Protest As Performance Art?

That's my definition of the type of daily protest I've been doing over the last two years through our National Nightmare while living and trying to breathe with a Kremlin installed POTUS. 

Whether riding my bike with signs.

Wearing protest buttons every day. 

Stepping in for our most vulnerable citizens and calling out bigotry or injustice -- even if you have to fight family members and I have.  (no photo for this one) 


Calling out criminal behavior by sending postcards to the White House.

Standing my ground when men (with privilege) bowl past me while I'm jogging, (as if I'm the one who should move) or when they shout obscenities while I'm riding my bicycle thinking they're the bike path police. And when they speak over you --- speak even louder! I live with three boys and getting a lot of practice with this.


Or Protesting. How many protests have we gone to over the last two years? I've shared photos of those I've attended in previous posts.

This is from the NYC #TaxMarch in February 2017! 

And a myriad of other more personal ways to protest or call out injustice in daily life. And I've never been one to keep my mouth shut. Not in real life.  

Because, ultimately, this is what I believe:

In the haste of writing this post during the day-job hours, I may have forgotten a few ideas. I'll return to add those later. 

What are a few ways you've protested when you've come up against injustice? Because unfortunately, this isn't going to end soon enough. We have to stay vigilant and protect our most vulnerable citizens! Even after Dump45 leaves our White House. 

"If we want peace we have to fight for justice." 

Fill the recesses of hate throughout this country with compassion and unity, with kindness and understanding. ~ those to me, mean love. 

And LOVE Rules. 

Stay Strong kind-hearted friends, this fight for justice isn't over yet. Make your daily living a protest by speaking out, standing up, and protecting each other.  

AND ... 

AND

BLACK LIVES MATTER 

"Why You Should Stop Saying All Lives Matter," Explained Nine Different Ways.  ~Vox

P.S. I'll add -- all the exaggerated cough-hacking I do when caustic exhaust blows into my face. Especially from those commercial vehicles! 

We need much stricter laws for this! 

Considering how important breathing is.

MG Book Review: Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel José Older

Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel José Older
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Reposted from my review on Kidliterati. 

It’s 1863 at the Colored Orphan Asylum in New York City. Magdalys Roca is not listening to the matron who insists on caller her by the wrong name. Magdalys only answers to her real name, the way her brother said it, like a song, the brother who’s now fighting in the Union Army.

But the Triceratops is waiting to take her and the other orphan children to the Zanzibar Theater to see the only all-black Shakespearean company in New York perform the Tempest. Magdalys decides she not going to allow the matron’s stubbornness have her miss out.

“It was only a few years ago that New York passed a law granting black citizens the right to dinoride.”

Dinosaurs are everywhere. Iguanodons extinguish lanterns before the dawn. Commuter brachys. Stegosaurs lug supplies and microraptors deliver messages, while most of the trikes and raptors have been sent south to the Confederates.

“Magdalys had no idea why anyone would want to keep her from dinoriding just because of the color of her skin.”

On the way to the theater, Magdalys is surprised when she discovers the dinosaur listened to her. That it can hear her thoughts! But she’s keeping it a secret for now.

A riot breaks out and the theater is torched. Pandemonium in the streets, people are murdered, people Magdalys cares about. She narrowly escapes with her life and a few others. But there are more orphans to save before the Kidnappers Club sends south to be sold into slavery. Magdalys and the others barely escape and soon find friends in Brooklyn who will help them rescue the captured children and stop the worldwide kidnapping ring.

“They weren’t just abandoned orphans anymore — they were part of something.”

What a magnificent and wild ride! True events are written within an alternative historical setting, with maps of early New York City. A fun and absorbing way to learn about history and experience the joy of riding dinosaurs to combat evil.

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Teenage Activist Speaks the Dire Truth. Are You Listening?

This Swedish teenager just wrecked U.N. climate negotiators. 

Fifteen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the U.N. plenary last night in Katowice, Poland, condemning global inaction in the face of catastrophic climate change.

“You say you love your children above all else, and yet you’re stealing their future in front of their very eyes,” the towheaded, pigtailed activist said to the assembled dignitaries. Then, Thunberg addressed world leaders directly, telling them she didn’t come to the conference to beg. “You have ignored us in the past, and you will ignore us again.”

“The suffering of the many pays for the luxury of the few”

Warning: You may cry listening to this brilliant and magical girl.

Democracy Now  
(link to full the story) 

Update:

Teen Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Has Been Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize! 

