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theCOOPERPOINT
J O U R N A L
The Evergreen State College Student Newspaper | December 6, 2017
PORTBLOCKADE
FREESPEECHCONFLICT
NOTEONHARRASMENT
2
4
9
BEHIND CALLS TO “MAKE
THE PORT A BEACH AGAIN”
FLYERS REMOVED FROM EGGPLANT
BY
WAYWARD
CAMPUS
COP
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR ON
ANIMOSITY DIRECTED AT THE CPJ
The Cooper Point Journal
STAFF
Editor-in-Chief
J a s m i n e K o z a k G i l roy
News Editor
Mason Soto
Community Editor
Georgie Hicks
A r t s & C u lt u r e E d i t o r
Sally Linn
Comics Editor
Morrissey Morrissey
Business Manager
April Davidson
W eb M a n a g e r
Fe l i x C h ro m e
Distribution Manager
Joe Sullam
Writers
S eb a s t ia n L o p e z
Robin G ib s on
CONTACT
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T h e E v e r g re e n S t a t e C o l l e g e
CA B 3 3 2
2 7 0 0 E v e r g re e n P k w y N W
O l y m p i a , WA
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© 2017 the Cooper Point Journal
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FROM THE ARCHIVES Snow day, 1972. Photographer unknown, courtesy of the Evergreen Digital
Archives.
HOW WE WORK
The Cooper Point Journal is produced by students at The Evergreen State College, with funding from student
fees and advertising from local businesses. The Journal is published for free every other Wednesday during the
school year and distributed throughout the Olympia area.
Our content is also available online at www.cooperpointjournal.com.
Our mission is to provide an outlet for student voices, and to inform and entertain the Evergreen community
and the Olympia-area more broadly, as well as to provide a platform for students to learn about operating a
news publication.
Our office is located on the third floor of the Campus Activities Building (CAB) at The Evergreen State
College in room 332 and we have open student meetings from 4 to 5 p.m every Wednesday.
WORK FOR US
We accept submissions from any student at The Evergreen State College, and also from former students,
faculty, and staff. We also hire some students onto our staff, who write articles for each issue and receive a
learning stipend.
Have an exciting news topic? Know about some weird community happening? Enjoy that new hardcore
band? Come talk to us and write about it.
We will also consider submissions from non-Evergreen people, particularly if they have special knowledge on
the topic. We prioritize current student content first, followed by former students, faculty and staff, and then
general community submissions. Within that, we prioritize content related to Evergreen first, followed by
Olympia, the state of Washington, the Pacific Northwest, etc.
To submit an article, reach us at cooperpointjournal@gmail.com.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
We want to hear from you! If you have an opinion on anything we’ve reported in the paper, or goings-on in
Olympia or at Evergreen, drop us a line with a paragraph or two (100 - 300 words) for us to publish in the
paper. Make sure to include your full name, and your relationship to the college—are you a student, staff,
graduate, community member, etc. We reserve the right to edit anything submitted to us before publishing,
but we’ll do our best to consult with you about any major changes.
News
The blockade photographed in the days leading up to the raid. J. KOZAKGILROY
“MAKE THE PORT A BEACH AGAIN”
LOCALS TAKE BACK THE TRACKS, STALL
TRANSPORT OF PROPPANTS FOR 12 DAYS
By Mason Soto
On November 17, 2017 a celebration was held to commemorate the one
year anniversary of the blockade of Olympia train tracks that stopped the
shipment of fracking materials to Wyoming and North Dakota, in solidarity
with Water Protectors against the Dakota Access Pipeline. That afternoon,
exactly one year since the eviction of the blockade, the celebration became
more than a dedication– resurgence was in the air, and a second blockade was
formed by various activists.
The barricade held strong
for a record twelve days, doubling the duration of last year’s
six-day-long action. Early in
the morning of November
29 the blockade was raided
by a combination of combination of local and federal
police departments, wth no
arrests made. Following the
raid, the site was dismantled
to allow several trains carrying cargo through. At its start,
the blockade on train tracks at
Seventh Avenue and Jefferson
Street was created to stop the
shipment of ceramic proppants from the port, proppants
that are central to the hydraulic fracturing process used to
extract oil from underground.
