Lessons from Charlie Kirk's Shooting

September 10th, 2025, began as a beautiful day in Orem, Utah, about 39 miles south of Salt Lake City. The campus of Utah Valley University was abuzz with activity, a crowd of around three thousand people eagerly awaiting the appearance of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point, USA, who was scheduled to speak as a part of his “Prove Me Wrong” tour of college campuses across the United States. Kirk was widely known for inviting anyone to step up to the microphone and ask him questions or debate him on political and social issues. Neither Kirk himself, nor any of the members of the audience, were aware that Charlie would soon be asked the final question of his life.

Photo by Gage Skidmore

At 12:23 PM, as Kirk was discussing a question about mass shootings, a shot rang out. Kirk was struck in the neck, and the world was forever changed. A prominent political activist, focused on reaching America’s young adults with the truth of God’s word, had been brutally assassinated in front of a massive crowd of onlookers. As horrific as this event was, what followed was perhaps even more shocking.

Beginning mere moments after the news of the shooting got out, a wave of vile and disgusting comments began to surge online. Social media was flooded with content openly celebrating the murder of a man whose entire livelihood was based on reaching across the political and cultural divide in order to speak candidly, honestly, and above all, kindly with those who opposed his beliefs. Charlie Kirk’s consistent methodology when conducting his debates had been to listen carefully to the questions posed to him and to follow with a well-mannered, civil response. More often than not, his answers drifted into the realm of discussion and debate rather than simple Q&A. It was not at all uncommon for his adversaries to approach the mic with hostility, but Kirk’s replies and rebuttals were consistently kind and well-measured. The same cannot be said of the deluge of vulgar tweets, videos, and comments made by his detractors in the wake of his death.

Borrowed Trouble: The Art of Getting Bitten by Dogs

I don’t have to tell you that social media has become a potentially ugly place. There are many issues which divide us, and emotions run hot far too much of the time. Now I have to admit that I have been guilty of this as well. Many are the times when I have posted some article, typically political in nature, which had lit the fires of anger within me.  But I have wised up and cut back on such posts.

I had to, for my own sanity.

Image by GemmaRay23 from Pixabay 

Once upon a time, Facebook (my primary social media app) was a fun place to go online. You had a wall where you could post pieces of flair (yes that was a long time ago), you could share funny pictures, and you could update your friends on what was going on in your life. Now to be fair, you can still do most of these things (I think the flair app is no more, alas), but Facebook took a turn for the worse when they introduced an integrated News Feed.

We all know what it has turned into today. Everywhere you turn, there’s a negative or inflammatory article, an angry rant, or everyone’s favorite, some fake news. I have friends on both sides of the political aisle, and I can assure you that both sides are equally guilty of all the bad things.

Angry, profanity-ridden rants? Both sides.

Negative, divisive opinion pieces? Both sides.

Fake news? Both sides.

Unnecessarily hostile attitudes? Let me assure you, this too is coming from both sides.

Why?

It's About Time: Creation and the Theory of Relativity

We know that 60 seconds make up a minute, 60 minutes make up an hour, there are 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week, and so on. Humans are obsessed with time. We celebrate the passage of it with anniversaries and birthdays, we plan our waking activities around it, and we build clocks of all different shapes and sizes, from Stonehenge to cuckoo clocks to building sized monuments like Big Ben, to smart watches synchronized automatically by your cellular network to super-precise atomic clocks.

Peter Cetera, in a song by his band, Chicago, famously asked, Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is? As it turns out, that question may be a lot harder to answer than you think.

Satanic Prayer Sparks Internet Firestorm

A prayer spoken at a town hall meeting in Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula Borough on June 18^th of this year prompted several attendees and officials to walk out, as well as sparking protests outside the borough’s administration building. Controversy over public prayer is not a new thing in the United States, but the prayer spoken at this meeting held south of Anchorage has turned the usual debate on its head.

Wikimedia Commons

You see, the people protesting this prayer are Christians, as the prayer was delivered by Satanic Temple member Iris Fontana, whose closing words of the prayer were, “Hail Satan.”

Didn't see that one coming? You're not alone. But maybe we shouldn't be surprised by this at all.

