The president is committed to reforming our gun laws; a working group headed by Vice President Joe Biden is considering a broad agenda. The proposals mentioned, not formally announced yet, already are being strafed by politicians in both parties. Before everyone goes to the barricades, it would be worth trying to have a rational discussion.

The reforms under consideration include the basic: reinstating the ban on the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. They include good governance: bolstering state reporting on felons, drug abuses, the mentally ill for the FBI database, strengthening mental health screening. They include what many of us would consider common sense: higher penalties for carrying a gun near our schools. And they include applying regulations already in place universally: requiring a background on every gun sale to check to screen out felons, the mentally unstable and terrorists.

It was inevitable. Those of you who have been wondering about so-called "chemtrails" need to read the December 11, 2012 article in Britain’s Daily Mail. The headline screams "Could we re-freeze the Arctic? Scientists suggest radical solution to global warming."

This miraculous feat of geo-engineering comes to us courtesy of Harvard Professor of Applied Physics David Keith, who has authored papers proposing the massive spraying of reflective particles over the Arctic Circle in the journals Nature Climate Change and Environmental Research Letters.

They call it "spraying," the street name is "chemtrails." They have been doing it for years. It is the use of chemicals sprayed from planes to alter the environment, create military antennas in the sky, to build fake clouds and a toxic reflective sunscreen for the planet. You have probably seen it happen with a long-lasting white trail streaking high in the sky behind one or more planes, sometimes making a criss-cross checkerboard design. And when you call your local news station to ask what’s going on, usually they send out the jolly local weatherman to tell you not to believe your lying eyes.

The new year begins with a bad hangover from 2012’s inane debate over the “fiscal cliff.” The furious debate focused only on how much damage would be done to the economy and who would pay the price, how much and what would be cut, who would pay higher taxes and who would suffer the most.

But this headache can’t define 2013, which must be a time to renew, not to ruin. Whatever final agreement comes out of the fiscal cliff will slow an economy already struggling to grow. The challenge is to turn to what can be done to rebuild, to put people to work, to boost, not cripple growth.

The challenges we face are great. Many neighborhoods in our cities are suffering unemployment rates of 40 percent. That is a recipe for disintegration. Chicago just mourned the 500th murder victim. Millions of homes are still underwater. Wages are still declining, not rising. Inequality, already at extreme levels, is rising, not falling.

We need a plan to rebuild America. We have a plan for Iraq. We have a plan on how to get our troops out of Afghanistan while helping to rebuild that nation — yet, we aren’t even talking about a plan to rebuild our own cities.