Over its course, last month’s
action came to serve many
more purposes beyond barricade, and through community
initiative the site grew to function as a commune of collective
living and political expression.
The site was a sprawl of
tents and tarps that expanded
daily to meet growing needs,
couches and tables galore, box
spring mattresses and wood
pallets along the floors, barrel fires to warm the soggy
encampment, and a piano
laying across once section of
the tracks themselves. Aided by community support,
the blockade developed into
an encampment with living
spaces and a working kitchen
full of donated perishables, a
stovetop, and warm food that
community members brought
by each day. A medic zone
was set up with on-site medics present at all times, and
in the last couple days before
the police raid, groups were
working on creating a functioning school space. The beds
as well as the kitchen came to
serve not only the needs of the
blockade, but also the needs
of houseless folks who were
involved in the action. Many
houseless folks were continually filling jobs and tasks around
the workings of the blockade,
while some simply needed a
place to get out of the rain,
spaces that the city still lacks.
In a group interview with
the Cooper Point Journal
(CPJ), participants explained
how the Olympia Rail Blockade was organized and why it
was important for a plethora
of activist groups around the
city. They emphasized the
plurality of voices from the
action and they made it clear
they spoke from their own
unique perspective. Once the
anniversary-turned-action began, activists stopped a train
potentially shipping proppants
at Jefferson and State before
moving up the tracks to create
a working barricade. Dozens
of grassroots activists showed
up to form loose committees
managing the diverse demands
and desires that folks brought
into the action. Things were far
from centralized, with most of
the committees working on
their own goals and demands
for the space in a way that made
mobilization happen incredibly quickly, limiting debates
and infighting for the sake of
the cause. In correspondence
for this article, a Board of
Directors member at Parents
Organizing for Welfare and
Economic Rights (POWER),
whose nearby headquarters offered space and restrooms for
the demonstrators, explained
how many issues wrapped
around the “economically violent” fracking: “It poisons land,
food, water animals, and humans--especially those most in
poverty. The pipelines are usually routed through the poorest places, with far too many
of those being indigenous
spaces.” The groups knew what
they agreed on: that fracking
sands should be blocked from
the port- beyond that, the ac-
DECEMBER 6, 2017 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 03
News
tion could become whatever
it needed to. The POWER
member we spoke to witnessed
an immediate impact, “I saw
a car pull up and ask them
what was going on. They had
no idea the Port was moving
fracking sands through Olympia— or what fracking is! A
brief and really positive conversation ensued… the blockade is alerting our community
that this harm is happening.”
Despite a lack of clear-cut
leadership, the blockade participants spent a ton of work
maintaining camaraderie and
holding one another accountable. In group meetings held
each night, the various working groups and anyone in the
encampment came together
to plan and address ongoing
issues. Events were proposed,
supplies were assessed, and
there were measures taken to
confront any racism, misogyny,
and other issues of emotional
and physical safety that people
experienced in the space. At
one point, signs were posted
around prohibiting xenopho-
Left, graffiti spotted the day of the raid; right, a train waiting for the blockade to be cleared to go through; bellow, the tracks themselves. J. KOZAKGILROY
bic language and advertising the site as a “safe space”.
There were still some problems that came from the lack of
centralization, especially with
regards to communication.
Various lists of demands were
circulated by different factions
rather than a united statement, and some felt that this
allowed media and the city to
misrepresent the whole of the
group. For instance, demands
published in a pamphlet titled
The Olympia Communard:
Dispatches from the Olympia Rail Blockade were spread
around by online news outlets
and even read outloud in a
City Council meeting in an effort to delegitimize the action,
while the list itself was understood ingroup to be satirical
with innocuous and common
slogans like “make the port a
beach again” alongside eccentric demands like “blow up the
sun” and the final call that City
Manager Steve Hall “fight a
bear”. The pamphlets and other
literature were being produced
and spread by specific groups
04 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
rather than the whole, and
some participants also shared
concern that the lack of unified
communication made it harder to publicly align the group
with the Indigenous Caucus
that had worked with the activists through both blockades.
Even without a statement, the
caucus demonstrated their
support when indigenous
folks came by the camp for
ceremonial blessings four or
five times throughout the
two weeks, and they worked
to publish coverage and support for the action in Native
Daily Network, an online
outlet for Native news, media
and culture. With or without
a common press release, many
organizers see the blockade
against fracking proppants
inherently tied to the larger
fight against the extraction
of resources and land of the
Nisqually and Squaxin tribes.
