Editor in Chief Don Reynolds General Manager Keijo Hunter
F
lux grew from concept to journal in about six weeks this
year. We worked for weeks without a theme. A theme, some of us thought, would limit our imaginations and stilt the magazine's content. But a theme we discussed and discarded in the early stages of issue planning grew of its own accord and, halfway through production, overcame all objections. All of the stories in this issue touch on the intersection between identity and community, between character and culture, between private wants and public demands. For example, people seeking to gain a sense of themselves visit parlors to be pierced. Some do it for fashion, but others practice this pain-imbued rite as a doorway to intimate self-knowledge. Also seeking self-knowledge, a student group advocates masturbation for women. Its efforts mark the beginnings of a discussion about female sexuality that acknowledges women's pleasure and the reasons why this topic is still taboo to many. As some women seek to construct a meaningful and honest reflection of their sexuality, the belly dancers of Troupe Nubia pursue personal empowerment in a new community through the revival (some would say construction) of ancient forms of dance. In the uneasy dialogue between culture and individual, new identities and values emerge as old ones change and fade. The values regarding adoption aren't changing fast enough for one very vocal group of adoptees. Bastard Nation says adoptees' civil rights are infringed by laws that withhold their birth records. The other stories raise similar issues: An embezzlement trial provides a forum where science, psychology, morality and the law intersect; at another intersection-a truckstop on the freeway-a disparate group of travelers and loners, truckers and locals, meet and create a home of sorts; and a bellman in a once-grand hotel preserves his traditional role in a changing world. All of the stories in this issue go beneath the surface and explore questions we ask ourselves at one time or another: How responsible am I to my society? What, if anything, does my society owe me? To what degree am I a product of my culture, and to what degree is culture my creation? We can't provide answers, but the stories that follow illuminate these questions.
-Don Reynolds
Managing Editor Tracy Picha
Art Director Tara Knight
Senior Editor Jennifer Haliski
Production Coordinator Morten Bustrup
Copy Chief Joel Gorrhy Associate Editors
Art Associates
Jennifer Carter Tasha Eichenseher Allison Hewitt Kendra Smith Patty Wentz
Beth Azen Kristin Cikowski Krista Halverson Stephanie Mennella Rachel McMahon Stephanie Stevens
Photo Editor En..Min Chang
Photo Associate Laura Goss
Online Editor Laura Esterman Webmaster Matthew Conover
Online Designer Ben Thompson
Online Associate Editor Katie Yahns
In the uneasy dialogue between culture and individual, new identities and values emerge as old ones change and fade.
Advisor Brett Campbell Interns Jesse Coulter Evan A. Denbaum Robyn Giacchi Kristin Gibb
Mark Hemingway Chris O'Halloran Rebekah Orr Jay..E Shih
Flux magazine is planned, written, edited, designed and produced by the students in the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication. Almost all of the photography is the work of University of Oregon journalism students as well. Staff members are selected by faculty through a competitive process similar to a pro.. fessional hiring. Staffers receive credit for their work. Flux is produced in the School of Journalism's Ballmer graphics lab and printed at Eugene Print in Eugene, Oregon. InFlux, the online version of Flux, is available at http://influx.uoregon.edu/.
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s BASTARD NATION
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by Patty Wentz
Prohibited from knowing their family histories, a new generation of adoptees is taking radical steps toward adoption reform.
A LIVING LANGUAGE
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by Vickie Aldous
WELCOME TO THE GOSHEN TRUCKSTOP CAFE
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by Jennifer Andrews
Long-haul truckers and long-time locals meet at the crossroads of small-town America.
http://influx.uoregon.edu/
41
by Don Reynolds Conservative organizations are spending liberally to fund associations on campuses nationwide.
The Longest Mile
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by Joel Gorthy Athletes can face a treacherous road to emotional recovery after a physical injury.
Unspecified Figures InFlux, the online version of Flux, features exciting content not found in the printed pages. Many of the stories offer additional sidebars and valuable links to online sources, and many stories are supplemented with audio and video. Check us out.
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by Gary Thill In a world of chain motels, a Portland hotel bellman proudly continues to serve with style.
A Push in the Right Direction
1s multiple personality disorder a legal defense orjustan excuse?
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by Krista Halverson Public dialogue about masturbation opens minds and raises eyebrows.
The Professional
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by Kendra Smith What attracts people to body piercing?
Don't Hold Back
by Zanne Miller Belly dancing enables women of all shapes and sizes to upstage the modem ideal of beauty.
LAw AND DISORDER
Getting to the Point
by Kendra Smith photos by Jay-E Shih Mike Randles is one artist who's comfortable with contradictions.
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I ut tells the story of a piercer who had a fear of needles. He just kept . piercing himself over and over until the fear was gone. "Some people want to get pierced because they want It to be important-they're buying an experience, not a product," says Haux. When he started his business, his intent was to make every piercing like that-an important event, a sac~ed experience. He continues to treat each piercing with the same kind of respect, even if it is just an ear pierce. "Whether the people I pierce are thinking about it that way or not, I am. I take it seriously," he says. His apprentice, Scott MacLeod, even laments that they spend only about 10 minutes with clients. "I wish it could be more intimate," he says. This notion of piercing as an experience, an act of personal power, doesn't apply to everyone, but Wise says people who come in to get a piercing because it looks pretty often have the unexpected
dont hold back Women take control of their
sexuality through discourse, "Sotne people want to get
not intercourse
pierced because they want it by Krista Halverson
to be itnportant-they're
photos by En,Min Chang
buying an experience, not a product. "
I
-Damian Haux
realization that there's something more to it. Piercers at High Priestess have received thank-you notes from people who tell them something spiritual happened when they were pierced. Body modification, according to the introduction to a 1989 book called Modern Primitives, is all about taking control of your body. "What is implied by the revival of modem primitive activities is the desire for, and the dream of, a more ideal society. Amidst an almost universal feeling of powerlessness to 'change the world,' individuals are changing what they do have power over: their own bodies." Wise tells another story of a woman in her sixties whose husband would not let her get her ears pierced. Wise is indignant. She says, "It's her body. If she wants to get her ears pierced, she ought to b~ able ~o make that choice for her body." The decision to get pIerced IS individual and personal, she says, just like any other decision a person makes about his or her body should b~. . . This type of ritual reclamation of the body IS somethmg ~erI~a needs, says Wise. "We're still a baby nation. We ,~s a s~cIe.ty m America don't really have a lot of roots," she says. AmerIca IS the only culture, and it's because we're s~ch a ~aby c~untry-we're o~ly 200 years old-that is way behind m this particular aspect of ItS dynamics." To her, the big picture of piercing is that people who get pierced are relieving some of the stresses and pressures that modem society puts on them. Reclaiming one's body is an instinctual act that some feel has
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FLuX 1997
Brad Ward, self-proclaimed flesh mechanic, prepares his utensils for a belly pierce.
been suppressed by social influences: Although body pierc~g h~s moved into the foreground of AmerIcan popular culture, It s st~ll not so widely accepted that Bill Clinton is likely to come out m support of it during the next State of the Union addres.s. The tendency toward intolerance of social diversity and physical dIfference makes body modification a diff~cul~,concept for some ~o ac~ept. ~a~x ;,ays of his current career chOIce, A lot of people think I m sadIstic. ·According to Wise, Americans are told by their parents from the time they're small that there are certain things people just shouldn't do with their bodies, and socie1ty reinforces this taboo. "What happens is another piece of you gets taken away," she says. "~d so by saying, 'I'm going to stick a needle in my body b~cause It'S ~y body and I want to feel something,' you get to reclalffi something that was lost." ®
To find out more about the origins of piercing and other form~ of body modification, visit inFlux, the online companion of Flux magazine. http://influx.uoregon.edu/pierce/
t's been said that 99 percent of people masturbate, and the other one percent is lying. For men this may be a fair assessment, according to sexuality research, but for women it's an entirely different story. If they're doing it, they're not talking about it, and neither is anyone else. Discussion about masturbation commonly includes slang that centers upon the male body. While terms such as "spanking the monkey" and "jerking off" are part ora common vocabulary, there are only a few obscure words for female masturbation. The act of women giving themselves pleasure is not openly discussed as part of female sexuali~ and shuffled between complex ideology, political correctness and post-free love mores, female sexuality for physical pleasure alone has been lost. After her 1976 study of female sexuality, Shere Bite, a prominent sexuality researcher, called for an "undefining" of sex, one that would include women reclaiming their sexualit)!, independent of a sexual partner. In this revamped meaning of sex, female masturbation can become an acknowledged practice devoid of the feelings of shame and guilt with which women often associate it. Now three women at the University of Wisconsin at Madison have taken Hite's injunction to a new level by creating a student group called WHAM, or Women Happily Advocating Masturbation. Cheryl Kingma, Julie Halpern and Katie Hawbaker started WHAM in the fall of 1996 when they were given a class assignment to do a "cultural intervention"-an examination and deconstruction of an anomaly that has been normalized by culture and society. The group recognized the need to create "a middle ground between virginal purity and the sexual whore image," says Kingma. By establishing an open Krista Halverson believes masturbation is an intriguing topic of conversation that nobody wants to be honest about. lilt is only the creation of an open discourse that will resolve misconceptions," she says.
