40 years and all that jazz

Music from a very enthusiastic marimba band — Chicamarimba — drifted across campus from the direction of the Niemeyer center last Saturday.

The center itself, all doors thrown open, hosted a large crowd of faculty, community members, families and the few scattered students. OUtside was an improvised stage where groups, such as Chicamarimba, serenaded visitors. Inside were readings, performances by the jazz band and the chamber ensemble. In Gregory Forum, the international stage took over with mini-drama performed by Spanish students and a puppet play put together by French students.

From noon until 5 p.m., the college celebrated its 40 years of existence.

“I thought it went wonderfully,” said Shelly Parini, dean of college advancement and foundation executive director.

 Parini was instrumental in organizing the event.

“Everyone rallied together to make it a really memorable day,” she said.

It was a day of food, art, music and memories.

People were ushered into the Osterman Theater later in the afternoon for the only formal timeslot of the party.

Former College President Dr. John Hakanson spoke about the beginning years of the college. One of the first ever CCC graduates shared what Clackamas gave to her. The Theatre Department performed a vignette from their upcoming production, Oklahoma!

Dean of humanities Bill Briare announced the winners of the community Art Mystery. The winners, a group dedicated to hunting treasure, decided to give their prize — a Dell laptop computer, a year’s tuition waiver, a $100 bookstore gift certificate and a basket of “goodies,” according to Briare — back to the college to award to a student as a scholarship.

“It was fun for me to put together,” said Briare about the Art Mystery. When asked if another art mystery is planned for the future, his only comment was: “Anything is possible.”

The event officially closed with everyone singing “Happy Birthday” to Clackamas Community College.

by Katie Wilson
Co-Editor-in-Chief

Poet pulls from pop culture, Superman

Trees, elks, ravens, the moon … and Cher’s tits.These were a few of the subjects of the poems that nationally-recognized poet Dorianne Laux read last Friday to an audience made up of students and several of Clackamas’ English instructors, in the Literary Arts Center.

Laux, who has a Bachelor’s Degree in English, works as a professor in University of Oregon’s Creative Writing Program, as well as the Master’s Program at Pacific University. She has many awards to her name, including a Pushcart Prize, an Editor’s Choice III Award, the Oregon Book Award and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

As a single mother in her twenties, she first started seriously writing poetry between several jobs. Today, she is married to fellow poet Joseph Millar and has four poetry collections published, with a fifth soon to be finished.

Laux began the readings with the slightly raunchy poem “Cher,” describing her longing to be like the pop icon, “butt,” “tits” and all. This is from her newest book, titled Superman: The Chapbook, which holds poems inspired by pop culture, including The Beatles and, yes, Superman.

Next was what she said is a favorite of hers, from her fourth book, Facts About the Moon, titled “The Life of Trees.” This poem was inspired by her coming to Oregon and falling in love with the trees here.

The following two poems were inspired by and written during trips with her husband. The first, titled “Ravens of Denali,” she wrote while in Alaska, after her husband told her a lot about the ravens that they were seeing everywhere. At the reading, her husband said that when he heard the poem for the first time, he said “Jesus, you stole my bird!”

The other, called “The Crossing,” was a humorous piece about an elk in the middle of the road, which her husband tried to get to move so that their car could pass. It ended with the line, “This was how I knew the marriage would last.”

“I do a lot of writing on the bus,” Laux said, leading into her next poem, titled “The Secret of the Backs,” inspired by the backs of people walking along the sidewalk. “I thought, ‘That’s never been done before.'”

Laux finished out the hour with the poems “Moon in the Window” and, last but not least, “Facts About the Moon.”

“[‘Facts About the Moon’ is] filled with real facts from the Discovery Channel, which I watch religiously,” she explained to listeners, laughing.

With her elegant poems, sometimes lightly peppered with swear words, Laux’s reading proved an enjoyable stop between classes for many students. The quick wit and underlying ponderings of her poems left the audience with something to think about.

by Emily Walters
The Clackamas Print

The dangers of global warming and hope for the future

Just in case you haven’t read the latest U.N. report on global warming, it’s not as bad as scientists have been predicting — it’s worse.The ocean is turning into a hot vat of nitrogen that’s killing off plankton and the fish that eat them. Droughts and hurricane Katrina-size storms will become more frequent on almost every continent around the world

But to listen to philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore; there is actually hope. She’s explored ideas, modernity and the astonishing beauty of the Northwest in Riverwalk, Holdfast and Pine Island Paradox.

