PERS poisonous payouts

In a nutshell: The Public Employee Retirement System exists to give those who have committed themselves to state, county and municipal work a steady pension upon retirement. This is fair…

Students: The university’s third wheel

While the strike was looming over Portland State—the faculty versus the administration—I noticed that the students seemed to be siding with their professors. One could suppose that it was mostly…

To watch or not to watch

Time to discuss a controversial question: Would it be fun to watch porn with your significant other? Whether you like it or not, almost everybody watches porn. Exactly how much…

A thousand points of light

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold…

The vulnerable pedestrian

I am an aggressive pedestrian. I’ll admit it. I’ll jaywalk, signal, and “You better stop before you hit me—that won’t look very good on your resumé” my way toward shaving…

Game of drones

DISCLAIMER: This post contains spoilers for season four of Game of Thrones up to the episode that aired April 20, as well as discussion of a scene in the book…

Chastity in the modern era

When most people took sex education classes in high school, the concept of abstinence arose as being the only absolute safeguard against STIs and pregnancy. I, like most hormonal teenagers…

The great white hoax

Apparently someone forgot to tell the Australian government that there are sharks in the waters off of its coast. Due to an upswing in the amount of shark attacks in the…

Bring on the toys

Sex sells. Nothing demonstrates this truism quite like the sale of sex toys. In 2011, it was estimated that the sex toy industry made about $15 billion, and the volume…