discourse about female masturbation, the women hoped to encourage a forum in which a woman could enjoy her own sexuality. "It's ours," says Kingma. "We should have fun with it." WHAM fights the association of female masturbation with male pleasure and voyeurism. Imagine, for example, a porno film illuminating the smoky room of a bachelor party. On the screen, a woman, contorted uncomfortably on her back, slips her hand southbound as the camera digs in for a close-up. The party explodes into cheers. It's a stereotype, but it has become part of America's belief system. Another example is the man who walks past WHAM's information table, scans the group's flier and inquires, "Can I watch you masturbate?" Such incidents indicate that Americans believe a woman's sexual pleasure is not for herself, but for a man. Or take, for example, Antioch College's guidelines for sexual consent ("Can I kiss you? May I touch your breasts?") or the recent Oprah-glamorized books: The Rules, in which two New Jersey women denounce liberated sexuality as the sure route to eternal singledom and unhappiness, and The Official Sexually Correct Dictionary and Dating Guide. Although Antioch's rules, created to prevent date rape, and The Rules, created to make men commit, represent political opposites, each assumes the same ideology: Women's sexuality is a reward for good hoys, and women are not sexual within themselves. These messages tell women that their sexuality is a gift to be shared only with men who have earned it through courageous acts of promising commitment. Although the idea of virginal purity has been inherited from earlier times, it has survived the sexual revolution. Society still frowns on "loose" women because they have given of something that is not innately their own, but the possession of a man or a future partner. One problem with these ideas is a definition of sex as intercourse only, says Bite. Based on the need for patrilineal inheritance, society
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views "coitus [as] the 'real thing,' and all other forms of sexual gratifications [as] substitutions for, or perversions of, this 'natural activity/If wrote Hite in her book
Women As Revolutionary Agents ofChange. But society is in transiti9n, says Hite, making it possible for women to claim their own sexuality. Here is where WHAM steps in and takes advantage of changing gender roles. WHAM'S goal is to bring the topic out in the open-to let women know masturbation is normal and to help them feel more comfortable with their bodies. The group's motto, "Wham, bam, thank you Ma'am," depicts the"change from female sexual objectification to empowerment," according to Kingma. WHAM now has 28 members, including five men, who instead of feeling emasculated, realize that they have something to gain. "It improves their sex lives, too," when their partners are more comfortable and familiar with their bodies, says Kingma. After becoming an official student organization, WHAM set up a booth at its school's student union. "Masturbation. No Commitment. A Cheap Date," read the pink-inked signs above the women's heads. Throughout the day WHAM passed out more than 150 brochures with a design that reflects as much about the group's ideas as the words do. The neon pink paper, a color like WHAl\1'S message-proud, empowered and feminine-is folded two times, constrained and ready to be opened. The cover depicts a cartoon of a woman holding a dildo and a vibrator, smiling gleefully and imagining herself as a kid in a candy store. Kingma describes the group as made up of"feminists with a sense of humor," an apt description for an organization that tackles tricky subjects with candid jocularity, such as a slogan in its handout that describes masturbation as "Safe Sex! The only way to get off and be completely safe from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases." Humor can make people more comfortable discussing this cultural tabooone that, ironically, many women break, according to studies such as
professional by Gary Thill photos by Laura Goss pool, we discover that our cousins the primates do it-with remarkable flexibility, allowing them to perform oral sex on themselves-often to the horror of zoo visitors. They aren't the only ones. Deer do it. Women aren't even the first animals to use vibrators. The female porcupine will hold one end of a stick between her paws and walk around, straddling the stick as it bumps against the ground and vibrates against her genitalia. The act of masturbation, although normal in animal behavior and other' human cultures, still elicits distaste in most modern societies. Former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, for example, was fired in 1994 in part because she advocated teaching masturbation in schools as a means of preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Although educating children about intercourse is common in the majority of public schools, the idea of individually owned and pleasurable sexuality remains a radical and, to some, offensive notion. As public perceptions of sexuality continue to change, women like Hite and the founders of WHAM hope that America's penchant for a traditional definition of sex will change with it. "All the kinds of physical intimacy that were once channeled into our one mechanical definition of sex can now be reallowed and rediffused throughout our lives," writes Hite. "Although we tend to think of 'sex' as one set pattern, one group of activities (in essence, reproductive activity), there is no need to limit ourselves in this way." ®
The act of women giving themselves
pleasure is not openly discussed as part of female sexuality.
The Hite Report on Female Sexuality. Despite scientific shortcomings, including a biased sample and questions requiring sexually graphic responses, The Hite Report is valuable, according to human sexuality professor Janet Hyde. The final report included respondents' full answers and offered insight into the detailed sexuality of individual women. "Women reading it said 'This is me.' [It] validated people's feelings and opened men's eyes to phenomena they hadn't heard of before," ·says Hyde. The study received a great deal of publicity and started people talking about a new, post-Freudian model of female sexuality. Further, it aided in creating an open discourse about masturbation. Still, the subject remains sensational, even silly, though it is as natural as intercourse. Tracing masturbation through our evolutionary gene
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FLuX 1997
To hear women talk about masturbation and to find out more information on what Joycelyn Elders said to warrant her dismissal as surgeon general, visit inFlux, the online companion of Flux magazine. http://influx.uoregon.edu/wham/
hen Tony Fears arrives, he sneaks into the hotel as if it's a strange place, not one he's known for nearly 20 years. As he disappears into the dingy closet that serves as the bellmen's break room, he looks troubled, . , scared, like a child who wants desperately to please, Isn t sure he can. But once he hangs up his tweed fedora, Tony becomes all.smiles, the hep cat he wants to be, the good-looking, smooth-talking Texan others,see, ambling out to jaw with the sweet young things at the front desk. "Hey honey, how's it going? You ready to run away with me yet?" he asks Mayanna. She wouldn't put up with it if anyone else talked to her.that way. But with Tony, it's somehow right, funny, the way a cancature is. She gives him a smile. That's his cue. "Well, you know where to find me if you change your mind." . T~e~ h~'s off.to t~e lobby, an expansive area that's sprinkled WIth lffiltahon VIctorIan furniture. At one end it leads into the ballroom-like dining room. With its marble pillars and white tablecloths, it's the only place the Mallory's former glory still shows ~hrough. But it feels more like a set than a real place. Tony is an ~port~tpart of t~e illusion. He goes with the lobby the way the ~gh ceI1mgs go WIth the crystal chandeliers. He likes the lobb~ hkes to hang out there, waiting for customers. They're what he's there for, what he's been there for since he started belling back in Texas about 35 years ago. It's all about being a professional and anticipating the customers' needs. Like the Belle Beauticians' Convention. The rest of the bellmen panicked when the beauticians, notorious for their long-running Gary Thill is aUniversity of Oregon journalism student in the school's Creative Nonfiction program. He met Tony Fears during aweekend stay at the Mallory. "I think belling can be a noble profession, especially the way Tony does it," he says.
FLuX 1997
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The Mallory Hotel in Portland, Oregon-where bellman Tony Fears prides himself on service. Tony asked not to be photographed for this article.
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parties, ran out of ice. But Tony kept his head, went around town and came back with enough ice to keep the party going late into the night. Later the beauticians passed around the ice bucket and Tony turned a $164 tip. Best in his life. That's what being a professional is all about, at least that's what it used to be about, when the word still meant something in this business, when all men were Tony's buddies and women were honeys or babies, when bellmen held to their stations with the conviction of crusaders, when bellmen didn't let a customer with anything more than a handbag cross a lobby without help, when people knew the value of good service and paid handsomely, or at least fairly, for it. That time has long since passed, and part of Tony knows it. But there's another part that still likes to pretend. That's why everything has to be just so before he steps out into the lobby each day. Tie, brown with little white flowers, has to hang straight and true; coat, nothing more than cheap polyester, smoothed down; hair, thin and gray, slicked back smooth. Then, the smile. The whole package should be professional looking, Jimmy Stewart cool, but Tony can't quite pull it off. Brown age spots ring the perimeter of his Brylcreamed hair. Strands escape from the slick in stubborn little tufts here and there. The skin on his face looks saggy, like his bones are too weak to support it. His teeth are chipped and crooked and smoke-stained, like someone kicked him in the mouth a long time ago. The uniform is a rather ill-fitting emerald-green blazer with an "M" embroidered on the pocket. But once he steps out into the lobby, Tony's appearance changes, as if the job of hauling bags, carting irons, checking rooms, tidying the lobby, coordinating the maids, welcoming customers and looking the part were enough. Under the chandeliers, his smile is suddenly friendly. Against the backdrop of hooded monk chairs and elegant end tables, his slicked-back hair is stylish. Mingling with casually dressed customers, his suit is professional looking, nearly dashing. Under the weight of other people's baggage, he seems to straighten up just a bit. And when a chime calls Tony out of his closet, he's all smiles, only too happy to show a room to the woman at the counter. "How are you today?" he asks as they enter the elevator. "Just fine and you," she says, not really caring. "No complaints. Did you want to see a single today or a suite?" "A single is fine." "Right this way." "This is our single, right here," he says, sliding his card into the lock and swinging the door to room 517 open. "There's a nice view of downtown Portland through them windows at night." The woman just nods, smiles absently. Like the
lobby's, the room's ceiling is high, but no chandelier hangs from it. The wood furniture is curved elegantly, but it looks too big for the room, more cramped than cozy. When opened, the door to the entertainment center blocks entrance to the bathroom. The windows are streaked with dirt. The nicest touch in the room, which the woman doesn't notice, is a sewing kit on the table. It's a miniature pillow bordered with white lace. Right in the middle there's an embroidered green "M" with 13 stick pins arranged in a pyramid just above it. The pin cushion is from a time when the Mallory was The Mallory, a time before the massproduced Motel6s and Econolodges and Best Westerns.
