The Mercury provides news and fun every single dayâbut your help is essential. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support!
 Happy Trans Day of Visibility, Portland! In 2009, the head of Transgender Michigan, Rachel Crandall, coined this holiday as a day of celebration for transgender people internationally. Crandall has since explained that the date itself isn't all that significant; it's just a good distance from Trans Day of Remembrance, in Novemberâan import but sobering anniversary that often left her feeling depressed. There are a lot of good ways to celebrate today. If you aren't transgender, consider reading something written by a trans person about their experienceâsuch as one of these six graphic novels by trans cartoonistsâor there's always just buying trans folks a snack.
hey babes, Trans Day of Having a Nice Snack is on Friday, and over at @gendereveal, we're gonna be buying snacks and sending mutual aid $$ to trans folks who could really use a lil break!!! (Visibility schmizability lol.)
â Montucky Woodsnacks (@tuckwoodstock) March 29, 2023
If you want to pitch in a few bucks, now's a great timeđ pic.twitter.com/H7twFV7Jxj
IN LOCAL NEWS:
⢠I don't know if you've noticed... there's a lot of weird stuff happening at the Office of Community & Civic Life lately. Just yesterday, Sophie Peel at Willamette Week reported that the bureau has proposed cutting $500,000 in guaranteed funding from five nonprofits that serve communities of color. The money would instead pad out the pool for small grants that "any neighborhood or community group can request." Kind of curiously sounds like a way to fund SWNI, but I'm just a simple country lawyer.
⢠KOIN reports that OHA has opened an investigation into the unapproved closure of Legacy's Mount Hood Family Birth Center, in Gresham. While the non-profit hospital system argues that the center was expensive to maintain and had a lower birth volume than other faculties in its system, the state says the Mount Hood Medical Center served more women needing urgent OB care than any other Legacy hospital. To understand more about the issue of hospital and maternity ward deserts, I recommend this episode of the Daily, which looks into the ways some nonprofit hospital systems have engaged in predatory for-profit practices, all while hiding beneath a mask of charity.
⢠In an attempt to address the notoriously slow implementation around Measure 110 addiction and recovery funding, Rep. Rob Nosse has sponsored a bill in the state Capitol that would make changes the administration processes, moving oversight from a council comprised of people with experience in addiction to the OHA.
Portland Street Response workers have condemned Commissioner Gonzalez's ban on tent distribution, saying the ban has threatened the safety of unhoused Portlanders, further limited PSRâs agency, and disempowered outreach workers. https://t.co/j0mMXagl3j
â Portland Mercury đ (@portlandmercury) March 30, 2023
⢠The musical adaption of John Waters' Hairspray only plays Portland through Sunday. If big, touring shows are your thing and you make it into seats, you're almost guaranteed to leave energized. Even if you don't have time to catch it, there's something for you in our full review.
⢠This isn't really a whole blog, but I bet a couple of you would like to know that Church of Film is bumping back their ongoing Wednesday night screenings to an earlier showtime of 7 pm.
⢠Last week, Steve's POP QUIZ PDX got so much internet spice, people were leaving rude comments on our post about the Pickathon 2023 lineup. Truly a great moment in "do you ever just look at yourselves, like really?" Are you ready to get so mad at a quizâalbeit a very funny and sharp quizâthat you needless slander some other unrelated subject? I BET YOU ARE.
⢠Speaking of spice, it. IS. FRIDAY. Get your credit cards out because we are buying ticket drops: Diana Ross, Ben Schwartz, boygenius with Carly Rae Jepsen in Bend!? Our Everout team has the list.
⢠It's about to be April. What's going on April? gecs is whatâplus, John Waters celebrates his birthday at the Aladdin and the Clinton Street hosts a week of Waters' films in his honor. Read about all that and more in Everout's April round-up:
No foolingâthe first full month of spring brings tons of events across genres to Portland, from Muse to Record Store Day and from The One Motorcycle Show to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival. https://t.co/wy26unfGWw
â EverOut Portland (@EverOutPortland) March 30, 2023
IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
⢠A lot of you had "Trump Indicted" on your 2023 bingo card, but whom among you had Trump indicted for reimbursing his then fixer, Mr. Cohen, the hush money Cohen paid to Stormy Daniels waaaay back during his presidential election... so she would stop talking about an alleged affair they engaged in while Trump's wife Melania was pregnant?
⢠If you want to read more about Daniels' patriotism, check out this 2018 piece from the Stranger wherein culture reportet Chase Burns describes "a historic, patriotic, vagina-forward, wax-driven erotic dance" she delivered to him, his boyfriend and a bunch of veterans.
⢠Speaking of the Stranger, the celebration of Trump Indictment Day kicked off yesterday afternoon, and the staff at our sister pub rounded up some funny tweets:
Happy Trump Indictment Day!
â The Stranger đ (@TheStranger) March 31, 2023
Twitter was fun today.
Here are a few of our favorites: https://t.co/ypdiJaA7nR
⢠Trump's team scrambling at Mar-a-Lago was not the only political storm brewing in Florida yesterday. The Disney-DeSantis feud now somehow involves England's monarchy?
⢠Today in would that we could all brag thusly, it's been raining in California, so the LA Times put some satellite photos side by side and titled it "Dry to LUSH."
⢠Now, let us prepare:
@shiadanni Canât wait to start my day đ đ #morning ⏠original sound - SHIADANNI