WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2010 • PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY • VOLUME 64, ISSUE 102
Event of the day If you’re interested in volunteering for this year’s Roots Festival, make sure to attend today’s planning meeting. The festival theme this year is multicultural sustainability.
When: 2 p.m. Where: SMSU Multicultural Center
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INSIDE NEWS
Help for students in distress
Chiron Studies program seeks new leadership Hallman, coordinator of the unique program, leaves large shoes to fill PAGE 2
Resources for Students Campus-based Resources Counseling and Psychological Services: 503-725-2800 Dean of Students: 503-725-4422 Vice Provost for Student Affairs: 503-725-5249 Campus Public Safety: 503-725-4407 (non-emergency number) Outside Resources Multnomah County Crisis Line (24-hr): 503-988-4888 Cascadia 24-hr Urgent Walk-in Clinic: 2415 SE 43rd Ave. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK
ARTS
Hazard: Explosively telepathic women
Palo Verde has no idea what they will play tonight PAGE 4 Game Maker
Warioware DIY puts you in the developer’s chair PAGE 4
Vice provost’s office provides information and resources for crisis prevention Vinh Tran Vanguard staff
Putting a face to strangers
Gus Van Sant shows off his newest artistic endeavor PAGE 5
OPINION
The right to peaceful Park Blocks
Angry religious preaching needs to go PAGE 6 Disturbing protections Open-air street preachers have every right to preach on campus PAGE 6
Liana Shewey/Portland State Vanguard
SHAC: A resource for students in need of counseling.
Following the death of a student nearly two weeks ago, the Student Affairs office released a letter to the university community advising how to look for signs of distress in students.
The death has impacted the community heavily, and Student Health and Counseling Center counselors and support staff have been providing counseling for classes and students, said Jackie Balzer, vice provost of Student Affairs. The university is committed to providing an environment conducive for students to learn, grow and succeed. Supporting students who may be experiencing personal or emotional distress is an important aspect of that commitment, according to the letter.
Balzer highlights some of the signs that a student who is distressed might exhibit, which include: excessive class absences, declining academic performance, poor emotional control, excessive moodiness, changing sleep and eating habits, excessive concern about personal health, bouts of depression, talk of suicide and engaging in risky behavior. This is a high-risk time for some because, as the season changes and many people’s moods begin to lift, those left suffering with depression can feel isolated, Balzer said.
OIT upgrades and fixes PSU expands digital storage space and recovers from McAfee anti-virus update Sharon Rhodes Vanguard staff
Last Friday, the Office of Information Technology implemented an upgrade which temporarily disabled access to certain student network drives. During the upgrade, students and faculty could not gain access to files because OIT was working on that specific portion of PSU’s computing system, said Sharon Blanton, chief information officer for OIT. “We specifically chose Friday night so it wouldn’t be a busy time,” she said. The OIT staff completed the upgrade on schedule, allowing students and faculty to access their files by 6 a.m. on Saturday. In addition, no one encountered difficulties and the upgrade went smoothly, according to Blanton. The upgrade was performed to update the Storage Area Network, in order to increase storage space.
“We just keep consuming space,” Blanton said. A SAN is a “network whose primary purpose is the transfer of data between computer systems and storage elements,” according to IBM’s Introduction to Storage Area Networks. Essentially, it connects a server to the physical storage devices. According to Blanton, many classes at PSU use programs that create really large files, such as Geographic Information Systems courses and art classes. Overall, Portland State’s growing population and the increase in the use of technology for the purposes of both education and research require larger and larger amounts of digital storage space. Recently, OIT was also faced with the McAfee anti-virus software problem, which has since been eradicated. The update McAfee released on April 21 inadvertently deleted a file essential to the Windows operating system, causing many campus computers running Windows XP to shut down or shut down and reboot incessantly, Blanton told the Vanguard.
Marni Cohen/Portland State Vanguard
Jackie Balzer
McAfee released a software fix later that day and OIT staff began testing immediately. According to Blanton, about 750 computers required the fix distributed by McAfee. “You just feel so bad when people are in a class and computers are going berserk,” she said. However, by the end of that night, OIT staff had restored all of the affected computers to their original capacity.
She also advises friends and family to get students in distress in touch with professional resources on campus. The Student Health and Counseling Center offers confidential counseling to students from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Monday through Thursday and from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Friday. Additionally, SHAC advises students to call the Multnomah County Crisis Line, which is available 24 hours a day at 503-988-4888.
“We had everything recovered by the time people came back the next day,” Blanton said. No one at PSU lost data and the McAfee bug did not adversely affect any hardware. According to the Computer Action Team’s website, which operates and maintains the computers of the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, the faulty McAfee update affected no more than five of the MCECS computers. Unlike OIT, the CAT does not instantly install automatic updates, and therefore did not suffer nearly as much from the update as the rest of campus.
Liana Shewey/Portland State Vanguard
OIT: Making upgrades to accomodate the need for additional data storage space.
