Best products from r/Cascadia

You hit on a lot of good points, yes. But, it is indeed (thought not as our present level of technology) to create such a thing. The "me first" is the most primal, long before monkey, mammal, or vertebrate, programming or our DNA. As life on Earth evolved and became more complex, more layers of code were selected for and passed on. A lot of these systems play of of each other, modify each other, and sometimes play against each other. Cooperation, self-sacrifice, and charity CERTAINLY don't make sense for very primitive organism, but once you start scaling up and you start dealing with mammals it makes a lot of sense. You get new layers of genetic commands piled on top of the old ones, things like "defend kin. Sacrifice for kin. Have attachment to creatures with large heads and large eyes." That for the most part do their job, but also luckily spread outward and let us care about complete strangers and even other species and the planet. There are two really good books to help understand all this

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins goes into the broader category of why life behaves the way it does.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Selfish-Gene-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0192860925

And Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved by Frans de Waal goes into goes specifically into how altruism, morality, and the more noble aspects of humanity came to be in our simian ancestors and cousins. P,us, it's just sort of an uplifting read that will make you feel good.

http://www.amazon.com/Primates-Philosophers-Morality-Evolved-Princeton/dp/0691141290/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419420928&sr=1-1&keywords=primates+and+philosophers

There is a reason for why we humans behave, for good and bad, the way that we do. For why we think the way that we do. But we have the advantage of being self-aware organisms that have the opportunity to look in the mirror and realize what we are doing and why we are doing it and choose a better, more moral course than what biology may demand of us. It is very difficult, many of us won't and of those that do none of us always will, but we can, and that is something fantastic. As far as we know a first for the history of life on this planet.

I think you should read a book called Poor People's movements. It looks at historically successful campaigns for reform. Labor, Civil Rights, Anti-Vietnam. There are common threads in all of the ones that are successful, and this applies to Ghandi's work for independence and reduction in classism, and Mandela's work against apartheid.

Successful campaigns have clear figureheads, and clear demands. Rosa Parks is a great example of this. She was a manufactured figurehead. She wasn't the first person to personally boycott the back of the bus, but she was the first one to boycott it and create a cultural movement where other people wanted to join her. The demand was also very clear, blacks get to sit on the bus as equals.

They could have asked for more, but they wanted to win, not feel good about themselves, so they picked a winnable battle, and without having done that, and won in '56, the civil rights movement would not have been possible, because a bunch of naysayers would have said "Do you really think the crackers are gonna give up the rights to put us in separate bathrooms, schools, facilities, stores and give up the right to enact vigilante justice whenever they want?" But King and others already had an answer "We won in Montgomery, and that affected all of Alabama."

Personally, I think the salmon are much more important than anything else, and the risk of extinction for salmon is a potentially millenia long threat. Salmon provide immense ecological and nutritional services, and losing them would be catastrophic.

One oil spill is not going to make them go extinct though, and what I think matters more is setting a precedent where the protestors stop saying "no pipeline," which is an absurd request, and start saying "we'll let you build the pipeline when we see laws coming from congress that will ensure better oversight on safety than we've seen before and serious monetary penalties that make a perfect operation record the only clear way to have a profitable business model."

That is a power we actually have. Congress wants that pipeline, Kinder Morgan wants the pipeline. Lots of folks are invested in KM, so lots of people will want what they want. If we leverage that to say "hey we are willing to negotiate, but we're playing fucking hardball here and you gotta throw us a bone, and if you fuck up, we're taking you to the cleaners, as is only fair," that's a message that is actually sympathetic to the vast majority of the US public.

Link for the book I recommended.

First off, welcome! I have a book to recommend for you OP, American Nations, it provides some great perspective and history about the cultures in the US.

The book mentions something really interesting--the US isn't becoming more homogenous, it's instead becoming more divided as people move to areas with cultures they identify with. We're 'self-sorting'.

Anyway, I'm with a lot of others here. The government doesn't really represent anyone but the wealthy and powerful. From what I understand, BC is underrepresented in it's government.

The US government is not only violating our rights (NSA etc) but is either unwilling or unable to deal with environmental and social problems. We're looking at a future with increased automation (where are the jobs going to come from), climate change disasters, sustainability problems, oil reliance, etc. As I see it the government is paralyzed because of how the current system works. The country is too big, too divided, and too reliant on lobbyists. I don't think change has much of a chance that way.

Also, the Cascadia movement isn't just about independence. A lot of folks don't care about independence. The Cascadia movement is also about recognizing our shared culture and working together in this region. I'm a huge fan of this idea--we have to work together to deal with climate change and to deal with future natural disasters.

Edit: I want to add, I think it's easier to take risks and try new things when you're smaller and more localized. As a California transplant, I feel like the culture up here is more accepting of trying out new ideas.

Saw this post on /r/backpacking earlier today. In the thread someone mentioned this book, The Golden Spruce, about the of the area. I'm looking forward to reading it. I bet it will interest some of you too.

Great pics anvilman! I'm gonna have to make the trip up there some day!

dret thlush mayka wawa! nayka waxt elup chaku-kumtuks kultus nayka. nayka nanich-yaim ul "chinook jargon" buk. athki nayka chaku-kumtuks kapa skul.