As the featured speaker at last week’s Sustainability Project, Moore announced, “I’m going to give an optimistic talk … it’s a survival characteristic. Optimism is a belief; it’s hoping with good reason.”

Moore says repairing ecosystems is coming from the ground up, from grassroots organizations.

“Evidence of this ‘great turning’ is not coming, in case you hadn’t noticed, from the White House or from Exxon Mobil,” she said. “It’s coming from the growing army of individuals and community groups who, planting one tree at a time, or cleaning up one neighborhood at a time … are literally planting seeds of change.”

Moore has her feet in two worlds. She’s a philosophy professor at Oregon State University, and she spends summers up in the Alaskan archipelago, immersed in the natural world. It’s from one of the islands there that she wrote Pine Island Paradise.

In an environmental ethics class she teaches, she has students choose a place within walking distance to campus, and they then recommend how to remedy an environmental justice issue of habitat loss or pollution.

She says her students, like society as a whole, can feel overwhelmed by the scale of biological degradation around them.

“In my classes, students ask, ‘How can I change the world? I’m onl one person,'” she said. “You live a life you believe in, and you can change the world.”

Moore takes the old bumper sticker adage, ‘Think Globally; Act Locally,’ and only half-jokingly puts her students through a 12-step program she’s entitled “Consumers Anonymous.”

“We are so disconnected from community [that consuming] is a reaction to grief and stress,” she said. “Step 3 of Consumers Anonymous really is to reduce what we buy.”

Through her teaching and writing, she invites her students and her readers to do what she does: to start noticing the natural world around them, before it’s all gone. Yet, she does not dispair, as she believes that individuals and even whole countries are out of denial about how human activity is poisoning the planet.

Moore’s work reflects what has been the truly interdisciplinary nature of the Sustainability Series: biology, oceanography and literature. So, it’s fitting that a philosopher would quote historian Stephen Ambrose, who declared, “The primary task of the 21st century will be environmental restoration or nothing at all.”

by Fufkin Vollmayer
The Clackamas Print

How do I chop my top off?

Gene Winfield, custom-car builder, demonstrated how to do a top-chopping on May 19 and 20. There were approximately 100 registered attendees. Various tools and equipment were donated from local autoshops that were later signed by Winfield and then auctioned off to members of the audience. After the event, Winfield stuck around to sign autographs, answer questions and sell merchandise.

Winfield has appeared on the hit TV show Monster Garage.

What is top-chopping?

Top-chopping is the practice of making very specific modifications and alterations in order to lower the roof of an automobile.

 

— Compiled by Nicholas Baker, The Clackamas Print

Former student returns a leader

Twenty-seven years ago, College President Joanne Truesdell sat in the parking lot of Clackamas Community College trying to get up the courage to walk through the doors and jumpstart her future.
Experiencing the same uncertainty as many beginning college students, she struggled to make the big step into a college career.

“I didn’t think college was in my future,” said Truesdell at the May 9 board meeting where she was hired as Clackamas’ new president.

In a room of staff and board members, she accepted the position to deafening applause and, shaking hands with each of the board members, was given a standing ovation. Wiping away tears of joy, she shared her vision of Clackamas.

“I owe everything to this college,” she said. “I truly believe in the success of this school. We will rise above and beyond. We may be small, but we are mighty.”

The decision to hire Truesdell came after a year of important changes.

After Former President Joe Johnson resigned last November, the college administration began the long search for new leadership. Truesdell, a 1982 graduate of Clackamas, applied and became interim president for the 2006-2007 school year.

Having personal experience with community colleges as first a student and then a member of the Commissioner’s Board, Truesdell brings new ideas to old subjects. From budgeting issues to community college stereotypes, she takes the positive outlook. Fighting those stereotypes, she is a success story.

“I always talked about the impact community colleges have on people,” she said. “People fall through the cracks; not everyone can go to a university.”