Vanguard 2 | News May 5, 2010
Sarah J. Christensen Editor-in-Chief Virginia Vickery News Editor Theodora Karatzas Arts & Culture Editor Richard D. Oxley Opinion Editor Robert Britt Sports Editor
NEWS Chiron Studies program seeks new leadership
Bryan Morgan Production Manager
Zach Chastaine Online Editor
Hallman, coordinator of the unique program, leaves large shoes to fill
Kristin Pugmire Copy Chief
Courtney Graham and Stacy Austin
Marni Cohen Photo Editor
Kristin Pugmire Calendar Editor Jae Specht Advertising Manager William Prior Marketing Manager Judson Randall Adviser Ann Roman Advertising Adviser Illustrator Kira Meyrick Associate News Editor Corie Charnley Production Assistants Stephanie Case, Justin Flood, Shannon Vincent Post-production Assistant Adiana Lazarraga Contributors Stacy Austin, Will Blackford, Bianca Blankenship, Leah Bodenhamer, Meaghan Daniels, Sarah Engels, Sarah Esterman, Amy Fylan, Courtney Graham, Natalia Grozina, Patrick Guild, Joe Hannan, Rosemary Hanson, Steve Haske, Nadya Ighani, Carrie Johnston, Sara M. Kemple, Tamara K. Kennedy, Ebonee Lee, J. Logue, James MacKenzie, Natalie McClintock, Daniel Ostlund, Sharon Rhodes, Tanya Shiffer, Wendy Shortman, Robert Seitzinger, Catrice Stanley, Amy Staples, Nilesh Tendolkar, Robin Tinker, Vinh Tran, Andrea Vedder, Katherine Vetrano, Allison Whited, Roger Wightman
Vanguard staff
The Chiron Studies program at Portland State—which is run by a board of students and faculty members—is seeking to fill the position of Chiron coordinator for the 2010–11 academic year. Ed Hallman, the ASPSU vice president and current coordinator for Chiron Studies, plans to step down after this term, and needs to find a new person to carry on his legacy. “Essentially, the Chiron coordinator is the sole administrator of Chiron Studies,” Hallman said. “It is a role with a good deal of responsibility, and you will need to be very self-motivated and organized, but you are guaranteed to learn a lot by getting some real hands-on professional development.” A person filling this role is required to, among a long list of tasks, handle budgetary issues with the university, liaise with the administration and generally deal with the bureaucratic mess that accompanies any institutional undertaking, according to William
Fischer, professor of German at PSU. “Kind of by the nature of what the program is, it is self-defeating,” Fischer said. The program fills an important role by generating alternative, student-taught courses, which are often then ultimately integrated into the mainstream course selection as they grow in popularity—causing the program to constantly make itself obsolete in that regard. For some students this may only be a further barrier to becoming involved with the program, despite its rewards. Those rewards, according to Fischer, are only as plentiful as the people who are involved make them. “[In general] the reward system in universities is not focused on good teaching, and professors are not taught how to teach,” he said. The difference for students or external professionals who generate course proposals for the program is that they are volunteering their own expertise and knowledge in a field they have a strong desire to teach in. It can be difficult, however, for some of the new teachers to find a department and faculty member who will sign off on their course, for very similar reasons, according to Fischer. He explained that sometimes departments have similar course
Photographers Drew Martig, Michael Pascual, Liana Shewey, Adam Wickham Copy Editors Noah Emmet, Amanda Gordon Advertising Sales Sam Gressett, Iris Meyers, Ana SanRoman, Wesley Van Der Veen Advertising Designer Beth Hansen Distributor Cody Bakken The Vanguard is chartered to publish four days a week as an independent student newspaper by the PSU Publications Board. Views and editorial content expressed herein are those of the staff, contributors and readers, and do not necessarily represent those of the PSU student body, faculty, staff or administration. One copy of the Vanguard is provided free of charge to all community members, additional copies or subcription issues may incur a 25 cent charge. The Vanguard is printed on 40 percent post-consumer recycled paper. Copyright © 2010 Portland State University Vanguard 1825 SW Broadway, Smith Memorial Student Union, Rm. S-26, Portland, Ore., 97201
William Fischer
Adam Wickham/Portland State Vanguard
Ed Hallman
offerings, and are hesitant to allow another course to be taught by someone who most likely doesn’t have a Ph.D., especially because the academic world does not adapt as quickly as courses such as these can. Regardless, those who propose courses are often quite successful, largely because they help to fill a void that mainstream university classes do not fill. In addition, Chiron courses have the ability to “open students’ minds, expose them to some new information, and help contribute to them getting the most out of their time at the university,” Hallman said. “[Chiron Studies] provides incredible opportunities for students, expands and diversifies the curriculum at PSU, and, I think, really exemplifies all of the great things Portland State has to offer students,” he said. PSU graduate Jay Johnston, who helped reinstate the program after it disbanded in 2006 due to a lack of leadership, said Chiron Studies benefits the community, students, university and instructors. “The community benefits by being involved in education,” he said. “The students benefit because they are learning [in Chiron Studies class] things they wouldn’t be previously taught. The university benefits by having the curriculum expanded. The instructors, I think, benefit the most, as they gain first hand pedagogical instruction and really learn the material.” Next year, the program will be transitioning to the Student Affairs office. “This transition is very exciting to me,” Hallman said. “While the details are yet to be determined, Student Affairs will certainly offer a lot of benefits to both the program and the incoming coordinator that were not part of the package this year.”
