Portland State Vanguard, Volume 74 Issue 33

VOLUME 74 • ISSUE 33 • MAY 26, 2020

‘THE PEOPLE HERE REMEMBER, AND THEY'RE ALWAYS GOING TO REMEMBER’ NEWS ‘WE HAVE SO MUCH POLITICAL LOBBYING POWER’ OPINION WHY AMERICA HATES MATH SPORTS LIFE AFTER SPORTS

CONTENTS COVER BY SAM PERSON NEWS HILL TO HALL

P. 3

ARTS & CULTURE THE DARK AND TWISTED WORLD OF NETFLIX ORIGINALS

P. 10

ASPSU WEIGHS IN ON TUITION HIKE, PERCY AND BOARD OF TRUSTEES

P. 4

SALMON STREET SPRINGS AND WELLNESS IN THE CITY

P. 11

PORTLAND AND OREGON PRIMARY RESULTS

P. 5

INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE DUE TO COVID-19

TRADE TENSIONS RISE BETWEEN THE U.S AND CHINA

OPINION WHY AMERICA HATES MATH

P. 12

P. 6

FOOD DESERTS IN THE AGE OF COVID-19

P. 13

P. 6

HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS CALL FOR PRISON RELEASES

P. 7

SPORTS LIFE AFTER SPORTS

P. 14–15

COVER CAPTURING A VOLCANO’S HUMAN SIDE

COMICS

P. 16

P. 8–9

STAFF

EDIT ORI A L EDITOR IN CHIEF Dylan Jefferies MANAGING EDITOR Hannah Welbourn NEWS EDITORS Hanna Anderson Justin Grinnell INTERNATIONAL EDITOR Chloe Dysart SPORTS EDITOR Rich Rigney ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Nick Townsend OPINION EDITOR AJ Earl

ONLINE EDITOR Annie Schutz

MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Owen Demetre

COPY CHIEF Sophie Concannon

PRODUC TION & DE SIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR John Rojas

CONTRIBUTORS Madison Cecil Ida Ayu Dwijayanti Melody Field Felipe Flores Nick Gatlin Bela Kurzenhauser Emily Price Isabel Rekow Karisa Yuasa PHO T O & MULTIMEDI A PHOTO EDITOR Alex Wittwer

LEAD DESIGNER Dana Townsend DESIGNERS Farah Alkayed Brandon Pahnish Sam Person Shannon Steed DIS T RIBU TION DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Dylan Jefferies

T ECHNOL OGY & W EB SIT E TECHNOLOGY ASSISTANTS Juliana Bigelow George Olson John Rojas A DV ISING & ACCOUN TING COORDINATOR OF STUDENT MEDIA Reaz Mahmood STUDENT MEDIA ACCOUNTANT Sheri Pitcher STUDENT MEDIA TECHNOLOGY ADVISOR Corrine Nightingale To contact Portland State Vanguard, email editor@psuvanguard.com

MIS SION S TAT EMEN T 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.

A BOU T 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 Tuesdays and online 24/7 at psuvanguard.com.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @psuvanguard for multimedia content and breaking news.

NEWS

MAY 18–21 NICK GATLIN

MAY 18: OREGON SUPREME COURT HALTS COUNTY JUDGE’S

RULING, STAY-AT-HOME ORDER CONTINUES

AP News reported the Oregon Supreme Court has temporarily kept Oregon’s stay-at-home order in place, halting Baker County judge Matthew Shirtcliff’s decision that invalidated the order. Justice Thomas Balmer gave both sides until May 22 to submit legal briefs, with no firm timeline on a final decision. The lawsuit was filed by 10 Oregon churches, who argued the order was unconstitutional, according to The Mercury News. Regarding Shirtcliff’s decision, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said, “I believe the trial court’s grant of a preliminary injunction is legally incorrect,” according to Portland Tribune.

MAY 18: MAYOR WHEELER FINED FOR LISTING DONORS IN

SMALL PRINT

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler was fined $500 on Monday by the city auditor’s office, after listing his largest contributors in too small of a font on his campaign mailer. According to The Oregonian, the disclosures must be made in a font legible to the average reader, as well as being either the same size or larger than other words on the page. Two other local candidates received warnings: Ozzie Gonzalez, in the mayoral race, and Keith Wilson, seeking a commissioner seat, were both told to list their top contributors on their campaign websites and social media accounts by 5 p.m. Tuesday, or face fines, according to AP News.

Wheeler will have until June 1 to pay his fine.

MAY 21: TEMPORARY SELF SERVICE GAS RULES END ON SUNDAY

The Oregon Fire Marshal’s temporary rules allowing gas stations to provide self-service will end at midnight on May 23, according to AP News. The rules were initially created to limit contact between customers and employees, as well as covering potential employee shortages. The Oregon Fuels Association, a gas station lobbying group, thanked the state for the temporary rules, and stated the rules “helped keep people safe and stations across the state open,” according to The Oregonian.

MAY 21: OREGON UNEMPLOYMENT RISES TO 14.2% IN APRIL

AP News reported Oregon received almost 16,000 new jobless claims last month, representing the first spike in workers seeking unemployment benefits since March. According to The Oregonian, Oregon’s unemployment rate rose to 14.2% in April, with forecasters predicting a years-long recovery and an unemployment rate above 20% in the next few months. Oregon extended unemployment payments through the CARES act, including recipients’ normal benefit payment plus $600 extra per week for 13 weeks, according to KTVZ News.

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NEWS

ASPSU WEIGHS IN ON TUITION HIKE, PERCY AND BOARD OF TRUSTEES ISABEL REKOW

“I got more from watching a garden YouTube video than this whole term at PSU,” said Kyle Leslie-Christy, president of the Associated Students of Portland State University (ASPSU).

“I don’t think the education at PSU is as valuable as what we’re paying for right now.”

Interim President Stephen Percy sent a campus-wide email on May 12 informing the PSU community of a probable 4.9% increase in residential undergraduate tuition. For Leslie-Christy, the increase in tuition is not justified by the decrease in the quality of education that came with the switch to remote learning.

While the university is in financial straits, Leslie-Christy said students should not bear the onus of keeping PSU afloat. “I think the whole conversation should be around lowering tuition right now,” Leslie-Christy said. He will not attend PSU for graduate school so long as learning remains remote and tuition continues to rise.

Alexandra Modjeski, the vice president of ASPSU, said the administration needs to find a balance. “We understand the university needs to function monetarily, but if you lose students, you’re not going to function at all,” she said.

Motu Sipelii, who will be president of ASPSU for the 2020–21 academic year, said the yearly increases in tuition add up: “I’ve been at PSU for three years and they’ve increased tuition by 20%.” Tuition records for 2015–17 are currently inaccessible on PSU’s page for tuition and fees for prior academic years. However, available data shows since 2014, tuition has increased 24% for residential undergraduates taking 16 credits.

Non-resident students like Sipelii pay two to three times as much as resident students, according to the 2019–20 tuition and fee tables on PSU’s Tuition and Fees page.

Leslie-Christy said the student experience has undergone drastic changes over the past few decades, which can create barriers to communicating with administration. He said there is a disconnect between the lived experience of current students and those who attended college decades ago. “All these people that went to college in 1980 and ‘90 and the early 2000’s—was tuition raising every three years by 20%? I don’t think so.”

ASPSU’S LEADERSHIP CONSIDERS STEPHEN PERCY

On May 11, the Board of Trustees recommended Percy as president of PSU—a decision probably expedited by the need for stable leadership amid the uncertainty of a pandemic, according to Modjeski.

Although ASPSU has not yet decided on an official stance regarding Percy, Leslie-Christy has a positive opinion of him: “I felt like he was very willing to listen to students.” Leslie-Christy is enrolled at the College of Urban and Public Affairs, where Percy was formerly dean. Leslie-Christy said he was impressed by the college’s work, which he attributes partly to Percy’s leadership. “[Percy] seems like a completely genuine person with the best interests of both students and the university in mind,” Modjeski said about Percy. “He definitely has a perspective that could help organize the university.”