Go, Greta!  Thank YOU! For standing up and doing what most grown-ups cannot.  We need to breathe the air on Earth, eat the food, and drink the water.  Get the picture.  Earth is our Paradise! 

YA Book Review: The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Reposted from my review on Kidliterati. 

1822 in the seaside town of Sparrow Oregon, three sisters arrived with hopes of making a new home. The Swan sisters were among the first to settle this seaside town. Three of the most beautiful women ever beheld. They soon became known at temptresses, too irresistible to resist. Rumors gathered that they were witches weaving spells, and a mob of townspeople stormed their perfumery shop, tied stones to the sister’s feet, and threw them into the ocean.

The Swan sisters return every summer seeking revenge, dragging unsuspecting boys back into in the sea with them before the solstice ends.

Two hundred years later, seventeen-year-old, Penny Talbot is apprehensive with another season of finding dead boys in the ocean about to begin. Even though the town celebrates the sisters return with festivals, and tourists flock to the island to witness the spectacle. It’s what the townspeople do to prepare the inevitable.

Penny wants things to be different this year when she meets Bo. He stepped in to rescue her from another boy’s abuse at one of the parties. He’s a stranger to the town just like her father was. Penny’s father disappeared three years ago and her mother suffers, watching out across the water for his return. Bo wants answers to what happened to his brother and Penny wants to protect Bo, keep him from being lured into the ocean to certain death. What will Penny do for love? How will she right the wrongs she’s made?

A beautifully written, haunting fantasy about the power of love, recommended for more mature Young Adult readers.

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Book Review: The World Beneath by Janice Warman

The World Beneath by Janice Warman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Reposted from my review on Kidliterati 

This historical novel opens up in Cape Town, South Africa, 1976 during apartheid.

Twelve-year-old, Joshua dreams about his big brother, who works in Johannesburg, and he fears for his life. His mother, they call Beauty, not her Xhosa name is the maid in a white household, and she assures Joshua his brother’s fine.

Sent to live with his mother and the wealthy Malherbe’s while he recovers from tuberculosis, Joshua hides his presence. He’s not supposed to be seen. There’s a cupboard under the stairs, where he keeps out of everyone’s way, listening to the sounds of the house.

One day, he finds himself on a “whites only” street with money in his pocket. His mother had told him, “You must never let the police see you. You are not supposed to be here. You must be invisible.”

But when kind-hearted, Joshua comes across Tsumalo, a black man being hunted down by the police the outside world enters to the house of the Malherbe’s, and Joshua hides him in the shack no one visits. Tsumalo explains the cruel injustices taking place in South Africa.

“We are fighting for freedom, Joshua. The whites have the power, and they don’t want to share it with us. They call it apartheid.”

The two become very close, Tsumalo much like the father he never had. Joshua wants to return home to Ciske, where his grandparents live with his younger brother and sister. But he also wants to help, be like his brother, and fight for justice. Only he has to get an education, first, which is denied black people under apartheid.

An explosive incident happens at the Malherbe’s, and Joshua is separated from his mother and Tsumalo. But two years later, Joshua returns to the town he grew up, and to the house his mother worked, knowing he has to make a choice, a choice that could send him to prison without a trial.

Difficult and heartbreaking, readers follow Joshua through what he has to endure; be prepared to become angry when reminded of the ignorance of racism and apartheid. This book is a good starting point for discussions about human rights and democracy, but some passages may not be clear enough for young readers. The author is a reporter now, who lived in South Africa during this time.



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VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE

Update: YES! The Democrats took the House. Time for accountability from this administration! 

Because Our Lives Depend on Good Representation! 

We are fighting for our democracy! 

We are being threatened by a terrorist-in-chief who is beholden to Russia. 

A GOP controlled Senate and House that wants to take Health Insurance AWAY from the American People! (My family's included.)

 And give it to Billionaires.  

VoteBlue!   

For our lives! 

For our health!

To flourish as a society

Vote Blue to save our Social Security -- of which we, the people pay into all our working lives, yet the GOP wants to strip us of that as well! 

Such criminal behavior. 

VOTE THEM OUT! 

Never Stay Silent!

With hate and fascism spreading through this nation like wildfire remember the words of Desmond Tutu and Elie Wiesel: 

Either way...
Love wins! 

Sidenote: I recently found out my grandfather flew a PBY Catalina over the Mississippi during WW2 to keep Nazi submarines from entering the United States.  

Thanks, Grandpa!