Lewis & Clark College

The Pioneer Log: Lewis & Clark College’s Student-Run Newspaper

Volume 94, No. 1

Lewis & Clark College Student Newspaper

Pioneer Log Staff

2020-02-07

text/pdf

Text; Newspaper

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Lewis & Clark College: Pioneer Log / Mossy Log

By LEXIE BOREN
Four Lewis & Clark students were
set to travel to Beijing during
the spring semester, before
CET Academic Programs cancelled
their 2020 study abroad programs
in China due to the 2019 Novel
Coronavirus outbreak. Having learned
of the cancellation, two of the affected
students will be switching over to CET’s
language-intensive program in Taiwan,
and two will remain in the U.S at LC.
The new coronavirus, which was
first transmitted to humans at a meat
market in Wuhan, China, is spreading
rapidly across the globe. According to
the World Health Organization, over
24,000 people have been infected and
nearly 500 have died.
CET was monitoring the outbreak
closely and sent the program’s faculty
advisor, Keith Dede, professor of
Chinese, updates via email.
“Because it happened right before
the program was about to get going,
it’s a transition period and it’s really
hard to rearrange schedules really
quickly,” Dede said.
In a statement on CET’s website,
they announced their decision to
cancel the program, citing travel
advisories from the Center for Disease
Control (CDC) and the U.S. State
Department. There were LC students
on two of CET’s programs, one a
language-intensive program and one
a general culture program, both based
in Beijing.
Maggie Beutler ’21 was on the
general-culture program and had
already travelled to Beijing when she
learned that the program had been
cancelled.
“The entire city had been shut
down, transportation was shutting
down,” Beutler said. “So a lot of the
essential amenities were all being
closed, and they were telling us that
our program had also shut down while
we were there, and the best they could
offer us was potentially online classes.”
Lexi Ferentinos ’21, who was on the
language-intensive program, had not
yet traveled to Beijing due to the later start date of her program.
“Everyone at LC has been
incredibly understanding, helpful and
accommodating,” Ferentinos said
via email. “I’m really grateful for the
professors who are working to catch me
up to speed on everything I’ve missed
while I wasn’t enrolled. I’m especially thankful for my academic advisor who
has helped me with literally anything
I’ve needed since I transferred to this
school.”
Both Beutler and Ferentinos will
be remaining at LC for the spring
semester.
Blythe Knott, director of overseas & off-campus programs, commented on
the likelihood of cancellation of other
programs.
“My guess is that it’s unlikely - the
quarantine area is still mostly centered
on Wuhan city and Hubei province,”
Knott said via email.
“Coronavirus” continued on pg. 3Vol. 94 No.1 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020 www.piolog.com
J.K. Rowling Scandal
J.K. Rowling is in hot water for her allegedly
transphobic tweet that has left Potterheads feeling
betrayed.
See page 5The practice of Piropos, or catcalling, in the
Dominican Republic, as experienced by LC students
studying abroad.Catcalling Abroad
See page 6In the Pamplin Weight Room, shirts must
cover the mid-section in order to be considered
appropriate. Sports Bra Debate
See page 11Tune in to this week’s episode of The PioPod, in
which Cyrus Partovi, the former foreign affairs
director-general to the Shah of Iran’s Imperial
Court, and Abdo Al Rayyis, an LC student from
Iraq, comment on the Iran crisis.Iran Crisis
“But we still have our rights” features photographs
of notable black suffragists throughout history and a
maquette of the famous sculpture “Swing Low.”New Watzek Exhibit
See page 8
Study abroad program in Beijing
cancelled due to coronavirus outbreak
COURSTESY OF KODAI KUBOTA
A photo of Chinese New Year celebrations in 2018, taken by LC alum Kodai Kubota on an earlier CET trip to Beijing. In memory
of Megan
Nellor
By LEXIE BOREN
MEGAN NELLOR, a sophomore
from Vancouver, Washington,
passed away on campus on Dec.
11 from a pulmonary embolism.
Nellor was an aspiring art history
major at LC. She religiously went to trivia
nights with her friends. She participated in
intramural soccer, where her team proudly
won last place. She worked for the theatre
department as a stage crew member,
participating especially heavily in last fall’s
production of “The Christians.”
Keagan Gilmartin ’22, who was close
with Nellor, spoke fondly of her memories
of with her , mentioning the macaroni
tattoo Nellor got on her elbow the first
week of classes, and remembering her
special way of tying shoes.
“We were talking about the different
ways there are to tie your shoes,” Gilmartin
said. “Megan mentioned a way that I had
never done before. It was very intricate.
And she sat with me until I got it, probably
for 45 minutes.”
Brynne Anderson ’22 described
Nellor’s love for video essays, podcasts and
documentaries.
“She was an avid consumer of media,”
Anderson said.
Julia Neely ’22, a close friend of
Nellor’s, spoke in her memory.
“She was very elegantly irreverent,”
Neely said. “Irreverent in the sense that it
was Megan’s world, and we were all just
living in it, but not in an offensive way,
not in a self-absorbed way. But she was so
elegant about it.”
Ruth Makonnen ’22, another close
friend of Nellor’s, wrote a post shortly after
her passing for the Instagram account
Humans of Lewis and Clark, detailing
Nellor’s finest qualities. In an interview,
she spoke about her friendship with
Nellor.
“I always felt like being her friend
was kind of a privilege,” Ruth Makonnen
’22 said. “She didn’t just like people. She
wasn’t unfriendly or anything, but she was
very particular about what she liked.”
Kurt Fosso, professor of English and
Megan’s advisor, spoke on having her as
a student.
“She had a certain kind of wry, very
intelligent demeanor,” Fosso said. “I
honestly think there’s something about
her that I can’t put into words.”
Vice President of Student Life and
Dean of Students Robin Holmes-Sullivan
spoke on Nellor’s loss in a statement to
The Pioneer Log.
“Remembering” continued on pg. 3Student workers must take on greater roles
within the department of Student Activities
COURTESY OF THE NELLOR FAMILY
Megan Nellor smiling on the beach.By AMELIA EICHEL
TWO DEVELOPMENTS have
occurred within the department
of Student Activities. The former
Director of Student Activities Jason
Feiner, has transitioned out of the
position, and the Student Media Board’s
(SMB) budget was cut by over $10,000.
Over winter break, students who
work for the department of Student
Activities were made aware via an
email from Assistant Dean Charlie
Ahlquist BA ’07, MAT ’08 that
Feiner was transitioning out of his
position.
“I heard from Charlie, not Jason and
it came as a complete surprise to me,” Campus Activities Board (CAB) Chair
Henry Farfan ’20 said.
Vice President of Student Life
Robin Holmes-Sullivan commented on
Feiner’s departure.
“As part of continually reassessing
the Division of Student Life, Jason is
now director of special events, which
focuses on planning and preparing for
commencement,” Holmes-Sullivan said
via email.
In addition to his other
responsibilities, Ahlquist is now the
acting director of student activities.
He previously supervised Feiner, and
according to him, there are no plans to
hire a new student activities director in
the immediate future.
“Right now I’m keeping the operations going as we try and plan for
longer term for the rest of the semester,”
Ahlquist said.
Feiner’s former responsibilities
included managing student
organization budgets and approving
various expenditures, coordinating
liability waivers for certain activities,
helping serve as liaison between
the business office and some of the
various organizations and advising
the CAB chair, SMB chair, club sports
coordinator and other student activities
staff.
The Director of Student Leadership
and Service Harold McNaron, Student
Activities Intern Mikah Bertelmann
’21, Student Activities Office Assistant
Daniela Zamora Alcaraz ’20 and Ahlquist have taken over these
responsibilities.
“I’ve taken a more active role in the
management and support of student
organizations including being more
available in the office,” Bertelmann said.
Zamora Acaraz has also taken a
more active role and said that student
workers often do not know how to
handle the tasks that Feiner used to
manage.
“There should also be a staff member
in the office to help this transition
as we (student workers) sometimes
find ourselves lost in processes and
paperwork that we don’t know about
because that was never our job,”
Zamora Acaraz said via email.
“Budget” continued on pg. 3
Global fears over the quickly spreading coronavirus affect students worldwideFRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020
NEWS 2
By MACKENZIE HERRING
THE ASSOCIATED Students of
Lewis & Clark (ASLC) held a
debate for prospective senators,
Christian Gipson ’23, Amatullah Aman
’21, Stephanie Morrall ’23, Abdo Al Rayyis
’22 and Miron Banjac ’22 in J.R. Howard
on Jan. 21. There were five candidates for
four open senator positions. The debate
was moderated by Editor-in-Chief Hanna
Merzbach ’20 and Copy Chief Ariel McGee
’21 from The Pioneer Log.
On Feb. 5, it was announced that
Gipson, Aman, Morrall and Al Rayyis won
the election and will be appointed to the
ASLC Senate.
The debate began with an opening
statement from each candidate. Morall
said that, as an ASLC senator, she aims to
increase representation for each individual
student.
“I feel like the individual voice of Lewis
& Clark really needs to be advocated
more,” Morall said. “Lewis & Clark talks a
lot about how they care about people with
disabilities or any special circumstances,
but I believe that in practice, they could
do a better job. So I feel really passionate
about being an advocate for those voices
that I think haven’t been paid enough
attention to.”
Following opening statements, the
moderators asked general questions
to the group. The first question asked how the candidates would make ASLC
more accessible to constituents if they
became a senator. Aman emphasized the
importance of communication.
“Communication is a key thing,” Aman
said. “And it’s the reason why there’s a
huge disconnect between ASLC and the
student body. And it’s not because ASLC
isn’t doing anything, it’s just that the
student body doesn’t know. I think that in
having more town halls that will kind of
bring in the student body into these events.
I feel like then we will be able to interact.”
Gipson said that his most important
goal would be tackling the issue of division
at LC.
“Upon coming to Lewis & Clark, I
think I was expecting more community,
more school spirit, more just like ‘I go to
Lewis & Clark and I really love it,’” Gipson
said. “I really like going to Lewis & Clark,
but it just seems like it’s just divided.
But that community aspect I think is
really important and that school spirit
is so important too. So I think different
community events are going to be a really
good thing for the students.”
Al Rayyis mentioned that he would
like to see LC expand their food options
and incorporate more student spaces.
“We have a real lack of food options
on campus and it would be really nice to
have a bigger variety in terms of prices,”
Al Rayyis said. “I also think a lot of
campuses have a place to, you know, for students to just be and hang out and have
the tools for them to do that. And then (in
that) building there’ll be certain forms of
entertainment or cultural nights, etc. Sort
of ... just one place that brings together
the culture of the campus.”
Banjac spoke about his frustrations
with Student Rights and Responsibilities (SRR), and how its policies can impact
students.
“First stop these masquerades of
these Shared Resolutions and make it
so that the students can actually impact
what happens to them,” Banjac said.
“Having a scale of these offenses that,
so if you breach the alcohol policy ... because , let’s face it, on college campuses
these are common problems that people
are commonly going to get in trouble for
this. Why not have a scale of sort of what
happens when you get in trouble? Also
no more of these cross examinations
between students and trying to hunt
down these ‘culprits.’”By HANNA MERZBACH
LEWIS & CLARK’S only full-
time Arabic instructor, Adelaide
Byrum, left her position after
the Fall 2019 semester, citing issues
of undercompensation for increasing
administrative duties. Byrum has been at
LC since the Arabic program’s inception
in 2015.
With Byrum’s absence, Afaf Azaz —
an adjunct instructor of Arabic — took a
heavier course load and is teaching two
sections (ARB 102 and ARB 202) this
semester. A search will soon be underway
for a full-time Arabic instructor.
Matthieu Raillard, chair of the World
Languages and Literatures department,
and Oren Kosansky, Director of Middle
East and North African (MENA) studies,
are leading the search process.
“We’re not going to miss a step,”
Kosansky said. “Addie (Byrum) was
integral to building this program, and
the success of the program is largely
based on her ability as an instructor and
administrator and just a great person. We
wish her well in her new endeavors and
where she’s going, and we’re sad that she’s
gone. Her leaving, though, doesn’t in any
way threaten the Arabic program.”
Modern Standard Arabic was first
taught at LC in the fall of 2010, but was
only offered to those studying abroad in
Morocco the following spring. In 2015,
Byrum was hired to help develop the
program. “When Addie was hired, she was a
bit of a guinea pig because the program
didn’t exist,” Raillard said. “So she knew
that she was going to step into a program
that didn’t exist and would have to help
develop and she did so very well.”
With increasing demand for the
program, Arabic expanded to offer
200-level courses. Although Arabic is
not yet a minor or a part of the World
Languages and Literatures major (which
requires a major and minor language),
Arabic courses are required for the MENA
minor.
Byrum was officially given the title
of section head of Arabic in the spring
of 2019 to recognize the work she was
already doing and to respond to the
growing demand for Arabic at LC.
In a December 2019 email sent to
Arabic students, Byrum states that in
Fall 2019, she received a salary offer
of $50,380, which she did not think
adequately compensated her for her extra
administrative duties. These include
supervising a new advanced Arabic
independent study, sitting on the MENA
minor steering committee, running a
collaborative Arabic program with Reed
college, and hiring and training a new
adjunct Arabic instructor every fall.
Byrum states in her email that after
negotiating with Bruce Suttmeier, the
dean of the college, she was offered a
$2,000 stipend for her section head and
administrative duties. Byrum argued that
this stipend was not enough to cover all of her duties outside of teaching. Suttmeier
declined to comment.
After considering the cost of living
in Portland, Byrum decided to leave her
position at LC, and academia altogether.