Leslie-Christy and Modjeski agreed it would be beneficial for the next president to be someone from within PSU. Modjeski contrasted Percy with former PSU president Rahmat Shoureshi, who Percy replaced. “He didn’t really care to understand the culture of PSU,” she said. “I think Percy is an advantageous candidate because of his understanding.”

ASPSU MEETS WITH BOARD OF TRUSTEES

The Board of Trustees arranged an emergency meeting with ASPSU on Friday, May 22. Leslie-Christy, Modjeski, Sipelii and Sipelii’s vice president Victor Chavez met with Board members Yves Labissiere, Christine Vernier and Judith Ramaley

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PSU Vanguard • MAY 26, 2020 • psuvanguard.com

PSU INTERIM PRESIDENT STEPHEN PERCY AT A PRESS CONFERENCE ON JAN. 31, 2020. ALEX WITTWER/PSU VANGUARD to share their thoughts about the Board’s recommendation of Percy as president.

Modjeski said they discussed ASPSU’s views on what would make a good president. “We talked about wanting the relationship between students and faculty to be pretty symbiotic,” she said.

In the past, there was an adversarial tone within student government, which “didn’t make administrators want to associate themselves with ASPSU at all,” according to Leslie-Christy, “But we did a good job of turning that around.”

“It was a really great conversation,” Modjeski said. “More

successful because the culture around the conversation seemed to have shifted a bit, in a good way.”

Modjeski said both ASPSU and the Board of Trustees seek to form closer ties and a better working relationship. “Ultimately, I think they were incredibly receptive,” she said.

Leslie-Christy, Modjeski and Sipelii all emphasized the need for mutual respect in communication between students and administration. “We recognize that we have so much political lobbying power,” Modjeski said. “The most efficient way for us to get the students’ voices is to continue to have those conversations. And that’s what we will continue to do with the Board of Trustees.”

NEWS

PORTLAND & OREGON PRIMARY RESULTS

A BALLOT BOX IN PIONEER SQUARE. ALEX WITTWER/PSU VANGUARD HANNA ANDERSON Oregon held its primary election on May 19, with several notable positions on the City of Portland’s Ballot. The biggest competitions: The presidential primary, the Portland mayoral race and the race for three of Portland’s four city commissioner seats.

Here are the results.

PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the last high-profile candidate for the Democratic nominee, all but swept Oregon’s presidential primaries on Tuesday.

Oregon’s primary was largely decided when Biden’s biggest competitor for delegates, Bernie Sanders, ended his campaign on April 8. Other high-profile candidates, such as Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, dropped out of the race in the days leading up to and following Super Tuesday.

Despite Biden’s position as the presumptive candidate, he only took 67.6% of the vote, and 46 of Oregon’s 61 delegates, according to AP News. Sanders, with 20.8% of the vote, took the rest of the 15 delegates.

While Warren earned no delegates, she still took nearly 10% of votes.

PORTLAND MAYORAL RACE

With no candidate securing a clear majority of the votes, incumbent Ted Wheeler and challenger Sarah Iannarone will face each other in a runoff election this November.

In order to have won the mayoral seat during the primary election, a single candidate would have needed more than 50% of the vote, and a November runoff wouldn’t be necessary.

However, Wheeler narrowly missed the mark with 49.28% of the vote, according to the most recent Multnomah County Election results.

Iannarone, who ran against Wheeler in the 2016 primary and finished third, came second in this year’s race with 23.85% of votes.

For Wheeler, winning the election would make him the first Portland mayor to serve a second term since Vera Katz, who served three terms between 1992–2005.

"While it's disappointing to fall just short of an outright majority in the primary, it was always a possibility in such a crowded field,” Wheeler said in a statement, “We will finish this primary with a significant margin over any other candidate and will continue to monitor the returns as they are finalized in the next few days.”

Iannarone was considered Wheeler’s biggest competition in the race, partly due to her

fundraising success with the city’s public campaign funding program, a voluntary program that matches small-dollar donations.

"We accomplished a great deal in forcing a runoff in the midst of a public health crisis where the conditions favored the incumbent," Iannarone said in a statement. "We have been unable to knock on doors or host events...but we carry that same sense of optimism that has underlined all of the progressive policies we've forwarded so far.”

In late April, Iannarone and other campaign finance reform advocates filed a lawsuit against Wheeler for accepting contributions over the $500 limit imposed by Portland’s Honest Election measure passed in 2018. The measure was, for a time, ruled unconstitutional by a Multnomah county circuit court judge. After that ruling was overturned by Oregon’s Court of Appeals, Portland’s City Auditor office announced the limit would be enforced once again, but not retroactively.

PORTLAND CITY COMMISSION SEATS

Portland had three open commissioner seats on the ballot: Positions 1, 2 and 4.

Position 1 was won by Carmen Rubio, the executive director of Latino Network, a local nonprofit. With almost 68% of the vote, Rubio will

be the first Latinx commissioner on the city council, and second woman of color. Rubio is succeeding Amanda Fritz, who served three terms on the city commission before announcing that she wouldn’t seek reelection in April 2019.

Candace Avalos, Portland State’s student government and greek life advisor, took the second greatest amount of votes for Position 1, with 8.9%.

Positions 2 and 4 will be heading into runoff elections in November.

For Position 2, former county commissioner Lorretta Smith and former Portland Public Schools Board member Dan Ryan took the most votes, with 18.8% and 16.6%, respectively, according to the latest vote counts. Whoever wins will finish the second half of the late commissioner Nick Fish’s term, who passed away in early January from cancer.

Incumbent Chloe Eudaly took the most votes—about 31%—for Position 4, but not enough to avoid the future runoff. As for who she will be facing, it will most likely be Mingus Mapps, a former political science professor, with 28.6% of the vote as of the most recent count. Mapps has maintained a slim but steady lead over former Portland Mayor Sam Adams, who took 27.7% of the vote.

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INTERNATIONAL

TRADE TENSIONS RISE BETWEEN THE U.S AND CHINA IDA AYU DWIJAYANTI Tensions are rising between the United States and China over a trade war due to the coronavirus pandemic. Companies are striving to meet an overwhelming amount of new demand for a variety of goods to fight coronavirus; nevertheless, firms might be unable to meet society’s need using their own devices, according to Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Cut off relations with Beijing,” said U.S. President Donald Trump, according to The Guardian.

Trump said he was disappointed with China’s attempt at containing the virus, as it spread throughout the globe. During his interview with Fox Business, he said he had no interest in speaking with the chinese president, Xi Jinping.

Fox Business also reported the Trump administration had cut investment ties between U.S. federal retirement funds and Chinese equities.

Previously, both presidents had a good relationship—however, Trump was quoted by The Guardian saying, “Right now I don’t want to speak to him” and “We could cut off the relationship” when asked what measures he wanted to take against China.

Global Times reported Trump is the first president that intended to “cut off” relations with China, claiming that the move would save the U.S. $500 billion. The Trump administration has routinely expressed dissatisfaction towards China, especially since the

election is approaching, there will be more criticism against the country.

South China Morning Post reported the U.S. Senate passed a bill on Wednesday that would strengthen oversight of foreign companies, specifically targeted at China in order to “stop them from cheating” on U.S. exchange, according to Republican legislator John Kennedy.

The bill, however, would still need to pass in the House of Representatives and be signed into law.

Jin Canrong, associate Dean of China's School of International Studies at Renmin University in Beijing also noted "If the U.S. unilaterally cuts off ties, the American people will pay a heavier price than us, because China's domestic market is huge and 75-80% of Chinese manufacturers are supplying China's market, and the 2–5% that supply the U.S. can also be absorbed by the domestic market."

