Sequence Problems

Is it once a month or is it once a season?  Murder suicide! the local newspaper headlines scream.  Well, I don't think suicide itself is being murdered.

Almost always they are talking about some bitter, dejected, sad, miserable, brutal jerk murdering a spouse, ex-spouse, or girlfriend.  This pathetic excuse for a man then kills himself in remorse.  All too often there are orphans left.  Sometimes the soon-to-be orphans are cheated out of any chance whatever as the murderous rage takes them out as well.

My sure-to-be-repeated horror is drawn from a populated area of about 300,000.  Some finger counting leads me to imagine this nightmare could be happening a thousand-fold over in this great big country.

Why?  What possible reason could there be that "Chuckie" is allowed to freely slash over and over in a never-ending bloodbath?  Has somebody actually run the numbers so that brides in white can have a Surgeon General Warning handed to them at the altar: "Caution---marrying this man can lead to your early demise."  "You have a 1% chance of being beaten to death, burned, dismembered, and disposed of in a suitcase by the side of the road."

Who gets the blame for this insanity?  Should we lay some on the judges who hold terrified women to a high standard of proof when they beg for a restraining order?  How about a bit of blame for bored cops, male or female, who silently think, "Aw, hell---it's between him and her."  Hello!  Don't you understand that in any "fair" fight the female gets beaten senseless 98% of the time?

Can we save a little blame for probation officers who don't really care if their charges act aggressively toward others?  We would be remiss if we didn't save some blame for friends, family, or even the bartender who is aware of buster's rage and his promises to "kick that bitch's ass."

However, I suggest we only give the above conspirators half the credit to share around.  I think a full half should go to our failing public school system that thinks the "family" (non-existant though it may be) has to tend to the mayhem and clean up the mess.

Why can't the schools show films of the progression of abuse?  Why can't they teach young girls that those flashes of violence their dates let loose are a progressive affair?  Why can't they bring in battered women who can reach the girls at a gut level with true tales of shattered bones and shattered lives?  Why do they not prepare textbooks filled with copies of those newspaper accounts?  Is there a reason they can't, or won't, teach?

We deserve better.  We need to revise the system such that the would-be murderer commits suicide first.  It is really only a matter of helping the bastards get their sequence correct.