Events

Join the "chatter!"  Bring your tea or latte, and come discuss contemporary lit. with Sittrea and the Afternoon Book Chat on the 2nd Wednesday of each month at 1pm. (Authors do not usually attend VB Reads) August selection is The Rope Walk, by Carrie Brown. Two children begin a daily routine of reading aloud to an AIDS-stricken artist, who is losing his eyesight. The journals of Lewis and Clark prompt them to build a “rope walk” through the woods for Kenneth, and in the process they learn hard truths about the way adults see the world.

    Written by nationally recognized marijuana-policy experts, this book compares and contrasts the relative harms and legal status of the two most popular recreational substances in the world—marijuana and alcohol.  Through an objective examination of the two drugs and the laws and social practices that steer people toward alcohol, the authors pose a simple yet rarely considered question: Why do we punish adults who make the rational, safer choice to use marijuana instead of alcohol? Mason Tvert is the cofounder and executive director of Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER) and the SAFER Voter Education Fund. He appears frequently in the news and travels the country promoting the "Marijuana Is Safer Than Alcohol" message. He resides in Denver, where he serves on the city’s Marijuana Policy Review Panel. Norm Stamper was a police officer for 34 years, serving the last six as Seattle's Police Chief.  He has a doctorate in Leadership and Human Behavior, and is the author of Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing and several op-eds, and is a blogger for The Huffington Post.  Norm is a member of Drug Policy Alliance and an advisory board member of both Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).  He is a member of the Constitution Project’s Death Penalty Committee as well as Death Penalty Focus, an organization working to end executions.  He does expert witness work, and serves on the board of directors of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services in San Juan County, Washington.  Norm lives on Orcas Island.