During an interview, the former U.S. ambassador to China, Max Baucus, told Global Times the situation in the U.S. reminded him of “a kind of an era which is similar to Joe McCarthy," where a lot of people attacked one another for being close to China’s Communist Party.

However, Baucus was also quoted in the article saying, “We need each other economically. We need each other, basically, to coexist,” so, the possibilities of war between two largest economies, seemed unlikely.

ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE DUE TO COVID-19

EMILY PRICE Scientists from NASA are using Earthobserving satellites, on the ground sensors and computer-based datasets to observe the environmental impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

“NASA has a unique role to play in response to this crisis,” said John Haynes, NASA’s program manager for Health and Air Quality Applications.

“As we continue to collect Earth-observing satellite data on a global scale, we can aid in the understanding of global changes resulting from the pandemic, as well as investigate potential environmental signals that may influence the spread of COVID-19.”

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The Earth Science Division of NASA has also sponsored projects to study ways the pandemic response is changing the environment, and potentially how it might impact the spread of the virus.

Jennifer Kaiser and Elena Lind are leading the study, examining the impact of air quality due to reduced airport traffic.

Restricted air traffic has granted a unique opportunity to study airport-related pollutants.

“Airports are usually some of the hottest spots for nitrogen dioxide,” Kaiser said. Nitrogen dioxide is released from burned fuel and reacts with the ozone. Breathing in toxic reactions can cause chest pain, coughing and throat irritation.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP AND PRESIDENT XI JINPING AT THE G20 SUMMIT IN OSAKA, JAPAN ON JUNE 28, 2020.

SHEALAH CRAIGHEAD/THE WHITE HOUSE "Even if a Chinese ship and an American ship bump up in the South China Sea, there will be a lot of headlines and a lot of people will be upset. There will not be a bigger war [between the U.S. and China]," Baucus said.

The former ambassador also said Trump was targeting China, mainly because the U.S. economy is not performing very well, espe-

cially during this pandemic. Baucus explained another reason why the Trump administration adopted a strong rhetoric against China is because of a differing culture between both countries.

“If the rising power is a Western country like France, it will be easier for Americans to accept, because they are also part of Western culture,” Baucus said.

A CLEAR VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN RANGE FROM THE TERAI REGION OF NEPAL. NORMAL AIR POLLUTION OBSCURES THE VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN RANGE. COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. “We want to help our stakeholders, like policymakers, improve their understanding of the air we breathe,” Kaiser said.

At NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, researchers Joanna Joiner and Bryan Duncan are focusing on reduced air pollution around the world. Using data from a Dutch-Finnish Ozone Monitoring Instrument aboard NASA’s Aura satellite, images can reveal air quality changes since COVID-19 policies were enacted. In doing so, they are able to correlate pollution emissions with economic activity.

“If the amount of pollution emitted continues to grow over time, your economy is likely booming,” Duncan said.

From the subtle changes, NASA is cautious to determine whether the change is due to weather.

“The nitrogen dioxide isn’t very high to begin with, so changes are subtle,” Joiner said. “We need to determine if a change is due to weather, like wind, or if a change is due to decreases in transportation.”

According to a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), global carbon dioxide emissions have declined for the first time in 10 years.

It is predicted the world’s CO2 emissions will drop 8% this year, according to the report to be an “unprecedented rate.”

The drop in pollution is predicted to not be permanent. Previous rebound in emissions were

larger than the declines and the opportunity for clean energy investments are plummeting.

The Solar Energy Industries Association estimated a growth in solar jobs from 250,000 to 300,000 over this year, but the group’s president, Abigail Ross Hopper said the workforce will be cut in half.

“Shelter in place puts limitations on how people can work,” Hopper said to The Washington Post. “Literally, people don’t want other people inside their houses to fix electrical boxes. And there are no door-to-door sales.”

IEA executive director Fatih Birol estimated the rise of renewable energy and the recent collapse in demand for fossil fuels may help increase the need for new energy.

“It is still too early to determine the longerterm impacts,” Birol said to The Guardian. “But the energy industry that emerges from this crisis will be significantly different from the one that came before.”

So far, none of the bills passed by the United States Congress in response to coronavirus have set aside funding for renewable energy specifically.

After failed negotiations, some Democrats are pushing to include renewable energy resource support in upcoming legislation.

Donald McEachin, vice chair of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, said, “we must use these bills to build in a climate-smart way.”

INTERNATIONAL

HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS CALL FOR PRISON RELEASES

SILIVRI PRISON, A HIGH-SECURITY PRISON IN ISTANBUL, TURKEY. COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. KARISA YUASA As the global number of confirmed COVID-19 cases surpasses 5.1 million, countries are focusing on at-risk populations in efforts to flatten the curve.

On May 13, leaders of global health, human rights and development institutions released a joint statement regarding COVID-19 in prisons, urging political leaders to use custodial measures only as a last resort in an effort to limit overcrowding.

“These efforts should encompass release mechanisms for people at particular risk of COVID-19, such as older people and people with pre-existing health conditions, as well as other people who could be released without compromising public safety, such as those sentenced for minor, non-violent offenses,” the statement read.

In Kenya, Skype and Zoom court proceedings led to the release of almost 5000 prisoners in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19.

The Supreme Court of the Philippines released almost 10,000 inmates the first weekend in May in an effort to halt the spread of the coronavirus. However, some believe it may be too little, too late as two overcrowded jails on Cebu island had a combined total of 348 positive cases as of May 2, according to Al Jazeera.

In March, Iran temporarily released approximately 85,000 prisoners from prisons including political prisoners in response to the pandemic.

United Nations High Commissioner spokesperson Rupert Colville “welcomed the steps taken by some States to release convicts and pre-trial detainees most vulnerable to COVID-19, including those with underlying medical conditions, pregnant women, the elderly, those living with HIV and those with a disability,” according to UN News.

In some countries, however, releases believed to have political motives have faced backlash.

According to Al Jazeera, Nicaragua has moved over 2,800 prisoners to house arrest, none of whom are imprisoned opposition figures.

On May 4, Amnesty International released a statement calling for the worldwide release of all prisoners of conscience—-people imprisoned solely for their race, sexual orientation, religious, or political views—such as the opposition figures in Nicaragua.

“It is more important than ever that states take urgent measures to protect all those who are behind bars, including by releasing all individuals who are held simply for peacefully exercising their rights,” said Sauro Scarpelli, deputy campaigns director at Amnesty International in the statement.

Many of the at least 84 opposition leaders were arrested in a 2018 protest against Daniel Ortega, a formal rebel now accused of running a repressive dictatorship. According to Amnesty International, 12 of the opposition detainees exhibited COVID-19 symptoms and were not provided adequate medical care.

In Turkey, where confirmed cases have since reached over 150,000, parliament passed a bill on April 13 that would temporarily or permanently release tens of thousands of inmates to minimize overcrowding in their jails.

According to Amnesty International, the releases did not include those held in pretrial detention and people convicted under overly broad anti-terrorism laws.

Due to the county’s vague anti-terrorism laws, the bill excludes convict journalists, lawyers and political and human rights activists who have been convicted of terrorism and imprisoned for speaking out against the government.

In other countries, the fear of contagion with continued overcrowding and lack of basic services has caused deadly riots.

In late April, a riot broke out in the Miguel Castro Castro jail after two prisoners died of COVID-19. The riot left nine

prisoners dead and 60 guards, five police and two additional inmates injured as reported by BBC news.

The overcrowded jail, located in Lima, Peru, continues to house approximately 5,500 inmates despite an official capacity below 2,000. Peru’s prison authorities report over 600 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 13 case-related deaths.

The week of the riot, Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra announced he would grant 3,000 of the most vulnerable prisoners a humanitarian pardon in order to ease prison overcrowding.

However, tens of thousands of inmates would still remain wanting better sanitation and health care.