It used to be that everyone knew; if you wanted good service, you treated your bellman well. It was during that golden age when Tony began his life as a bellman. He started right after high school at the Central in his hometown of Port Arthur, Texas, a Texaco Oil town right on the Gulf of Mexico. From there, the rest of his life was a string of hotels-the Cortez, the Menger, the Paso Del Norte, the Flagship, the Cosmopolitan and finally the Mallory-all in different towns, with different characters and different memories. Like meeting Lon Chaney, Jr., or Betty, one of the quickie divorcees who set a record with three in one year, or the old black couple none of the other bellmen figured was worth their time. When Tony helped them out to their car, the old man winked at him and gave him a $10 tip with instructions to tell the others not to judge people on their appearance. It turned out the man had been a bellman himself for nearly 35 years. Back then, most people appreciated friendly service, or at least pretended to. But today, the woman Tony is helping seems bored, a bit put out. All she really wants to know is whether there's room service. Sometimes Tony doesn't understand people anymore. He knows his part, but they don't. It used to be that everyone knew. If you wanted good service, you treated your bellman well. Tony still believes that credo even if few of his customers do. And there's not much he won't do for a customer and the promise of a tip. Today at the Mallory, Tony earns $17,000, not including tips. But in his heyday, he made three times more than that off tips alone. He used those tips to pay for his travels up and down the Mexican border and all through Texas. Whenever he got tired of working somewhere, he'd look up an old buddy and they'd just take off. The best time was when his buddy showed up with that turquoise and white two-seater Metropolitan. They went down into Mexico and finally up to Mardi Gras before the money ran out. He loves to tell those stories, especially to the girls. Some figure he makes them up. But they don't care. They're good stories. One of them starts all the way back in Houston, Texas, and takes Tony to Portland, Oregon. Not long after, he found himself in
the lobby of the Mallory, charming his way into a job and a new life, the way he's always done, the way only a professional can. Ken Coonce, newly hired bellman himself at the time, remembers the Mallory didn't even have an opening when Tony walked through the doors. But there was something about Tony that Ken liked, something that made him introduce Tony to the manager. A day later, Tony was belling at the Mallory. During the past 19 years, the Mallory has become so intertwined in his life, sometimes it's hard to say where one ends and the other begins. He met his wife there, a waitress named Lynette. He's watched his family grow up while working there, just as he's watched the families of Mallory customers grow up. He knows these people by name. Some send Christmas cards. Then there are the Mallory employees, a longrunning troupe. There's Ken; Ellen, a rhinestone-wearing desk worker who's been there 20 years; Wanda, a stout, fiercely efficient waitress who's been there 30 years. They all love Tony, can't say enough about him. On top of all that, he's even got himself a bigger part these days, Bell Captain, that puts him in charge of the other two bellmen and the valet parking-10 people in all. He's got no regrets. He knows his part. But every now and then people like the woman he showed the room to bring him down a little. Back at the lobby, she just smiles at Tony and thanks him, apparently glad to be free. That's it. Just a smile. Nothing else. Back in the break room, Tony slumps down, shakes out one of his Winston 100s. Time was, he could expect a tip for showing a room. These days he's lucky to get nickels and dimes. It's not really the money, though, never has been. He doesn't need more than he's got, doesn't need three cars or two houses, just enough to pay the bills, buy a couple of lottery tickets each week, go out with his buddy once in a while after work, sit around, drink some beer, light up a cigarette, tell stories to whoever listens and pretend for a little while longer that being a professional is still enough. 速
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ust before Christmas 1996, Michelle Nelson went on a quest. She traveled from California to her birthplace of Savannah, Georgia, after learning some tricks from seasoned searchers on an Internet adoption mailing list. They told her how to circumvent the system and see her sealed birth records by requesting the docket number for the year she was born. Dockets hold the transcripts of all public hearings, including adoption hearings, so all the information she'd been searching for could be right there. Just keep your reasons for making the request secret, the veterans warned. The courts will only hand the information over to you if they don't know you're an adoptee. Telling the truth is a surefire way to bring the gate of the system crashing shut in your face. Nelson found the docket number easily in the files for 1960 under the name of her adoptive parents. The county clerk was surprisingly helpful when she turned in her request. No problem, the woman said, but it could take about half an hour to pull the records. She hoped it wouldn't be too long. But the half hour became overnight when it turned out her file was among 20 that were missing from storage and had to be requested from the warehouse. Nelson stayed overnight but didn't get much sleep. If she got the file the next morning she would have everything she needed: her birth parents' names, hometowns, ages, nationalities, her biological history. But if she didn't get it she would 路have traveled all this way, dragging her adoptive mom with her for support, for nothing. She couldn't bear that thought, so she developed a backup plan. She knew of other adoptees who had gotten their records simply by asking a judge to open them. Most say no, but some are sympathetic. She decided to talk to the county judge. But instead of seeing the judge the next morning, Nelson encountered an assistant, Miss Dixon (not her real name), and that's when it all went wrong. When she asked to see the judge, Dixon insisted on knowing why. It was vital, Nelson knew, that she not let on what she When Patty Wentz first used the Internet, her immediate thought was that it would be a possible way to find her birth mother. Online, she followed the explosion of searches and reunions involving adoptees and their birth parents, and she was introduced to Bastard Nation. "1 was blown away by their attitude and anger," she says. "It never occurred to me before that people would be angry about their adoption."
wanted, so she tried to convince Dixon it was important, but very personal. It didn't work. Dixon was suspicious of Nelson and steadfast in her mission to protect the judge from any intrusion. When it was apparent there was no hope of getting in, Nelson confessed she had been born and adopted in Savannah and was hoping to talk the judge into unsealing her records. Dixon's response was immediate and angry. "No way! You were adopted! You cannot see those records. You would have to hire a lawyer." Nelson tried to stay calm, but she could see her chance slipping away. "Do you mean to tell me just because I'm adopted, I have to pay someone to talk to the judge about seeing my records? Why is that?"
forced to fight the system. She began a grueling search for her birth records three years ago at the age of 28, after the woman she thought was her mother died. After the funeral her father told her that she had been adopted at birth in Illinois. "The only information I can get is what a judge is willing to reveal from my original birth certificate-the one that he, his secretary, his law clerks, the local Kinko's copy shop and the drones in the records department in Springfield can see, but not me." Nelson and LaRocco are members of Bastard Nation. Born on the Internet and led by a group of women, Bastard Nation is the radical bad seed in the normally quiet subculture of people working across the
Proud Bastard Drew Shimkus (left) and his birth father, Gregory Clemens, protest together at the 1997 Academy Awards.
BN Attorney General Shea Grimm explaining to the British Broadcasting Corporation why she and other adoptees are Bastards.
Dixon's answer was shocking. As she relays it, Nelson spits out in a mockingly exaggerated Southern accent, "You were born in sin. Someone has to pay for that. It looks like it's going to be you." Nelson shot back, "Well let me tell you something, Miss Dixon. These laws are going to change. You mark my words, these laws are going to change." By the time Nelson reached the clerk's office four floors below, Dixon had called down and ordered the clerks to refuse her anything she requested. She went back to California empty-handed, but with a strong conviction to fight for open records for adult adoptees. Leslie LaRocco is an adoptee who has been
country to open records for all adult adoptees. Where other adoptees compromise, Bastard Nation walks away. Where others are quiet, Bastard Nation picks up signs and yells in the street. Where others celebrate adoptees' reunions with birth parents, Bastard Nation says the system sucks and adoptees have groveled for too long to get the scraps of information that make the reunions possible. Some people in the adoption reform movement call the Bastards media whores, extremists with an anti-adoption, pro-abortion agenda and upstarts who don't know what they are doing. Whatever, says Bastard Nation. Just open the damn records.
