Mount Hood

1500 Mormon Resignations over Handbook 1

By: Jenna Beresheim News Editor

Nov. 5, 2015 saw the release of a new policy handbook from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints which recalled baptism and blessings as an opportunity for youth of same-sex couples.

This policy, housed within Handbook 1, applied to children under 18 who are either “natural or adopted” by LGBT parents.

To be exempt from this exclusion, the children must live in a new household with opposite-sex guardians or wait until they are 18 to denounce their original parents in favor of their religion.

Children of same-sex parents would also be required to completely disavow same-sex marriage altogether in order to be baptized, confirmed, ordained, or even invited to perform in missionary services.

“The church has long been on record as opposing same-sex marriages. While it respects the law of the land, and acknowledges the right of others to think and act differently, it does not perform or accept same-sex marriage within its membership,” stated Eric Hawkins, a church spokesperson to the Washington Post.

Some of this opposition can be traced back to Proposition 8, which eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry in California.

With the support of the LDS Church, Prop 8 passed in 2008 but was later deemed unconstitutional and retracted.

In retaliation to the latest policy, over 1500 LDS Church participants submitted their letters of resignation, with the number continuing to grow.

“I’ve thought more and more about sending in my letter of resigning my membership,” admitted Lilaah Jones, a third year gerontology major. “I am astonished and appalled that this is happening.”

Jones personally identifies within the LGBTQ community as well as the LDS Church.

“I was baptized Mormon about 5 or 6 years ago,” Jones said. “It’s been awhile since I’ve identified and gone to church as a Mormon, but I still share the beliefs from the church, until recently.”

Recently, another story made headlines within the same vein: a Utah judge ruled that a lesbian couple was unfit to foster their one year old child.

The couple had been fostering the child for three months when they attempted to adopt the baby, only to be met with the rebuttal that the judge would remove the child and relocate her to a “more traditional home” according to CNN.

“Some encouragement, if you and your partner want a child: fight, work, and prove to everyone that you would make phenomenal parents and no one can take that away from you. Never give up,” urges Jones.

“As for religion, don’t lose your faith. Cut out the bad people who bring you down, and pray for strength. Your relationship with God is between you and Him, no one else,” finishes Jones.

Free-bleeding in the UK

By: Katrina Penaflor Managing Editor

The United Kingdom has renewed their tax on tampons, keeping them marked as a “luxury item” after a recent vote on Oct. 26, 2015.

The result of the remaining tax, which is 5 percent, has led to women free-bleeding outside of British Parliament in an effort to protest.

Free-bleeding is the forgoing of feminine hygiene products while menstruating, to show the visual results of a period without tampons, pads, or the alternatives.

One of the protestors, a woman named Charlie Edge, recounted her feelings in a Facebook post: “People are so quick to tell people that the tampon tax is something we shouldn’t be upset about […] But then they get upset when I show them the reality of the necessity of sanitary items.”

Edge also went on to write about the negative backlash she and fellow protestors received from free-bleeding.

“We’re getting lots of dirty looks and someone just shouted at us to get a job,” Edge wrote, adding “Taxes are necessary, I get it. So are tampons/pads.”

The argument behind the protestors is that feminine products should be viewed as essential items to a woman’s health and sanitation, and should not be taxed as a “luxury item.”

This is especially important when there are women who struggle to afford tampons in the first place; the additional tax only adds to the issue.

British Labour M.P. Stella Creasy spoke to Parliament about how the tax shows inequality among society, and it fails to take into consideration the necessary hygiene products a woman can need.

“Tampons and sanitary towels, even I’m struggling with the words tonight it seems, have always been considered a luxury. That isn’t by accident, that’s by design of an unequal society, in which the concerns of women are not treated as equally as the concerns of men,” Creasy said.

UK comedian Russell Howard addressed the absurdities he saw with the “luxury” marking, calling to attention a number of items that are not taxed and considered by Parliament to be more essential than tampons.

“Well here is a list of some of the things that the taxman thinks is essential more than tampons: helicopters, bingo, Twiglets, adult nappies, flapjacks, toffee apples, edible cake decorations, a ticket to the zoo and crocodile meat,” Howard said on his talk show.

The protestors hope the free-bleeding will raise enough attention to the topic of menstruation and what should and should not be considered a luxury item.

Edge went on to tell Buzzfeed, “If people are grossed out by me not wearing a tampon then I think that emphasizes my point […] They’re not ‘luxury items.’”

Thanksgiving food drive seeking donations

By: Jamal Smith 
Sports Editor

As you feast with your family and friends this Thanksgiving, it is important to “give thanks,” but also to think about people that are less fortunate.

According to a 2013 U.S. Department of Agriculture report, 14.3 percent of U.S. households were food insecure.

Also according to the report, 17.5 million households “had difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all of their family members due to a lack of resources.”

According to the same USDA report, Oregon’s 15 percent food insecurity rate is even higher than the national average, and the statistics have been climbing over the past three years.