Aaron Leopold/Portland State Vanguard
The possible benefits include direct administrative support, a home base for the director to use, direct access to room and appointment-scheduling personnel and software, according to Hallman. Currently, the committee is running at absolute minimum, Fischer said, which may be due to the lack of a pipeline to encourage people to take initiative and get involved. According to Fischer, some students believe that because they are students, they will not be held accountable. However, the university cannot have an unaccountable person running such a time-intensive program. He also thinks that if the program were larger, it would be easier to run because the overhead would be small for each additional course. “The program is really set to succeed next year, so it’s a huge opportunity for someone who wants to take it a long way,” Hallman said. Other innovations to help expand and continue the revitalization of the Chiron Studies are necessary of the candidate who wishes to take over Hallman’s post. “The most important traits that I’m hoping to find in a new coordinator are ambition, commitment, and problem solving skills, because those will be the biggest factors in determining where the program goes next year,” Hallman said. The deadline for applications is Friday, May 14. Those interested in applying should send a cover letter, resume, three references and a letter of recommendation to chironstudies@gmail.com and withat@msn.com. For more information, visit www.chiron.pdx.edu for more information.
Behind the Acronym: SRL Stacy Austin Vanguard staff
The Survey Research Lab offers social research assistance to researchers at PSU and the community. Some mediums utilized are phone, web and snail mail surveys. SRL started in 1995, with an initial grant obtained by William Feyerherm, said office manager Vicky Mazzone. “There was a need for a calling lab. [Before the SRL], researchers did not have a way or capability to do that sort of general research on campus,” Mazzone said. Examples of past projects the SRL has worked on include a web survey of PSU students regarding the PSU One ID and finance cards, and an in-person survey conducted on Portland park users. Services have been used by PSU and community researchers, non-profit groups, private businesses, and government agencies. Clients include Portland Metropolitan Studies, PSU faculty and students, OHSU, and Multnomah County. Project Manager Amber Johnson, Ph.D., said they will not help with marketing research, political poling or assist with selling any products. “We are not for profit. We answer to the university,” Mazzone said. SRL reports to and receives some funding from the Office of Graduate Studies and Research.
Money is also obtained by billing clients. Rates are determined based on the services required by each individual project, including scope, sample and type of research being conducted. “Different research components have a particular rate or fee schedule,” Mazzone said. While they attempt to remain competitive with other survey organizations, Mazzone said they have completed pro bono projects. “The first step when someone contacts us is we do an initial consultation meeting free of charge, to create a quote. We work with clients to give them as much as we can, given our fee schedule,” Johnson said. The initial consultation is a good time for the SRL to figure out the scope of work a project entails. During the consultancy, the potential client can also evaluate the SRL to determine if their needs will be met and understand what the services can provide and what they may cost. “Our goal is to collect non-biased quality data,” Johnson said. While the SRL understands that it does not own the data it is working on for new research, the lab does assist with implementation. The SRL works in both qualitative and quantitative research. Qualitative research often involves gaining insight on human behavior, and focusing on smaller sample sizes with more in depth information. Quantitative research focuses more on mathematical models and theories, often with
Vanguard News | 3 May 5, 2010
News Editor: Virginia Vickery 503-725-5690 news@dailyvanguard.com
Today is Cinco de Mayo
Illustration courtesy of Portland State University
Survey testing chart: One of the many services of SRL includes analyzing the effectiveness of
data-gathering methods. The above example can be found on its website to illustrate its work.
larger sample sizes to gain more data and thus validity. Johnson said the SRL has a “diverse team.” Along with Mazzone and Johnson, the staff includes Director Debi Elliott, research assistants, interview coordinators and interviewers. “Interviewers come and go, as they have very flexible hours,” Mazzone said. The need for interviewers is dependent upon projects requiring staffing. Many interviewers are PSU students who require flexible scheduling for class times and final exams. The need for interviewers is broken up into four-hour shifts for more convenient work scheduling. All interviewers go through a comprehensive standardized training to learn interview processes, Mazzone said.
Johnson said the position as an interviewer may appeal particularly to those interested in research implementation and its theoretical side. Work at the SRL exposes workers to a wide variety of topics. The interviewer position may appeal to someone interested in becoming a research assistant or graduate student in the future. SRL is currently hiring for new interviewers. For interested applicants, visit the SRL website at www.srl.pdx. edu and click on the employment link in the left-hand sidebar. The website states that the telephone interview position starts at $10 an hour and is a part-time and on-call position, requiring anywhere from 10–30 hours per week of work, depending on project needs. Job responsibilities include talking on the phone, using a computer and strong typing skills.
THE DAILY VANGUARD
Hiring for the following positions:
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Submit formal applications in hard-copy form to the Vanguard office by 12:00 PM Wednesday May 5, 2010.
Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of Mexico’s victory against 8,000 French forces on May 5, 1862 in Puebla, 100 miles east of Mexico City. However, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico’s Independence Day, which is celebrated on Sept 16. Five months prior to the battle, the French, under Emperor Napoleon III, had landed in Mexico to collect unpaid Mexican debts from President Benito Juarez’s newly elected democratic government. Despite being severely outnumbered, Mexico was victorious in the battle over the French Army, which hadn’t been defeated in 50 years. In addition, Mexico’s victory kept the French from re-supplying the confederate rebels in the U.S. for another year.
—vivacincodemayo.org
APPLICATIONS DUE TODAY
Vanguard 4 | Arts & Culture May 5, 2010
Arts Editor: Theodora Karatzas 503-725-5694 arts@dailyvanguard.com
Tomorrow at the NW Film Center Where You From Sabrina Lee, U.S., 2009 “This surprising journey into rural American hip-hop follows a beat far from the urban streets where the music was born. We meet Franco from Fortuna, California, who hopes to win the top prize at Scribble Jam, the hip-hop competition that helped launch Eminem; Tommy 2 Tone from Livingston, Mont., who is fighting addiction and legal problems as he tries to make his music and become a good father and husband; and Chris from Bozeman, Montana, who is still seeking closure in his relationship with his estranged alcoholic father. Sabrina Lee’s film is a visually stunning, provocative portrait of young men confronting small town life, broken families, and drug addiction, and ultimately seeking triumph in their music.”