According to Amnesty International, Los Llanos Penitentiary Centre, known as CEPELLA, in Venezuela placed restrictions on family visitations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March. Similar to other overcrowded prisons in the country, the 4,000 inmates rely on family visitations for food.

As food shortages increased throughout the country, prisoners accused officers of provoking inmates with the new restrictions and stealing what food they were able to receive. On May 1, prisoners crowded the main entrance and demanded change.

The riot left at least 47 prisoners dead and an additional 75 injured, according to Reuters.

The consistent overcrowding in Venezuelan prisons is due in part to over 60% of the prison population being pre-trial detainees, or people who have yet to be convicted of a crime. Despite the overcrowded, unsanitary conditions and riots, the Venezuelan government has not announced any plans to release prisoners in response to the pandemic.

“We already had an explosive situation [in the jails]. COVID[-19] is just the spark that’s going to set the whole thing off,” said Alexandre Sales, a criminal lawyer in Brazil, to The Guardian.

PSU Vanguard • MAY 26, 2020 • psuvanguard.com

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COVER JUSTIN GRINNELL A word from the editor: 8:32 a.m. on May 18, 2020 marked 40 years since the Mount St. Helens eruption, and while Mount St. Helens will probably be around for many decades to come, the same is less certain for the people who witnessed the event. How much longer are we able to hear about this geological phenomenon firsthand? Everyone in the Pacific Northwest for May 18, 1980 has a story to tell, and it’s important for later generations to take a moment and listen.

Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) hosted a virtual presentation, and following question and answer session, about Mount St. Helens on May 18, featuring experts in fields of geology, seismology and volcanology. Heather Wright, a research geologist for the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program in Vancouver, Washington, was the event’s primary speaker.

Besides the May 18, 1980 eruption, Wright spoke of the volcanic activity leading up to the event and of subsequent eruptions that occurred for the remainder of that year. According to Wright, there weren’t any signs of activity until earthquakes started happening in March 1980, with the largest occurring on March 20, 1980 at a magnitude of 4.2.

Wright played a video of scientist David Johnston—who was among the 57 victims of the May 18, 1980 eruption—speaking with KING 5 Seattle news about a steam explosion at Mount St. Helens that occurred on March 27, 1980. “Right now there is a very great hazard due to the fact that the glacier is breaking up on this side of the volcano, on the north side of the volcano, and that could produce a very large avalanche,” Johnston said while standing in the snow near the volcano. “This is not a good spot to be standing.”

By April 27, 1980, the side of the volcano took on a different shape as a dramatic bulge formed on the northside. “That bulge is formed by the side of the volcano moving in order to accommodate magma coming shallowly into the mountain, and pushing out the whole side of the volcano,” Wright said.

According to Wright, the eruption first began with a debris avalanche moving away from the volcano at 70–155 mph. “Fast enough that chunks of the volcano...actually made it up and over some ridges north of the volcano pushing up to 14 miles away to the northwest,” Wright said.

Immediately following the debris avalanche was the faster lateral blast, travelling at 220 mph up to 17 miles to the northwest. “So fast that even though the debris avalanche started first, by the time these two phenomena reached Coldwater Lake, the lateral blast actually overtook...the debris avalanche,” Wright said of the lateral blast.

Hours after the eruption, pyroclastic flows—dense magmatic gas—followed the topography of the volcano at 50–80 mph reaching temperatures greater than 1300 degrees Fahrenheit.

Subsequent eruptions occurred on May 25, June 12, July 22, August 7 and in October of the same year.

Kathy Daniel, a volunteer for the Mount St. Helens Institute, attended OMSI’s event, and shared her story in an interview.

“My husband and I were living in Southeast Portland and we were driving over to my in-laws in Vancouver—we just found out we were expecting our first child—to give them the news,” Daniel said. “When we were on Marine Drive, we looked over and noticed we could see the eruption.”

Daniel’s in-laws lived on a north facing cul-de-sac where the family watched the volcano throughout the day. “We just sat there and watched the ash billowing up,” Daniel said.

According to Daniel, the May 18, 1980 eruption didn’t send ash Portland’s way, but eventually made its way south, following smaller eruptions. “I worked for Benjamin Franklin Savings and Loan at the time,” Daniel said. “What happened was in future eruptions, when the ash came our way, it basically shutdown our ATMs, because it was getting into the systems.”

“The lightning is just the one visual I’ll never get out of my head, because it was just like, wow,” Daniel said regarding what she found most memorable about the eruption. “I’ve seen thunderstorms in the Southwest that were pretty terrific, but seeing that just come out of this mountain, creating its own weather, it was just amazing.”

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PSU Vanguard • MAY 26, 2020 • psuvanguard.com

Portland State Vanguard began its coverage of Mount St. Helens on Friday, March 28, 1980 with an article by student journalist Pamela Reamer, just after a steam explosion and earthquakes at the mountain showed signs of volcanic activity.

“Steam and ash were reported to be coming from the NE face of the mountain shortly after 1 p.m. Thursday,” the article stated. “[PSU’s Earth Sciences] department will maintain crews near Randle, Carson and Kelso, all in Washington, throughout the duration of activity.”

According to the March 28, 1980 article, a seismograph was kept in Cramer Hall recording any seismic activity, available for “curious on-lookers” to see. “They had it in the basement...behind a glass case in the middle of the hallway down there with a big roll of paper,” said Joanne Rekow, a PSU student at the time, in an interview 40 years later. “They had it going for months.”

Another of Reamer’s articles was published in the April 4, 1980 issue with the headline, “Mt. St. Helens moving rapidly toward...what?”

“The consensus among the PSU Earth Sciences department is that Mt. St. Helens is progressing at a much faster rate than most volcanoes of its type,” the April 4 article states. “Yet they agree one cannot predict an eruption is [imminent] because each volcano has its own characteristics.”

As excitement over Mount St. Helens grew, so did the public’s anticipation for an eruption. On April 25, 1980, Vanguard published a satirical article about the exclusive eruption rights being sold to “disaster movie producer Rank Panderer” for “an undisclosed fortune.” According to the article, it was too costly for Panderer to keep his film on stand by as they waited for the eruption, so Panderer made arrangements with the U.S. government to test its “untried neutron bomb” on volcano.

COVER tacts [while] I was going down the highway,” Rekow said. “I thought, ‘oh my god I can’t see.’”

In the May 30, 1980 Vanguard issue, Alice MacMullen wrote about trying to understand the hype surrounding the natural disaster in a column titled “Alice in Wonderland.”

“A real-life certified calamity provides a focus for irrational fears, and the growing suspicion that much of your life is simply out of your hands these days.,” the article states. “There is nothing you or anyone can do, really, things just build up till something has to give. And no one is to blame. It is no coincidence that this morning the Oregonian headlined rising unemployment statistics next to the Mt. St. Helens rising death toll.”

MOUNT ST. HELENS, AS SEEN ON JUNE 6, 1980, A MONTH AFTER THE INITIAL ERUPTION. COURTESY OF PSU ARCHIVES DIGITAL GALLERY.

“If it doesn’t make the mountain explode, it will make a damn fine picture with the fire and smoke and all,” Panderer said.

When Mount St. Helens erupted, the PSU Geology department, along with 70 geology students, were on a field trip in John Day, Oregon, according to a Vanguard article on May 20, 1980. At 8:45 a.m., the group heard a boom, and Geology professor Richard Thoms is reported to have jokingly said, “there goes Mt. St. Helens!”

News of the eruption didn’t reach the group for another hour, but while the field trip continued, many of the faculty members left early. Students were reported to have become angry having to continue the field trip, some talked of mutiny while others tried to bribe the bus driver to take them back.

“Here Mt. St. Helens is erupting, probably the biggest geological phenomenon in our lifetime, and here we are in John Day fossilizing,” said Kirk Cook, a PSU student on the trip.

Rekow was living with her parents in Northwest Portland during the eruption, and could see the cloud plume from the living room window.