With the Thanksgiving food drive, Western Oregon University is giving you the opportunity to help families in Monmouth and Independence who don’t have the luxury to afford an extravagant Thanksgiving meal.

Any Thanksgiving food items are accepted, such as stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, veggies, cranberry sauce and any other food item; excluding the turkey or any refrigerated or frozen items.

The Thanksgiving food drive is coordinated by the WOU Food Pantry, whose mission statement is “to reduce the dilemma of food insecurity on campus.”

Donations can be dropped off at the WOU Food Pantry located on the second floor of the ASPC building or in a bin located in the front office of the ASPC building.

The WOU Food Pantry accepts donations year round. If you are interested in volunteering for the WOU Food Pantry contact the ASWOU Director of Internal Affairs, at aswou@wou.edu for more information.

Rank your school: do college rankings really matter?

By:Alvin Wilson 
Staff Writer

“Top 100 colleges in the U.S.! Click here to see where yours ranks!”

Odds are, if you browse the internet or use any social media, you have seen a headline like this. But how much help do they really offer? Does the rank of your college really matter?

Well, not really.

An economics paper written by Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger suggests that the college you attend really doesn’t matter when determining how much money you will make after graduation.

In their study, Dale and Krueger found that students who graduated from extremely selective colleges didn’t make more money than students who were accepted to the same college but chose to attend a less selective one.

What does this mean for you? It means that if you work hard and are intelligent enough to be accepted into an Ivy League school, you will likely be successful and make a lot of money regardless of where you graduate.

The college you attend doesn’t dictate how much money you will make.

Harvard is often at the top of the list when it comes to high-earning students. But does this mean that Harvard educates its students differently than a public university? Or does it simply mean the school is more selective, limiting its students to those who would have been successful regardless?

Organizations that rank colleges in the U.S. use methods that determine how much money a student who graduates from that college is expected to make. This can be problematic for many obvious reasons.

So how should we be ranking our colleges?

An article published recently in The Economist tries to answer that question.

The Economist used information provided by America’s Department of Education to put together a scoreboard for colleges and universities — one that they believe more accurately reflects how helpful a university is to its students.

They analyzed the financial aid information of hundreds of thousands of students from 1,275 institutions to determine the financial situation of students before they graduated.

They also analyzed their tax returns submitted after graduation and compared the expected earnings of a graduate with their actual median earnings.

For a college to rank highly on this scoring system, its students have to make more than the expected earnings of a graduate from that school. This method of ranking colleges is a much more accurate reflection of the actual value students get from their degrees.

There are, however, some problems with the rankings. The data only includes students who applied for financial aid, which excludes the children of wealthy parents. The information also only provides tax return information for the first ten years after graduation, so it doesn’t account for people who start high-paying jobs after more schooling or experience in the workforce.

It is also important to consider the type of student each college attracts. A college’s ranking could be negatively affected if, for example, it is a school for the deaf or blind.

Even though the scoring criteria provided by The Economist is a more accurate representation of how much a college helps its students upon graduation, students should still take its information lightly.

There are countless factors that can contribute to a college’s ranking.

To see where Western, or your future graduate school, ranks in The Economist’s scoreboard, visit their article here.

The Forgotten

By: Megan Clark 
Campus Life Editor

On the heels of Veteran’s Day on Nov. 11, 2015, Virginia became the first state in the United States able to help all of its 1,400 homeless veterans find permanent housing. The veterans made up just nine percent of the homeless population in Virginia.

American society has, in varying degrees of success, made strides in addressing inequities; on June 26th, 2015, gay marriage was made legal nationwide.

Protests and riots have taken place in the streets of major cities for unlawful killings of African American men. The wage gap between genders in the workplace and women’s reproductive rights are hot button topics in politics.

These issues are not resolved or forgotten in average Americans’ minds, and with good reason, they shouldn’t be. But where does homelessness stand on their list of concerns?
Homelessness doesn’t discriminate between race, gender, or religion, and is a widespread issue that affects every community in the world.

According to the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness: “In the U.S., more than 3.5 million people experience homelessness each year.”

As the weather gets colder and holidays near, homelessness becomes a lukewarm topic of discussion.

Food drives and donation sites requesting warm weather gear appear on the everyman’s radar, yet it’s not enough to force people to address the problem and its possible solutions directly.

Confronting everyday images of people sleeping under bridges or lined up at missions isn’t enough to invoke a passion for change; instead, homeless people are ignored, harassed, or avoided.

Why is homelessness greeted with such apathy or disgust?

Many view homelessness as a result of being lazy; however, according to HomeAid, homelessness is “caused by tragic life occurrences like the loss of loved ones, job loss, domestic violence, divorce and family disputes.”

Other reasons include “depression, untreated mental illness, post traumatic stress disorder, and physical disabilities,” according to HomeAid.

While there is no umbrella approach to addressing the varied issues that cause homelessness, the best way to solve homelessness is keeping an individual in their home. Prevention is the most effective way to keep people off the streets and out of temporary shelters, and also ultimately costs less.

