Cascadia Daily, Sept 27, 2019

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Thanks for reading Cascadia Daily, the Pacific Northwest’s tastiest collection of news, arts, culture, environmental reporting, fiction and poetry. We try to carry an eclectic assortment of articles (and original content from Cascadia Magazine) from all sorts of newspapers, websites, and literary journals across the region, from Nanaimo to Eugene, from Hoquiam to Boise, and plenty of points in between.

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Your weekend poetry: Inauguration Day

Melinda Price Wiltshire captures a dark, gloomy Cascadia day just as Donald Trump was inflicted upon the world in her poem “Inauguration Day,” now online at Cascadia Magazine:
“And over a hill, the memory of woods; echoes
of hushed vigils with beasts. And the grey was
impermeable, no door in the clouds…”
Read the complete poem online here.

And if you enjoy the poetry Cascadia Magazine published from all over the region, you can get a jump on our Fall Fund Drive coming in October by showing your support at our donate page. Thanks!

Nearly 100,000 turn out for Vancouver climate strike

In what is likely the biggest demonstration in Vancouver in decades, close to 100,000 people took to the streets on Friday to demand action on climate change, CBC reports. Strikes took place all over Canada, including in Kamploops and Victoria. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, but many called out the Liberal politician for his support for expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline across British Columbia.

Spokane mayor’s race heating up over homelessness, housing

The Inlander looks the Spokane mayor’s race, in which Ben Stuckart is running on a platform to build more housing and deal with homelessness with a harm-reduction approach, while Nadine Woodward wants to use sweeps and criminalization to deal with a growing homeless crisis. Meanwhile, the Spokane city council is still mired in debate over funding a new homeless shelter, and time is running out as cold weather approaches.

MacArthur “genius” grant for Seattle justice reform advocate

Erica C. Barnett, writing for Seattle Magazine, profiles Lisa Daugaard, who was recently awarded a prestigious MacArthur “genius” grant for her work studying and advocating for alternatives to the criminal justice system for low-level offenders and people with mental health issues. 

Biologists call for protection of Oregon’s spring chinook

OPB has a report looking at work biologists are doing to study the decline of chinook salmon that return to the rivers such as Oregon’s South Umpqua in spring, and are calling for a separate series of environmental protections, citing findings that spring and fall chinook have distinct genetic differences.

A choral symphony performance in a Hanford reactor

Northwest News Network reports on an amazing sounding project in which a musicians from around the region performed a new choral symphony, “Nuclear Dreams,” by composer Reg Unterseher with lyrics by Hanford worker Nancy Welliver in the decommissioned B Reactor building at the Hanford nuclear site.

Poetry by Weston Morrow

At Pacifica Literary Review, you’ll find “And Oedipus Answered the Sphinx,” by Weston Morrow, who’s a graduate student in literature at Central Washington University and an assistant editor at Crab Creek Review:
“I was there when this world was born. I was there
—at the horizon—where they separated sky from
sea, the line that is no line,
except that you expect it to be.”
Read the full poem here. And buy a subscription to Pacifica Review while you’re there!


That’s your curated collection of news, arts, environmental reporting, poetry and music in nuclear reactors from across the Pacific Northwest. Bundle up for the early intrusion of Sub-arctic cold air masses descending upon Cascadia this weekend! –Andrew Engelson