Starting college was difficult for Truesdell. At one point, she was convinced she was going to get her two-year degree and go out into the workforce, but a deep curiosity for learning kept her going.

“I wanted more education,” she said. “I had all these thoughts, and I wanted words and ideas in my head.”

Despite dealing with the stresses of working and going to school 20 credit hours a term, she graduated with a 3.68 GPA, much of which she owes to Clackamas’ “supportive atmosphere.”

“My hope is that everyone experiences what I experienced,” she said. “I really believe that we have people [here] that want our students to be successful. That’s something that hasn’t changed in all these years.”

Truesdell was hesitant to apply when she first heard the position had opened up. She spent a lot of time thinking.

“When I first found out in October that the presidency might be open, I just thought about it and thought about it,” she said. “I kept thinking, ‘It would be good to come back. It would be good to see if I was a good match.’”

Now that the hiring process is over, she can’t contain her excitement. Relating her new place at the college to the feeling she had when she first met her husband, she felt it was easy to become part of Clackamas once again.

“Being here just felt completely natural,” she said. “I didn’t have to be someone else. I could be myself.”

Though having a long resumé of “busy jobs,” Truesdell finds time for family and friends. Her most recent hobby, playing the guitar, has taken a new precedence in her life. Along with hiking, fishing and gardening, she spends her spare time doing whatever she can.

“I just like doing things. It’s very eclectic,” she said. “One weekend it might be fishing, and the next day it might be listening to my son’s jazz band play at a function. It might be going to visit my family. It’s whatever I make time to do.”
As for the future of the college, she looks forward to making positive changes for the students, faculty and community. Setting aside the automatic work, such as budgeting and accreditation reviews, she finds time to get involved with the students as well. She has attended at least one event for each athletic team, and also has spent at least some time at every club-sponsored event on campus.

There is even time put into her schedule to share lunch in the cafeteria with students. She has a genuine interest in what students want.

“It’s about learning what’s going on outside and inside [campus],” she said. “Right now, the biggest objective is to find out what our community thinks about us and what they need from us. Internally, what is it that we need as a college? And what do we want from each other?”

Truesdell looks forward to marching Clackamas to the top in education. There are no boundaries as to where the college is going.

“It’s not about being first; it’s about showing up and having a good time and being deliberate in the things you do,” she said.

With hope for the future, she foresees the next few years being the best for Clackamas, and the best for students. Sharing words of advice, she summed up the mission of Clackamas and her hopes for the student body:
“There were times when I wanted to stop. There were times when it would’ve been easy to stop – but don’t – don’t stop.”

by Lydia Bashaw
The Clackamas Print

Take a trip to Oklahoma!

Rodgers and Hammerstein invade campus theater in spring production.

Just shoot him. Go on. Do it.

Shoot him and take his girl, his horse, his boots, his hat and his maiden aunt Matilda. Then, sing and dance, because that’s what happens in flat places with long names like “Oklahoma,” evidently: everything settled neatly at gunpoint and with plenty of musical interludes, in case events start leaning a little too darkly.

No matter how one may feel about the movie/Broadway/high school/middle school/etc. version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! do not miss Clackamas’ own production of the musical.

It’s the story of Laurey, played by Emily Jackson, and the two men (both idiots in their own right) who want her.

Nick Jones takes on the role of Curly, the decent, bow-legged fellow who loves Laurey, despite likening her to a mule in the first scene. Michael Mitchell is Jud Fry, a squinty, evil, lecherous creeper who desires Laurey for his own vile – rather unholy – purposes.

The rest of the cast is made up of a mix of drama and music students and community members. Choir Director Lonnie Cline and Music Instructor Gary Nelson work as musical directors for the play.

“It’s wonderful how collaborative this production is,” said Director David Smith-English. “[There are] a number of people from the Music Department, the Theatre Department and some really good people from the community.”

“I think we’ll have an approach to the play that people haven’t always seen in the past,” he added.

Part of this approach involves how scene changes are handled. The curtain will never drop.

“Everybody’s involved in those scene changes,” said Smith-English. “There are units on the set that represent three very special changes. We’re sort of sketching the place.”

