There have been thirty-nine mass shootings nationwide since January 1, a little over three weeks into the new year.

“Jaw-dropping” doesn’t cut it. “Stunning” is cliche. There are no words anymore. Haven’t been for a while.

We just limp along, dumbfounded and diminished by the bad news of more lives taken by people in possession of weapons they shouldn’t have. Lives ended, families destroyed. And all because people aren’t coping. Options fizzle, anger rules, emotions run rampant, and GUNS ARE EVERYWHERE. Might as well put ‘em in vending machines or just hand ‘em out.

Why does the lowest common denominator seem to be panic and throwing in the towel?

It’s a complicated issue, but still… Republicans are a useless lot, by and large.

Looks like a KC/Philly Super Bowl. I can’t envision a different scenario.

Well, I can, because Joe Burrow and Brock Purdy are good players. But this feels like the year for Mahomes and Hurts to face each other, unless Mahomes’s ankle is worse than they’re saying.

I was hoping the Giants would continue their run. And the Vikes’ charmed season finally gave way to the reality that they just weren’t that good.

Philly, on the other hand, looks to be the real deal. At this point.

Describing Trump’s fate only ever happens with conditional words– might, could, maybe, possibly… I’m hoping at some point that this changes to words with a more definitive ring to them.

There are many who hope he gets his comeuppance, but it’s best not to be holding one’s breath. He’s a slimy bastard.

Six more classified documents found at Joe Biden’s home. What the hell, Joe?

Let’s move on to something else. It’s feeling like much ado about a nothing burger. It begs the question, though: What’s the difference between the Biden papers and the fiasco with Trump?

Is this about trying to get at intentions, or just politics run amok? What matters anymore? It all takes on the air of distraction and wasted effort. Either there are consequences, or there are no consequences.

Then we move on to the next fabricated crisis, while the real ones fester.

We weren’t born into this world to be pawns and objects destined only to do someone else’s dirty work. Talking to you, Vladimir. Your twisted vision is a cold tonic, a vile intrusion on many lives interrupted or cut short by your hand and your grandiose, hateful, and paranoid worldview.

I can only imagine that for you and your inner circle, things are developing as you planned. But what is your endgame? World domination (good luck with that), or scorched earth, a reason to use your nukes and take the world with you as you bid adieu?

Why do people like you continue to come along? The death and maiming and gratuitous obliteration of homes and livelihoods– none of that registers with you, does it? It’s all just the cost of doing business, and restoring Mother Russia in your image.

You must know how this ends, right?

Some will probably admit to feeling a sense of relief, maybe satisfaction, over Alec Baldwin’s manslaughter charge, i.e. it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. And a fair question has to be why live ammunition was on the set in the first place!

I hope the charge isn’t because “someone needs to be held accountable,” regardless of whether or not it was a tragic accident. By now, though, one might think that an investigation has been done and the findings have led to this development. Baldwin was not only an actor on set, but also a producer, so his level of responsibility and accountability was increased. One news report suggests this might have something to do with the charge.

In any event, it’ll be a developing story, something to take our minds off the fifty other more consequential things going on in the country and world. Maybe George Santos will somehow lay claim to exonerating Baldwin and emerge as a hero of his own imagining. That could happen.

The digging in of heels around the debt limit discussion is a political stunt by Republicans, plain and simple. They can try to operate in the public eye and paint themselves the guardians of fiscal sanity, but a true treatment of our debt issues with actual results is something that will take much more time and negotiation than simply addressing it at the 11th hour and trying to make the Democrats the fall guys.

I’ve never understood how, year after year, raising the debt ceiling comes across as a good idea, a pro forma, automatic thing, even as our debt grows ever more mind-bogglingly worse. But the Republicans demanding a balanced budget is pie-in-the-sky silliness, especially with everything else that’s hitting consumers in the face. It’s a convenient bargaining tool, but not much more.

And threatening to reduce funding for Social Security and Medicare? They really are soulless hostage takers, though I guess they do have brinkmanship skills and know how to get a rise out of pretty much everybody.

We should recognize the progression. Wars often unfold this way.

More and advanced weaponry is offered and accepted. “Advisors” train.

Many already know where this is heading, that it will soon be too late to reverse course.

Always the irony of fighting for peace, because a microscopic minority continues to thrive on visions of domination and never seems to be able to remove both feet from the past.

Why do whole armies not simply look at motives and rationales and the toll war takes and decide that the people at the top are full of shit?

Whether or not Tom Brady plays again next season is not or shouldn’t be at all important to anyone. We all have much bigger things to worry about. But, since it seems to be a topic for discussion following the Bucs’ loss to Dallas, I’ll add my two cents’.

He should retire and open a spot for someone else to have a chance to play. Set aside whatever “competitive fire” Brady still has in his belly. Set aside his apparent love for hanging with the guys or whatever else still drives him. He appears not to be able to handle life apart from the routines of football.

It long ago became something sad for me, something that started looking like he was hiding, or avoiding things. He has a lucrative (to say the least) contract awaiting him at Fox Sports. He’s got children to help raise. It seems as though he enjoys the fruits of the reputation that always precedes him, as if he knows he’s a living legend to many, and he just needs to keep drinking that in.

I’d like to think that I would feel the same way if he was still playing for the Pats, and I think maybe I would. In any event, Tom is going to do what’s best for Tom. Maybe he’d be a Hall of Fame sportscaster, if he could just make the break.

Amidst the usual avalanche of sad and disturbing news is at least a bit of a bright spot—all the rain in California is actually mitigating drought conditions there. It’ll take a lot more rain to really make a dent, I guess, but these latest inundations are having an effect. The more astounding turnaround would be if Lakes Powell and Mead begin to refill.

As for the sad and disturbing—it seems Joe Biden was aware he was holding onto classified documents.

Great. We’re never going to hear the end of it now. False equivalencies will be flying off the shelves and out of the mouths of Fox News pundits and Republicans everywhere. Coverage of this will be breathless and non-stop even as it already feels like old news. Is there anyone else in violation of the Espionage Act– you, your neighbor down the street?

It hasn’t taken long for this new year to feel familiarly ominous.