“Most importantly, I realized that I
would never be able to buy a home in
Portland on my salary,” Byrum said in an
email to The Pioneer Log. “I believe that
I should be able to buy a home within a
reasonable commuting distance from
my place of work on my salary as Arabic
instructor and section head at this college,
without having a partner.”
Byrum moved back home to Pittsburgh
to start a union carpenter apprenticeship
program, in hopes of building her own
tiny home.
“I am not only leaving for myself,”
Byrum said. “I’m leaving because it
pains me to see my colleagues (some
approaching retirement age) struggling
financially and dealing with the ongoing
stress of not feeling appreciated by their
employer.”
Many of Byrum’s former students were
saddened by her departure, including
Ellie Miller ’20, who is now in ARB 202.
“Addie is one of the best language
teachers I’ve had, and made learning
a difficult language fun and less
intimidating, especially as a beginner
in 101,” Miller said. “I understand the
reasons why she left, but it’s a shame
the school wasn’t able to keep her on the
faculty.”
Miller hopes that the school expands
the Arabic program beyond the 202 level.
“It’s such an important language and
lots of people want to learn it, so a school
with such an international focus should
be able to encourage their students in
enrolling and continuing further study,”
Miller said. “It’s always hard to get a new
program going, but Addie made a great
start and I think the interest is there for it
to keep growing.”
Although Byrum is gone, Raillard and
Kosansky said that the future looks bright
for Arabic at LC.
“I’m really optimistic,” Raillard said.
“The demand is there. The interest is
there. It’s an important language. It
becomes a question again of stabilizing
things and then funding moving forward.”
They hope to work towards
establishing an Arabic language minor
and integrating it into the World
Languages and Literature major. The
Arabic program will continue to partner
with the bi-annual Morocco study abroad
trip, and the proposed language-intensive
Jordan trip.Arabic instructor leaves,
rehiring process to begin
By BELLA MET
ON JAN. 26, Bob Mandel,
professor of International
Affairs and head of the
department, sent out a much
anticipated email to the IA
department announcing who the
search committee chose to hire
for Fall 2020.
Suparna Chaudhry, who specializes
in global human rights and
international law, will fill a tenure-
track position vacated by Heather
Smith-Cannoy, who left the college in
Spring 2019.
Matt Scroggs, who specializes
in American foreign policy, the
Middle East and security studies,
will be teaching courses on U.S.
foreign policy and Middle East
politics for a two-year stint. He
will be working alongside Cyrus
Partovi who will be kept on staff
as a professor emeritus.
Mandel commented on the
new hires.
“For both Chaudhry and
Scroggs the quality of their
education, their teaching
experience, and their research
and publications made them
outstanding candidates for the
positions offered,” Mandel said
via email.
For the tenure-track position,
Mandel led a committee of
professors and one international
affairs student, Matthew Brown
’21. The committee reviewed
applications from hundreds
of qualified individuals and
recommended the strongest
candidates to Dean of the Collge
Bruce Suttmeier.
Three potential hires were
invited in to give lectures where
student feedback was gathered..
Chaudhry gave a lecture about
NGOs and refugees. She was
awarded the position shortly
after.
Scroggs was later approved by
the dean and the same committee
for the two-year position. He
was initially hired to fill the post
of Partovi, who has been a part
of the IAs department for 28
years. Despite his original plan
of retiring after this semester,
Partovi will remain at LC as professor emeritus in the IA
department.
“It was my request to the dean
that I teach part-time and continue
my advising responsibilities next
fall and would like to express
my appreciation and gratitude
to the Dean of the College Bruce
Suttermier for his kindness,
collegiality and support,” Partovi
said via email.
Partovi is returning to teach
Middle East Politics (IA290) in
the fall and Studies of Diplomacy
(IA312) in the spring. As Partovi
and Scroggs have similar
backgrounds, their courses are
intended to compliment one
another; Scroggs will also teach
Middle East Politics, but in the
spring.
Associate Professor of
International Affairs and
Program Director of Political
Economy Elizabeth Bennett will
be on sabbatical in the academic
year of 2020-2021 and Associate
Professor of International Affairs
Laura Vinson will return from
sabbatical in Fall 2020.
Bennett has been invited to
serve as a research fellow to
the Carr Institute at Harvard
University, which focuses on both
political and economic rights.
“Wherever I spend my
sabbatical, I’ll be working on
my book, which is about how
challenging and possible it is to
pay living wages to workers in
global supply chains,” Bennett
said.
Bennett’s position as program
director of the Political Economy
minor will be filled temporarily
by Eric Tymoigne, associate
professor of economics. Elective
courses within the minor will
be taught by Aine McCarthy,
assistant professor of economics.
International Political Economy
(IPE) will not be offered. In the
Fall 2019 and this semester,
Bennett taught three sections of
IPE (IA 340) for those in need of
that requirement.
Vinson spent her time away
focusing on peacebuilding efforts
and conflict communities, and
the role of religious mediators in
conflict and political crisis.Faculty changes made
within IA department
ASLC holds special election for four vacant senate seats
RAYA DEUSSEN/PIONEER LOG
BLAKE ASHBY/PIONEER LOG
Bryum helped start LC’s Arabic program in 2015, teaching Modern Standard Arabic.By RILEY HANNA
ENFORCED AS of Jan. 1, Oregon
retailers can no longer provide
single-use plastic bags for
customers. If customers want a bag for
their items, they may purchase a paper
bag, composed of at least 40% post-
consumer recycled content, for a fee of at
least five cents. As part of the Sustainable
Shopping Initiative, the ban was approved
by the Oregon legislature this past
summer.
Single-use plastic bags were already
banned in the city of Portland, a ban
which was first implemented Oct. 15, 2011.
Portland was the first city in Oregon to
enforce this policy. Yet unlike the Oregon
Bag Ban, the city wide ban did not charge customers a fee to purchase a paper bag.
Other cities across Oregon, however, had
already implemented bag bans which
charged a fee for paper bags.
Mia Babasyan ’22, Students Engage in
Eco Defense (SEED) member and former
Environment Oregon intern, commented
on how the ban has the potential to
educate Oregonians.
“I think sustainable shopping
initiatives are great ways to get people
and communities at large involved in
environmental issues, and I think this is a
great step in order to do that in Oregon,”
Babasyan said.
The Oregon Department of
Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) website
explained that a few kinds of plastic bags
are an exception to this fee, including “Bags designed to hold bulk items such as
small hardware or for sanitary or privacy
purposes, certain specialty bags, such as
garment bags, and bags sold in a package
for uses such as food storage, garbage or
pet waste.”
Businesses may charge more than five
cents for paper bags if they wish, and some
local jurisdictions may require a greater
charge. The paper bag fee money stays
with the businesses, so they are able to
recover the costs of purchasing paper bags
for customers to use. Businesses must
keep track of the fees they collect and, in
2024, must submit a report to the DEQ.
The DEQ will then submit a report of their
collected data to the Oregon legislature in
2025.
The DEQ explained why the state
decided to adopt the ban on their website.
“When plastic bags end up in recycling
bins, they can contaminate the recycling
stream and endanger the safety of workers
who must untangle them from recycling
equipment,” their website says. “(The
ban) is also a positive first step toward
addressing the large amount of plastic
debris in the oceans, which threatens
Oregon’s marine wildlife.”
According to the Center for Biological
Diversity’s website, Americans alone use
100 billion plastic bags annually, with each
bag only used for 12 minutes on average. It
takes a plastic bag 500 years to degrade in
a landfill, with only 1% of these bags being
recycled. Moreover, the website states that
these bags have a large impact on wildlife,
as “100,000 marine animals are killed by plastic bags annually.”
For customers who do not want to
purchase a paper bag at checkout, carrying
a reusable bag while shopping is the
best option. Sustainability Director Amy
Dvorak stressed the importance of using
durable, reusable products rather than
single or multi-use options.
“It’s hard to understand our
environmental impacts without having a
full life-cycle assessment, which is a ton of
work in itself,” Dvorak said. “But, I would
say probably 90% of the time, maybe
more, if you’re using something reusable,
you’re always having a lower impact.”
Another ban was proposed by the
Sustainable Shopping Initiative, which
sought to eliminate polystyrene products,
commonly known as Styrofoam. Yet this
bill was rejected, as three Democrats who
were expected to be in favor of the ban
sided with Republicans and voted against
it. Needing 16 votes to pass in the Oregon
Senate, it failed 15-14.
The fact that the ban on polystyrene
did not pass exemplifies the ongoing
fight against environmental degradation.
Babasyan emphasized that although the
ban on plastic bags is a positive step, we
must not stop there in advocating for the
health of the planet.
“Personally, I think any form of
single-use plastic pollution is harmful and
detrimental in certain ways,” Babasyan
said. “I don’t think (the ban is) the answer
to solving any major issues such as climate
change, but I think it’s a step in the right
direction for different societies.”FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020
NEWS 3
Hanna Merzbach , Editor-in-
Chief
Amelia Eichel , Managing Editor
Lexie Boren , News Editor
Mackenzie Herring , News
Editor
Cassidy Harris , Opinion Editor
Ihsaan Mohamed , Opinion
Editor
Aidan D’Anna , Features Editor
Matthew Feldman, Features
Editor
Riley Hanna , Arts Editor
Justin Howerton , Arts Editor
Alex Barr, Sports Editor
Annie Erickson , Sports Editor
Anna DeSmet , Backdoor Editor
Blake Ashby , Social Media
Manager
Mateo Kaiser , Web Editor &
Head of Broadcasting
Stuart Myers, Business Manager
Molly Robinson , Faculty Advisor
Staff Writers
Bella Met
Can Altunyak
Abdo Al Rayyis
Nick Biesterfeld
Tadao Kumasaka
Patrick Lee
Casper Pierce
Erika Andersen
Gabriel Mantione-Holmes
Julia Salomone
Aubrey Roché
Toby Bazeley
Photographers/Illustrators
Will Toppin
Ada Barbee
Gabriel Mantione-Holmes
Liv Nicks-Turnley
Seth Moriarty
Aida Irving
Eva Szoboszlay
Venus EdlinOregon introduces small fee on paper
bags, eliminates single-use plastic bags
WILL TOPPIN/PIONEER LOG
A photo of a sign in the local Fred Meyers, notifying customers about the bag ban.Staff Box
“The US should do all that it can
to stop cartel violence”
(Dec. 6, 2019)
The Pioneer Log
mischaracterized the content
of this article with the above
headline. The headline has
been changed online to “My city
was under siege by the Sinaloa
Cartel. Why should you care?”Corrections
Contributors’ Meetings
Every Monday at 5:30 p.m. in J.R.
Howard 135
Get paid to write, illustrate or take
photos for The Pioneer Log! Come
to our next contributors’ meeting to
meet the editors, hear their pitches
and pitch your own stories. No
experience or work study required.
Office Hours
Every Tuesday from 4 - 6 p.m. in
The Pioneer Log office
(Templeton 238)
Meet with the editor-in-chief and
managing editor to pitch stories,
ask questions and learn more about
the journalistic process.Continued from pg. 1
On Jan. 31, an email was sent to
the student body, faculty and staff
entitled, “Updates and resources related
to Coronavirus.” The email contained
information about the steps LC has taken
in preparation for the virus, including the
cancellation of the Beijing programs and
screening in the health center.
“I think the biggest misconception
with the coronavirus right now is that it’s
the plague,” Beutler said. “And I think a
lot of people are really just masking their
xenophobia and their racism by talking as
if the virus is going to get them.”
Beutler explained the differences
between East Asian responses and
Caucasian responses to the virus.
“When I came back to campus, a lot
of my East Asian friends were saying,
‘I’m glad you’re safe,’” Beutler said. “But
when I talked to my Caucasian friends, it
was a lot more, ‘What should I be worried
about? What should I do? Do you think I
am going to get infected?’”Nick Ni ’23 is from Zhejiang province
in China, which currently has the
second highest confirmed infected case
number in the country. He described his
experience as a Chinese student studying
in the U.S. and the effect coronavirus has
had.
“The coronavirus is not a thing to
joke about,” Ni said via email. “Those are
people, not numbers, and people in China
are dying for this. And it’s not a reason to
become racist to Asians. And there’s a lot
of misinformation about the virus which
gets people to overreact to the situation.”
Ni has many friends and family
members still under quarantine in his
hometown.
“The whole situation sometimes
gives me a hard time to concentrate and
hard to get sleep,” Ni said via email. “But
compared to what my family and friends
is experiencing and the inconvenience
they get, my worry will do nothing.”
Additional reporting by Amelia EichelContinued from pg. 1
“The sudden and tragic death of
Megan Nellor on Dec. 11, 2019 was
a terrible loss for our community,”
Holmes-Sullivan said via email. “My
heart goes out to Megan’s family,
and to all those here at Lewis & Clark
who were close to Megan. She was
an energetic and vivacious presence
among us, and we are grateful for
the many ways she enhanced our
community. Megan is and will be
deeply missed.”
A celebration of life will be held
in Nellor’s honor on Feb. 23 at 2 p.m. in Agnes Flanagan Chapel and will
be attended by Nellor’s family. The
service will be followed by a reception
in Greg Pavillion.
Dean of Spiritual Life Mark Duntley
spoke on the celebration of life.
“There will be an opportunity for
people to share memories and gather,
and as a community remind ourselves
that this person was a valuable part
of our community,” Duntley said.
“Her life ended suddenly, and that’s a
sadness that will last for a really long
time for most of the people who knew
her well.”