Christians in the United States have long been chafing at restrictions placed on prayer at public events. The protests against prayers at gatherings such as public sporting events or town meetings have typically been spearheaded by atheists who claim that such prayer violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment:

Madonna Challenges The Pope, Says Jesus Would Support Abortion

Photo by Adam Sammler

Apparently, pop singer Madonna wants to have a debate with the Pope about abortion. Most disturbingly, she seems to suggest that Jesus would side with the pro-choice crowd. She proposes the following potential questions for the Pontiff: “What do you really think he thought of women? And don't you think Jesus would agree that a woman has the right to choose what to do with her body?”

Pope Francis has made his pro-life stance very clear on a number of occasions. I'm no Catholic, but I have to say I'm going to side with the Pope on this one.

So, Madonna, since you brought Jesus into this conversation, allow me to provide you with the answers you would like to ask about Him. Your overtly loaded questions make it abundantly clear that you are terribly, terribly mistaken.

What If Atheists Are Right?

Atheists are quick to point out the differences between religions (and especially between different denominations of the same religion) as proof that people of faith have failed to come to any kind of
consensus. That alone, they say, is enough to prove that faith is nothing more than a bunch of superstitious hogwash. But they are overlooking something when they resort to this argument. Even though there are literally thousands of different religions, there is one factor that they all have in common.

I’m going to call it “continuity.”

According to the Pew Research Center, 84% of the people on this planet are affiliated with a religion. This means that the vast majority of humanity shares the belief that there is something more to our
existence than this life. Whether it’s Heaven, Nirvana, reincarnation, or returning your energy to the cosmos, people of faith all believe that some aspect of what we call “us” continues to exist beyond physical death.

Hence… continuity.

Atheists say that this is all there is, and when you die… it’s GAME OVER.

Now, I love science. Almost more than I love barbeque. Probably less than pizza… I also believe that there is more to reality than science can explain. But… what if I’m wrong? If atheists are right, and science is the only appropriate way to interpret reality, what does the future look like for humanity as a species?

On Watches, Razors, and Men

This ad says, "We see the good in men." This is a vital aspect of the "conversation" which is being mostly ignored by "woke" social justice warriors. Kudos to Egard Watches and their ad team for delivering a message which builds people up!

Gillette, as you surely know by now, has released an ad which many claim to be little more than an attack on men. After viewing the controversial Gillette ad, I have mixed feelings about it. Let's start with the good points...

I love the clip of Terry Crews they included. He's on point with his comments. Accountability is huge, and men SHOULD hold each other accountable. This is a Biblical principle, too. We read in Proverbs 27:17 that, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:6 reveals that, “Wounds inflicted by the correction of a friend prove he is faithful.”

I am sure that I agree with Gillette that men who behave in a toxic manner need to be called out and put in their place, and that men of good character should be well-equipped to do just that. Assuming that this was the goal, then the Gillette ad could and should be considered to have good intentions.

But as the saying goes, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

The Gillette ad fails by presenting a picture of men through a single, narrow lens; an unfair stereotype no better than other unfair stereotypes (some examples being the barefoot, pregnant, in the kitchen housewife, the lazy shiftless negro, the dumb blonde, the stupid drunk redneck, the greasy Mexican, the thug from the hood, etc - all of which are poor, negative, and even hateful representations of the demographic in question).

Of course, the difficulty with stereotypes is that they are true, or at least they are SOMETIMES true. There are individuals who fit into every category I mentioned above, and yes, that definitely includes men who are toxic.

And let me be clear: I completely agree with Gillette that toxic men who treat women badly, who bully and intimidate others, and who resort readily to violence are far from “The Best a Man Can Get.” Those traits are not even masculine, really. Those guys are not, in fact, men... at all. They are immature overgrown children who never learned how to be men.

As a friend of mine posted just yesterday, we used to call these guys "douchebags." We also used to understand that they do not represent men as a whole. But that differentiation is sadly being replaced by a militant feminist view of men in which any individual with a Y-chromosome is seen as being inherently evil or toxic in some way. Gillette's ad fails by seeming to openly accept this distorted view of men.

There is one point in the ad where things go irrevocably wrong, and it hinges on ONE WORD:

"Some."

For all of their good intentions, Gillette fails by accepting the notion that most men are the problem, and only some are doing right. In other words, they have it exactly backwards.

That point - that ONE WORD - turns what should be a fair challenge for all men to hold each other accountable into just another overly “woke” sound bite. An unfair stereotype, if ever there was one.

