Pandemic Read-athon
Juneteenth is well on it’s way to becoming a National holiday and well deserved too. It not only celebrates the liberation of African Americans from slavery, but it also represents those who are the last to know. Hopefully there will be some positive changes that includes our country’s diverse community into the education system and mainstream. Confronting the uncomfortable history may just be the medicine we need to heal. This book sat in my Amazon box of books for sale for many years and has only just sold. I even forgot that I had it. Ralph Ellison had died before he finished writing this book but his family stepped in and brought it to completion and it was published a few years later. Like most people, I had to go to college for the literature and history classes about our diverse cultures that was missing from my elementary and high school years.
Waste Tide is a Chinese Sci-Fi: “She’s a waste worker on Silicon Isle, where electronics from cell phones and laptops to bots and bionic limbs are sent to be recycled. These amass in towering heaps, polluting every spare inch of land. On this island off the coast of Chin, the fruits of capitalism and consumer culture come to a toxic end.”
I wrote a little before about Junkyard Planet, another good read that takes you on a tour of the scrap trade from the scrapyards of America to the recycling factories of China. Has anybody noticed the disappearance of old junk cars that could be seen abandoned in swamps and ditches around the country over the years? Anyway, I look forward to reading Waste Tide. Sci-Fi is more about the present and preview of things that may come. This book looks promising, an alternative insight into the world of recycling, one that we don’t seem to notice. We know what our side of the story is, this will be the other side. It makes me think that in times like these we should all be more careful about how we spend our money and perhaps not be so picky about buying from the used marketplace or hanging onto what we already have a lot longer if it still works or can be repaired.
Road Trip Minnesota 