Folks involved expressed to
the CPJ that they believe it no
accident that the City Council
meeting planned for November 29 to discuss Indigenous
concerns was almost cancelled,
as had happened with a similar
meeting after last year’s raid.
These issues were brought up at
the meeting to little response.
The police raid that took
place this year ended with
minimal confrantion and zero
arrests so far, despite an egregious amount of militarized
presence. Lieutenant Sam
Costello, Olympia Police Department’s Public Information Officer, initially told the
CPJ that the city’s police “did
not participate in the operation to clear the tracks” with
Union Railroad Police, but
in a later email admitted that
the operation was a “partnership” between the two.
There was a street tank out
and about, complete with turret, and at least a hundred cops
gathered, including a Special
Weapons and Tactic (SWAT)
team in full riot gear and
camo, holding what appeared
to be AK-15s and teargas
guns. The swarm of Olympia Police, Washington State
Patrol, the Thurston County
Sheriff Department, and Railroad Police formed about a
two block perimeter at five in
the morning, while activists
report that police cars, unmarked and otherwise, cruised
through Downtown streets
in anticipation of a counteraction that would not come, or
what Costello called a “threat
of violence and destruction of
property in the city”. By the
time the SWAT team was sent
in to search the site, after three
megaphone calls to disperse,
the camp was already cleared
of people. Throughout the rest
of the morning, railroad officials assessed the area and city
workers were sent in with construction machinery including a crane and a bulldozer to
completely destroy the infrastructure of the site. Some activists gathered about a block
away, protesting the police
as they tore down the communal encampment and patrolled the area, and although
there was a report that one
indigenous protester there was
shoved with a police battalion.
Community
CAMPUS COPS VIOLATE FREE SPEECH
tions are established.” It also
specifies that in order for a flier
By Georgie Hicks
to be removed it first must be
found in violation of the policy
On November 21 at 4 a.m., Evergreen police officer Tony Perez un- which happens by reporting
locked and entered the Flaming Eggplant, and removed fliers from the the flier to “... the appropriinside of the window and by the register and a cup placed on a secu- ate college office or agency
rity camera to purposely obstruct recording of the interior of the restau- for action in accord with established college policies.”
rant. In his police report regarding his removal of the fliers Perez identiThis incident follows sevfied the fliers as being “anti-white” and a tag on the security camera cover eral acounts made by student
as being “anti-police”, justifying the removal of these objects as “racial and eye witnesses to the CPJ that
not in keeping with the Social Contract at The Evergreen State College.” they have seen campus officers
removing flyers in the past in a
The fliers, which were or political belief, or national for comment by defer- way that appeared selective, inalso posted elsewhere on origin in considering indi- ring to Wendy Endress. cluding flyers featuring Tryvon
campus,
stated, “YOUR vidual’s’ admission, employWendy Endress, Vice Martin following the protests
WHITE DREADS ARE ment, or promotion.” Though President of Student Affairs, last spring and posters that said
VIOLENCE, YOUR AP- should be noted that the docu- responded to request for com- “Trans Women are Women”.
PROPRIATION IS VIO- ment also states, “Evergreen’s ment by informing stating
The CPJ reached out to
LENCE”. The security cam- members live under a special “The fliers inside the flam- Samantha Harris, Vice Presiera cover was tagged with set of rights and responsibili- ing eggplant should not have dent of Policy Research at
1312, which Perez identi- ties, foremost among which is been removed. Ed Sorger, the Foundation for Individual
fied as standing for ACAB that of enjoying the freedom Chief of Police, is reviewing Rights in Education (FIRE),
(All Cops Are Bastards). to explore ideas and to dis- the posting policy with police an organization whose misThe Social Contract, which cuss their explorations in both services staff to address these sion is to “defend and sustain
differs from The Student Code speech and print. Both institu- circumstances and prevent individual rights at America’s
of Conduct, is a non-binding tional and individual censor- further removal of fliers that colleges and universities”, and
document meant to inspire ship are at variance with this do not violate college policy.” sent her the posting policy the
the way in which students and basic freedom.” “An essential
Although the schools post- Social Contract and the Stufaculty relate to each other. condition for learning is the ing policy does allow for re- dent Code of Conduct as well
Perez is likely referencing the freedom and right on the part moval of fliers in public post- as the details of the incident.