Also “there are some wonderful technical things that take place: windmills, a water pump that really works …”

There are challenges to every production, according to Smith-English, and Oklahoma! is not unique in this respect. One challenge for the cast has been to push the bounds on the script.

“One of the things that I was very interested in is that the characters be fully-rounded,” said Smith-English. “Laurey isn’t just this sweet, little cupcake … there are reasons why she’s motivated to do what she does.”

And what exactly does she do? Go see and find out.

by Katie Wilson
The Clackamas Print

Drug testing is no good

What right do businesses have to interfere with employee recreation? Whether it’s legal or illegal, they should not have the right to impose limitations, even if the time is spent using illicit substances.

The most common method of testing for illicit substances in an employee’s system is a urinalysis (colloquially known as a “piss test”). Like other drug tests, it doesn’t detect the test subject’s current level of drug intoxication, as it takes anywhere from six to eight hours after drug consumption for the substance(s) to be metabolized and excreted in urine. Instead, it detects usage of substances within the last few days, weeks, or even months.

Something else disconcerting about urinalysis is that it has been known to produce false positives. Drug testing methods can produce false positives because of certain foods and medicines. For instance, eating poppy seed muffins may cause a person to test positive for opiates. Nyquil may also produce false positives for opiates, methamphetamines and/or MDMA. Certain antibiotics may even cause one to falsely test positive for cocaine use.

Pro-drug testing zealots often fight for having drug testing in the workplace because it helps keep the cost of health insurance down for employees who choose not to use drugs. They argue that those who use drugs often have higher medical costs as a result of their substance use.

This idea proves false when considering the drugs that do cause health problems and physical addiction (ie: cocaine, amphetamines and opiates).

Usually, they do not show up in a urinalysis for more than two days after consumption, and in a saliva test for more than 12 hours, and therefore still will play a problem with employer drug testing since they will more than likely go undetected.

In all reality, drug testing only proves effective in catching those who use marijuana, which is less harmful than tobacco and alcohol. Unlike the two, it has not led to any recorded deaths, nor does it lead to physical dependency, brain damage and the decline of organs.

Now, marijuana should not be ignored all together, as long as one does it in his or her own recreational time and not while working.

All and all, current drug testing policies are wrong. If drug testing is allowed to be part of the workplace, it should be advanced to target those who are intoxicated at the time of testing and not those who choose to intoxicate themselves in their own private time.

by Nicholas Baker
The Clackamas Print

Dr. Kim – Tired of feminazis? Time for guys to take a stand

This column is just for you guys. It has recently come to my attention that in the process of developing equality for women, the fair and just treatment of men has somehow fallen to the wayside.

A man is considered a pig – an utter chauvinist – if he uses a woman for sex or money, but women use men all the time for their own selfish personal benefit and no heads are turned. She is considered proactive, a pioneer of modern society.

When I was in the sixth grade, I sat behind this girl named Julie Reynolds in science class. One day, Julie’s pencil rolled off her desk and onto the floor. She didn’t drop it on purpose; it just fell. She promptly turned to the closest boy and said, “Tyson, will you pick up my pencil for me?”

I watched in amazement as Tyson picked up the pencil.

What had just happened? Julie was much closer to the pencil than Tyson was; she could have easily picked it up herself. In the same hand, Tyson could have just as easily told Julie to get bent and pick up her own damn pencil.

This was my first experience with man-abuse.

When it comes down to it, it’s not a matter of gender at all. Women don’t force men to do inane favors for them at gunpoint. If a man chooses to sell himself out for a coquettish “thank you,” that’s his own ignorant fault. A weak bitch is a weak bitch, be it male or female.

The reason people find fault with the way men use women is that it’s scandalous. Using women for sex and money reflects badly on both sexes, not to mention that it’s an incredibly lazy way to be resourceful. At least when women use, their greedy actions reflect creativity and insight.

Things have gone too far. It’s time for you guys to take a stand.

Men are under the false assumption that women hold all the cards when it comes to sexual power. This is an illusion. She looks like she’s holding a full house, but she’s bluffing. Confidence is a state of mind – not a right of passage.

While you boys were so busy trying to take our pants off, you failed to realize that you weren’t wearing them in the relationship. Not only have women succeeded in shattering the glass ceiling; we’ve also managed to demolish the male ego.