ARTS & CULTURE Hazard: Explosively telepathic women Palo Verde has no idea what they will play tonight Leah Bodenhamer
Palo Verde: With an all female line up, notes of experimentation and an energy that’s hard to beat, this band provides Portlanders with a
Vanguard staff
reason to forgo their weeknight rituals and go out on the town.
One hundred percent rock, 100 percent improv, 100 percent female. Experts in experimental distortion and cohesion, believers in cautionary audience participation and diehard lovers of rock ’n’ roll, Palo Verde delivers an unparalleled performance of sweat, grime and explosive energy. When the members of Palo Verde describe themselves as an improv duo, they use the word religiously. All of their live performances and recordings are jams that come to life in that moment—without any preconceived structure or format—never to be repeated again. Many musicians
have tried, or at least toyed with, the fulfillment of this idea, but none seem to pull it off quite as well as this drum and guitar duo. To say that Florida-born Lauren Newman plays drums in Palo Verde is a fierce understatement. In a world where drummers hide in the background, providing the security of a catchy beat, Newman defies all norms by not only being a cutthroat woman, but also by participating instrumentally like a lead guitarist or vocalist.
7 p.m. All screenings are in Whitsell Auditorium, 1218 SW Park Ave. Free with PSU student ID. —nwfilm.org
“I approach the drums for the instrument it is,” Newman said. “It has tones like any other instrument, you know, like melodic and textural. I feel compelled to create like an abstract expressionist artist, like Pollock or something.” Terrica Kleinknecht, a fan of 7Up and french fries, provides the distorted and grungy glue that holds the whole project together. They are like yin and yang—one brutally beating out her presence with tribal force, the other’s expertise more passive in the sense that it continues through changing shapes and sounds, exploring its freedom with grace and confidence. Perhaps a driving factor in the band’s intensity is that both musicians learned music through the kaleidoscope of a drum kit. “A family friend of ours took me over to his house for the first time and basically put on a Kiss record from the ’80s and told me to play along on the drums,” Kleinknecht said. “From that moment I became instantly obsessed with the drums.” Palo Verde has undergone myriad metamorphoses. Originally when it came together in 2006, it was a drum duo with the risqué name Stick It In. Kleinknecht recalls the group as being a sort of performance art act, so full of new ideas that when its first show came along, the two hadn’t actually prepared any material. Not wanting to abandon their fellow band, they decided that Kleinknecht would just make some noise on the guitar and hope for the best. “It was kinda crazy,” Kleinknecht said about that first show, “because
I had never really played the guitar very seriously, but something about it just worked. When we first started it was a lot more about noise than it is now—we wanted to make the audience uncomfortable, you know? It was entertaining to see people’s reactions. But now it’s more like heavy-groove oriented.” More recently the two have been trying this new idea of channeling particular emotions or concepts through their music. Before they begin, the two will decide on an idea, like something “dark in hue and light in spirit” or Jim Morrison, and meditate on it throughout the show. The results are unprecedented. Palo Verde is excited to announce the upcoming release of 100 full-length limited press vinyls, each adorned with its own unique piece of artwork and one of Newman’s 100 different avant-garde sound collages she has compiled specifically for this purpose. Their release show will be on May 23 at Rotture. Definitely not something you want to miss. Naming themselves after a nuclear power plant location they drove by after being pulled over and held at gunpoint in the vast desert of Arizona, Palo Verde will deliver nothing less electrifying.
Palo Verde Goodfoot Tonight, 8 p.m. $5 21+
All photos courtesy of Palo Verde
Warioware DIY puts you in the developer’s chair Steve Haske Vanguard staff
How many times when you’re playing a game have you said to yourself, “I could make a better game than this?” If you’re an avid gamer, probably more than a few times. And it’s for these people that games like Warioware DIY are created.
Images courtesy of Nintendo
The idea of user-generated content in games is nothing new, of course. With games like LittleBigPlanet and the upcoming (and awesome) Mod Nation Racers, gamers have been able to make new levels or otherwise add content to game worlds that developers have already created. The number of games that (more or less) let you create your own game from scratch—whether dealing with art, animation, design, artificial intelligence or whatever else—are somewhat more limited, aside from, say, the RPG Maker series and a couple of other standouts. DIY is unique, based on its own pedigree, however. The game’s conceit remains unchanged from its original debut on the Game Boy Advance, but this time around, DIY offers more than just new mini-games (although there’s plenty of those to play through). There’s an extensive workshop mode centering on you alone making whatever kind of microgames your heart desires. Unlike a lot of games with level editors or other creative tools, this one is only streamlined in terms of its actual coding, so you won’t be programming things from scratch. The casual approach ends here. DIY offers a robust editor brimming
with pretty much with anything you might want or need, at least inside a microgame-based design. You can choose your own art from stamps or create it from scratch, animate each cell so that it looks correct, make your own music and give each object its own behavior parameters. The extensive tutorial goes over all of this stuff, and even though it takes close to two or three hours to get through it, the learning is necessary if you want to understand anything that goes on. The art, music and animation segments, while sometimes quite arduous in and of themselves, are just the tip of the iceberg. The biggest hurdle of DIY—what consequently is its biggest make-orbreak per player—is the AI scripting. You’d be surprised to see how much backend programming, variables and command issuing even go into a five-second game, and this stuff all requires a certain amount of logic on your part. Needless to say, the creative crux of this title isn’t going to appeal to everyone. However, if you do have enough patience to make something of your very own, it’s a pretty good feeling. This may be relatively easy stuff for someone that’s ever done any kind of programming, but
for near math-illiterate English majors (or whatever non-science people you may happen to be) it can be pretty challenging stuff. So, is DIY fun? Insofar as it’s a Warioware game, yes. The DIY part is interesting, and can be very rewarding if you’re willing to put thought into it. At least you can make your own chiptune tracks or comics if you get burnt out on everything else.