“I drove with my mom up into the hills, there were a lot of people on a farm there and we sat in a field and watched the eruption for a long time,” Rekow said. For her, the experience of watching Mount St. Helens erupt was like watching an eclipse, but much longer.

Rekow recalled stepping out of a pizza place with a girlfriend to “snowing ash” after smaller eruptions brought ash to Portland. According to Rekow, the ash accumulated on the roofs of houses in her neighborhood, and her father had to sweep the ash off with a push broom on “ash cleaning day.”

Ash even seeped into Rekow’s parent’s car, which caught Rekow by surprise while driving on a warm day.

“I flipped open the air...and this ash flew out of the air conditioning, because it hadn’t been on, and got in my con-

Alysa Adams, a parks interpretive ranger for the Mount St. Helens Visitor Center at Castle Rock, Washington, has collected 35 recorded interviews and 300 written stories from community members about the Mount St. Helens eruption over the past year and a half. The oral history project was in preparation for the 40 year “erupti-versary,” according to Adams.

“The goal originally was to showcase these stories, especially the audio or video ones, in a seasonal exhibit here at our visitors center, where you would walk in and kind of have this full immersion experience,” Adams said. With the current pandemic, much of the project was made available to the public virtually on the Washington State History Museum’s Facebook page and the oral history project’s website.

One quote from Adams’ project came from Janet Sjoholm, who lived in Yakima in 1980 and was graduating high school that year: “It was completely dark, raining sand, it smelt like lit matches and it happened for the rest of the day.”

According to Adams, while the project has been a team effort, she had the initial spark for the idea. “What I realized very early on is my day-to-day interactions with visitors involved listening to their eruption stories, and I was a soundboard for them,” Adams said. “Almost every other person that walked through the door had a smile on their face as they wanted to tell the ranger behind the desk what they remember from May 18, 1980.”

“Eventually [those stories] became a part of who I am as a person and my career, and I realized I have this golden opportunity to take those stories and preserve them,” Adams said.

While previous erupti-versary events collected community stories about the 1980 eruption, Adams’ project differs in that its focus is to be welcoming and inclusive.

“Ours is the first that didn’t target survivors, ours was very intentional to target anybody who wanted to share, because I think a lot of people didn’t realize how special their stories were,” Adams said.

The result is a diverse collection of stories of varying ages, professions, experiences and locations. “We have reports from a 6 year old...who remembers having fun playing in the ash,” Adams said. “And then you get the perspective of a 30-year-old dad who is nonstop stressed cleaning and trying to keep his kid safe.”

When asked if any stories stuck out to her in particular, Adams mentioned an interview with Carolyn Driedger, a glaciologist for the United States Geological Survey. “She tells this story, this really powerful story about being out on the Coldwater research station, out on the ridgeline, looking at the mountain, watching it steam, watching that bulge do its thing, and she talked to David Johnston,” Adams said.

Driedger and a colleague visited Johnston on May 17, 1980 near Coldwater Lake, and considered staying the night as the two wanted to visit a glacier the next day. “[Johnston] said, ‘this isn’t the safest place to be, let’s have as few people up here as possible,’” Driedger said in the interview. “We don’t really know what’s going to happen to that bulge there, it could be that it falls in little pieces, or it could be that there is one massive slide, or it could be that there’s a good amount of energy with the expanding magma, inside the magma chamber, and it could give it a good push. It could come right up over the side of the ridge here, and take us out.’”

“We titled [the project] ‘Voices of the Mount St. Helens Community’ and that was a really great way to showcase it,” Adams said. “The people here remember, and they’re always going to remember. It’s this living legacy of this gigantic volcano and the stories being told by the people who witnessed it and remember that day.”

PSU Vanguard • MAY 26, 2020 • psuvanguard.com

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ARTS & CULTURE

DARK AND TWISTED WORLD THE

OF

ORIGINALS OUR SHORT KING DUNKLEMAN FINALLY GETS HIS KISS. TALL GIRL/NETFLIX

NICK GATLIN Quarantine can get pretty boring. Sometimes, after I’ve exhausted the entertainment of the day, I find myself diving into the shadowy depths of the most baffling, terrifying things I can think of: Netflix originals.

Some are good. Some even reach the levels of greatness—think Stranger Things, or The Irishman. Many are terrible. Horrible.

No good, very bad, absurd movies and television shows that often require nothing but a soulless, money-grubbing producer, a rich guy with a shitty idea and time on his hands, and writers who have become cogs of a churning machine that sucks the creative drive out of their bodies and pumps it into profit-producing husks of what used to be art.

If you can’t tell, I hate them.

You’ve seen them before. They have “posters” that are just a zoomed-in picture of some B-list actor’s face, with some saccharine title like “Always Be My Maybe” or “When We First Met.” They have tags like “quirky” or “witty.” They are neither. They somehow always include Adam DeVine, Adam Sandler or David Spade. Do yourself a favor and search “comedy” or “romance” in the Netflix search bar and see what comes up. Actually, no, don’t do that. Have some self respect.

But out of my obligations as a journalist, and for the sake of the readers of this newspaper, I took time out of my ever-shortening life to watch some of these Netflix originals. It was difficult. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same. May this be a warning to all who wander in the halls of Netflix original productions: turn back! There is nothing here but misery and heartbreak.

THE WRONG MISSY (2020)

“Why was this made?” That’s the question I asked myself the whole time I was watching this godforsaken film. I could predict the plot within the first 10 minutes based on the tagline alone: “Disaster strikes when a man invites his dream girl to an island resort—but a previous blind date shows up instead.”

I mean, that’s literally the whole movie. David Spade—I can’t remember the character’s name and I don’t care—realizes he doesn’t need the supermodel dream girl to be happy, and

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PSU Vanguard • MAY 26, 2020 • psuvanguard.com

ends up with the crazy blind date by the end of the movie.

They go off happily ever after. The end.

The majority of the “humor” in this movie is basically potty humor that sounds like it was written by a 12-year-old who just typed “boobies” into Google for the first time. I have absolutely no emotional attachment to any character in this movie. The girl—the eponymous Missy—is an infantile, sex-crazed maniac who obviously has some unadressed mental health problems.

By my count, she rapes David Spade a total of two times in the film, both of which are played off for laughs. Any rational person would have said, “Hey, I accidentally texted the wrong person, sorry,” and sent her on her way. Instead, David Spade puts up with all the horrible things she does, because the plot demands it.

Things just happen in this movie. There really isn’t any plot to speak of, unless by “plot” you mean “a series of random events happening with no sense of cause and effect.” Netflix has long been plagued by the idea that if they just pump out enough content, they’ll look like one of the “big guys” with a fully-formed movie catalog. This film was, unfortunately, a casualty of that effort.

TALL GIRL (2019)

This movie is about a girl who’s 6’ 1½’’. That’s the main conflict of the movie. I’m not joking. She’s literally just…tall.

The real story is a love triangle, I guess? The tall girl, Jodi, falls in love with a Swedish exchange student named Stig. Stig lives with Dunkleman, a short boy who’s been in love with Jodi for years. He also carries around a milk crate with him all the time, so he can stand up on it and eventually kiss Jodi. Yup. I mean, it’s a classic love triangle teen-movie plot. I honestly couldn’t care less about the love plot—I’m more concerned with the whole premise of the movie. I mean, she’s just 6’1”! That’s not even that tall! It’s literally just a movie called Tall Girl about a girl who’s kind of tall!

The rest of the plot doesn’t matter. It’s the laziest movie I’ve ever seen. I mean, the title is Tall Girl, because it’s about a tall girl. I just…I can’t. I can’t finish this.

MURDER MYSTERY (2019)

Picking an Adam Sandler film almost feels like cheating.

The main actors, Sandler and Jennifer Aniston, both look supremely bored with their roles. Neither of them want to be here.

The plot is…confusing, to say the least. The movie plays out like a toddler’s version of Clue. I literally had to check the Wikipedia page to brush up on the plot, and I’m still just as lost.