part of the document that says, of an individual or group to ing areas but the Flaming Harris responded by saying,
“There may be no discrimina- express minority, unpopular, or Eggplant is not a public space “If the fliers in question had
tion at Evergreen with respect controversial points of view.” and is designated a “nonpublic simply been removed because
to race, sex, age, handicap,
Ed Sorger, Chief of Po- forum subject to the identified they were posted in an imsexual orientation, religious lice responded to request purpose for which those loca- permissible location, that may
not have been a free speech
violation on its face– I say ‘on
its face’ because even with a
facially reasonable policy like
the posting policy, there can
be free speech concerns if it is
applied unevenly/pretextually
to discriminate against certain
types of speech.” Clarifying
further Harris stated, “from
the facts you’ve laid out here,
we don’t even need to get into
a further discussion of pretext,
because it sounds as if the officer removed the fliers not
because of where they were
posted, but because of their
message. And if that is the
case, you are correct that this
is extremely troubling from
a free-speech standpoint, because the language of the flier
is totally constitutionally protected. So that would be impermissible viewpoint-based
discrimination, which violates the First Amendment.”
Harris also offered legal
help for students should the
school choose to take action
against the Eggplant Cafe,
although information obtained informed the CPJ the
bias response team informed
The Eggplant that no charges
will be brought against them.
DECEMBER 6, 2017 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 05
Arts & Culture
B E L L A
M U I R
Artist Interview by Sally Linn
Bella is a photographer who works primarily with black and white 120 medium format film. She began taking photographs only in 2015 at Centralia College but has already earned herself a position as one of this year’s
Photoland interns. As an intern, she has been given the opportunity to focus her time on refining her work and to
participate in shows, like the one coming up this January that will feature some impressive work from herself and
the other interns past and present.
06 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
Arts & Culture
Bella and I paid too much for coffee at OCR when we met for this interview. Bella always orders an americano. I
never considered that such a bougie cafe
would make an americano, so I stuck with
my usual artisan roasted brew from their
futuristic automated pour over machine.
Most of her work consists of portraits of
strangers that she meets on the street and
because of this she considers herself a street
photographer. Preferring the tonal qualities
of natural light, she usually chooses to be
working outside with a variety of subjects
as opposed to doing meticulous lighting
setups in the studio. She occasionally composes still lifes as well. As a relatively new
photographer, she is still in the process of
defining her genre and identity as an artist
which is shown by her variable subject matter.
Her camera is a massive Pentax 6x7, one
that has the appearance of a 35mm camera if
it were an agro body builder. She utilizes the
phenomena that many photographers experience of the camera serving as a wall between
the photographer and the rest of the world.
She appreciates this divide and uses it to her
artistic and personal advantage. Firstly, she
doesn’t have much of a liking for talking to
people, a potential snag for a street photographer, so she uses the camera to help her interact with people in a way that wouldn’t be
possible otherwise. To her, the camera feels
like a catalyst for communicating rather than
a blockage from any kind of real perceiving
of the world. She would rather say things
through a photograph than say them outloud.
Another potential snag for a street photographer is that not everyone takes kindly
to being photographed. While nearly always
asking permission prior to shooting, her
main priority is just not to step on people’s
toes and to get a sense of the situation with
its possible tensions or opportunities. While
she often has positive experiences with her
subjects, some of her more unfortunate encounters while working with people include
been being yelled at by livid subjects, being
stared down without a word uttered, and
even being stalked by an “aspiring model”
who was intent on learning her name and
where she lives. This experience made her
question whether or not she should be even
talking to strangers at all. But because it is
such a central tenet of her work, she continues to engage others for the sake of capturing an instant of their lives on any given day.
Bella’s best work comes from when she
isn’t stuck in her head about the specific direction her art is trying to, or supposed to,
take. For her, good work comes from feeling
a natural flow and interaction between her,
the camera, and the subject—although she
sometimes feels worried about how long it
takes to compose a photograph and get all
of the technical details right before opening the shutter. What inspires this naturalistic approach she takes to her work is an
attitude of just letting come what wants to
come out of the photo. This is when she can
feel the happiest and most proud of her work.