Gillette and those who love the ad would say that they are challenging men to do what’s right, and I would agree that challenging men to do what’s right is a good thing. But have they accomplished this, or have they simply chastised men in general for the bad behavior of a few?

It's very easy to see why many were offended by the ad, yet the good intentions behind it are also pretty clear. So what should we do when good intentions fail to produce good results?  We have all failed to deliver good results alongside our good intentions at some point. The Gillette marketing team, in trying to address a societal problem, has delivered results which many find offensive.

Being offended is not necessarily unreasonable, but how should we respond after we are offended? Do we respond in kind? Do we lash out with (self) righteous indignation? Or might we be better served to forgive the transgressors for their shortcomings and work toward resolution?

We all will most certainly be better served by men who stand for what’s right, even when (especially when) faced with all that is wrong with the world. That’s a point which we should all agree on, and it seems like a good place to start.

Goliath in Zagreb

When Dr. Jackie Lamar asked me to write a piece for the Arkansas Saxophones to premiere at the 2018 World Saxophone Congress, I instantly hopped on board and straightaway began to compose with great procrastination.

One should never be too hasty. At least, that's what my good friend, Treebeard, always says.

I spent most of my career as a saxophonist playing bari in various ensembles, and I always like to give the bari player something interesting when I write for saxophones. Very soon, the idea that this piece would retell the epic of David and Goliath was firmly planted in my mind, right next to some rather neglected Azaleas.

For those of you who may be less familiar with the various flavors of saxophone, the bari (short for baritone) sax is one of the bigger ones. It's the one that looks like part of it got caught in a pretzel-twister, and it has a pretty low sound. If saxophones had strings, the bari would be a cello.

Fortunately... they don't.

Anyway, the bari player takes up the role of the Phillistine giant, Goliath, in this tune. He's a cocky loudmouth who spends most of his time strutting around like he's king of the world. And so is Goliath.

;) In reality, the guy playing bari is Andy Wright, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a better human than him. And he certainly knows his way around a saxophone.

I chucked in a little bit of everything: some funky blues for Goliath, some intense modern harmonies for the fight scene, a little bit of Gothic morose-ness inspired by Penny Dreadful on Netflix, a few soft pretties, and a couple of stupid saxophone tricks like multiphonics and slap-tongue.

After rehearsing the piece, Dr. Lamar and the ensemble decided that it didn't suck much, and they would play it in Zagreb (Croatia) during the World Saxophone Congress of July, 2018.

And play it they did!

All self-immolating sarcasm aside, I'm rather glad with the way the piece turned out, and I'm immensely grateful to Dr. Lamar and the Arkansas Saxophones for taking my music to the other side of the planet. Enjoy the video!

Oh and if you happen to be looking for some saxophone choir music, you can find this tune and others on the MUSIC tab of my website, www.wadleyoriginals.com.

The Day the Science Died

March 14, 2018. On this day, world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking passed away at the age of 76. I admired the man’s brilliance, especially with regard to astrophysics and cosmology, though I hold a significantly different worldview than the openly atheist Dr. Hawking.

Pixabay

His passing will naturally be mourned by the scientific community, as he was arguably the greatest scientific mind of this generation. Some might say his was the greatest scientific mind which humanity has ever produced. The news of Hawking’s death might be likened unto the passing of rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, who were killed in a plane crash. Their deaths left a void in the American music industry so profound that February 3^rd, 1959, became known as “The Day the Music Died.”

Likewise, many might consider referring to today as “The Day the Science Died.”

Star Trek, Nightmares, and Jesus: An Unexpected Lesson

I had a very disturbing dream last night. 

fanpop

You see, it stemmed from an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise called “Similitude”.  In this episode, the chief engineer of Enterprise, Commander Tucker (“Trip”), is hurt very badly and goes into a coma.  His prognosis is terminal – he will die because of severe brain damage.  Doctor Flox suggests a very controversial treatment which involves creating a clone of Trip which would live for only 15 days, during which it would grow from newborn to old age.  They anticipated being able to harvest some brain tissue from this clone when it reached Trip’s current stage of development (or “age”) without causing harm to the clone, thus allowing it to live out its full life cycle, limited though it would be.  Obviously, the episode raised some critical ethical questions about modern medical research, including cloning, stem-cell research, use of lab animals, and I’m sure a host of other possible dilemmas.  None of this is what got to me, though.