Since April 15, terrorism has dominated the headlines.
First there were the two bombs that exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and wounding more than 260.
On April 17, an Elvis impersonator from Corinth was arrested for allegedly mailing letters containing the poison ricin to President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Lee County Justice Court Judge Sadie Holland.
Six days later, authorities released the faux Elvis after a search of his home failed to find ricin. Soon after, a martial arts instructor from Tupelo was arrested and charged with mailing the letters. He was bound over to a grand jury on Thursday.
Late last week, a landing gear from one of the jets used to bring down the World Trade Center towers in New York was discovered wedged in between two buildings in Manhattan. That brought back many unpleasant memories inside and outside of New York.
Terrorism has been a national obsession since 9/11. Americans have been willing to trade some of their civil rights for security. If you travel by air, there’s a chance you will be searched. If you tour the U.S. Capitol, you’re going to see guards carrying automatic weapons. Those sights didn’t reassure me.
The events of 9/11 have become a national bogeyman, a catch-all excuse for just about everything that’s wrong in America. Recently, U.S. film director Steven Soderbergh blamed 9/11 for what he thinks is wrong with American movies.
“I still think the country is in some form of (post-traumatic stress disorder) about that event, and that we haven’t really healed in any sort of complete way, and that people are, as a result, looking more toward escapist entertainment,” Soderbergh said in a speech at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
I agree with him about the lack of healing from 9/11, but I disagree with the rest. Soderbergh, a “serious” filmmaker, is being self-serving. The hunger for escapist entertainment long predates 9/11. Soderbergh reminds me of executives at a media company I used to work for who blamed cutbacks on 9/11 when the fact was that the company had started making cuts years before those planes hit buildings in New York and Washington.
These latest terrorism incidents are unsettling. Will the questions around them ever be answered?
The Boston suspects, brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were ethnic Chechens who immigrated to the U.S. with their parents more than a decade ago. They also have other relatives in the U.S.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died after a gunfight with police three days after the bombing. Dzhokhar, 19, was captured and remains in a prison hospital.
According to Massachusetts officials, the brothers and their parents received $100,000 in state assistance from 2002-12. The benefits included cash, food stamps and housing assistance.
Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. What could have made them turn against their adopted home so violently?
Over in Northeast Mississippi, the first suspect in the poison letters case, Paul Kevin Curtis, was allegedly framed by the second suspect, James Everett Dutschke. The two reportedly had an ongoing feud.
We found out in Greenwood last year what a long-running feud can lead to in the Dr. Arnold Smith murder conspiracy case.
But what kind of person would frame an Elvis impersonator? I know they can be annoying, but ...
As for 9/11, I’m not sure Americans who lived through that will ever “heal.” Unlike, Pearl Harbor, the event to which it is most often compared, 9/11 happened on live television. Even the death of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden didn’t provide closure. And his terrorist organization, al-Qaida, remains a threat to the U.S. and other nations.
Meanwhile, if you’re involved in a feud, please settle it for both your sakes. And if you can’t do that, check your mail carefully.
• Contact Charles Corder at 581-7241 or ccorder@gwcommonwealth.com.