Sandler plays an NYPD detective, Nick Spitz, who’s not really a detective. He and his wife end up on some billionaire stranger’s yacht (don’t ask me how), the family patriarch is murdered and an investigation ensues. Thus the Murder Mystery title. Clever.

The cops believe that the Spitzes are guilty—they’re not—more people die, yadda yadda yadda, they find the real killer, who is some other woman on the yacht. I wish I could go into more detail, I really do. I just don’t have the investment or the energy to care very much about this movie’s story. If you googled “murder mystery story template,” I’m pretty sure the screenplay for this movie would come up. Like The Wrong Missy, things just happen in this movie. The internal logic makes little to no sense. I just couldn’t bring myself to watch any more after the first 45 minutes.

I would have written about more films, but in order to preserve my own mental health, I had to stop. The process of watching just these three took at least 10 years from my life.

This is not meant to attack Netflix original productions as a whole. Some of them are legitimately amazing. Netflix has created a wonderful platform for independent creators to express themselves, when they would have been turned down by larger, more established publishers. Animation especially has benefited from Netflix—I’m thinking of series like Castlevania, Bojack Horseman or Big Mouth, which almost certainly would have been refused by another platform. But where Netflix originals fail is when they become a vehicle for a lazy facsimile of art, created just to make a quick buck and cash in on some demographic trend. Platforms like Netflix should be taking risks on indie artists with new ideas, not handing out greenlights to every Adam Sandler and David Spade that walks in the door.

They have the ability to do so much more.

ARTS & CULTURE

SALMON STREET SPRINGS AND WELLNESS IN THE CITY HOW ARCHITECTURE RELATES TO HAPPINESS FELIPE FLORES In times of uncertainty, it’s normal to question the idea of happiness. What does happiness mean? Is it achievable?

How we achieve happiness, and which symptoms our bodies manifest, can be dramatically different from person to person.

Looking at this from a scientific route, it breaks this tradition out in two parts.

The first part says happiness is a subjective outcome—when an action is initiated, a corresponding reaction is produced and we are either happy or unhappy relative to our circumstance.

The second says happiness is just a byproduct of living well—the realization of potential.

This is when you have awareness, you selfregulate and you focus on intrinsic values.

So, what is the difference between being happy and living well?

How do we adapt this to our current circumstances?

Shedding light on some different approaches to dealing with challenges lets us look at the key elemental designs found in our arts and cultural spaces. These same tactics are things each of us can borrow and implement in our daily lives.

Typically, these spaces are framed by using colored or textured light patterns—like in a bar or restaurant, or by inserting plants, paintings or water features—setting the mood in a public space. These features ease the tension in the atmosphere and allow strangers to break the preverbal bread and engage in a comfortable, friendly interaction.

How we think through, think beyond and navigate our way towards an optimistic viewpoint in a given circumstance is critical. While we all have spent time at our homes, either in big chunks of time or momentary fragments, none of us have truly had to stay in one place for longer than we can remember.

SALMON STREET SPRINGS

A perfect example of a public space you can stay in for extended periods is Salmon Street Springs in Portland’s downtown Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

The idea for the waterfront park originally came at the turn of the twentieth century, and its master plan stretches from Southwest Harrison to Northwest Couch. It is an alluring place on its own, somewhere that can be quiet yet loud, and full yet empty throughout the day.

CHILDREN PLAYING AT THE SALMON STREET FOUNTAIN. COURTESY OF FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS Awfully familiar to what we are all experiencing at home, right?

With the life of the city continually adapting, the City of Portland hired Robert Perron Landscape Architects and Planners in 1989 to develop an open space or esplanade serving the public, an amphitheater and a fountain.

However, instead of reorienting what may ultimately be known as the best feature of the park—the fountain— toward the river, the designers wanted to pull the focus of the fountain inland, bringing the eye back in, using the cityscape itself as a backdrop for connecting the people with its water.

The fountain itself self-regulates. It changes its water patterns daily, actively aware of its water consumption. It recycles up to 4,924 gallons of water per minute when at full capacity, and provides an intrinsic experiential value when one of its three cycles are performed—ranging from its rhythmic arcing jets (“bollard”), to a drenching spray (“misters”), to two tiers of vertical jets (“wedding cake”).

Symbolically, the fountain itself is a representation of our happiness. Its continual change in shape and form, scale and proportion—the change in its water temperature, providing both desired and undesired effects—although the Polar Bear Club would argue that extremely cold water is enjoyable.

When thinking of our collective happiness, wellbeing and circumstance, we should truly look at them all as being fundamentally intertwined. They are all inherently invisible: without a physical presence, figurative introspections at their core.

At the personal level, we each should take time for personal observation, reevaluating our orientation towards the horizon. The ability to sway in and out of our comfort zones, experiencing things we don’t and may never feel comfortable with, immensely impacts our culture, the way we design spaces and our quality of life. Transforming our physical and mental built environment is now a part of our everyday life.

PSU Vanguard • MAY 26, 2020 • psuvanguard.com

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OPINION

WHY AMERICA HATES MATH BELA KURZENHAUSER

“It makes me feel really stupid, I have a very hard time comprehending it.”

“It makes me feel bad. I feel less intelligent.”

“I just get frustrated.”

When I inform people I’m a math major, I usually get one of a few responses that range anywhere from “oh man, I hate math” to “how can you do that?” Math is somewhat like art—most people tell artists, “it’s amazing that you’re great at art, but I could never do that.” The same happens with math—“I could never do that.”

The United States ranks extraordinarily low in the world for mathematical comprehension at a whopping 25th place. Although it’s no surprise that the U.S. lags behind most of the world in K-12 education, it is embarrassing compared to the considerably higher rankings for other skill sets, such as reading comprehension. Why is it so acceptable in America to hate math? Why do a majority of students and adults not just hate math, but despise it?

I would be hard-pressed to argue most people enjoy or participate in reading as a hobby—I doubt even a quarter of Portland State students read books outside of required class reading—but if you were to state that “reading isn’t for me,” you would get less nods or mustered agreement, but concern instead. We consider reading literacy to be an important part of life—an important part of being an adult, to the point where we advertise technical writing skills on our LinkedIn pages and resumes.

The problem isn’t about liking math, it’s about disliking it. Mathematical literacy should be encouraged, not discouraged. But, if we want it to be encouraged, if we think it’s worthy of being encouraged, then why is its reputation as a subject so notorious?

Comments like the ones featured aren’t unique to just math. English as a second language learners display a similar sort of frustration—they struggle to understand the functionality of English as a language because it’s so different from any other language. The reality is math is a language. It’s a very specific type of skill set that requires its own type of critical thinking. The secret to success in math is not knowing how to solve specific types of problems, but to generalize those solution types to know how to solve any problem.

American education as a whole is incredibly reactionary. We read a book, and are expected to write a paper describing our opinions or analysis of the book. Similarly, with math, we learn how to solve a specific type of problem, whether that’s simply long division/multiplication or calculating the volume of an object, and then are given a long worksheet asking us to do that specific type of problem several dozen times.

The problem here is that, although we learn how to do these skills such as calculating volume or finding the slope of a line, we never actually learn why those things matter or why those solutions work. Why does long division work? How does it work?

Why should I care? Students now more than ever have less motivation to learn basic arithmetic skills because we walk around with calculators in our pockets.

What the Common Core education system has done is generated students who can divide a nine-digit number by a four-digit number, but cannot explain the importance of the y-intercept in a linear equation. This contrasts deeply to the New Math philosophy of the 1960s, which aimed to start students’ math education at an abstract level by teaching them concepts from set theory, group theory and abstract algebra.

The success of New Math was that students developed a deep understanding of critical thinking and mathematical literacy, but couldn’t multiply seven by eight.

