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Posted inPortland

A Peek Into Portland’s E-Scooter Future

Courtesy Kathleen Marie, Superstar As Alex reported yesterday, the controversial e-scooter ride share business has arrived in Portland. Yesterday afternoon, Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) announced (READ: Sighed and threw up its hands, because they knew this sorry state of affairs was an eventuality) it was issuing temporary permits to two e-scooter companies, Bird and […]

Posted inPortland

Gus Van Sant’s John Callahan Biopic Is Good, If Safer Than Expected

Gus Van Sant is at his best when he points his camera at those on the outskirts of society, be they Good Will Huntingโ€™s sharp-tongued janitor who happens to be a math genius, Drugstore Cowboyโ€™s quartet of pharmacy-robbing addicts, or Milkโ€™s gay politician fighting for LGBT rights from San Francisco City Hall. Thatโ€™s precisely why […]

Posted inEvents

Get Your Resistance and Social Justice Events Listed in the Mercury‘s “From Slacktivism to Activism” Calendar!

SOBERVE / GETTY IMAGES This morning, Merc News Editor Alex Zielinski was serving up live, on-the-ground reporting from #OcuppyICEPDX in Southwest Portland. While in the field, she met Jean, who loves “From Slacktivism to Activism,” the weekly calendar I curate showcasing a diverse range of social justice and activist events in town. This is Jean. […]

Posted inPortland

Leave No Trace Tells a Story Inspired by the Father and Daughter Who Lived in Portland’s Forest Park

If you lived in Portland in 2004, you remember it: The discovery that, for years, a father and daughter had been living in Forest Park in an undetected campsite. They were eventually found and housed by the authorities, but soon disappeared again. The story inspired a novel, My Abandonment, written by Reed College creative writing […]

Posted inPortland

Bigger and Better Than Ever: The Mercury to Debut a Redesigned, Expanded Biweekly This Fall

Kathleen Marie Friends! The Mercury is gonna be making some big changes this fall: Weโ€™ll be expanding and redesigning our popular print product, and publishing it on a new, biweekly schedule (thatโ€™s 26 times per year). Weโ€™re especially excited about our new look, which will feature a heavier cover and stapled binding, while providing more […]

Posted inPortland

Portland Trampoline Park To Shut Down… Because of Minimum Wage and “Millennial Parents,” Of Course!

Portland will have one less trampoline park. Vasyl Dolmatov / iStock / Getty Images Plus Here’s a couple of things you might not know: 1) Portland has a trampoline park! 2) That trampoline park is shutting down. The G6 Airparkโ€”for those of you without kids, and aren’t forced to go to trampoline parksโ€”is a big […]

Posted inPortland

What if Portlandโ€™s Internet Was Owned by Portlanders, Not Corporations?

MATTHEW BILLINGTON Long ago, in the ancient mists of prehistory, the internet was a luxury. Today, the internetโ€™s part of… well, everything. Yet most Americans get online the same way our stupid caveman ancestors did: Paying corporations for permission to access private telecommunication networks. Since internet service providers (ISPs) own much of the infrastructure that […]

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