Right now, she’s trying to get back to basics by thinking about lighting and contrast.
Chiaroscuro and moody lighting is something that she has taken a liking to lately. Ultimately, she want to work towards producing
work like that of Pierre et Gilles, an art duo
from the mid 70s that found their eclectic
style by applying the concepts of painting
to photography. Their work is incredibly ornate and detail oriented, often with religious
symbolism and homoerotic themes and was
often produced with little to no budget. The
level of detail in their work is something that
appeals to Bella and she hopes that she will
eventually be so intune with her work that
even the arrangement of a single flower petal,
for example, will be a point of consideration.
Photography satisfies a need for her that
nothing else she’s experienced can. Even
though a single photo can take hours to make
perfect in the darkroom, she calls it a good
kind of drain on her emotional and physical bodies. It is extremely encouraging and
rewarding once the final version has been
printed. It is the hands-on process that appeals to her as scoffs at her experiences with
Photoshop and the color darkroom where
changes happen almost instantaneously.
Working in the black and white darkroom
involves being in control of every aspect of
the photo. What makes a good photograph
is so much more than the moment that picture is captured. It involves using a keen eye
to make subtle adjustments to the lightness
and darkness of the image and the places in
the image where those modifications are applied. “I know I’m done with a photograph
when I’m emotionally worn out,” she says.
When she’s thought and thought about the
picture and developed a certain emotional
connection to it is when she can call it done
be and be proud of the work she’s put into it.
DECEMBER 6, 2017 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 07
Letters & Opinion
Head down to the historic Govenor Hotel and ring in Chanukah like it is 1910. PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN, VIA THE WA STATE ARCHIVES.
&
UP
COMING
WED. DEC 6
Le Voyuer
7 p.m., $5, All Ages.
Vommity 161
FRI. DEC 8
Cryptatropa
9 p.m., $7, 21+.
Bombardier, Ceramonial Abyss, DJ
Anna Phylaxis
McCoy’s
9 p.m., $7, 21+.
Boone Howard, Oh Rose, Le Grotto
STUFF 2 DO
SAT. DEC 9
Le Voyuer
10 p.m., Free, 21+.
By April Davidson
Sagittarius Dance Party
SUN. DEC 10
SUNDAY 12/10
COHERENCE, PINES,
REXMANNINGDAY
New Moon Cafe. 8 p.m. $5 NOTAFLOF. All Ages.
Coherence is a band from Oakland, CA that seems to
be churning out some good old fashioned punk tunes if
you ask me. There’s screaming involved but the tone is sad
while being hopeful at the same time. Seems to have some
strong pop-punk influences.
TUESDAY 12/12
DEEP TUESDAY
Society. 8 p.m. No Cover. 21+.
You know that club that opened next door to Cafe Vita
(or the ghost of Vita, RIP)? Well they have a free dance
night there on Tuesdays. We have never been there but we
think that it would be interesting to go. By interesting we
mean we’re wondering about how many flavors of vape
smoke we could smell in one night.
New Moon Cafe
8 p.m., $5, All Ages.
FRIDAY 12/15
MOLLY DRAG, PICKLE BOY, BLOOD
ORPHANS
Josh’s Restaraunt. 8 p.m. $7 NOTAFLOF. All Ages.
I hate music. I do not believe in an objective truth but I
do believe that all music is, objectiely, bad– and any hippie
that cares to tell me otherwise can fuck off. But I do like
snacks and I have a soft spot in my heart for Montreal.
Josh’s Resteraunt serves snacks and one of the bands on
this roster is from Montreal, so I may come to this show
anyways. The other is from Seattle, which I do not care for,
but no one from Seattle cares for Seattle anymore, which
makes me feel sure that we will get along. The last band is
from Olympia, so we all have that in common.
SUNDAY 12/17
SUNDAY GOTH CASUAL
Coherence, Pines, RexManningDay
TUES. DEC 12
Sylvester Park
5 p.m., Free, All Ages.
Chanukah in Sylvester Park and
Annual Menorah Lighting
Society
8 p.m., Free, 21+.