Warioware DIY Nintendo Nintendo DS $34.99
Vanguard Arts & Culture | 5 April 5,21,2010 May 2010
Putting a face to strangers Gus Van Sant shows off his newest artistic endeavor Roger Wightman Vanguard staff
All photos courtesy of Gus Van Sant/PDX Contemporary Art
Gus Van Sant has become, arguably, the city’s most famous celebrity. The creator of 14 feature films including 2008’s Milk, Van Sant has built a reputation on telling everyday stories with just a hint of quirkiness, a dab of originality and a definitive Portland presence. Fans of Van Sant should be pleased to know that their master of cinema is not monogamous with his art. Van Sant walks in the shoes of a filmmaker, an accomplished photographer, a collagist and a painter. PDX Contemporary Art will be hosting a rare appearance of Van Sant’s work in this month’s exhibit titled Cut-ups. During the casting process of Van Sant’s films, he takes photographs of the thousands of people who audition for roles. Needless to say, this collection of Polaroids has become extensive and is the basis behind his current project. Using the casting photos, Van Sant has literally “cut up” the faces, bodies, clothing—you name it—and reassembled the images to match the fuzzy, foggy, and meshed up version of the people we see around us every day. You don’t need to deal with thousands of people vying to be
in one of your films to understand the point behind Van Sant’s work. We all experience the sort of reality presented in the photos—strangers walking past us, the girl on the bus, the boy riding his bike, faces, faces, faces. Eventually we become numb to these people. Seemingly, they are only figures within our own story. With Van Sant’s images, we the viewer are left with a challenge. The layers upon layers of different photos leave you feeling a bit overwhelmed and not sure of which direction to go, whom to attach your eyes to or which set of eyes to engage. The exhibit is being shown as an introduction to Van Sant’s larger body of work, which will be exhibited in Eugene beginning May 16 at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Van Sant’s work will be shown in conjunction with rare Andy Warhol photos in a collaboration titled One Step Big Shot. The show will continue through Sept. 5. Many of the photos are crafted to appear as if the images stacked on top of each other are of the same or similar-looking people. The point is not to create someone new but provide commentary on how faces blend and how we each create the images that we see. Some of the photos have a single torso with multiple faces intermingling; others create more of a mess. The subjects come in all varieties: skinny, fat, handsome and ugly. Shirtless and clothed, men and women, these are the people we see and it’s up to us to notice them.
Gus Van Sant: Cut-ups PDX Contemporary Art 925 NW Flanders Tue–Sat, 11 a.m.–6 p.m. Opening party May 6, 6–8 p.m. Runs through May 29
Stumptown Tart delivers sass Bridgeport’s fruity new beer has a raspberry kick Bianca Blankenship Vanguard staff
This week Bridgeport Brewing releases its “Big Brew,” a special beer that comes out once a year. This year their Stumptown Tart takes the same name as it has for the past two years, but its style and flavor have since changed. Bridgeport will hold a release party for the brew on Thursday at its downtown brew pub. Free samples of the Tart will be available for tasting, and limited editions of the 22-ounce bottles will be for sale. Bridgeport always uses some type of fruit in its Stumptown Tart. In 2008 it was marionberries. Last year a sour concoction of 2,000 sour-pie cherries was added to the brewing process. This year, 2,000 pounds of Oregon raspberries were thrown in to give the brew a sweet and moderately tart flavor. A sniff at this beer lends a surprising shade to its flavor. It smells flowery, almost like roses, but the flowery aroma doesn’t last long after a taste. This beer is certainly a tart beer, as its name commands,
but the addition of raspberries doesn’t make it overly sweet. It isn’t a fruity beer for the fruity beer drinker. The Tart is a bit tougher than that. At 7.7% ABV, and sold only in 22-ounce bottles, the beer is akin to a stout or IPA when it comes to alcohol content, but few would ever guess it. The Tart goes down a little heavy like an IPA, but the fruity flavor is more noticeable. A very slight malt makes it feel like a big beer, and it is. As a Framboise, it takes after Belgian beers, which are often heavy on the alcohol content. After all, 2,000 pounds is quite a bit of fermented raspberries. While definitely a tart brew, the Tart won’t make your lips pucker. It’s reminiscent of a fruity summer ale, except that it lingers on the tongue longer and doesn’t deliver the same sweetness. Still, it serves as a good medium to link the lover of wine spritzers and the devoted beer drinker. Both will be content. This year the ale is a 50/50 mix of fresh Belgian Tripel and aged Belgian Tripel which soaked in oak barrels for a year. It’s much easier to taste the fresh Tripel than to notice any hints of oak barrel. Bridgeport insists that there are overtones of spice and oak from the barrels, but a
sip or two reveals that it’s hard to get past the sweet and sour raspberry. As it has in the past two years, Stumptown Tart’s bottle features Portland model Bernie Dexter, who’s known for her classic pin-up photos and rockabilly and psychobilly style. Dexter will attend the release party and will be signing bottles and posters while presumably looking fabulous. Always trying to keep its ingredients relatively local, Bridgeport used raspberries grown at the Willamette Valley Fruit Company in Salem, Ore., to make the Tart.
