Sunday Salon, March 25, 2018

March for Our Lives in Tacoma, Washington

Weather: Spring-like. Sunny one minute, raining the next. Saturday we woke up to a dusting of snow on the ground.

March for Our Lives: We joined local teenagers who organized a March in Tacoma yesterday. The most inspiring speaker was a fifteen-year-old girl who talked about what it is like to be afraid in school and in public. We have to change our gun laws. Right now it seems like guns have more rights than the students who keep dying from them.

A few of my favorite quotes from the March and about guns: 

"Books not bullets!"- seen on a poster

"I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept…" - Angela Y. Davis

"How many have to die before we give up these expensive toys?" -Stephen King

"Thoughts and prayers. ACTION." -seen on a poster

"As a black boy, one day I hope to have as many rights as a gun." -from a Parkland student

"Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us that nothing can be done about this, we call BS. They say that tougher gun laws don't decrease gun violence. We call BS." -Emma Gonzales, a Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School student and school gun shooting survivor.

I didn't take very good photos but here are a few from my experience in Tacoma (March for Our Lives/Tacoma):

Currently reading:

• Kindred by Octavia Butler---this is my Classics Club spin book. It is the story of black woman who time-travels back to the early 1800s and meets her ancestors who were slaves. Print. 25%.
• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward---an award winner about a mixed-race, empoverished family in Mississippi. It is so depressing, I have to take a break and set the book aside and listen to something more fun first. Audio. 33%.
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline---this is a re-read for me. I wanted to take a second look at the novel before I see the movie. This is one my favorite books of the decade. I decided I would listen to this book again while I am taking a break from the above book. Audio. 15%

Books completed recently:

• Emma by Alexander McCall Smith...another modern retelling from the Austen Project. Classic McCall Smith. Often very humorous.  Audio.
• Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children's Literature as an Adult by Bruce Handy. I enjoyed this nonfiction book immensely.  Click the hyperlink for my review. Print
• True Grit by Charles Portis. Don and I listened to this classic American Western as we drove to Portland last weekend. It was a fun experience to share with each other. Read my review here. Audio. 
• Martin Rising: A Requiem for a King by Andrea Davis Pinkney,,, an illustrated, poetry book about Martin Luther King's last few days in Memphis where he was to support the sanitation workers' strike. He was assassinated at that time. 

Family: Today both of my sisters and other family members will gather here for a brunch. My youngest sister hasn't met grandson Ian yet, so it will an introduction as well as a reunion. Last Sunday my brother, his wife, and son were here for a short visit. And last Saturday Don and I drove to Portland to attend a memorial service for my mother's best friend. It was a sad occasion but lovely to see Mom and Dad again. I am so lucky to still have living parents and siblings that like each other.

I'll leave you with a final thought:

Taken during the March for Our Lives in Washington, DC.