Cotton Candy Sky

It’s been a while since I posted the view from my living room window, but today I was drawn by the vibrating red and orange rainbow at city center (center of Extra). I stayed for this magnificence. If we are ever egotistical and deluded enough to think that we are important, we have only to look at the sky on a day like today to see how small we are.

Update on our local university action: last night students broke into the library, barricaded the doors, and re-named it the Refaat Alareer Memorial Library. They issued a statement on Instagram, saying that the library will once again be open when their demands are met and that no books will be harmed. The President of the university, a woman named Ann Cudd, cancelled all classes for today and tomorrow and called for the police; the Mayor said he trusts the police to act reasonably (cue laughter); the District Attorney said holding the library makes all students subject to being charged with felony breaking and entering. But then the police did not enter the library. The students remain there, as of the moment I write this. 

A friend who is a professor at PSU posted on Instagram an open letter that she helped to write. This is the central paragraph of the letter: 

“As Faculty and Staff for Justice for Palestine (FSJP), we stand in solidarity with our students. We support students’ right to protest a genocide, including through the use of civil disobedience. We urge President Cudd to refrain from criminalizing student protests. We are deeply concerned and outraged by the announcement that the university has brought in the Portland Police Bureau to lead an “operation” on campus. We implore our University President and administrators to pull back from relying on Portland Police Bureau to engage with protestors, including those occupying the PSU library. We urge President Cudd to pursue peaceful conflict resolution methods, and restorative over punitive responses to protest.”