but it begs the question: why so much effort for an egg? The answer, Walker said, boils down to conservation. California Condors, the species that Walker has spent so much time caring for, are critically endangered. Even with the best efforts of conservationists such as Walker, there are just over four hundred such condors in the wild today. As small as that number may seem, the situation for these birds was once much, much worse. Rewind back to the spring of 1987, the situation for condors was bleak—the species was all but extinct in the wild, with only 27 captive condors left in the world. The mass dying-off of condors was due almost exclusively to human incursions into nature, with overhunting and lead poisoning decimating native populations. Faced with the reality of extinction in the wild, conservationists and wildlife biologists hatched a bold plan—they would attempt to breed California Condors in captivity, reintroducing the offspring back into the wild. Three breeding programs cropped up over the next several decades, most in various parts of California. Then, in the early 2000s, a breeding program opened in the Portland area at
PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 16, 2022 • psuvanguard.com
the Oregon Zoo. It was the fourth of its kind in the world. Due to the slow-breeding nature of pairs once they’ve been Walker said she joined at the beginning of the Oregon coupled, the work of repopulating condors has been slow, but Zoo’s program. also largely successful. For Walker, the hardest part of the “I started in 2004, when we got our first egg,” Walker said. job comes after her charges have left her care. “I’ve been here since then.” Walker—who had prior experience with the Audubon Society and pursued a higher education in conservation science—said that California Condors were unique. “Condors are not like any other bird species I’ve ever worked with,” Walker said. “They’re more like when I’ve worked with primates.” Walker described them as akin to chimps with feathers, noting the similarities in their intelligence and their complicated, rigidly enforced social structure. Condors also stand out for their appearance. The carrion-eating birds resemble vultures, but are much, much larger—a full-grown adult has a wingspan of up to nine feet. The enormous birds also mate for life, producing only one egg every year or sometimes every other year. Because of their slow-breeding nature, much of condor conservation is just a game of matchmaking. Since every condor alive today is descended from KELLI WALKER CHECKS ON AN ARTIFICIALLY INCUBATED EGG. MICHAEL DURHAM/OREGON ZOO the twenty-seven condors alive in 1987, breeders like Walker must be extremely careful to maintain “We see them from an embryo and an egg, and watch genetic diversity when setting up condor couples. them grow up for a year and half and then release them “All of our pairs are put together by a geneticist,” Walker into the wild,” Walker said. “A big part of them die of lead said. Since they mate for life, pairs are rarely broken up, except poisoning from ammunition…you put all this time and for in rare instances that they fight to the point of becoming energy and effort into them, and then you get an email a danger to each other. [that they’ve died].” “They can cause a huge amount of damage in a very short Despite these challenges and the enormous amount of care time,” Walker explained of couples fighting. “We have had to and effort required, the condor conservation effort at the break a couple up…we basically divorce them.” Oregon Zoo continues on—egg season has come again and Thankfully, situations like this are exceedingly rare. Walker, as always, is ready.
ARTS & CULTURE
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DEMANDING EMPATHY THROUGH ART HOW MANGA LEADS TO GREATER ACCEPTANCE OF HOUSELESS INDIVIDUALS KAT LEON BANG! POW! BOOM! Comics in the United States are full of onomatopoeias that emphasize action. In addition, our comics encourage the reader’s participation with fun but unrealistic hero stories that focus almost exclusively on fast-paced intrigue. It is pretty fair to say that due to the culture of the United States, we yearn for instant gratification. In both literary and cinematic art, we demand that it entertains us and that we can relate to it—but not too much. We demand that it allow us to see another person’s struggles without seeing our lack of response to those struggles. While comics in the U.S. are impressive in their own right, Japan has taken a different route in some of its literary and cinematic art. Their art asks for the consumer’s empathy and relation to the everyday struggles of every person, including members of society that are often outcasts. Houselessness has been a pressing issue of modern culture for centuries, and how each culture seems to deal with it varies widely. According to the Japanese Advocacy and Research Centre for Homelessness, there were at least 3,392 unhoused people in the entirety of Japan in 2017, although some nonprofits that work with the houseless think that number could be two to three times higher. Either way, if one looks at Oregon alone, which is 1.5 times smaller than Japan, the houseless population is 15,876 as of 2022—a significant difference. When something is more visible, people will inevitably be more likely to complain about it, and this can very quickly lead to discrimination, stigmatization and an overall lack of empathy. On the other hand, peoples’ perspectives are both consciously and unconsciously affected by how art portrays others. Comics in particular have a way of pulling the reader into the story. Scott McCloud, well-known comic expert and author of Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art called the cartoon a vacuum that pulls in our identity and awareness. “We don’t just observe the cartoon, we become it!” McCloud wrote. While it can be fun to live vicariously through fictional characters like Spider-Man or the Hulk, their stories teach us little to nothing about regular struggles. Instead, comics in the U.S. gloss over everyday things and often rush on, never lingering on the things that make us human. Japanese manga is often the opposite of this. While the story can include action and intrigue, it also glorifies normal experiences just as much, if not more. Disappearance Diary by Hideo Azuma is one manga that
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OPINION