The practice of sealing adoption records makes adoptees the only population in America whose personal information is owned by state governments. Bastard Nation's lone political agenda is getting the records opened. Sta tes began sealing the records of adoptees in the 1930s, when legislators believed being born out of wedlock was so devastating that adopted children deserved completely new identities to escape the stigma of bastardry. The system remains in effect today. In states where the records are sealed, an adoptee's original birth certificate is government property, filed away with the adoption papers. A new birth certificate is created with the adoptive parents' names inserted as mother and father, making it appear as though they gave birth to the baby. Any name given to the baby at birth can be, and often is, changed. This altered document is indistinguishable from an original birth certificate. In most circumstances the records stay sealed forever. But sealing records didn't work the way it was supposed to. For the generations of adult adoptees left with invisible heritages, the desire for personal and medical information has proven stronger than the laws created to erase the embarrassment of illegitimacy. An underground search movement began in the 1950s as the first generation of closed-records adoptees came of age and has been growing ever since. With the advent of the Internet, the movement has grown exponentially as mailing lists, news groups and web sites devoted to adoption are connecting people in a way that never was possible before. Not only are adoptees finding their birth parents, they are also finding each other. Some information searches that once took years can now be completed in days. But many adoptees are becoming increasingly angry as their searches take them to dead ends, doctored documents and family secrets. Bastard Nation says closed records are a relic from a bygone age. Ron Morgan, a 42year-old adoptee and member of Bastard Nation (called "Proud Bastards" or "Bastard Nationals") from San Francisco, says the tide is turning toward open records because society no longer cares about illegitimacy. He tells a story of being interrupted by a group of his daughter's preteen friends while he was working on a project for Bastard Nation. They wanted to know what a bastard is. When he
told them it is someone born out of wedlock, three of the six said, "Oh, then I'm a bastard!" with no shame or concern. Morgan says that for earlier generations of adoptees, the social pressure to remain ashamed of their origins was compelling enough to keep most from searching, even if they wanted to. But as adoptees become more active in opening their own records, future adoptees' ability to search will improve. Marley Greiner, Bastard Nation's "founding foundling," began using the term "bastard" as part of her signature on the news group aU.adoption because she believes the system further bastardizes adoptees by making them grovel for information in their own records. Greiner says adoptees allow this bastardization to happen when they accept and support laws that give them only partial access to adoption records. She drew the attention of like-minded adoptees with her signature, and using their computers and organizational savvy, they spawned Bastard Nation. The heart of Bastard Nation is www.bastards.org. Unlike other adoptionrelated sites, bastards.org doesn't focus on happily-ever-after reunion stories. Damsel Plum is webmistress of the site. "So many of the materials offered on the Web about search and reunion tend to be touchy-feely, where everything is all wonderful," she says. "We
wanted to have a place where people can put it all in perspective, where there is a little dark reality." Mixed in with detailed information on how to search, updates on where to picket, whom to send protest letters to and current information on legislative action, the dark reality for Proud Bastards reveals itself in a collection of jokes, poems, art and stories that show how many adoptees feel they are being wronged by the system. "How many birth mothers does it take to screw in a light bulb? One, but we can't tell you her name." Plum is a Yale-educated linguist from the Bay Area and Bastard Nation's Subcommandante of Public Affairs. She and the other members of the executive committee have titles that play on their personalities and read like the cast list of a Monty Python movie. Thirty-three-year-old Michelle Hilbe's titles include Talk Show Tart and Preggasauras Slayer Extraordinaire. Thirty-year-old Shea Grimm of Washington state is Bastard Nation's legislative chair. She describes herself as "Native American mixed" and has a penchant for Paganism. Her title is High Priestess, Attorney General and Head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Grimm has been active in adoption reform for six years, ever since she found her own birth mother. Her web persona is serious, intelligent and driven. She has written an extensive document on all aspects of adoption, from how to conduct a successful search to the history of sealed records in the United States. She writes that during her search, "I was stifled and thwarted every step of the way by an overtly paternalistic set of laws ... my parents supported my search; my biological relatives welcomed my contact. Only the legal system was against my search." elson says she joined Bastard Nation because the group is less about nurturing support and more about political action than other adoption-related groups. She says, "I found Bastard Nation to be so intelligent and motivated, and approaching the issue from a civil rights perspective really appealed to me." Adoption is a political issue, she says, because the system discriminates against adoptees when it withholds their records. "This is information that anyone who is not adopted can pay ten bucks to get." Bastard Nation is not the first adoption reform group to become political. Groups like the Adoptees Liberty Movement Association and Concerned United Birthmothers have been working to open adoption records for decades. The largest national organization is the American Adoption Congress, which has
members from all sides of the adoption triad of adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents, as well as adoption professionals. The group supports open records and has been involved in recent state legislation, but it works within the legal system. There have been some successes over the years. Alaska and Kansas have fully open records, which means adoptees can simply go to courthouses and get their original birth certificates when they become adults. Several states have partially open records, meaning they restrict direct contact by adoptees by forcing them to use a statesponsored intermediary system. Others allow contact only if the birth parent hasn't specifically requested privacy. But Bastard Nation supports only fully open records. Without compromise, adoptees will have nothing, says Susan Cox of Holt International Children's Services, an Oregon-based adoption agency. To gain access to records, she suggests, all sides must be considered and be willing to compromise. Cox is an adoptee, and she supports open records. In fact, she says, there are few people involved in adoption who don't. Adoption practices have opened up considerabl)T, she says, because even though most states still seal the records, most birth mothers usually insist on openness at the agency level, which means prospective adoptive parents intent on secrecy may have difficulty finding a baby. But while Cox agrees that the closedrecords laws are antiquated and do not reflect current practices or the desires of the people involved, she believes Bastard Nation is extreme. She says there are several ways to provide adult adoptees with medical and personal information while still protecting birth parents' privacy. For example, Cox thinks open-records legislation should include contact-veto provisions. Under contact-veto laws, adult adoptees can go through the state to receive nonidentifying information about birth parents, but they are not permitted to contact them if the birth parent has so indicated. Another method she supports is the confidential intermediary system, which is the 路 law in Oregon and several other states. Under this system, adoptees and birth parents are not allowed access to the records themselves. If contact is desired by one party, a request must be made to the state, which will then contact the other party. This protects all parties from unwanted intrusion. The process is often controlled because many states require counseling for the parties. Cox differs from Bastard Nation on one key point: "I don't believe the adoptees have more rights than the people who gave birth to them," she says. "Is
that sad? Is that maybe unfortunate? Is that painful for the adoptee to hear? Absolutely. I don't discount any of that. But I also believe that life isn't always fair. I think every accommodation needs to be made for openness ... but I don't know how you decide one human's rights over another's." rimm says she is sympathetic to birth parents, but Bastard Nation is about adopted adults. "We have no position on what the birth parents might want," she says. Birth parents exercised their rights when they made the choice to relinquish their children, she says, and adult adoptees are now living with the consequences. She does not believe open records will cause mobs of adoptees to rush after unwilling birth parents, and, because people already search, no one is guaranteed privacy. She says opening the records will simply make the process easier, and besides, there are adoptees who don't want contact, just a name and all the information. Any birth parent who doesn't want continued contact can simply say no, she says, but it should not be up to states or birth parents to decide for adopted adults. According to Cox, Bastard Nation's unwillingness to compromise legally hurts the movement, scaring away policy makers who might be more sympathetic to the cause. Also,
she says inexperienced activists may not be as qualified to be involved in policy-making decisions as adoption professionals. he Oregon Adoptees' Rights Association (OARA) supports an open-records bill proposed to the Oregon Senate that includes not only a contact veto, but also a more extreme disclosure veto. This disclosure veto would allow both adoptees and birth parents to refuse the release of any information that could identify either party. Bill Bossert, president of OARA through May 1997, says the compromise provisions are necessary because the bills have no chance of passing without them. He says legislatures are too afraid of protests from those who believe the records should stay sealed forever~ He also says the state has a measure of responsibility to the adoptee. He asks, "What do you do for the person who has been taken or removed from the home and put up for adoption, who was sexually abused by the parent, and now the parent would like to have contact because they would like to resume?" He dismisses Bastard Nation as an insignificant Internet group. Grimm says she knows her group is young and will not be taken seriously until it has at least one legislative success. The Bastards have drafted a model open-records law, similar to a bill that recently went before the Texas legislature. The proposal says that at the age of 18, adoptees can get the same information anyone else has: how old their birth parents were when the adoptee was born, their levels of education, their nationalities, their eye color and other physical descriptions and, most importantl~ their names. Once they have this information adoptees can choose whether to contact birth parents. Grimm says Bastard Nation will begin working to push through open-records laws in states that do not have an established adoption-reform movement, such as Missouri. Bastard Nation is not totally averse to working with other groups, and has done it before, but Grimm says it can become difficult to work with people more willing than Bastard Nation to cave in and backpedal when legislators start asking for compromises.
