A little more we can do, a little more I will do

If you have seven minutes to spare, watch Anderson Cooper's moving tribute to the Orlando shooting victims.



It's worth your time because one thing we can do in every such case is remind ourselves and everyone around us that the victims were real people with lives and dreams and hopes, not merely statistics in another senseless tragedy.

We can also stop tolerating anything that dehumanizes or otherwise diminishes others simply because of their gender, race, religious beliefs, sexuality, or any other distinction that people so often use to treat people as less than equal.

I've sat silent while people around me made jokes or disparaging remarks about something being gay or about stereotypes that diminish whole groups of people.  No more.  I was wrong to be quiet before.  If you say such things around me, expect me to argue with you about it or, if I believe that is pointless, to simply point out how offensive it is and to leave.

It's a small thing to do, but it's something.  We need to find a lot of small things to do even as we battle for the bigger things, such as making laws that protect all of us and electing candidates who want to represent all of us, that take a long time.

I don't know how to stop us from hating one another

but as today's shooting in Orlando illustrates with sickening force, it's clearly past time to address this problem.  When you hate someone for their race, their religion, their sexuality, or any other irrelevant characteristic, you kill a bit of them and a lot of yourself.  When that hatred or mental sickness that feeds on it leads you to action, those deaths become literal.

As I wrote in the headline, I don't claim to have answers, but it's time we make it a national priority to find some.  Controlling access to assault weapons strikes me as one good place to start.  Making the elimination of poverty a top priority is another.  Changing the way we speak so we stop making pejoratives of the characteristics of others is another important move, one that's cheap for us all.

We have to do something.  We are a country under attack by itself, and we must heal ourselves.

Whatever you believe, vote for candidates who will confront these issues.

My heart breaks for the people who died and who were injured in Orlando, but that heartbreak does them absolutely no good.  We must demand better of our government and of ourselves.