Sometimes there’s no news.

Sometimes it comes at you from all fronts.

This is one of those times when it about runs you over.

On our front page is Patty Leon’s story about a dog recently rescued in Long County by a New York-based animal welfare group called Guardians of Rescue.

They sent a press release and link to photos on Facebook which were, to put it mildly, disturbing.

What kind of soul could do such a thing.

The dog, Liam, is about as destroyed as a living creature can be and still be called living. The photos on New Guardians of Rescue social media page will make you cringe. They’ll also cause you to wonder what kind of twisted mind and empty heart can do such a thing.

There are a number of questions surrounding what happened to this poor creature, including why it got to the point it did before anyone intervened.

Hopefully, Ludowici Police Chief Frank McClellan will figure it out, because he’s definitely got a crime on his hands.

And here’s a note to District Attorney Tom Durden. If the amount of injury inflicted on that dog isn’t a felony, I’m not sure I know what is.

It’s certainly abhorrent and cruel — not the cruelty of neglect, mind you, or the casual disregard and indifference to the fate of another creature left tied to a rope with no food or water and forgot about for a week.

This is far darker, a cruelty that enjoys the inflicting of pain. Worse, it’s at bottom a mean spirited, nasty, ugly, brutish hate for another living creature. No, the torture inflicted on that dog is not as low as a human being can go, but it’s pretty close.

If those injuries are tied to dog fighting — about as odious a "sport" as any I can think of — then we’ve got a bigger crime on our hands and others involved. In either case, in any case, the only way to stop this is to start stopping it, and not looking the other way.

Also on the front is a story about an upcoming deployment of soldiers to South Korea. We’ve reported what the Army released and, like most other news organizations, have understood and respected the Army’s need for operational security.

And still there are those on Facebook who apparently are a bit befuddled by the difference between an "operation" and a regularly scheduled deployment. This isn’t an invasion. It’s something the Army’s been doing since 2015, and the unit on Fort Stewart has been waiting its turn since them.

Granted, the timing could lead to some speculation, so I think I get why the Army has been so hesitant to officially announce this deployment. At least I do after looking at some of the posts on Facebook in reaction to this story.

People will think a war’s on when, so far, there isn’t — unless you count the war of words between certain heads of state. Hopefully that’s all we’re looking at.

But no, we didn’t and wouldn’t risk lives of the soldiers on Fort Stewart.

What else?

There are allegations that Walthourville Mayor Daisy Pray wanted former Police Chief Bernie Walthour to plant drugs in a councilman’s car.

The mayor denies the allegations.

Coming next week is a story by Patty Leon on Jones, Osteen and Jones being retained by the family of Cambria Shuman, the child who died in a school bus crash on Dec. 5.

We respect this family’s grief, but we at the Courier also believe it important to report what’s going on in this case in a number of aspects, not least of which is to find out what happened to cause the crash.

It’s also of interest that the firm apparently now representing the Shumans is the same one that until two days after the crash represented the Liberty County Board of Education. It informed the board it would no longer do so Dec. 7. We’ll run more on it Wednesday

Oh, and then there’s the case of the Liberty Count School System’s upcoming visit from AdvancED, the accrediting agency that’s visiting after all the ruckus surrounding former superintendent Dr. Valya S. Lee and her former chief financial officer, Roger Reese, and school board member Marcus Scott IV, and so it goes.

Hopefully, it won’t snow next week as well.

Have a good weekend, and take a moment to reflect on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a personal hero of mine whose example and memory is still a force for light in a world that sometimes seems to be getting darker every second.

But it’s not so. I know this because I’m the direct descendant of two Confederate soldiers, one on my dad’s side, one on mom’s. And I, and many like me, believe in the message King taught. He summed it up once this way: "We may have all come in on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now."

Thanks for reading.