Cascadia today: National Guard watching ballot boxes in WA + Haida Nation builds bear dens + history of Seattle's jazz scene
Good morning! In case you missed it, I posted highlights from a delightful conversation with Seattle-based writer Kristen Millares Young about her new memoir in essays, Desire Lines yesterday. I don't do a lot of arts and culture reporting at Cascadia Journal – but would love to do more. Your paid memberships help make that possible. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber for $5 or $10 per month during my fall membership drive to help this newsletter grow and continue bringing you news, environmental coverage, and arts & culture from across the bioregion.
Speaking of culture, if you're in Seattle, please join Cascadia Democratic Action and Cascadia Poetics Lab for the next edition of the Subduction spoken word series at 7 pm, Wed. November 4 at Vermillion on Capitol Hill. This month's theme is Cascadia poetry of resistance, and we'll be featuring writers collected in the new anthology Winter in America (Still published by Carbonation Press.
National guard to watch WA ballot boxes out of uniform
Washington governor Bob Ferguson announced that members of the WA National Guard will be keeping an eye on ballot boxes in six counties (including King, Pierce, and Snohomish) but will not be in uniform. Meanwhile, the Trump regime continues its election fuckery by claiming some 400 non-citizens have been voting in Washington and are sending "monitors" to King county election headquarters. And vice president JD Vance insists the feds will pursue lawsuits if Mary Peltola wins the US senate race in Alaska, claiming the ballot is confusing because of a challenger with the same name as incumbent senator Dan Sullivan on the ballot. Alaska election officials point out the ballot has been designed to make it clear which Sullivan is the incumbent senator.
An article at Oregon Capital Chronicle notes that many ballots sent in the mail in western US states have been delivered after the deadline in recent elections. Please vote in ballot boxes and drop them off by 8 pm, Nov. 3.
No more clock switch for BC
Two regions of Cascadia will now be on different times during the winter. British Columbia will ditch the time switch and stay on permanent daylight savings time while Washington and Oregon continue to do the dumb turning back of clocks one hour. Most sleep researchers, however, recommend that the solution is for our clocks to remain on permanent Pacific Standard Time, as I reported at Cascadia Journal last year.
Andrew Engelson
Huge Portland water source upgrade behind schedule
OPB reports that a huge public works project – adding an improved water filtration system at Bull Run reservoir, which provides drinking water to 1 million Portland residents – is running two years late and is estimated to cost $2.5 billion. This is why it's important for Cascadia to tax wealth – we have huge infrastructure upgrades needed in the coming decades, and we'll need to pay for it somehow.
Haida Nation building dens for bears
The Narwhal has a great story on how the Haida Nation off the coast of British Columbia is creating dens for hibernating black bears. Their usual homes for the winter are rotten, hollowed out old growth, but logging has reduced the supply. Sleep well, bears!
A new edition of classic history of Seattle jazz
Seattle has long had a vibrant and influential jazz scene, which produced such greats as Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, and Ernestine Anderson. The classic book documenting that history is Jackson Street After Hours, and the South Seattle Emerald interviews author Paul de Barros about the updated second edition of his book.
"My main hope is just that the information is out there again. That book came out 33 years ago, and it was really hard to get for about 10 or 15 years. A lot of people who've moved here since then don't know a darn thing about this history." --Paul de Barros
Thanks for reading. Keep loving and keep fighting. --Andy
Do you appreciate Cascadia Journal's exclusive reporting on the ways the Pacific Northwest is pushing back against US fascism? If you have the means, please consider a paid subscription of just $5 per month. Each subscription helps me produce original reporting and opinionated notes on Cascadia's fight to build a more resilient and autonomous bioregion. And to those who already subscribe, thank you! --Andrew