Continued from pg. 1
“In my opinion, his departure
shows that the administration feels
that Jason’s job was not relevant,
but student organizations are used to
coming into the office and having a
knowledgeable staff member to help
them with their events and overall
queries, which as student workers we
try to do, but are unable since we don’t
have as much knowledge as Jason did,”
Zamora Acaraz said.
She also commented on Ahlquist’s
role in the office.
“This is not to say that we were left
completely alone, Charlie Ahlquist has
been there helping with this transition
but I still consider that we need a staff
member that is available full time,”
Zamora Acaraz said.
The Student Media Board is funded
by a $20 per semester optional student
media fee, so the budget is largely
defined by how many students pay the
fee. This semester, the fund dropped
by $10,000. At the time of reporting,
The Pioneer Log has not been able to
confirm the reason for this drop.
SMB Chair Cole Harris ’20 was
hired last semester by Feiner to
allocate funds to the eight student
media organizations which include
The Pioneer Log, KLC Radio and six
student-run journals. Although the
fund fluctuates depending on how
many students pay the fee, Harris
was not expecting the fund to drop so significantly.
The Pioneer Log and KLC Radio’s
budgets were cut by about $6,000 and
$4,500 respectively. All other journals
recieved their full expected budgets.
“The slashes to our budget are a
major blow to KLC’s plans for this
semester,” Aidan Mackie ’20, the
general manager of KLC radio, said
via email. “Over the past year, we
have been working to create a sense of
heart and spirit on our often lackluster
campus. These budget cuts only work
to undermine this effort along with
our already ailing student experience.
This is yet another reminder that we
must demand more from our school.
If not, these things will only continue
to happen.”
The Pioneer Log’s Business
Manager Stuart Myers ’21 commented
on how the cuts will impact the paper.
“If we are unable to make up the
$6,000, we won’t be able to afford to
print six issues and we will have to cut
editors’ stipends substantially, or just
cut positions, either one, which we
can’t really do,” Myers said. “We either
can’t pay our editors or can’t pay our
contributors with that sort of cut.”
When Harris became aware of the
25% decrease in funds, he decided to
make the cuts without asking any SMB
members to submit a budget. He made
this decision unilaterally.
Harris said that it is difficult for a
journal to run on any less than $2,000
COURTESY OF MAGGIE BEUTLER
Maggie Beutler was already in Beijing when she learned her program was cancelled.Coronavirus affects
study abroad tripsRemembering the
life of Megan Nellor
Budget cuts impact
student media, KLC
since that money covers printing.
“Operating on a $2,000 budget
to publish a journal is hard enough,
having your budget cut to $1,500
for a year is nearly impossible,”
Harris said. “And all of the student
journals already cut down on all of
the costs that they can. They don’t
pay their staff, they don’t pay their
submitters.”
Last semester, Harris realized
that there were no formal processes for budget allocation to ensure that
the funds were being distributed
fairly. As editor of The Meridian, he
wanted to avoid a conflict of interest,
so he organized a meeting with all
of the student media organizations
and had them vote on how the funds
would be distributed.
“(When I was hired), I didn’t
know the process of how the funding
went, and it was so informal,” Harris
said. “So I tried to create some form of equity in the system and everybody
had to vote to approve everybody else’s
numbers (last semester). But this
semester with having $10,000 less, I
just tried to make it proportional.”
Harris is working with Ahlquist and
members of the student government
to restore the student media
organizations’ budgets.
“Note that this will not solve the
underlying problem,” Harris said via
email.FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020
OPINION 4
Syllabi with American perspectives fuel biases
Classes at LC must begin including international perspectives in order to reduce cultural insensitivity
By CAN ALTUNKAYNAK
I WAS A SOPHOMORE when one
of my classmates said “Yeah, we
do not really like Turkish people.”
To my surprise, my professor did not
say anything and the class went on. I,
on the other hand, felt targeted. The
negative feelings lingered on for hours
which prevented me from studying or
socializing with other people. It is easy
to let these kinds of things go when
they happen once. But when they are
happening constantly in classes, it gets
distressing. After talking to my other
international friends, I realized they had
similar issues in their classes. I hope
that this piece will initiate conversations
and show the Lewis & Clark community
how international students feel about
the education we get at LC, especially in
areas relating to humanities and social
sciences.
Daniela Zamora Alcaraz ’20 is an
International Affairs major who has also
been in similar situations
“Recently one of the things that
is surprising to me is to see how
little preparation some professors do
regarding how to manage conversations
when it comes to controversial issues,”
Zamora Alcaraz said. “And I think that
I have experienced some times where
professors validate opinions that can
harm other students’ cultures, because
they don’t know how to react to those
situations.”
For Zamora Alcaraz, not addressing
wrong ideas right away in class
perpetuates the ignorance. It is important
to acknowledge that the material we have
in classes are as biased as any other piece
of information in a global world. Pamela Altabcharani ’21 is an
International Affairs major.
“I think there should be disclaimers at
the start of courses about the whiteness
of the material we study,” Altabcharani
said. “Most of our syllabus is white,
American and male and that has an effect
on how students read material and look
at material.”
It does not matter if someone has
lived extensively and studied a country
for a long period of time. At the end of the
day they do not have the same emotional
and psychological ties that locals do. For
instance, in order for the symposia in
any college to be truly global, you need
people from different countries which is
challenging due to financial constraints.
You might have someone talking about
a specific area in a specific country,
but at the end of the day if they hold an
American passport, they are not affected
by the events happening in the country to
the same extent and thus do not have the
same insight.
American perspectives are more
visible than the perspectives of those in
many other nations when it comes to
academic research, but this should not
prevent international perspectives from
being heard in academic settings. If
international perspectives are not heard,
we are inadvertently being taught through
a culturally colonialist and imperialist
lens as we force our opinions on others
thinking that they are the absolute truth.
Abdulrahman Al Rayyis ’22 is a
computer science and economics major.
“It is amazing that people still thought
in that class that America acted in the
best interest of the world,” Al-Rayyis said.
“We would literally study realism, every
country for its own self-interest, and then people would be criticizing China and
Russia harshly for the same things the
United States does.”
Of course, in such a world, the U.S. is
on the right side because look at Captain
America, he is good and handsome.
It does not matter if the International
Monetary Fund is pushing other countries
to change their financial systems and
causing unrest and protests. And it is
okay when people die in Libya in NATO
airstrikes because it is just “collateral
damage.” As one of the students in one of
my classes said, these actions are justified
“because the U.S. is trying to shape the
world in its own image.” I am pretty sure
that is what the colonial powers thought
throughout history. We saw how that
worked out.
Altabcharani offers an interesting
insight into how specific situations
should be handled.
“I think what Americans should
do while they are criticizing specific
pathologies in the outside world,
especially in the Middle East, Latin
America, Africa, etc., they should know
that the same things are happening in
the U.S. — the same misogyny, the same
sexual assault, the same Islamophobia,
same lack of access to healthcare, the
same persecution,” Altabcharani said
“And that does not make the U.S. a shitty
country and it should be the same when
it comes to other countries — that you
look at it as a whole, as a country with
extremely diverse, multi-layered people.
But at the same time, there are specific
tropes of lack of religious freedom, lack of
freedom of expression, but these things
can happen everywhere. They are not
inherent.”
Reducing identities is yet another problem of our curriculum. Many times,
I hear students and professors say that
“not everyone is the same.‘’ but since
we do not have the chance to explore
what that means, our education tends to
show the world in a reductive way. For
example, many people do not know that
Turks come from Central Asia, or about
the transition period from the Ottoman
Empire to the Turkish Republic, or that
we have a religious-secular divide and so
on. What they see is a majority Muslim
country that is next to Arabic states, so
Turkey and the surrounding states are
reduced to be the same although these
countries are very different. I constantly
hear people say that they have been to
Europe as if it is “United States of Europe.”
There might be close ties between the EU
countries, but according to the UN there
are 44 countries in Europe and only 27 of
them are currently in the EU and Europe
is a continent, it is not a federation.
“I felt like I had to fit in a box,” Al
Rayyis said. “I was repeatedly asked
whether I was a Kurd or an Iraqi, and
I would say both, and get an answer
saying that I cannot be both. All the
Americans could have individual
opinions, but for me it felt like I needed
to represent a nation’s opinion rather
than my personal opinion.”
We should also try to understand
the meaning and emotional aspects
of different events happening in other
countries rather than talking about
them as if they were a chess game
and making bold comments. As an
international student, I really would
like to study in an environment in
which professors make sure that
students are talking about Iraq,
Kashmir, Sudan, etc. with the same sensitivity they talk about the gun
violence, mass shootings and police
brutality in the U.S. Because the pain
people feel in those areas are not any
less than the ones felt in the U.S. and
those people are not any less human
than the ones around you now.
To sum it up, our syllabi should
acknowledge biases of the authors,
talk about their backgrounds, include
international perspectives, and show
the range of identities possible within
a country or region and support it with
visual material that portrays the issue
from the perspective of local actors.
Last but not the least, we should base
all of this on a community in which
people do not feel afraid to share their
opinions and are not afraid to make
mistakes.
It’s time for black celebrities to
“make Hollywood’s pockets hurt”
By IHSAAN MOHAMED
URBAN . A LOADED word
often used to describe black
people in America while still
being politically correct. At the 62nd
Grammy’s Awards last weekend, artist
Tyler, the Creator won his first Grammy:
Rap Album of the Year. While this may
sound like a well-deserved moment
of celebration, Tyler chose to end his
speech by calling out the Academy
and the awards for pigeonholing black
artists into that category. He called the
“Urban and Rap” category a socially
acceptable way of saying the N word,
which is completely correct. Instead of
celebrating the record-breaking, genre-
bending art that Black artists regularly
create in any of the big three categories
(Album of the Year, Song of the Year
and Record of the Year), the Grammys
choose to celebrate them through
categories such as R&B Song of the Year
and Rap Album of the Year. The only
qualification they use seems to be the
color of the artists’ skin.
While Tyler is completely right,
there are two issues here. The first is that the Academy reflects major
problems in our society as a whole.
To be black in American society is to
have your achievements boxed into
specific categories to make it an easier
pill to swallow. Black people are not
granted the freedom of expression and
recognition that others are. The second
issue is that calling
these institutions
out clearly is not
working. Back in
2016, Will and
Jada Smith publicly
denounced the
Oscars Awards and
created the popular
hashtag
#OscarsSoWhite
to call out the lack
of nonwhite actors
being celebrated for
their achievements. And yet, three and a
half years later, that hashtag continues to
be incredibly relevant. And while change
cannot be achieved overnight, one would
think that the awards would want to
maintain the support of such titans of
industry, but they clearly do not care.To the artists who keep getting
snubbed despite undeniable success,
you must stop seeking validation from
these white institutions. If artists want
to really have their voices heard, they
must “make their pockets hurt.” If
they choose to award you even if only
in the “rap” category, do not show up
just to flaunt the
one Grammy you
have won. Instead,
begin supporting all
of the institutions
who actually seek
to rightfully reward
genre-bending artists
regardless of race.
Support the Soul
Train Awards, or
the NAACP Image
Awards, where
your art is not just
a tick on the diversity box. The only
way Hollywood and the Academy will
actually attempt to reform themselves
is when they are economically hurt. It
is crazy to me that immensely wealthy
people of color in Hollywood have not
tried to create their own academy and
awards shows. If the budget is there,
where is the will? It is time for black
artists who are vital to the industry to
create change for future generations.
No longer should these celebrities rely
on institutions who can barely see past
their skin color to recognize their art
for what it really is: magnificent and
glorious.
RAYA DEUSSEN/PIONEER LOG
IHAVE ALREADY spoken
with the many colleagues and
students I care for (you know
I will miss you!) so I will just get
down to some of the things that
need to change at LC. I experienced
a growing number of frustrations
working at LC, and once I began to
share with colleagues realized that
I do not want to invest any more
in a place that is toxic for so many
of its workers. My experiences are
not unique and I want students
to know what their teachers, and
especially non-tenured/tenure-
track instructors, experience
regularly. Paying teachers is not a
priority, nor is providing stability.
When their contracts are up for
renewal, adjunct instructors often
do not receive their new contracts
until after the school year begins
- we cannot know how much
money we will be making and
cannot plan our finances, and now
if we try to negotiate the Dean’s
office might refuse (regardless
of increasing workload) citing
“internal equity concerns” as
they did with me. There does not
seem to be any logic to the length
of instructor contracts and even
instructors who have been at LC
many years are often surprised
to receive one-year contracts. I
did not receive my new contract
for the 2019-2020 academic
year until mid-September when
I went to the Dean’s office to
pick it up after asking about it a
few times. They had mailed it
to an address I’d removed from
LC’s Workday system over a year
prior - I’d moved and updated
my address three times since
then. Despite officially receiving
the title of “Arabic Section Head”
and growing responsibilities, I
received essentially no raise and
only a one-year contract offer. My
previous contract had been for
three years. There is no policy in the faculty handbook governing
adjunct compensation and as far
as I know it is at the discretion of
the Dean. Talking with colleagues
in the World Languages &
Literatures department confirmed
the shared experience that if we
reach out to communicate with
the Dean, we have no certainty
regarding how long we will
have to wait or sometimes even
*if* we will hear back about a
given question or request. After
reaching out about my contract
on Oct. 1 and waiting until Oct.
22 for a meeting, I did not receive
my updated contract offer until
Oct. 30. I was offered a $2000
stipend, an amount the Dean
cited as being granted to other
program and minor leaders who
are all tenured or tenure-track
professors whose job expectations
and compensation are completely
different from that of an instructor.
