I'm not sure about adding my opinion about hate killings, but I think a lot about how easily some people come to hate. The old South Pacific lyric about "you've got to be taught to hate" is, I'm pretty certain, true. I find this almost a contradiction in America because so many people have closed minds to any sort of learning, which they apparently think can only be seeded intuitively in American minds.
I'm 70 and for most of my life for any admission or display of homosexuality one could expect ostracism at best, violence or death at worst. I could not imagine people "coming out" to face atrocities. So America's peculiar conversion to tolerance in recent years has been truly uplifting: some old dogs can learn new tricks.
But I don't kid myself that there is anything exceptional about this latest action by a religious idiot; there are likely hundreds of hate groups standing by in approval of his action, even if they don't share his religion. They all probably want to accomplish the same result. This is, after all, a political action too, completely in accord with many religious orthodoxies. Our grief is important, adding very significantly to our empathy for victims of terror.
Donald Trump has heaped bombastic rhetoric on a saddened world. He couldn't be so unfeeling, could he? Of course he could. His whole party is especially good at pointing out targets for unthinking vengeance.
One witness stated that the gunman made special effort to blow heads off. Does this remind anyone of the movies, that ostensibly are aiming at myth or legend, but actually present cartoonish annihilation, especially with gravity-defying stunts? Also don't be surprised if soon the movie version of this event is released.
OK many things and people is this world I find despicable. But the victims of this event are not among them. I hope we all saw and appreciated the enormous expressions of love for individual people who weren't celebrities. KM
P.S. If you find this prose kind of ragged or disorganized, I apologize. KM
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