Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died yesterday. Solzhenitsyn became lost to popular memory some time ago, I think. But he was once quite famous, specifically for writing about his experiences as a prisoner in the Soviet Gulag. He was a dissident, eloquent and empathetic in his writing, winning the Nobel Prize in 1970. He escaped the USSR in […]

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Gentrification is complex. Many say it’s better than the alternative. In Portland, like many American cities, “blighted” areas are redeveloped or otherwise spruced up, often with significant help from local government. Rarely do citizens spontaneously change the makeup of a neighborhood–it’s an act imposed from outside, using money and (sometimes) good intentions. It almost never […]

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