“The Devil’s beating his wife,” the Colonel used to say when rain fell during sunshine. There was a brief moment this morning when that happened. It was beautiful, and I reflected on the phrase, such an innocent reference to domestic violence. Normalizing words, phrases, and ideas softens their impact and can lead to complacency.

There are holes in the narrative of yesterday’s assassination in Utah. American Muckrakers outlines provocative elements that suggest a false flag, and it’s sickening to read and makes a lot of sense. Question the prevailing narrative on this one, and question mainstream and liberal media who are reporting spurious details as fact.

Before I read that, though, I was pondering with great sadness how Republicans react with horror and even compassion when it’s one of their own who is shot: But where were they on June 14 when Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman was assassinated, her husband and their dog killed also, in their home, and two other Democrats injured? Why wasn’t the flag ordered half staff nationwide for her? Where was the federal outrage when the CDC campus was shot up last month?

Where is the federal compassion and call for justice for the 39 murders in US school shootings so far this year? Where is the national coverage of yesterday’s school shooting in Colorado? Locally, and quite timely, the Paonia Players are taking the stage as part of a nationwide creative endeavor to speak out against gun violence. Enough: Plays to End Gun Violence takes place in more than fifty communities on October 6, and in Paonia, Colorado at the Blue Sage Center for the Arts.

Gun violence is a problem, but a bigger problem for me is that I can identify with the hateful people. I don’t much care that a rightwing mouthpiece was assassinated as a result of the gun culture his tribe venerates. My sympathy falters when I feel someone has brought their suffering on themself. And that’s a failure inside me, of the human I want to be. And a very scary world view.

This is why I practice. And pausing, waiting for more information, allows my heart to remain open, to soften, to hold it all, including the possibility that yesterday saw one of the most nefarious double reverse false flag psy op killings ever on US soil. Was Charlie Kirk killed by a bumbling amateur who strew evidence all over the scene, or by a highly skilled, well-paid and protected, professional sniper? All I’m saying is, question the narrative.

At the intersection of gun violence and science, this conversation between Dr. Eric Topol and Dr. Peter Hotez, both renowned scientist-physicians, explores the scope, the financial motivation, and the ramifications of the staggering ignorance behind an organized assault on global health and world peace by the anti-science movement in the US. Dr. Hotez himself receives frequent death threats. Between the Kirk assassination and the CDC attack, I’m sure he’s more concerned than ever about his numerous upcoming public and university talks.

And wrapping up with gratitude for science, this photo essay in The Atlantic reminds us of the scourge of polio that was eradicated in the US when I was ten. When and where did I get my polio vaccine? This is one of those moments when I miss my mother to tears, unable to ask her. I remember the smallpox vaccine because it left a scar on my shoulder for decades, but could not recall the polio vaccine until I reached the last photo in the essay (oh yes, now I remember: just a cube full of sugar helps the medicine go down – I probably asked for seconds).

As I was working on this post, the sky got even more spectacular. I missed a giant lightning strike by a split second, then realized I could pull images from video so I set the phone in the tripod (hello, science? the phone camera, I mean!) and filmed ten minutes of celestial glory.