Because of all this I experienced
my worst and most stressful
semester since I started at LC, and
was physically ill and exhausted
for much of it. After I resigned,
I was surprised and again very
stressed to be underpaid by over
$4000 on my last paycheck, plus
the corresponding 9% retirement
contribution. It was remedied
the following week, but it was not
right that I had to endure any of
this. That resigning from LC was
the right decision was confirmed
again and again. LC needs to work
now to make compensating its
dedicated faculty and staff and
providing stability to its workers
an absolute priority. Yes, these
problems exist elsewhere, but that
does not change the fact that they
are wrong here.

All my best,
AddieLETTER TO THE EDITOR
No longer should these
celebrities rely on
institutions who can
barely see past their
skin color to recognize
their art for what it
really is: magnificent
and glorious.
Are you interested in
submitting an article to
the Opinion section?
Would you like to respond
to our coverage with a
letter to the editor?
To find out more, contact
piolog@lclark.edu.IHSAAN MOHAMED/PIONEER LOG
Former Arabic instructor Adelaide
Byrum speaks about LC departureFRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020
OPINION 5
By ABDO AL-RAYYIS
OVER THE PAST few months,
protesters from my home
country of Iraq have been facing
live ammunition and tear gas bombs
for demanding some of their most
basic rights. Being thousands of miles
away, I am not sure any of my efforts
or commentary will help my friends
and family. But my silence certainly will
not. With this article, I hope to make the
Iraqis’ demands louder and clearer and
to provide insight into the Iraqi reaction
to Qassim Soleimani’s assassination
which took place in Baghdad, Iraq.
Yet again, the Iraqi people have
found themselves caught in a larger
international power struggle. To be
precise, Iraq has been in an unenviable
situation throughout the past few
decades with foreign meddling, armed
conflict and opposing militias. Recently,
the country has been the target of
strikes whilst experiencing nationwide
protests. The Iraqi protests are calling for
immediate action towards ending foreign
meddling and domestic corruption.
Most of the protesters are young men
and women who have no political
representation and no hope of economic
opportunities. The governmental
response has been deadly, with the death
toll rising to above 700 people and about
15,000 injured.
A closer look at the protests shows a
much more complicated situation. One
of the most prominent Shiite clerics,
Muqtada Al Sadr, has announced his
withdrawal from the Iraqi protests. Al
Sadr has a huge following of those who
have been participating in the protests.
His base and militias have been able to
keep the protesters relatively safe, from
confrontation between Al Sadr’s militias
and other pro-Iranian militias. However,
most of the Al Sadrists left the protests
after this announcement, leaving the
civil non-affiliated Iraqis with the risk of
bigger government crackdowns.
The death of Soleimani took much of the needed attention off the
protesters’ demands. The very next day
after the strike, Iraqis both mourned
and celebrated the death of the Iranian
General within miles of each other.
While the civil protesters were giving
out Baklava and dancing in happiness,
religious militias organized memorials
for the two leaders, Soleimani and
Al Muhandis, the leader of Kataib
Hezbollah, and protests against the
United States. Soleimani was the
commander of the Quds force and the
mastermind behind many of Iran’s
advances in the region.
The militia protests showed that the
heavily secured Green Zone in Baghdad
is secured against the Iraqi people but
open to Iranian interests of removing
the US. presence and ending the civil
protests. For the past few months, civil
protesters who tried to enter the Green
Zone were shot dead. While the pro-
Iranian militants protesting the US
embassy were able to enter the Green
Zone within one day. It does not take
much observation to notice the number
of different flags and agendas in the US
embassy riots, which shows that those
protests are not related to the popular
Tahrir Square protests in Baghdad and
are not in the interest of the Iraqi youth.
One thing all Iraqis can agree on is that no
one wanted Sulimani’s strike to happen
inside of Iraq, leading to a potential proxy
war between Iran and the United States
inside the borders of Iraq.
Despite all the losses, these protests
show a kindle of hope in moving past
sectarian and ethnic violence. Iraqis from
dominantly Shiite and Sunni cities alike
are protesting the presence of Iranian
militias and the American military with
a famous chant of “ ىقبت دادغب ارب ارب ناريإ
ةرح ”which roughly translates to “Iran out,
out. Baghdad stays free!” It is unclear
what the future holds for Iraq, as the
political scene is in rapid transformation.
The Iraqi youth remains united in
rejecting corrupt political figures and
foreign interests. For younger generations, memes
act as a form of coping with warTensions rise within
Iraq after drone strike
By CASSIDY HARRIS
ON JAN 3, President Donald
Trump ordered a drone strike in
Baghdad to assassinate Iranian
Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani.
Naturally, the Iranian government
responded with threats against the US.,
and the US. swiftly reciprocated. The
internet watched in horror as existing
tensions between the two states flared
in full view of the public via Twitter.
Immediately, the terms #WW3 and
#Draft were trending nationwide.
After exploring these trends, though,
you discover that the internet had an
interesting reaction to international
insecurity: coping with memes.
Memes about draft-dodging and
fighting in World War III flurried
around social media in the weeks
following Soleimani’s assassination.
There seemed to be two opposing
teams when it came to WW3 memes:
the primarily Gen Z meme-makers
and sharers, and others who thought
making fun of war was revolting and
inappropriate. Because of the innately
comedic nature of memes, this
controversy has been painted in black-
and-white; if you make or share a
meme about WW3, you are insensitive
and must not understand the gravity
of the situation. Yet it is much more
nuanced than that.
Memes have become a form of
expression, therapy and community
for so many young people online. This
raises a larger point: memes are being
used to cope with crises, especially by
the younger generations. At the same
time, the majority of the makers and
sharers of the memes are very much
aware of the gravity of the situation.
They understand that people will
die, blood will be shed, money will be
spent, lives will be changed and cities
could crumble. That is precisely why
the memes are so popular. Nobody (or
at least very few people) think swar and its effects are funny. But memes,
be they toxic or wholesome, still
attract attention and provoke cultural
and political discussion. They have
incited necessary
dialogue and
awareness, albeit
through rather
unconventional
means, and are
very effective
in encouraging
discourse.
Memes have
also become
a strange new
form of resistance. Through viral
content, ideas and concepts are being
spread at rapid speed. Those who
would have otherwise not known or
been ambivalent about a topic are now exposed to the idea in a way
that is simple and easy to digest.
So many people, especially younger
generations, use these platforms to
spread and
criticize larger
political and
social concepts.
Having millions
of people
sharing memes
about the war
is better than
no conversation
at all. At the
end of the day,
it was the memes encouraging and
provuding space for people to speak
up against the war, to protest and to
otherwise not stay silent in the face of
unnecessary violence.By BELLA MET
DURING WINTER break, I
continued a holiday tradition that
I have cherished since I was a
wide-eyed elementary schooler: a Harry
Potter marathon. I may be older than I
was when I first became mesmerized by
the magic of the Wizarding World, but it
never ceases to brighten up the season,
especially when I need some downtime
outside of the festivities and familial
visitations. I can simply relax with my
old friends, Harry, Ron and Hermione,
while they laugh over a cup of butterbeer.
Although this year, I must confess that
despite being overwhelmed by sensations
of nostalgia, there was a tugging at my
heart, questioning if I was wrong to feel
the way I did.
On Dec. 19, prior to enacting my
seasonal ritual, J. K. Rowling tweeted,
“Dress however you please. Call yourself
whatever you like. Sleep with any
consenting adult who’ll have you. Live
your best life in peace and security. But
force women out of their jobs for stating
that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya
#ThisIsNotADrill.” The tweet was
speaking out for Maya Forstater, a
woman who went to court claiming
she was fired for her belief that gender
is not an identity but biological. All
over the media, Rowling was labeled
as transphobic, and more specifically,
a TERF, defined as trans-exclusionary
radical feminist.
This is not the first time she has
made allegedly trans-phobic remarks
and her representatives have played it off
as middle-aged mess ups. Many on the
internet have been calling for Rowling to
be “canceled.” But is the cancellation of a
person a way to truly stop the continued
perpetuation of hate and abominable
misdeeds of a celebrity? From there,
I decided to examine what it actually
means to cancel a person and examine
what it has accomplished with celebrity controversy.
Canceling someone or something
means to cut off any support for them.
Whether that be avoiding movies
featuring actors who make ignorant
comments, or avoiding patronage
at restaurants like Chick-Fil-A who
contribute to homophobic organizations,
or refusing to support artists who have
committed obscene crimes like R. Kelly.
The practice of canceling can bring awareness to important issues and
condemn behavior deemed unacceptable.
But cancel culture itself can be toxic.
Often, it is a means for the media to have
a common enemy which takes attention
off the issues. It also draws gray lines,
creating hypocrisy.
For example, I have stopped listening
to R. Kelly altogether. If “I Believe I Can
Fly” comes on, I leave the room because
I believe he must be punished for his abominable crimes. Whereas when the
King of Pop’s iconic Halloween song
“Thriller” comes on, I raise my hands
up like claws of a ghoul, forgetting
that Michael Jackson committed very
similar misdeeds to Kelly. It shows how
complicated cancel culture is. One person
can go canceled and another can continue
to have a legacy. Typically reasons behind
someone going "uncanceled" can range
from apathy shown by the public, status held by the potential canceled, or pity
garnered from a sad past or decisions
made due to a twisted psychological
rationale.
So the question remains. Should we
cancel J. K. Rowling? I guess for me,
the question really is: should I cancel
Harry Potter? I, though I can not speak
for everyone, must give an affirmative
to the first question and a hard no on
the second. Despite my love of Harry
Potter, whenever I discuss it with fellow
Potterheads, I almost never talk about
Rowling herself. Once, in my life as an
aspiring novelist, I looked up to her as the
writer of the most successful book series
of all time, the first billionaire writer and
the woman who gave me the character
of Hermione, without whom I would not
have fully embraced my identity.
I cannot condone hateful language, so
I refuse to sing direct praises to Rowling
anymore. In a way, at least for me, the
world of Harry Potter lives outside of
her. Harry Potter may have begun living
because Rowling sat in a coffee shop and
penned it, but it is the fans that continue
to give it life. People may argue that the
message of Harry Potter is a sham because
Rowling does not live up to the morale of
acceptance and unconditional love. But
do all authors live what they write? Since
there are plenty of examples where this
is not the case, I think this where art can
be separated from the artist. Harry Potter
did not teach me how to love, but showed
me a world I wished to see, where anyone
who is different is loved unapologetically
and together fights back against bigotry.
Maybe it is time Rowling takes a look at
her own gospel and considers what side
of history she wishes to be on. Does she
wish to be with Dumbledore’s Army
who fights for justice and what is right,
treating others with kindness and respect
no matter their walk of life, or will she be
remembered as a death eater, a hypocrite
incapable of understanding what true
acceptance looks like?Dumbledore would disapprove of J.K. Rowling
“Cancel culture” leads fans to grapple with separating Rowling’s transphobic comments from her books
ADA BARBEE/PIONEER LOG
RAYA DEUSSEN/PIONEER LOGMemes have become
a form of expression,
therapy and
community for so many
young people online.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020
FEATURES 6
By TADAO KUMASAKA
I ARRIVED IN SANTIAGO de los
Caballeros on Jan. 2 along with
twenty-four other students from
universities all over the U.S.. We were
taken to each of our host families.
The next day we made our way to
the university for the orientation for
our program through the Council of
International Educational Exchange
(CIEE).
I began the program with the vague
goal of learning about the culture
of the Dominican Republic. Being
immersed in the culture has allowed
me to learn about it in more nuanced
ways than I could have imagined,
but the process can be difficult and
uncomfortable. As challenging as it
has been for me, being cis-male has
freed me from significant burdens
that my peers on the program have to
deal with.
Female-identifying students
endure piropos, or catcalling,
regularly while studying abroad in the
DR. Piropos force students to rethink
how they dress and move about in
their new home, and consider their
racial and ethnic identities in new
ways.
Piropos can be translated as
“compliments” or “pick-up lines,” and
are found in many different forms
around Latin America. Johanna
Izoteco ’20 from Denison University
is a student on the program who came
to the Dominican Republic with a
curiosity about piropos.
“I kind of looked forward to it
because I wanted to see what it is all
about,” Izoteco said. “My dad, who
is from Mexico, has told me about
piropos and
their version of
piropos. I was
looking forward
to hearing the
different types
of piropos. I
know it is more
of a compliment
thing, or it is
supposed to
be, but I think
it has gone too
far.”
Mibra Díaz, the Student Life
Coordinator of CIEE, tries to warn
students about piropos during orientation each semester.
“We explain that a piropo can go
from very calm things to very harsh
things that are very
infuriating,” Díaz
said. “What we tell
(students) is that,
of course, we can
not help prevent
(piropos), that
(students) won’t
hear that being said
to them. But in case
they do, (we tell the
students) to ignore
them or to not
confront them. It happens because of
how present the machismo is in the
country.”
While it is one thing to be warned
about piropos, it is an entirely different thing to experience them. I have seen
men lean out of car windows to call
to women. I have heard stories of
men passing on motorcycles and then
turning around to deliver a piropo. I
have heard piropos in supermarkets,
city taxis and especially while walking
down the street.
“When you have to change the way
that you are looking because you are
trying to avoid a certain reaction is
where it is not okay anymore,” Izoteco
said. “I want to wear shorts outside.
It’s hot, but I can’t because you’re
asking for it. If anything happens, ‘oh,
because you wore those shorts, you
were asking for it. You knew you were
going to get that reaction, so why wear
the shorts.’”
Izoteco then brought up something
that I have heard many times now: wearing certain clothes will elicit
more piropos, but there are no clothes
that will get rid of piropos entirely.