Bastard Nation's membership debated whether or not its model legislation would include opening adoption records to birth parents. Ultimately members decided to exclude birth parents' access to protect adoptees from the kind of abuse Bossert mentions. But the adoptee contact veto written into the Oregon bill exemplifies the attitude Bastard Nation fights against. Hilbe of Bastard Nation's executive committee says adoptees are willing to compromise because too many have bought into the idea that they have no right to their records. For adoptees who are desperate for any information, Bastard Nation's extreme position on open records is frightening. Postings on the Adoption Internet Mailing List argue that Bastard Nation is hurting the movement, saying that because EN stands firm on the civil rights principle, possibilities for reunions are slipping away. The writers say plenty of people wouldn't sign the veto when going
through the adoption process, and that's better than nothing. Not for Bastard Nation. Grimm describes contact vetoes as a predetermined restraining order: Aside from stalkers and criminals, who else is prohibited by law from talking to someone? Besides, she says, contact vetoes don't work. New Zealand has open records with contact restrictions. Grimm cites studies showing adoptees there avoid the restriction by doing underground searches or contacting biological siblings or grandparents-anyone who hasn't signed the veto. Bastard Nation will not support any compromise bills, its members choosing to walk away from such proposals and wait for a time when they can fully support open-records legislation. The open-records movement is currently getting attention because of a case pending in Tennessee. Last summer the state passed an open-records law with a contact-veto
provision. Birth records were briefly opened and adoptees flocked to courthouses. But they were immediately closed again after two anonymous birth parents, two adoptive parents and an adoption agency filed suit against the state with the help of the National Council For Adoption, a conservative adoption support group. Courts alternately opened and closed the records between August 1996 and March 1997 as they struggled with the issue. The plaintiffs were represented by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a legal organization started by the Christian Coalition's Pat Robertson. In a July 1996 interview about the case, aired on the Christian Broadcasting Network, an attorney for the ACLJ claimed the people who advocate open records have a hidden agenda-increasing abortions. The plaintiffs argue that if women know they could later be "tracked down" by the babies they relinquish, they will opt for abortion.
That is rot, according to Grimm. She says studies have shown that the two states with open records, Kansas and Alaska, have higher rates of adoption than the rest of the country and abortion rates that are no higher. "The religious, political extremists want to keep the badge of shame on the birth moms," she says, when in fact women are more likely to relinquish their children if they are assured of having some future information about their babies. At the Tennessee hearing, the Washington Adoptees' Rights Movement testified that 92 percent of birth mothers want some sort of contact with their adult children. As of the time of writing, the Tennessee case was still pending, and records were closed, but the American Adoption Congress and other groups see the ruling as a victory for the adoption-reform movement because the case has received national attention and may go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
or a group so new, Bas tard Nation has made a fast impression on the media. They were quick to capitalize on the Academy Award-nominated British film Secrets & Lies, using it to bring the conflict about open records into public consciousness. The movie follows the story of an adopted woman who easily contacts her birth mother after getting her name from social services. Bastard Nation points out that although this contact can happen freely in Great Britain, Norway, Finland, Israel, Mexico or other nations with open records, finding information is much harder for most U.S. adoptees. The group rallied its membership to hold "positive pickets" of support for Secrets & Lies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Florida and received coverage by the local press in each city. Hilbe, Bastard Nation's Talk Show Tart, knows how to work the media. Her own 15year search for her birth mother culminated when they met for the first time on a television talk show. She used a billboard advertisement last year to locate her birth brothers. After the Secrets & Lies nominations were announced, Hilbe organized the Bastards for the ultimate media event-the Oscars. The Bastards spread the word on the Internet, inviting everyone affected by adoption to join them on the sidewalks outside the Shrine Auditorium. Forty-five people pledged to show up, but only 12 people came. Grimm flew to Los Angeles with another Proud Bastard. Drew Shimkus, a Proud Bastard from Florida, was there with his birth father, Gregory Clemens of San Diego. They were both reeling from their reunion, which was only two days old. Barbara Shaw, a birth mother who has worked with Concerned United Birthmothers for years, was also at the rally to support the Bastards and open records. She says, "I've always felt that not much is going to change until adoptees rise up. The name of the group scared me at first because I hate the word so much. I know that was what my child was called. But I think Bastard Nation has taken the name, and they own it." Despite the low turnout, the rally was a media blitz. Reporters roaming the streets for stories latched onto the Bastards carrying signs
WHEN SEARCHING IS A MATTER OF
II THERE IS SOMETHING NANCY HIGGINS has to do before she dies. She has end-stage emphysema and the doctors tell her she has about a year and a half left to live. That isn't much time to find her son. Thirty-three years ago she gave birth to a boy she named Richard Allen. She knows his adoptive parents probably renamed him, but she still thinks of him as Richard. During the course ofher life she thought about searching for him, but she always stopped herself for fear she would be intruding on his life. Besides, she thought she would have to hire a private investigator to find him and she never could come up with the money. But now she needs to give Richard vital medical information and tell him that his genetic history makes him vulnerable to emphysema. He has a right to know his medical history, she says, and so do his children. After searching on her own for a year, she has had no luck finding him. Now, however, she has hope, thanks to Bastard Nation's Terminally III Emergency Search (TIES) program. Many adoptees don't know they've inherited medical time bombs, says Deb Schwarz, TIES program coordinator. Schwarz found her own birth mother, who was dying of breast cancer, and learned that her birth father's sister died of the disease when she was 36 years old. This is the tragedy of closed records, Schwarz says. "Just because you're healthy today doesn't mean there isn't something in your family history." Adoptees can usually get nonidentifying medical information from the state or the agency that placed them, but Schwarz says the short medical history of an 18-year-old girl who gives her baby up for adoption is less than useless. As researchers learn more about the role heredity plays in passing on diseases, it becomes increasingly important that adoptees know their medical histories. Schwarz and several other Bastard Nationals began the program in December 1996, after learning about an HIv-positive adoptee named Grady who wanted to find his birth mother before it was too late. Not knowing the birth parents' medical history is particularly dangerous for someone who is HIVpositive and more susceptible than the general population to becoming ill. So Schwarz and another Bastard National stepped in to help him, using an informal network of amateur and professional searchers around the country that assists adoptees and birth parents. Schwarz used the Internet to rally volunteers. She said the response was immediate. Less than 24 hours after the search was started, Grady was reunited with his birth mother over the phone. Schwarz realized the Internet was a powerful tool for helping terminally ill adoptees search and created the TIES program, the first of its kind. TIES is connected to Bastard Nation because, Schwarz says, until all adoption records are unsealed, the emergency search
EIH is the best way to help those who most urgently need their records. Open to adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents, Schwarz says TIES is constantly getting applications from people who want help conducting their searches. This makes reviewing the applications a daunting task for the two doctors-both members of Bastard Nation-who screen them to make sure only adoptees diagnosed with terminal diseases are being helped. Currently, one adoptee hoping to become a TIES success story has Lou Gehrig's disease and is so debilitated she cannot use her hands. There is also a birth mother with throat cancer and another with post-polio syndrome, as well as another adoptee who is HIV-positive. Phoenix Aguilar also tested positive for HIV, and TIES helped him find his birth father in only two months. His disease had not moved into full-blown AIDS when he contacted TIES, but under program criteria he qualified as a terminally ill patient. Like Higgins, Aguilar says the idea of searching had been constant in his life, but he did not do anything about it until his diagnosis necessitated it. Shortly after he was diagnosed, it became apparent to him that he needed to know his medical history. When the new specialist he was assigned to asked him about conditions that ran in his family, Aguilar, like many adoptees, had to say he didn't know his family's history. Aguilar was familiar with media accounts suggesting it could take years to find birth parents. In December 1996, he realized he might not have many years left and began his search. He signed up for TIES after he had been searching for two months. It took TIES two more months to find his birth father, who was living only 20 miles away from Aguilar's home in San Francisco. Now Aguilar knows he is at risk for diabetes from both sides of his family and his father has had four heart surgeries. Sandra Lee Kimble found her birth mother on her own after a five-year search. During their initial meeting last May, Kimble's birth mother asked her if she had ever had a mammogram. She told Kimble that breast cancer runs in their family. Even though she just had an exam two years earlier, Kimble decided to get another one. Her doctor told her that her mother saved her life. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent surgery and chemotherapy. Kimble found out about Bastard Nation and the TIES program during her recovery and asked TIES to search for her birth father. The searchers had come up with nothing as of May 1997, but Kimble is set on finding him to see if there are any other medical secrets she should know about. Schwarz says the requests for searches and their results demonstrate how vital updated medical information is to adopted adults. But she says the program isn't just about getting people in touch with family histories. "TIES isn't only about finding medical information," she says. "It's really about reuniting people before d~ath."
like, "My birth certificate is a state-sanctioned lie" and "Adoptees deserve their original birth certificates." Nelson carried a sign asking, "Are you my mother?" bringing comments and stares from folks gathered to watch for movie stars. The Bastards were interviewed by heavy hitters like CNN, The New York Times and the BBC, as well as Israeli television and Argentinean radio. At one point the media coverage turned to the absurd. The Los Angeles Fox affiliate spotted the group and gathered them together to record a promo for their Oscar coverage. "Stay with Fox for all the Academy Awards news!" the Bastards chanted in unison, exposing the sperm sunburst logo on their T-shirted chests. Grimm is philosophical about. the low turnout. People want change, but they aren't yet willing to work for it, she says, because many adoptees are still caught up in the shame of being adopted. She says it's hard to move from a life of secrecy to demanding your rights in front of the entire country. But the Tennessee case and the Bastards' work with Secrets & Lies have started a countrywide dialogue about adoptees' rights. Bastard Nationals are doing interviews with their local papers. MSNBC carried a story that quoted Plum. Grimm was recently interviewed by Newsweek and another Bastard appeared on the television talk show Rolanda, which caused hits on bastards.org to increase from 1,000 a day to 1,000 in three hours. Bastard Nation membership has jumped since the Oscars, and Grimm predicts the group's membership will double by fall 1997. In the meantime, the Bastards will hold their first national conference in Chicago in July 1997. The conference will continue some of the work already started by the group's newly apRointed regional directors. There will oe workshops for adoptees who are not yet political, training on Internet activism and tips on ];low to use the.' media. For Proud Bastard LaRocco, Bastard Nation has already accomplished a great deal. "When I' read adoption news groups and mailing lists, new adoptee searchers often start their first request for help with words to the effect, 'I love my adoptive parents very much. They'll always be my real parents. I've had the greatest life ... but I still want to know.' For me, Bastard ~a~ion gives adoptees the strength to quit apologlzmg for wanting their own information and to quit feeling illegitimate. We should not have to beg for what ought to be ours, nor should we have to apologize for wanting it." 速
InFlux, the online companion of Flux magazine, features the story ofthe author's road trip to meet the Bastards at .the Oscars, the Bastards' personal search stones and acomplete listing of each state's adoption-record legislation. http://influx.uoregon.edu/bastards/
WHO WOULD
HAVE THOUGHT
WE WOULD ONE DAY SELL ETHERNET CARDS, SEQUINED HATS
AND
SKI N N Y
LATTES?
