Portland Teachers on Strike

Today during a break in the rain, I walked over to Chapman Elementary School: no children. It is locked, shut down, silent because the teachers are on strike, making perfectly reasonable demands.   It's a hardship for parents without extended family to care for the children who are out of school; and yet everyone I know supports the strike.

Bombs are still falling on Gaza, hostages have not been returned, and more people are dying as I write these words. I have not become accustomed to the horror. 

The absence of children in Portland is temporary. Thousands of children in Gaza are dead, hundreds of thousands more are hungry, are traumatized for life.