Second Day of the World Course, 35th of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Another paradisiacal day here in Atlanta. High of 83°, dry and sunny. I drove over to the Chattahoochee River for my walk today, my first time there since July 16. Due to persistent threats of rain and my sleeping in late, I've been starting (and ending) my walks at my own front door, walking along the Beltline trail and associated side streets. But today the weather was so unimpeachably fine that I was motivated to get an early start, drove to the river, and walked 10.3 miles, my first Tyler since May 21 (defensively, I want to point out that I did get lots of 9.5+ Harrisons in between then and now). 

So about the news today . . . as a contemplative Stoic and former Buddhist, I abhor all killing but this one hit particularly hard. When I hear about a woman getting shot point blank in the head today by an assailant in Zilker Park, Austin, even as the police were trying to intervene and stop him, well, that really hurts.

Not the shooting you thought I was going to mention? Sorry, and apologies for using a real-life tragedy as a setup for some sort of joke to make my point. No, today's sad news came from a little further west where, as you've probably heard by now, there was yet another school shooting, this time in Evergreen, Colorado. Three students sustained gunshot wounds and are in the hospital with critical injuries, as is the suspected shooter. This endless epidemic of senseless school shootings shows no signs of abating in the remorseless gun culture of amerika, and we're all so numb to it all that today's shooting with gruesome injuries but no actual deaths barely even registers.

Not the shooting you were thinking of either? How long should I continue this schtick? Shall I mention the Qatari security officer who was killed along with five members of Hamas during Israel's airstrikes on Qatar, which also wounded an unspecified number of civilians? How many died today in Ukraine, including both the Russian and Ukrainian combatants? And so on and so on, et cetera, ad mortem.

Impermanence is swift.

Right-wing activist, podcaster, and provocateur Charlie Kirk was killed today in what certainly appears to be a political assassination (even though Charlie isn't an elected official). But here's the thing - we still don't know who did it. Either a "suspect" or a "person of interest" may or may not have been detained (everything's still a little chaotic and unclear at this point). Of course, the internet and social media are already in a full-on feeding frenzy, assuming that a "hate-filled far-left lunatic" fired the fatal bullet, but we don't know - the assassin may have been a leftist, but he (I'm going to assume it was a male) might also have been, say, a deranged MAGA gun nut in a jealous range, thinking his girlfriend liked Charlie more than him. Maybe it was a relatively nonpartisan sicko just out to show the world the chaos he could he could cause with a single bullet. 

I could take a cue from the Republicans' crass and disgusting comments after the attack on Paul Pelosi in his home, and speculate that maybe it was just a lover's quarrel gone terribly wrong, Charlie's clandestine boyfriend upset over not getting enough attention. BTW, this is as good a time as any to remind people that following the attempt on Pelosi, Charlie said that "some amazing patriot" should bail the attacker out of jail. 

Perhaps I should heed others of Charlie's own words, that "empathy is a made-up New Age term that does a lot of damage" and conclude that "gun deaths are a necessary price for the Second Amendment." 

Actually, I should probably follow the example of the Stable Genius and the rest of the GOP following the assassination of Minnesota representative Melissa Hortman in her home last June, or when the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania's home was set on fire, or the attempted kidnapping of the Democratic Governor of Michigan, and just say fucking nothing.  

tl/dr: STFU until we know what happened. (Silence is encouraged afterwards, too.)