Daily Digest: Travel ban isn't about fighting hate, Vancouver makes a street car-free, & a new novel from Jess Walter
Good morning! If you haven't already, read my essay this week about how Cascadia should get work to get rid of ICE and counter the Trump administration's illegal and cruel immigration crackdown. Also, in case you missed it, I won an award from the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for my reporting last year for PubliCola on SPD hiring a cop they knew had been fired for a troubled history. If you appreciate my work and this newsletter, please take a moment to buy a paid subscription, it's just $5 a month.
After murder of three children, focus shifts to partner abuse
After a horrible murder of three children by their father in Central Washington, Cascadia Daily News published an op-ed by state legislator Alicia Rule, who this past session introduced HB 2010, which would focus on child safety rather than parental comfort when dealing with custody agreements that involve domestic violence or abuse. In related news, Oregon Capital Chronicle reports that activists for victims of domestic violence are urging the Oregon legislature, which is debating how to deal with a budget deficit, not to cut funding for shelters and services for victims of abuse.
Travel ban isn't about Trump fighting hate
Ostensibly in reaction to a horrible, antisemitic attack in Boulder, president Trump announced yet another ban on travel from a variety of countries that have a majority Muslim population. But meanwhile, the administration hired a literal intern as one of its top terrorism officials. I mean, actual, white Nazis were this week discovered with a huge cache of weapons in Thurston county, Washington. And Oregon Capital Chronicle reports that extremist white supremacist hate groups are on the rise in Oregon. Maybe that's got something to do with a president who appointed an education secretary who'd never heard of the Tulsa race massacre, who welcomed white South African "refugees" while limiting asylum from most countries with non-white populations, erased Black history and anti-racism from the military libraries, and hired some rich guy who loves to do Nazi salutes to illegally destroy programs that benefit vulnerable populations across the world. Maybe work on fighting hate a home, Donald.
Vancouver proposes car-free Granville street
CBC reports that the Vancouver city council unanimously passed a new plan that would eventually make Granville street, the popular central thoroughfare for shopping and restaurants, pedestrian only. Meanwhile, the Seattle city council rejected a bill that would have made approval of mass transit projects much more complicated, The Urbanist reports. And Sightline Institute looks at Oregon's recent zoning reforms to build more housing – and what more is needed. And Oregon governor Tina Kotek's ambitious plans to create more shelter for the homeless is running up against state budget realities, OPB notes. I'll say it again: Cascadia needs to get serious about taxing the immense wealth here and funding a social safety net in anticipation of evisceration of federal funding. And that goes for BC too– and the Tyee recently published a piece that insists our friends north of the border need a wealth tax.
Jess Walter's new novel explores the path to extremism
I'm so excited to see that Spokane-based writer Jess Walter has a new novel out, entitled So Far Gone. The Inlander has a great interview with the prolific novelist about his latest book since The Cold Millions. This time Walter is exploring how a family member in Idaho goes off the deep end into right-wing conspiracy theories and how the rest of his family responds:
"It's indicative of these cultural borders that we cross all the time. Those borders are in places that they didn't always used to be. We're getting entirely different sets of information, of what we call news, of what religion means. We have a different reality when we cross these borders now."
--Andrew Engelson
