You’re reading The Husk's Friday edition, our Weekender, a countdown/roundup of miscellanea from Micronesia, Guam, and Earth.

…things from Micronesia

• There’s a new airline in town, providing inter-island flights between CNMI and Guam, per the Pacific Island Times.

• Calling all Micronesian poets: Haymarket Books is looking for Pacific Islander poetry submissions. Details here. https://haymarketbooks.submittable.com/submit/223156/aapi-anthology

• The Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, countries which haven’t had any community spread of COVID-19, are looking to ease COVID-related entry requirements in the coming months, per the Marianas Variety.

…Guam mentions in Jeopardy in the past week

• First, Mari Chao from Guam went up against current champion Ryan Long, and she talked about how her love of trivia started when she saw her classmate on Academic Challenge Bowl.

• Then, Guam was also mentioned in one of the clues that I tried my best to find but I couldn’t. I guess, trust me on this?

… last thought

• I thought Biden’s comments this week about defending Taiwan if China were to attack would be the big national story linked in this week’s Weekender but since Wednesday (Guam time) the news cycle has been flooded with stories about the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. My time in newsrooms fortified my gut and there are few stories that make my stomach turn. (Which is not to say I do not care, but rather, perhaps more accurately, I’ve learned to dissociate.) Something about this shooting in Uvalde disturbs me to my core. Quite frankly, 99.9% of my comments on things don’t add real value, including what I’ve written here. Nonetheless, I’ll say, that compared to the deaths of these kids from Robb Elementary School, everything else seems hollow.

  I haven’t mentioned or written about past mass shootings this year. I don’t know if I’ll mention any future (god forbid) mass shootings.

  I don’t have a solution. I’m not the authority on this at all. I don’t claim to be an authority on this. I think these words I type on this issue are nothing more than hot air, adding to the noise online. I just couldn’t not mention it.

  We failed those kids.

Thank you for reading,

Jasmine¹