Cascadia today: health costs to soar if feds don't act + Portlanders sail for Gaza + art by Dao Strom

Health premiums to rise 75% minus action from feds

Oregon Capital Chronicle reports that more than 100,000 Oregon residents who depend on subsidies in the Obamacare system could see their premiums increase 75% or more if the GOP-led Congress fails to extend subsidies. Meanwhile, Washington state insurance commissioner Patty Kuderer estimates that 80,000 Washington residents will see such steep increases they'll be forced to drop their medical insurance if the Congress doesn't renew the subsidies (including me... without the subsidies my monthly insurance costs will likely double).

Meanwhile Trump and Congress are having their usual brinksmanship battle about shutting down the government next week over the subsidies. There's a way out of this endless churn. Washington and Oregon both have commissions looking at pathways to universal health care. You should let your legislators in Oregon and Washington know we need state-based health care systems in Cascadia now.

And to pay for it, we need to move toward autonomy from the the federal government and reclaim the $37 billion in federal taxes Cascadia fails to receive back in services and funding each year.

Portlanders sail in Gaza aid flotilla

The Portland Mercury has a report on two Portland residents who are part of the Global Sumud Flotilla attempting to bring aid into Gaza, which has been subject to a blockade and siege by Israel that has resulted in famine and killed more than 65,000 people, most of them civilians. Here in Cascadia, we can let members of Congress know we support the Block the Bomb Act, which would prohibit sale of munitions to Israel. Meanwhile, responding to pressure from activists, Redmond-base software giant Microsoft announced yesterday it has disabled some of its AI products that were being used by the Israeli military to target people in Gaza. The Guardian reported in August on how the Israeli military was using Microsoft Azure cloud computing to conduct mass surveillance of the civilian population in Gaza.

Starbucks closed a bunch of stores

The Seattle-based coffee corporation Starbucks this week closed a bunch of stores in North America and laid off 900 workers, CBC reports. Among the stores closed was the unionized, fancy-schmanzy Capitol Hill Roastery in Seattle.

I mean, whatever. Their overpriced coffee sucks.

Multi-media art from Portland's Dao Strom

Oregon Arts Watch, profiles a multi-discipline performance, "Tender Revolutions/Yellow Songs," featuring poetry, video, visual art and music by Portland artist Dao Strom and co-collaborators Barbara Tran and Hoa Nguyen. The piece explores the Vietnamese diaspora in North America, myth-making, and pushing back against stereotypes of Asian women.

“Can a place be called home if you have never lived there, and if you are there all the time but only touch things with your mind?” --Dao Strom

Back when I ran another publication, Cascadia Magazine, we published one of Dao Strom's mesmerizing combinations of poetry, music and visual art, and featured an interview with her:

The first time I went back I was 23. Since I’d left as a 2-year-old, I had no memories of Vietnam or of leaving. So the biggest thing I learned, on that first return, was that collective consciousness and inherited trauma are very real things. --Dao Strom