current events

Two days into this search for the mass shooter in Maine, and I’ve had a number of people reach out to see how my family and I are faring. Overall, it’s been fairly surreal, and this is for people who are an hour away from where this happened. You watch these events unfold in other states, and you think you understand how horrific it is, but I’ve already learned that the closer you are to where something like this happened, the more awful it becomes. I’ve got friends in Lewiston, and I see them posting social media updates. They’re now

Man. Am I happy we have as many guns in this country as we do. I mean, I used to be really against them, posting time after time about how much I wished our country would enact stricter gun laws. But now that I’ve had to deal with a mass shooting less than an hour from my house, I’ve really come to see the light. I mean, can you imagine what it would be like if we at least tried to make some stricter rules around firearms? Gun instructors might not be able to get access to the weapons they

I’ve been watching the war in Israel unfold in horror. Having spent a semester abroad in Jerusalem (traveling across Israel during that time), it connects with me in a way other conflicts don’t. I don’t quite know what to say about it, but I also didn’t want to blithely traipse along in my blog (where I often discuss current events) and simply ignore it. So . . . here goes. During my time in Israel, I met many Israelis and many Palestinians. They were all lovely people. Welcoming and cordial. Walking through the streets of the Old City is still

Last week, the new Harry Potter video game, Hogwarts Legacy, premiered on a variety of platforms. It’s a game that’s been highly anticipated by many, and from the reviews, it sounds like it’s a lot of fun. At the same time, since it’s Harry Potter, and JK Rowling has come under a lot of fire for her statements around trans rights, it’s a game that’s been more than a bit of a lightning rod. There are many who are boycotting the game, since they don’t want to support any of Rowling’s efforts. This is a trend that has gained momentum

I was very upset to hear about the incident at the BYU Women’s Volleyball game on Friday evening. In case you haven’t heard about it, in a game against Duke, someone in the student section kept yelling racial slurs at one of the Duke players every time she served. (The N-word.) It apparently progressed to the point that they were also threatening to hurt them after the game. It got to the point that a security officer came to stand next to the Duke bench. After the game, BYU investigated the issue, identified the person who had been yelling the