The prevalence of piropos has also
made students less willing to leave the
house. Cristina Colón ’22 from Indiana
University,
another student
on the program,
believes that
piropos have
gotten in the way
of some learning
opportunities.
“I wanted
to do Speaking
English club but I was like ‘That
means I have to leave my house again?
No, I don’t want to,’” Colón said. “I cut
off that whole experience because it
was not worth the stress of going out.”Izoteco was also frustrated about
missing out on experiences in the
country more broadly.
“It has held me back a lot from
getting to know a beautiful country
and learning what is out here,” Izoteco
said.
All women receive piropos, but
Dominican men often discriminate
based on race and nationality.
Students on the program are forced to
consider their own racial and ethnic
identities in different ways.
“It also depends on what ethnicity
you are most phenotypically
associated with,” Colón said. “Some
of us look American, but some of us
blend in.”
Colón identifies as Puerto Rican
and is often picked out as latina.
While talking about a blonde peer on
the program, Colón said, “she always
gets attacked way heavier and they
always focus on her. They don’t pick
me out of the group.”
Katrina Clayton ’21 from Hope
College has also struggled with the
amount of piropos, but she has also
found different comforts as a biracial
person in the Dominican Republic.
“In the U.S. I am invisible because
many of the people who hold power
are white, and so my voice doesn’t get
heard as much,” Clayton said. “But
here, I am invisible because I am like
everyone else ... It’s so comforting. It’s
wonderful. I don’t have to feel like,
‘Oh, is everyone looking at me because
my hair is different.’ No. My hair is
just like everyone else’s.”
There is no one on the program
who feels like they are used to life
here. Although we have learned and
experienced an immense amount in
the month that we have been here, we
are nowhere near understanding the
nuances of the culture.
“I want you to ask
me at the end of the
trip to see how I have
gotten used to it or my
progress because right
now, we have been here
for a month,” Izateco
said. “I have not been
going out that much.
I want to see if it is
because of them (piropos), or because
I am so used to the American culture
that I realize that it is just a cultural
change or something more than that.”Weathering catcalling while spending a semester abroad
Kreisman campaigns for seat in Oregon House
By NICK BIESTERFELD
IN THE YEARS FOLLOWING Paige
Kreisman’s self-described “abusive
and transphobic” upbringing, her
life has become a series of firsts. After
leaving home to join the U.S. Army
at the age of 17, she became the first
woman to serve as an Indirect Fire
Infantryman. In the wake of President
Trump’s ban on transgendered
individuals serving in the Army, she
returned to Oregon to complete her
education and went on to receive the
first-ever campaign endorsement from
the Portland Democratic Socialists of
America. Now, she is seeking to become
the first transgender person elected to
Oregon’s State Legislature.
Kreisman joins a nationwide wave
of far-left candidates vying for a seat
in the upcoming election. The Oregon
primaries, where she will go head to
head against incumbent Representa
tive Rob Nosse, are scheduled for May
19. The two will compete for Oregon
House District 42, which encompasses
most of southeast Portland, including
areas where many off-campus Lewis &
Clark students live.
Unseating Nosse, who has been
a member of the Oregon House of
Representatives since 2014, is no small
task. While Nosse has established
himself as a strong Democrat,
Kreisman is running a bold campaign
that falls even further to the left. The
main tenets of her platform include affordable housing, improved labor
rights, stricter campaign finance laws
and an Oregon specific Green New
Deal.
In accordance with her calls for
campaign finance reform, Kreisman
refuses to accept any corporate
campaign contributions. This
differentiates her from Nosse, who has
accepted donations from corporations
including Nike and Comcast. Kreisman
is also a member of the Democratic
Socialists of America, a political and
activist organization dedicated to
improving the lives of working people
by supporting labor movements and
policies like Medicare for All.
While Nosse’s policies are not
quite as progressive as Kreisman’s,
his experience in government will
be advantageous come election day.
His past legislative accomplishments
include a bill that allows
undocumented immigrants to obtain
a driver’s license, as well as a ban on
single-use plastic bags. However, he
also voted to cut retirement benefits
for public employees, a decision that
drew criticism from unions across the
state.
The upcoming election presents a
chance for LC students to make their
voices heard through voting, both
at the federal and state level. For
many students, 2020 will be the first
election they get to participate in.
For Kreisman, it is a chance to enact
change and make history.
COURTESY OF KATRINA CLAYTON.
LC students pass in front of the Cathedral of Santo Domingo in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic.
RAYA DEUSSEN/PIONEER LOGKreisman, a former U.S. Army infantryman, aims to be Oregon’s first transgender representative
Lewis & Clark overseas students process the practice of piropos, catcalling in the Dominican Republic
“When you have to change
the way that you are
looking because you are
trying to avoid a certain
reaction is where it is not
okay anymore.”
Johanna Izoteco ’20“I cut off that whole
experience because
it was not worth the
stress of going out.”
Cristina Colón ’22FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020
FEATURES 7
Political economy program hosts union lecture
Former LC Professor returns to campus to speak on the place of unions in the changing job market
By AIDAN D’ANNA
AS STUDENTS prepare to
graduate college and enter
the workforce, unions are
something they are bound to face.
Invited by Associate Professor of
International Affairs and Program
Director of Political Economy
Elizabeth Bennett, Professor Emeritus
of Economics Martin Hart-Landsberg
and Scott Cheesewright ’09 came
to campus on Jan. 27 to give a talk
entitled “Why Unions Matter.”
Landsberg is the founder of Lewis &
Clark’s Political economy program,
and Cheesewright is an LC alumnus
who majored in Economics.
Landsberg and Cheesewright both
work for Portland Jobs with Justice,
an organization whose purpose is to
defend and protect worker’s rights.
They serve on a committee called
Portland Rising which, according
to Cheesewright, puts on “events
approximately monthly to bring
together unions, workers and people
of faith to strategize how to improve
the lives of working people and
support workers who are in struggle.”
However, the main focus of the
“Why Unions Matter” program is
increasing awareness among students.
“Colleges, universities, high
schools are places where there are a
lot of people who we think should
know about (unions) and the unions
aren’t going in there to talk about it,”
Landsberg said.
Over the past two years, Jobs with
Justice representatives have given this talk over eighty times, visiting
colleges and high schools in the
Portland metro area and all across
Oregon.
Cole Harris ’20, a Political
Economy minor, attended the talk.
“As a senior going into the job
market, finding job opportunities
that treat workers equitably is really challenging, and I think this was really
helpful in discerning where to look for
a potential employment opportunity,”
Harris said.
The talk began with an introduction
by Landsberg as he shared statistics
that showed a decline in union
participation from 17.7 million people
in 1983 (21% of the workforce) to 14.6 million people in 2019 (10.3%
of the workforce). Landsberg claimed
that this decline can be explained
by a pervasive and sustained attack
on unions by large corporations
with help from the government. In
addition, the media vilifies union
activities, according to Landsberg,
turning strikes into “disturbances.” He argued that these representations
isolate unions and deter non-union
workers from joining.
Cheesewright then told several
stories from his work as a union
organizer with the Service Employees
International Union (SEIU), which
he does in addition to his work at
Jobs with Justice. He talked about
his childhood growing up in a small
town in Colorado and how his mom
worked in a non-union hospital as a
child care teacher for 16 years. She
saw no increase in wages aside from
normal inflation adjustments, so
she confronted her human resources
representative and was fired within a
month.
“Colorado is a right-to-work state,
which means there are additional
barriers to workers building strong
unions,” Cheesewright said.
The event closed with additional
statistics from Landsberg, he
explained that during economic
expansions in the ’50s and ’60s, the
additional income created by the
expansion went to the bottom 99%
of the population, as opposed to the
most recent economic expansion,
where over 75% of new income created
went to the top 1% of the population.
Landsberg argues that when union
participation goes down, the share of
income going to the top 20% of the
population goes up, and 40% of the
shift in income is explained by union
density.
“In the United States, unions are
supposed to be a protected right ... but
they often aren’t,” Landsberg said.
By MATTHEW FELDMAN
AS WITH EVERY spring semester,
the first day of classes was
preceded by Martin Luther King
Jr. Day. This year, as is customary,
multiple campus organizations
organized MLK Service Week. This
year, the organizational committee
was comprised of members of multiple
organizations across all three Lewis &
Clark campuses.
According to one of the committee co-
chairs, Director of Student Leadership
and Service (SLS) Harold McNaron,
making sure the events applied to a wide
variety of people was a key goal.
“We really tried to provide a number of events to catch many people and
different interests,” McNaron said.
“Because people want to honor and learn
about Dr. King in different ways and the
Civil Rights movement in general.”
Events included a lecture on MLK
Jr. by Michelle DePass, a screening of
the movie Harriet, a step and activism
workshop, a service day and a blood
drive. Events were distributed across the
three campuses in order to include the
entire LC community.
The MLK week committee
prioritized the quality of the events
over the quantity. Zakiya Newman ‘21,
co-chair of MLK week committee and
a Black Student Union (BSU) leader,
highlighted the committee’s effort to ensure the quality and variety of the
events.
“Instead of doing a ton of events
every single day, we wanted to try to
spread it out over two weeks and make
it more focused on the quality and
engagement of a few specific events,”
Newman said. “(We wanted to be)
hitting different dimensions so that it’s
not just all lectures or all workshops.”
The MLK committee hopes to
expand the attendance and inclusivity
of MLK week events in the future. The
committee wanted to make it clear that
MLK week is open to all.
“We wanted to emphasize that these
events are open to all the community —
it’s not like you have to be a POC or Black person to celebrate the events,” Newman
said. “It’s inclusive to everyone.”
In order to address diversity within
the Black community, the committee
reached out to the Muslim Student
Association (MSA) which organized
a panel on being Black and Muslim.
Amatullah Aman ’21, a panelist at the
event, highlighted that there are more
Black Muslims on the LC campus than
many think.
“In creating space for Black Muslims,
especially on this campus, we open
up the conversation of Blackness and
Islam in America, a history we often
hear nothing about, to understand what
it means to sit on this intersectionality,
and how Black Muslims in America have used historically used Islam as a means
of freedom,”Aman said via email.
The MLK service day, hosted by
SLS, had substantial engagement,
both from LC students and the larger
LC community. Nahla Yeejsuab Lee,
a graduate assistant at SLS and a
member of the MLK week committee,
was happy with the participation of the
LC community and hopes that students
and the community will continue to
volunteer in the Portland area.
“I encourage students to go out and
do some kind of community service or
reach out to a community or nonprofit
organizations and just kind of do things
with them,” Lee said. “I think it’s really
important.”LC community honors MLK Jr. with week of events VENUS EDLIN/PIONEER LOG
Students and community members come together for the Martin Luther King Jr. Service Day project at JOIN on Jan. 25.ADVERTISEMENT
COURTESY OF HAROLD MCNARONStudents participated in events including a service day and a panel on being Black and MuslimFRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020
ARTS 8
By RILEY HANNA
UNTIL APRIL 15, when you walk
up the stairs into Watzek Library
and turn to the right, the powerful
gazes of notable black women in history
meet you. Some look into the distance
as if they see the future. Some appear to
not directly look at you but burn through
you with a palpable fire behind their eyes.
Showcasing these profoundly passionate
women, the new exhibit “But We’ll Have
Our Rights,” curated by Ombudsperson
Valerie White, debuted Jan. 30 and
features the stories and photographs of
black female suffragists.
The exhibit hosts a display of numerous
biographical panels with striking photos of
the women, some of which were originally
“cartes de viste,” or photographs the size
of baseball cards traded among friends
and family from the late 18th century
to the early 19th century. Ida B. Wells
Barnett, Sojourner Truth and Josephine
St. Pierre Ruffin are some of the women
featured. One of these panels is exclusively
dedicated to the suffrage movement in
Oregon, and features Harriet “Hattie”
Redmond and Beatrice Morrow Cannady,
both of whom were janitors while they
fought for black women’s right to vote.
Moreover, the exhibit features a
maquette, or miniature replica, of the
larger memorial for Harriet Tubman,
entitled “Swing Low,” located in Harlem,
New York. The creator of this spectacular
piece, Alison Saar is also the artist behind
the sculpture “York: Terra Incognita,”
found on the academic side of campus
near Watzek.
Facing southward, the bronze
sculpture depicts Tubman running with
a determined countenance with the
front of her dress resembling the grill
of a train, which alludes to her role as a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad
and pays homage to her steadfastness and
perseverance. The rest of her petticoat
depicts a multitude of faces, representing
the many unnamed enslaved black people
who were led to a safer life due to her
courage. Finally, at the back of her dress
Tubman is attached to the base by roots,
which symbolize how she uprooted herself
to make her courageous journeys. Yet,
seeing that the roots are connected to the
base, they potentially suggest that while
she was able to liberate herself from being
enslaved, she was still pulled down by
numerous factors, such as inescapable
racism and sexism.
An especially striking facet of the
exhibition is the side-by-side comparison
of the transcriptions of Sojourner
Truth’s famous “Ain’t I a Woman”
speech, which exemplifies the negative
framing of black people by media sources
throughout history. The widely circulated
transcription published in New York
Independent by journalist Frances Gage
was published 12 years after she actually
gave the speech. This transcription
features a great deal of colloquial language
reminiscent of southern dialect and
numerous grammatical errors as if the
writer deliberately emphasized the fact
she did not have an education. Next to
this version of the speech is a lesser known
version of Truth’s speech transcribed by
Marius Robinson, and published in “The
Anti Slavery Bugle” in 1851. Robinson
was a known audience member when
Truth gave her speech at the Women’s
Rights Convention in 1851, and thus his
version is more historically accurate. His
transcription is far more eloquent than
Gage’s version, portraying Truth as a
powerful, engaging speaker. However, it
is important to note that because Truth
could neither read nor write, there is no way to know exactly what she said.
