When the Portland State Men’s Soccer Club was traveling to the University of Oregon World Cup soccer tournament on May 16, they knew something was different from the two years they had traveled there before. And it was. The team had recently hired a new coach who had pushed them at their practices and insisted on the best. Seriousness had increased within the club, and there was a shared dedication to the sport.
The Student Health Advisory Board is pushing for a progressive but controversial addition to Portland State’s extended insurance plan: covering the costs of sexual reassignment surgery. Adding this surgery to the extended plan will help lift financial burdens for those students who elect to have the surgery, and its benefits will likely be used by a small number of Portland State students. Even so, this surgery, along with other healthcare benefits, should be added to the extended insurance plan.
Tokio Hotel Scream * There’s something that just doesn’t translate about Germany’s Tokio Hotel. According to my sources on the issue, these guys are the shit in Europe. Seriously, they’re like Jesus, Princess Diana and The Rock all rolled up and baked into one big Pop-Tart of Euro-love.
Chuck Palahniuk’s new novel is kind of a letdown. Snuff, besides being crude, explicit and a little bit tasteless??which are not great reasons to dislike a book??is sloppy, annoyingly repetitive and feels half-hearted. The story is about porn star Cassie Wright’s attempt to set the world record for the largest gangbang ever. How ambitious. On camera, she will let 600 guys fuck her one after another for a porno called World Whore Three. The book’s action centers on the guys waiting their turn in the warehouse-sized green room during the shooting of the film.
Actor will speak on affordable medication Actor Joey Pantoliano will be on campus on Monday to speak out regarding prescription medication access for people of all income levels. The Portland State stop is part of the Oregon leg of the “Help is Here Express” nationwide bus tour, a drug accessibility campaign put on by the Partnership for Prescription Assistance. The PPA, through funding by various pharmaceutical research companies across America, hopes to raise awareness of patient assistance programs and the increase of chronic disease in Americans. Pantoliano, who has starred in The Matrix and in The Sopranos, will be speaking regarding his own struggle with mental depression and will be joined by Ken Johnson, senior vice president of Communications for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. The tour’s stop in Portland will run from 10 a.m. to noon in the South Park Blocks. In addition to the speakers, staffers will be on-hand to field questions regarding drug accessibility. Other Oregon stops for the Help Is Here Express include Salem, Eugene, Coos Bay and Grants Pass. -Melinda Bardon Future of 82nd focus of Friday seminar PSU grad students Jamison Kellehr and Steve Szigethy, of the Master of Urban and Regional Planning program, will be presenting the results of their planning workshop at this Friday’s Transportation Seminar. The workshop, entitled “Imagine 82nd,” brought together businesses, residents, property owners and students of a 1.3 mile-long stretch of NE 82nd Ave. to develop a working concept for the future of their neighborhood. The research group gathered information from participants who answered questions such as “In 20 years I want 82nd Avenue to be …” At the transportation seminar, the pair will reveal the concepts built on the collaboration with the 82nd Ave. community, with a focus on the aspects of land use and transportation. The seminar will be held at noon in the PSU Urban Center building, room 204. -Melinda Bardon Environmentalist to plead guilty to arson Radical environmentalist Tre Arrow plans to plead guilty to arson and conspiracy charges. Arrow said on his Web site last weekend he did not want to risk life in prison. He called the plea deal an offer he “couldn’t refuse” and said it takes into account time he spent in prison in Canada awaiting extradition to the United States. He didn’t say what sentence he expected. Arrow became a fugitive after he was indicted in 2002. He’s been in custody since March 2004, when he was arrested in British Columbia on local charges resulting from shoplifting. Arrow was charged with firebombing three cement trucks at Ross Island Sand & Gravel in Portland and setting fire to logging trucks and a tractor near Estacada in 2001. A hearing for the plea is scheduled Tuesday. -Associated Press
The United Indian Students of Higher Education student group held their yearly Salmon Bake fundraiser yesterday in the Park Blocks. For $8, students and others could feast on salmon cooked in an open fire pit, as well as rice, salad and other side dishes. From 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. members of the United Indian Students in Higher Education (UISHE) prepared the salmon in traditional Native American preparation. For more information on UISHE, contact Nicole Charley, coordinator for UISHE at 503-725-5671 or visit uishe.groups.pdx.edu.
Medieval Jerusalem was such a hectic place to live. One minute you’re enjoying a leisurely stroll through town while picking pockets, and the next, the whole damn place is on fire and the only way out is by leaping nimbly from roof to roof. In Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles, a Nintendo DS prequel to the Assassin’s Creed game released last fall for PS3 and XBOX 360, you play as the title character, Altair, a white-robed assassin in all his badass glory. There’s a chalice that your boss wants, and you have to go find it ASAP before the Templars can beat you to the prize.
Irishman Brian Friel’s Tony award-winning play, Dancing at Lughnasa, highlights the changing Irish experience and its effects on Celtic culture. Directed with a knowing hand by Irish-raised and-educated professor William Tate, this production helps capture the Irish experience with heartbreaking poignancy. Lughnasa is an ancient Irish Pagan holiday that some Irish still celebrate, a kind of harvest festival that happens at the beginning of August. The events of the play take place over the summer weeks leading up to the festival in 1936.
Say wha? “I am acknowledging that I’ve been hurt by patriarchy.” –Writing on a mysterious sticky note found on the mirror in the men’s basement bathroom in Smith Memorial Student Union, along with others that said things like, “It’s ok to cry,” and “I am giving myself permission to feel.”
The Dirtball Crook County **1/2 About four years ago, I lost a Battle of the Bands competition to The Dirtball in my hometown of Bend, Oregon. Now, he’s still a far better rapper than I and his songs are still based on the dirty, subtly white-trash teenage-hood that came with growing up in Central Oregon.