Here at the epicenter of the political universe life goes on as indeed it must. While we’re still grieving the loss of life and the actions of a clearly deranged individual, there are jobs to go to, people and animals to take care of, and blog posts to write. So here are a few items worth mentioning as the state of Arizona starts to pick up the pieces:

It starts. As I mentioned before, we’re going to learn an awful lot about Jared Loughner, his family, and his situation in the coming days. And methinks we’re going to see increased scrutiny on the actions of a certain pathetic excuse for a county sheriff whose 15 minutes of fame sermonizing on the evils of talk radio, Fox News, Sarah Palin, and Rush Limbaugh as the cause behind Loughner’s actions last Saturday are just about up. People like Jared Loughner always leave plenty of clues as to their intentions; we’re going to find out just how badly the Pima County sheriff’s department dropped the ball in the days ahead.

And if you need any more evidence of just how sick people can be, consider those despicable people at the Westboro Baptist Church (which, BTW, is neither a Baptist church nor even a church, but a evil and vicious cult) planning on coming to Tucson to protest at the funeral of Christina Green, the 9-year old girl killed at Saturday’s massacre. Can you believe it? Fortunately, a group of people are planning an “angel wings” gathering to create a peaceful and reverent perimeter of safety and support around the location to ensure not one of those creeps comes within eye or earshot of the Green family. If I can get my work schedule cleared, I hope to be making the trip to lend a helping hand.

There seems to be madness all around. Right now I’m dealing with a troubled individual who has been harrassing my sister-in-law (yep, yet another one) with hundreds upon hundreds of text messages to the point where we finally had to have her cell number changed. The past two days he’s sent her huge flower arrangements (very pretty, but our house smells like a funeral home!), so now that behavior will have to be nipped in the bud. Fortunately, he no longer knows where she lives (the state moved her out of where she had been living last week due to budget cuts), but the situation bears monitoring. After last Saturday, you can bet I’m paying attention to any cars that might be parked on the street before I go out to get the mail.

All I can say is, 2011 is off to an inauspicious start…