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UpZones, a new podcast from Cascadia Underground
Cascadia Underground, the Seattle-based media and activist organization promoting awareness of issues throughout the bioregion, has a great new podcast called UpZones you should be listening to.
Ian Martinez, a former journalist, slam poet, and Obama administration adviser, brings a great conversational manner to interviews with community leaders in the arts, politics and activism, business, and civic life.
Some recent interviews include KUOW journalist Bill Radke, Seattle city council member Teresa Mosqueda, and Sol Villerreal, editor of the the Seattle Civic Minute newsletter.
Give it a listen!
Facebook scandal’s Cascadia connection
The week’s big news story, about Cambridge Analytics’ illicit use of Facebook data to support the Trump and Brexit campaigns, has a connection to the Northwest: Christopher Wylie, the primary hacker, is originally from Victoria and spent time in Vancouver. CBC reports on his troubled upbringing and involvement in Canadian political campaigns. Meanwhile, as Facebook faces a huge backlash, visit the tiny Oregon town that coaxed the social media company to set up huge data centers there.
New groups in Vancouver fighting for affordable housing
The Tyee reports on new groups organizing in Vancouver to fight for affordable housing, including the Vancouver Tenants Union and Abundant Housing Vancouver, which conducts the Vancouver’s Worst Zoning Tour of horrible examples of exclusionary zoning. Both groups are advocating for zoning changes and boosts in public housing funds.
And if you missed, be sure to read Casey Jaywork’s excellent feature at Cascadia Magazine on how the region’s largest cities are experimenting with different strategies to deal with the housing crisis.
Tribes and First Nations meet to oppose salmon farming
A group of Native American tribes and First Nations came together for a summit in Tulalip, Washington to announce their support for banning net-pen farming of Atlantic salmon on the west coast of North America. The organization issued a statement in support of Washington’s phase out by 2025 and demanded British Columbia take action to close the 20 net-pens operating in the Salish Sea.
Oregon lawsuit targets ICE immigration detention center
OPB reports on a lawsuit against ICE, the US immigration enforcement agency, for its cooperation with a local jail facility in The Dalles, Oregon. The suit claims that cooperation between ICE violates a thirty-year-old law as well as the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
How Lee Maracle revolutionized Indigenous literature
CBC has a profile of author Lee Maracle, who drew attention to Indigenous writers in Vancouver, and later across Canada, from the 1970s onward. The creator of the En’owkin writing school in Penticton, BC once had to rush the stage at a Vancouver literary festival when organizers refused to put her on the program.
Charlotte Zhang: a poem about white liberals who avoid blame
Over at Poetry is Dead, a literary mag based in Vancouver, you can find a poem online by Charlotte Zhang, which has no patience for white liberals who avoid blame and hemorrhage guilt:
“…And aren’t you grateful? Aren’t things good
enough? Things could be worse, you know. I could be
worse. Everything is just
getting better, you’ll see…”
Read the entire poem here.
That’s all today’s news, arts, and culture from across Cascadia. Happy first day of spring! ? –Andrew Engelson
Photo credits: sockeye salmon by Oregon State University CC BY-SA 2.0