Home-loss can be prevented in a variety of ways. One method, according to the Coalition for the Homeless, is through “effective discharge planning,” which would include housing assistance for those with mental illnesses or those leaving foster care.

While donations and volunteering are excellent ways to aid the homeless population, they won’t remedy flaws in the system, and certainly won’t keep people in homes.

This means the public should look at addressing prevention, not merely trying to stanch the wound with donated mittens and unwanted cans of Campbell’s soup.

Misery in Missouri

By: Jenna Beresheim 
News Editor

After years of unaltered courses of action in the event of discrimination, the University of Missouri’s president and chancellor both resigned within a few hours of one another on Nov. 9, 2015.

“I take full responsibility for this frustration, and I take full responsibility for the inaction that has occurred,” stated Tim Wolfe, the University’s president to CNN during his public resignation.

Racist events have taken place on the campus for years. In 2010, two white students scattered bags of cotton balls outside the campus Black Culture Center.

In 2014, Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, sparking the Black Lives Matter movement as well as race-based issues discussions across campuses nationwide.

University of Missouri’s Student Government President, Payton Head, posted on Facebook during September this year about individuals driving around campus yelling slurs based on race and LGBTQ+ discrimination.

Still in September, the University’s Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin said that recent racial biases and discriminative occurrences are “totally unacceptable,” according to CNN.

That same month, students began to protest based on the aforementioned issues, and much more.

By October, students held a second “Racism Lives Here” rally on campus and on a separate day, a purportedly drunken Caucasian student disrupted and yelled racial slurs at a Legion of Black Collegians group meeting.

Swastikas were drawn on campus using feces and ash, Tim Wolfe was confronted and demanded to change the campus’ culture around diversity inclusion, and demands were made but unanswered by the student body.

One key demand was the list of demands offered to Wolfe by the student body titled “Concerned Student 1950.” The date attached to the name was the official date African American students were initially accepted into the university.

Social media quickly flooded with students, staff, and supporters using the hashtag #concernedstudent1950 to start a dialogue around the subject matter.

As November rolled in, a student boycott began and a student began a hunger strike. Soon, the University’s football team refused to play an upcoming game that could cost the school over one million dollars, joining the protest.

“The athletes of color on the University of Missouri football team truly believe ‘Injustice Anywhere is a threat to Justice Everywhere’” tweeted the Mizzou football team on Nov. 7.

“We will no longer participate in any football related activities until President Tim Wolfe resigns or is removed due to his negligence towards marginalized students’ experiences,” the tweet continued.

Sports Illustrated reported that the football team was not the only high-stakes opposition.

Multiple state legislators, such as Sen. Kurt Schafer, House Higher Education Committee Chairman Steve Cookson, and Assistant House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty all called for Wolfe to step down.

With outside forces from the state, national news coverage, and protesting students and staff, it was not long before Wolfe backed away from University of Missouri.

“Use my resignation to heal and start talking again,” Wolfe pleaded in his five-minute speech addressing his resignation.
However, it appears there has already been some racist backlash.

Yahoo! News reported online threats through YikYak on Nov 10. These threats were made by Hunter M. Park, who posted that he would “shoot every black person I see.”

“Some of you are alright. Don’t go to campus tomorrow,” read another threat that resembled the theme of posts made on 4chan before the shootings in Oregon last month.

According to the New York Times, police arrested a man on Nov 11 after making a “terrorist threat” while false rumors of Ku Klux Klan on campus were dispersed.

Ultimately, change is coming slowly to Mizzou, with both positions for President and Chancellor hoping to be filled by Jan. 1, 2016.

Magma chambers mapped under Mount St. Helens

By: Alvin Wilson 
Staff Writer

It has been more than 35 years since Mt. St. Helens, the most active volcano in the Pacific Northwest, erupted in 1980, and scientists are still discovering more about it.

According to a report released Wed. Nov. 4, 2015, a series of large magma chambers have been mapped miles underneath the volcano. Researchers believe the way these magma chambers are aligned could explain the 1980 eruption.

Researchers have mapped two significant chambers: a large chamber 5 to 12 kilometers below the mountain, and an even larger one 12 to 40 kilometers below the mountain.

Scientists are able to map deep magma chambers by using sensitive instruments called seismometers.

Seismometers are extremely sensitive to vibrations, and can pick up movement miles beneath the Earth’s surface.

Since vibrations travel more quickly through hard rock than through magma, scientists are able to map out the size of the chambers by taking note of where the vibrations slow down and speed up.

In order to get an accurate picture, researchers had to use 2,500 seismometers to record the vibrations from 23 large explosions.

According to the images the researchers have compiled, Mt. St. Helens isn’t the only volcano supplied by these large magma chambers. Mt. Adams and a group of dormant volcanoes called the Indian Heaven volcanic field are also likely supplied by these chambers.

The researchers will leave 75 seismometers in pace near Mt. St. Helens in order to collect more data.

Even though it hasn’t fully erupted since 1980, Mt. St. Helens is still considered a high-risk volcano, but researchers believe these new findings will help them find earlier signs of a possible eruption.

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