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“OG Bird Rescue Man,” poetry by Robert Lashley
We’re excited at Cascadia Magazine to publish “OG Bird Rescue Man,” a new poem by Bellingham’s Robert Lashley. Robert is a phenomenally talented wordsmith and this work is packed with of striking imagery. The incantations reveal a longtime gangster who serves as a kind of mystical savior in a broken and angry neighborhood:
“Blood is the color that mixes late September.
It tints the concrete of a late sunset mass.
It makes a mass of niggas and black birds.
The OG in white will take them…“
Read the full poem, paired with gorgeous multi-media works by Seattle artist Barry Johnson here, online at Cascadia Magazine.
And if you appreciate great writing like this, please take a moment to become a supporting reader of Cascadia Magazine so we can continue to pay the writers and artists we publish a fair rate for their work. Thank you.
Primary election results from Seattle & Spokane
Results are in from Seattle’s crowded primary election for city council, and the battle lines seem to be drawn between business-backed candidates and candidates on the socialist/progressive end of the spectrum. All the incumbents passed this round, but activist and renters-rights advocate Kshama Sawant received low numbers. In the race for mayor of Spokane, former TV anchor Nadine Woodward will face former city council president Ben Stuckart. Woodward has called for a crackdown on the homeless, even suggesting they be banned from city libraries. For more analysis of the Seattle election results check out posts by Erica C. Barnett (Sawant is in trouble), Danny Westneat (Seattle doesn’t believe “it’s dying”) and Sandeep Kaushik (a “pragmatic” city council majority might emerge in November).
Three more orcas in southern resident pod likely dead
Lynda Mapes at the Seattle Times reports that biologists believe three more orcas in the southern resident pod in the Salish Sea have died. The critical issue is a lack of chinook salmon, she notes. Writing for The Tyee, Shaun Fluker examines how the Canadian government makes grand proclamations about saving orcas but support for projects like the Transmountain pipeline demonstrate the Liberals don’t want to take meaningful action to recover the species.
Are Portland’s antifa activists helping Trump?
Ongoing conflicts between right wing protestors and antifa activists in Portland will likely see another flare-up on Aug 17 as Proud Boys and other groups descend on the city, and mayor Ted Wheeler has pledged to use police to crack down on violence OPB reports. Meanwhile Willamette Week has a great, detailed series of interviews with people who identify with antifa–from an Asian-America artist in his 60s to a working class transplant from Boston. However, experts ib fascism worry that they’re playing into Trump’s hands: “They’re being used by the right to feed the narrative about the violent left. Every time they throw a punch becomes a meme.”
Oregon dam at risk of failure
OPB looks at how officials are planning to fix Scoggins dam west of Portland, which provides water to some 600,000 Oregon residents and is in danger of collapse. In related news, the Chinook Observer notes that the Washington Department of Ecology will likely ask for more water to spill over dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers to help chinook salmon populations.
How a Chinese immigrant child hesitated reporting harassment
Northwest Asian Weekly has an essay by a language tutor (who uses a pseudonym) in which they document the difficulties that faced a Chinese girl and her family when she shared that she was being sexual harassed by a classmate.
Fiction by Douglas Cole
At Contrary, read Seattle-based author Douglas Cole’s short story “And the Wounded Disappear,” a moving and quiet look at the relationship between two brothers–one of whom has powerful demons:
“”And I saw in the dawn light a sculpture there that I had missed the night before, a red clay bust of a soldier with hundreds of nails sticking out of it like spines. “Jesus,” I said. “What is that? Did you make that?”
He came out and stood beside me. “Pretty ferocious, isn’t it?” And he laughed that quick laugh of his.” Take a few moments to read the full story here.
Hope you enjoyed today’s round-up of news, environmental reporting, arts, poetry, and fiction from across Cascadia. This newsletter will take a few day’s hiatus for a summer camping adventure and return on Monday. Have a great week and a lovely weekend. –Andrew Engelson
Photo credit: antifa protester by Flickr user Old White Truck, CC BY-SA 2.0