Chanukah Party hosted by Chabad
Jewish Center
FRI. DEC 15
Josh’s Restaraunt
8 p.m., $7, All Ages.
Molly Drag (MON), Pickle Boy (SEA),
Blood Prphans
SUN. DEC 10
Cryptatropa
8 p.m., $6, 21+.
Ritual Veil, Clayface, Aqua Aura
Cryptatropa. 8 p.m. $6 NOTAFLOF. 21+.
CHANUKAH IN SYLVESTER PARK
Sylvester Park. 5 p.m. Free. All Ages.
Have you ever want to hang out around a 9 foot menorah,
eat latkes, and observe “local dignitaries” in a public park??
Look no further because this is the event for you. Put on
annually by the Chabad Jewish Center in Olympia, this
free Chanukah lighting will be followed by a reception at
The Govenor Hotel.
08 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
Ritual Veil, Clayface, and Aqua Aura are doing some
kind of goth dance synth thing. If you’re sad but you
wanna dance, it seems like a pretty good time. We here
at The Cooper Point Journal are big time fans of Keeping
Olympia Goth, and thus huge fans of this event.
DAILY HAPPY HOUR 3-7
119 CAPITOL WAY
www.thebrotherhoodlounge.com
LETTER FROM THE
Letters & Opinions
EDITOR
On December 1, an article about The Cooper Point Journal column POC Talk was published on The College Fix, a right wing college news site that brands itself as “your daily
dose of right minded news from across the
country.” The article was later cross posted
on Fox Nation, the opinion website for Fox
News, and as of the writing of this statement we are lucky enough to sit on the front
pages of both sites. Although the article itself
was relatively banal, the responses we have received have not been, with emails spanning a
broad spectrum of racially loaded commentary ranging from accolades about free speech
to dreams of “beheading every one of you”.
As individual writers we feel desensitized
to the violence they are describing, having been
exposed to threatening emails, comments, and
messages both online in our personal lives and
as a newspaper for the past six months. But it is
also clear to us that the threats of violence we are
experiencing should not be normalized, and we
feel that it is our responsibility to be clear in saying that these kinds of threats are unacceptable.
Internet harassment has emerged as a clear
threat to the personal safety of students, staff, and
faculty here at Evergreen, and because we are an
organization and not an individual, we feel called
to address the particulars of the harassment we
are experiencing as a way of acknowledging
that the experiences of others are not singular.
Digital harassment takes a variety of forms,
but it holds in common an emphasis on intimidation. Although interpersonal bullying could
be examined as simply a sadistic bent, digital
forms of harassment almost always lack the
kind of gratification traditionally related to sadism, gleaned from watching an enemy suffer.
Instead, this kind of harassment works to silence
targets because, coming from autonomous individuals, it feels larger than life and inescapable.
This intimidation is meant to make us afraid
to write, speak, or act for fear of retribution.
Taken from their own words, it seems that
what our particular antagonists want is for us
to disappear, stay quiet, to ‘grow up’, and go
away, explicitly demanding that our “college
should just disband” or aggressively hinting
that we should stop writing the newspaper
because it is, “a treasure trove of black idiocy,
degeneracy, racism and all around ghetto antics.” They will be mad regardless of what we
publish, or regardless of what does or does not
happen at this school, because it is not our actions or words that make them angry, but our
very existence that makes them angry– something they make clear by ending their emails
wishing that we will stop writing or die. The
letters and emails, all of which feature verbal
abuse of a racial nature, center around the anxiety produced by a column that is explicitly not
written for them, that thus challenges the idea
that the world as a whole is produced for them.
Feel free to respond to my letter with your own!
Email us at cooperpointjournal@gmail.com
No matter what you say you can rest assured
that we have heard worse.
DECEMBER 6, 2017 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 09
Letters and Opinion
WANT
TO
HAVE
YOUR
COMIiX
PUBLISHED IN THE CPJ?
