Welcome to the Cascadian Bioregionalism yahoo group. Klahowya Sikhs* This is a forum for sharing and exploration of the Cascadian Bioregionalism. This forum is not a "debate" chat room. Often "modern" people think that "conversation" means to shoot down or slander another person in the conversation as if this is a normal course of dialogue. This group requests that you do not use this forum for such tactics. Instead this should be (ideally) a forum to share relevant ideas, news stories, concerns and other relevant issues or topics. This forum is for topics or issues pertaining to Cascadia, bioregionalism, consumer civilization, globalism, environment, Cascadian cultural diversity, variations of democracy, anarchism, imperialism, corporatism, fascism, local economies, biodiversity, peak oil, intential communities and a Hell of a lot of other stuff. Cascadian bioregionalism in many prospects is an embracing and celebration of diversity of being. This diversity ranges from the biodiversity and even diversity in the ecosystems (ecoregions that make up a bioregion) to the social and historical diversity that is now the bioregion of Cascadia. We welcome that diversity of the human being in this group and embrace the diversity in religions, spiritual paths, ethnicities, "races", genders, sexualities, sexes, familial patterns, economic status, abilities, ages, ideologies, experiences, perceptions and all those things that we as social animals use to define, distinguish and unfortunately at times ostracizes the human being as an individual. In order to create community and ideally a deeper understanding we request that you (the individual) use this forum with respect of that diversity and the inalienable right of the individual to be who they are and what they value as part of who they are. There for this forum will not tolerate intolerance based on hate and hold the right to maintain diversity of being within this forum. This forum also recieves a lot of posts or news stories (normally not in the Corporate media or marginalized for the "big stories" that the wealth elite want you to focus on). These mass posts are welcomed as long as they have a relavance to Cascadia or Cascadian Independence or American Imperialism or such subject. PLEASE DO NOT JUST LEAVE THE GROUP BECAUSE OF THE LARGE NUMBER OF POSTS! We actually would like your participation and membership. For those not wishing a huge amount of alternative news stories in their "inbox" we advise you to set your yahoo membership on either "daily" or "no e-mail". To do this you must go to the Cascadian_Bioregionalism site and near the top of the group main page is an option written "Edit Membership". Click on that option. When this new page opens then scroll down to the section entitled "Message Delivery" it give you several options: Message Delivery Individual emails - Receive individual messages. Daily digest - Receive a daily compilation of many emails in one message. Special notices - Receive only important email notices from the group moderator. No email - I'll read messages on the web site. Either choose "Daily digest" which will send all the day’s e-mails in one batch at the end of the day or set it to "No email" where you will not receive e-mail from this group. If you choose the "No email" option we do request that you periodically check the messages of this group. Kloshe nanitch* Alexander http://republic-of-cascadia.tripod.com/ Note * Chinook Jargon (or Chinuk Wawa) was the trade language that was used by many many different people that settled or transvered the Cascadian bioregion (the Oregon Country). This trade language was an ecclectic language which used many many different words from the other languages. Chinook Jargon has words from various Native People’s languages to English, French, Gaelic, Chinese, Hawai’ian and many others. Klahowya - Hello or greetings Sikhs – friend Kloshe nanitch – goodbye, watch your back and literally "good watch" Online Chinook Jargon dictionary http://www.cayoosh.net/hiyu/ Native Wives http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/%7Echinook/Innsbruck/I.4.illustrations.htm What is Cascadia? Cascadia is that land and thought at the edge of the worlds. Some have called Cascadia a "state of mind" while others point out that Cascadia is a real place defined by its geology, biodiversity and shared communities. Cascadia does often appear as the eternal Terra Incognito (the land of the unknown) that is shrouded in mystery just outside of the mind and geography, but it is that sense of mystique that makes Cascadia such a unique and real place. Nestled between the North Pacific Ocean and the Continental Divide of the North American Continent lays a complex region formed from ongoing geological events and continuous climatic factors. Several regional mountain ranges catch the moisture of the Pacific as it passes on its way east. The Columbia, the Willamette and the Frazer rivers with their contributaries and other riparian systems cut through the basalt and granite mountains of this region providing rich alluvium soil. The region can be defined by this great water cycle that is powered and fed back into the Pacific Ocean. All the regional rivers, streams and creeks eventually flow back towards the Pacific. The region's farthest eastern frontiers