I know everybody's covered this already but if I can just take a minute to address how remarkably gross this is
we have a moment of silence: in memory of the dead. That's it. That's what we have a moment of silence for.
We have that moment of silence because there is no way to give voice to what we feel when people have passed beyond this realm into whatever lies beyond.
That silence is all we have to offer them, wherever they are: in the earth, or adrift as atoms in the cosmos, or with God, or in the incomprehensible place where instead of something there is nothing.
A moment of silence is one of the most dignified things human beings have ever come up with. Who am I, in light of death? Nobody. My words are nothing. All words are nothing. I can only offer my silence, my poor ability to reflect on the gravity of the occasion.
To take this honestly quite incredible human notion and use it as a way of saying "today, some people aren't getting what they want"...
...I mean can you even imagine the paucity of imagination, the depth of self-interest needed to think a moment of silence is necessary when things aren't going your way politically
"Can we have a moment of silence, please, becasue I wanted two Rice Krispies Treats and I only got one?" That is the level we are dealing with when we see the @GOP in the House of Representatives today
"A moment of silence because we are mad"
These fuckin' guys. /fin
