No Kings! #SundaySalon
Happy Sunday! Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at ReaderBuzz. Check out her post and the links to see what other bloggers have been up to in the last week.
How’s the weather?
There’s sunshine, now, on Saturday afternoon. I got rained on during the No Kings protest, but just a little bit and the sky remained bright, so I was sure that it would pass quickly and it did.
What are you reading?
The library yanked away The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson because I kept it too long. I’m already in the hold queue to get it back. For the first time in ages, there’s no e-book on my phone. That feels weird. I’m sure that I’ll pick up something soon.
In the meantime, I started On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed to discuss with my book group on Juneteenth. We read her book The Hemingses of Monticello many years ago. This one is very different — a short memoir instead of a very long history.
What are you watching or listening to?
We finished re-watching the first season of Funny Woman last night. Now that we remember what happened, we’ll start the new second season tonight — streaming on PBS Passport, a benefit of membership to our local PBS station. PBS and NPR need our support right now since the House voted to rescind their funding last week. The Senate has yet to vote, so there’s time to help them at Protect Public Media.
What are you doing?
My delight in the No Kings protest was dampened this morning by the shootings in Minnesota targeting a state representative and a state senator.
Here is me with my state representative in his office in Jefferson City. I’ve known Mark and his family for years.
That’s me on the left with my representative in Jefferson City.
I met my state senator the day that I went to Jefferson City. She graciously allowed us to use her office to store our packed lunches which we later ate, picnic-style, in her office while she was in a committee meeting.
I spoke with both of them recently at a town hall meeting.
I’m heartsick that someone deliberately shot public servants, like Mark and Tracy, in Minnesota.
In their honor, I’d like to encourage everyone who reads this to find an opportunity to meet one of your local elected officials — a mayor, a city councilor, a school board member, or a state representative or senator. It’s a really effective way to remind ourselves that these people are our neighbors. Summer is a good time because elected officials tend to show up at events.
I did make it to a No Kings protest. I saw photo evidence that Mark was there, too. We were two people of 7000, so we didn’t run into each other, this time. Here’s a photo from one of the organizing groups:
This was the center of the action. I was over a half-mile from this location at the very west end. We stretched that far to the east, too, covering both sides of the street for well over a mile on a main thoroughfare in St. Louis County.
There were other large gatherings in our area, too, including a big march in downtown St. Louis. Those are always great because the photos have the Arch in the background.
You can kind of tell from the above photo that the average age at this location was over 50, even with some children present. Our governor made a show of calling up the National Guard, but somebody must have decided that it wouldn’t be a good look to have soldiers standing up against grandmothers holding signs. Our protest was loud with honking horns, shouts of “woohoo!”, bells, drums, and a tambourine. There was nothing that required the presence of law enforcement, much less military.
Were there No Kings protests in your area? What were they like?