The same panel also featured a QR
code linking to videos of black women
with Afro-Dutch accents reading the
historically accurate version of Truth’s
speech. As Truth spoke with this accent,
the videos show how the speech would
have sounded at the convention, which
provides a unique glimpse into rhetorical
history. The QR code can be found at the
bottom of this article.
The inspiration for the exhibit stems
from an accidental discovery. Flipping
through an old family photo album,
White found a photograph of a woman
she did not recognize. Luckily there was
a name written on the picture, and White
conducted a simple Google search to see
if there was any information about her.
To her surprise, the mystery woman in
the photograph turned out to be Mary
Eliza Smith Duhart, president of the
Garnet Equal Suffrage Club in Cambridge,
Massachusetts in 1914.
“My family was active in the
Underground Railroad, and my great-
great-grandfather was an underground
railroad conductor and the first black
officer of the Union army,” White said.
“He was a chaplain, and so he knew some
of these people ... So I shouldn’t have
been stunned that she was somebody, but
particularly with women back then it’s so
hard to find out information about them.”
Discovering the long-lost family
friend was the catalyst for the idea and
prompted White to reach out to Special
Collections to see if an exhibit highlighting
black women who, like Duhart, fought
for the right to vote would be possible.
From there, Special Collection employees
Andrea Lewis ’21 and Tyler Short ’21
began working on the exhibit alongside
White, gathering information and writing
the biographies for the panels.White explained that conducting
research for this exhibit validated the
values she had been taught by her family.
“It reinforces what I know just from
my own family’s history, is that anybody
can make a difference,” White said. “And,
you never know what it is that you’re doing
that may not pay off today. It may be 50
years from now. It may be seven years
from now. It may be somebody reading a
letter you wrote 150 years from now. It just
reinforces that it’s important to be part of
what matters, on a grander scale than just
yourself.”
The exhibit not only leaves room for
future expansion but provokes viewers
to investigate these women further. With
all of the room it leaves for opportunity,
this exhibit will hopefully evolve into
a continued project, featuring similar powerful individuals involved in the fight
for equity.
More information on the exhibit can be
found on the Ombuds website.Black female suffragists exhibited in Watzek
By CASPER PIERCE
My mother meets once a month
with a handful of friends and
co-workers to drink wine, eat
snacks and crack jokes about the book
they read in the past month. When I
was younger, my sister and I rolled our
eyes at how excited she was about her
book club and how often throughout
the month she commented on the
book she was currently reading. We
assumed it was just a boring activity
for old people.
Now, I have stopped being mean to
my lovely mother and instead am trying
to answer the following questions:
when did we, as younger folks, begin to
disregard the value of book clubs? How
could I know what value they do or do
not hold? To what extent do book clubs
still exist, and do they have potential
for a comeback?
Olive Savoie ’23 participates in a
small book club in her hometown of
San Francisco. They always make sure
to rotate book choices so that everyone
gets a chance to pick a book they want to read.
“When I pick a book I try to choose
something everyone can be excited
about, and we also aim for stuff that is
recently published,” Savoie said.
Though some English classes do
explore more recent texts, the informal
environment is something unique to
spaces outside the classroom. “What I
love is that we all read books differently
... there is no putting anyone on the
spot, and it feels communal,” Savoie
said.
Everyone in a book club reads
because they want to, and if it starts
to feel like a chore, people are allowed
to not finish the book, skip sections,
complain, and more. There is no
grading system. Since so much reading
is done in an academic setting, students
may be deterred from recreational
reading as a whole, and book clubs
help take the pressure off of it.
Some book clubs also offer the
space to explore different genres; with
so many books in circulation and so
many options available, a theme can
give a sense of centrality to a book club and offer insight into subjects that are
often not given much attention in the
classroom. For instance, one of my
friends recently started a sapphic, or
women-loving-women, themed book
club at her community college because
she wanted to read more lesbian
literature.
The possibilities are endless. What
is stopping us from starting or joining
transgender book clubs? Psychology
book clubs? African American book
clubs? Young adult fiction book clubs?
These do exist—for instance Noname’s
book club, which focuses on authors
of color, and many transgender
book clubs online. These are not
impenetrable spaces; we can easily
join them or start small clubs ourselves
with a couple friends. On top of this,
there are many book clubs around
Portland to seek out.
Book clubs are not dying out, but
they are perhaps waning in a world
where school and work absorbs all of
our time and attention. It seems like
it is becoming harder and harder to
remember that reading does not have
to be a high-stakes activity.
Are we so influenced by academia
that we put too much emphasis on
sounding intelligent rather than
authentically engaging with writing?
Are we, students, so caught up in our
education that we forget something
we regularly do as a chore can also
function as a recreational activity and
a connection with one of the oldest
forms of art known to humanity? Or
are we just sleep-deprived and lacking
in time?
In the flurry of student life, any
type of hobby or planned social activity
might seem like too much of a hassle,
but whether or not you are interested
in joining a book club, it is worth it
to at least give yourself the space to
do so. They serve as opportunities
for unfiltered intellectual discussion
outside of the classroom, allowing
people to stretch their analytical
muscles without the seemingly high-
stakes world of academia looming over
them.
Book clubs offer informal spaces
to discuss literature outside class“Cats” fails as a dense,
nonsensical disaster
By PATRICK LEE
ON DEC. 20, I saw “Cats” on its
opening night. I could not wait.
Although maybe I was one of the
only people who felt this way because the
theater was not more than half full. For
some reason, the audience was primarily
people over 60.
“Cats” is a film directed by Oscar
winner Tom Hooper, based on a Tony
winning musical by Tony winner Andrew
Lloyd Webber. Which itself is based on a
book of poems by Nobel prize winner T. S.
Eliot, and its existence serves as definitive
proof that awards aren’t always indicative
of skill. The film features the talents of
Jason Derulo, Taylor Swift, Dame Judi
Dench, and Sir Ian McKellan.
“Cats” cannot be contained to one
review. Each frame could inspire an
entirely new field of study dedicated solely
to its dissection. For example, in an easy-
to-miss line in the opening song, there is a
mention of “rabbinical cats,” implying that
multiple cats attended rabbinical school.
I will try to summarize the premise
of this fever dream as succinctly as I can,
but it is a Herculean task. We start with
our protagonist, Victoria (Francesca
Hayward), tossed onto the streets of
London. There, she runs into a tribe of
cats that call themselves “Jellicles.” These
Jellicle Cats will compete at the Jellicle
Ball to become the Jellicle Choice, and at this point in the film, my eyes are glazing
over. The Jellicle Choice goes to the
“Heavyside Layer” to begin a new life. Are
they dying? It sure sounds like it. But the
“Heavyside Layer” is a real scientific term
used to describe a layer of the atmosphere.
The Choice is also sent up to the sky in a
hot air balloon, so is the Choice literally
ascending to the Heavyside layer? We
never really know.
Idris Elba’s Macavity serves as the
film’s antagonist, kidnapping all the other
Jellicle Candidates to ensure he secures
the prize. He magically teleports these
candidates to a barge that serves as his
headquarters, because these horrifying cat
creatures are capable of magic. The bulk
of the movie is spent introducing various
candidates, with Jennifer Hudson showing
up every now and then as Grizabella to cry
and sing the same song, “Memory.” She is
acting so hard in this movie that you start
to genuinely worry that she thinks her
performance will land her an Oscar.
There are times where, after your
brain has become numb to everything
that has assaulted it, you have a moment
of clarity. Maybe it is when you notice
Jennifer Hudson’s snot trail approaching
her mouth, or when Rebel Wilson unzips
her skin. You realize that this is a real thing
that you are now watching. It is a distinctly
unnerving feeling that reminds one of an
existential crisis. It is dense, yet empty. It
is a black hole.
In all honesty, I am sad this movie
failed. It was awful, but at the very least
it was brave enough to give people what
they never knew they needed: terrifying
cat-gremlins that are either small enough
to walk between an iron gate or large
enough to fit three-fourths of the way into
human shoes.
Luckily, “Cats” is destined to become
a cult classic and join the likes of “The
Room” and “The Rocky Horror Picture
Show.” In fact, it already has. In mid-
January, multiple sing-along showings of
“Cats” were hosted in Toronto, Canada.
The theater chain Alamo Drafthouse has
been offering “Rowdy Screenings” of
“Cats” across the country. “Cats” may have
died at the box office, but it is bound to
be rewarded with a new life among thrill
seekers and the elderly alike.
RILEY HANNA/PIONEER LOG
Curator Valerie White (right) talks with a spectator at the exhibit debut in Watzek.Exhibit “But We’ll Have Our Rights” showcases black female suffragists from the 19th and 20th centuries
Link to the “Sojourner
Truth Project”
SETH MORIARTY/PIONEER LOGEVA SZOBOSZLAY /PIONEER LOGFRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020
ARTS
By JUSTIN HOWERTON
THE ALBERTA ARTS District in
Northeast Portland stands as
a haven for street and graffiti
artists. Despite the prohibition of
graffiti in Portland, many businesses
in this area of the city have
commissioned or allowed street artists
to paint their walls. This is part of a
larger community effort to increase
accessibility to artwork because it
is difficult for many folks to interact
with art consistently due to entrance
fees to galleries among other factors.
Moreover, the assumption that only
certain people can enjoy certain art
still restricts many potential who
might be interested. In other words,
those unfamiliar with more “high-
brow” artistic pieces may feel anxious
or timid about viewing a piece in the
same space with more “cultured”
patrons.
Street art eliminates any notion of
high or low art. Both street and graffiti
artists make art available to anyone and
everyone, thereby disrupting the often
stuffy and judgmental atmosphere
of “high-brow” galleries. Although graffiti embodies a more covert,
subversive offshoot of street art, and
it can be confusing to distinguish the
two. To clarify, both express creativity
in public spaces, but while street art
typically requires approval from the
city or business, graffiti artists do not
ask permission when going about their
work.
Portland has a rich history of
street art beginning in the 1980s. One
street art group in particular, Gorilla
Wallflare, took it upon themselves
to reclaim Portland’s walls without
permission after their formation in
1982. Courageous yet furtive, they
often painted in broad daylight and
have created some of the most iconic
murals in the city, specifically the “Art
Fills the Void!” mural on SE 12th and
Division. Numerous organizations
such as these have been created in
recent years.
Much of the street art in the Alberta
Arts district have similar themes, one
of the most common being self-care
or self-interest. The writing on one
mural in particular tells the viewer to
“Keep Your Head Up,” while another
claims that “You are defined only by the walls you build.” Other murals
promote social activism through their
contents. The “Malcom X” mural
located on 17th and Alberta depicts the
eponymous black activist in a striking
portrait with figures, seemingly fellow
activists, occupying the left side of the
wall. Although graffiti and street art
are not necessarily in competition,
occasionally graffiti artists will cover
up murals with their signatures,
otherwise known in the community
as “tags.” Often graffiti artists will
paint a sort of repeating symbol or
name on individual walls, which can
bolster their reputation among the
community. You can see this trend in
the two graffiti pieces seen to the right.
However, what all of these murals
have in common is their devotion
to building community in the area
through public art. Severing the
distinction between what is considered
worthy of public consumption as
opposed to private consumption, this
district exemplifies some of the best
street art that Portland has to offer.
If you are interested, you can visit the
Portland Street Art Alliance’s website
for more information.Street art and graffiti populate the Alberta Arts District
This area in Northeast Portland features a plethora of murals that have made art available for the public
JUSTIN HOWERTON/PIONEER LOGThe message in this minimal graffiti work seems to contradict its very existence.
Resembling the work above, the tag of this graffiti artist is apparently “BEANZ.”
Created by Lewis Harris in 1984, this mural symbolizes black pride. This vibrant, optimistic painting encourages viewers to maintain positive attitudes.By ERIKA ANDERSEN
AS THE TRIAL of disgraced
movie mogul Harvey Weinstein
commences, it is important
to reflect on how the allegations he is
facing were uncovered. Weinstein was
known as one of the biggest names
in Hollywood, running a renowned
production company with his brother.
There was a time where it was nearly
impossible to watch a movie or
television show without running into
Weinstein’s name. Now, his name is
known for a different reason.
In 2017, journalist Ronan Farrow
published a series of articles in The
New Yorker presenting numerous
allegations of sexual assault against
Weinstein. Eventually, this reporting
would be expanded upon in Farrow’s
most recent book, “Catch and Kill.”
The book is a riveting piece of reporting
that serves not only to document the
accusations of sexual assault against
Weinstein and television personality
Matt Lauer, but exposes how those in
power attempted to prevent the release
of those accusations in the first place.
Farrow discusses as a young
journalist at NBC, working on the Today
Show as an investigative reporter.
In an effort to find material for his
segment, he discovered something that
most people in Hollywood knew but
rarely discussed: Harvey Weinstein’s
status as a serial sexual predator.
Farrow was met with hesitancy from
his producers when pitching the story,
but they eventually allowed him to
begin collecting evidence against
Weinstein, interviewing multiple
women and collecting documents that
characterized Weinstein as a predator
with a systematic way of isolating and
assaulting women. The book focuses
not only on these accusations, but
the ways in which Weinstein, and
others with a stake in his success, did
everything in their power to assure that
this information never saw the light of
day.