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Is your doctor seeing the whole picture?
Talk to your doctor.
C路A路USE Careful Antibiotic Use
CDC
For more information call 404-639-3311 or http://www.cdc.gov
ut Financial powerhouses pollinate campuses with big bucks and conservative ideas by Don Reynolds illustrations by Tom Blazier
A
t six feet, two inches, and 260 pounds, he commands attention. He carries a cane, carved from camas root, and walks with a pronounced limp from an old work injury. When he speaks, his voice is soft, with only a hint of a Southern drawl. He wants to work with kids and seems most content when he's teaching. But Bill Hollingsworth isn't soft spoken when it comes to politics. A conservative campus activist, Hollingsworth wants to free students from the greed of the"gimme gang"-the leftwing special interest student groups he believes control most college campuses. His targets are student lobby groups such as the United States Student Association (USSA), the Public Interest Research Groups (PIRcs) and the structures erected by previous students that fund or subsidize student service programs such as child-care cooperatives. Hollingsworth objects to these liberal groups because he says they benefit relatively few students, but all students have to fund them, and because they are generally run by liberals. "There is no balance," he says. "When you try to bring balance, the left will do anything to shut your speech down, because they are afraid of the truth." He's not alone. Unlike liberals or progressives, conservatives on college campuses can draw on a national, well-funded network of conservative organizations. Groups such as the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (lSI) with its Collegiate Network (eN) dispense millions of dollars in aid and guidance, raining down scholarships, fellowships, internships and other help on promising students who agree with their conservative, probusiness philosophy. These organizations bankroll conservative journals on college campuses and recruit promising young conservatives to positions of national prominence and influence. There is no equivalent on the ideological left-no organized national movement of young Marxists or future socialists. The only national organizations comparable to those on the right are the PIRCs-started by Ralph Nader in the 1970s-and a Don Reynolds is the president of the University of Oregon chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He likesto examine ideologies, political and otherwise, and plans to write a book on the right's campus strategy.
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few student lobbying associations, such as USSA. While the PIRGs and USSA claim no overt partisan political agenda, their efforts have drawn the ire and fire of college conservatives nationwide. Conservatives blast USSA for its support of multicultural programs and affirmative action, and PIRGs for their pursuit of environmental and consumer protection regulation. While Hollingsworth hasn't received major financial aid from conservative organizations, he has learned from them and used the resources they can mobilize. He hasn't always gotten his way at the Oregon schools he's attended, but his successes are notable and far reaching. Thanks to his efforts, no community college in Oregon is a member of USSA. Hollingsworth also initiated a suit-now on appeal to the Ninth District Court of Appealsthat may defund Oregon's four college PIRGS and could change the ways all student groups in Oregon are funded. "Now if we win on appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court, it will be binding in nine western states, including Hawaii and Alaska," he says. In his wake, the survivors either adore him or hate him; almost no one who knows him is neutral. Hollingsworth didn't plan to become a campus activist. In 1988, he was married with a son and had a job driving a truck to Rapid City, South Dakota, twice each week. While loading a truck in Portland, he cracked his femur. His doctor misdiagnosed the problem, and Hollingsworth worked on a fractured leg for a year. He later found he'd developed aseptic necrosis, a disease. that dissolves bone tissue. An operation stopped the disease, but left him too disabled to drive a truck or engage in other types of manual labor. His old life was over. When he entered Lane Community College (LCC) in 1992, Hollingsworth was 32. More than 9,000 students attended LCC when Hollingsworth emolled. As a result of crises in an economy that was once timber-based, many students entering LCC were older and conservative. Hollingsworth, however, likes to say he was liberal-even progressive-in his outlook before he entered LCC. While he won't say exactly when he changed his mind, he does give credit to the man who influenced him most, social science instructor Greg Delf. To this day, Hollingsworth believes Delf is one of only two conservative instructors he's had in seven years of school. And Delf introduced him to lSI. Founded in 1953 as the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, lSI is the oldest national college conservative organization in the country. The organization has an annual budget of $4.7 million and claims more than 55,000 student and faculty members on U.S. campuses. Its current
president, T. Kenneth Cribb, served as chief of domestic affairs for President Reagan. In 1995, the organization assumed control of the Collegiate Network, which funds more than 50 conservative college publications, ranging from the Harvard Salient to the Dartmouth Review to the Oregon Commentator. When he started lSI, conservative writer Frank Chodorov wanted to pattern his organization on a tum-of-the-century college group called the Intercollegiate Society of Socialists (ISS). This forgotten group's founder and first president was novelist Jack London; famed media critic Walter Lippman was an early member. From his perspective in the 1950s, Chodorov believed ISS was the bad seed that had turned a nation of individualists into collectivists over a half-century. Another conservative, M. Stanton Evans, chronicled the birth of lSI in his 1961 book, Revolt on the Campus. Evans wrote that Chodorov's intent was to counter the political left by influencing the young. lSI's first president was William E Buckley, Jr. A seminal figure in American conservatism, Buckley is largely responsible for bringing together three separate threads in postwar conservative philosophy: 1950s anti-Communist paranoia, the moral and social conservatism of writers such as Russell Kirk, and the optimistic economic individualism of EA. Hayek and the American Enterprise Institute. In its struggle to win the minds of American youth, lSI continues to reprint books by conservative authors and distribute them on college campuses. In addition, students can attend lSI summer workshops or lectures sponsored by the group. The spring 1997 lSI lecture series includes 1960s radical-turned-arch-conservative David Horowitz promoting his book, Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey, and antifeminist crusader Phyllis Schlafly talking about "The Changing Roles of Men and Women." Students can also read the national magazines lSI publishes and distributes free: Campus: America's Student Newspaper, with an annual print run of 350,000, and The
With its deep pockets, the
right can afford to cultivate
promising young women and men, raise them to positions
At LCC, Hollingsworth read the conservative thinkers cited in lSI'S Campus, which is written by students and promotes a conservative educational agenda. For example, Campus alerts readers that the multicultural movement "engenders idiocy" and pursues "intolerable diversity." To put these newfound ideas into action, Hollingsworth became an lSI student representative and got involved in LCC's student government. First as a senator and later as student body president, he began to implement his fiscal accountability plan to shrink programs funded by mandatory student fees. Cut student fees. Defund the Oregon StudentPIRG (asPIRG). Eliminate the Child Care Co-op. Reduce student government. Get LCC out of USSA. Hollingsworth succeeded with only the last item. He met with stiff resistance from student interest groups and college administrators. By the end, he says his car was vandalized and he received threatening phone calls. Rather than face a recall election, he resigned his presidency and soon left LCC. He continued
of influence and continue to support them as they make
their mark on public policy.
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Intercollegiate Review: A Journal of Scholarship and Opinion.
