I turned on the news yesterday morning in delicious anticipation of the furor that was bound to run through the pack of Republican presidential contenders in the aftermath of Pope Francis’ much anticipated encyclical on climate change.

Instead, I discovered that, once again, America’s attention had been hijacked by a bloodbath.

Only in gun-happy, “post-racial”  America could a domestic act of mass-murder be so egregious and yet so entirely without contextual meaning as to completely overshadow what could be considered the most historic demonstration of ethical leadership by a sitting pope in history.

As the environmental community was poised to watch the fireworks from Francis’s ground-breaking pronouncement, a callous kid who appears to have never done a useful thing in his entire life, chose that particular moment to exercise his “constitutionally protected” right to bear arms in deadly conjunction with his “constitutionally protected” right to free speech, no matter how hateful; thereby mowing down nine of the most socially valuable people he could possibly have found in a single room.

Of course, that is all that we can now talk about in this country.

We’re not ready to have a grown-up conversation about anything, it would seem, having relinquished all power of attention to the violent offender of the moment.

And that is precisely why we keep getting more and more selfish, evil demon spoor like Dylan- whatever-his-name is.  I refuse to look it up on Google.