This contrasts entirely with modern math education, which teaches students rigorous applicable math, but completely, desperately fails to show them any of the artistic, rhetoric and interesting details of math. Kids, despite what most people say, are incredibly eager to learn. I love showing math to young kids. I love showing them cool things that make their jaw drop, as if they were reacting to a magic trick and not just simple arithmetic. By showing eager, young students math is nothing more than number-crunching, you are massacring any potential interest or love they could have in the subject.

The solution isn’t to change what we’re teaching kids, but to change how we’re teaching it. Math can be incredibly visual—YouTube channels like Numberphile, Khan Academy and 3Blue1Brown use visuals and animation to show advanced math concepts in a way that requires absolutely no mathematical background. Requiring teachers to have mathematical understanding is certainly impractical given the overall job market and necessity for teachers, but is still incredibly important. We don’t need to force kids to like math, we just need them to understand that it can be cool and fun.

We need to stop making it acceptable to hate math, because doing so only disadvantages people. Marginalized youth and women often have poor experiences with math, which is usually the lead deterrent toward entering the STEM field. Encouraging future generations to explore math is a surefire path to a better future.

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PSU Vanguard • MAY 26, 2020 • psuvanguard.com

DANA TOWNSEND

OPINION

COVID-19’S AVOIDABLE FOOD DESERTIFICATION OF THE U.S.

FARAH ALKAYED

MELODY FIELD Due to the Trump administration’s disregard toward predictions from epidemiologists and White House advisors about limited personal protective equipment (PPE) stockpiles, as well the virus during its early stages, food shortages have skyrocketed across the country.

The United States is experiencing food insecurity beyond the average household. The food industry has taken a serious blow. It’s at risk for loss of labor due to social distancing guidelines as well as illnesses in the workplace. This has caused shortages of food across the U.S. For example, there was a huge outbreak of coronavirus cases at a Smithfield pork plant in South Dakota with over 600 confirmed cases, causing it to shut down temporarily. Smithfield employees alleged that early on they had requested PPE, but never got anything even after Trump had signed an executive order deeming the business essential. Trump’s hypocritical policy is what has caused so many outbreaks within factories around the country. It was also reported that sick workers were encouraged to continue working, and that information about the virus was withheld from them. With meat plants across the country carrying cases, many of the plants have to either sell their livestock or siphon the meat that would have gone to the shut down food plants to other states with locations.

A lot of the food industry is held together by the work of immigrants and migrant workers, which is what is causing a huge concern right now for the companies, as well as the workers.

With these people working essential jobs, they are pushed to continue to work without health insurance provided by the

companies they’re working for, potentially without proper PPE, and continue to receive minimum wage. The safety net of immigrant and migrant workers is also a lot less reliable than that of the typical American citizen, and access to pandemic aid packages is a lot more restricted to them based on their citizenship status. This means these people are forced to continue working while many Americans have unemployment benefits as well as stimulus checks.

Additionally, the lost incomes of immigrant and migrant workers who have fallen ill from the virus or who have lost their jobs has a huge affect on food security on the global scale.

If immigrants start sending less money to their home nations, their families will lose the stability they rely on from them. If food prices continue to rise because they’re in shortage, lowincome families across the world won’t be able to eat.

The agricultural industry requires a lot of labor, of which 27.6% are immigrant workers across the U.S. Without the help of migrant workers, who also largely contribute to this work, they will not be able to plant or harvest as much as they used to.

But it’s not just the agricultural portion that suffers—it’s every sector. Over 3.8 million immigrants work in the U.S. food sector. This is why we are seeing a change in food supply during the global pandemic.

While the entire U.S. is experiencing food shortages, there are clearly people who are most at risk for food insecurity.

Households with children under 18 have experienced a 130% increase of food insecurity since 2018–present. For many, this is because their children are no longer going to school, where

they would regularly eat breakfast and lunch. Fortunately, many school districts across the nation have begun to develop ways to get food to their students.

College students, on the other hand, do not have these same benefits. When coronavirus caused school to move completely online, students had to worry about every aspect of their lives. Many of them had to leave their dorms and lost their campus jobs. For a lot, leaving their dorms was not an option. Food insecurity is affecting college students harshly, as many rely on their campus food pantry and dining halls for meals. Some international students had to go back to countries where the virus was more widespread at the time. A lot of students who could not afford any of these options, especially because they lost their jobs, became houseless as well.

There is hope for students, nonetheless. Although many college students did not receive the stimulus check because they were claimed as dependents, the CARES act was passed on March 27 and is meant to give direct economic assistance to the American people. The CARES act specifically sent colleges grant money for students, which they can receive after applying for aid assistance.

Although the Trump administration has caused an infinite amount of hardships for the American people during these unprecedented times due to initial disregard to the coronavirus pandemic, legislation involving aid packages for Americans as well as broadened access to PPE has given many people hope at this time.

PSU Vanguard • MAY 26, 2020 • psuvanguard.com

13

SPORTS

BRANDON PAHNISH

LIFE AFTER SPORTS RICH RIGNEY Anyone who’s ever played sports is likely familiar with the level of commitment that goes into dedicating mind and body to a certain sport or end goal. Sports can become all-consuming; they can lead to the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. While infinitely rewarding, sports at the highest level require tremendous discipline. The physical and emotional toll that accompanies committing your body to an objective in such a way can be incredibly taxing.

What happens when such a deeply embedded aspect of a person’s life is no longer there?

Current and former athletes shared their experiences with Vanguard, discussing what sports have helped them accomplish, how they’ve impacted their physical and mental health, and what goes through a person’s mind when they begin to prepare for life after sports.

Sports provide the opportunity to get in peak physical shape—the benefits to mental health are also well documented—but the opportunity for connection can be just as beneficial as any physical reward.

“Just being able to meet new people from all different places,” said Anthony Adams, redshirt junior on the Portland State football team.

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“Knowing people and creating opportunities for yourself, that’s probably the biggest thing I’ve gotten from being a student athlete.”

“I was a three-sport athlete for four years, and that may be my greatest accomplishment as an athlete,” said Greg Mulkey, former Oregon State University football player and current high school athletic director. “I look back now, at my age, and I’m probably more proud of that than anything because I gave everything I possibly could to my school and my community, my teammates—everybody.”

The benefits of playing sports can come in many forms, but those benefits often carry a physical cost. The chance of injury is a constant risk. Even those who consider themselves fortunate rarely avoid a few bumps and bruises along the way. For many athletes, remaining healthy enough to compete in the next game is considered a win.

“I’ve had really good luck with injuries,” said Jordan Stotler, a recent PSU graduate and former member of the women’s basketball team.

“I haven’t really had major injuries, I’ve just had little ones as you get older and play basketball for a while. I’ve sprained my ankle a few times, I have pretty bad tendinitis in my knees,

PSU Vanguard • MAY 26, 2020 • psuvanguard.com

I jam my fingers a lot. I’ve had really bad jammed fingers, but that’s about it.”

“I fell pretty hard on my elbow this last season and it still hurts to this day. I can’t really bend it all that well,” Stotler said. “And I jammed my finger as well. I can’t bend it all the way down now, I’ve lost a lot of mobility in it.”

Adams shared Stotler’s feelings of gratitude for the health he has maintained up to this point in his career, but acknowledged his experience with lingering injuries as well.

“Luckily, I’ve been pretty fortunate—knock on wood—but I broke my right hand in high school my sophomore year in the last game of the season,” Adams said. “Then my senior year, I broke my foot.”

“Immediately I knew both of them hurt,” Adams said. “But I put them off for like a week, and I didn’t really do anything about either of them until finally I went into the doctor and heard they were both broken.”

“I still don’t have great mobility in a couple of my right fingers,” Adams said. “My foot is fine, I still have the metal plates in there.

Fortunately, it hasn’t bugged me at all. I was supposed to get the plates taken out a year after the surgery, but then they decided not to

because it wasn’t causing me any pain, so they just left them in there. I haven’t had any real big problems with long-lasting injuries.”