Photo by Marni Cohen/PSU Vanguard
Bridgeport Stumptown Tart Release Bridgeport BrewPub 1313 NW Marshall St. Thursday, May 6 5:30 p.m. Free 21+
Big, fat list of shows: Wednesday’s live-music lineup Blackhounds, My Mantle, Capture the Flag Ash St. Saloon, 9:30 p.m., $5, 21+ High On Fire, Priestess, Black Cobra, Bison Dante’s, 8 p.m., $16, 21+ Reckless Kelly, Miranda Vettrus Doug Fir, 9 p.m., $15 advance, $17 door, 21+ Strange Holiday, People Under the Sun, Seven Saturdays Ella Street Social Club, 9 p.m., $5, 21+ Los Campesinos!, Signals Hawthorne Theater, 8 p.m., $15, all ages Angelique De Vil, Baby Le Strange, Gretchen Dances, Stellars Jay, Zora Phoenix The Knife Shop, 7:30 p.m., $4, 21+ Hornet Leg, Western Hymn The Know, 7 p.m., free, 21+ Tenspeed Warlock, Mrs. Esterhouse, Ninth Moon Black Rotture, 9 p.m., $8, 21+ May Ling, Dj Sexy Cousin and friends Valentines, 9 p.m., free, 21+
Vanguard 6 | Opinion May 5, 2010
OPINION The right to peaceful Park Blocks
Opinion Editor: Richard D. Oxley 503-725-5692 opinion@dailyvanguard.com
Preachers from across the pond
Angry religious preaching needs to go Robin Tinker
While Portland, Ore., isn’t the only major city in America with street preachers, loud or not, apparently our neighbors across the pond share the debate between free speech and annoyances, though the debate seems to be mostly over for them. One British street preacher found himself locked up after preaching in public about, in part, what he specifically viewed as sins. Unlike the brand of preacher common in the Park Blocks, Dale McAlpine was peacefully spreading the word in his hometown of Workington, England, according to witnesses. He mostly handed out reading material to passers by. In one conversation held with a pedestrian, McAlpine mentioned homosexuality and how it is a sin according to his interpretation. Though the preacher never mentioned homosexuality while speaking on his stool, he did mention other groups that were sinful, such as adulterers and drunks, and how religions such as Catholicism, Buddhism and Islam were not paths to salvation. McAlpine caught the attention of two police officers, one of whom was gay and named Sam Adams—seriously. The officers had to intervene between the preacher and a couple of angered citizens. The officers spoke briefly with McAlpine, notifying him that if he made racist or homophobic comments he could be arrested. McAlpine continued his evangelic mission. Eventually McAlpine was arrested under the Public Order Act of 1986 that was passed in regards to unruly behavior following soccer matches. The act bans the “unreasonable use of abusive language likely to cause distress.” While being arrested, McAlpine continued to say he was not homophobic, but that homosexuality is simply just a sin. McAlpine was eventually released on bail under the condition he would not preach in public again. He is pleading not guilty.
Vanguard staff
Spring is here and with the slightly less rainy weather, Portland State students might be inclined to take their studying outside. The South Park Blocks, with the green grass, big oaks and elms are a lovely place to spend an afternoon studying—if you can put up with loud angry yelling about Jesus and why your soul needs all of the help it can get. The Park Blocks are a public place and freedom of speech allows everyone—even angry annoying evangelical preachers—to speak their mind. Of course, freedom of speech is a wonderful and amazing right that we should celebrate and not take for granted, but sometimes it is just plain irritating. PSU’s Park Blocks are a real asset to the community and the university. Not many cities or campuses have public spaces with art and flowers for all to use. A day spent lounging in the shady grass could be a sort of cheap version of a vacation for a college student. Too bad the peacefulness has been lacking recently. A certain evangelical preacher shows up almost every weekday on the platform by Cramer Hall and he is loud and seemingly very angry. Many times students engage him by arguing, ensuing more anger on both parties. A student looking for a quiet place to study might not find it for several blocks; even heading into Smith Memorial Student Union doesn’t always insure being out of audible range. This is a quandary because his free speech is disrupting many other people’s freedom to a quiet place to study. Why does this preacher have more right to disrupt than other people? “I don’t have the right to party all night drinking beer with my friends— the cops show up—so why does he have the right to disrupt classes and study time?” said senior Dave Wissman in a recent Viking Voice. Our laws give power to freedom of speech, which is a good thing, but it sometimes backfires, like in angry-preacher incidents here on campus. Enacting his freedom is a major nuisance to thousands of students who would like the freedom to utilize Portland State’s public outdoor space without hearing angry religious yelling. Don’t students have a right to quiet study spaces? It seems like we don’t. All of the anger spewing forth from this man’s mouth adds a lot of negativity to a campus full of students with plenty of their own worries and problems. College can be stressful; grades, financial aid, newfound independence, rent, working and time management give the average college student plenty of stress. Adding more negativity is an unnecessary burden. This specific preacher must mean well, as converting young people to see the ways of Jesus is at the very least noble in its intention, but what he is adding to PSU is a loud sense of confrontation. We simply just don’t need that. It is hard to understand why such yelling is
warranted in regards to a subject that is supposed to be about love and not judging. Converting many PSU students to Christianity seems like a tall order anyway. Portland has been hailed as being the most unreligious city in America by Portland Monthly Magazine on several different occasions. That explains why students gather and yell back at the loud and angry man. They seem to think it is a fun game to taunt his brand of religion openly. While this is slightly amusing, it is almost a bigger waste of time than is his angry preaching in the first place. Nobody is going to have their mind changed by an antagonist screaming in public. In preparation for writing this piece I looked for the preacher last week so I could listen and talk quietly with him, but he was not there—at least not when I was. Perhaps his organization will replace him with someone who has a more positive message and is several decibels less intrusive. One can only hope. Free speech is great, but so is studying in our lovely Park Blocks.
