Week 4 - Fall 2025 - Chapter 2: Representing Topography and Comparing Elevation with Time, Tori Updates, UVU shooting

This week I drafted most of the text of chapter 2 of the advanced GIS book that I am writing (10 pages of writing so far). I also created 3 figures, but I still need to create 5 more figures and I need to create two separated practical application sections of the chapter along with accompanying video examples. This will likely the be next week's work. It would be great to be able to finish the chapter in just two weeks! 

Tori's results from her radiography and ultra sound came back as positive news with no sign of spread to the lungs or other vital organs. The results from the lymph node biopsies on her leg have not yet come back and we are also waiting on some other blood work. While she is really quite happy and playful with the cooler weather that has arrived, I am worried that I can feel some small bumps on her leg near the surgery scar. I really hope these are not already re-growth of the tumor, but that is possible given it's aggressive nature. If true then additional surgery is likely and possibly amputation, which is really going to bum me out. I was really hoping that somehow we would get a year of reprieve. 

In other news, the right wing racist influencer Charlie Kirk came to UVU invited by a student group (without any say or invitation from the UVU administration or faculty, at this point the University is apparently directed by the legislature and students). The event was poorly planned. It was held in an open air closed-in space below all of the buildings near the campus center. There were only six police on duty. It was held when campus was as busy as possible with midweek middle of the day classes. There was no regard for the distraction that would be for students trying to attend their classes. It drew people from on and off campus and thousands crowded around in a concert-style setting. There was no security check, there was not really any security at all. Anyway, a shooter killed the speaker with a single shot to the neck as we all know and then easily escaped. Meanwhile panic beset everyone. Students tried to leave, but the space where the event was held is surrounded by walls with a few single doors and narrow stairs to leave. Thank god the shooter was not trying to do mass murder because this would have been a worst case scenario with 500 people dead at least. Communication from the UVU campus alert system came about 45 minutes later with terse and confusing series of messages (there is a lock down, campus is closed, leave) these are contrasting commands. Faculty were accosted in their offices with rifles by police demanding to know who they were and they were commanded to leave. It was chaos. We were told the shooter was apprehended, but in reality there was a manhunt going on. As a commuter campus with emergency vehicles blocking many streets, it took upwards of 2-3 hours for people to actually be allowed to leave campus and thousands of personal items were left strewn about campus. Who knows what will be able to be claimed this coming week. The event was gross and poorly planned, the shooting became a national and even global spectacle. It was and is awful and to me highlights several issues with a lack of freedom of speech in Utah. 

Utah's legislature has made it illegal for faculty to speak politically in association with their position at the University. Yet, they have also made it so that the administration and faculty are powerless to decided what events are even held on their own campus and this was a clear political event drawn to campus. Faculty were actively told to not attend or interact with the speaker due to the risk of their jobs. How can it be legal for the legislature tell the faculty what they can speak about? How can this not be a violation of freedom of speech? If they are going to ban faculty and Universities from taking political stances, then no political entities should be allowed on campus. Of course that is not reasonable because the University is supposed to be a place for discourse. Thus, someone needs to challenge the Utah legislature with the Supreme Court. If faculty and the administration had a larger say in how this event was held and planned, I am betting the event would not have gone down in the disgusting way it did.