Make it Stop

The insanity. Make it stop. Every time I hear of the latest tragedy involving totally senseless violence and the inevitable loss of innocent life it makes me want to scream. Sometimes it doesn't involve death, just the stubborn refusal to get along, to find solutions, to listen to reason. I swear if Elizabeth Warren and Krista Tippett were running things, more of this sort of thing would be happening. I remember so clearly my mother walking into the escalating melee between the four of us kids and simply announcing that this must stop. Now. And when we simultaneously chimed in our separate versions of our innocence and were clearly the injured party she would hold up her hand and announce that she didn't care. That the noise and mayhem must immediately stop, that we must go to neutral corners, and that this would most emphatically be the end of it. She meant it. And we would sulk off to homework or chores or watching tv. Ten minutes later I doubt that any of us could have told you what we had been fighting about. I think we need some kind of universal Mom to accomplish a similar task on a global basis. I nominate Ms. Warren and Ms. Tippett for their efforts toward creating a more reasonable, functioning and peaceful world. The rest of us need to line up behind them.