I was also a little surprised that they still embrace "shawash", but it turns out that some regions do make a distinction between SHA-wash, and sha-WASH. With the emphasis on the first syllable, it can be taken as an insult (that being the customary English pronunciation, and developing a negative connotation during the settler-period), where as sha-WASH (emphasis on the second syllable) is totally dret-thlush. It depends on where you are; at the Grande Ronde, either pronunciation is fine; among the Yakima maybe not so much.

If you're interested, I'd recommend "Chinuk Wawa: kakwa nsayka ulman-tilixam laska munk-kemteks nsayka / As Our Elders Teach Us to Speak It" published by the Grande Ronde. It is an excellent guide to accurate CW pronunciation and grammar, as well as providing the most complete dictionary ever available.

https://www.amazon.com/Chinuk-Wawa-nsayka-ulman-tilixam-munk-kemteks/dp/0295991860

Thanks for posting this! I first learned of the Everett Massacre shortly after the fire in Seattle's Chinatown a couple months ago which coincidentally is the same location as the Wah Mee massacre

Aside from the chaos that shaped us as we are today. I wanted to share one of my favorite books that has inspired many hikes in the Washington area. It's a book dedicated to the mines and the men who shaped them called Discovering Washington's Historic Mines, Vol. 1: The West Central Cascade Mountains. The authors were kind enough to sign these books and even include a sheet of paper with updates indicated if the mines have either been claimed since the book was published or if the roads have been washed out. Mines are ranked by difficulty and distance.

Seriously, folks. Read Ecotopia if you get the chance, it's a fun, engaging book.

OWS isn't a homogeneous group. There's a book called Occupy! that gives a good perspective on its heterogeneity: http://www.amazon.com/Occupy-Occupied-America-Carla-Blumenkranz/dp/1844679403/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1348985620&sr=8-3&keywords=occupy

Perhaps its diversity is why you found it not productive. Unfortunately, that doesn't really have anything to do with it as a 'movement' - that's just life.

OWS shouldn't be thought of as a movement anyway. It is a set of interests or concerns. If you find people co-opting it as a brand for their own agendas, that should be seen for what it is.

This is a good book on the topic: Cascadia: The Elusive Utopia: Exploring the Spirit of the Pacific Northwest

Yes. While I've only skimmed through them, I see all of them cover native issues in some form. I don't know how much pre-contact indigenous history there will be, but maybe because they offer a class in pre-contact indigenous history it will be glossed over in this class. also, one not shown there - it hasn't arrived - is Bloodlines was assigned as well.

Yea you could have a good amount on that space. You might look in to raising broilers, or even specialty eggs for market, check out Joel Salatines Pastured Poultry Profits. I am on about a 10th of a acre and have 7 layers and 15 broilers, I will probably do 25 broilers in the next batch. Plus I have a feeling you can get cheaper feed than the Seattle metro area.

PM me if you have any questions and maybe I can point you in the right direction

Switzerland has not fought an international war since 1815.

I agree that Armed neutrality is best neutrality.

You should check out the book Total Resistance by Swiss Army Major h. Von Dach http://www.amazon.com/Total-Resistance-H-Von-Dach/dp/0873640217

The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde published a Chinuk Wawa dictionary last year.

Definitely on the Cascadian reading list. It is however 30 years old and is an ahistorical view. Little insight into the origins of these nations and because of that little insight into their behavior present and future.

Another book that has to be on the reading list: American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. Colin Woodard ties his description of the eleven regions to the streams of immigrants that first populated them. First settlers make a large impact on the culture of a region.

This all the way. We need to pull our food production out of the wide open spaces of the country, and put it right in the cities where we live. This reduces food waste, transportation costs and emissions, dependence on pesticides, and dependence on climate stability (which is far from certain in the near future), and we can give the spaces that used to be filled with farms back to nature, improving ecological stability, and providing a modest carbon sink.

In addition, I think whole-animal meat farming is inherently inferior, both from an ethical and environmental standpoint (and potentially from a flavor standpoint), to lab-grown meat. At the moment, lab grown meat can't really create much texture, which is its biggest flaw. But once we figure it how to create proper muscle fiber, skin, and intramuscular fat, we can make steaks, chops, and poultry cuts indistinguishable from that taken from animals. What's more, these can be made boneless, and with more flavor via custom fat distribution. Imagine if every steak looked like this, while being cheaper than any prepackaged cut at Walmart.

I think there will always be a place for homegrown foods, and maybe even meat animals, but that place will be as hobbyist or luxury foodstuffs, taking up very little space on private residences or small scale farms.

It's all vinyl, the blue and the green. I put down WrapCut and used that to cut out the edges of the vinyl sections. Exacto knife was used for other areas that needed cutting and fixing.

The vinyl i used is 3M Scotchprint. Bought mine from Amazon, they have a ton of different colors and styles. You can even go to 3M's site and request a sample book for free.

edit: forgot about the black lines, that's this stuff. I'm not sure I like how it went though, its not very adhesive. Might order 1/8 and try that.

Do you know if this is the same Driftwood X as this?

http://www.amazon.com/Driftwood-Valley-Naturalist-Wilderness-Northwest/dp/0870715240/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367952754&sr=1-1&keywords=driftwood+valley

There's at least one free Kindle version of the George Gibbs Chinook jargon dictionary available.

The 1969 Chinook: A Dictionary and History by Thomas is the standard work. It's long out of print but can often be found used at Powell's and other regional used bookstores as it was published by Binford and Mort.

Add this book to round it out.