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Articles by Justin Cory
We need to protect LGBTQ+ kids
The old adage “history repeats itself” all too often seems true. A case in point—in Berlin during the early part of the 20th century there was a vibrant explosion of progressive gay and trans visibility and art movements galore. This beautiful flowering of expression and identity was brutally repressed in 1933 with the rise of the Nazi Party. Their first salvo after Adolph Hitler’s election as chancellor of Germany was to attack and burn down the Institute of Sexology.
We need to rethink our urban shopping spaces
Last summer, Portland State Vanguard’s Kat Leon wrote about the exciting transformation happening at the Lloyd Center shopping mall. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the cultural shift to online retail, which was already well underway, and for many brick-and-mortar retailers it truly looked like the end times. In Nov.
Philanthropy is a PR mirage
Philanthropy is a scam. The idea is inherently based on inequality. When an individual, corporation or one of their foundations donates money to benefit the welfare of the less fortunate, they are flexing their power and wealth in a public relations bid at respectability. This all serves to obscure the fact that their very ability to donate generous sums of money is predicated upon gross wealth inequality and the hoarding of wealth and resources by the privileged few.
Jo Ann Hardesty is the only politician in Portland that I trust
I know, I know—we are all getting sick and tired of the election talk. Election season has been in full swing and seems to grow longer each cycle as more money and more vitriol seep into the already toxic process. Here in Portland, the city council race between incumbent Jo Ann Hardesty and Rene Gonzalez has garnered quite a bit of attention.
The city that works?
Portland’s current slogan is “The City That Works.” in 1995, then-Mayor Vera Katz explained that the new slogan “lets the citizens know that the city cares about what they think and wants to hear from them.” One doesn’t need to be a data analyst or political pollster to gather that most Portlanders do not feel that their city is working particularly well.
The US’s attitude towards sex work needs to change
It is a well known fact that Portland has the most strip clubs per capita of any city in the United States. The city tends to lean into this part of its brand as a quirky and weird place full of alternative thinkers and dreamers—and much ink has been spilled elsewhere about how there are clubs that cater to vegans, craft beer enthusiasts, metalheads, punks, hip-hop trap fans, karaoke singers, Victorian burlesquers and beyond.
Burnin’ down the house
2020 was an eventful year, with the new COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide uprising for Black lives and police abolition after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. In Sept. of that year, we Oregonians also faced poisoned skies choked by millions of acres of burning forest. During this two-week period, the Portland and Salem areas had the worst air quality in the world with Air Quality Index readings literally off of the charts.
Cashing in on the magic
A renaissance for psychedelic drugs seems to be on the horizon, and we are ahead of the curve here in Oregon as voters approved the legalization of psychedelic psilocybin mushrooms with Measure 109 in 2020. Starting in 2023, the new law allows anyone age 21 or older to access the mushrooms in services for “personal development,” however, it will not have the same legal status as cannabis.
Oregon’s green legislature isn’t enough
There has been a constant and growing pall of existential dread for Generation Z, millennials and Generation X alike when looking at the overwhelming data around climate change. For much of our lives we have been warned that catastrophic climate change would be imminent unless drastic measures were taken to stop or at least reduce carbon emissions.
Ted Wheeler is a false progressive
By now it is doubtful that many people—regardless of whether they reside within or without the city of Portland—have illusions about the authenticity of Ted Wheeler’s portrayal as a progressive. In the face of the historic uprising for Black lives and police abolition after the brutal murder of George Floyd, Wheeler refused calls to give up his position as police commisioner. He has continually stood in the way of substantive police reform.
The invisible power of labor activism
These days it can be hard to feel hopeful in any sense of the word.
Hotspringing - Vanguard
We all need a reset from the perils of our busy industrialized lives—here is a list of hot springs to visit in Oregon. Breitenbush Hands down, my favorite hot spring of all. It is 70 miles east of Salem nestled between Mt. Jefferson and the Santiam River where it is dammed at Detroit Lake. The springs are more built up and are part of a rustic, intentional community—i.e. hippie—resort. However, you can still go for just a day pass.
Democracy is dying by tribunal
This summer it is widely expected that the Supreme Court will issue a ruling on the Mississippi 15-week abortion ban that will overturn almost 50 years of settled abortion law precedent. This is in spite of recent Gallup polls showing nearly 80% of the United States supports abortion in all or most cases. In the same poll, 63% of the U.S. wanted the Supreme Court’s precedent in Roe v. Wade upheld.