to pursue a teaching certificate at three other Oregon colleges and served as a campus representative for lSI at two of them. lSI isn't the only well-funded conservative organization on college campuses, says Texas journalist and researcher Scott Henson, who studied and wrote about college conservatives for the Texas Observer. "lSI peaked in the early 1960s, but the Madison Center has been incredibly effective," he said. Until recentl~ the Madison Center for Educational Affairs was active on campuses through CN, but in 1995, the Madison Center transformed CN into the Collegiate Network, Inc., which then contracted with lSI to administer the program. The Madison Center was founded in 1978 (as the Institute of Educational Affairs) by Irving Kristol, the influential neoconservative editor and writer, and William Simon, who was President Nixon's treasury secretary. Simon, in his 1978 book, A Time for Truth, laid out his plan to reinvigorate American liberty. First, he said, business interests must form foundations that would "funnel desperately needed funds to scholars, social scientists, writers and journalists who understand the relationship between political and economic liberty." Next, business "must cease the mindless subsidizing of colleges and universities whose departments of economics, government, politics and history are hostile to capitalism." Finally, he recommended that business defund any media that"serves as megaphones for anticapitalist opinion," and fund media that agree with his aims. To this end, Simon became president of the John M. Olin Foundation, which spends $200,000 per year on conservative college publications, according to the Washington Monthly. Olin also funds the National Association of Scholars, an organization of conservative professors. Olin is one of five conservative foundations that, Henson says, "are the centerpiece funding entities for the right-wing intellectual movement in this country." The four other major contributors, says Henson, are the. J.M. Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation and'Sarah Scaife Foundation. Giant corporations and powerful old family fortunes fuel these giant funding entities. Many of these organizations have interlocking boards. Richard Mellon Scaife, president of Sarah Scaife Foundation, is a trustee of the Heritage Foundation, while lSI President T. Kenneth Cribb and Heritage President Edwin Feulner, Jr., both sit on the board of the Scaife Foundation. Scaife in turn gives money to Heritage and to lSI, where Feulner is a boardmember. William Bennett, the values czar and former U.S. Secretary of Education, who is also a Scaife boardmember, holds a fellowship at Heritage funded by the Olin Foundation. Within lSI, CN carries on the Simon tradition. With an annual budget of $300,000, CN gives money and training to student editors and writers at its 50-plus conservative publications. Assistance comes in the form of operating grants, scholarships to cNjournalistic training conferences, story ideas and editorial resources, year-long internships at national publications and guidance from experienced professionals. Network magazines have a combined annual distribution of more than two million copies. CN'S internship programs work, says Henson. "They will pay a magazine to have one of their kids as a staff person for a year. The New Republic has had a number of journalists, some of which they've actually hired on, come up through these paid internships." Students backed by CN have leapfrogged into positions of prominence in media, politics and government, according to a 1996
article in the Washington Monthly. For example, Matthew Rees joined the Weekly Standard from the Wesleyan Review; David Mastio, who wrote columns for the University of Iowa's Campus Review, now writes editorials and edits the op-ed pages at USA Today. Michigan Review's Johnathan J. Miller is now vice president of the Center for Equal Opportunity. Lynne Munson of the Northwestern Review was Lynne Cheney's top staffer at the American Enterprise Institute before she joined Bob Dole's campaign. Mark Thiessen of the Vassar Spectator became Jesse Helms's spokesman on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. No one in this group is more than 30 years old. Nothing like this exists on the left. In fact, foundation money for left-leaning magazines like The Nation, The Progressive or In These Times constitutes 10 percent of the funding right-wing magazines receive. No magazine on the left has its operating costs paid for, as does the ultraright American Spectator. As large foundations fund students who move into government, media and academia, public funding for education, research and public works is shrinking. Frank Chodorov's plan to turn a nation of collectivists into a nation of individualists seems to be working. With its deep pockets, the right can afford to cultivate promising young women and men, raise them to positions of influence and continue to support them as they make their mark on public policy. Hollingsworth hasn't received the kind of help many students receive from CN and other conservative campus groups, and he'll probably find a teaching position without needing any help from lSI. What lSI has done is provide him with an ideology and a link to a rich political network. Hollingsworth spent three days a week student teaching a blended class of first and second graders in the fall of 1996, increasing to five days a week in the winter. His wife, Lisa, says he is mellowing with age, and she thinks that teaching will move him more to the political center. At the time he agreed, softly. But now he says, "I'll be a conservative until they plant me in the ground." 速
For a list of the 50-plus campus newspapers funded by eN, visit inFlux, the online companion of Flux magazine. http://influx.uoregon.edu/cons/
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irl1ut mental health is crucial as they deal Craig Glass killed himself on with cutbacks in sports October8,1996, veering his pickup off a narrow country road and into participation. Sowa, who "Craig was pretty optimistic rehabilitates injured athletes at the an embankment at high speed. The university, also emphasizes the truck climbed nearly 30 feet up the about his recovery for a while, importance of selecting healthy, almost vertical rock face. There productive alternatives to sports. were no skid marks. but don't know how much Craig had many activities to fill Diane, also a runner, says several factors may have the void left by his inability to run he was covering up." contributed to the emotional at the same level of intensity: He was a loving husband and father whirlwind that swept her husband -Diane Glass and a well-liked postmaster in away. But she feels certain that his Winchester. Active in a church inability to keep running at his congregation, he was also an avid accustomed intensity did nothing fisherman, hunter and camper less than take away his will to live. with interests in photography and Craig's apparent reaction to the loss of involvement in his woodworking. These activities sport was extreme, but he was not were not enough to sustain him, however. alone in the type of suffering he endured. Sports psycl;1ologists Eileen Udry, Ph.D., an . and trainers are paying more assistant professor in exercise and attention to cases like Craig's and movement science at the to the link between injury and University of Oregon, suggests emotional distress among that sports be recognized as more athletes. According to research by than just a hobby or pastime for rehabilitation expert Albert many devoted athletes. Sports are Petitpas, Ed.D., of Springfield as important as famil~ friends or College in Massachusetts,S to 13 careers for these people. "We percent of injured athletes acknowledge that someone who develop some form of clinical loses his job will have trouble distress. The athletes, particularly dealing with that, and for some those with career-ending injuries, people sports are just as important or even more so than a job," may become depressed, turn to she says. alcohol to cope or become suicidal, Petitpas told the Monitor, A group of 30 injured rUnners the American Psychological showed significantly more Association's journal. A 1994 depression, anger and confusion, study in the Journal of Athletic along with lower self-esteem, than 30 noninjured runners in a Training reported that a group of athletes who attempted 1988 study published in Perceptual and Motor Skills. Craig's rapid postinjury suicide shared several emotional deterioration supports similarities, including serious those findings. He began injuries that required surgical Craig and Diane joke around before his knee surgery in August 1996. suffering from insomnia and treatment and a rehabilitation that seemed to have nightmares when he did sleep. His co-workers at the lasted six weeks to a year. The prognosis was good for Craig's recovery and return to post office saw unusual mood swings and noticed him making running. He would need to stop running for a while and then ease mistakes he had never made before. He was upset that he couldn't back into it with light jogging on soft surfaces. It would be six to get his heart rate up to the level he was used to. Because he couldn't run at his normal speed, Craig began light eight weeks before he could really start running again and longer before he could regain his speed. But his surgeon encouraged him to jogging late that summer. Diane went with him because she could engage in alternative activities like swimming and biking, which he keep up with him. Normall~ he was about twice as fast as she was, did. "He was pretty optimistic for a while," says Diane, "but I don't and they would run separately. One morning, on the track at the know how much he was covering up. I didn't ever go watch him community college near their home, Craig said to Diane, "If I have swim, but he seemed to enjoy it. At least he faked that it was helping." to run like this, I really don't want to run at all." No matter how many resources injured athletes have to fall back "Suppose you never run a five-minute mile again," she replied. on or how well they seem to be doing, Dr. Claudia Sowa of the "Would that be so bad?" University of Virginia told the Monitor that close attention to athletes' Apparently, it would be for Craig. Diane found him on the living
I
longest mile One runner's trauma reveals the delicate balance between athletes' emotional health and physical strength by Joel Gorthy photos courtesy of Diane Glass
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hings were going great for Craig Glass. He competed in his first Boston Marathon inApril of last year, saying afterward that it was the greatest experience of his life. Back at home in southern Oregon, he and his wife of 23 years, Diane, were building their dream house on a scenic waterfront spot along the North Umpqua River. Craig typically ran at least five times a week on the rural roads near the small town of Wmchester. He had the confidence and posture of an elite athlete, his lean and muscular 43-year-old physique a testimonial to the health benefits of the sport. In 30 years of distance running, nothing slowed Craig down. Nothing, that is, until a seemingly minor injury in June 1996. Craig tore the cartilage in his knee and needed surgery, but he wasn't worried. The injury is common among runners, the operation routine for surgeons. Diane says Craig was on an emotional high for a long time after the marathon, and following the diagnosis of his injury, he still seemed upbeat. She even has a picture of Craig, smiling, being pulled into the operating room in a little red wagon. He had seen a scared young girl being wheeled in for surgery that way and thought he deserved the same. "He was always a joker," says Diane. "He was really optimistic about the surgery." The operation in earlyAugust went smoothl~ but things fell apart quickly afterward. A short but violent depression followed Craig's surgery. At one point in late September he said he felt his soul leave his body.
Craig Glass' high marks in the 1995 Portland Marathon earned him a spot in the prestigious Boston Marathon in 1996.
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Joel Gorthy, a recreational runner, knew Craig Glass but hadn't spoken with him for several years prior to his death. He sensed there was an important story here. "Craig seemed so strong and so together," he says. "I figured there was alesson buried under the confusion of his final days that was important to pass on."
