Monday, June 13, 2016

Another Cloud of Sadness Descends

And once again a nation grieves over senseless terror carried out by a radicalized religious zealot.  Before the flags have even been dropped to half mast, various leaders get up on their soap boxes to capitalize on the moment to push their agendas.  Cries for stronger gun control, calls for stricter border controls, the knees jerk all over the map.   And of course, neither will solve the underlying problem that Humans seem to love killing each other.

The media feeds whatever flames they find with irrelevant questions and unsubstantiated rumors, hoping to keep this story at the top of the news cycle for the next few weeks.  They invade the privacy of fresh personal grief of those who lost someone they love and project it over the globe.  And the rubber necking public eats it up.

One thing I noted was it seems important that we all know this was a "gay club".  The emphasis of the word "gay" tells me that for all our inclusive posturing, we as a nation still find it necessary to pigeonhole people based on something considered outside normally accepted behavior.  Yes, it does seem important to know that the club was targeted possibly because it was frequented by gays, but tell us once and move on.  Don't beat that horse every time you mention where this awful incident occurred.

Intolerance of any kind pisses me off.  Homophobic religious fanaticism is at or damn close to the top of my list.  Because both seem to bring out the worst in the people with those views.  It certainly did in Orlando Saturday night.

Later ....................................................................