kangels4ever
09-04-2011, 10:07 PM
This is a 416 word opinion piece I recently wrote. Anyone know any web-based magazines this might be a good fit for, like an anit-abuse e-zine?
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On the morning of September 11th, 2001, as Mohamed Atta and his three compatriots rose from their seats aboard American Airlines Flight 11, as Marwan al-Shehhi and his four comrades butchered the crew of United Airlines Flight 175, as Hani Hanjour and his four fellow killers brandished knives and box cutters as they took over American Airlines Flight 77, and as Ziah Jarrah and three other terrorists made the fatal mistake of trying to bully into submission the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93, an unknown terrorist I will call Clyde Krebbs lay asleep in the weathered annex of the Best Western Fifth Avenue in Rochester, Minnesota; albeit one who committed his crimes behind closed doors on his wife and two sons, and preferred to present a “nice guy” image to the world.
Lord of his perverse manor, he slept the soundest, while everyone else slept with one eye open lest he take them by surprise as he yelled and screamed at, and hit them.
Why was Clyde in Rochester? He had deliberately made his family homeless back in May and then bled away all the money they had left, but not before taking his family on a tortured odyssey around southern Minnesota which ended at Rochester. It would not be long before he would have to lie his way out of this hotel and leave his persecuted brood living in their Chevrolet Suburban while he skipped away to Florida on a bus ticket his sister had bought him. Thanks to our Swiss cheese laws about domestic violence, he was destined to get away scot-free from punishment for his crimes.
Clyde is a man I used to call “dad.” His actions are why, whenever I try to reflect on 9/11, I have trouble focusing because of how I was stranded in Rochester that day thanks to his own brand of terror.
I think it’s high time society and law came down hard on abusive people like Clyde and stopped coddling them by either burying heads in the sand over their presence, or worse, using them as fodder for TV shows which cater “family dysfunction” topics so viewers can snicker at other people’s tragedies; and believe the actions of people like him can be lumped together with the same kinds of “domestic terrorism” as the Oklahoma City bombing, for is there any difference between a citizen who verbally, emotionally, and physically abuses his family and one who deliberately destroys a building? I say no.
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On the morning of September 11th, 2001, as Mohamed Atta and his three compatriots rose from their seats aboard American Airlines Flight 11, as Marwan al-Shehhi and his four comrades butchered the crew of United Airlines Flight 175, as Hani Hanjour and his four fellow killers brandished knives and box cutters as they took over American Airlines Flight 77, and as Ziah Jarrah and three other terrorists made the fatal mistake of trying to bully into submission the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93, an unknown terrorist I will call Clyde Krebbs lay asleep in the weathered annex of the Best Western Fifth Avenue in Rochester, Minnesota; albeit one who committed his crimes behind closed doors on his wife and two sons, and preferred to present a “nice guy” image to the world.
Lord of his perverse manor, he slept the soundest, while everyone else slept with one eye open lest he take them by surprise as he yelled and screamed at, and hit them.
Why was Clyde in Rochester? He had deliberately made his family homeless back in May and then bled away all the money they had left, but not before taking his family on a tortured odyssey around southern Minnesota which ended at Rochester. It would not be long before he would have to lie his way out of this hotel and leave his persecuted brood living in their Chevrolet Suburban while he skipped away to Florida on a bus ticket his sister had bought him. Thanks to our Swiss cheese laws about domestic violence, he was destined to get away scot-free from punishment for his crimes.
Clyde is a man I used to call “dad.” His actions are why, whenever I try to reflect on 9/11, I have trouble focusing because of how I was stranded in Rochester that day thanks to his own brand of terror.
I think it’s high time society and law came down hard on abusive people like Clyde and stopped coddling them by either burying heads in the sand over their presence, or worse, using them as fodder for TV shows which cater “family dysfunction” topics so viewers can snicker at other people’s tragedies; and believe the actions of people like him can be lumped together with the same kinds of “domestic terrorism” as the Oklahoma City bombing, for is there any difference between a citizen who verbally, emotionally, and physically abuses his family and one who deliberately destroys a building? I say no.