The CPJ is always taking comic submissions. Just send your comics to
CPJcomix@gmail.com at at least 300 dpi or drop off a hard copy to the CPJ office,
CAB 332 across from student activities. For more information, as well as submission guidelines and sizing requirments, visit us at http://www.cooperpointjournal.com/submit/
A Rat Kee Swan
Stephan Curry Play Basketball Morrissey Morrissey
10 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
Cold Kee Swan
Letters and Opinion
RUBY THOMPSON.
by April Davidson
ARIES 3/21 - 4/19
You have a choice, you can go back to your old malarkey or you can focus your energy on
manifesting your aesthetic goals and cultural traditions. The pull to sabotage yourself is
coming in hot but the best way to mitigate this to minimize how hot you’re pulling up on
other people. Your fire is good, direct it towards expanding your experiences rather than
setting foot on previously scorched ground.
TAURUS 4/20 - 5/20
The stars are giving you the green light on all your carefully laid plans having to do with
partnerships, whether they are for business or pleasure. These commitments and investments will bring new and rewarding experiences. Out of all the signs, you can be trusted
the most not to lose yourself to the relationship and overlook your own needs. Go for
what you want!
GEMINI 5/21 - 6/20
Your ability to be tactful and diplomatic will inform how well you navigate the coming
weeks. Is that a newfound well of physical energy or is it just adrenaline from the panic
of wondering who you can really trust? If you find yourself betrayed or suspicious of your
associates, consider how companionable you have been to them. Your relationships are
your mirror, and if you don’t like what you see it’s a good time make some adjustments.
CANCER 6/21 - 7/22
Being creative can mean a lot of things; it can look like making art, but it can be described
as making anything in the world that didn’t exist before. You are likely to be experimenting with your personal voice. In order to do this effectively you must address the health
of your body and mind. Success will initiate when you enter a relaxed and confident state.
Return to the routines that have supported this, or develop and commit to new ones.
LEO 7/23 - 8/22
Permission to have fun has been granted. Engaging in playful creativity, romantic amusements and lively celebrations is right where you should be as long as your manage your
need for approval or expectations for positive feedback. Don’t expect these exploits to follow a linear track, in fact your plans might get a little messy because of your escapades. But
the radiance, passion and new perspectives you experience will make any inconveniences
worth it.
VIRGO 8/23 - 9/22
How much of your will to assert your mind has disrupted your ability to feel safe and
secure in your familial or home settings? What do your instincts tell you about your needs
in order to feel sheltered and protected? You have the power now to expand yourself intellectually, in the direction towards a more tolerant attitude. Use risk assessment before
choosing on who you can lean, particularly those you’d like to depend on for the long haul.
LIBRA 9/23 - 10/22
The next few weeks will be a time to review all of your general communications, the dayto-day interactions, and to take care of any details you may have missed in your haste to
take care of the big, important stuff. There’s also a chance for you to feel comfortable in a
social situation or to deepen your mental rapport with others. The key to unlock this feeling is to stay attentive and to listen.
SCORPIO 10/23 - 11/21
You are intensely aware right now about how what you have affects your ability to pursue
what you want. Sensual perception are heightened and this can be pleasurable or painful
depending on the solidity of the ground under your feet. Now is a good time to for a fresh
start in how you arrange your life, in order to secure a sense of your personal value and
worthiness.
SAGITTARIUS 11/22 - 12/21
You will need to be brave, and you will need to enjoy new experiences. It’s likely you’ve
had the sense of being ineffective but this is only temporary. You are to focus on how your
present yourself, not in a superficial way but in a way that brings you peace. Trusting your
impulses is usually no problem for you, but what action is there to take when you’ve lost
your sense of direction?
CAPRICORN 12/22 - 1/19
Socially, things are about to change a lot. New sources of energy will be flowing through
you life which is exciting, but it also means letting go of other things in order to make
room. The combination will create an odd experience of soul-searching and expansive
mingling at the same time. Staying peaceful means being considerate of others needs.
AQUARIUS 1/20 - 2/18
The challenge for you in the coming weeks is to maintain the social and professional
connections you’ve recently made, strengthen them, as well as reaching out to make new
ones. You are likely to be even more aware of your context than usual, it will be helpful
for others stuck within an individualistic mindset to hear about your position to better
understand theirs.
PISCES 2/19 - 3/20
Working on your discipline or planning ability is not usually at the top of your mind, but
you’re likely to be more open to new experiences than usual. This is also manifested in
your current impulse towards traveling, for work or higher education. I’m not going to tell
you to follow a strict routine but I will encourage you to be curious on how to stay with
your goals.
DECEMBER 6, 2017 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 11
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