Cascadia Daily, July 2, 2018

by Andrew Engelson

A Cascadia Convergence…

This weekend marked the occasion of the annual Cascadia Convergence, a get-together sponsored by the Seattle chapter of CascadiaNow! a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness of bioregionalism in the Pacific Northwest. Also in attendance were some folks from Cascadia Underground–which runs a variety of media initiatives like the UpZones podcast.

It was a no-frills camp-out on a farmstead in Brooklyn, WA–a lovely corner of the Willapa Hills I’d never been to before. The convergence was a fascinating experience, with an emphasis on alternative, sustainable living and inclusive, democratic activism. If you’re into DIY art, pre-industrial toolmaking, tie-dye, and left-of-the-dial politics, this gathering was definitely your groove.

There were plenty of good discussions about the future of the bioregion, and I was honored to talk a bit about Cascadia Magazine. Trevor Owen from Cascadia Underground gave a pep talk about his work sending a Cascadia soccer team to the CONIFA tournament in London (basically a football championship for unrecognized nations). There was a healthy dose of music, improvised and otherwise–including a nice set by Seattle’s Tobias The Owl. Kudos to CascadiaNow! for being an early advocate for bioregional thinking and for putting on this event.

As Alexander Baretich, the creator of the Cascadia flag, said during a workshop, there are a lot of different streams in Cascadia identity–and here at Cascadia Daily and Cascadia Magazine we’re working to cover those different streams, whether you’re a back-to-nature free thinker or a software entrepreneur.  Our goal is  provide a picture of the diverse array of people, cultures, and ecosystems in a region that that stretches from southeast Alaska to northern California, from the Pacific Coast to the Continental Divide…

–Andrew Engelson

Cascadia Magazine original: Swanson Occupation: The Fight to Save Wild Salmon

First Nations on Vancouver Island have been fighting a long battle against open-net fish farms, which they say harm wild salmon. In an investigative report by Mychaylo Prystupa at Cascadia Magazine, you’ll meet Hereditary Chief Ernest Alfred, who occupied a cabin on remote Swanson Island for 284 days to call attention to the diseases that biologists say are likely passing on to endangered salmon runs.

Cascadia resists ICE & federal immigration policy

The Seattle Globalist reports on a demonstration against an ICE detention center in Sea-Tac Washington this weekend that drew 10,000 protesters. The Portland Mercury meanwhile covers how Portland is emerging as an epicenter of activism against Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. Nina Shapiro at the Seattle Times tells the story of a woman awaiting to be reunited with her Iranian husband, who’s been in limbo in Turkey ever since the US travel ban on some Muslim-majority countries went into effect. Activists also protested at a facility in Spokane.

Outrage over PSU police shooting of “good Samaritan”

OPB reports on the controversy over a fatal shooting of a black man by Portland State University police. Eyewitness accounts say the man was attempting to act as a “good Samaritan” and break up a fight, and had a valid concealed gun permit when police killed him.

Wildfires break out near Yakima and in southwest Oregon

The Yakima Herald reports that about 50 homeowners were evacuated because of a 4,000-acre brush fire burning in the Naches area outside Yakima. Meanwhile, a human-caused fire near Lobster Creek in southwest Oregon had grown to more than 300 acres.

An interview with Seattle hip-hop artist Logic Amen

City Arts has an interview with Tacoma hip-hop artist Logic Amen, who works as an assistant principal at Lincoln High during the day, and who’s launched a collective arts and music project called The Griot Party. In the interview he talks about getting shuffled into special ed-programs as a kid: ““They would kick me out of class for talking too much, for 30 or 40 minutes at a time.” Eventually, through this loss of instruction, Amen says, he truly didn’t know what was going on in class. But this is the norm, he says, “in an overtly racist academic institution.””

Flash fiction by Melissa Amstutz

Over at Tin House, you can read “Greetings From,” a work of flash fiction by Portland writer Melissa Amstutz, a quick summary of a woman’s road to queer self-awareness: “I’m having a whale of a time. But really what other options were there for a corn-fed queer girl smack dab in the middle of the bible belt? The answer is plenty and at first I dabbled in those…” Read the full story here.

Mystery soda pop machine vanishes and other strange phenomena

It was a weird weekend of “lost and found” in Cascadia news: first, Capitol Hill Seattle Blog reported that Seattle’s beloved mystery Coke machine vanished without a trace. Then, Northwest Public Radio reported that researchers are searching for remnants of a big meteorite entered the atmosphere with a massive explosion off the Washington coast. But some things were found, like a dragon sculpture that vanished in Nanaimo, and the strangest case of all: more than a dozen missing pianos have turned up in a warehouse in Vancouver.

That’s today’s news and arts. Have a lovely evening, fellow Cascadians! Cascadia Daily will resume on July 5 after the US Independence Day. –Andrew Engelson

Photo credits: image of Cascadia Convergence  by Andrew Engelson