The cult of celebrity must die
There have been countless think pieces and news broadcasts on local and cable stations about the impacts of social media, the 24-hour news cycle and our collective obsession with those who wield celebrity. The 2022 award show season, with all of its attendant hoopla and red carpet speculation, was a prime example of this phenomenon. Enough ink has been spilled in the exhausting media frenzy that encircled the slap-heard-around-the-world at the Oscars.
We don’t often speak of ghosts, but they are definitely there
It is no secret that in the startlingly recent past, the entire North American continent underwent an incomprehensibly massive and brutal cultural reconfiguring. According to the scholarship of Erin McKenna, the population of Indigenous people in North and South America in 1491 was around 145 million people—by 1691 their population had plummeted by 90–95 percent, around 130 million people.
The great unmasking - Vanguard
State officials made the decision to lift the mask mandate in Oregon on March 12, just as the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is in decline. We’ve been here before. We all recall the optimism of our impending hot-vax summer last May. “If you’ve been fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask,” President Biden said gleefully. “It’s vaxxed or masked.” Those pronouncements did not age well.
A hop and a skip into Jumptown
Many Portlanders do not realize that there were vibrant Black cultural and artistic movements here not too long ago. Part of the shameful and barbaric historical legacy of settler-colonialism and white supremacy in Portland—and Oregon at large—has been this erasure.
Platonic love is deeply undervalued
“When culture is based on a dominator model, not only will it be violent, but it will frame all relationships as power struggles”—bell hooks From our first moments of cognitive consciousness, we are bombarded with stories and cues that imprint our culture’s values upon us. A very particular model of love is imprinted first through our parents and, following that, through our siblings and primary family members.
What is Boeing still doing at PSU?
Back in 2016, the Associated Students of Portland State (ASPSU) passed a resolution calling on PSU to divest from any institutions that profit from human rights violations against Palestinians. In 2021, ASPSU passed a new resolution calling on the PSU Administration to cut ties with Boeing specifically. Boeing manufactures much more than the commercial jets we’ve all come to know them for.
Our intuition is to share
Recently, some exciting studies have thrown doubt on widely-held conventional assumptions about so-called human nature. Though philosophy, anthropology and psychology are the classic disciplines traditionally tasked with such investigation, an invigorating infusion of exciting new data comes from within the fields of biology, economics, mathematics and computer science. One such idea that is long overdue—and the crux of social justice movements since time immemorial—is that selfishness is learned.
Some of those that work forces
This is not going to be a fun ride. Much like the last three years of global COVID-19 pandemic upheaval—or the four years of Donald Trump’s molestation and domination of the 24-hour news media spectacle—there is a darkness lurking just barely below the surface of some of the most powerful institutions in this country.
Are we addicted to our own distraction?
Reading words on a screen—or page when Vanguard gets the full-print treatment again—like this can be a real test of concentration. There is an ever-constant competition for our attention from the notifications on our screens—from the haptic vibrations buzzing in our pockets, on our wrists and in our hands to the myriad of marketing and advertising—bombarding our eyes and ears in the tactile non-digital realm.
Embrace the space
The past two years have been collectively traumatizing—we continue to endure the unrelenting waves of a deadly global pandemic with all of its attendant isolation, upending of social ritual and connection. The reactionary forces of white supremacy and patriarchy have arisen violently in response to the strides our society has made in challenging all forms of oppression.
Why can’t we just remain on top forever?
The topic of equity and social justice in higher education hits close to home for Portland State students—one of the so-called victims of the social justice warriors, former PSU philosophy professor Peter Boghossian, time after time had faced controversial dust-ups.
People for which Portland?
As the costs of living and housing have surged, so has endemic houselessness leading to encampments all across the city of Portland. When the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered entire commercial districts, the city—and especially downtown—started to look like the post-apocalyptic set of an ‘80s movie.
Behind the scenes at the Portland Nursery’s apple market
For over 30 years, the local gardener’s paradise, the Portland Nursery, has hosted the Apple Tasting Festival at each of its Southeast Portland locations located on 5050 SE Stark and 9000 SE Division. In pre-pandemic times, the event boasted throngs of eager apple enthusiasts savoring tastings of over 60 varieties of apples and pears cultivated by growers in the Pacific Northwest.
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