Orlando Insanity: How We Respond Is Who We Are. June 12 2016...

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Extra: this is a Sunday special edition.

All the news of this weekend's music & arts events, festivals and concerts, and music news & reviews, are in FRIDAY's edition of the Guide.

When we added the up-front news bulletin to Friday's edition, about the murder of a bright and beautiful star of tv's "The Voice" in Orlando, no one could have imagined that central Florida community was about to become the scene of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

This special edition is about those of us in the arts wanting and needing to make some kind of sense of things.
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Orlando Insanity: How We Respond Is Who We Are

By Larry Wines

Fifty human beings dead. Fifty-three more wounded.

The first number will go up because one of the two weapons is an AR-15 type assault weapon, designed to fire bullets that tumble inside the body.

One gunman. A U.S. citizen with parents from Afghanistan. He chose to attack an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, FL, at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night during Gay Pride Month. "Pride Month," proclaimed by President Obama, to bring us together, to fight prejudice and stigmatization of part of our society. So many signs things are better. That "tolerance is good, acceptance is better," had finally come to pass.

Cops in Orlando, responding bravely, properly, effectively, preventing even more deaths. No echoes of Stonewall. Public servants protecting citizens the best they could. Running into danger, as we have a right to expect them to do, and will applaud with gratitude when they do.

Still, it's the deadliest mass-shooting in U.S. history. Surpassing Columbine, New Town, Virginia Tech, that sad roll, that bloody toll of a nation that puts more requirements on its automobiles, its motorcycles, its bicycles, its dogs and cats, than it puts on its guns.

And this weekend's annual L.A. Pride Festival proceeds under a symbolically cloudy sky.

And now the cops in L.A. have arrested a man with a trunk full of guns and explosives and "tactical gear" — in the vicinity of L.A. Pride. We are relieved and feel and express gratitude to our law enforcement men and women, in making an arrest that Mayor Eric Garcetti says is not related to Orlando.

But fear will connect these events.

And the incomprehensible act in Orlando and its power to shock will have a definite impact on political outcomes in this election year.

Between fear and exploitation, and pandering and hoo-rah, and pry it from my dead bloody hands, and thumpers condemning sinners whose wages are death, and banning all Muslims, and turning away all refugees fleeing violence, and the droning of obsessive singularity on tv for days and days? This will bring more volatility to the election than anything we expected from some generic terrorist attack.

Everything else we care about? We'll be discussing those other concerns among our friends, on social media, and in the best, most relevant alternative web-based media, including the L.A. Progressive ( www.laprogressive.com ).

Because we sure as hell won't see mainstream media covering election fraud, or uncounted votes in California (2,423,607 estimated still uncounted) that are a bigger number than Hillary's vote total (2,099,064) as of close of business Friday.

And breathless big media won't have oxygen left to cover FBI investigations of laundered money from international sources into U.S. campaigns. Or hacked or reprogrammed voting machine "results." Or anointments and coronations and gratified banksters. Or who put their thumbs on the scales and sabotaged democracy.

Or how all those things determine the likelihood of four more years of ever-expanding boots-on-the-ground and drone attacks and defaults to military solutions and deployments and interventions and provocative exercises to "keep us safe."

Tragedy — genuine, shocking human tragedy — will be hijacked as the moving hand by the prestidigitators whose other hands will be altogether unseen because literally no one is now watching.

Our times just became more dangerous because the exploiters will miss no opportunity to make, for their own benefit, all they can of a horribly human tragedy. As they always do. But at a particularly opportune time for exploiters.

Meanwhile, we see fellow Americans who instinctively know how to respond: with help. They are making donations of desperately needed blood for victims. Long lines are already zigzagging outside hospitals in Orlando.

Predominantly young, but people of all ages are in those lines. People with white hair. People with skin of every color. Because fifty-three fellow Floridians, fellow Americans, who happen to be LGBT brothers and sisters, need it. That would not have happened even a few years ago for an unjustifiably reviled part of our population.

The folks in those lines send a silent, poignant, message. Few can be heroes in grand and dramatic fashion. We can all be heroes in simple ways that don't come with a grandstand, but still make the difference. We can donate to food banks. We can give blankets to the homeless and work to bring dignified housing for all.

We can carry campaign signs in places we know will ridicule us. We can walk precincts. We can reject the cynicism that voting for a particular cause or candidate is a waste of time. We can be a truly informed electorate in defiance of The Narrative. We can be the political revolution we wish to see — and the societal revolution of equality and opposition to control by autocrats and plutocrats.

And sometimes we can make the difference between life and death. Blood banks may be depleted in an increasing radius from Orlando. Our society always teeters on the precipice of not having adequate blood for needed surgeries and victims of accidents. Even when there isn't a horrible and shocking tragedy.

How we respond is who we are.


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An abundance of music news and reviews, film festivals, arts events, gear reviews, and more, are in numerous recent editions.

Much more, soon, on additional topics.


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