lay on the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains where the spring melt begins its return to the Pacific. This is a region rich in biodiversity, history and cultures. It is a land that is shaped by geologic, oceanic, climatic and perceptional forces. Today sociologists, geographers and ecologists are redefining regions based on the commonality of the ecological systems and the human interactions within geographic systems called bioregions. The North Eastern Pacific east to the continetal divide is called Cascadia. The Cascadian bioregion encompassing the territories of the Alaskan Panhandle, British Columbia, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, northern California and western Montana as well as very small portions of other near by states and provinces. Cascadia is geographically the Columbia River Watershed and the area around the Cascade Range. Cascadia's farthest extent is from northern California to the Alaskan Panhandle and from the Pacific to the Continental Divide. This area has had many names over many years. Called the "Pacific NorthWest" from those who cartographic orientation is from an Atlantic centered map. The Oregon Country by Anglo-Americans crossing the North American continent. Ecotopia by utopians who love the idea of an ecologically centered worldview. In Chinook Jargon (Chinuk Wawa) this region is called "Chinook Illahaee" which means "land of the Chinook speakers" and now perfectly matches the demarcated "borders" of the bioregion called Cascadia. J.M.R. Le Jeune's "Chinook Rudiments" published on May 3rd 1924 describes the geographical placement of the use of Chinook Jargon and a partial glimpse of the demographics of who were the Chinook Jargon speakers of the time: "Chinook, for a century the International Language of the Pacific Coast, from Northern California to Alaska, from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains." "Gradually took shape between 1790 and 1810, becoming t(h)e necessary means of intercourse between natives of twenty-seven different tribes speaking as many different langauges, as well as between natives, whites and orientals." This mentioning by Le Jeune of who spoke Chinook Jargon also reflects the ethnic diversity in the region that is usually "white-washed" in US American history as just a territory colonized by Anglo-Americans in the name of the imperial expansionism later called "Manifest Destiny". Chinook Ilahee (Cascadia) was a land where Asian cultures, European cultures, Black cultures and Pacific Islander cultures came together, often mingled and even merged with the cultures of the Native Peoples. The ethnologist Hortatio Hale of the US Exploring Expedition of 1841 described the use of Chinook Jargon during his stay at Fort Vancouver by a new emerging culture of Chinook Illahee in the 1840s: "These are Canadians and half-breeds married to Chinook women, who can only converse with their wives in this speech, and it is the fact, strange as it may seem, that many young children are growing up to whom this factitious language is really the mother tongue, and who speak it with more readiness and perfection than any other." The Scottish naturalist David Douglas named the Cascade mountain range after the powerful waterfalls that carved out this land and gave it so much biomass. The name has been used as the name of a small town in Oregon founded in 1898. During the Great Depression the US government created a jobs program and public projects under the Civilian Conservation Corp that created a style of archecture called "Cascadian style" named for the region such monumental structures where built. In the field of geology "Cascadian" has also came to be the name of the subduction zone off the Cascadian coastline. The region as a whole has been called Oregon. Historically the whole Pacific NorthWest was the "Oregon Country" and then became the "Oregon Territory" as it was annexed into the Atlantic Empires of Canada and the United States of America. Eventually the name Oregon has been widdled down to one current political entity south of the Columbia River and north of California. Some theories suggest that the name "Oregon" maybe be for the great river west of the continental divide. A river that some Europeans thought maybe actually a "Northwest Passage" connecting the North Atlantic with the Pacific Ocean. Some historians believe that "Oregon" was a name for the Columbia River dating back to 1765 in written accounts from the English Army officer Major Robert Rogers. Rogers' verion of the Columbia was the Ouragon or Ourigan River in a failed written petition in London to explore the region of the Ouragon. Some have believe this was a mistake confusing the Ouisconsink (Wisconsin River) with the Columbia. A few historians believe "Ouragon" is from the French word for hurricane or storm. Some historians claim "Oregon" comes from the Spanish words of oregano, oreja, and orejon or from the French word Aragon. Other theories claim it is a name from Native people east of the Rockies. In the mid 1970s Ernest Callenbach envisioned an emergence of environmental awareness that would lead the Pacific NorthWest to form the country of Ecotopia. In the 1990s David McCloskey formed the Cascadia Institute. McCloskey describes Cascadia as "a land of falling water".