Disturbing protections Open-air street preachers have every right to preach on campus Will Blackford Vanguard staff
Among the many disruptions and disturbances to be found on our fine campus, some of the most memorable are the sidewalk preachers who enjoy proselytizing in the Park Blocks. As disruptive or abrasive as they may be, these preachers have every right to say what they wish to say on the South Park Blocks. One such preacher, known lovingly as Preacher Dan, is a fairly well known fixture on the Portland State campus. He can often be seen in the afternoon outside of the Smith Memorial Student Union, on the Park Blocks side, preaching about Yashua and the tenets of Messianic Judaism. The man is very loud—and that’s putting it gently. He is often, if not always, yelling, and may get into
Illustration by Kira Meyrick/Portland State Vanguard
shouting matches with hecklers who are just as loud. He has been known to ridicule sinners and homosexuals rather vigorously. Seeing as how all this takes place right in the center of campus, very close to Neuberger Hall and the Millar Library, one can see how Preacher Dan may be labeled as a disturbance. A disturbance he may be, but his right to disturb, even on a college campus, is fully protected by the Oregon and United States constitutions. I recently had a chance to speak with Christopher Shortell, assistant professor of Political Science and Pre-Law advisor at Portland State, about the issue. As far as location goes, the Park Blocks qualify as a traditional public forum, wherein “speech receives the highest level of protection,” according to professor Shortell. He also went on to say that “it’s hard to think of a more public forum.” This essentially means that Preacher Dan would have to wander into one of the unprotected areas, like fighting words or obscenity, to face any kind of recourse. Even then, the Oregon Constitution places such a high premium on freedom of speech that even some of these unprotected areas may not be covered. In 2008, for example, the Oregon Supreme Court struck down a statute that prohibited individuals from insulting another person in a way that would be likely to elicit violent action, i.e., using fighting words. The Oregon Supreme Court has even gone so far as to rule stripping and public nudity as protected speech. As far as obscenity goes, Preacher Dan, aka Daniel Lee, who writes in his blog about his experiences preaching, outlines an incident on April 26 wherein a number of students read aloud to him during his sermon from “porn books.” Assuming the validity of this account, and I certainly wouldn’t put it past hecklers to do such a thing, the hecklers were actually much closer to running afoul of the Constitution with their words than Daniel has been. Any kind of attempt to stifle the speech of Preacher Dan, or anyone for that matter, would be met with hard resistance. The only kind of recourse that the university may have to mitigate the disturbance factor of street preachers must be content-neutral and not related to the speech itself. However, the park’s status as a traditional public forum would make any such restrictions very difficult to enact, according to professor Shortell. The fact that Preacher Dan happens to be doing his yelling in close range of classrooms is unfortunate, but not any grounds for prohibiting said yelling. “[It’s] one of the consequences of being an urban university...Part of the color,” said professor Shortell. I may not like what Preacher Dan and others like him have to say—hell, I don’t even like most of what his misguided hecklers have to say—but I certainly like my freedom of speech, and that means guaranteeing freedom of speech for everyone, not just people saying what we want to hear. Not to mention it can be pretty damn entertaining if you just lighten up a bit.
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Tools to Manage Stress in Uncertain Times 11:30 a.m. SMSU, room 296 This presentation focuses on promoting an understanding of stress and its effects on the mind, body and behavior. Additionally, strategies will be taught which help to effectively manage personal stressors
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Today Climbing Center Movie Screening/ Game Night 4 p.m. Portland State Climbing Center This is a new weekly event. Activities include a movie projected onto the climbing wall, games, music and open ropes for climbers
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56 It parallels the radius 60 RAV4 or TrailBlazer, briefly 61 Chafe 62 Cry made while holding the nose 63 Note from a busted person
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Guitar Area Noon The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave. This performance, as part of the Performance Attendance Recital Series, will feature students, faculty, community and professional musicians Senior Capstone Fair 11 a.m. SMSU, rooms 327–329 The Capstone fair is designed to create a space for students to meet with Capstone instructors to learn about Capstone courses for this summer and next academic year
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row and each column ● Each must contain the numbers 1 through 4 (easy) or 1 through 6 (challenging) without repeating.
● The numbers within the heavily outlined boxes, called cages, must combine using the given
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operation (in any order) to produce the target numbers in the top-left corners. Fill in single-box ● Freebies: cages with the number in the top-left corner.