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told her he planned to drive his truck room floor early one morning, lacing up his running shoes 15 minutes before he off a local mountain ridge. After a long was supposed to be at work. When she talk, and after Craig agreed he needed "It is hard to cope with an more serious help, Diane's friend took asked him what he was doing he said he him to the mental ward of a local was going to run himself to death. That injury when your sale source hospital. Doctors diagnosed him with comment struck close to home in more psychotic depression and believed he ways than one for Diane, whose father of identity is your sport." had died of a heart attack while running. had been suffering from halJucinations. Diane flew back from Michigan "I got real angry," says Diane. "He -Eileen Udry, Ph.D. wouldn't explain what was wrong." immediately. During his stay in the hospital, the It is common for injured athletes to doctors believed Craig's condition be unwilling to explain their was improving. However, the feelings. Udry says that most emotional stress on an injured athletes have high confidence and athlete gets worse the longer the strong self-images that often result athlete has to stay away from the almost exclusively from their sport, Petitpas reported in the sports participation. When athletes like Craig are injured, they Monitor. Tension and anxiety increase in athletes as they face the may lose their main source of selfprospect of lost participation in image. This can shatter their sense their sports. They often become of invincibili~ and they can be too proud to discuss their emotional confused as they ponder an uncertain future. pain. Udry says the myth of the "The doctors felt that he had "super athlete"-the belief that those in top physical form are also a remarkable recovery," says the strongest mentally-needs to Diane, who along with Craig's be done away with if emotional parents and siblings spent as problems are to be identified and much time as possible with him treated successfully during during his seven days in the recovery. Because many athletes hospital. "They believed he had experienced a severe psychotic buy into this myth, they are less depression, which they stabilized likely to seek help if they encounter emotional difficulties. with medication and therapy. Diane recognized that fact and They released him after a week. He fooled them so well." persuaded Craig to open up to her Craig's suicide occurred the in late September. He told her, "I same day he was released from was at the point where I thought I could just go to the track the hospital. It wasn't until after his death and ... die doing what I love to do." He said he felt like someone that Diane learned about a notable else had stepped in and was history of depression in Craig's Craig crosses the finish line at the lOOth Boston Marathon, controlling his life. At that point family. He has a brother and sister an experience he called the greatest of his life. Diane told Craig he needed to see who have both had bouts of severe a counselor. She had to leave for depression. But Craig never Michigan on a business trip, but she suggested Craig see a doctor showed any symptoms. "He was the most unlikely person to ever while she was gone or wait until she returned and they would go be depressed," says Diane. "If he was depressed, I didn't know about together. She called to check up on him a couple of days later and it, and he was using his running to self-medicate." The concept of using a sport to deal with emotional problems is found out he had gone to an urgent-care clinic and seen a physician, who diagnosed him with depression and prescribed Prozac. "I'm prevalent among athletes, particularly runners. Evidence indicates feeling really good. I think I'm going to be okay/' he told her. that physical activity increases the body's ability to combat stress "But he almost sounded too good," says Diane now, thinking and depression through increased production of a chemical in the back. brain called norepinephrine, explained Rod K. Dishman, Ph.D., of The next day she attempted to call him at the post office, but he the University of Georgia, in the Monitor. Regular physical exercise hadn't shown up for work. Diane then phoned a friend and asked provides benefits like decreased body fat and improved muscle her to check up on him at the house. The friend arrived to discover strength, flexibilit)T, endurance and posture, which in themselves can Craig distraught, having written a note saying he was literally lead to higher self-confidence and a brighter outlook. Most researchers walking around without his soul and couldn't go on living. He also agree that the removal of these physical and mental benefits of athletic
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Still, it is becoming clear that injured involvement is what can cause emotional athletes face an elevated risk of problems for those used to regular exercise. developing such emotional problems as Now armed with as "good of an depression and lowered self-esteem, understanding as possible" of Craig's which can lead to suicide. Whether or suicide and the reasons behind it, Diane not Craig's injury was the dominant encourages other athletes and their factor leading to his suicide, cases like families to guard themselves against a his raise questions for sports similar tragedy. psychologists and will lead to a better "I think it's really, really important for understanding of how injuries can athletes to not train too heavily in one affect athletes' mental health. sport," she says. "If you're a biker, run It is too late to prevent tragedy for often and weight train. Be able to get your Craig Glass, but his family has exercise some other way. I don't think managed to find a hidden blessing in most people realize the chemical change his death. "We're trying to learn from that can happen in your body if you don't it and working hard through the anger," get those endorphins and how important says Diane. In the course of extensive it is to really do a lot of other self-care like counseling following the death, 18-yearmeditation, cross-training and taking long old Carissa Glass admitted that she has breaks from your primary sport." been dealing with a moderate depression for Udry also says it is important for athletes several years. She had been irritable and out to make sure their sports are not the most of touch, but Craig and Diane had always important, dominant part of their lives. "I would dismissed it as natural teenage behavior. Diane say that people in sports should not become now knows that it was something much deeper, unidimensional in terms of their self-concept," she and it took Craig's death to convince Carissa to look says. "It is hard to cope with an injury when your more closely at her condition and deal with it. sole source of identity is your sport." To assist families and athletic trainers, sports Both Carissa and her brother, Chad, 21, are very active in sports and recreation. Diane says she sees a psychology professionals have noted warning signs tendency in both of them, but especially Carissa, to watch for in people with sports injuries. Signs to self-medicate through sports much like their that athletes are not adjusting well during injury father. recovery include expressions of anger about their "We've talked about what might happen if injuries, denial of their physical or emotional you get injured," explains Diane. "We've become pain, refusal to watch competitions of their sport, very aware of the signs and symptoms of withdrawal from family and friends and displays depression, and what to do if you feel depressed." of rapid mood swings. Craig had displayed many Carissa is no longer able to compete in of these symptoms, but his downfall was so fast running events at her high school that his family and doctors had track meets; the surface reminds little time to understand what he her too much of her dad. She now was going through, much less to Before each event, in a competes in the pole vault and offer appropriate treatments. the javelin throw. Before each "These kinds of psychomoment of silence, Carissa event, in a moment of silence, she logical aspects of sports injuries clutches her father's Boston are just starting to get clutches her father's Boston Marathon medallion for luck and acknowledged," says Udry. thinks with pride of everything "More and more, we will start to Marathon medallion for luck and he accomplished---':'including see support groups for injured convincing her to face her athletes and better therapies for depression and find effective them before they reach such a thinks of everything he accomplished. ways to deal with it. critical point." Diane says she is thankful Researchers say that few studies of the links between sports injuries and suicide have been that Craig's death was not completely in vain. "Carissa thinks of it as done, and none are conclusive. Healthy athletes are believed to be a gift from her dad. She really does." 速 just as likely to commit suicide as anyone. And in Craig's case, other factors probably contributed to his suicide. These include his family's For more information on how to recognize signs of depression and where potential genetic tendency toward depression, the stress of building to get help, as well as suggestions for dealing with the suicide of a close a new house, possible routine postoperative depression and reaction friend or relative, visit inFlux, the online companion of Flux magazine. to medication. http://influx.uoregon.edu/suicide/
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closeUp
unspecified figures by Kendra Smith photos by Jay,E Shih
M
Mike Randles in front offrieze (detail) Unspecified Figures From the Burden ofPhysics.
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OSt artists' work tries to comfort people, says Oregon artist Mike Randles. But Randles doesn't want to make comfortable art. His paintings and sculptures explor~ contradictions, and that upsets some people. And while he doesn't intend to disturb, Randles can't ignore the ambiguities of life in his work. "If it's not happy art, I'm sorry," he says. Randles's pieces have caused a furor more than once. In 1989, Artquake, a Portland exhibition, accepted his work and then refused to show it. He was expelled from the University of Oregon's Masters of Fine Arts program for, he claims, "political incorrectitude." He admits that the work he had been doing at the time was "testy," but he says another factor in the expulsion was that he was creating too much art-12 exhibitions in five months. Laura Alpert, head of the fine arts department, would not comment on Randles's expulsion. Six years later, Randles is still actively creating and showing art. For the second time, one of his sculptures has been selected to travel in the Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition, a prestigious two-year international exhibition of small sculptures organized by the University of Hawaii. He also has a show on display at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon. Randles, a former National Endowment for the Arts Artist in Residence in Eugene, has been creating art for 34 years. He's held a variety of jobs: army officer, sailor, ski instructor, farm owner, cattle rancher, sailing teacher. "You live long enough, and all sorts of things happen," he says. His life hasn't been like most, but in his work he tries to express parts of his personal experience that are universal. "In my art, I try to find a common
bond between my life and others'," he says. He is more concerned with substance than any particular style, though much of his work depicts human and animal forms. A multimedia artist whose artistic ideas are driven by the materials he finds and uses, Randles describes himself as "a person who makes work out of junk." For example, his current series of paintings, called "Unspecified Figures From the Burden of Physics," is built from layer upon layer of discarded dressmaker's patterns papier-mached to canvas. The paintings address issues of oppression, stereotyping and control. The unified, androgynous forms in the pieces resemble DNA double helixes and are captured in the geometry of the dress patterns. Randles says the figures and their placement in the paintings speak about the human condition and huma.nity's tendency for putting people in a box. "Once we invented the rectangle, we managed to box and cube everything and everybody," he says. "The rectangle is not found in nature, but it's man's single worst invention. It has him trapped." Randles avoids cultural traps by relying on his independent vision. He says that when people today search for something to believe in, they should look inside themselves for a reason to exist. "Don't look fOf it from society," he says. "With six billion people on the planet, no one individual is needed." 速
Above: The Fly i n g Crutchperson, Randles's commentary on the clumsiness of political correctness.
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Right: Madonna With Fashion Statement.
If"Itj To see more of Mike Randles's art, visit inFlux,
~J the online companion of Flux magazine.
http://influx.uoregon.edu/randles/
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