diction or mental health as we might see in the U.S. Dr. Jon Holt, professor of Japanese Language and Literature at Portland State University, recently gave a talk on Disappearance Diary. A possible reason that some Japanese people chose the freedom of being houseless is that “they felt a lack of connection with their families or work, so [they] decided to make their own life paths,” Holt said. One could definitely see this portrayed in Azuma’s personal story. One can see an illuminating perspective of houselessness in the nitty-gritty aspects of how Azuma portrays himself in cartoon form—the monotony of searching for cigarette butts to smoke off the ground, the frustration from being constipated because all he had to eat for a while was radishes, the struggle to protect himself from the elements at night and the pure joy when he found good food during the day. “The daily life of a houseless person—the daily life of an unemployed person—can be true art, true entertainment, or both for the Japanese,” Holt said. Lack of empathy for others often comes down to ignorance. However, manga, like any comic medium, demands that the reader become the character, thus experiencing houselessness without actually experiencing it. While houseless people in Japan still face their fair share of prejudice and discrimination, Disappearance Diary helps shape more positive perspectives. By comparison, we in the U.S. constantly fail to see the beauty in everyday struggles. Instead, we fight to get through them, and we definitely do not want to see it in our art. “We are allergic to it everyday,” Holt said. While houselessness may continue to persist for centuries to come, art can become a vital tool in positively shaping perspectives. In the United States, we must learn to accept and revel in the everyday. We likely will never be able to shoot webs out of our hands or turn into a giant green monster when we get angry, but we can learn to see ourselves more clearly when artwork encourages the reader to slow down—and look at their existence and the existence of others. A POSTER IN PSU'S WORLD LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES DEPARTMENT. BÉLA KURZENHAUSER/PSU VANGUARD Consuming art that demands empathy for the other strongly encourages one to demeaningfully portrays the Japanese respect and glorifica- mand empathy from themselves, and leads to more acception of everyday life. In this manga, we follow the author’s tance and appreciation for all of life’s struggles. We must story as he walks away from his life as a manga artist and embrace the mirror because, if we do not, we will not only his family to be houseless. be missing out on some of the most extraordinary art ever Japanese houseless people may have chosen to be houseless be- made, but we will also continuously fail to see the flaws in cause they want freedom—it is not necessarily related to income, ad- the way we see and treat others.
PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 16, 2022 • psuvanguard.com
WELCOME TO PORTLAND, WE HAVE CRIME INCREASING CRIME RATES ARE A SYMPTOM OF INEQUALITY
WHITNEY GRIFFITH
PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 16, 2022 • psuvanguard.com
WYATT DILLMAN Over 90 homicides were recorded in Portland last year, surpassing the previous record high of 66 in 1987. Although much smaller in size than its neighboring cities, Portland recorded more homicides in 2021 than San Francisco—and more than double the amount of Seattle. Now into the second month of 2022, the murder rate doesn’t seem to be dying down. Many associate the increase of crime to the defunding of the police department and large resignation of officers. Although this may be partially true, the fear of getting caught rarely prevents crime. People don’t refuse to kill because they’re worried about going to jail—they refuse to kill because it’s evil and invalidates their conscience. Others blame the opioid crisis and the problem of houselessness as the major contributors to the upsurge in crime. But despite the correlation, these factors are not the source of the problem, but a separate outcome. People struggling are more likely to abuse drugs as a way to find that missing sense of elation, and while intoxicated or desperate for more, their chance of assaulting another may be heightened. However, the majority of homicides are gun-related. According to the city police, the 1,288 shootings in 2021 were mostly related to gangs and drugs . But it’s not the Sackler family shooting at rival millionaires in the streets, it’s lower class individuals who are struggling mentally and emotionally. The point is that this is a consequence of our world’s outrageous economic inequality. When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, he passed policies to deteriorate unionization, decrease the relative wealth of the middle and lower class and cut taxes for the wealthy—all of which have led to the propagation of a poorly adapted economic system. Fast-forward to 2020 where we witnessed the lack of preparation that allowed a virus to pull 88-115 million people across the world into extreme poverty. Of course, violent crime has skyrocketed—and not just in Portland, but across the U.S as a whole. When people are under financial stress or have limited availability of basic needs, many of them are going to break the law to survive. Many people falsely believe that this was an inevitable outcome from the pandemic, but this is not the case. Our economic system places excessive power in the hands of large corporations rather than a centralized government tasked with supporting the public. This resulted in a lack of pandemic preparation, and the lack of social services that would have acted as security for people when the economy shut down. Our neoliberal economic system places the responsibility of health, welfare and security on private entities who prioritize their businesses success, rather than the well-being of the people—and the system as a whole. There was a day when these large healthcare corporations decided that spending money on outbreak preparation was less profitable than spending it elsewhere, and by making this decision, the working class suffered while companies appreciated in value exponentially. It is more clear than ever that these owners’ own scope of their importance only takes into account their individual wealth and not the well-being of us all. Although their prioritization was selfish, this isn’t just to blame the large corporations, but to understand that our system incentivizes them to increase individual ownership—rather than improving the circumstances of the working class. Countries with a history of collectivism—such as Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, Germany, China and more—have experienced far fewer COVID-19 deaths and cases. And because these countries chose to invest in preparation before the pandemic occurred, fewer people fell under the poverty line due to the pandemic. We must come together in solidarity to distribute money and resources wholly. Crime will not go away until we incorporate a collectivist mindset that values everyone.
