Song Lyric of the Day (Joni Mitchell, on the Hour of ‘This Rough Beast’)

“The wrath has finally taken form
For what is this rough beast
Its hour come at last." — Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," based on the William Butler Yeats poem “The Second Coming,” included on Mitchell’s CD Night Ride Home (1991)

This post is dedicated to the victims of the Uvalde shooting this week—and to all the casualties of mass shootings over the last several decades.

Some of those “thoughts and prayers” we keep hearing about after all these incidents should be reserved for us, the guilty bystanders who haven’t done a blessed thing to stem the plague of gun violence in this country.

We are already experiencing the bewilderment of the international community over this rank failure. Before long, I fear, we will suffer the rebuke of history.

I can only hope God has mercy on us, because we surely don’t deserve any.