“Catch and Kill” is not only a feat of investigative reporting, but thrilling
and cinematic in a way where few non-
fiction books compare. The book is
reminiscent of a spy thriller with secret
agents, false identities and a shadowy
private investigation firm. The style
of storytelling is immersive and vivid,
allowing the reader to visualize every
interaction described. It provides an
intimate understanding of Farrow
and the women he interviewed, as the
reader is able to feel their anxiety and
empathize with their pain.
Additionally, the women written
about in this book are given their
own voice, as they are able to tell
their stories first-hand without being
silenced or censored. At the heart of
“Catch and Kill” are women who were
finally able to tell their stories after
holding them in or being ignored for
so long.
The most valuable thing about
this book is, once you read it, it
becomes clear just how easy it is for
men in power to sweep their crimes
under the rug. Men like Weinstein
are protected by a system that will do
anything it can to silence survivors.
Intricate cover-ups and intimidation
tactics are commonly used to preserve
the careers of men who should be
held accountable for their actions.
Exposing the corruption of this system
eloquently and respectfully, “Catch
and Kill” is a testament to the power
of good journalism and the bravery of
survivors.
Weinstein exposed in
book “Catch and Kill”New exhibition at PAM
explores Portland’s past
By GABRIEL MANTIONE-
HOLMES
UNTIL JUNE 14, the Portland
Museum of Art (PAM) will be
showcasing “Being Present,”
an exhibition revisiting the Portland
Center for the Visual Arts (PCVA),
otherwise known as “Portland’s most
experimental art experiment.” Laurie
Anderson, John Cage, Bill T. Jones,
Sol LeWitt and other prominent artists
exhibited or performed at the PCVA.
Started by Jay Backstrand, Mel Katz
and Michele Russo in 1972, PCVA was
active for 15 years.
Produced by independent curatorial
agency Triple Candie, the exhibition
attempts to pay homage to the PCVA
while remaining unbiased and not
shying away from the controversy
surrounding the PCVA. While celebrated
for their work, the PCVA contributed to
the white male domination of art. Apart
from the exhibition but still inspired
by the PCVA, Triple Candie made their
own alternative space, currently located
in Washington D.C., devoted towards
the arts. Two University of Washington
alumni, Shelly Bancroft and Peter
Nesbett, founded the agency.Upon taking your first step into
the installation, your attention will
be drawn to logs decorating the floor
to the left. This part of the exhibition
is a reproduction of a large scale,
site-specific, ethereal piece designed
by former PCVA members Carl
Andre, Daniel Button, Donald Judd
and Dan Flavin. While the museum
acknowledges that the piece on display
can never surpass the original creation,
the replica is actually quite demanding.
This collaborative surrogate of
the original work has many parts,
including mirrors, neon, found objects,
constructed wood boundaries and blue
tape alongside the logs. While only
being a replica of a no longer existing
work, “Act One: The Exhibitions” is a
powerful piece that requires a keen eye
and careful observation in order to take
in all of the nuance of its many parts.
Separating various parts of
the exhibition are informational
panels reflecting on the social and
liberal growth of Portland while
recognizing that the city, the PCVA
and similar groups all contributed to
the discrimination and exclusion of
minority groups. They provide insight
into the development of the PCVA and
AIDA IRVING/PIONEER LOG
GABRIEL MANTIONE-HOLMES/PIONEER LOG
Triple Candie’s exhibition contains a visual representation of the featured artists that includes hanging tapestries and fabrics.
its impact on American art history
while forcing attendees to ponder
the dilemma of if and how we should
celebrate an artistic organization
whose social values reveal stark biases
that counteract our ongoing movement
toward racial and gender equity.
The exhibition changes pace
halfway through in order to mimic
the change that the PCVA underwent
during the ’70s and ’80s. The PCVA
started focusing more on performances,
specifically music, dance and theatre.
Triple Candie created elegy-like pieces
for the artists using tapestries and
banners constructed of fragments of
old clothes, blankets and curtains.
“Being Present” comprehensively
explores this fascinating portion of
Portland’s former art scene,making
the climb to the fourth floor of
PAM’s Jubitz Center for Modern
& Contemporary Art well worth it.
The exhibition intends to inform the
audience without bias, allowing them
to draw their own conclusions about
this controversial organization. It
has done an amazing job at visually
representing artists through tapestries
and detailed descriptions of them and
their involvement with the PCVA. 9FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020
SPORTS 10
Kobe Bryant death leaves complicated legacy
Bryant goes down in history as one of the greatest basketball players ever but was still a flawed figure
By ANNIE ERICKSON
ON JAN. 26, THE SPORTS world
came to a screeching halt when
news broke that legendary Los
Angeles Lakers basketball player Kobe
Bryant, 41, was killed in a helicopter
crash along with his 13-year-old daughter,
Gianna Bryant nicknamed Gigi, and seven
others. Among those victims were two
members of Gianna’s basketball team:
Alyssa Altobelli and Payton Chester. The
team called the Mambas, in honor of Kobe
Bryant’s nickname “Black Mamba”, was
created, funded and coached by Bryant
himself. The helicopter was headed
towards one of their basketball games.
The way in which Bryant emphasized
fatherhood and growing the women’s
game for the sake of his daughter is just
one of the indelible marks he left on the
game of basketball and the world.
Kobe Bryant retired with one of the
most historic and basketball careers the
National Basketball Association (NBA)
has ever seen. He finished his career with
five NBA championships, two Most Valu-
able Player (MVP) awards in finals, one
regular season MVP award and 15 All-Star
selections. He currently owns the record
of fourth most points ever scored in NBA
history after being passed by current Los
Angeles player Lebron James just hours
before his death.
Perhaps his biggest impact on the
NBA, however, was the influence he had
on the next generation and the way he
pushed all of his competitors to another
level. As soon as his death was announced,
there was an outpouring of support from
a clearly heartbroken community. Play-
ers such as the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka
Doncic, reigning MVP Giannis Antetok-
ounmpo, Lebron James and Philadelphia
76ers’ Joel Embiid all commented about
how they would not be in the NBA today if not for Bryant’s example. They all laud-
ed his incredible work ethic and claimed
they modeled their own games and prepa-
ration after his example. In fact, Bryant
was nicknamed “Black Mamba” after the
snake that is characterized for its relent-
less aggression and pin-point accuracy.
Even after retirement, Bryant contin-
ued to preach these ideals of toughness
and relentless effort. He continued to
come to basketball games and launched the Mamba Academy, which is a fitness
center dedicated to basketball training.
He also personally trained several rising
stars such as Jayson Tatum of the Boston
Celtics who is now on track to become an
all-star in the next few years. He launched
an ESPN show called “Details” in which
he broke down the games of current NBA
players and told them how they could im-
prove their game. Through these actions,
he solidified himself as one of the smartest minds basketball has ever seen.
Despite his amazing success and
impact on the court, it is important to
note that Bryant was not without flaws
throughout his life. Following his death,
the overflow of tributes and canonization
of Bryant does present a moral issue.
While it is fine to recognize the greatness
of his career and even his contributions to
the business world, it should not be for-
gotten that Kobe was accused of rape in 2003 by a 19-year-old girl. The case was
eventually dropped because the accuser
refused to testify, and the world seemed
to forget it. More than ever, it is crucial to
recognize that not even someone as wor-
shiped as Bryant should be excused from
punishment for this alleged crime.
In the most recent years before his
death, Bryant had become a business
mogul, an Oscar winner for his poem
“Dear Basketball” and had appeared to
dedicate his life to his family. Bryant’s im-
pact on the basketball world can best be
seen through his constant support for the
women’s game and his dedication to the
late Gianna Bryant’s own game. He could
not have been more complimentary of
GiGi’s skills and often said that she was
better than he was at age 13. Gianna
Bryant also showed a deep ambition for
achieving greatness in basketball. She
dreamed of playing for the esteemed Uni-
versity of Connecticut’s women’s basket-
ball team before entering the Women’s
NBA. Kobe and GiGi Bryant were often
found sitting court-side at Lakers games
wearing a variety of UCONN and WNBA
apparel. While many people joked about
how desperate he must have been for a
son, Bryant was often heard vehemently
dismissing this and claiming that Gianna
was just as fit to carry on his legacy. It is
undeniable that Bryant would have want-
ed the rest of the world to continue to do
whatever it takes to legitimize and grow
women’s basketball.
Kobe Bryant is survived by his wife Va-
nessa Bryant and three other daughters,
Natalia, Capri and Bianka. His basketball
playing style can be seen in almost every
superstar in the league today. Although
Bryant is no longer with us, his impact on
basketball will continue through the blue-
print of excellence he passed down to so
many. LIV- NICKS TURLEY/PIONEER LOG
A review of Champion: the trendy sportswear brand
By AIDAN D’ANNA
THIRTY YEARS BEFORE
Adidas, fifty years before
Nike, Champion was the most
influential name in sportswear.
Inventor of the hoodie, pioneer of
the “reverse weave” manufacturing
technique, and past sponsor of
the NBA (National Basketball
Association) and NFL (National
Football Association) since 1919,
Champion has been the only brand
that exists somewhere between
perfect for pickup and acceptable to
wear out for a meal; it is athletic wear
you do not want to sweat in and it is
my favorite brand of leisure clothing.
I remember Champion as the first
brand that taught me that “retro” was
not only an insult but instead another
version of “cool.” I watched as styles
from the ’30s and ’40s came back
into fashion, and I grew excited as I
realized that my habit of keeping old
clothes in the back of my closet was
not a symptom of hoarder syndrome,
but a stroke of genius. I had several
old Champion styles packed away,
clothes I thought would never again
see the light of day, but for some rea-
son I could not bear to let them go.
This was the unspoken connection I
had to the brand.
Now I am proud of my affinity for
Champion. I regularly save up to buy
hoodies in a style I already have just
because I need that new color. I comb
through thrift store racks and good-
will bins looking for the iconic “C” logo. I own Champion clothes that
no longer fit me simply because I can
not let them go; I know no one else
will appreciate them as much as I do.
I conduct regular searches on Depop
(my favorite online clothing store)
by brand, and when I find a pair of
Champion sweatpants in my size, it
is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Even if they do not fit perfectly, I will
probably buy them anyway, hoping
my grandma can hem them enough
that I can add another piece to my
collection. I like Champion because
they are up front with their custom-
ers, they are ambitious (they named
their brand after their clientele) and
they do not try to be something they
are not. Their clothes are good for any
occasion. I have a corduroy sweatshirt
from Champion that I would be com-
fortable wearing to anything from a
job interview to a night out with my
friends.
Admittedly, I used to think of the
brand Champion as the lowest rung in
the ladder of athletic styles. I believe it
is underrated on a public stage. I used
to avoid their display in the clothing
store, but the more Nike and Adidas
tried to convince me of their superior-
ity, the more I realized that Champion
was better without even trying. Think
about it, when was the last time you
saw a Champion advertisement? The
brand speaks for itself. To me, Cham-
pion is Christmas morning, it is worth
saving for and it is looking stylish and
comfortable at the same time.The Champion sportswear brand created the first version of the hoodie using revolutionary “reverse weave” manufacturing.
AIDAN D’ANNA/PIONEER LOG
Do you love sports and journalism? Write for
The Pioneer Log’s sports section! For more
information, email piolog@lclark.edu
Champion exists today as one of the most ubiquitous and historic brands in the sportswear industry FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020
SPORTS 11
ADVERTISEMENTGabriel’s Gains: on your mark, get set, stretch!
Stretching helps with stress, promotes physical health and can prevent a multitude of avoidable injuries
By GABRIEL MANTIONE-
HOLMES
THERE IS NO better reminder of
the importance of stretching than
getting injured after skipping this
crucial step. After injury, everyday tasks
like showering or walking up stairs can
become tedious or downright difficult.
However, there is an easy way to avoid
these roadblocks and prevent an injury.
Stretching, if implemented into your
daily routine, can prevent injury, promote
better posture and relieve stress.
Flexibility is a large part of physical
wellness. According to the American
Council on Exercise (ACE), the proper
time to stretch statically is after a
workout or while your muscles are warm
and flexible. The Journal of Strength
and Conditioning Research found that
dynamic stretching before workouts is
also beneficial.
Static stretching is the act of holding
a single stretch for 30 seconds or more.
In order to avoid injury, one should
refrain from stretching beyond what
feels comfortable. You should remember
to maintain controlled breathing, as
breath can do wonders relieving the
discomfort while stretching. By taking deep inhalations into your stomach and
exhaling slowly, you can mitigate much
of the discomfort and push your stretches
further.
You should implement static
stretching after you have worked out
or maintained physical activity for an
extended time. Throughout your workout
and physical activity, your muscles are
producing lactic acid, which fatigues
your body and creates sores muscles. By
stretching, you are eliminating this lactic
acid, relieving your muscles of further
stress and improving your flexibility.
Dynamic stretching is a whole new
animal. Unlike static stretching, you
want to implement dynamic stretching
before working out. According to Boston
University, dynamic stretching increases
tissue temperature making them better
prepared for activity. This improves
performance and lower the chance of
injury.
Both dynamic and static stretching
increase blood flow improving muscle
recovery. Muscle growth happens
when weight-bearing activities produce
microscopic tears in the muscle tissue.
When these tears heal, muscles grow and become stronger.
Another benefit, according to ACE, is
that increased flexibility decreases stress
put on the spine which reduces the risk of
lower back pain. Stretching does not just
reduce the risk of injury during an activity,
it can also reduce the risk of developing a
stress related injury to your back.
Dynamic stretches you can perform
before a workout include: high knees,
a-skips, b-skips, c-skips, lunges with a
torso twist, high kicks and jump squats.