OPINION
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GARY BOWSER’S SENTENCE SPURNS MUDDY WATERS FOR HARDWARE LAW HOW FAR DOES THE RIGHT TO REPAIR EXTEND?
RYAN MCCONNELL Remember The Pirate Bay era of the internet before streaming services became widespread, when music was still paid per song or per album? When LimeWire was a central hub for free downloads—and malware—and people flocked to Project Free TV to watch cable-exclusive shows after they waited 20 minutes for it to load? These sites may have been risky and inconvenient, but these relics exemplify a time in internet history when media was accessible, and free was a matter of perspective. It’s become clear, however, that this era has long since passed. On Feb. 10, 2022, it was announced that Gary Bowser would be sentenced to 40 months in prison for “console-hacking software and devices used to play pirated Nintendo Switch games.” Bowser is a part of Team-Xecuter, a group which distributed special microchips that modified the Nintendo Switch to allow it to play pirated, or unlicensed, video games. The FBI has described the group as a criminal enterprise, while the defense has argued they were simply advocates for homebrew programs and the consumer’s right to repair their own property. But who is right? The answer is tricky, and only gets trickier the deeper you search. Is piracy a victimless crime—and what rights do you have with the property you own? The problem with this case lies at the heart of what both the right to repair and the right to modify mean. It seems the U.S. judicial system, after this sentencing, has decided to make an example of those who believe that modifying their property is harmless. Many websites, along with the case itself, cite the use of a special microchip used to play pirated content as the indicator of criminality. However, a microchip is not specific to pirated content that these modified consoles can play, making this claim more misleading than it is informative. Modified additions (mods) to games aren’t a new concept, and companies approach dealing with them in different ways. Bethesda’s Skyrim, for example, is a game that openly embraces mods, even encouraging them. Other companies turn a blind eye, opening modding communities for different genres of video games. Mods are much more common in the PC gaming community because the game files are easier to open and peer inside of than on consoles. At the end of the day, video games are
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SCIENCE & TECH
simply computer files just like any other application. While consoles are essentially computers, they run on an operating system that is built specifically for that piece of hardware, only allowed to do what the company wants it to do. Digging into files is extremely limited, and the only way to alter a console’s system is through a technique known as jailbreaking, the overriding of a manufacturer’s operating system to implement unauthorized use. However, cracking open a console often ruins its capability to perform a lot of functions that it was typically built to do. The PlayStation 4 jailbreak exploit was a great example of this, as hackers were able to find a gap in the firmware through a console bug that PlayStation eventually patched. Team-Xecutor made a device that mirrors much of the functionality of jailbreaking a device. It allows the Nintendo Switch to run things that it wasn’t originally designed to. Of course, this does mean pirated content can be played. However, it also allows game mods to be utilized, as well as content built by the user themselves. Users can modify the interface of the console, and others may simply wish to treat the console more like a standard computer. PCs simply don’t have this problem because that is what computers are built for. Games and applications have to be built somewhere—and they are always built on a PC, Mac or Linux machine. There’s seldom a reason to distinguish between a homebrew application and a regular application because, to a computer, they are the same thing. Anyone can build whatever they wish to on a computer. So why are consoles treated differently? Again, there is no clear answer. A gaming console—a computer product that an individual paid for and now owns— should, in theory, allow the owner to do whatever they want to it, so long as the modifications don’t directly affect other owners. However, the ruling in Bowser’s case shows that special rules apply—that owners of a product don’t seem to have the rights to modify their property. The judgment comes from the device’s ability to allow for pirated content, but the reality is that it simply allows users more autonomy to modify and repair their own possession. It’s a scenario that’s both head-scratching and frustrating for curious minds and avid tinkerers, and those who simply can’t afford new technology.
LEO CLARK
PSU Vanguard • FEBRUARY 16, 2022 • psuvanguard.com