Cascadia today: WA guarantees COVID shots + housing for Portland's Albina neighborhood + Joe Fedderson's art
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Washington guarantees COVID shots
Several days after announcing the state had joined in the West Coast Health Alliance – to set vaccine policy with Oregon, California, and Hawaii – Washington state announced that anyone over six months of age – including pregnant people – can receive a COVID vaccine without a prescription KUOW reports. Oregon governor Tina Kotek said late last week she and the Oregon Health Authority are considering a similar announcement.
Old man watches TV, decides to invade Portland
King Donald J. Trump, speaking from the White House, was asked if he'd consider invading other American cities (Chicago is about to receive a visit from the feds soon). Babbling on about something he saw on Fox News, the feeble fascist hinted Portland might be next. (Though I'm not so sure he know if it's the one in Maine, or in Oregon). Doddering on about some bullshit having to do with "paid terrorists" he was probably responding to a Fox News report about some protesters against ICE putting up a -gasp- fake guillotine! Or maybe it was some pro-Palestine protesters disrupting a bike event that Portland mayor Keith Wilson was speaking at. Who knows? Fascism doesn't care about reasons – it only cares about using and increasing its power.
Sick of the authoritarian joke the US has become? Let's start having discussions about autonomy for Cascadia.
Andrew Engelson
Housing for Portland's historic Black neighborhood
OPB reports on the opening of a 94-unit affordable housing complex in the Albina neighborhood of northeast Portland – the historically Black neighborhood of the City of Roses. It's a good achievement in neighborhood that was hit hard by displacement to build freeways in the 1950s & 60s. In related news, The Urbanist reports on how Seattle's neighborhood community councils are going full NIMBY and trying to water down the "neighborhood centers" in the upcoming comprehensive plan that aim to increase density in areas of the city that already have apartments and businesses. Mayor Bruce Harrell, who "embraces the wealthy" has endlessly delayed the plan and had the nerve at a recent candidate forum to insist his policies are to the left of opponent Katie Wilson.
Narrator: they are not.
Nobody likes the OR transportation bill
As the Oregon legislature is in special session to pass a transportation bill, The Portland Mercury notes that no one, Democrats or Republicans, actually likes governor Kotek's compromise bill – the GOP because it raises gas taxes and the Democrats because it's mostly a freeway construction plan with little set aside for public transit and pedestrian safety. Meanwhile Oregon Capital Chronicle calculates what a typical resident will pay to build more Oregon freeways (on average, $136 per year). Over at The Tyee, there's an article about a common source of traffic in Vancouver: the decline of yellow school buses in favor of parents dropping off their kids in SUVs.
Joe Feddersen's contemporary twist on native art
Cascade PBS has a great profile of longtime artist Joe Feddersen, whose ancestors include the Okanogan and Arrow Lake people – part of the confederated tribes of the Colville reservation in central Washington. For 45 years, Fedderson has been creating prints, glass, and woven baskets that put a contemporary twist on Indigenous art. A recent series of prints celebrates the Colville acquiring a herd of buffalo:
“These buffalo are part of our culture and part of our lie. But we’ve been separated, and we have a whole ’nother history that’s gone on since they’ve been here.” – Joe Fedderson
