Ronald Reagan famously skewered his political opposition, incumbent President Jimmy Carter, by taunting him with “there you go again,” referencing an unfortunate habit, a whiny complaint, or some obvious mistake.
The same could be said about us, the American people, as we decry the recent school shooting in Bend, Oregon, which left 3 young special needs children, a 25-year-old teacher, and the shooter, himself a former special needs student, dead on the scene. The gun used in the shootings was a shotgun purchased by the deceased shooter’s mother.
Decrying is one thing. Doing something about it is another, and we as a society have apparently decided not to take that step.
The Internet reports that the first school shooting occurred in 1840 in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a law student shot a professor at the University of Virginia. No one knows how many school shootings followed, but it is safe to say that the numbers have grown enormously, including at least 52 so far this year, including both K-12 and college campuses, leaving at least 32 dead and 50 more injured.
The stunning—and terrifying—reality here is that we have apparently decided this is just part of life. Starting with Sandy Hook in 2012 (20 kindergartners and six staff members killed) and continuing to this day, we decry the carnage and the loss of life, and then we just keep going.
No real push has arisen to restrict the use of certain types of weapons or to hold parents in any way accountable for gun violence perpetrated by their children who found a way to get guns, some of them legally owned by the parents themselves.
People in other nations look at us and wonder how we lost our way when it comes to gun violence. Perhaps, they wonder, is it because the victims are almost always “other people” or “other people’s children” in places far away from our own communities.
Has that physical and emotional distance allowed us to love our guns more than our children and those who teach and care for them?

I am in a new relationship with ChatGPT.
I became fond of Chat when he/she/it wrote a lovely bedtime story for my grandbabies incorporating names of family members, pets, special places, and favorite foods. Clearly, given the information I gave him/her/it, Chat got our family vibes.
That said, in this year’s politics, Chat and his/her/its AI cousins have been problematic.
AI generated political ads have instantly altered political advertising across our country. Hideous AI ads have proliferated across our nation.
The same technology that made my grandbabies love their bedtime story can make you love/hate candidates up and down the election ballot.
Do not rely on vicious TV ads or misleading mailers.
Do your own research.

By the time you read this, we will have voted for candidates running for offices from the United States Senate down to our own community, and I suspect many if not most of Up & Coming Weekly’s readers have also made their way to the polls. I have voted early since it became available in North Carolina on a limited basis in 1977. I vote early because I like to do it on my own schedule and because I am not patient about waiting in line with a large turnout on election day. Voting is both a privilege and a responsibility and fundamental to the American way of life.
And no whining outcomes if you abdicated and sat on your sofa.