It’s not unusual for a young athlete’s only concern to be whether they are able to play in the next game, with little thought of future consequences, whether those consequences are felt in a week or 20 years down the road.

As the body ages, those injuries may have lasting effects. A nagging injury from one’s time spent playing can become a debilitating encumbrance for life.

“I do have an injury that occurred during college that definitely aggravates me now. I had a pretty bad neck injury,” Mulkey said. “It didn’t really bother me back then, but it does today.”

“Obviously the sport of football—it’s pretty violent,” Mulkey said. “I had something happen to me several times during practice or a game where I would get something called a stinger.

That’s where you get your head down too far and it would compress your head, and then it would pinch nerves in your neck.”

“My arms would be temporarily paralyzed, for a very short period, where I couldn’t lift them,” Mulkey said. “But I dealt with it, I lived with it, I played with it, it didn’t have a long effect on me. Now, at 58 years old, yeah I definitely feel it.”

With the risk of injury constantly present, is the physical toll associated with participating in sports really worth it?

“I’ve had people ask me, would I go back and do it again? Absolutely,” Mulkey said. “Even with what I know today. Would I live with a little bit of pain now knowing what I do know? Yes, because it was well worth it in so many different ways in how it helped my life.”

“I think one of the things that has helped me more than anything is the discipline that [sports] instill in you to be able to fight through controversial issues,” Mulkey said.

SPORTS

“It wasn’t easy—football, especially at the college level, even at the high school level,” Mulkey said. “It wasn’t easy because of the rigor—especially at the college level—that we had to go through and had to fight through. A lot of kids can’t handle that mentally.”

The opportunity to participate in sports may end, but the memories made can last well beyond a person’s playing career.

“Something that I’ll never forget was winning the Big Sky [conference championship] a couple years ago,” Stotler said. “That was something I’ll never forget and something I’ll be able to tell my kids about. Going into the NCAA tournament—you can’t really explain it.”

For those fortunate enough to extend their playing career to the collegiate level, the possibility of playing professional sports can be a legitimate aspiration. But even then, fewer than 2% of NCAA student athletes go on to play professional sports.

“Obviously the goal is playing at the next level,” Adams said. “Whether that be the NFL, the Canadian league or whatever it is, that’s always there. But after that, I’m not really sure right now. There’s a lot of different avenues I feel like I could take.”

“I’m planning on playing overseas,” Stotler said. “I just signed with an agent a few weeks ago, so I’ve been chatting with him about places I might want to go, and he’s been talking with coaches. I should have a decision in July on where I’ll be going, but playing overseas is what’s next for me.”

“After the season stopped, I realized how much I miss it and how much I would miss it if I didn’t continue,” Stotler said. “I have the opportunity now, so I decided I can’t let it go, because it’s kind of the opportunity of a lifetime. I’m just going to go and enjoy myself and make some memories and stay in a new country for a while.”

Whether an athlete’s participation in organized sports ends at the high school, college or professional level, the decision will eventually have to be made to step away from their sport.

What determines when it’s time to let go?

“I think injury, and then also, just losing love for the game would really be the only things that would make me quit playing,” Adams said.

“I think about my body, and I think my body will tell me when I’ve had enough of sports, just because I want to be able to move when I’m 40 and 50,” Stotler said. “So I think when my mind’s had enough, when my ankles, my knees, all my joints—when I wake up every day and I can’t move, I think that will be when I know that I’ve had enough.”

“If I can play tomorrow, I want to, and I will,” Stotler said. “But also, I need to think about my future, because my future is my future, you know, it’s all I have.”

“I need to be smart, but also, I’m not going to stop playing right now because I don’t need to,” Stotler said.

Walking away from the game can be incredibly challenging. When such a fulfilling aspect of one’s existence is taken away, it can be difficult to fill the gap.

“That was a very sad day in my life,” Mulkey said of the day his playing career came to an end. “My entire career, since I was in seventh grade, I was always playing football, I was always preparing to play football. I did that from my seventh grade year until the end of my senior year in college. So it was pretty hard.”

Once an athlete can no longer compete, the chance to watch their children participate in sports can be the best way to remain connected to athletics. However, as injury concerns within youth sports remain at the forefront of the conversation surrounding athletics, the question persists: Would you want your child to participate in sports?

“Obviously it’s up to them, ultimately,” Adams said. “I wouldn’t force them to play anything that they didn’t want to do. But yeah I would want them to play sports, and I would want them to play football.”

“I don’t know how early I would want them to start playing football,” Adams said. “Because I started in second grade, and if they did start a sport that early, then I would really empha-

size them playing other sports as well. Because I think playing one sport for that long is just way too much effort and time into one sport.”

“I think I might start them in football later than everything else, maybe once they get into middle school,” Adams said. “Because I don’t see a huge need for second, third and fourth graders to be running into each other that young.”

“I would love if my kids played sports,” Stotler said. “It just gives you so many opportunities for college and social life—your physical life. I would never be mad if they didn’t, but I would definitely put them in sports to see what sport they want.

I wouldn’t just put them in one sport and make them play that one. I would give them a wide variety and let them choose themselves.”

Perhaps the greatest value of sports is its ability to educate. The lessons learned often extend well beyond wins, losses and the strategies involved. Once an athlete’s playing days are over, the lessons and values instilled can be passed on to the next generation of athletes.

“Some advice I would give to my child if they were starting to play football would be, just don’t get down on yourself too easily,” Adams said.

“Because it’s a hard game, and nobody’s going to be perfect. Bad stuff is going to happen.”

“I would say don’t be afraid to lose and don’t be afraid to fail,” Stotler said. “Because you can always do better, and I think when you’ve worked as hard as you can, that’s success in itself.”

“I have a niece right now who’s starting to play basketball, and every time she misses she wants to stop playing,” Stotler said. “So I just have to keep telling her, keep going, because it’ll pay off eventually if it’s what you really want.

I think it’s worth it if you really want it.”

For parents, how they approach their child’s participation in sports can determine the child’s perspective of sports for the rest of their life.

“The most important thing is to support them,” Mulkey said. “I strongly believe that.

Encourage them, support them, allow them to participate.”

“Even more today than ever, because we have too many other factors in life that [deter] kids

from participating in something in high school,” Mulkey said. “I don’t care if it’s band, choir, forensics, drama—whatever it may be, get involved.”

“I’m in athletics now and education,” Mulkey said. “I’ve been the athletic director at Marshfield [high school] for some time. I’m always preaching to kids about trying to take advantage of the opportunities when they’re there, because you don’t get a second chance.”

Committing to anything with the intensity that athletes commit to their sport can lead to uncertainties. It can be easy to question the decisions leading up to a certain point in one’s career when so many sacrifices have been necessary to reach that moment. For those athletes who have already achieved a certain level of success, is there anything they would have done differently?

“That’s a tough question because right now it’s easy to say that I would go back and try and do a different sport,” Adams said. “Just because I’ve been playing football for the last three years, and I miss the other sports that I was playing in high school.”

“I think there’s always something you could change about what you’ve done,” Stotler said. “I wouldn’t change any of the sports that I’ve played.”

“I would’ve played the exact same sports, there’d be no doubt in my mind,” Mulkey said.

“I was built to play football.”

Sports require an enormous level of commitment, and success rarely comes without sacrifice. But for those willing to embrace the challenge, the rewards can last a lifetime.

“It’s probably an experience that you’ll never forget, because I’ve made a lot of good friendships and I’ve learned a lot about basketball,” Stotler said. “I’ve learned a lot about myself as well, just how I am and how I deal with stuff that’s hard.”

“There are so many fond memories. I would say the most, for me, was the relationships that I built with teammates that still are alive today,” Mulkey said. “I have two or three college guys that I still stay in contact with, that’s very special. Because athletics gave me life long friendships.”

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PSU Vanguard • MAY 26, 2020 • psuvanguard.com

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