Great static stretches for after a
workout include those you would find in
a yoga routine. Downward dog, supine
twist, child’s pose, crescent lunge, side
lunge, pigeon and crab reach will increase
your flexibility while ridding your muscles
of lactic acid.
Even though it is easy to overlook
stretching, it is just as important to stretch
as it is to workout. What is the point of
having strength if you are consistently
getting injured? Not only will you
decrease the risk of injury, but you will
enhance your muscle strength and agility.
Whether you are working out or not,
stretching is quick and easy to incorporate
into anyone’s schedule.
JO TABACEK/PIONEER LOG
Resistance bands, that are helpful for stretching, can be found in the weight room.
Commentary: dos and don’ts of dress code
WHEN WALKING into the
weight room at Pamplin
Sports Center, a board
in the front of the facility outlines
the policies and procedures. At the
bottom of the board, in bold, it reads:
“appropriate athletic attire must be
worn at all times.” The notice then
goes on to further specify that this
means “no jeans, no sandals, no
high heels, no bare feet.” Below that
statement, written in the smallest
font present on the board, is a more
specific guideline: “Shirts that do not
cover the mid-section are considered
inappropriate.”
Pamplin Sports Center’s Head
Strength and Conditioning, Coach
Angela Dendas-Pleasant, offers
some insight into this dress code.
Prior to her employment at Lewis &
Clark, these rules were already said
to be put in place for the purpose of
maintaining hygiene and promoting
safety in the sports center.
“(This is a) very kind of standard
approach that you would see … across
other institutions in terms of their
recreation center and what they
require…” Dendas-Pleasant said,
“Our policies are in place for safety
reasons, you know, hygiene reasons.”
Dendas-Pleasant explains that
undergraduate students are not the
only ones with access to the weight
room, and also not the only ones who
must adhere to these rules. Graduate
students and residents in the general
community also have the option of
using the fitness center. The dress code is explained that
it makes the center feel welcoming
for the wide array of people using
it. However, there remains no clear
explanation given as to how wearing
a sports bra or cropped shirt would
contribute to discomfort or hygiene
issue. If there is an explanation,
it is not provided, and the rule
simply leaves female-identifying
people feeling alienated. A female-
identifying student who has been
left anonymous, has been asked to
change her choice of clothing on two
separate occasions when exercising
in Pamplin Sports Center.
An anonymous student describes
this experience.
“When I asked why I couldn’t
wear a cropped top, he said it’s
because according to the rules they
are not allowed,” the anonymous
student explained. “That was his
only explanation. The next time I
went, I tied up a normal t-shirt, it wasn’t a cropped top, it didn’t look
like a cropped top. So I don’t really
know why he came again to tell me I
couldn’t wear that.” The anonymous
student continued. “I used to go to
the gym every day at home, and wear
a sports bra, so it’s just really weird
that I can’t do that here.”
Although creating an inclusive
space for everyone appears to be the
goal of this dress code, in reality, it
creates an exclusionary environment
for women. This dress code restricts
women from wearing the athletic
attire that feels most comfortable
for them, and for this reason it is an
innately gendered rule. The result
of this policy is that women have to
choose between altering their choice
of clothing for the sake of the sports
center’s rule, or go elsewhere in order
to feel comfortable in their bodies
and welcomed as individuals.
“I don’t really want to go to Pamplin anymore,” the anonymous
student said. “Usually, I am used to
wearing a sports bra and I feel very
comfortable when I’m doing exercise
in that ... and now that I know I can’t
do that, I would kinda just stay in my
room or go running, where I can feel
comfortable and wear what I want.”
The term “inappropriate” is
perhaps the most questionable
aspect of this policy. Deeming
the midsection as “inappropriate,
implies that this particular area of
the body should not be seen, and
furthermore, that it will inevitably be
sexualized.
It is this kind of verbiage that
limits women in particular. There
is no precedent demonstrating why
wearing such clothing in a gym
setting is a dangerous act, other than
the fact that it leaves women feeling
sexualized and excluded from yet
another group.
Sports Schedule
Friday, Feb. 7
Baseball @ La Verne
2:30 p.m.
Women’s Tennis @ Biola
4:00 p.m.
Men’s Tennis @ Occidental
4:00 p.m.
Women’s Basketball vs.
Whitworth
6:00 p.m.
Men’s Basketball vs.
Whitworth
8:00 p.m.
Saturday, Feb. 8
Baseball @ Claremont M-S
11:00 a.m.
Men’s Tennis @ Saint Katherine
12:00 p.m.
Women’s Basketball vs.
Whitman
4:00 p.m.
Men’s Basketball vs. Whit-
man
6:00 p.m.
Sunday, Feb. 7
Women’s Tennis @ Whittier
9:00 a.m.
Softball vs. Warner Pacific
11:00 a.m.
Baseball @ Whittier
11:00 a.m.
Men’s Tennis @ Whittier
12:00 p.m.
Roll Pios!JO TABACEK/PIONEER LOGStudents are asked to leave Pamplin Weight Room due to exposing “inappropriate” mid-sections
By JULIA SALOMONE
The rules and regulations of the Pamplin Weight Room outside of the facility which outline the approved dress code in the gym.FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020
12
By ANNA DESMET
EVER SINCE November 2016,
things have been a little
different on Capitol Hill. A
big, beautiful, globulous orange
ball heaved into the White House
and shook things up forever:
Donald Javier Trump, our dear 45th
president of the U.S.
On Jan. 16, 2020, the
impeachment trial finally moved
from the vicious House of Democrat
snakes into the welcoming reprieve
of Republican homebuddies in the
Senate. And boy, did Trump need to
count on his pals.
First in the lineup: the fine
Prof. Alan Dershowitz, a seasoned
impeachment trial lawyer from the
Clinton trial of 1999, and a steadfast
friend to Trump who would create
an alibi for a blood-and-viscous-
covered tiger. He is the best.
Next up is the well-meaning
marshmallow of bipartisan hell,
Senate majority leader Mitch
McConnell. He is one of the most
valuable assets to the Trump team
because he can fit any damning
evidence or files into the soft folds
of his custard body.
Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham
make up the rest of the political
elite: the move makers, the policy
By AUBREY ROCHÉ
AFTER REPORTING low
readership of their student-
run newspaper, Lewis &
Clark College is now implementing
a new delivery system for their
biweekly issues. The staff of the
newspaper, The Pioneer Post,
has found that sharing their
newspaper with the student body
via stacks in academic buildings
and morning distribution by
staff members was no longer
effective in getting students
to take interest in the
newspapers and frame them
on their walls.
“We are trying a much
more hands-on approach,”
Valencia Devine
’20, editor-in-
chief of the
newspaper,
said. “Rather
than leaving
copies
around for
students
to pick up
at their
leisure, we
are currently
testing out our
new football
team recruits, who
tackle students on the
way to class, forcing a
copy of the paper into
their hands.”
As a result of this
new method, students
have taken to picking
up a copy on their
own and holding it out
in front of them at all
times, saving themselves
from later being tackled
and having a paper
forced upon them. Devine
is pleased with the outcome, as
it has students on campus talking
about the paper more in general,
and even glancing over articles
simply because they are carrying
the paper.
“I was just walking to class when
all of a sudden I was jumped,”
Travis Betts ’22 said. “I thought
I was getting mugged. I tried to By MATTHEW FELDMAN
STUDENTS OF Lewis & Clark
woke up to the sounds of a
high-pitched hiss this morning
emanating from the Lower Griswold
parking lot. Many students were
flabbergasted at what it could be.
Contrary to what Jude Abendsen
’23 believed, it was not their hallmate
practicing their flute. “This hissing
sound didn’t have the depth and
vibrancy that he usually has,”
Abendsen said.
Tiffany Tisdale ‘21 did not know
either.
“I just noticed that it was prettier
today, as though a giant blight on
our campus was suddenly removed,”
Tisdale said. “I just thought it was
because the sun is out today, to be
honest.”
Rex Coleman ‘20, decked in exercise
gear, openly scoffed at Tisdale’s quote.
“It is the tennis dome. It is gone!
It ... it ... popped!”
Coleman could not be found for
further comment, having run towards
the outdoor tennis courts LC also has,
just for scenarios such as this one. Not
one tennis player will ever be without
a court.
Early morning student commuters
arrived to find several Campus Safety
and LC facilities vehicles, along with
emergency responders, occupying the
Lower Griswold parking lot. One thing
missing — the tennis dome. In its place
was a mass of gray plastic, rumpled
and wrinkled, appearing to be the
world’s worst dance floor. According
to one student commuter, Jake Qually
The real Republicans of Washington D.C.
changers, those stiff-tied and loose-
lipped men who make decisions on
our lives every single day. They call
themselves the President’s Posse.
The impeachment trial started
with a complete snoozefest, with
both sides presenting their evidence.
The nerds of the Democrat party
brought testimonies, witnesses
and “evidence.” How lame. Alan
Doobertits, of his allotted eight
hours, took only two minutes.
“So Trump did some shit,”
Dershowpits said. “And what,
you went and told the Senate?
Are you babies? Trump can do
whatever the hell he wants by the
power vested in him, by him. And
don’t you forget it.”
He ended with a mic drop.
Notably, this was a microphone
he brought with him just for this
purpose.
Representative Adam Schiff took
nearly all of his time. The senators
barely listened to him; many of them
getting up to mingle, get snacks,
or heckle the current speaker. His
closing remarks, however, drew the
attention of every single senator,
lawmaker, judge, lawyer and intern
in the hall. All were spellbound.
“In short,” Schiff said. “We have
to grab them right by the posse.”
Queen Bee Trump himself has
Tennis dome popped,
dreams, egos deflated
’20, Campus Safety said that the Tennis
Dome had been “catastrophically
punctured” and that “the Portland
Police is currently investigating the
scene.”
“I kind of thought that the thing
couldn’t be popped,” Qually said.
“Like the stock market in late 2007,
I thought it was too big to fail.”
At a later press conference,
Portland Police Bureau Chief
Podrick Pointer reported that they
were taking the crime seriously.
“At this time, we have multiple
possible suspects and are working
through the proper channels to
explore these leads,” Pointer said.
“We are asking the public to report
anything they might know about
the event to the Portland Police
Bureau.”
Apparently, a pair of children’s
safety scissors, a single pin and a
dull Bon butter knife were found
at the scene of the crime. At this
moment, the Portland Police Bureau
does not know definitively what
caused the rupture.
“Another possibility, of course,
is the routine maintenance that was
ten-plus years overdue,” Pointer
reported.
LC President Harry Weasel
refused to comment.
Additional emergency vehicles
could not get close enough to assess
the damage, because the space at
which the tennis dome used to be
was now overrun with student cars.
“Tennis dome? I was just happy
they finally increased the parking,”
River Wheatgrass ’20 said. Local college newspaper to use new
and improved delivery system
defend myself but all the guy cared
about was that I took a copy of the
PioPost with me. He handed it to
me surprisingly gently and even
put an extra in my backpack. Now
that I have it, I guess I will read
it.”
Betts stated that many of
his friends have had similar
experiences which has left them
visibly shaken
and armed with
something
to read
between
classes.
“I think
this new
system is great,” Will Baker ’23, football
player working for The Pioneer
Post, said. “It is about time that
the athletes on campus made
stronger connections with some of
the student organizations.”
In addition to tackling students,
the staff of the newspaper is also
visiting each residence hall on
campus and sliding copies under
the doors of each dorm room. This
is intended to increase readership
by forcing students to acknowledge
the paper by picking it up, and
maybe even reading a couple of
headlines before tossing it in the
recycling bin. Betts received one
in his room, and now with three
copies, he felt he truly had no
choice but to read it.
As a last resort, Devine and
other staff members are
considering replacing all of
the napkins in the campus
dining hall with issues of
the newspaper.
“Not only would it
reduce the waste caused
by paper napkins,
students would be
interacting with the paper
in their daily lives,”
Devine said.
“It would be
unavoidable. This
is one of our main
goals here at the
newspaper.”
Devine also
stated that a secret
tunnel system
is in the works,
crossing underneath
campus in order to
quicken distribution.
Not only would this
would give the staff
direct and immediate
access to all areas of campus,
it would increase their reporting
capabilities. However, she does
not know whether or not these
tunnels will actually be approved.
The college administration
reportedly stated that this method
would come too close to spying
on people, even in the interest of
journalism. She hopes they will
be approved, as she feels it is in
everyone’s best interest to keep
themselves informed.not been seen at the impeachment
trial. When asked by reporters,
he tossed his head, throwing back
what little hair he has.
“Oh, is that silly old thing still
happening? I frankly do not even
know why we still bother with
that whole thing, it is ridiculous.
Ridiculous! The Democrats did
not even bother to match their tie
lapels. How basic. Now excuse me,”
Trump said, reaching for a pair of
large-lensed sunglasses. “I have to
catch a private jet to Mar-a-Lago.”
Impeachment proceedings were
halted before the Senators could
call a vote.
“And I know that Donald could
not have done this,” McConnell
said, in a heartfelt moment of
testimony. “I know, because he is
my best friend; he has told me so
personally. And my best friend
would never do a thing like this,
and if he did, it certainly would not
be illegal.”
“You bitch!” roared Graham,
from the back of the hall. “He told
me I was a best friend.” Graham
proceeded to run up to the Senate
floor, vaulting over barrier and
lawyer alike.
The rest was chaos. But you
already knew that.
Until next time. Xoxo, GOP Girl.
THE PIONEER LOG
RAYA DEUSSEN/THE PIONEER LOG ANNA DESMET/THE PIONEER LOG