Ms. Cyrus does her best rendition of one of her standards at the 2018 D.C. âMarch for Our Livesâ, striding around in her sweats, holding a âNever Againâ placard: âAlways going to be an uphill battle/ âŚThe struggles Iâm facing may knock me down/ âŚItâs ainât about how fast I get there/ âItâs the Climb!â Contrary to her uplifting anthem, this last advent had a theme of loss for me, feeling quite knocked down. Last month, in a talk at downtownâs 1st Unitarian Church, an impressive U of O professor, Michael Fahkri, a special UN ârapporteurâ on food, referred to Gaza as the victim of the âfastest starvation campaign in modern history.â Then Jeff Merkley spoke to the Senate about âthe extreme level of devastation in Gaza,â showing an enlarged photo of apartment towers reduced to rubble. Weâve transferred to Israel about 14,000 of our 2000 lb. bombsâcapable of knocking down a blockâ and thousands of smaller bombs and mortars as wellâtargeting an area about the size of Portland! Amid the clutter in my home, I have a poster of Palestinian women in their traditional folk outfitsâso beautiful. Yet now I canât bear to look at it or put it up, as we know the past can predict the future. Ethnocide (aka genocide) is always too possible. âMileyâs best, "The Climb": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVFC87RxQZs âSEE IT: âThe Palestine Exception,â produced in Portland, with protest from the east coast to the west: https://cinema21.com/movie/the-palestine-exception (Jan. 26)