Desk Notes | Nursing a Pup & Parsing Indictments
How I analyze the news when everything feels personal and my dog just cost too much money
It’s Friday afternoon, and it looks like my weekend plans will consist of nursing a pup back to health. If you listened to Thursday’s episode of Rivera and Reeves, you know that we had a pet emergency. Daisy had to have surgery for an obstruction. The obstruction? One and a half pounds OF GRASS!
I don’t even want to talk about it. Thankfully, she is home, on the mend, and now I am poor. So consider becoming a paying subscriber ;)
Anyway, I am working on my consistency here, so "Desk Notes" will now be a Friday newsletter of all the random things. From the news, I think it’s worth your attention, life things, and whatever random things are on my desk. I really have no idea how these are going to pan out. You have been warned.
What a Week
Am I the only one who feels like I’ve been tumbling around in a washing machine with a brick for the last two weeks? I cover news daily and can usually handle the headlines, but these past two weeks have been brutal.
It wasn’t just Charlie Kirk’s assassination. It was watching everyday Americans celebrate the murder of a 31-year-old husband and father practicing free speech, then gaslighting us with "the motive isn’t known" and "free speech is under attack because of a comedian," never mind the actual political assassination.
Why has this affected me so deeply? Because it feels personal. I thought maybe Charlie’s death would open eyes to the danger of comparing conservatives to Nazis. It hasn’t. And for the first time, I am considering it’s not just rhetoric, they truly believe it, meaning there are Americans and leadership who continue using words that create permission for violence against you and me.
Losing Charlie so unexpectedly and violently was hard. However, we have also lost John MacArthur in July and, most recently, Voddie Baucham just a few days ago. These are three men who showed me what bold truth-telling looks like, not only in my faith, but also in everything. Their willingness to stand firm when culture demanded they bend has inspired me more than they’ll know.
So what do you do? I pray, recharge, then get back up and keep going.
Because the alternative is retreat, and these men didn’t build their legacies so the next generation would be too afraid to speak up.
So I’ll keep writing. You’ll keep reading. We’ll continue conversations that apparently make some people so uncomfortable that they think violence is the answer.
Even when it doesn’t feel safe.
The alternative is surrender, and that’s not my jam.
IKYMI
The Great Gaslighting
In the 1944 film Gaslight, Ingrid Bergman's character, Paula, lives in a home where the lamps flicker dimmer each night. Her husband, Gregory, insists it's her imagination, a ploy to erode her sanity, isolate her from reality, and bend her will to his.
So Comey Has Been Indicted
Allow me to share with you what it’s like to attempt non-biased news analysis when you have a life and are painfully aware of your own bias. Step into my brain for a moment. Don’t step on anything.