You don’t have to have vagina-envy anymore, manly mates. STAND UP! Man-abuse is rampant, and the double-standards have got to be stopped.

The most devastating part about this tragic development in history is that the man brings it on himself. Fellows, I encourage you to take action immediately. Not only must you stop abiding to our petty, demeaning commands, but you should also adopt the female way of attaining dominant rank in the exchange.

The next time you have one of your female friends over, ask her to take your garbage out before she leaves, and see what happens. If this works, then call her next week and tell her to clean your room for you. You may also want to recruit your more burly lady pals to do some yard work for you.

Don’t be a victim to yourself any longer. Just say no to man-abuse.

Disclaimer: Dr. Kim is not a real doctor, nor has she ever been. She’s working on it, though.

To read more of “Dr. Kim,” go to askejean.com and click on the “Top Campus Sex Columnists.”

Hilton in jail

A 23-day stay at the “cross-bar hotel” is what billion-dollar princess Paris Hilton has earned herself from her most recent screw-up.

Earlier this month, the hotel heiress broke the terms of her probation by driving with a suspended license. Along with that, she is also dealing with an ongoing libel and slander suit against her from actress Zeta Graff.

There has been some relief in the fact that Hilton’s sentence was recently reduced from its original 45 days to just 23. But though it is an improvement, I believe it is still too harsh a punishment.

If it was being done to teach her a lesson, it would be completely different. However, in the current situation, I feel that the judge is just trying to make an example out of sweet Paris. I think the courts should just let it go, because a 23-day stay in lock-up for a star such as Hilton is nowhere near what everyone else would experience in jail. She will have her own cell, eat her own food and wear her own clothes.

All that is being taken away from her is her outside life, and no one can be sure that she will even have to stay for the entire 23 days – I am sure that she will get good-behavior brownie points.

The facts are simple: why should she be punished … if she is not really being punished?

by Jesse Dees
The Clackamas Print

Wayne’s world: Tai Chi class whips up whimsical wonders

When asked why he went into Tai Chi, Instructor Wayne Keller very seriously replied, “Unwanted pregnancy.”

This is a perfect example of the non sequiters Keller peppers throughout his classes.

Keller has always been interested in the elegance of Tai Chi’s hidden power. The trick, however, was to find a quality teacher.

Luckily, he found one in Master George Xu.

Keller always smiles when he recollects stories about Master George. During his interview with The Print, he even broke out in song, praising his teacher to the tune of “George of the Jungle.”

Surprisingly, there is still time between discussions of the latest movie in theaters and hilarious stories about Master George to learn hidden Tai Chi secrets, such as Earth, Spiral and Yi.

And what secrets they are!

When the students in his Winter Term class challenged him to push them all over at once, Keller surprised them by having them all line up and push him together. Using his superior Tai Chi skills, he pushed back – and the whole class fell backwards like a line of dominoes.

“What old men call skill young men call cheating” – his favorite saying – was the only explanation given to his baffled students. Oddly enough, it is these sayings that make him a fun instructor.

But beneath the jokes and laughter, he is serious about his classes. Many of the stories told in class are in fact hidden secrets of Tai Chi.

“I think he is a very cool teacher who appears to know what he is doing,” said Kent Hall, one of the students in Advanced Tai Chi, “and he listens to the questions of the students.”

As if to confirm this opinion, Keller admitted that his favorite aspect of teaching is seeing the light-bulbs go on in people’s eyes when they suddenly understand his lessons.

On the reverse, he dislikes the financial strings that tend to come with teaching. Consequently, he is fond of teaching privately because of the personal intimacy that comes with it.

Keller hails from Portland, or what he calls “Land of Mist and Dew.”

His hobbies include camping and good food, particularly ethnic food. He also enjoys video games, such as Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for the Xbox. In addition, he also plays old-school Pong.

Keller has been teaching at Clackamas for 11 years, but his experience goes even further back. He has been teaching Tai Chi for a total of 16 years and Martial Arts for 20.

He also teaches private classes in Philippine Stick/Knife fighting and offers many types of bodywork and massage.

by Jess Sheppard
The Clackamas Print