Bullying, adult style… writing idea!

          Bullying is bad enough when it happens on a playground, but when it involves ADULTS, it can get downright nasty. Take a look at this piece of Nicholas Schmidle’s article, “Bring Up the Bodies”:

According to an internal I.C.T.Y. document from 2004, Limaj’s relatives and associates launched a campaign of ‘serious intimidation of and interference with potential witnesses.’ Two men showed up at the house of one witness and warned him not to testify, adding, ‘If you make the mistake of going there, you will be dead.’ Someone called the wife of a second witness and threatened, ‘You will be liquidated.’ A third witness withdrew after a relative overheard a group of men, at a cafe in Pristina, saying of any people who testified against Limaj, ‘We will burTn them, their families, and their houses.’ A fourth witness refused to meet an I.C.T.Y. investigator, explaining that ‘he did not want to die.’ Nazim Bllaca, a former K.C.A. member, told me, ‘This is how the Limaj case ended.’

Try this:

If you don’t know what this case is, make it up. What would be so serious that garners this huge amount of coverup and intimidation? Show the scene. What about if one person DID decide to testify. Show the scene that occurs after his day in court (maybe how he avoids trouble for himself and his family? How he outwits his potential assassins?).

Coming tomorrow: You think YOU had a bad teacher? Check out this sucker punch from the article “The Master,” by Marc Fisher tomorrow…