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Book Reading and Signing: James McCommons 3:30 p.m. PSU Urban Center McCommons is the author of Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service, a Year Spent Riding Across America. He will give a short reading and presentation about the book, followed by a book signing To place an event: Contact vgcalendar@ gmail.com or pick up a calendar request form at the Vanguard advertising office, SMSU, room 115.
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Vanguard 8 | Arts & Culture May 5, 2010
ART WEDNESDAY
Arts Editor: Theodora Karatzas 503-725-5694 arts@dailyvanguard.com
This week at the 5th Ave. Cinema Cabaret dir. Bob Fosse, 124 min. “Originally a 1966 Broadway musical, this groundbreaking Bob Fosse musical was in turn based on Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin, previously dramatized for stage and screen as I Am a Camera with Julie Harris as Sally Bowles. Fosse uses the decadent and vulgar cabaret as a mirror image of German society sliding toward the Nazis, and this intertwining of entertainment with social history marked a new step forward for the movie musical. Michael York plays a British writer who comes to Berlin in the early 1930s in hopes of becoming a teacher. He makes the acquaintance of flamboyant American entertainer Sally Bowles, played by Liza Minnelli. Sally works at the Kit Kat Klub, a George Grosz-like Berlin cabaret where each night the smirking, androgynous Master of Ceremonies (Joel Grey) introduces a jazz-driven ‘girlie show’ to his debauched audience. Virtually all the film’s musical numbers are staged within the confines of the Kit Kat Klub, and each song comments on the plot and on Germany’s ‘progression’ from hedonism to Hitlerism. Most of the Broadway score by John Kander and Fred Ebb was retained, with the welcome addition of ‘The Money Song.’ Although it lost Best Picture to The Godfather, Cabaret won eight Oscars, including awards to Minnelli, Grey and Fosse.” –NYT May 7 and 8 at 7 and 9:30 p.m., May 9 at 3 p.m. Fifth Avenue Cinema, 510 SW Hall Free for PSU students. $2 all other students and seniors. $3 general admission. Admission includes free popcorn for all. —5thavenuecinema.org
All photos courtesy of Owen Carey/Portland Center Stage
Mike’s incredibly self - indulgent play One-man show, Mike’s Incredible Indian Adventure, isn’t so incredible Andrea Vedder Vanguard staff
Portland Center Stage’s latest one-man show is almost charming. Mike Schlitt is a compelling storyteller armed with a gift for impersonations and foreign accents. His character is a thoroughly unlikable middle-aged man looking to make it big, and he relays his semi-interesting story through live stage performance and cleverly integrated video and still images. Once you realize that the plot is autobiographical, however, and that the documentary footage is real, the entire performance becomes painfully (and unforgivably) self-indulgent. Mike’s Incredible Indian Adventure opens with an awesome Bollywood song and Mike’s comedic recount of exactly how he got to the beginning of the play. He is, we learn, the less-prodigious son of a television scriptwriter, a college-educated artist producing no art, living off a trust fund and desperate for the chance to sell out and finally achieve fame. By the time he reaches his mid-30s and finds himself with a marketing career and a pregnant wife, he balks at the thought that “by 35, you’re either on your way or you’re not.” What is a whiny artist-atheart with no masterpiece to do? Obviously, the answer is to accept a mysterious invitation to direct a traveling musical in India. Mike leaves his wife (the exceptionally talented Nancy Keystone, who directs this play) at home in L.A. and embarks on what he is sure will be a disastrous
production of Neil Simon’s They’re Playing Our Song. He’s so sure this will be a disaster that he brings a cameraman along for the ride, intending to make a documentary about his experience in India. Why is this a good idea? Well, it’s not. It’s a terrible idea. Neither he nor his “cross-cultural experience” is interesting or insightful enough to fill a film or—for that matter—a play. Unfortunately for us, Mike has only figured out the first part. The documentary never materializes and out of hundreds of hours of videotape, he has nothing to piece together. So instead of making a movie (or giving up), Mike writes a one-man play about his experience of trying to make a movie about his experience directing a musical in India. You dig? Didn’t think so. There are redeeming qualities to Mike’s Incredible Indian Adventure, to be sure. The integration of film footage into live stage performance is flawless and creative. The details of his musical production are often funny, from a chorus of Spice Girls to an invented L.A. theater company and a hideous promotional poster, but it’s Mike’s reactions to these details that make them laugh-out-loud hilarious. Mike Schlitt can hold an audience’s attention for 90 minutes straight, and he can successfully crack dozens of self-deprecating jokes in as many; he’s definitely talented on stage. The trouble is that Mike Schlitt is embarrassing and unlikable, and that no one cares about his self-indulgent mid-life crisis and ensuing theatrical ensemble. The footage of his press junkets in India is cringe-inducing—Schlitt crumbles under pressure and says unthinkably stupid things on Indian national television. He is condescending and so unenlightened that he actually
Image courtesy of Portland Center Stage
thinks his trip around the world has brought him to some state of enlightenment. This plotline is played-out, uninspired and uninspiring, to say the least. At the end of it all, closing in on 50, Schlitt has learned little beyond the basic life lessons of the average thirty-something American. They say (as in, explicitly state in the script) that it’s the journey—not the destination—that matters, but who cares how Mike Schlitt got anywhere when he’s still 15 years behind upon arrival?
Mike’s Incredible Indian Adventure The Ellyn Bye Studio at The Armory 128 NW 11th Ave. Tue–Sun, 7:30 p.m. Thu 12 p.m., Sat and Sun 2 p.m. Runs through June 13 $20 students